Originally Posted by Easyrider

[B] DO YOU REALLY THINK GOD APPROVES OF THAT? Don't kid yourself. He doesn't like it one bit.

I don't want to say that God is completely irrelevant, Easy....

But the Constitution matters and forcing people to pay for other citizens "elective" abortions may just be the thing (act of God?) that finally gets the courts to overturn Roe.

Millions of citizens who know in their gut that life begins at conception, that elective abortions deny rights, lives and personhood to innocent children,.... are going to be forced by the government to PAY for the slaughter.

The left have no idea the reaction they are going to get.

Originally Posted by Easyrider

Health Care: Anti-abortion amendment fails. Dems want funding for abortion. So reports FOX News.

FOXNews.com - Senators Push for Amendment to Restrict Funding for Abortion Coverage in Bill

"This amendment violates the spirit of health care reform by effectively prohibiting women from using their own money to buy private health insurance that provides comprehensive reproductive health care benefits," Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement Monday. "Health care reform is meant to guarantee quality, affordable health care coverage for all, not take benefits away from American women."

Originally Posted by romebigred

I know this isn't what you meant, but sperm IS life, that much is generally accepted. Also, I do believe in contraceptives. I just feel that once the egg is baked, it's wasteful to throw it out!

By potential life, I mean existence that is in debate for being human life, at least in the context here. I consider a fetus as life. Yes, Roe V Wade says, “We need not resolve the question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate.” (I just finished a 10-page research paper on Roe V Wade.) I disagree with this sentiment. I feel that the question of life is not irrelevant just because we can't figure it out right now. I think it's all the more poignant. IF a fetus IS life, then a murder is being committed once every four seconds, according to the latest reproductive health census. If it's not life, then I have no problem with it. According to me, withholding right to live without pregnancy for 9 months doesn't trump right to life. Allowing a woman to not have a child does not justify ignoring the possibility of murder.

I am not proposing abolition of abortion. I think that the woman should be permitted to upon producing a note from a doctor that the pregnancy endangers the life of a mother. I think that if the child is a product of rape, then it should again be up to the mother. HOWEVER, I feel that talking about the "mother's right to choose" in reference to abortion is a little redundant. Barring rape, the mother has 5 choices that don't include abortion: Abstain from sex, use contraceptives, have prohibitive surgery, give the child up for adoption, or have and keep the child. Three of those do not include abortion or pregnancy. Therefore, I say, barring rape, the pregnant woman has already made her choice.

There are plenty people who wait on lengthy lists to adopt.

Many states require potential aborting mothers to meet with a psychologists, to be informed of the severe depression that is experienced by nearly every aborting mother. The suicide rate for aborting mothers is triple that of miscarriage mothers.

well, I have to go for now. This is at least the beginning of a reply.

I'd like to read your research paper on Roe v Wade. Did you look at it from a legal or moral standpoint? IMO, it is one of the most blatant misuses of judicial power that we've ever witnessed and was wondering if you saw it the same way.

Originally Posted by Chuz Life

I don't want to say that God is completely irrelevant, Easy....

But the Constitution matters and forcing people to pay for other citizens "elective" abortions may just be the thing (act of God?) that finally gets the courts to overturn Roe.

Millions of citizens who know in their gut that life begins at conception, that elective abortions deny rights, lives and personhood to innocent children,.... are going to be forced by the government to PAY for the slaughter.

The left have no idea the reaction they are going to get.

So you guys can "react". It doesn't make you right. These women who have abortions pay taxes too. The point is to have a system that serves the entire public, one that has diverse beliefs.

Originally Posted by gayhumanist

So you guys can "react". It doesn't make you right. These women who have abortions pay taxes too. The point is to have a system that serves the entire public, one that has diverse beliefs.

I have no problems at all with diverse beliefs. I have a very large family composed of Protestants, Catholics, Atheists and/or Agnostics. I love and respect all of them equally.

However, what I will not do is support the denial of the rights and /or personhood of another. And that's what legalized abortion does.

You may correct me if I am wrong,... but in my view, No system can Constitutionally "serve the public" by denying the rights, lives and personhood of their most vulnerable members.

Are Most Abortions Moral?

@Romebigred:

I still am agreeing with much of what you are saying - I'm not a fan of abortion used as contraception, either (unless the already-there contraception has failed, which does happen). However, I do disagree with a couple of things.

Firstly, what you consider as an appropriate reason for redrawing 'the line' of legal abortion to a date earlier than it currently is - which seems to be that if the topic is being debated, you think the line should be redrawn 'just in case'. The problem I have here is that many different people have many different versions of 'the line' - and some go back to before where you would draw it, to the point of making contraceptives illegal because 'every sperm is sacred' (thanks, Monty Python). As I said before, you could even hypothesize that some rapists consider their act to be an attempt to realise as much 'potential life' as possible, although I would probably avoid that argument as it's a little too slippery-slope-esque. To simplify - the fact that some people consider a zygote to be 'life' should not be reason enough to protect all zygotes, simply because some people consider 'sperm' to be equally as 'alive'. What is needed instead is conclusive evidence that a zygote is 'alive'; by 'alive', I mean 'alive as a person', not 'alive as a cell' (to differentiate between sperm and zygote).

Secondly, and slightly off-topic, I still don't consider 'atheism' to necessarily be a belief, though it certainly is for some. Atheism as I see it, from my agnostic POV, is just the absence of belief, nothing more - my laptop is an atheist, because it has no belief, as is a new-born baby. If you consider atheism to be the rejection of God, then you have to also include atheism to be the rejection of all things theistic, be it God, Allah, Shiva, Ra, Loki, Oden, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the old, forgotten gods, who we shouldn't be able to reject because we don't even know. who they were any more. Going by that notion, you see that even believers are 'atheists', it's just that they reject one less god than everyone else -this approach makes little sense.

Finally, on adoption. Adoption is a wonderful thing - but I don't consider it a practical solution to the problem of abortion. In a year in the US, about 127,000 children are adopted, but about 1.2 million ZEFs are aborted. Boosting adoption rates by a factor of ten just isn't practical, or even possible.

It's good to read your posts. I look forwards to your reply.

@Chuz: What do you mean, ''part of' as I am implying'? I would consider it obvious that a (successfully) transplanted heart is part of the recipient's body, and I would argue that a foetus is equally a part of the mother's body - the mothers body breathes for it, digests food for it and supplies it nutrients, protects if from harm etc.

Originally Posted by iangb

@Chuz: What do you mean, ''part of' as I am implying'? I would consider it obvious that a (successfully) transplanted heart is part of the recipient's body, and I would argue that a foetus is equally a part of the mother's body - the mothers body breathes for it, digests food for it and supplies it nutrients, protects if from harm etc.

Ian, if you have a tapeworm living in your alimentary canal,... would you consider it a "part of" your body?

Yes or no?

You would (in the same sense as a woman does for her fetal child) be breathing for it, supplying it with nutrients, removing it's waste, etc.

So, would it or would it not be factually "part of" your body?

Ian, if you have a tapeworm living in your alimentary canal,... would you consider it a "part of" your body?

Yes or no?

You would (in the same sense as a woman does for her fetal child) be breathing for it, supplying it with nutrients, removing it's waste, etc.

So, would it or would it not be factually "part of" your body?

Borderline. Ultimately, though, I would probably not, for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, there is no real attachment between host and tapeworm - it's simply that the tapeworm has got it's teeth into the wall and isn't letting go.
Secondly, the tapeworm is an organism in it's own right. Yes, I know you think a foetus is also - you have yet to show, however, that such a scientific consensus exists.

Originally Posted by Chuz, a few posts back

Can you provide any scientific references that claim that it is?

I'll be waiting.

As a matter of fact...

Merriam-Webbster defines the placenta as the "organ in mammals except monotremes and marsupials that unites the fetus to the maternal uterus" (bold mine).

Just in case you were wondering about that bolded word - the first definitions for unite are "1 a : to put together to form a single unit" or "1 a : to become one or as if one", depending on context.

Originally Posted by gayhumanist

So you guys can "react". It doesn't make you right. These women who have abortions pay taxes too. The point is to have a system that serves the entire public, one that has diverse beliefs.

Fine. Let HER pay for HER abortion with HER money, not public money.

Originally Posted by iangb

As a matter of fact...

Merriam-Webbster defines the placenta as the "organ in mammals except monotremes and marsupials that unites the fetus to the maternal uterus" (bold mine).

Just in case you were wondering about that bolded word - the first definitions for unite are "1 a : to put together to form a single unit" or "1 a : to become one or as if one", depending on context.

Short on time; Can you tell me (in mammals) which organism creates and developes the placenta?

Short on time; Can you tell me (in mammals) which organism creates and developes the placenta?

Wikipedia tells all - "The placenta develops from the same sperm and egg cells that form the fetus, and functions as a fetomaternal organ"

In short - it originates from the zygote, but is considered part of both foetus and mother - hence the 'unite' in Merriam-Webster, I would imagine. However, asking 'what organism does the placenta come from' is a loaded and misleading question, as the zygote is not an organism.

iangb, your posts continue to impress me.

JP, I take your same view on Roe V Wade. My research paper was done for an audience that was fairly ignorant of the actual content of Roe V. Wade, and might not tell you anything you don't already know, but I would love to give a copy of my research paper to you. Not sure quite how to accomplish that...

iangb:I still don't consider 'atheism' to necessarily be a belief, though it certainly is for some. Atheism as I see it, from my agnostic POV, is just the absence of belief. If you consider atheism to be the rejection of God, then you have to also include atheism to be the rejection of all things theistic, be it God, Allah, Shiva, Ra, Loki, Oden, the Invisible Pink Unicorn or the old, forgotten gods, who we shouldn't be able to reject because we don't even know. who they were any more. Going by that notion, you see that even believers are 'atheists', it's just that they reject one less god than everyone else -this approach makes little sense.

I don't follow you here... I can see where you are coming from, but I don't consider a person atheist if they are ignorant of the existence of the belief. Mirriam-Webster defines atheism thus: "a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity"

Disbelief is ": the mental rejection of something as untrue" People ignorant of God (I mean the God of the Jews, Christians and Muslims,) do not 'mentally reject' the existence of God. That's non-belief, not disbelief.

Therefore atheism is active belief that there is no god/God. It is "the doctrine that there is no deity" It is a belief that relates to the theological, therefore it is a religious belief. Mirriam-Webster, "religious: ...2: of, relating to, or devoted to religious beliefs or observances" Atheism certainly relates to religious beliefs by countering them.

However, the terms are open to many different definitions and interpretations. I'm clarifying just the definitions I use. Simply being unaware of a belief system does not make a person atheist to me.

Finally, on adoption. Adoption is a wonderful thing - but I don't consider it a practical solution to the problem of abortion. In a year in the US, about 127,000 children are adopted, but about 1.2 million ZEFs are aborted. Boosting adoption rates by a factor of ten just isn't practical, or even possible

That's assuming that all of those women WOULD give birth to that many children. If abortion were not an option, I think we would see many women being more cautious, and the number of pregnancies plummet. I think we can expect less than half the number of births as the current number of abortions, just based on the aborting mothers I've known personally. Also, some of those current abortion ARE medically-based, or rape-induced. I also think you might be underestimating the number of children wanted. In the last 15 years, foreign adoption rates have gone up by 400%. There are still tens of thousands of parents on domestic waiting lists for years. My parents gave up after 3 years on a list.

Chuz, good point about the parasite...

Iangb, also, as far as the "slippery slope" thing, yeah, it's true. Yet any declaration of when a life begins has that same problem. You've decided when you believe life begins. I've decided when I believe it does. What is the fundamental difference? Legislators agree with you, but other than that, I see no difference.

You want us to prove to you that life begins earlier. Can you prove is doesn't? There is very little proof either way. In my developmental psychology class, we discussed how very little we know of when a fetus becomes an entity. Each study performed uses different criteria, therefore has different results.

I think I would rather move it back "just in case." After all, it was moved forward because legislators didn't want to deprive the mother of choice, "just in case" the fetus wasn't alive. All we have are guesses and theories. I think it's just as dangerous as when the US government decided that blacks were only "3/5ths" of a person, and were inferior to whites. That decision resulted in millions of lives being turned upside-down, and an entire race being mistreated for about two hundred years. We still feel the effects of that mistake. That's why I find it sad that the 14th amendment was one of the ones cited in Roe V Wade.