Abortion "rights" unpopular

An unborn zygote, embryo, or fetus, is indeed a parasite, One that happens to be closely related to the host (r=0.5), but a parasite by any reasonable definition you care to use.

A parasite steals resources from its host and does not provide a corresponding benefit. A symbiote does provide a reciprocal benefit to its host.

The natural question is why our bodies were adapted to allow such parasitism? Well, for mammals, because it is an efficient way for making more copies of our genes, as it is for any organism that invests in offspring (that is, all of them) And when the costs outweigh the benefits (often because of new circumstance) animals will abandon their offspring, or eat them.

Do understand that absolutely nothing about nature says it should be good or "nice"; this doesn't mean that we ought not strive to be better. But ignoring our natures because it is ideologically unpalatable is more likely than not to yield bad social policy.

Prohibit abortion and infanticides will increase. Is that what you really want? You can argue that this ought not be so but it historically is and wishing a problem away rarely works. Contrariwise, understanding the motivations as to why someone would choose to do something physically costly and possibly morally repugnant to them might yield social policy more directed at your stated ends (reducing abortion and infanticide) than policy formed in ignorance of those motivations.

Forgetting all the moral high-ground for a moment, I have taken friends to have legal abortions performed. Even though all of them thought they were doing the best they could for the prospects of their future children and themselves, not a single one of them was happy about it. And even if they were as morally bankrupt as they are often painted by some, abortions "for convenience" are probably less pleasant than your having 20 root canal surgeries done because "it seemed like a good idea at the time".

Perhaps there is something about the motivations and the desperate decisions that you don't fully understand or appreciate.

I <3 Introvert! In that friendly, platonic kind of way...

You know why the dude cut his wife's feet off ?

So she could stand closer to the stove!!

I stand corrected.

hmmmmm.... I think my man can KMA

You'd just better hope YOU don't get outta line mister!!!



<3<3<3

...hums the detachable penis song....

As I stated, a child is the offspring of two people, regardless of age.

And forgive me, I hadn't seen your previous post. As to that, I have one answer to it. A friend of mine had been raped at 10 years old. The doctor, because of her age, had pressured her parents to consent to an abortion for her, against the girl's wishes. She was healthy enough to support the child to full term, though birth would have been very difficult, though not impossible, not to mention a cesaerian section would have lessened the difficulty and risk. She is now around 23 and still hurts, both physically and emotionally for what she was forced to do to that unborn child. It has been documented, though I have no links right offhand, that many many women who have undergone an abortion, do have deep depressions, regrets and emotional trauma years down the line from their decisions. In the long run, more often than not, abortions are done through vanity or selfishness. So many mothers could easily carry it to term, but they panic, seeing themselves gaining weight, they also think "What will I do with it? I can't ruin my life with that." Instances of rape is an iffy area, honestly, I think even then it's immoral. It's not the child's fault what someone did to his or her mother. It would be like strapping a 5 year old into the electric chair because their father killed someone. "Sorry, your daddy's a bad man, you can't live anymore." Now, in instances where it IS a risk to the mother to carry through, that is a dilema... You are faced with two lives dependant on this decision, the mother who's already lived for some time and who may or may not live through giving birth, and the child, who hasn't yet had the chance to live, see the world, know what tragedy and triumphs life holds. And the even worse situation, that if brought to term, neither may survive. That is a dilema I have no answer for. Something that I believe is ultimately in God's hands. Though were it me, I would give my life in exchange for my unborn child's chance at survival.

These are all wonderful reasons for YOU not to get an abortion. Now tell me why it's your business when it concerns other people.

It really should be the mother's choice. There should be counselling available before and after. You have no right to decide for every other woman in the world.

See, my point there though is that by that definition, if claiming an unborn fetus isn't human yet because it is parasitic in nature, then one might as well label the elderly and infirm as parasites and inhuman by those standards. But we don't, do we? For the most part, we care for them even though we recieve nothing in return. Even those who don't even return love to those who care for them.

As far as that bit about animals abandoning their offspring or eating them, that is not always the case. Do you know why the pelican was chosen as Louisiana's state bird? Because of it's devotion to it's young. While pelican offspring may fight over the nest in times of famine and try to toss each other out so the strongest may survive, pelican parents have been known to bleed themselves so their offspring may feed and live, it's illustrated on our very flag. Another example, not long ago I saw a documented case televised of a lioness who took in an antelope calf, prey, as her own cub. She ultimately starved to death protecting the calf, unable to hunt as she watched over it so diligently. While yes, there are instances in nature where the adult will destroy it's young in order to survive, it isn't so widespread, the panda being a case, that if something comes too close to a mother panda, she will self abort by slamming her paw into her abdomen. God knows why, but we see how many pandas are left in the world, no?

Anyways, I am done for the day and need rest. I wish you all an intelligent and engaging debate.

I imagine trying to convince women to give up their rights is exausting work.

One of those could be soooooooooooo much fun

I'm off to lunch, don't go too crazy in here!

Whether you believe in a woman's right to control her own body or not, what I find interesting (and absolutely shocking), about these figures is how completely backward and out of step with the rest of the world the US is.

These numbers reflect not only a backward step in opinion on such issues from positions of the 80's or the 70's, but opinions so conservative they would have been out of place in many countries in the 1940's or 50's.

Isn't it just a little bit scary that the most powerful country in the world, the one with all the bombs and with the biggest army, the one that controls world-wide communications, that has little respect for international laws and economic or environmental agreements and the one with a stated policy of invading/bombing other countries that don't agree with their idea of "right and wrong" is so completely at odds with the rest of us on so many issues?

I mean, Kevn's two main foci or abortion and evolution seem to be *huge* issues in the US, and are talked about endlessly but in almost every other "Western Democracy" (Canada, Europe, Australia, etc.), they are hardly even issues at all.

They never even come up!
They were discussed and decided (more or less) 30 years ago.

I just find this whole headlong rush towards fascist/conservative behavior in the US to be frightening and yet bewildering at the same time. Why does this happen?

Is it because the US is one of the most religious countries in the world? (There are roughly the same percentage of fundamentalist or "born again" Christians in the US per capita as there are hardline or fundamentalist followers of Islam in Iran).

Don't you guys know that your founding fathers didn't think it was a good idea to have religion and religious ideas mix in with the governance of the people and it's laws? I mean even I know that and I am in Canada.

Yay! I <3 Kendra too, the same way I do Introvert!

A baby is a baby once it is born.
Before that it is a fetus.
Before that it is a zygote.

Typically, one terminates zygotes if one chooses to terminate.
People who terminate do not do so lightly, speaking from my experience as a women's centre coordinator. They make that decision (a very costly one) only because it is the best choice among lousy options.

Also, that poll sounds pretty biased to me, and in direct contradiction to other polls I have seen that indicate (at least in 1992) that Americans supported Roe V. Wade by something like (this is from memory, but it was high 50s) 57%. Polls made by for-profit polling companies that are working for clients who like to see a certain result often use the tactic of shading the wording of their polls to steer those polled. Example: how many fewer people would support increasing funds to welfare than those who would favour increasing funds to support impoverished families?

I pick Lecktor's toe fluff, make mittens out of it, and sell them on Ebay.

Symbiotz r us.

before that it is a twelve pack.

This is for the conservatives in this forum who think that unpopular means wrong:
From Rasmussen Reports:

Thursday March 30, 2006--Forty percent (40%) of American adults approve of the way George W. Bush is performing his role as President. That matches the lowest level ever recorded by Rasmussen Reports. The slight increase in Approval seen last weekend was clearly nothing more than statistical noise.

From USA Today:
March 14, 2006 --
Only 37% of Americans gave Congress a high approval rating, down from 45% last month, the poll taken last week showed. A total of 53% disapproved, up from 48% in February.

Presidential Approval At 39%

What are you doing to support research into minimally invasive techniques to nondestructively remove it?

No, wrong. It's a baby as soon as the woman finds out she is pregnant, if she wants to keep the baby. If she wants to abort the child it's called a fetus to depersonalize it.

Long ago the supreme court ruled black people are 3/5ths human because before that they weren't considered human. The fact they weren't considered human gave people a legal right to abuse and kill them.

Anytime a human thinks they own another human, we have this argument as to whether a human can own another human.

That's a logical fallacy to even suggest a point isn't valid unless the person who brought up the point does some thing you think shows a commitment to the issue at hand.

In your opinion.




Comparing a mass of cells to "black people" is just about the most absurd thing I have seen you post.