Poll: Is abortion murder?

[L1gh7Sp33d]

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...

For me, the difference between a fertilized ovum and sperm is that, while sperm only has half of the traits of a possible human being, a fertilized ovum already contains all of the traits of a future human being.

And don't you think a more humane way to solve population density would be to increase responsibility among sexual couples?

 

[Danpascooch]

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.

Now the hardest question of all, who is more fucked in the head?

You for thinking that scenario would be fine?

Or me for coming up with that scenario?

 

[kingpocky]

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?

There are very few immediate consequences for smoking. We can see with fairly good certainty that it has long-term consequences.

Your argument rests on the idea that having sex is an implicit agreement to have a child. Can you think of any agreements in society that obligate a person to make major lifestyle and work changes for over half a year that do not require the person making the agreement to sign a contract, or at least explicitly state that they understand what they are agreeing to?

 

[Danpascooch]

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...

For me, the difference between a fertilized ovum and sperm is that, while sperm only has half of the traits of a possible human being, a fertilized ovum already contains all of the traits of a future human being.

And don't you think a more humane way to solve population density would be to increase responsibility among sexual couples?

"All the traits of a possible human being"

It's not a human being, and therefore not murder.

 

[BGH122]

Now the hardest question of all, who is more fucked in the head?

You for thinking that scenario would be fine?

Or me for coming up with that scenario?

Me, for carrying out that scenario, right now, as I type.

I'm the surgeon. I just stabbed the shit out of that baby's eye.

There are very few immediate consequences for smoking. We can see with fairly good certainty that it has long-term consequences.

Your argument rests on the idea that having sex is an implicit agreement to have a child. Can you think of any agreements in society that obligate a person to make major lifestyle and work changes for over half a year that do not require the person making the agreement to sign a contract, or at least explicitly state that they understand what they are agreeing to?

No, but that's because contract law and moral reasoning are two very different ball parks. Pointing to legality when discussing morality isn't relevant, unless you can show the two are inextricably linked. I argue that we are all aware of the basic consequences of our actions, where said consequences are common knowledge. I know that if I have sex I run the risk of having a child. If I haven't discussed this with the other person and it turns out they wanted the child and I don't then more fool me, because the common knowledge shared between us was that sex entails child, not my opinion on the matter. I should have informed them that I wanted an abortion, since I didn't it's my problem as it's me who's asking us to deter from the default consequence of sex.

Furthermore, your point on smoking misrepresents my position, I'm not talking about temporal immediacy (e.g. happening now or 5 minutes from now), rather whether any consequences lie in between the relevant consequence and the action. Smoking directly leads to cancer, regardless of the amount of time it takes, because smoking is directly carcinogenic. If I smoke I accept cancer, regardless of how long it takes to develop. It's not like I smoke, then normally it'd be fine, but a further action out of my control leads to cancer.

 

[Kiriona]

Personally, I just wish people would kindly take their nosiness OUT of my uterus and start paying attention to more important things. Like the fricking economy. Seriously. No one's interested in a girl's periods, of her pap-smear exams... why the hell does everyone suddenly become so riveted when it comes to a lump of undeveloped tissues being removed?

Uh, because that lump of tissues is a vestigial human being? It's fairly arbitrary that you're female and females happen to birth children. This isn't about women, or women's rights, this is about the child and whether or not it has a right to life and whether or not its right to life trumps your right to govern your own body.

... Pardon, but didn't you just say that us girls give birth to children? Sooo... yeah, I think it's VERY much about us females, since, you know, we have to carry the thing around for nine months, bend over backwards to take care of ourselves and go through the horrific life experience that is child birth... I think we have just as much right to abortion as we do having a cancer tumor removed. If a fetus or embryo is a human being, then why doesn't the census count them? How come they aren't given social security numbers before birth? And why is it an abortion with humans, but with a chicken, it's am omelet? why is it okay to kill a chicken's fetus and eat it, but we can't touch a human fetus? So many questions...

But like I said, what happens in my internal organs, including my uterus, is no one's business. Honestly, hasn't anyone any respect for privacy anymore?

PS. I f-ing hate children... you know... in case you didn't notice... Goodnight!

 

[LadyRhian]

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?

Yes. Are you equating a man not being able to force a woman to have a baby as "utterly destroying all his dreams and ambitions"?

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.

Oh, so because it only affects a small portion of women who get pregnant, no it's of no import? And this is only one thing that can affect women who are pregnant. There are many. Basically, you are asserting that if a man has sex with a woman, he can choose to enslave her because he wants to have a child, and she may not. i.e. his feelings trump her right to her body.

 

[subtlefuge]

And don't try and counter with "hurr Then why don't we just murder everyone then durr" because that is a pathetic argument.

As if giving the voice of your primary opposition a first grade education isn't pathetic. Just saying.

 

[kingpocky]

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?

If that were the case, I'd say maybe. That's really more of a contract law type question

 

[Normalgamer]

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

I was actually using really bad sarcasm.

 

[ThePurpleStuff]

No matter what it is be it cell, plant, animal, person...killing is murder.

I don't mean to be an asshole, but if killing cells is murder, than you just killed millions of germs typing that one sentence crawling all over your keyboard. Just pointing that out.

 

[Catalyst6]

And don't try and counter with "hurr Then why don't we just murder everyone then durr" because that is a pathetic argument.

As if giving the voice of your primary opposition a first grade education isn't pathetic. Just saying.

You know what they say, subtlety is the key to humor.

 

[RMcD94]

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.

It's simply a step away. I don't want to post it again.

Click to see argument

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.

Good, consistency, logic, what I like to see. At least you aren't picking and choosing.

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.[/quote]

You're assuming I think the fertilised eggs are people. I don't. To me it's killing one parasite to save the parasite's host. You haven't answered if you think saving the parasite's host should be legal or not.

Anyway, it's whether it's legal or not for her to save herself by killing someone else (according to you it is someone else and not just removing something else). If she had twins she'd be saving herself by killing two people I suppose.

These might not make sense since I edited it and can't be bothered removing where I've spoken same thing twice etc.

Well let's check:

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

I already did that using thefreedictionary.com/murder

 

[Danpascooch]

Now the hardest question of all, who is more fucked in the head?

You for thinking that scenario would be fine?

Or me for coming up with that scenario?

Me, for carrying out that scenario, right now, as I type.

I'm the surgeon. I just stabbed the shit out of that baby's eye.

Sure, but did you go all the way through to the brain? The only way to kill a baby is to destroy the brain.

 

[capin Rob]

It depends, If it's from a girl that got raped, No.

If it's from some girl thats to lazy to buy the Pill then It kind is, Wasteing a life because your lazy.

 

[SextusMaximus]

Unless there's a proper reason for abortion (e.g. Retardedness, Problem for parents, etc.) then Abortion is murder. But in most cases there's a fairly good reason as to why a baby would be aborted.

 

[LadyRhian]

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?

False premise. Vasectomy only cuts the vas deferens, the channel that sends the sperm to the penis. You could still collect the sperm from inside the man's body. And you can insert a cell that has undergone meiosis into another sperm cell (after having cleaned out the original genetic material, and use that to fertilize the egg.

If a woman chooses to have the pregnancy and then changes her mind. I'd say it depends on what is making her change her mind. What if she wanted to end the pregnancy if the baby was afflicted with Tay-sachs, or because of horrible genetic abnormalities? Would you cry foul? What if changes in her brain chemistry brought on by the pregnancy were making her, essentially, go crazy? How about if each of those cases were the last chance for the father to have a kid?

 

[BNguyen]

to go further, I don't feel as though a person, specifically a pregnant woman, has any right to decide who should die and who shouldn't. If the mother doesn't feel ready or is unprepared for taking care of the child, she should put it up for adoption, not remove it.
Besides, think of it from the unborn child's perspective as if it were a full-grown person:
"I didn't get the chance to live because you "have the right to choose whether I should continue to develop or not". What about the rights I had? I was a person too."

Not all humans are capable of surviving on their own, so the argument, "it can't survive on its own, so it's not human and therefore it is okay to kill" is just idiotic. A comatose person can't survive without machines to feed them and keep their heart rate in check, so does it mean they are no longer human because they can't care for themselves?

I'd find it okay if the fetus died in the womb and needed to be removed, but as long as it is developing and could live, it should be allowed to grow. Only when the child or fetus or whatever is seen as a threat to the mother's life should it be dealt with.

 

[Dreey]

A nut is not a tree, and paint is not a masterpiece.

 

[RMcD94]

If a fetus or embryo is a human being, then why doesn't the census count them? How come they aren't given social security numbers before birth?

That's the point of the argument... That's why you debate. Not blindly accept laws. That's like saying homosexuals shouldn't be allowed to marry, because they aren't allowed to marry.

And why is it an abortion with humans, but with a chicken, it's am omelet? why is it okay to kill a chicken's fetus and eat it, but we can't touch a human fetus? So many questions...

Really? You think the egg sold in stores are fertilised? Really? Oh dear lord.

But like I said, what happens in my internal organs, including my uterus, is no one's business. Honestly, hasn't anyone any respect for privacy anymore?

PS. I f-ing hate children... you know... in case you didn't notice... Goodnight!

Read that as hate chicken.