Pro-Choice and Anti-Capital Punishment?

You understand what I'm objecting to so strongly, right? I don't accept that there is any basis for anyone other than the person themself to judge the intrinsic value of their own life. Someone else looking on and attempting to make a rational decision regarding whether they should live or die suggests to me a belief that life has no intrinsic worth.

I wanted to comment on this. The pro-life position is based upon the idea that upon conception, you have a human life, and thus the destruction of that life is wrong, that we have no more "right" to do that than we have to take any other human life. The pro-choice position is based upon the belief that it is a woman's right to control her body, including ending a life growing inside of her if she chooses to not want the pregnancy.

It is not about romantazicizing potentialities, I for example don't think it is a human life because it will be a child eventually - I think of it as a human life right this moment. I don't know where you keep getting this from, or that pro-life people are all about emotion and pro-choice people are so rational and detached. It is about this concept of "rights" that a woman has over the child inside of her, and what you believe she should or should not be able to do. Yes, there is a major, fundamental disconnect between the two positions - but neither side has the market cornered on emotion, sentimentality, or anything else.

I'll have to ponder this statement. I'm raising an autistic child who cannot even begin to comprehend what death means. So I can't say that it would be such a great idea to just expect her to understand the value of life on her own. Though believe me I wish I could.

Well I do think it's about servered potentialities, but I do absolutely understand where you're coming from. I don't think it's only about the woman's body though. It's also about the responsibility to care for that child and provide it with the nurture and necessities that it deserves, and when the parents can't or are unwilling to provide it, it becomes our responsibility. One that we already fail at miserably for the children who are already born all over the world. I don't think anyone should bring a child into the world that isn't prepared or is unable to provide those things. It's why I myself have no intention of ever having a child (or aborting one).

I know what you mean. In high school I worked for a bit with a profoundly disabled kid my own age. He was completely unable to speak, or direct himself anywhere, or really even feed himself much of the time. I could ask, wouldn't it be better if he had never been born, or allowed to grow up? But the truth is, he is here, and he fights every day to continue that life however he can. There's no way for me to ask him if he values his life, or if he even has a concept of it, but it is clear that it does have value to him. I believe life has its own value, despite all its sufferings and flaws.

Anyone interested in suggesting a real "why" that might actually obviate the problem of so many abortions? Anyone? Bueller?

Tough one. I'm tapped for the moment.

I do too, Ananda. I just don't feel I can speak for anyone else which is why I lean so strongly towards giving people latitude to decide these things for themselves. To me the abortion issue and the right to die issue are ultimately both really the same, with the only difference being that a child can't make that decision for itself. It's hard for me to imagine circumstances where I wouldn't cling tenaciously to my own life, but I would like to have the freedom to decide to end it when I no longer receive any enjoyment or benefit from continuing it.

My argument does not hinge on the same thing from an opposite perspective. Your argument is based on a pseudoscientific, rhetorical definition of life, whereas mine is based on what the first-trimester fetus actually is, a tiny lump of tissue. To point, your final sentence makes the pseudoscientific statement that a nine to eleven week fetus can feel pain. In reality (if this "evidence" even exists) the lump of tissue is responding to a stimulus like any other lump of tissue would. It is unreasonable to state that tissue would experience pain anything like a grown human would. Would a sperm reacting to stimulus be said to be experiencing pain?

Your arguments towards abortion have the same pseudoscientific stilt that Kevn Klein's have to religion. In order to dissuade me, you'll have to base your arguments on nonrhetoric verifiable reality, otherwise it's just opinion and imagination -- like religion.

~Ulrika~

"The first trimester (0 - 14 weeks), is one of the most crucial for your baby. Within this trimester you will find the most rapid rate of growth and development taking place. By the end of the 1st trimester, your son or daughter will have grown to 3.4 inches (8.7 cm) long and weigh about 1.5 ounces (43 grams). Your infant will develop everything from limbs to vital organs. Week by week the changes are astounding! Click below to see what's happening with your baby now!
"
http://www.pregnancy.org/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment1.php

Week Fourteen
Thyroid gland has matured and your baby begins producing hormones which will be used throughout his or her life.
In boys, the prostate gland develops
In girls, the ovaries move from the abdomen to the pelvis
Your little one may have learned to suck his thumb by this point!
Your child's bones are getting harder and stronger by the day!
Your baby's skin is very transparent still
Lanugo (very fine hair) covers the baby's body and will continue to grow until 26 weeks gestational age - Generally this will be shed prior to birth. Its purpose is to help protect baby's skin while in all that water!
Your baby is 3.42 inches (8.7cm) long and weighs about 1.52 ounces (43 grams) - approximately the weight of a letter!

I am against abortion based on scientific and moral grounds. I'm not into religion. Current science (I love "Our Bodies Ourselves" as much as the next chick but that information is dated), disputes the fact the fetuses are just tissue. You can have an abortion at 24-26 weeks but everyone who uses the American healthcare system pays to help keep pre-term fetuses that people want alive, at costs that are often several hundreds of thousands of dollars per child. The difference here is that life only has value if someone other than the life at risk places value on that life. That is a very slippery slope, especially in a country where some people were 3/5 human just 140 years ago.


http://www.birthpsychology.com/lifebefore/fetalsense.html

http://www.vanderbilt.edu/SFL/fetal_pain.htm


It is basically impossible to find an objective source on the topic, eveyone has an agenda.


I think abortion should always remain legal, but I do think it should be limited until the first trimester. After the first trimester the cervix is dialated and labor is induced to remove the products of conecption/fetus/baby anyway. At this point labor could just be induced and the products of conception/fetus/baby delivered in a whole piece instead of parts. The only reason to slice and dice it internally is to relieve the parents of parental obligation to the fetus and to avoid infantcide which is a crime.

Not that anyone will care, but I had an ultrasound the other day when I was at my check up and I could see the baby's heart beating. I am only 7 weeks along. Oh, and it was baby shaped......not clearly defined, as it won't be for awhile longer. But it was a definate baby, with a head and body and appendages that will be arms and legs.

There were two sacs also, so it could be twins. (yikes!) They couldn't see another baby, so I either lost it (vanishing twin syndrome) or we just couldn't see it behind the other one yet.



Oh, and I am torn on capital punishment. In some cases I think it should happen. In others...I don't know. When there is proof beyond a doubt that the person did the heinous acts, then yes. If not, then no.

I would imagine that I would be quite frightened of sperm that had the start of baby teeth, it's own heart beat, and measurable brain waves. Interestingly, the "science" you say is so uncontestible in favor of your argument continues to learn more and more about the human development process due to advances in genetics, computer imaging, and other technologies. There is a much clearer understanding now of exactly when various things occur with the child during development - a lot of information that was not available when abortion was first made legal.

Here's a bit from the Westside Pregnancy Resource site (wprc.org):



Here is the page for you, including reference images.

Another source would be:

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002398.htm

This site is particularly detailed and interesting:

http://www.pregnancy.org/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment1.php




Your arguments towards abortion have the same pseudointellectual condescension that your posts about religion, and many other topics do. I am not worried about convincing or dissuading you, Ulrika, because I am confident in your ability to spin even those most direct evidence to suit your response. Given how you treat Kevn Klein in regards to religion, I find your comparison particularly pointed.

By the way, I am curious, in your "enlightened scientific view", what exact point does it stop being a "lump of tissue" and become human. This particular statement was pretty compelling to me:



Go on, tell her that her baby is simply a lump of tissue. I dare ya!

I am curious why you draw the line in your argument at the first trimester, when there is all kinds of development in the first trimester. Is that just an easier line for you to draw for yourself - it doesn't look like a child yet, it's just a lump of tissue?

That's wonderful, Creami. Congratulations!

I think we all draw an arbitrary line somewhere. Even you. Should women behave as if they're pregnant after each time they have sex just to make sure they don't inadvertantly kill anyone? Or is it okay if her fertilized egg doesn't make it if no one is aware it was there? The real issue is when that developing human is capable of experiencing its demise in any kind of aware and traumatic way.

Putting "current science" before an opinion is like putting an actor in a white lab coat.

Here are some factual statements. From zero to eight weeks it is called an embryo and from eight to forty weeks it is called a fetus. At the end of the first trimester the fetus is 5 cm (2 in) in length and weighs 15 g (0.5 oz wt). At the end of the first trimester the fetus cannot survive outside of the womb. The central nervous system does not support consciousness in its primitive state.

In an effort to head off the pseudoscientific retorts that will inevitably follow such a list of facts (), I don't think I've met a person on this forum who has the technical competence to discuss the developmental physiology of an embryo or fetus with any credibility whatsoever. To be blunt, this thread is populated by a pack of opinionated ignorants interpreting their weak understanding of physiology through their own personal biases and agendas. That includes myself.

For my closing remark and last post in this questionable thread I state, performed by a responsible physician, abortions in the first trimester for reasons of convenience are perfectly acceptable based on physiological arguments. It is a choice parents (not the state or you) must make for themselves.

~Ulrika~

Congratulations

I agree that basing an argument for or against abortion on a particular stage of development in pregnancy is an arbitrary. Life is a continuum from the first moment that protoplasm reproduced itself, passing from parent to child without interruption all the way to the present. Individual bodies die. Life as a whole goes on.

Memories are recoverable in pretty much anyone that the being itself takes up residence in a new body sometime around birth. Occasionally you'll find that people are hanging around for a long time prior to the birth, sometimes even getting inside for a week or two ahead of time. Rarely, you'll find someone who took over a body during a childhood injury or operation. Generally though, people dive in and take control immediately following birth.

This is my own basis for assigning a time at which someone is committing a murder if they terminate the body's life. Prior to birth it's not really someone else yet, just potential.

"Comes in and takes control?"

You realize that the idea that memories can be recovered with hypnosis, including past life regression, is complete poppycock, don't you?

I'm a psychology student, and one of the first things we discussed in my class on psychopathology was hypnosis. All of the myths about hypnosis: edictic recall, past life regression, birth and pre-birth memories, and being able to access things that our conscious mind can't... those are all complete and total myths.

Under controlled conditions, it's been demonstrated that there is no such thing as "total recall". In fact, our ability to recall under hypnosis is no better than our ability to recall while conscious. To make matters worse, people are extremely suggestible under hypnosis and actually fabricate things to tell the person running the session.

I'm not talking about hypnosis. I'm talking about conscious recall. The reason such things are dismissed is because they do not always fit with the "scientific" worldview. But then, not so long ago science would have us believe that no one remembers things earlier than 3 yrs old, and dreams are in black and white.

Just this morning I read an article about how female monkeys like dolls and male monkeys like trucks, thus "proving" that gender roles are hardwired from far back in our evolution. I kept thinking, "wtf do monkeys know about trucks?"

There is so much we don't know. Psychologists especially.

But humans are lumps of tissue...

I think there's a deeper level of meaning here that hasn't been made clear. We're using the words "human" or "lump of tissue" with some assumptions - that for instance, we care more about "humans" than we do about "lumps of tissue". This is true of course, but just using the words isn't going to cut it, because those terms mean different things to different people involved in this discussion.

Why do we care more about "humans" rather than "lumps of tissue"? What is it about them that makes them more important? Consciousness? Ability to feel pain? Potential? Viability to live unassisted? DNA?

Without straightening out these definitions (and finding some we can agree on) we just seem to be going round in circles.

I haven't been interpreting physiology much at all.

Rather, I have been using emotional moral arguments the whole time, which I see as key to my (and our) collective humanity.



Nietzshe was a logical man - and made some excellent points with regard to the utter pointlessness of any of our existences.

Thus any man's practicality and logic may be seen to be frivolous to someone exercising the next deeper level of 'practicality'. Why worry about living at all?

Everyone will be dead and unfeeling soon enough - why the fuss? Worrying about future generations - how ultimately pointless is that? Those people don't even exist - how could we owe them anything? Get in your SUV's and drive!



It really does come down to the love of lollipops and fuzzy kittens on a spring day.




Thus, with life, arguments of rationality and logic fail.

Once, there was a story. A mysterious man approaches you on the street, and offers a choice: you may have riches beyond your dreams, but in order to get it, you must will the death of a faraway Chinaman. What is the rational choice?

Don't bother answer with a witty forum reply. Merely answer for yourself, in silence, alone.

I prefer TV's...

"Ugly bags of mostly water!"

This statement leaves me wondering, do you mean to say after the first trimester the parents have no rights to abort unless of an emergency?

Also, which physiological arguments are you suggesting would support your point?

this has been answered numerous times in this thread by a variety of people. it basically comes down to education. i've read dozens of studies that show the more educated a woman is about ALL her choices (sex, abstinence, birth control, morning-after pill, adoption, etc.), the less likely she is to have an abortion. the number of people in this country that don't understand the basic biology of reproduction is astounding.

another key step in this process is making sure that birth control is available, in all forms, to women. there are still insurance policies that do not cover birth control. additionally, there have been increasing reports of women being denied birth control by their pharmacists, which is illegal.