Abortion Reform Poll

[Renegade]

It is not an arbitrary decision, nor is it something that can be decided overnight. That's why these cases involving refusing medical treatment such as the J.W.'s blood issue are still being fought in the courts. If it is Christian Scientists refusing all medical treatment for their children, their personal religious freedoms do not carry much weight, and in most court cases, the J.W.'s have lost and court ordered blood transfusions have been given to their children. The real issue now is when it is too late to save a child, should the parents be charged with criminal negligence in the event of the child's death? Most people agree that they should, just as most people agree that vaccination programs should be mandatory.

I don't believe you are correct. In Canada vaccination programs are not mandatory for this very reason.

A democratic society is reluctant to override individual rights, but over time, there are issues established where people can be forced to do things that violate their personal or religious beliefs if its in the interest of society as a whole.

IMO, it is not sufficient for a society to be "reluctant" to override individual rights. The only time it should override individual rights is when it has NO OTHER OPTION. It is simply too low a barrier to state that the state can override individual rights if it is in the "interest of society" since it is the state itself that defines the interest of society.

And that's why it's hard to establish a concept of global citizenship, even though all the nations of the world are living in the biosphere of one planet. It's not politically feasible for any nation to extend the same aid worldwide that they do the underclass in their own society, but if huge numbers of poor people in overcrowded third world nations start trying to move en mass because of famine or some other future disaster, they will have an impact one way or another on the wealthier nations -- so it may be better to try to do something now to solve the poverty and overpopulation problems that exist now in these countries.

What states "should" do and what they "will" do are separate issues. You acknowledge that a state will act according to what is politicaly feasable. Most times that it to further LOCAL interest. That is simply the point I was making. There is no real point discussing this further in this thread as it is completely tangential to the topic of the thread.

It is based on what the consequences of these actions will be.

If it is it shouldn't be. The state determines the percieved consequence to the individual, the state determines the benefit to society, and the state determines which individual rights to override. It is not at all conssistent with a free society. The state defining its own self-interest as just cause to override individual rights has led to conscription, racism, eugenics and a host of actrocities.

We don't live in a society that sanctions murder in the interest of others (put that one up for a vote)

Really? What is war? What is capital punshment?

, but since this little side debate revolves around taking organs from people who are already dead, they have no personal interests and the only thing standing in the way of using their organs for the benefit of others is the superstitious beliefs of surviving family members.

It is only your view that the belefs of the surviving family members is unimportant. It is not mine. By your view, we should build houses on sacred burial sites because those who are dead and those who hold the dead sacred are no longer important and should have their rights dismissed in favour of the interest of others.

No, the child's religious beliefs play no part in the courts' decisions, and when dealing with children under 16, it is likely that their religious beliefs will be the same as the parents -- the issue is what is in the best interests of the child, and whether the parents are serving those interests or unneccessarily putting the child in danger.

Then why wouldn't a court stop an adult from refusing a blood donation or organ transplantaiton because of religious beliefs? Surely the court knows what is best for the adult. Even if it is "likely" that a child's religious beliefs are the same as the parent, the young age of the child makes them suseptable to brain-washing or undue influence, so a court cannot rely knowing their ultimate religious beliefs and when the consequences are potentially severe such as refusal of a necessary organ transplant, the court must step in. It dare not do so for an adult.

[Mr.Canada]

It's very close to 50-50 at MLW for retaining the status quo of abortion on demand as a form of birth control up to and including 9 month term and the need for reform to add some restriction to the amount of time should be allowed to get an abortion. I'd say this is a very valid issue that deserves some more debate in the house of Commons and to the people of Canada. Look forward to 2010 - 2011 for this to be a front page issue for months. It's coming back to the forefront where it belongs.

[Mr.Canada]

[Melanie_]

A great article in the Winnipeg Free Press today.

Abortion Debate is Over and Done

For those who are all in a fluster about late term abortions:

Medical procedures, however, are governed by policy, not criminal law. Doctors already adhere to a Canadian Medical Association policy that permits abortion after 20 weeks only "under exceptional circumstances." Less than 0.4 per cent of abortions occur after this point, all for compelling reasons such as serious fetal anomalies or life-threatening maternal health problems. This means that current abortion practice already matches the preferences of the vast majority of Canadians.

For those who think abortions are on the rise, and banning them will stop them:

Canada has done very well without an abortion law of any kind. Our abortion rates are low compared to most other countries in the world, and have been declining steadily since 1999. In other countries, criminal laws against abortion do nothing to reduce it.

For those who think abortions are too easy to come by:

Women living in rural or conservative areas, including the Maritimes, continue to have poor access to abortion care. Less than 20 per cent of hospitals in Canada offer accessible abortion services. Few medical schools offer any training in abortion, even though it is one of the most common of all health-care procedures. In New Brunswick, many women are forced to pay for their own abortions, in violation of the Canada Health Act.

Women have the right to control their own bodies, and decide if and when they want to become mothers. That is far too personal a choice to be decided by anyone else.

[Mr.Canada]

A great article in the Winnipeg Free Press today.

Abortion Debate is Over and Done

For those who are all in a fluster about late term abortions:

For those who think abortions are on the rise, and banning them will stop them:

For those who think abortions are too easy to come by:

Women have the right to control their own bodies, and decide if and when they want to become mothers. That is far too personal a choice to be decided by anyone else.

All life must be protected at all times.

2270 Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

2273 The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation:

"The inalienable rights of the person must be recognized and respected by civil society and the political authority. These human rights depend neither on single individuals nor on parents; nor do they represent a concession made by society and the state; they belong to human nature and are inherent in the person by virtue of the creative act from which the person took his origin. Among such fundamental rights one should mention in this regard every human being's right to life and physical integrity from the moment of conception until death."

2274 Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

SOURCE

[g_bambino]

All life must be protected at all times.

I hope you don't eat hamburgers, then.

[M.Dancer]

All life must be protected at all times.

The death penalty would prevent that person from committing that crime again since he'd be dead. Good enough for me.

Does it hurt to be you?

[tango]

It's very close to 50-50 at MLW for retaining the status quo of abortion on demand as a form of birth control up to and including 9 month term and the need for reform to add some restriction to the amount of time should be allowed to get an abortion. I'd say this is a very valid issue that deserves some more debate in the house of Commons and to the people of Canada. Look forward to 2010 - 2011 for this to be a front page issue for months. It's coming back to the forefront where it belongs.

When hell freezes over!

Harper is NOT going to risk his already compromised career for this, when even by MLW poll the majority of people want it left as is.

Edited February 5, 2009 by tango

[daniel]

All life must be protected at all times.

SOURCE

Even if the fetus was a Taliban?

Edited February 6, 2009 by daniel

[WIP]

"All life must be protected at all times."

What a stupid slogan to wear around during our time of catastrophic population growth, with over half the planet living in unsanitary conditions, without access to clean drinking water! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/676064.stm

At the Earth Clock site they monitor the running totals for the planet's population, increasing numbers suffering from malnutrition, increasing rates of disease, loss of forests and increasing desertification (major contributing factors to the increasing rates of animal and plant extinctions), and depletion of oil and other natural resources........so who is protecting life? The Catholic and Muslim fools who want to ban abortion and birth control, and make their women breed us into oblivion, or the rational thinkers who would like to take steps now to stop the disastrous course we are on?

[interiorboy]

I support to partially ban abortion. There are alot of ways to control birth without the need for it. There are dire circumstaces which may warrant it. I watched the whole abortion debate unfold in the 70s and into the 80s. It was a power grap by radical and very aggressive femminist which was left unchallenged by men even though the women's choice had/s a dramatic impact on the guy both socially and financially, let alone that the child carried half of his genes. It was effective for the femminists to dehumanize the fetus thus making it socially acceptable to abort. The political pressure was huge to say the least. If you said anything often you would hear "you f**k'n male chauvinist pig". There was a real " in your face" attitude from these femminists that I ran into. Femminism was pushed heavily in school materials. When nobody said anything, another group voiced it's opinion, the Christians. Their concern was with the protection of human life, which is a noble cause. Being a religious group, many people started avoiding this issue least you be labeled a religious zealot. This moved it away from a gender issue to a religious one and the issue has been labeled so ever since much to the detriment to of men. Their rights have been pushed aside

[WIP]

I support to partially ban abortion.

There is no such thing as "partial birth" abortion. That was just a propaganda device invented by the Religious Right to make a greater emotional impact than Late Term Abortion or Third Trimester Abortion. It's similar to calling estate taxes the "Death Tax." Demagogues love appealing to people's emotions, rather than their sense of fairness and reason.

Anyway, if you're for a ban on abortions after week 20, what do you have to say to women who are told by their doctors that the fetus they are carrying has severe birth defects? Many of which aren't detectable until around week 24.

There are alot of ways to control birth without the need for it. There are dire circumstaces which may warrant it. I watched the whole abortion debate unfold in the 70s and into the 80s. It was a power grap by radical and very aggressive femminist which was left unchallenged by men even though the women's choice had/s a dramatic impact on the guy both socially and financially, let alone that the child carried half of his genes.

I contributed half the genes for my children too, but I didn't have to walk around pregnant for nine months! And that's why most men with a sense of fairness prefer to give the woman as much authority as possible on deciding whether to take a pregnancy to full term and have the baby.

It was effective for the femminists to dehumanize the fetus thus making it socially acceptable to abort. The political pressure was huge to say the least. If you said anything often you would hear "you f**k'n male chauvinist pig". There was a real " in your face" attitude from these femminists that I ran into. Femminism was pushed heavily in school materials.

I'm old enough to remember the good old days! The Feminist Movement came along out of necessity. Like it or not, societies don't progress until they abandon the old patriarchal misogyny of the past (take a look at the problems in the Muslim World if you don't believe me) and move towards equality between men and women. And if you have any daughters, you want them to grow up in a society where they can achieve anything their brothers are capable of doing, rather than hoping that they marry a rich man to live a comfortable life. Extreme feminism as a threat, pales in comparison to patriarchy and misogyny.

When nobody said anything, another group voiced it's opinion, the Christians. Their concern was with the protection of human life, which is a noble cause. Being a religious group, many people started avoiding this issue least you be labeled a religious zealot. This moved it away from a gender issue to a religious one and the issue has been labeled so ever since much to the detriment to of men. Their rights have been pushed aside

Not everyone is fooled by trying to cloak the abortion debate in religious language with the claim of saving lives of the unborn. It is nothing more than a naked attempt to take away the reproductive control that women now have, and return it to men, usually old men, who want to keep their women pregnant, so that they can run public life all to themselves again, and return society to church-dominated feudalism.

[interiorboy]

Read the post , I said partially ban , not partial birth. A big difference. All kind of contaceptives exist, so the use of abortion as a contraceptive measure is not necessary. Legalizing abortion for convienence sake but not considering that it is human life. As I said there are dire circumstances that I think that it is appropriate to abort the fetus, but that those are few and far between. As for the pregnancy, both sexes should show a bit of control and make sure proper contaceptive measures are being used( I'ts funny how society just seems to try to avoid the consequences of their actions and the methods and extent people take) . Women would then not have to carry to term an unwanted pregnancy. Feminists have this idea that men were just out to oppress them and hated them. What a crock of crap! Go back a couple of hundred years or more and life expectancy for men was about 45 years and women approx 50 years. Women grew up and had kids immediately. Men, due to the need for women to take care of themselves while pregnant, and breast feeding the child (men can't breast feed children and enflax wasn't available then), were forced to be the bread winner. By the time the children left the nest, you were more or less at the end of your life cycle not to mention little medicine so you started raising a family fast while young. Work, was much harder then, being mostly agricultural, forestry, industrial in nature which is physically demanding. Men being approx 20% larger in mass would be able to do more physical work. Lets not forget that labor laws were literally nonexistant then and workers were routinely abused. It was not all rosey for men, quite the contrary. I think that men back then would have loved to have someone help carry his burden. Over a period of time both sexes fell into the roles that they were best suited for, for survival. Old Patriarch misogyny, my but!! Technology and labor laws changed everything. Now that technology and labor laws has freed western society from trying to survive and virtuallly eliminated all the hard/ dangerous physical labor, the roles which each sex now plays is no longer constrained. The fact that women are the ones that get pregnant does not deminish the fact that the power rests solely in her choice and that the choice will have major impact on tha man. But who cares about how her decision impacts the man, so long an she is happy with her decision and the power to exercize it. I though feminism was supposed to be about equality, but from what I see, it's more about power

a naked attempt to take away the reproductive control that women now have, and return it to men

. Why can't both share the power, is it that hard to share! You talk about fairness, well, is it not fair for the guy to have some say on a decision that will impact his life, maybe significantly?

[Oleg Bach]

Read the post , I said partially ban , not partial birth. A big difference. All kind of contaceptives exist, so the use of abortion as a contraceptive measure is not necessary. Legalizing abortion for convienence sake but not considering that it is human life. As I said there are dire circumstances that I think that it is appropriate to abort the fetus, but that those are few and far between. As for the pregnancy, both sexes should show a bit of control and make sure proper contaceptive measures are being used( I'ts funny how society just seems to try to avoid the consequences of their actions and the methods and extent people take) . Women would then not have to carry to term an unwanted pregnancy. Feminists have this idea that men were just out to oppress them and hated them. What a crock of crap! Go back a couple of hundred years or more and life expectancy for men was about 45 years and women approx 50 years. Women grew up and had kids immediately. Men, due to the need for women to take care of themselves while pregnant, and breast feeding the child (men can't breast feed children and enflax wasn't available then), were forced to be the bread winner. By the time the children left the nest, you were more or less at the end of your life cycle not to mention little medicine so you started raising a family fast while young. Work, was much harder then, being mostly agricultural, forestry, industrial in nature which is physically demanding. Men being approx 20% larger in mass would be able to do more physical work. Lets not forget that labor laws were literally nonexistant then and workers were routinely abused. It was not all rosey for men, quite the contrary. I think that men back then would have loved to have someone help carry his burden. Over a period of time both sexes fell into the roles that they were best suited for, for survival. Old Patriarch misogyny, my but!! Technology and labor laws changed everything. Now that technology and labor laws has freed western society from trying to survive and virtuallly eliminated all the hard/ dangerous physical labor, the roles which each sex now plays is no longer constrained. The fact that women are the ones that get pregnant does not deminish the fact that the power rests solely in her choice and that the choice will have major impact on tha man. But who cares about how her decision impacts the man, so long an she is happy with her decision and the power to exercize it. I though feminism was supposed to be about equality, but from what I see, it's more about power. Why can't both share the power, is it that hard to share! You talk about fairness, well, is it not fair for the guy to have some say on a decision that will impact his life, maybe significantly?

Pess enter once in a while to devide up the paragraph. Makes it less daunting to read. Say every four sentences.

[WIP]

Read the post , I said partially ban , not partial birth. A big difference.

Which doesn't make any sense! I thought you were co-opting the prolife term for late term abortions. What does it mean to partially ban abortion? Is that for women who are just a little pregnant?

All kind of contaceptives exist, so the use of abortion as a contraceptive measure is not necessary. Legalizing abortion for convienence sake but not considering that it is human life. As I said there are dire circumstances that I think that it is appropriate to abort the fetus, but that those are few and far between.

Which means you want to ban abortion, not partially ban abortion, since you would only allow abortion during extraordinary circumstances, presumably when the mother's life is in danger......but I better not jump to any conclusions and try to guess what line of reasoning you are applying here.

Old Patriarch misogyny, my but!! Technology and labor laws changed everything. Now that technology and labor laws has freed western society from trying to survive and virtuallly eliminated all the hard/ dangerous physical labor, the roles which each sex now plays is no longer constrained.

Yes, I know all about how technology and modernization changed the nature of work, and made more work available for women, but it's not as if the church leaders and social conservatives weren't trying to put the brakes on to societal change. Back when I was young, the media was saturated with debates over whether "women (specifically mothers) should work outside the home.

And technology aside, an authoritarian religious system can still prevent women from entering the workforce.....Saudi Arabia for example. And Christian fundamentalist spokesmen who give us the family values song and dance would like to turn the clock back here as well.

But, this isn't all about work! It's also about controlling the reproductive choices of women. When contraception is freely available, family size decreases dramatically. Authoritarian religious and political systems want as little interference from women as possible, since they tend to support better health and social policies at the expense of military spending. And what better way to keep them away from meddling in politics than to ban birth control and abortion, and keep them busy having babies.

The fact that women are the ones that get pregnant does not deminish the fact that the power rests solely in her choice and that the choice will have major impact on tha man. But who cares about how her decision impacts the man, so long an she is happy with her decision and the power to exercize it. I though feminism was supposed to be about equality, but from what I see, it's more about power. Why can't both share the power, is it that hard to share! You talk about fairness, well, is it not fair for the guy to have some say on a decision that will impact his life, maybe significantly?

If you're arguing the pro life cause, you have no standing to demand that the woman have an abortion and save you the expense of child support. On the other hand, trying to stop a woman from having an abortion and carry a pregnancy to term, has already been tested in court and denied, since the sperm donor doesn't have to serve as host to a developing embryo and fetus for nine months. This is where privacy rights come in, since the prospective mother might have other ideas about how to spend the next nine months. Talk of fairness and equality in this scenario does not apply since the baby daddy has no similar restrictions on his personal freedom, nor does he have to go through the ordeal of childbirth. Just make sure to use condoms if you don't want to get hit up for child support.

[interiorboy]

Partial ban means to ban it under some (most) circumstances, but not under dire circumstances. Society needs to take responsibility of their actions and learn to use the contra ceptives that exist. When I learned to take responsibility of my own actions, I found that it was liberating not a weight on my shoulders. It's quite empowering.

Respect for human life is at the core of my reasoning to ban it as a contraceptive. I view it(the fetus) as human life. Protecting human life trumps freedom and convenience. This is not a religious issue but a issue of basic respect of human life. I wish that people would quit painting it as A RELIGIOUS ISSUE, which only serves to make the person who does not support abortion as a religious zealot. There are people who are not religious that do not support abortion!

 since the sperm donor doesn't have to serve as host to a developing embryo and fetus for nine months

Is that all the only value that men are to you? I wonder what a woman thinks when she gives birth to a boy. Would it be, " Oh, I gave birth to a sperm donor". Do men matter so little to you that the impact of whether a woman choses to abort or not to is irrelevant? That sharing about the decision cannot be considered?

POWER IS SOMETHING THE MOST PEOPLE FIND SO HARD TO GIVE SHARE.

[Oleg Bach]

The sperm doner does not have to serve as host to the paraiste - hence he is not of any consequense,,,,CODE --- That is really quite stunning that someone finally admits that those that push no choice "pro-choice" finally admit that they look at the baby - "fetus" as a parasite..and the vacariousness of these no choice pro-choice people exude --- Have you noticed that the advocates of abortion are so vacarious that they believe that if someone else is carrying a child that it is in THEIR body and it is there buisness --- it seems that the phoney pro-choicers are actuall very similar in their intrusion and very much the same parasitic invader that they percieve a baby to be-------------------NOW I GET IT - PRO-CHOICERS ARE JEALOUS AND THEY WANT TO BE THE BABY -----AND IF THEY CAN NOT BE THE BABY THEY WILL KILL THE BABY...

[WIP]

Partial ban means to ban it under some (most) circumstances, but not under dire circumstances.

And that is effectively a total ban on abortion! Even the anti abortion groups will not go that far out on a limb to refuse abortions to women in cases such as Ectopic Pregnancies, where carrying the fetus to term could be fatal. Catholics will pull out Aquinas's Principle of Double Effects, for theologically justifying aborting a fetus stuck in the mother's fallopian tubes. They claim that this theological principle will allow a Catholic doctor to give the need to save the mother's life higher priority than that of the fetus, so the death of the fetus would be ruled as an unfortunate secondary effect of saving the mother's life.

The problem is that in real life, there have been cases where Catholic hospitals in New York, have refused to remove an ectopic pregnancy, and the woman had to be rushed off to a non-catholic hospital for a life-saving operation. If the Church ran all the hospitals, they would have died as a result of ideology based on medieval superstition.

Society needs to take responsibility of their actions and learn to use the contra ceptives that exist. When I learned to take responsibility of my own actions, I found that it was liberating not a weight on my shoulders. It's quite empowering.

The biggest player in the anti-abortion movement (the Catholic Church) is also against birth control and almost all forms of contraception including condoms. The movement as a whole pushes ineffective abstinence education programs that end up with more teenage pregnancies and therefore more pregnant girls seeking abortions. The strategy of the anti abortion movement to harass and make access to abortion more difficult, only results in creating the need for more late term abortions -- which is the stage that most people consider a fetus to be given consideration for having its own rights.

Respect for human life is at the core of my reasoning to ban it as a contraceptive. I view it(the fetus) as human life. Protecting human life trumps freedom and convenience. This is not a religious issue but a issue of basic respect of human life. I wish that people would quit painting it as A RELIGIOUS ISSUE, which only serves to make the person who does not support abortion as a religious zealot. There are people who are not religious that do not support abortion!

Yes, and they also have no logical basis for considering a fertilized egg to be determined to be a person. Until an embryo is past two weeks old, it can divide (creating two persons), and in rare cases, two fraternal twins can fuse together and grow as one fetus (Chimera) with two different DNA strands that grow as one fetus and then become a person who may possess two different blood types, unmatching fingerprints and hair colours and patterns, and in some rare cases, male and female sexual organs, otherwise known as a hermaphrodite.

So do these possibilities mean that the embryo doesn't become a person till it is two weeks old? Even if we use that stage, it has no brain, no nervous system, no mental activity, or anything that we regard as human qualities.

 since the sperm donor doesn't have to serve as host to a developing embryo and fetus for nine months

Is that all the only value that men are to you? I wonder what a woman thinks when she gives birth to a boy. Would it be, " Oh, I gave birth to a sperm donor". Do men matter so little to you that the impact of whether a woman choses to abort or not to is irrelevant? That sharing about the decision cannot be considered?

POWER IS SOMETHING THE MOST PEOPLE FIND SO HARD TO GIVE SHARE.

Well, first off, I should point out that I am not a woman. I am a married, middleaged father of three who recognizes that I, as a man, did not have to go through the ordeals of pregnancy, labour and delivery, so I don't accept your notion that the prospective father of a child has equal footing with the mother, since his life is not encumbered or inconvenienced by the birth process.

[Oleg Bach]

As a male I suffered the pain of abortion once. I was marginalized and I was threatened with force. It was as if woman gave birth on their own since the begining of time..there is an on going myth that fathers do not have motherly qualities or female instincts. There is a myth that all men squirt sperm recklessly as if it was a disposal of waste. There is a myth that all men are angry and are but brutish animals. There is a myth that we are but bulls in a field and the powers that be treat us as such...this is not a myth.

Animal husbandry is alive and well and practiced on humans by humans who loath us and treat us as animals. If a woman is raped then the rapists product should die along with the rapist..but even that - concept has room for compassion and care - not for the unborn persay but to at least retrive what drop of goodness exists even in evil. Full term or partial birth abortions are preformed and propogated by the same persons who believe in the execution of adults..

These people in their core don't care if it is a fetus or a percieved full term adult crimminal - they just like killing and think they are ridding the world of evil..when you engage in evil some always rubs off on you ...when you hate intensely and long enough you become what you hate...People should not look at love making and sex as some trivial matter...it is the most important thing that humans do - propogate life and love each other.

We are not human animals - we are human - the day learned men and woman of science and religion decieded to re-define human beings as animals - was first step on to the very slippery slop that brought us to the normalization of killing offspring - there has to be a better way..we should search for that way - and all those that are detractors and insist that we are animals and they know better what is good for us..these people should get out of the way - the abortion debate has gone on to long - and the pro-abortionist along with the pro-lifers still HAVE NOT FOUND A SOLUTION... I say let them be quiet and allow our new young minds work this one out - because we can not.

[Oleg Bach]

As a male I suffered the pain of abortion once. I was marginalized and I was threatened with force. It was as if woman gave birth on their own since the begining of time..there is an on going myth that fathers do not have motherly qualities or female instincts. There is a myth that all men squirt sperm recklessly as if it was a disposal of waste. There is a myth that all men are angry and are but brutish animals. There is a myth that we are but bulls in a field and the powers that be treat us as such...this is not a myth.

Animal husbandry is alive and well and practiced on humans by humans who loath us and treat us as animals. If a woman is raped then the rapists product should die along with the rapist..but even that - concept has room for compassion and care - not for the unborn persay but to at least retrive what drop of goodness exists even in evil. Full term or partial birth abortions are preformed and propogated by the same persons who believe in the execution of adults..

These people in their core don't care if it is a fetus or a percieved full term adult crimminal - they just like killing and think they are ridding the world of evil..when you engage in evil some always rubs off on you ...when you hate intensely and long enough you become what you hate...People should not look at love making and sex as some trivial matter...it is the most important thing that humans do - propogate life and love each other.

We are not human animals - we are human - the day learned men and woman of science and religion decieded to re-define human beings as animals - was first step on to the very slippery slop that brought us to the normalization of killing offspring - there has to be a better way..we should search for that way - and all those that are detractors and insist that we are animals and they know better what is good for us..these people should get out of the way - the abortion debate has gone on to long - and the pro-abortionist along with the pro-lifers still HAVE NOT FOUND A SOLUTION... I say let them be quiet and allow our new young minds work this one out - because we can not.

So far 52% of you are willing to off a full term baby - correct me if I am wrong but did I not read that at the head of your poll --- 9 months...? full term? Or were my eyes failing me..what the hell is with you people - you involve yourself in politics that is to serve the people and 52% of you want to serve us up on a plate? This is not encouaging - it's shocking --------If I were the government I would fire or confine every last person who is willing to dispose of a full term baby...what's next - ugenics? Of course - now I know where you are coming from - do the world a favour and abort - yourself now!

[interiorboy]

QUOTE (interiorboy @ Mar 3 2009, 01:49 PM)

Partial ban means to ban it under some (most) circumstances, but not under dire circumstances.

And that is effectively a total ban on abortion! Even the anti abortion groups will not go that far out on a limb to refuse abortions to women in cases such as Ectopic Pregnancies, where carrying the fetus to term could be fatal. Catholics will pull out Aquinas's Principle of Double Effects, for theologically justifying aborting a fetus stuck in the mother's fallopian tubes. They claim that this theological principle will allow a Catholic doctor to give the need to save the mother's life higher priority than that of the fetus, so the death of the fetus would be ruled as an unfortunate secondary effect of saving the mother's life.

as you can see in my quote, it says "but not under dire circumstances" which would include saving a women's life.

The problem is that in real life, there have been cases where Catholic hospitals in New York, have refused to remove an ectopic pregnancy, and the woman had to be rushed off to a non-catholic hospital for a life-saving operation. If the Church ran all the hospitals, they would have died as a result of ideology based on medieval superstition.

, Then the legal system must deal with this. I consider that type of behavior sickening

The biggest player in the anti-abortion movement (the Catholic Church) is also against birth control and almost all forms of contraception including condoms. The movement as a whole pushes ineffective abstinence education programs that end up with more teenage pregnancies and therefore more pregnant girls seeking abortions. The strategy of the anti abortion movement to harass and make access to abortion more difficult, only results in creating the need for more late term abortions -- which is the stage that most people consider a fetus to be given consideration for having its own rights

. They're right when they try to teach abstinance especially at an early age. It's all hormones and little brains when they're in their teens and early 20s, however that I know in not effective , I don't agree with their stand on no birth control. It's so easy to mess up your life, especially when sex is involved. However, I do believe that people should be free to do as they see fit so long as their actions do not pose a threat to another.

It's funny how People can become so polarized on issues. Especially when religion is involved in the situation. It becomes more about proving someone wrong, and protecting their position at all costs. Usually both sides have a legitamate position and what should be done is usually a compromise between the two. Maybe we should stop hating each other and consider each other 's point of view. I enjoy this debate by the way. If figured out that its best to have an open mind

Yes, and they also have no logical basis for considering a fertilized egg to be determined to be a person. Until an embryo is past two weeks old, it can divide (creating two persons), and in rare cases, two fraternal twins can fuse together and grow as one fetus (Chimera) with two different DNA strands that grow as one fetus and then become a person who may possess two different blood types, unmatching fingerprints and hair colours and patterns, and in some rare cases, male and female sexual organs, otherwise known as a hermaphrodite.

So do these possibilities mean that the embryo doesn't become a person till it is two weeks old? Even if we use that stage, it has no brain, no nervous system, no mental activity, or anything that we regard as human qualities.

This is why we hould avoid abortion. At what point does it become human? Please give me the way to properly determine that, which is not just an opinion or what is currently the popular view point. The issue is so devisive. And out of respect of human life, should we not err in the fetus's favor? As for myself, I do not have the answers, so I choose not to support abortion. I believe that we have alternatives and that those should be the ones that we aught to use.

Sorry, WIP, I will no longer view this exchange with you as if it were one with a defensive woman However I do think that the guy should hold equal rights. I also think that he should stand up like a man and do all that's required and then some more. Respect her for what she is going through and show it! I'm not a women hater, Quite the contrary. Some of my best friends are women.

[WIP]

This is why we hould avoid abortion. At what point does it become human? Please give me the way to properly determine that, which is not just an opinion or what is currently the popular view point.

I hope you realize what you're asking for! If it's any consolation, deciding when a person is brain-dead, at the other end of the life cycle, is just as contentious as this issue.

Deciding when to give a fetus the moral status of being human, has been argued by bioethicists and philosophers for decades now. I think the consensus would gather around the Third Trimester, when the nervous system and brain have developed enough so that the fetus can survive outside the mother's womb.

Most of the secular (non-soul) arguments for applying that standard early on during the zygote stage revolve around arguments of potentiality -- that the new clump of cells has a unique hybrid DNA strand to create a new person. The problem with this definition, is that there is nothing at this stage that makes us uniquely human - no brain, no nervous system, no beginning of consciousness - only potential for becoming human. But that potential depends on many environmental factors. Michael Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist who was a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, compares this argument to saying your local Home Depot store has 300 houses, just because it may have enough building materials to make 300 houses.

The issue is so devisive. And out of respect of human life, should we not err in the fetus's favor? As for myself, I do not have the answers, so I choose not to support abortion.

And you are about as likely to get pregnant as I am? But what about the women who get pregnant - do they get to have a say in making this decision? Erring in favour of the fetus means that the prospective mother is held hostage for nine months, not to mention the ordeal of delivery. Does a fetal right to life trump the pregnant woman's freedom to make decisions over something that has such a great effect on her body? Protecting this life would be easier if it wasn't for that fact that it is contingent life, dependent on the mother, so it can't be considered to have a life of its own till it is at least at the stage where it would survive outside of the womb.

I posted this previously by Judith Jarvis Thomson: A Defense of Abortion who uses the example of finding yourself waking up in a hospital bed wired up with intravenous tubes to a man in the adjacent bed. You are informed that he is a famous concert violinist who will die unless he remains attached to you for sustenance for the next nine months. If you want to save a life, you'll put up with the inconvenience and allow him to live off of you for the duration -- but, are you morally obligated to do so?

If we're comparing the The Violinist though problem to abortion, we might judge that if the person decided on day one, or even after a few days or weeks to pull the plug and walk out of the hospital, that they were free to do so. But if the person remained through most of the duration of the procedure, and waited until the violinist was almost ready to live on his own, then most people would consider it reprehensible to pull the plug. And in the case of abortion, many people who don't buy into the "protecting the unborn" claptrap, will nevertheless believe that when a fetus is developing the qualities that are identifiably human, then the mother's personal rights have to give way to the right to life, unless there are medical issues affecting the mother or the fetus that would make a late term abortion necessary.

Sorry, WIP, I will no longer view this exchange with you as if it were one with a defensive woman However I do think that the guy should hold equal rights. I also think that he should stand up like a man and do all that's required and then some more. Respect her for what she is going through and show it! I'm not a women hater, Quite the contrary. Some of my best friends are women.

Again, I don't buy the equal rights argument in this setting since we are not the ones who get pregnant and have the babies! The prospective father does not have the burden of pregnancy, so he should not have the right to overrule whatever decision the woman wants to make, either to have an abortion, or to have the baby.

[Canadian Blue]

So let me get this straight, even though a fetus can survive outside of the womb after 22 weeks gestation, we should allow abortion on demand up to the day before the pregnancy. Does anyone else see what could possibly be wrong with this picture.

[interiorboy]

only potential for becoming human.

Which it is already in the process of becoming. It's not just a dormant lump of flesh, It's development has begun. I guess what I'm trying to understand is. If you win 10,000,000(life), but have not had the chance to collect it (get a chance to live it) is it still not yours?

Erring in favour of the fetus means that the prospective mother is held hostage for nine months, not to mention the ordeal of delivery.

I'm a big proponent of responsibility which society so often tries to aviod. Why did she let herself get in that predicament in the first place? Learn to live with consequences of not being responsible and learn to take the necessary precautions namedly birth control.

Does a fetal right to life trump the pregnant woman's freedom to make decisions over something that has such a great effect on her body?

Yes, the right to live trumps freedom. On one one side I see inconvenience, on the other I see loss of life.

[WIP]

So let me get this straight, even though a fetus can survive outside of the womb after 22 weeks gestation, we should allow abortion on demand up to the day before the pregnancy. Does anyone else see what could possibly be wrong with this picture.

We've been down this road before....probably right on this thread, but in legal terms, Canada presently has no abortion law. Nevertheless, it has also been noted that many Canadian women seeking third trimester abortions, which are usually sought when there are birth defects or the mother's health is at risk, end up having to go to the U.S. to have a late abortion.

Since 2004, the Federal Government hasn't been keeping records on Canadian women going to the states for abortions, but the Wikipedia article on Abortion in Canada, which was cited a zillion times, noted that in Quebec, there were no hospitals equipped to perform this procedure which is more risky than an earlier stage abortion.

Do you see the irony? In the country with no abortion law it is more difficult to get a late term abortion than it is in the land where abortion is a continual front-burner political issue! Is it possible that conservatives would rather have abortion as a political issue than actually do anything about it? For what it's worth, in both Canada and the United States, third trimester abortions are rare and are a very small minority of the total abortions performed