Poll: Is abortion murder?

[A Pious Cultist]

Ah, fair point. Then we would have to come up with a test for consciousness, I'm not sure what such a thing would be. I'll need to think this over.

Yeah a shame we can't test for brain activity which would let us know if the feotus was capable of being concious. Oh wait... we can.

 

[deus-ex-machina]

I've got a 13 month old daughter trying to grab the mouse from me, so I'll give you the POV of this father.

Abortion is not murder, as long as it is performed before the child is unable to survive on it's own or without intensive medical support - I don't think anyone can justify abortion as 'taking a life' when said life is incapable of living.

After this time, I think it's up for debate and as a father, I'm proud of my daughter and couldn't wish for anything else - even though my social life has taken a nosedive. Personally, I don't agree with abortion because of what I have, but I appreciate other people will not want it. Why would you carry around something you don't want for 9 months?

Sure, giving the child up for adoption at birth is a possibility, but I don't think it is fair to force women to carry a child to term if they can't stand the idea of being a mother or if they don't want stretch marks, or feeling sick, bloated, lethargic... heck, my fiancee went through 62 hours of labour. If you don't want the child, why go through 62 hours of labour? Then there's the classic of getting pregnant through rape. Who wants a rapist baby?

I still think 'murder' is a very pretentious term for abortion used more for attention-mongering than anything else, regardless of the true definition devoid of emotive implication.

In the same light, a woman who falls whilst pregnant and suffers from a miscarriage is guilty of 'manslaughter'. Still an offense worthy of a jail sentence.

 

[GooBeyond]

people rarely care about actual people being killed in today's world, do you expect them to care about "a bunch of cells" ?

personally, i say it depends on the situation, not the period after conception.

rape, very fucking poor family (that doesn't mean they should do it frequently) -- ok

"accidental" -- go fuck yourself

 

[hyrulegaybar]

Calling a nuanced and complex decision such as abortion a murder cheapens both abortion and murder. It's a highly personal and difficult choice that a woman will have to make, and it's none of your damn business if she gets one or not.

If men could get pregnant tomorrow, you would see abortion rates spike. Becoming a father is not nearly as involved or physically taxing as carrying a fetus to term. The issue is not whether abortion is murder?it's whether or not it's justified. By the same token, do you support euthanasia or capital punishment? Or war? If you do, you support wholesale murder as well. Killing another is, by most definitions, murder, but we are willing consistently to make exceptions to that rule as a society.

Is it murder? Who cares. That's an argumentative sleight of hand meant to obfuscate the real issue. Is it necessary? Absolutely.

 

[hyrulegaybar]

people rarely care about actual people being killed in today's world, do you expect them to care about "a bunch of cells" ?

personally, i say it depends on the situation, not the period after conception.

rape, very fucking poor family (that doesn't mean they should do it frequently) -- ok

"accidental" -- go fuck yourself

I have a very good sexually active friend who constantly uses birth control and condoms both, and she accidentally got pregnant anyway. Are you telling me that she should have to carry the child to term solely because you think 'accidental' pregnancies should be exempted from abortions? I certainly hope that you also oppose bankruptcy law, because that's a similar attitude.

 

[Parallel Streaks]

OP, admit it, are you feeling down and just want to argue with some people? Because this topic clearly isn't to change anyone's mind, people are stubborn in everyday life, let alone on forums where they can make pretend they're a bad-ass who never compromises their principles.

No one's mind is going to get changed here, all that's going to happen is we all argue about ethics.

Personally? I believe abortion is not murder. I could go into why, but once again, it'd just be for the sake of argument.

 

[Ironic Pirate]

No, when someone has a sixth month old baby, they're not pregnant with it, so they acknowledge it wasn't truly alive in a human sense while they were pregnant.

What?

Someone has a baby, that they describe as sixth months old. If babies were considered alive in the womb, then a six month old baby could not have been born.

Wait, I am still confused. Is your argument that because we count the age of a person starting from his/her birthday, that abortion is murder?

No, I'm saying from the perspective of most people, a baby becomes alive when it's born. Kind of a hedgemony, no matter what you believe, the age starts when it's born.

It's early, so sorry if I'm not explaining myself properly.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

I never really understood the whole "abortion is murder because foetuses are alive" thing. Surely by that logic you are a murderer every time you, say, pick a flower. And every time you get over a cold or sore throat you've just committed genocide on all those living bacteria and viruses

 

[Ironic Pirate]

No, when someone has a sixth month old baby, they're not pregnant with it, so they acknowledge it wasn't truly alive in a human sense while they were pregnant.

What?

Someone has a baby, that they describe as sixth months old. If babies were considered alive in the womb, then a six month old baby could not have been born.

In other words they'd have added the pregnancy months to a child's age. So 6 months would be 15 months. Not a compelling argument but I get it.

Also, this is an amazingly one-sided poll. One of the rare times I'm with the majority.

Personally I think it not murder for some other reasons, I was just pointing out that even people who think it is murder don't "count" the time in the womb.

 

[slightly evil]

simply put, its situational. The foetus doesn't have higher brain functions until many weeks in, before that it is just a series of cells. Alternatively (despite law preventing it) after those few weeks the foetus can feel, and that includes pain. Imagine a worse pain than being strapped to a life support machine and suddenly being cut away from it, soon after being dumped in a bucket.
short answer: it depends.

this^

 

[SilverApple]

Whether men are affected by abortion is repetitive slightly interesting an issue.

What stake in the discussion of whether abortion should be legal, and in what circumstances, do the following have:

a man sitting at the bedside of his beloved wife who has been hospitalised with life-threatening complications of pregnancy;
a man juggling work, childcare, and visits to a partner who has been hospitalised with (non-life-threatening) complications;
the adult son who grew up without a mother- because she died when he was four as a result of an ectopic pregnancy;
the male OB/GYN who has to explain to a grieving family that a woman's death in childbirth couldn't have been foreseen, and was unavoidable;
the (male) disabled-rights campaigner who fears that couples are being pressured into aborting potentially disabled fetuses;
the man carefully packing a crib back into its box, as tears stream down his face- his girlfriend has had a termination;
a father holding his suffering, terminally ill infant?;
an infertile woman sitting at the bedside of her beloved partner who has been hospitalised with life-threatening complications of pregnancy;
an infertile woman juggling work, childcare, and visits to a partner who has been hospitalised with (non-life-threatening) complications?

I make the reference to infertile women, because they are seemingly in the same boat as men. And once you count infertile women out, you really need to count out all women except those with proven fertility (mothers, women who've had terminations, women who have had conclusively positive fertility investigations.) Bit of an absurd road to go down, is it not?

 

[Jerious1154]

My two cents on abortion:

An individual's opinion on whether abortion is murder doesn't really matter in the pro-life vs pro-choice debate. The important thing is that there is a debate. There are many women who believe it is. There are many women who believe it is not. That's why I'm pro-choice. Regardless of what I believe, I respect the rights of others to have their own beliefs. I'm not going to force my morality onto anyone.

 

[Tharwen]

Technically, it's not alive, so no.

How is it now alive? Did you know that by week 4 the baby already has a heart and a circulatory system? And the heart starts beating by week 5?

Yes, but slugs also have a fully functional circulatory system. That doesn't make it murder.

slugs aren't human.

And I'm saying that killing something with a circulatory system doesn't make it murder.

 

[hyrulegaybar]

simply put, its situational. The foetus doesn't have higher brain functions until many weeks in, before that it is just a series of cells. Alternatively (despite law preventing it) after those few weeks the foetus can feel, and that includes pain. Imagine a worse pain than being strapped to a life support machine and suddenly being cut away from it, soon after being dumped in a bucket.
short answer: it depends.

this^

No, not THIS. We have no way of knowing what level of consciousness a fetus has. We have no way of knowing what it would feel like. And virtually all abortions are actually induced chemically, not the dramatic way in which you describe. It's like having a miscarriage. That's precisely what it is, actually.

 

[markisb]

Is it murder to kill a brain dead person on a ventilator? they are just existing not living. A fetus when it is aborted cant think and in some cases cant breath for its self.

 

[GooBeyond]

people rarely care about actual people being killed in today's world, do you expect them to care about "a bunch of cells" ?

personally, i say it depends on the situation, not the period after conception.

rape, very fucking poor family (that doesn't mean they should do it frequently) -- ok

"accidental" -- go fuck yourself

I have a very good sexually active friend who constantly uses birth control and condoms both, and she accidentally got pregnant anyway. Are you telling me that she should have to carry the child to term solely because you think 'accidental' pregnancies should be exempted from abortions? I certainly hope that you also oppose bankruptcy law, because that's a similar attitude.

she should be more careful next time i suppose.
also, resisting the urges from time to time doesn't hurt.

 

[Timbydude]

Eh, the way I see it is that once something would naturally develop into a human, it's a human. I'm against abortion.

To expand on the "conscious thought" thing, the ability to think is by no means a characteristic of life. Plants are alive, as are bacteria. I think that it's immoral when we kill something that's alive and is a (future) human just because we don't feel like dealing with it.

Sperm. The male body produces more of it than what could ever conceivably be needed, and all the billions of little sperm cells (per person) that don't enter an egg die. You don't even have to masturbate for it to happen.

Every man alive is a mass murderer, because that's how we were "designed".

Note the part that I bolded in my post. A sperm cell will not develop into a human naturally, if left alone. A fertilized egg will. If something will naturally develop into a human, then it is still, to me, a human.

 

[hyrulegaybar]

people rarely care about actual people being killed in today's world, do you expect them to care about "a bunch of cells" ?

personally, i say it depends on the situation, not the period after conception.

rape, very fucking poor family (that doesn't mean they should do it frequently) -- ok

"accidental" -- go fuck yourself

I have a very good sexually active friend who constantly uses birth control and condoms both, and she accidentally got pregnant anyway. Are you telling me that she should have to carry the child to term solely because you think 'accidental' pregnancies should be exempted from abortions? I certainly hope that you also oppose bankruptcy law, because that's a similar attitude.

she should be more careful next time i suppose.
also, resisting the urges from time to time doesn't hurt.

How much more careful would one have to be? Double condoms? Also, again, I'd love to hear how you feel about bankruptcy law. Also, what sort of compensation should victims of accidents be awarded? Your attitude is unbelievably unforgiving and callous.

 

[Maze1125]

How much more careful would one have to be? Double condoms?

Using two condoms at once actually increases your chance of getting pregnant due to a higher likelihood of them breaking from the friction between the two.

 

[hyrulegaybar]

How much more careful would one have to be? Double condoms?

Using two condoms at once actually increases your chance of getting pregnant due to a higher likelihood of them breaking from the friction between the two.

I know. I was pointing out what a damn idjit he's being. But thank you for telling others, in case they actually thought that was a good idea (HINT: IT IS NOT)