Abortion

Sacel_sl said:

Killing is bad and all, but there are things worse than death.
People care so much about what's growing inside another, but they don't give a shit once it's born. They don't care about quality education. They don't care about ethics or virtue. They smoke and curse and take whatever they can get at the expense of others. They want our streets to be warzones with everybody carrying a gun by mandate. They don't believe in evolution. They cheered on Zimmerman. Fuck all of them.
A fuck child support. Don't have a kid with a deadbeat, show some restraint. I did. It sucked, but I did. Now I have one on the way with my wife. Absolutely it feels like there is a baby in there, even before it looks human. I would be horrified to have it slain. But that's my baby, not yours, not my neighbors.
Don't want the baby? Pay the woman enough for the abortion, plus some fine. No more child support from that point. If they want the child, they pocket the money. If they don't want to abort or to keep it, they pocket the money and pawn the child to an adoption agency.
Abortions are good to society.
Make it safer. Make it easier. Make it cleaner. Make it quicker. No need to shame. No need to fine. No need to rigmarole.

This is my societal view. That view is different from a religious perspective. Religion can chime its virtues and those that follow it can listen.
'Merica: "Get your beliefs off of me. I have my own.G
Mel Gibson: "FREEDOM"

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No. Everything you believe in is wrong. There is nothing worse than death. People do give a shit about children once they are born. They do care about quality education and ethics and virtue, and believe in evolution, and that Zimmerman was an asshole (wat?). Abortions are not good for society. Access to abortion? Yes, but that is a different thing.

I'm not qualified to rule on any of the moral debates surrounding abortion, but I look at it this way. Life and death are inseparably joined together. Everything that lives, lives by eating other living things or their products. Everything that lives dies, and in death is fed on by something else. Being really friendly with these ideas and the idea of mortality in general, I am bothered by a particular idea that I often see evident in discussions on abortion, and that is that idea that all potential life must be allowed and encouraged into fruition or that a developing human infant is somehow more sacred or special than any other kind of life. Personally, I don't see the causal difference between a baby that was never conceived and a baby that was aborted after 1-3 months of gestation. Beyond about 3 months, the idea of abortion starts to bother me, and I would rather it were reserved to life-threatening cases at that point. beyond 6 months, the idea is pretty terrible to me.

If the fetus could survive if removed from the mother (albeit on machinery for weeks or a month or two or whatever), then it pretty much sounds like murder to me to kill it and I'm not sure what good reason there is to change your mind that late and not just put the thing up for adoption (again, barring medical emergency cases) since you've already put so much time into it... But that's my opinion and I'm not about to legislate it into other peoples' faces. Ultimately you have to live with what you do and I don't feel the need to make it my business until you start killing MY unborn babies. Even more ultimately, I blame nature for making sex so amazing but giving us no way to regulate our own fertility reliably, and I think that the more ubiquitous and acceptable birth control and sex education become, the less we as a race will have to discuss abortion.

chaos - I live in the South, I hear about abortion weekly. When I glanced at a few posts it sent me into rage. The rant covered the massed responses of those in my local environment.
It's like how Gedrah mentioned, there is an unbalanced placement on unborn life. I see more kids unfostered. I see adults mentally and emotionally immature due to a lack of childhood development. The other offshoot references I mentioned previously come up enough to be bothersome. Why is that thing inside so sacred compared to everything else? Is it because in that state it is completely defenseless? I see smoking preggers all the time. Drinking. Doping. Nobody publicly calls them out on it. But those same people readily decry abortion. Those same people commonly close to the afore mentioned.

-Edit: Theory - These people resign to fate. That is why what they do doesn't matter to them. It is why they don't take care. Abortion denies fate, which is their belief system and thus highly offensive to them.

chaos_sl said:

No. Everything you believe in is wrong. There is nothing worse than death. People do give a shit about children once they are born. They do care about quality education and ethics and virtue, and believe in evolution, and that Zimmerman was an asshole (wat?). Abortions are not good for society. Access to abortion? Yes, but that is a different thing.

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You're right, there are people who care about those things, they just happen to be different people to the ones who work so hard to restrict abortion.

I wonder how many of the pro-life crowd would be willing to pay a small tax to go towards providing a high quality of life for all the extra unwanted children in return for abortion being banned. After all, they're saving lives right? They should part from the money without a second thought.

Reality is, none of them would do it. They don't give a fuck about people or lives, just about maintaining some arbitrary stance so they can feel warm and fuzzy inside and fit in with all their church friends.

What really fucks my head up is that the same people who hate abortion also hate contraception & sex ed, love guns and want to cut social spending. Sacel is right, it's completely contradictory to say you want less abortions because you love life, but then support basically every policy which increases unwanted pregnancy, increases the risk of them getting killedafterbirth and decreases class equality and the chance for a happy, successful life for them when they grow up. It's a disgusting level of hypocrisy.

Abortion is absolutely good society. Not as good as reducing unwanted pregnancy through widespread, regular sex ed and easy, cheap access to all forms of contraception, but still better than nothing at all. If people gave a damn about saving lives, they'd be handing out contraception and teaching teenagers that any time a dick and a pussy go anywhere near each other,they should assume they'll end up with a baby unless you use it.

Azrayne_sl said:

Abortion is absolutely good society. Not as good as reducing unwanted pregnancy through widespread, regular sex ed and easy, cheap access to all forms of contraception, but still better than nothing at all. If people gave a damn about saving lives, they'd be handing out contraception and teaching teenagers that any time a dick and a pussy go anywhere near each other,they should assume they'll end up with a baby unless you use it.

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Or these savage common-folk could, ya know, exercise some self-restraint. But no let's not encourage people to act responsibly. CONDOMS FOR ALL!

General Antony_sl said:

Or these savage common-folk could, ya know, exercise some self-restraint. But no let's not encourage people to act responsibly. CONDOMS FOR ALL!

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If people were capable of automatically acting responsible about sex, we wouldn't be having this debate.

Azrayne_sl said:

You're right, there are people who care about those things, they just happen to be different people to the ones who work so hard to restrict abortion.

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I think that is a stereotype, and like any stereotype it sticks because it is based in truth. But at the end of the day I don't believe that even most people who are anti-abortion don't care about kids or adults. Sure, there are some, but I think a lot of these people genuinely care about people. I think I care about people. I wish that religion held less sway over the medical community in this country. I wish a lot of things, but no, I do not agree that abortion itself is good for society. Like I said, access to abortion is good, but the action itself is pretty abhorrent. It just happens to be less abhorrent than the alternative.

chaos_sl said:

No. Everything you believe in is wrong. There is nothing worse than death. People do give a shit about children once they are born. They do care about quality education and ethics and virtue, and believe in evolution, and that Zimmerman was an asshole (wat?). Abortions are not good for society. Access to abortion? Yes, but that is a different thing.

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wait, is this a joke, or do you really believe there are not things worse then death?

What is "worse" than existence being cut short and extinguished for the rest of eternity? Maybe being kept in that Austrian guy's rape dungeon or something. But even then, what is worse? Rape dungeon guy or the guy who takes existence away from someone?

chaos_sl said:

What is "worse" than existence being cut short and extinguished for the rest of eternity? Maybe being kept in that Austrian guy's rape dungeon or something. But even then, what is worse? Rape dungeon guy or the guy who takes existence away from someone?

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that is exactly one situation that I even had in mind.

How about anything involving a parasite infestation? (not so common in the US, but in 3rd world it happens)
Or one of those, burned alive, and lived situations?

I mean, sure in some cases those people keep going, and do live some kind of life. But that also depends on them having friends/family that can aide them.
I can think of hundreds of situations that result in being tortured for the rest of your life.

MS, ALS, alzheimers. No hope. Frankly, I am all for assisted suicide for these people,if they want it. Forcing people to live through that shit, tortured every minute of every day is horrible.

If they want it, fine. Their life, their choice. But for me, no. There is nothing worse than death. To deprive someone else of existence is worse than anything else you can do.

chaos_sl said:

If they want it, fine. Their life, their choice. But for me, no. There is nothing worse than death. To deprive someone else of existence is worse than anything else you can do.

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If you cannot imagine something worse then death for yourself then you have a severe lack of imagination.

For a simple one waking up surrounded by fire and knowing you can only keep your children alive by exposing yourself to flames while you run through the burning flames to get them, wrap them up and take them out to safety.


That is a simple enough example to have many flaws but the general idea behind it should be simple enough to get. "A choice between your life or your children's then living is worse then death"

Or I just have a different perspective than you do. I'm sure a lot of the shit you would try and say to me is worse I would disagree with. The diseases Caliane listed, nope, not worse than death. Being tortured or whatever? No. Life is all we have, bros.

This is all kind of beside the point, because the original point was in reference to abortion. As in, there are some things worse than death,like being raised by a single mother with a shitty attitude, so abortion. Make that decision for yourself if you want, I call it cowardice but whatever, if you want out then do it. Making that decision for another entity is absolutely horrible. But sometimes necessary, unfortunately. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

I think the strange thing about that is, if you value life that much. That life is all we have, and that nothing is worse then death. Then in the situation where you do have to decide between your life and someone elses, you are morally in the right, to choose your life first and foremost, at the cost of someone else no matter who that other person is. that is weird.

You need to accept death isn't so bad, to be able to make self sacrificing choices morally.


Letting your children die, because you choose to save yourself, is a fate worse then death, imo.

chaos_sl said:

Or I just have a different perspective than you do. I'm sure a lot of the shit you would try and say to me is worse I would disagree with. The diseases Caliane listed, nope, not worse than death. Being tortured or whatever? No. Life is all we have, bros.

This is all kind of beside the point, because the original point was in reference to abortion. As in, there are some things worse than death,like being raised by a single mother with a shitty attitude, so abortion. Make that decision for yourself if you want, I call it cowardice but whatever, if you want out then do it. Making that decision for another entity is absolutely horrible. But sometimes necessary, unfortunately. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

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Is there really nothing or no-one you value more then your own life? This is not an insult I am genuinely interested in psychology of such a person.

I never said my own life, I just said life.

chaos_sl said:

I never said my own life, I just said life.

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The problem we have here is you said..

chaos_sl said:

If they want it, fine. Their life, their choice.But for me, no. There is nothing worse than death.To deprive someone else of existence is worse than anything else you can do.

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Implicit in that statement is that nothing is worth giving upyourlife over.
Is there some other subtlety you are dancing around?

There is no subtlety, you are reading things into what I am saying. I never said "MY LIFE is more important than EVERYTHING!" Are we not talking about abortion here? Why would I be talking in personal terms about the concept of life? I have 3 kids and a wife, of course there are things I would sacrifice my life for.That has nothing to do with the discussion.

chaos_sl said:

There is no subtlety, you are reading things into what I am saying. I never said "MY LIFE is more important than EVERYTHING!" Are we not talking about abortion here? Why would I be talking in personal terms about the concept of life? I have 3 kids and a wife, of course there are things I would sacrifice my life for.That has nothing to do with the discussion.

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Yes you did.

chaos_sl said:

If they want it, fine. Their life, their choice.But forme,no. There is nothing worse than death.To deprive someone else of existence is worse than anything else you can do.

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This thread is about abortion but that isn't what you said. If, as you say, you can see something worth giving your life for then you can see that there is something worse then death. This leads us back to another quote of yours where...

chaos_sl said:

If they want it, fine. Their life, their choice. But for me, no.There is nothing worse than death. To deprive someone else of existence is worse than anything else you can do.

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Which you have now established is de facto untrue as you have admitted to being willing to die for your children. (I know I don't need to spell it out for you but in case someone else doesn't get it... by being willing to die for your children you are implicitly stating that choosing to live where that option would cause your children to die, is worse then living.)

And that takes us back to this quote by you in which you have now answered your own question "What is "worse" than existence being cut short and extinguished for the rest of eternity?" and the answer to that is "I have 3 kids and a wife, of course there are things I would sacrifice my life for". (In case I need to spell it out for someone again this is saying that dying for something can sometimes be better then living for the alternative)

chaos_sl said:

What is "worse" than existence being cut short and extinguished for the rest of eternity? Maybe being kept in that Austrian guy's rape dungeon or something. But even then, what is worse? Rape dungeon guy or the guy who takes existence away from someone?

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And if you are wondering what this has to do with abortion then look no further then the above quote which is what everything else in this post stems from. I realize that you probably made a general statement intending it to be understood as applying only to the fetus, or the zygote, or the 3 week old growth of cells or the... well at the something-which-has-not-been-born-yet but that isn't what you said and I wouldn't want to assume.