Poll: Is abortion murder?

[BGH122]

How does the immediacy make a difference? When the consequences occur doesn't matter. People shouldn't partake in actions which have consequences they can't handle, whether those consequences are immediate or in the distant future. Sex entails possibly getting a woman pregnant, which entails the woman possibly getting an abortion, which entails possible "emotional trauma."

Of course, I think that just puts both the man and the woman on the same level. However, since the woman is the one actually carrying the baby, the consequences are greater for her. Thus, her right to not have the baby overrides his right to force her to have it.

Of course the immediacy of consequences are relevant. If I walk up to a man in the street and shoot him because he may, perhaps, one day, have threatened my life this is neither morally nor legally permissible. It's the immediate consequence of an action which determines its moral permissibility because we can't see beyond immediate consequences with any certainty. The only likely immediate consequence to sex is a child, not an abortion.

Nor have you shown how her going through pregnancy trumps the man's feelings of emotional trauma. Let's say he's been diagnosed as impotent and knows this is his only chance to have a child, doesn't the gravity and permanence of this make her desire not to go through nine months of discomfort seem utterly selfish and irrelevant?

 

[kingpocky]

People shouldn't partake in actions which have consequences they can't handle, whether those consequences are immediate or in the distant future. Sex entails possibly getting a woman pregnant, which entails the woman possibly getting an abortion, which entails possible "emotional trauma."

Driving entails possibly getting a person killed, which entails the driver possibly being emotionally mindfucked for the rest of his life, he shouldn't have drove.

Yes?

Unless you are prepared to kill someone (regardless of whether it's your fault or not), you shouldn't drive.

No, unless you are prepared to accept the possibility that you *might* kill someone, you shouldn't drive.

 

[Normalgamer]

We chose not to practice euthanasia on people in comas or with dementia, how is this any different.

A very valid point. Which is why euthanasia should be legal.

If it could live outside of the womb (6-7 months + pregnant), then yes. If not, then no.

Please give me a line in the sand where after one second it will survive outside the womb, and before that it won't. Please.

Sort of. I certainly classify it as a type of murder.

Basically, you're not giving a person a chance to live. For all you know, you're killing the next Leonardo Da Vinci, Paul McCartney, or hell, even just Average Joe, but they need to be given that chance to live. If the woman doesn't want the baby, for whatever reason, give it up for adoption, but give the baby the chance to live...

Standard question time.

Is masturbation murder? (Each one could be Leonardo Da Vinci. As each fertilised egg could be.)
Is contraception murder? (See above)
Is abortion after rape okay?
Is abortion if the mother would die okay?

So your anti-sex, anti-masturbation AND anti-abortion?

 

[BGH122]

Is masturbation murder? (Each one could be Leonardo Da Vinci. As each fertilised egg could be.)
Is contraception murder? (See above)
Is abortion after rape okay?
Is abortion if the mother would die okay?

Woah! I didn't ask any of these things. Check your quote tags.

What about the physical effects? I agree on the emotional, but physical?

I don't see, what with modern obstetrics making death during delivery a non-issue, how the mother's slight physical discomfort could trump wrecking the father's life emotionally.

 

[BNguyen]

I believe it to be murder.
It's not that someone is taking a thing that "technically" doesn't have life, it's that it is taking a potential life.
Besides, if it was you as the fetus, would you consider it I'm not yet alive, so I didn't really die, or "you prevented me from living out my future".
Besides, why should a person say, "I didn't want this baby until it was too late to prevent it by using birth control, etc., so now I want it gone."?

 

[LadyRhian]

She knew the risk when she had sex. If she didn't want to risk having a child then she shouldn't have had sex. She doesn't have the right to put a man through the emotional trauma of losing his child just because it'd be physically burdensome.

She didn't sign a contract to have the baby; she has no obligation. If it's emotionally traumatic for him, then HE should have thought about that before he had sex.

This argument doesn't work, this is like saying she knew something she didn't want to occur could occur and so did he therefore it's his problem. You're just forcing men to play the chivalry role which is ludicrously outdated.

They both partook in sex knowing that a child could occur as a result, that was their joint action, so we can assume she gives her consent to a child because otherwise she shouldn't partake in actions which could cause one. This means that we she desires an abortion she's reneging upon their earlier implicit agreement that a child is an acceptable consequence of sex. This makes her the transgressor, the man is simply sticking with their earlier implicit agreement in demanding that she birth the child. She's changing the moral rules ad hoc to suit her, that's immoral.

You're making up moral rules ad hoc either way. You could just as easily say that we can assume he gives her consent to have an abortion by not getting her to explicitly agree not to have one.

No, we couldn't. Implicit in sex is the immediate consequence of a child, not an abortion. An abortion first requires a child which is the immediate consequence of sex. If we're saying that people shouldn't partake in actions which have immediate consequences they disagree with then my 'sex entails children' argument works, your 'sex entails abortion' doesn't, since you've missed out a step.

Yep, I'm a man, and I believe all the women in their perspective countries should get to gather and decide, what THEY WANT THE LAW TO BE. Us men shouldn't have any say in the matter.

The emotional and psychological effects of an abortion are way more outstanding than anything us guys can relate to.

Absolute toss. Let's say, hypothetically, you're at an age where if you don't have children now you'll never get to raise them. You have sex with a woman, she can't be bothered to go through childbirth and so denies you the right to ever raise children. She's committed an act far more grievous than yours.

Men have every right to lay claim to their children. It's absolute nonsense that women's emotional reaction to carrying/aborting a baby trumps mens. You're also biasing child-rearing towards women, as if women have some natural link to this role, by claiming that it's emotionally harder for them to abort a baby, as if they have a stronger link with it.

Men still don't have to carry the child to term inside their body. Emotional things are all very well, but women undergo physical changes as well, some of which can be life-threatening.

Eclampsia (Greek, "shining forth"), an acute and life-threatening complication of pregnancy, is characterized by the appearance of tonic-clonic seizures, usually in a patient who had developed preeclampsia. (Preeclampsia and eclampsia are collectively called Hypertensive disorder of pregnancy and toxemia of pregnancy.)
Eclampsia includes seizures and coma that happen during pregnancy but are due to preexisting or organic brain disorders.

 

[Composer]

to me life begins with the first sentient thought
so take that how u want it

 

[Catalyst6]

What, is this your attempt to get your Hot Topic badge? Sad.

And no, it'd not murder, as it is still nothing more than a lump of cells. Frankly, until the carrier gives birth it still remains nothing more than cells. Developed cells, yes, but cells nonetheless. And don't try and counter with "hurr Then why don't we just murder everyone then durr" because that is a pathetic argument.

Does the previous sound overly-venomous? Probably, but what can I say? I hate trolls.

 

[Diddy_King]

No, it is not murder. You can't take potential for life as a sign that something is or isn't murder. The fact is I could ask a girl to have sex with me, and if she says no I can call her a murderer, because the sperm would have had the potential for life if she had agreed and gotten pregnant.

If you believe that it's murder to abort a fetus on the basis of potential life then it's murder to masturbate. Unless of course you are saving every drop of sperm that you make, and if that's the case I never want to come to your house.

Abortions aren't a pretty thing, but when done before a certain time they are humane. I love children, but the way the world is going we're going to have a real overpopulation problem in the next couple centuries, if not sooner. The average married couple has something like 2.8 kids and 1.4 pets, and if you didn't notice that's an increase of almost 50% in people. We need to take precautions to prevent an overpopulation problem now, but of course if you classify murder on the idea of potential life and kind of birth control is also murder...

 

[Lineoutt]

I hate society's double standard. If someone kills a pregnant woman, it is a double count for the woman and her unborn child. Oh, but it is PERFECTLY fine for the woman to consent to the child being offed for convenience's sake!

Yes, it is murder.

Mmm not quite. If it is a fully "pregnant" woman who is killed it implies that she wants the baby. In that case the child would have existed but couldnt because the mother was killed. Abortion is just an early ending to pregnancy, thus the baby is never to exist in the first place. Get it?

 

[RMcD94]

d. Irrelevant, there are already laws in place that allow the medical proxy to make the decision on whose life to preserve

There are already laws in place that determine whether abortion is legal or not.

I'm not talking about a last minute decision on a surgical bed.

In an average population, the miscarriage rate is about 15 percent. In this case we have incredible emotional trauma. Her body is upset. Even if she conceives, the miscarriage rate will be higher than in a more normal pregnancy. If 20 percent of raped women miscarry, the figure drops to 450 (or 740).

Apart from assuming those average statistics ring true for a select group, you did not answer the question. Is it okay for 740 lives to be lost?

a. Masturbation could not possibly be murder because sperm possesses no characteristics of life. See "potential".

They potentially could.

A fertilised egg possesses no characteristics of life either. (Nothing different from an egg apart from extra chromosomes, and I hope that you really are not going to define life as that)

Define characteristics of life please.

It's not any more alive than a sperm or egg, which makes claiming it is murder idiotic, it is not self aware, so it is not murder.

It's all about "where to draw the line" but you know what's convenient? Nature gave us a hugely import and conspicuous event in which to draw that line

birth.


Whether you think it's wrong or not is a personal matter, but murder it is not.

I 100% agree with you. Birth is where I draw the line. Once the umbilical cord is cut to be precise.

.....so if a nurse delivered the baby, and then WITHOUT CUTTING THE UMBILICAL CORD the nurse drop kicked it over to the doctor, who caught it and stuck a scalpel in it's eye, it wouldn't be murder? It would be awesome though, right?

That would be absolutely fine.

 

[LadyRhian]

How does the immediacy make a difference? When the consequences occur doesn't matter. People shouldn't partake in actions which have consequences they can't handle, whether those consequences are immediate or in the distant future. Sex entails possibly getting a woman pregnant, which entails the woman possibly getting an abortion, which entails possible "emotional trauma."

Of course, I think that just puts both the man and the woman on the same level. However, since the woman is the one actually carrying the baby, the consequences are greater for her. Thus, her right to not have the baby overrides his right to force her to have it.

Of course the immediacy of consequences are relevant. If I walk up to a man in the street and shoot him because he may, perhaps, one day, have threatened my life this is neither morally nor legally permissible. It's the immediate consequence of an action which determines its moral permissibility because we can't see beyond immediate consequences with any certainty. The only likely immediate consequence to sex is a child, not an abortion.

Nor have you shown how her going through pregnancy trumps the man's feelings of emotional trauma. Let's say he's been diagnosed as impotent and knows this is his only chance to have a child, doesn't the gravity and permanence of this make her desire not to go through nine months of discomfort seem utterly selfish and irrelevant?

Impotence can be treated, and men who are impotent can have kids, thanks to medical science. Test tube children being just one of the ways. There may be ways to turn ordinary cells undergoing mitosis into cells which undergo meiosis.

 

[RMcD94]

What, is this your attempt to get your Hot Topic badge? Sad.

Hot topic badge? Gimme gimme gimme!

And no, it'd not murder, as it is still nothing more than a lump of cells. Frankly, until the carrier gives birth it still remains nothing more than cells. Developed cells, yes, but cells nonetheless. And don't try and counter with "hurr Then why don't we just murder everyone then durr" because that is a pathetic argument.

That's another one with the same mindset as I.

Does the previous sound overly-venomous? Probably, but what can I say? I hate trolls.

It didn't.

 

[BGH122]

Men still don't have to carry the child to term inside their body. Emotional things are all very well, but women undergo physical changes as well, some of which can be life-threatening.

So physical always trumps emotional? So if I utterly destroy all your dreams and ambitions, without physically hurting you, you'd be in the moral wrong (more so than me) if you hit me?

Eclampsia (Greek, "shining forth"), an acute and life-threatening complication of pregnancy, is characterized by the appearance of tonic-clonic seizures, usually in a patient who had developed preeclampsia. (Preeclampsia and eclampsia are collectively called Hypertensive disorder of pregnancy and toxemia of pregnancy.)
Eclampsia includes seizures and coma that happen during pregnancy but are due to preexisting or organic brain disorders.

The incidence of Eclampsia is 5% [http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/1184270-overview]. This is a fairly non-issue because the incidence effects 1 in 20 people and is precipitated by myriad warning signs. Obviously, if the mother's actual life is in danger (note is in danger, not perhaps, maybe, sort of in danger), then this trumps the father's emotions.

 

[Why do I care]

It depends really how much the baby has grown, if it is not much developed, it doesn't really count. If it is grown A LOT then it is probably murder.

This is just what I think.

 

[subtlefuge]

Woah! I didn't ask any of these things. Check your quote tags.

You are correct about that, I was responding to multiple things, got carried away, got sloppy, and in the process of setting up quote tags, yours ended up as the one.

Truly, I'm terribly sorry and quite frankly embarrassed.

Edit: the original post has been fixed, sorry again about that.

 

[Iron Lightning]

Well let's check:

Murder
[mur-der]

-noun
1.
Law. the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).
2.
Slang. something extremely difficult or perilous: That final exam was murder!
3.
a group or flock of crows.
-verb (used with object)
4.
Law. to kill by an act constituting murder.
5.
to kill or slaughter inhumanly or barbarously.
6.
to spoil or mar by bad performance, representation, pronunciation, etc.: The tenor murdered the aria.
-verb (used without object)
7.
to commit murder.
-Idioms
8.
get away with murder, Informal. to engage in a deplorable activity without incurring harm or punishment: The new baby-sitter lets the kids get away with murder.
9.
murder will out, a secret will eventually be exposed.
10.
yell/screambloody murder,
a.
to scream loudly in pain, fear, etc.
b.
to protest loudly and angrily: If I don't get a good raise I'm going to yell bloody murder.

Abortion
[a-bor-tion]

-noun
1.
Also called voluntary abortion. the removal of an embryo or fetus from the uterus in order to end a pregnancy.
2.
any of various surgical methods for terminating a pregnancy, esp. during the first six months.
3.
Also called spontaneous abortion. miscarriage (def. 1).
4.
an immature and nonviable fetus.
5.
abortus (def. 2b).
6.
any malformed or monstrous person, thing, etc.
7.
Biology. the arrested development of an embryo or an organ at a more or less early stage.
8.
the stopping of an illness, infection, etc., at a very early stage.
9.
-Informal.
a.
shambles; mess.
b.
anything that fails to develop, progress, or mature, as a design or project.

-courtesy of http://dictionary.reference.com/

I believe this answers the question at hand, right, next topic.

 

[imaloony]

Is masturbation murder? (Each one could be Leonardo Da Vinci. As each fertilised egg could be.)

Don't dodge the question by getting technical. Sperm is one half of what isn't even growing into a baby yet. It'd be like burning fertilizer.

Is contraception murder? (See above)

See above.

Is abortion after rape okay?

Two wrongs don't make a right. Again, just give it up for adoption. It doesn't have to be your problem, and you don't have to kill it.

Is abortion if the mother would die okay?

I don't know, would you kill one person to save two? See, I can get technical too.

 

[BGH122]

Impotence can be treated, and men who are impotent can have kids, thanks to medical science. Test tube children being just one of the ways. There may be ways to turn ordinary cells undergoing mitosis into cells which undergo meiosis.

Interesting, let's change the hypothetical. What if a woman agrees to have the pregnancy and then changes her mind? What if it's the father's only shot at the pregnancy, because he's had an irreversible vasectomy since the pregnancy took place and he cannot ever have another child?

Woah! I didn't ask any of these things. Check your quote tags.

You are correct about that, I was responding to multiple things, got carried away, got sloppy, and in the process of setting up quote tags, yours ended up as the one.

Truly, I'm terribly sorry and quite frankly embarassed.

Fair enough! A lot of your points were interesting anyway!

 

[RMcD94]

So your anti-sex, anti-masturbation AND anti-abortion?

Pro them all, up to birth. Just using their own logic against people.

to me life begins with the first sentient thought
so take that how u want it

How'd you know when that is?

I believe it to be murder.
It's not that someone is taking a thing that "technically" doesn't have life, it's that it is taking a potential life.
Besides, if it was you as the fetus, would you consider it I'm not yet alive, so I didn't really die, or "you prevented me from living out my future".
Besides, why should a person say, "I didn't want this baby until it was too late to prevent it by using birth control, etc., so now I want it gone."?

A sperm has the potential to create line.

The chain is slightly longer than a fertilised egg (by a single step).

Why arbitrary line?

If it was me as the foetus (an utterly stupid conjecture, I hate what ifs with a passion), I would be unconscious or not alive, so either way, I wouldn't give a fucking damn.

Also: "I didn't want this baby because I was raped, and then held captive until I was rescued, so now I need an abortion but it's illegal"

Is that okay to you?