Is Abortion Ethical

[Delta1212]

By my definition, yes it would be. But as some people ever so often love to proclaim, two wrongs don't make a right.

 

So it would be wrong to get an abortion after being raped, but it should still be legal to have the option?

[Raider5678]

 

So it would be wrong to get an abortion after being raped, but it should still be legal to have the option?

I guess...

[Arete]

Say a woman undergoes genetic screening at 20 weeks and, sadly, it is discovered that due to a severe chromosomal abnormality, the fetus is unlikely to survive to term, and if it does it will certainly die within days of birth. Should this woman be forced to carry to term, or is it more ethical to perform a dilation and cutterage?

[Raider5678]

Say a woman undergoes genetic screening at 20 weeks and, sadly, it is discovered that due to a severe chromosomal abnormality, the fetus is unlikely to survive to term, and if it does it will certainly die within days of birth. Should this woman be forced to carry to term, or is it more ethical to perform a dilation and cutterage?

I have already answered this question. Seriously, so many times. Please read the basics of it. Please.

 

"If it was inevitable they were going to die, then abortion is simply preventing health problems to the mother."

Post #6

[Daecon]

If women are allowed the choice in whether they concieve or not, I don't see any problem with also allowing them to have the choice in whether to gestate or not.

[Moontanman]

I'm not really sure ethics figures into it, when is it ethical to kill? Is it ever? Legal sometimes but having to kill even in self defense if a nightmare from where I stand. Being a male I am sure I can't even begin to understand but to take away that option seems less than realistic...

[Raider5678]

If women are allowed the choice in whether they concieve or not, I don't see any problem with also allowing them to have the choice in whether to gestate or not.

Except, choosing not to conceive is simply choosing not to have a child. Choosing to gestate is choosing to kill the fetus.

[Moontanman]

Except, choosing not to conceive is simply choosing not to have a child. Choosing to gestate is choosing to kill the fetus.

 

 

So every time a woman has sex but the egg doesn't stay put we should have a funeral?

[Raider5678]

 

 

So every time a woman has sex but the egg doesn't stay put we should have a funeral?

I'm confused, its if the egg becomes fertilized, not if it bounces around.......

[Moontanman]

I'm confused, its if the egg becomes fertilized, not if it bounces around.......

 

 

I am talking about a fertilized egg, almost as many fertilized eggs simply do not implant as those that do...

Even eggs that do become implanted often break free and are shed in a woman's menstrual flow...

Edited November 7, 2016 by Moontanman

[Raider5678]

 

 

I am talking about a fertilized egg, almost as many fertilized eggs simply do not implant as those that do...

Even eggs that do become implanted often break free and are shed in a woman's menstrual flow...

Hence meaning shes not pregnant.... To be considered pregnant you have to have a fetus growing.

[Moontanman]

Hence meaning shes not pregnant.... To be considered pregnant you have to have a fetus growing.

 

 

So a zygote is not a person? Fetus

Edited November 7, 2016 by Moontanman

[StringJunky]

 

 

I am talking about a fertilized egg, almost as many fertilized eggs simply do not implant as those that do...

Even eggs that do become implanted often break free and are shed in a woman's menstrual flow...

About half of all impregnated eggs/foetuses spontaneously abort; a lot of funerals.

[rangerx]

Just to start out, if like other threads your simply going start calling the opposition stupid, retarded, and other assortment of words, I would ask of you to not.

 

Your words, not mine. Do not put your lies in my mouth.

[hypervalent_iodine]

A few things before I go into some of the posts. Making abortion illegal doesn't reduce the rate of abortion, it just diverts the women (particularly poorer ones) seeking out these procedures to have them done by people who are often untrained and in places that are unsafe. It should not be surprising to note that no one really wants to have an abortion, and making it illegal to have one really does not take away the necessity. If you truly want to decrease abortion rates (and I'm sure everyone here would), increasing the availability to sexual education and cheap / free contraceptives is far more effective than simply punishing those too poor to overcome the draconian laws being passed in places like Texas.

Your views are so contradictory that I wonder if you've actually thought them through to any extent. In your initial statement you state as a blanket claim that it should not be legal because you think it is wrong:

 

I'm interested in how you guys see this. Personally I think its wrong(go figure) and I can't understand how people feel it is right, ethical, or why it should even be legal.

But yet, you concede later that it is okay in the cases where the foetus (it is not a child or a baby, it is a foetus) is inevitably going to be stillborn, or live only a few hours / days / weeks after birth.

If it was inevitable they were going to die, then abortion is simply preventing health problems to the mother. Other then that its ending the life of someone who never had a chance. This is a first world country. Impoverished environments here are often nothing compared to other countries. I hate to be mean, but if your just going to kill it, why would you get pregnant in the first place?

I would disagree. I'm not saying its wrong to abort a quite literally dying baby anyways to prevent health problems, I'm saying its wrong to abort a child who is inevitably going to be born and eventually become an adult. Whether poor or rich, its still a person.

First off, all my other posts made it clear I meant miscarriage included. The one time I forget to mention that you jump on it.
And no, the burden on the mother has not been excluded, but rather weighed with if the burden is worth the life of another. You can give away a child legally if you do not wish to have that burden. As for rape, that's a different story. We are talking about the aborted babies because a parent decided they changed their mind, and/or had it on accident. Either way, if it was an accident you still hold responsibility for that child's life, and you still have the option to give it away.
If you had a child conceived, then inevitably you get the consequences of having a child. Rather then killing it you can give the child away, you seem to skip over that portion. The only burden would be a health burden, and we already covered that, so yes, I would be okay with it.

In the above post, you also make a spectacular shift in the goal posts stating that, "As for rape, that's a different story. We are talking about the aborted babies because a parent decided they changed their mind, and/or had it on accident."

You never specified in your OP that there were caveats. You simply said that it was wrong and should be illegal. Why do you think that abortion in the case of rape or incest is okay when in your own words, "you still have the option to give it away."? What's the difference if the foetus is similarly viable?

 

Using your logic whenever people decide they don't like their kid anymore. "Welp, he disobeyed me. Better kill him. Its the plight of a young mother."

And what exactly are they thinking then? Please, enlighten me.

This is ridiculous, and highly offensive to anyone who has been through the trauma of having to get an abortion. You seem to be implying that women go and get them like it's a fun day out at the mall. Have you ever spoken to someone who has had to make this decision? I promise you that if you had, you might not be so cruel as to suggest their motives were this flippant or casual.

A coma victim is a coma victim. A fetus is a fetus. My ethical stance does not suggest that a coma victim be woken up to suffer, but a fetus that is inevitably going to wake up no matter what we do short of killing it is.

How exactly do you determine that a foetus is absolutely going to go to term and be born a healthy, living child? I'm sure many people would be fascinated to hear about these predictive powers of yours.

And regardless of the depths of being born into a bad family, you can give the child up if you didn't want it. At least it will live, and have a chance.

If you can't care for a child you can give it away if you want, if not that it will at least grow up.

Do you know anything about the world of foster care and adoption? In the US the system is so woefully overburdened and underfunded that it can barely keep on top of the children is currently has to deal with. What kind of life do you think this child is going to have in this system? What sort of future? What about the psychological trauma on the mother who had to give up her child?

Except, choosing not to conceive is simply choosing not to have a child. Choosing to gestate is choosing to kill the fetus.

I'm sure many, many women (myself included) would love to know how exactly one simply chooses not to conceive. Do I have to buy a morning after pill after every time I have sex? At $30 a pop, that seems a bit unreasonable. What if that doesn't work?

CharonY mentioned this, but your argument for the foetus's right to life seems to ignore the mother's almost entirely, as well as the life of that child the moment it exits the mother. Point being, given that you don't seem to really care about the mother or child (once born), you can hardly claim that you advocate for life. What you seem to advocate, as so many other pro-lifers do, is the ability to control the sexuality of women.

[CharonY]

Hence meaning shes not pregnant.... To be considered pregnant you have to have a fetus growing.

 

You seem to believe that you have addressed the points repeated by many posters regarding the the likelihood of miscarriage. I think you are confused about what it meas, as from your post it appears that you think that the normal process is that a egg is fertilized and then it becomes a human. Miscarriages are just eliminated along the way and are a different category. is that correct? If that is the case, you are misunderstanding what various posters have mentioned.

 

At any given time during the development of the child there is a significant likelihood that it will not come to term. These are the values that I have mentioned. I.e. after an egg is fertilized there is about a 50% chance that it will develop a child. Is aborting the pregnancy at this point as bad as later in term?

Then during the first trimester the chances rise to 70%. Is it ethical at this point? There is a 30% chance that there will no live birth. Should that be enough to put a mother (and yes, I the ethical question cannot be asked in isolation) through pregnancy, even if it is clear that she does not want it? What if there is some health risk to the mother? What if the likelihood of life birth is low (say 10% for some reasons) but it will almost certainly (say 90%) lead to some harm to the mother. Is that alright?

At which point should the the mother be protected over the child?

 

See, the main point is that you have neat, absolute categories in mind for your argument (if child is alive it is unethical, if it is going to be dead it is not). But in truth there will be a continuum during development. You will need to have prophetic properties to be sure what each case is. And also your arguments have zero balance for the person who is going also going to be affected by the decision, i.e. the mother.

And I may have overlooked your response, but do you think that society should then share the cost for the child once we deem abortion unethical? If not it basically boils down to the fact that in your argument we should moralize the actions of unwilling mothers, penalize them by forcing to carry to term, potentially threaten with sanctions if an abortion is initiated and yet do nothing alleviate the burden. As others have said, this would be a very hypocritical stance.

 

Edit: Crossposted

Edited November 8, 2016 by CharonY

[EdEarl]

I'm interested in how you guys see this. Personally I think its wrong(go figure) and I can't understand how people feel it is right, ethical, or why it should even be legal.

There is no absolute answer to your question. Suppose a fetus will become a terrorist and mass murderer, and once born cannot be dissuaded from that fate; to minimize deaths the fetus should be aborted. Some questions cannot be answered with a single word.

[Raider5678]

1. A few things before I go into some of the posts. Making abortion illegal doesn't reduce the rate of abortion, it just diverts the women (particularly poorer ones) seeking out these procedures to have them done by people who are often untrained and in places that are unsafe. It should not be surprising to note that no one really wants to have an abortion, and making it illegal to have one really does not take away the necessity. If you truly want to decrease abortion rates (and I'm sure everyone here would), increasing the availability to sexual education and cheap / free contraceptives is far more effective than simply punishing those too poor to overcome the draconian laws being passed in places like Texas.

 

2. Your views are so contradictory that I wonder if you've actually thought them through to any extent. In your initial statement you state as a blanket claim that it should not be legal because you think it is wrong:

3. But yet, you concede later that it is okay in the cases where the foetus (it is not a child or a baby, it is a foetus) is inevitably going to be stillborn, or live only a few hours / days / weeks after birth.

4. In the above post, you also make a spectacular shift in the goal posts stating that, "As for rape, that's a different story. We are talking about the aborted babies because a parent decided they changed their mind, and/or had it on accident."

5. You never specified in your OP that there were caveats. You simply said that it was wrong and should be illegal. Why do you think that abortion in the case of rape or incest is okay when in your own words, "you still have the option to give it away."? What's the difference if the foetus is similarly viable?

6. This is ridiculous, and highly offensive to anyone who has been through the trauma of having to get an abortion. You seem to be implying that women go and get them like it's a fun day out at the mall. Have you ever spoken to someone who has had to make this decision? I promise you that if you had, you might not be so cruel as to suggest their motives were this flippant or casual.

7. How exactly do you determine that a foetus is absolutely going to go to term and be born a healthy, living child? I'm sure many people would be fascinated to hear about these predictive powers of yours.

8. Do you know anything about the world of foster care and adoption? In the US the system is so woefully overburdened and underfunded that it can barely keep on top of the children is currently has to deal with. What kind of life do you think this child is going to have in this system? What sort of future? What about the psychological trauma on the mother who had to give up her child?

9. I'm sure many, many women (myself included) would love to know how exactly one simply chooses not to conceive. Do I have to buy a morning after pill after every time I have sex? At $30 a pop, that seems a bit unreasonable. What if that doesn't work?

10. CharonY mentioned this, but your argument for the fetus's right to life seems to ignore the mother's almost entirely, as well as the life of that child the moment it exits the mother. Point being, given that you don't seem to really care about the mother or child (once born), you can hardly claim that you advocate for life. What you seem to advocate, as so many other pro-lifers do, is the ability to control the sexuality of women.

1. I would absolutely love to see your evidence for that. Abortion rates have gone up as we increased the availability, which shows an opposite correlation. If suddenly it were made illegal your saying nothing would happen?

 

2. Forgive me, I try not to be a hard headed stubborn pain in the ass like some other OP's, and sometimes change my mind.

 

3. You can't possibly be serious. Did you even read ANY of my posts your quoting? I made it very clear, I'm against killing a fetus, because the said fetus will become a baby if IF IF IFFFFFFFFFFFFF NOTHING happens. I brought up this point long before anybody else brought it to mind, I made it perfectly clear I understand that miscarriages happen. How is it you still do not understand that.

 

4. Refer to #2.

 

5. Your just finding reasons to criticize without having read the post. Please reread the post, fully and completely before quoting. And refer to #4.

 

6. Quite often their talked into it against their will or they were forced to do it, at least from the people I do know who've done it. So you tell me. Also, you understand I was pointing out how stupid that was in the first place? Your basically arguing that I said something you agree with. That's like saying:

"I'm not arguing ethics here!"

"You know your not arguing ethics here right?"

Its stupid and entirely comical.

 

7. Oh come on, that's so completely ignorant that it isn't even non-sequitur its just random words typed out. There's modern day machines that can tell you, hey, the babies dead, we should remove it. Or, hey, this baby is completely malformed and is going to die. Or hey, this fetus has stopped growing. Or hey......

You get the point. And if you even read the entire post you would see I was referring to the point that SOMEONE ELSE made. So why don't you go arguing against them instead?

 

8. I spent 8 years in the system. Gee, let me think...... yes. Yes I do know something about foster care. And i'll tell you this, its better then being dead like so many others I know.

 

9. I'm not even going to answer this. refer to #7

 

10. You should listen to deltas advice and actually try to understand what we're arguing. Its clear from these few lines that you either never read a single post of mine, completely don't understand it, or never gave ANY thought what so ever into this. At all.

 

1. You seem to believe that you have addressed the points repeated by many posters regarding the the likelihood of miscarriage. I think you are confused about what it meas, as from your post it appears that you think that the normal process is that a egg is fertilized and then it becomes a human. Miscarriages are just eliminated along the way and are a different category. is that correct? If that is the case, you are misunderstanding what various posters have mentioned.

 

2. At any given time during the development of the child there is a significant likelihood that it will not come to term. These are the values that I have mentioned. I.e. after an egg is fertilized there is about a 50% chance that it will develop a child. Is aborting the pregnancy at this point as bad as later in term?

Then during the first trimester the chances rise to 70%. Is it ethical at this point? There is a 30% chance that there will no live birth. Should that be enough to put a mother (and yes, I the ethical question cannot be asked in isolation) through pregnancy, even if it is clear that she does not want it? What if there is some health risk to the mother? What if the likelihood of life birth is low (say 10% for some reasons) but it will almost certainly (say 90%) lead to some harm to the mother. Is that alright?

At which point should the the mother be protected over the child?

 

3. See, the main point is that you have neat, absolute categories in mind for your argument (if child is alive it is unethical, if it is going to be dead it is not). But in truth there will be a continuum during development. You will need to have prophetic properties to be sure what each case is. And also your arguments have zero balance for the person who is going also going to be affected by the decision, i.e. the mother.

And I may have overlooked your response, but do you think that society should then share the cost for the child once we deem abortion unethical? If not it basically boils down to the fact that in your argument we should moralize the actions of unwilling mothers, penalize them by forcing to carry to term, potentially threaten with sanctions if an abortion is initiated and yet do nothing alleviate the burden. As others have said, this would be a very hypocritical stance.

1. I have made it very clear that I understand what miscarriages are. So, just to make it clear to EVERYONE here, and who will ever post here again about this.

 

I understand completely that fetuses will not all become a baby, and that sometimes there are miscarriages. I understand that we cannot always predict it, but when we can, then the fetus is then dead. I am NOT saying we can always predict it, I am NOT saying we always know, I am NOT saying all fetuses will become babies. Any posts touching on this subject will be referred to here from here on out. Please, I am not ignoring miscarriages, I'm telling you that when the fetus is going to become a baby, that it is unethical to abort it. If a miscarriage happens, that is besides the point. I am not arguing anything about miscarriages and I'm tired of repeating this.

 

2. You understand I already covered this. Multiple times. "Health risks to the mother". Remember that?

 

3. You seemed to have overlooked most of my responses.

 

 

So, as a final note to everyone.

 

 

I understand what miscarriages are, I understand that they happen. I am not claiming that the fetus will ALWAYS make it, sometimes I forget to include the fact that miscarriages happen. Stop finding those times where I forgot to mention that and pointing them out. I understand what miscarriages are.

 

I understand how bad life can be, and I can tell you life over death is a true option. Claiming its better to kill someone because they will have a bad life means your now advocating for suicide as a legal thing.

 

So I ask Everyone here:

You say it's alright to kill a fetus because its not conscious.

A baby isn't conscious, so whats the difference between it and a fetus?

Why be allowed to kill a fetus because its unconscious, but not a baby?

You can't advocate for one with out the other, so where do you draw the line?

Either never, or not until the baby develops consciousness?

[Delta1212]

Is a baby not conscious?

[Raider5678]

Is a baby not conscious?

That's a debatable question, but by the standards that they have decided that a fetus is not conscious because it doesn't have enough brain waves, a baby wouldn't be entirely conscious until quite a bit of time after its birth. Unless I'm entirely mistaken and misleading, in which case please correct me.

[dimreepr]

That's a debatable question, but by the standards that they have decided that a fetus is not conscious because it doesn't have enough brain waves CELLS (FTFY), a baby wouldn't be entirely conscious until quite a bit of time after its birth. Unless I'm entirely mistaken and misleading, in which case please correct me.

 

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/

 

 

Although a newborn lacks self-awareness, the baby processes complex visual stimuli and attends to sounds and sights in its world, preferentially looking at faces. The infant’s visual acuity permits it to see only blobs, but the basic thalamo-cortical circuitry necessary to support simple visual and other conscious percepts is in place. And linguistic capacities in babies are shaped by the environment they grow up in. Exposure to maternal speech sounds in the muffled confines of the womb enables the fetus to pick up statistical regularities so that the newborn can distinguish its mother’s voice and even her language from others.

 

Edited November 8, 2016 by dimreepr

[Raider5678]

 

 

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-does-consciousness-arise/

 

That works.

+1

[dimreepr]

Just to be clear, I'm not supporting your position:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10403496

 

 

There is no new evidence to show foetuses feel pain in the womb before 24 weeks, and so no reason to challenge the abortion limit, UK doctors say.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists' review said foetuses are "undeveloped and sedated".

Brain connections are not fully formed, and the environment of the womb creates a state of induced sleep, like unconsciousness, they add.

 

[Raider5678]

Just to be clear, I'm not supporting your position:

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10403496

 

 

I know, but you provided facts to the discussion which is always welcome.

[Phi for All]

1. I would absolutely love to see your evidence for that. Abortion rates have gone up as we increased the availability, which shows an opposite correlation. If suddenly it were made illegal your saying nothing would happen?

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/12/world/12abortion.html

A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it.

Moreover, the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely. Globally, abortion accounts for 13 percent of women’s deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, and there are 31 abortions for every 100 live births, the study said.