What are your viewpoints on abortion?

How many people go into a restaurant, look at the menu, and say "Well, I know this fish is going to give me food poisoning for sure...let me get that!"

 

At this point the analogy stops applying because it's not some big secret that having sex can get you pregnant.

 

The "whether you want to or not" indicates that perhaps you have a job that requires you to be on the plane. Maybe, just maybe, you can't afford to lose that job. Ergo, you are on the plane and might not want to be there.

Correction. She does not legally have to give up any rights. She is morally obligated to carry the baby (provided it won't be fatal), just like every man that she knows well enough has the moral obligation to ensure that as little harm as possible comes both to her and the fetus. On the man's side however, fatality is not a consideration. I feel that if a man is obligated to give his life if necessary for the sake of the woman and fetus, the woman should be obligated to take nine months of horrible pain.

Yes, at least in America, being human does guarantee the right to life. Life, liberty, and property/the pursuit of happiness are the three unalienable rights that I have (yes, even under 18) and choose to exercise. All men are born (that is to say, created) equal[ly human] and therefore have these rights. The fetus is human and therefore guaranteed these rights no matter what the Supreme Court said in Roe vs Wade, a decision that is unconstitutional and therefore I refuse to honor it. And before you ask, yes, I can do that. The only reason that the Supreme Court has any power is because they were selected by the Presdent/elected by the Senate and are respected by the people. Their decisions only say how the Constitution ought to be read, not what it says. They hold absolutely no legal power except to settle cases like any other judge in the whole god damned nation.

I have created the scenario because it can happen and is no different from the case of a fetus because he is incapable of doing anything regardless of whether or not he is thinking.

It is true that the fetus has no "untold wisdoms" but it is also true that even if it did, we would never know the difference. The only true difference between the man and the fetus is that one can think and the other can't. Last I checked, the ability to think doesn't really constitute that something shouldn't be killed. Just tell that to those who used to hunt gorillas. They can think alright, and on four out of the five levels that humans can. Assuming the man has been in that state long enough, he may only be thinking on those four levels too. This goes into your next argument as well. A human brain doesn't necessarily mean a fully functioning human brain. Take low functioning Autism for example. Typically, people with that condition are geniuses far beyond what you can possibly imagine, but might only think on the levels of "I think," "I know," "I want," and "I need." Therefore, that particular human brain is functioning on the same level as the gorilla's brain. Under your logic, that human can be killed. Under my logic, he is human and therefore cannot be killed. If you have a human with a cat's brain however, the drivers for his organs wouldn't match up properly anyway, and he would die.

See above about the duties of men toward pregnant women.

Vasectomies are also wrong in my opinion because it isn't natural. The difference between the sperm ending up in a woman who isn't ovulating and the sperm ending up in a condom is that in the former it still ends up in its place, for lack of a less sexist sounding term. As long as the sperm has less than a zero percent chance of impregnating the fine lady under normal cir***stances (meaning a broken condom or failed birth control argument is a no-go), it is fine. As far as birth control where the sperm isn't prevented from making contact with the egg goes, my point was that it still has to be possible for the pregnancy to happen, even if the chances are made lower by natural means. Coitus interruptus is fine by me too, since it's a fair chance that it won't actually work.

 

OHMYGOSHMYPUPPYISDEAD!

D:

*Wants Advent's*

 

people against abortion

 

I would have James Franco's baby any day.

 

As long as there is authority, true "freedom" is simply an ideal. Freedom is unachievable.

That said, I really haven't read the majority of the posts. My deepest apologies, I just couldn't pass that sentence by.

 

My opinion regarding abortion:
It is up to the mother to decide what is best for her and the child she is carrying.

 

Ah, I see now. I was thinking back to the incident of 'Don't Touch My Junk', in which they attempted to force a man through the security, despite his expressed intentions not to fly after he discovered what had to be done.

Since when? I don't recall having a moral obligation, or hearing about a man having a moral obligation to stick around. Also, what do you mean that fatality is not a consideration? Are you suggesting a man is morally obligated to give his life for the foetus?

I propose a different solution: neither has any moral obligation towards the foetus.

We've been over this before. Legally, the woman is allowed to chow down on an abortion pill as she pleases. If that's too close to murder, then she can just binge on whiskey and drugs until the thing dies. Her choice of what to eat, after all.

What about the decision is unconstitutional? The judge defined what a human was, and decided that the foetus wasn't a human until a certain stage of development. It's not unconstitutional unless the constitution specifically defined what a human was.

It is different, because he may be thinking. Thus it's not the same. Thus it's a poor comparison.

Well all those foetuses that do survive don't seem to have any wisdom, so that's a good place to start in terms of theorising. The lack of brain development until later on in the pregnancy is also a strong point.

Unless you mean that we should take into account the possibility that one foetus may be magically different from every other foetus, and have untold wisdoms. I'm having a hard time seeing what you mean by this.

You may want to add 'complete dependence on another human 24/7' to that list of differences.

I'm pretty sure gorilla hunting is illegal now. Even so, I revised my statement. It has to be a thinking human brain. This excludes apes from protection and human rights.

Yeah. So the human rights extend to those without a fully-functioning brain. All that's required is a formed, partially functioning brain.

You don't seem to get what I said. Human brain activity. Not necessarily fully functioning, as you said. So those with autism are safe.

I see the following argument:

"Arbitrarily made, sexist claim of men's moral duties towards a pregnant woman, including giving up their lives for her, mean that the woman, in return, should have a moral duty to bear an unwanted foetus for nine months."

There's so much wrong with that, I honestly think I've misinterpreted somehow. Would you mind setting me straight on what you meant?

By that definition, it's not 'natural' to use medicine either. It's 'unnatural' to use a bandaid, or live in a metropolis, or buy food at a supermarket, or wear clothes, or do anything 'human'. All operations are about as unnatural as you can get. I don't see why you've singled out vasectomies.

Why does 'its place' matter? How do you even define 'its place'?

I'd wager that more sperm is lost to nightly emissions or ordinary masturbation than to vaginal intercourse, so I'd argue that it doesn't have a defined 'place'.

How about oral, ****, etc?

Xakota, what is your opinion of this?

Yeah, it was a pretty poor analogy.

How about the analogy "I do dangerous stunts for a living"? The risk of injury is extremely high, and that's no secret. That doesn't mean I don't get helped if I get injured.

 

The idea behind the man having a moral obligation to protect the pregnant women comes from the fact that when you think about it, the most basic laws in society (most often made by men) are designed to protect children and pregnant women. All else is surplus which, if necessary for the safety of those women and children, can be abandoned. Consider this. A pregnant woman is about to get an abortion at gunpoint. Let's say, for the purpose of this example, that she wants nothing more than to get this abortion but doesn't because she has strong morals against abortion (ie: she's me after a sex change). To what lengths should one go to protect this woman and fetus assuming one is able to do anything? Would it be acceptable to steal a gun from the nearest gunstore, kill the person holding the gun to her head, and then proceed to lay waste to the clinic for allowing this nonconsensual abortion to take place? What about killing the abortion artist, as you might call him, in order to protect the fetus that the woman doesn't want aborted? Or maybe this is a hostage situation happening over a period of months and you have time to embezzle money from a large corporation and hire mercenaries from the Mafia to go in and make the guy who's ready to shoot an offer he can't refuse. As ludicrous as these all sound, are they not acceptable methods of preventing an abortion that isn't wanted?

Now that you know where I'm coming from, here's a shorter explanation. Men are morally obligated to protect pregnant women at any cost. Pregnant women are morally obligated to carry the baby unless labor is highly likely to be fatal. This is not necessarily something that many people believe (although it's probably instinctual). I believe this because of the above wall of text.

Also, this thread is now a randomosity contest. Most random post wins.

 

No child I conceive will ever see the light of day even if I have to hang my girlfriend upside-down and drag it out with a fishing rod.
Seriously though, I'm all for abortion. In fact we need to abort a lot more fetuses than we're currently pulling out of the womb. The world's population is increasing at an alarming rate and there people against preventing it from skyrocketing even further? That's a case of dangerous idiocy.

 

I accidentally a baby what do I do guys

 

I must have rewritten that sentence 30 times before I was satisfied with it. XD

 

Isn't that kind of being an abusive boyfriend? I present you with this article about someone like you: http://www.dispatch.com/live/conten...10/07/mom-taken-for-abortion-at-gunpoint.html

And do you also support suicide as well? It lowers the population after all, with the added bonus of the person consenting to die!

Finally, an alternative solution to both world hunger and the alarmingly increasing population:
http://www.art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
I'm totally serious about this by the way.

 

Supporting euthanasia is fairly common.

Even so, it's not a good idea to allow them to die without counselling, as more often than not, the person is in the prime of their life, and can still contribute to society, outweighing their drain on it. However, for older people, it's a good idea to support it.

Looking at it from a utilitarian, greater-good perspective, of course.

 

I love you. But I have to spread around more rep before I can do you again... Pity...

I do not support it or support anyone against it, but I am certainly against putting a stop to it with coercive force.

I read that long ago for my British Literature class. And you know what? He was satirical writer. Also, he had a good point. See what P said on that note. Whether he was mocking the utilitarian perspective, which I believe he was indeed doing, as was his fancy, or taking it seriously, there are two sides to that argument.

 

I know that it's satire, but that doesn't mean that it's not a good idea.

@P: I was talking about suicide, not euthanasia. And on older people, do you mean to say that it would be a good thing for an old lady with a family that loves her to just go, "I'm done here slitslit."? I'm sure you're talking about euthanasia, but I'd like you to clarify.

 

Oh, that's clever. Not only did you not address either point that I made. Instead, you mocked both with something closely resembling reductio ad ridiculum. Trope or not, I am impressed.