I have sex, because I enjoy it. If I get my girlfriend pregnant and we decide to have an abortion, who are you to tell me or us what to do with our live's? Either way, the only person that obviously has a problem with it is you (the pro lifer) so if anyone, it certainly doesn't bother me, but you. Either way, you lose Enjoy your anger, disgust, whatever it may be, and not being able to do anything about it

The price of freedom eh

abortion helps fix overpopulation

and thats a good thing

Choice. It has nothing to do with me, it's their choice.

Personally I think men have no say in this matter.

e:And Tempermental, awesome stance. I feel the same way, and I love when people get ridiculously angry over things they can't control. Well, love and hate it. I feel bad for them because if you don't learn to let stupid things like that go it eats you alive inside and basically ruins your life, or at least makes it less enjoyable than it could be. You only get one, apparently.

Choice. It has nothing to do with me, it's their choice.

Personally I think men have no say in this matter.

I'm pro killing babies, no matter the circumstances.

The only good baby, is a dead baby.

You guys are forgetting the best answer to this conundrum: forced sterlization. There is no question of whether the fetus is alive or not because you can't foul society by bringing more mouths that this planet cannot possibly sustain and will die gruesome deaths as it takes WEEKS for the child to starve to death. If you think I'm an evil cold prick, think about yourself starving to death. Your body literally digests itself to scrap whatever sources of energy it can before you die of some kind of organ failure (most likely renal) and you just a skeleton covered in skin. Not a pretty picture, huh?

I would have included dispositions for debilitating genetic disorders as another reason but medical science is coming a long way and we are ever so close to getting the whole human genome down pat. I mean to the point where we can write the damn thing on the backs of our hands. The instances of these are not wide enough to cause a huge strain on the population's resources.

Yoshipants speaks the truth.

Stampystampy!

It's a mistake to think that people have no right to try to impose their morals on another in this matter. Is it right to stand by and watch someone else murder innocent people? If you believe that that is what abortion is, you have every right to try and stop it.

DEATH TO BABIES

PEWPEW

I'm anti-abortion, but pro-killing babies after they're born. Babies are hideous creatures.

euthanasia of the elderly?

population control and might have a good shot at saving social security! hell, it would help with a myriad of fiscal issues! not only that, but after 80 or so most* people kind of turn back into oversized babies, so it would eliminate much of the humiliation that goes along with your body failing. and it would present a titillating option for grown children for whom the elderly parent has become a burden!



*granted there are a fair number who remain in decent-good health.

My mother had an abortion when I was about 7, I would have had a sister with particularly bad Downs syndrome. It was a careful, difficult decision for my folks and, based upon my own father's experiences of growing up with a brain-damaged sister, they decided that they wouldn't be able to care enough for the kids they already had with the extra responsibilities of looking after a child that would need round the clock care.

Frankly, I'm glad they did it and I find it almost disgusting that people think that they should be able to regulate such a deeply private, personal decision based upon their own (frequently religious) morality and desire to see everyone live by their own personal rules. Abortions aren't just there for convenience and there are more complex situations that may merit the necessity than just rape or danger to the mother.

in b4 the flamew.. awf*ck

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

i actually agree with you here. a case like you are talking about, while i may still have my own views on abortion, is a striking example of why the choice needs to ultimately be up to the individual, not any government.

pro-choice

simple as in my opinion.

Was there some tiny one somewhere in the thread I missed?
So far this has been a pretty good discussion actually...

Okay, this is my 2 cents (even though I'll probably get raped in my sleep for it):

It is acceptable in some cultures to kill babies within a certain period of time after they are born.

In the wild, mothers will kill (or let die out of intentional negligence) their babies. These babies are generally thought to be handicapped or otherwise too weak to successfully live in the wild.

Is all life sacred? Is this question where morality ends with the discussion of abortion?

If so, then what is the difference between cutting down a tree or slaughtering an animal?

Why is it acceptable to slaughter some animals for food and not others?

Is all life really sacred?

The Problem:
Most of the Pro-Life arguments are embedded with religious overtones. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with believing in a God, I do. I am saying, however, that while the Pro-Life argument stems from religious beliefs (primarily Christian), they actually aren't supported by religious text (save for the passages that certain nut-jobs like to take out of context in a vein attempt to support their claims).

What does it mean to have a soul? I believe there is a requirement to having a soul and that is that you must be sentient. So, to have a soul, you must therefor first qualify for sentience. 1) Self-Away 2) Intelligent 3) Consciousness. If you fail any of these, then you fail to have a soul and therefor are no more significant a life-form then a tree.

I think if this was universally accepted, then the Terri Schiavo case would have been a no-brainer (excuse the pun).

Now, I'm guess all this has to do with having a Democratic government that is generally Pro-Choice. It should be noted that, while this is one of the major issues, it has never been aggressively acted on by either party. Both parties are afraid of the backlash associated with such an action when the republic is still very divisive on this issue. Bottom line, this isn't a Federal issue. If you want to make a difference, start at the local level and try to have it banned in your city, then county, then state, and so on.

Just thought I'd address the animal question:
We kill the less intelligent animals for food, but consider the higher ones pets, companions etc (generally, china's an exception)

As for me, any species I have as a pet I'll never be able to eat. If I ever get a pet cow and a pet chicken I'm going to starve to death.

^^ Couldn't have put it better meself

I personally think it's awesome to kill babies.

Let's all join in on the fun. And trust me, it is fun. If you want we can catholicize it--jesus stomping babies!

This argument fails because, if you did not cut it down, the tree would not, by your definitions of soul-having, gain a soul; but the child would.

Actually, that's the point. You're not taking away something it already has, just something it may have one day. That's a very important point. The focus should be on the "here and now" and not the "would, could, should" of tomorrow.

So, to refine and rephrase a bit:
Denying the chance to develop a soul is not morally wrong because you are not taking anything away (other then a "chance", but that doesn't even come close to counting and any argument to that affect fails). So, it's no different then if the baby had never been conceived to begin with. It's just a collection of bio-material. Sorry to present such a "cold truth", but there you have it. It is no more "alive" then a tree.

Now the question is, at what point does the baby become sentient? Before or after birth? How long before? How long after?

According to some recent research further connecting Descartes' belief that the soul resides in pineal gland. there is a very compelling correlation between the development of the gland, and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. the gland develops in about 49 days in a fetal brain, and the Tibetan Buddhists believe that a soul must wait up to 49 days to be reincarnated.

i dont remember much more than that, its been a little while since i read the book, but its in DMT: The Spirit Molecule by Rick Straussmen.

Well, that's just good science, right there.

I believe it should be up to the parents to decide whether they want to have a kid or not, so I guess, yeah, I'm pro killing babies. That said, however, my own daughter's now about three weeks old. Heh.