Abortion is about the most fundamental human right: self-ownership

And that's why laws(and hopefully better solutions) will be in place in the future. The very fact that abortion is sanctified to the extent that it is(even by its opponents) should show that it's not about punishing women.(In fact, that's only a pro-abortionist's concept that it's punishment).

But as I said earlier, we're all biologically equal so let's take it to its logical conclusion: Isn't it punishment that we're all living lives now? Furthermore, if a parent wants her child, isn't she logically then punishing herself? Sadism to the extent of a sexual fetish may very well be a person's choice, but in public if someone willingly degraded themselves we'd reference them to a medical clinic, "get them help".

If we concur that our lives do have meaning, those lives could only have come from intercourse as well as a woman's willingness to carry the birth. Carrying to term is not a punishment. Responsibility doesn't infer a negative.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/punishment

"Retribution" for having sex? Laughable, considering if it was consensual then both parties had a role to play in it. And if it wasn't consensual, a woman's autonomic rights were violated. Several opponents(myself included) supported abortion in the case of rape/incest. I made a reply to Liberalis which explained why but in short, rape/incest qualify for so very little of the abortions. Considering the violation of a woman's autonomic rights and the statistical irrelevance, it would mean nothing to me morally or philosophically to remove those punishments from women.

Life should always be coterminous, the idea of a "unwanted child" is a very disgusting philosophy that in my opinion doesn't even do what it sets out to do. By identifying children as "unwanted", it made it easier to not sympathize with said child. Motherhood is declining rapidly as a result of a lack of sympathy, which she now somehow believes "misogynist" men identify her.

It also makes it a lot easier to have an abortion in the first place. If it's unwanted, just throw it away. It treats children like a possession and not a human life(and that basically what the pro abortionist argument comes down to).

But if children are possessions until age 18 then what changes when they're 21? That they're legally recognized as adults? Why? Because of their age? I'm sorry, but that's just not philosophically consistent. You can't go from A to B on a whim. Progressive thought processes are such, because there's a chain link of ideologies moving onto the next phase.

Earlier, I denounced Ownership from a philosophical perspective(and that same denouncement is what the pro-abortionist also claimed, albeit for different purposes). Since a child is not an item, but a human life, the sanctity of life is assured to it. The concept of "unwanted children" need not apply. It doesn't matter whether you want it or not, it's still a child. If you really don't want a child, simply don't have sex(or) have protected forms of sex.

Calling a pregnancy a "punishment" is another way of saying the man should take 190% responsibility for everything that happens.

Pregnancy isn't a punishment for the simple fact that a man cannot control the results of our sexual organs. If an egg is successfully implanted in a woman, it's dumb luck(as we've all scientifically recognized.). Pregnancy is the result of an action. You're not "punished" per say with poor grades, you got poor grades on a test because you sucked at it lol.

Carrying to term isn't a punishment from a consensual standpoint, because there are health benefits to pregnancy. And I have to agree with the argument laid out earlier: Having more children is an economic investment. If that child succeeds in the future, he will pay dividends back to the family ten times fold.

Children can *literally* enrich lives. Human Beings can choose to use their positive energies to influence our planet in productive ways.

Looking at pregnancy, at the whole process as a "punishment" is a nihilistic thought process.

 

We are here because enough females make the choice to continue with a pregnancy, that is the plain and simple fact of the matter.
Since human kind have probably existed women have been able to make the choice as to whether they bear children or not, what pro-lifers are attempting to do is remove that choice .. it has been tried before, it failed then it would fail again.

They certainly weren't, they had the intelligence to realize that in some situations they could not provide for a child (or another child), neither were they submissive slaves, despite the attempts to make them so, and again you are completely ignoring the choice factor .. many more women choice to be pregnant and raise children than those that do not.

There has never been a period in human recorded history where abortions have out numbered births, world population is growing at a faster rate than at almost any other time in history.

A - Your government only pays for certain abortions, it does not pay for elective abortions, so your assertion is false.
B - Then blame the governments not the woman.

It certainly does, just not inside of another person, and you answer your own assertion, the laws protect endangered wildlife . .the human race is in no way endangered.

You are using purely the physical aspects here, a person is so much more than purely the physical and we (as in humans) claim superiority over others all the time .. just look at the religious threads to see the evidence of that, we do it in war, we do it in executions, it is done by the rich to the poor, it is done when welfare is attacked as 'stealing' to support lazy others, it is done is racism, it is done in homophobia .. all of these are people claiming superiority over others.

Yet again you are focusing purely on the loss of life caused by a pregnancy, you have not even entertained the numerous other physical literal injuries that every pregnancy causes, and the fact that women choose to undertake those injuries, what you and other pro-lifers are advocating is forcing a female to undertake those injuries whether she wants to or not. Why should you be allowed to force another to do this when you cannot also be forced to incur injuries against your will.

If I do no own my body, please tell me who does?

Being a sentient living being (which a fetus prior to viability is not BTW) does not exclude us from being an item, in fact we meet the definition of an item perfectly;

Item - an individual article or unit, especially one that is part of a list, collection, or set: - http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/item

Your conclusion is based upon a preconceived opinion for which you have no proof, therefore your conclusion is in itself false.

Rubbish. 1% of abortions are done for rape, there are around 50 million abortions per year worldwide that is 500,000 abortions a year, or if you want it specific to the USA then 1.31 million abortions were performed in 2008 (the latest available full figures) that is 13,100 abortions per year for rape, and that figure does not include abortions in cases of incest, threat to the females life or fetal disability incompatible with life.
The other problem you have is that your arguments against abortion apply just as much to ant pregnancy regardless of how it came about .. why is it YOU get to decide when abortion is ok but not the person it directly affects?

Then you are contradicting your earlier argument, if one does not have self-ownership, one does not have autonomy, therefore rape etc cannot be a violation of autonomy.

I'm going to use a pro-life argument against you now .. pro-lifers say that the violation is caused by the rapist and not the resulting fetus, so why should the fetus suffer for a crime it did not commit .. If as you are asserting that the fetus causes bodily harm in the case of rape then logically it must also cause bodily harm when it is not rape.

Prove it, you cannot. Sex and pregnancy are related but different acts, the pregnancy is not an instantaneous occurrence upon the sperm entering the woman, and even if it were decided that consent to sex is consent to pregnancy a person may remove consent at anytime for any reason, no person is legally obliged to sustain the life of another. If as you advocate that a fetus is a separate individual from the female then logically it must be a separate individual from the male, since when did giving consent to one person (the male) mean consent is given to another (the fetus) .. that would be like saying that because she consents to sex with one man she must have consented to have sex with another .. an absolutely absurd notion.

But you simply haven't, all you have offered is your opinion you have not given a single piece of relevant proof to back up your premise . .you have assumed your premise is right and based your conclusion upon that assumption. Your assumption being that a person does not own their body, please provide your evidence to support this.

 

Those remarks are either ignorant or deliberately deceptive.

1. The world's population growth curve was like all exponential function a simple straight line before the upwards turn and sharp increase in growth by the typical exponential incline occurred. In numbers: Until the mid 16th century the earth was populated by a constant number of 250 Million living human beings. In the 18th century the 350 Million margin was crossed and 1 Billion was reached in 1814. The exponential growth of mankind simply means: more people produce more people. That has absolutely nothing to do with responsible women taking care of the existance of the human race.
2. Present growth is generated by the poor and the uneducated. In all Western societies since the 70s the number of deaths by far exceed the number of deaths. This net loss of population is mainly caused by contraceptiva. The influence of abortion simply cannot be measured and in addition is different from country to country, One example of the birthrate / death rate balance is in the link below for Germany.

The European High Court by the way recently had to decide about the time of the beginning of life in a case in which French doctors unintentionally carried out an abortion on the wrong woman by a confusion of names. That woman wanted the physicians to be convicted of manslaughter. The European Highest Court however refused that claim.

In the second case an Italian man sued his own wife not to carry out an abortion because he wanted to have the child and claimed to have the same rights as father on the child like the mother. The European Court was redeemed from that duty, the woman having aborted the child anyways before any decision was found. Later the Court decided that the rights of the unborn are "limited by the rights and interests of the mother, termination of pregnancy however is not only according to a mothers free will and interest alone".

Some quotes out of both decisions:

1.: … the issue of when the right to life begins comes within the margin of appreciation which the Court generally considers that States should enjoy in this sphere, notwithstanding an evolutive
interpretation of the Convention, a “living instrument which must be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions” […]. The reasons for that conclusion are, firstly, that the issue of such protection has not been
resolved within the majority of the Contracting States themselves, in France in particular, where it is the subject of debate and, secondly, that there is no European consensus on the scientific and legal definition of the beginning of life ....


2. It follows from this recapitulation of the case-law that in the circumstances examined to date by the Convention institutions – that is, in the various laws on abortion – the unborn child is not regarded as a “person” directly protected by Article 2 of the Convention and that if the unborn do have a “right” to “life”, it is implicitly limited by the mother’s rights and interests. The Convention institutions have not, however, ruled out the possibility that in certain circumstances safeguards may be extended to the unborn child.That is what appears to have been contemplated by the Commission in considering that “Article
8 §1 cannot be interpreted as meaning that pregnancy and its termination are, as a principle, solely a matter of the private life of the mother” (see Brüggeman and Scheuten, cited above, § 61) and by the Court in the above-mentioned Boso decision. It is also clear from an examination of these cases that the issue has always been determined by weighing up various, and sometimes conflicting, rights or freedoms
claimed by a woman, a mother or a father in relation to one another or vis-à-vis an unborn child.


German birth and death rate over the years (blue: births / green:deaths):

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Bevoelkerungsentwicklung_deutschland.png

 

(*)(*)(*)(*). I had a long post in response typed out but the stupid site logged me out and I lost it. Suffice to say I think you're assuming a consequentialist view of ethics, when most of them take absolutist deontological positions.

I have little concern for religious arguments, I'm concerned with the philosophical opposition to abortion. Forming my opinion was not automatic or obvious - their position is not outrageous.

Also, most of the things in the image you posted are justified independently of abortion, and a lot of the others (eg: clinic bombers) assume a consequentialist ethical perspective which most of them do not hold.

First of all, I'm pro-choice. Given that quote from Hayek in your sig, we probably agree on a majority of issues.

Anyway, yeah this is a good point, although, not all pro-lifers are against abortion in the case of rape. In fact, a sizable portion of them I've come across make an exception in that instance. I think as long as we continue to address the lowest common denominator in their movement the less justice we do to considering the issue ourselves. We've got to come out and confront actual, plausible arguments against abortion.

I've come down on the pro-choice side, but that's by no means an automatic or obvious choice to make.

 

I see you have noted a comment made by me - There has never been a period in human recorded history where abortions have out numbered births, world population is growing at a faster rate than at almost any other time in history.

I cannot see how your response has any relevance to my comment, has there ever been a time in human recorded history where abortions have exceeded births?

 

It is very interesting to see here how feminists associate "having children" with "punishment" and "cancer like disease". They have no clue how funny and interesting it really is. I was male single parent since my son was two years old. It was the happiest and funniest time of my life. It is the only thing in the world I could cry because it is missing. Feminists don't know how funny it is when the son invites his favorite American Football team to his birthday party and surprise, surprise: they come.And they don't bring presents but they are hungry and thirsty too. Then you understand why some people at least temporarily don*t care that MacDonalds is bad for the Rain Forrests. In the same time feminsts go to their odd day-for-day job making Power Point presentations about the reduction of production costs of plungers. And when they are 50 years in the plunger business, they get one for free. With 50 they also realize that not only nobody wants to rape them but also nobody wants to look at them or to be with them. Kids then will call them "Near Deaths" not having performed their duty for this society. And then you must explain them why fighting 50 years against the explosion of costs of plunger production is very important for that society. And even more important the Power Point Presentations in the meeting rooms because the lights had to be turned out and everybody could sleep a little bit. And one day a youngster in need of some disk space for playing "Armaggedon IV" with one finger tip will delete all traces you left. That will erase all your work, your professional identity, yourself. THAT is sick. Working from 5 to 5 not to earn enough to buy an own car is sick. YOU are sick, the feminists, the anti mothers, the Pedophobes, the Zero Women and so is your future. How can anybody fight for the "right" to work, for the joy of hard and dirty work. I would fight for the right NOT to have to work. But I am only male in the end and that means: "intelligent".

(PS: My son is 33 now by the way).

 

I know that wasn't directed at me but the same thing literally just happened to me in another topic. Ugh.

Ok, fair enough.

Oh agree with it not being an automatic or obvious choice. I was once pro-life myself. The heart of the pro-life argument seems to be that the fetus is an individual human being with a life of it's own. That would make the rights of the fetus independent from whether it was created by rape or by consensual sex. If one honestly believes that consent is what matters, and that a mother could kill her zygote/embryo/fetus if she never consented to having it there (the exact position of those who make the exception for rape), then all the talk on the pro-life side about the zygote/embryo/fetus having a right to life is really not at issue, because ultimately what matters is not the right to life but the consent of the mother.

Yet once it has been determined that the mother by seeking an abortion does not consent to the pregnancy, the response is always "but the fetus has a right to life." Many on the pro-life side (at least from my experience) seem to hold te mother's consent above the right to life of the developing child when it comes to rape. But when struggling to prove that the mother consents to child rearing in all other cases, they throw consent out the window and turn the tables, holding the right to life above consent. That is the hypocrisy I was getting at.

 

Your personal anecdote not withstanding again, like so many pro-lifers, you miss the very large elephant in the room, the very thing you want to remove from all women and that is choice, you choose to do the things you did, you consented to do those things and obviously from you comments you wanted to do it .. how does it equate to someone who does not, someone may want to jump out of an plane, another may not, by your reckoning it is ok to force them to do it.

The whole pro-life mandate is based on force, forcing another person to do something against their will, forcing another person to accept injuries to their body.

 

[MENTION=59226]Liberalis[/MENTION]: I can't help but notice you've avoided my reply to you and I'm curious as to why. Do you see the conversation as having reached its conclusion? Do you find anything I've said to be unpleasant in anyway?

 

This presumes that all pregnancies result in an injury to a woman's body. This also presumes that these injuries(of varying degrees) is far more morally and lawfully significant than that of the developing child. And I disagree to a large extent. Also, I do believe consent to sex is consent to pregnancy and I'll lay it out in layman terms so even you would have to concur.

Chain Link: Action A(Sex)> Action B(Pregnancy). Without Action A, Action B simply doesn't happen. The timing and interval doesn't matter, the biological realities that a child only comes from sexual intercourse is just that: A reality.

Your argument is that the interval matters(or rather, that it dissolves the chain link). But that's not true. The Fetus didn't just pop in there, it wasn't a random coincidence.

The so-called "consent' might be in the notion of: "I wanna bang, but I don't want a kid." But that's biologically illogical.(Save for Condoms, pills, etc).

I'm of the opinion that if you don't want a kid, don't have sex. No, seriously. What's so "wrong" or "punishing" about only having sex when you're ready to make a commitment?(it's a commitment, NOT a punishment).

I think condoms/pills are more morally sound than an Abortion. An Abortion is little more than a get out of jail free card, as well as a domestic political weapon for women.

If an Abortion is to be had, it should be due to very serious and sound reasoning. "Elective Abortion" makes a mockery of our morals and principles. I'm only a supporter of Medical Abortion.

 

How do you know deontological positions aren't based on the belief, even a subconscious one, that women should be punished for sex? Few people would openly admit that belief, but how is it different from the common pro-life complaint, "...abortion-rights advocates desire sex without consequences"? http://cbmw.org/public-square/cultu...lity-and-consequences-in-the-abortion-debate/

Regardless of motive, opposition to abortion is based on nothing more than a personal belief, yet pro-lifers support crimalization of it--that is the outrageous part, IMO.

The fact remains, the policies most of them support punish women, and do not reduce abortion. If one really believes abortion is murder, shouldn't reducing abortion be the goal? One favored policy not included on the chart is mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds. Studies show they don't reduce abortions, but they certainly do punish and humiliate women.

 

All pregnancies do result in injuries to the woman, that is a medical fact that cannot be denied.
The injuries caused by pregnancy already meet and exceed the requirements for use of deadly force, and are already recognized as such in law on some occasions.
Pregnancy is already recognized as a serious literal injury in a number of states.

and this would be correct if every act of sexual intercourse resulting in pregnancy, they don't , you chain link assumes that sexual intercourse WILL lead to pregnancy and that is factually incorrect. Sexual intercourse only creates the risk of pregnancy, it is not a foregone conclusion.

change the conditions of your chain link and you can see the failure of your logic;

Chain Link: Action A(get in a car)> Action B (car crash), without action A, Action B simply doesn't happen.

No my argument is not that the interval matters, if you think that then you really haven't grasped the context of my argument at all . .You argument however is based on "foregone conclusion"

Reducing consent to what you have is disingenuous, do you treat all matters of consent like this?

What is wrong with that is that is flies in the face of human instinct, even before we had contraception people still engaged in sex without the wish to have children . .that is why abortion has been around for so long. Your commitment comment only applies to those who have a desire to have childern.

You are entitled to your opinion and are quite within your rights to live your life that way .. but do tell me why the way you wish to live your life has any bearing on another, why should they adhere to your opinion?

Then you are placing your arbitrary conditions onto others, would you accept them doing the same to you?

 

I'm sure for some of them it is, but not all. We should stop targeting the fools among them. Focus on those who have legitimate arguments and aren't in it to punish women lol.

Every single action anyone takes is based on nothing more than a personal belief. I agree with notions of liberty as much as the next man, maybe more so - but let's not pretend that such things are embedded in the structure of reality or anything. Natural rights are silly. You cannot derive normative oughts and obligations from the descriptive world around us, they require subjective individual input.

Not necessarily. I suggest you read up on deontological ethical theory. Many ways of reducing abortion are seen as wrong in themselves, and cannot be justified as a means to a noble end. This is the perspective of almost all pro-lifers I've come across. This is true of contraception, for example.

 

If contraception, sex education and abortion are wrong, we are left with the "noble end" of enslaving women.

 

Well, at least I tried :/

 

How is it "slavery" to legally require a woman to give birth? She doesn't have to deal with the inconvenience of raising a child. She can just give it up for adoption.

 

You shouldn't mix legal with ethical considerations about abortion. Many things are perfectly ethical but illegal (Example: Drugs. Many drug laws are only in effect to protect domestic monopoles on other drugs), others are legal but unethical (death penalty). I have no problems abortion being legal under certain circumstances but nobody and nothing will make me regarding it to be ethical. In the next step women claim a medal for it.

You said above that being single father was my free choice. That is not entirely true. Being father was my choice, not that after two years of parenthood the mother, consulted by two feminists promoting the right of free choice for women, left for feeling it to be a too heavy burden to have a 2 year old child (a child having cancer at the time being). Having children sometimes is not easy but always funny. On the other hand children come with some responsibility (for parents). Any kind of "Free choice" is in concurrence with any kind of "responsibility". Not to take any responsibility for anything. That is how women of today look like.

PS: The bodily harm of pregnancy best can be seen in the great number of women 2 weeks after delivery being pregnant again, 3 times in a row.

 

I don't think you comprehend the physical damage pregnancy and childbirth do to a woman's body, nor do I believe you want to.

 

According to statistics, the majority of abortions do not happen for health reasons.

 

This isn't about why women have abortions, it's about why you can't force them to give birth.

 

Another feminist half truth:

1. Quote from Stanford Law Review, April 2013: The rapist who causes a woman to become pregnant will be treated as if he broke his victim’s leg, gave her severe head trauma, or shot her with a gun. That is, the victim’s pregnancy is treated the same as a broken bone, a concussion, or a gunshot wound.


The first interesting point is that a gunshot wound legally equals a broken bone. That both can lead to death is not a subject of further consideration for the law. In the case above it would mean that pregnancy legally equals a broken leg. But that is not all:

2. In the article it is further explained that the consideration above comes from times when rape was the only legal reason for abortion. That lead to courts issuing more severe punishments for rapists inducing pregnacies: because of the risk of the abortion procdure, not the pregnancy. That lead to the grotesque situation that rape victims keeping the child indirectly "absolved" the rapists. Therefore it was ruled that pregnancies have a comparable risk and punishment must be the same. Link: http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/when-pregnancy-injury


3. It is wrong to assume pregnancy to be disease or injury and abortion to be the cure. In a 2012 Review of recent studies it was stated: A study of the medical records of 56,741 California medicaid patients revealed that women who had abortions were 160 percent more likely than delivering women to be hospitalized for psychiatric treatment in the first 90 days following abortion or delivery. Rates of psychiatric treatment remained significantly higher for at least four year.
In a study of post-abortion patients only 8 weeks after their abortion, researchers found that 44% complained of nervous disorders, 36% had experienced sleep disturbances, 31% had regrets about their decision, and 11% had been prescribed psychotropic medicine by their family doctor. (2) A 5 year retrospective study in two Canadian provinces found significantly greater use of medical and psychiatric services among women with a history of abortion. Most significant was the finding that 25% of women who had abortions made visits to psychiatrists as compared to 3% of the control group. (3) Women who have had abortions are significantly more likely than others to subsequently require admission to a psychiatric hospital. At especially high risk are teenagers, separated or divorced women, and women with a history of more than one abortion.

Since many post-abortive women use repression as a coping mechanism, there may be a long period of denial before a woman seeks psychiatric care. These repressed feelings may cause psychosomatic illnesses and psychiatric or behavioral in other areas of her life. As a result, some counselors report that unacknowledged post-abortion distress is the causative factor in many of their female patients, even though their patients have come to them seeking therapy for seemingly unrelated problems.
End of quote

In a Review of almost all studies ever made the Abortion Task Force of the American Psychological Association APA in 2013 came to the conclusion "that all research on this subject is severely flawed, it seems however to be the general finding that abortion is no higher threat to the health of women than the risk of pregnancy'.

http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/abortion/

No matter how correct that statement is, it completely invalidates the feminist argumentation that abortion is a benefit because pregnancy is a risk. That abortion does not seem to be more dangerous than pregnancy is no reason to make it a mattr of free choice. It is also no reason to be more strict however.

Another question: Everything has two sides, a good one and a bad one. Everything can be misused. Presently the US Navy reports problems that some mishaps have occurred in which one third of a ship's crew had to be exchanged for being 1. female, 2. pregnant and 3. inseminated during the trip. That is a serious problem for the function of a ship, crews being trained to work together. What would happen if after the ethical and legal barriers of free abortion have been removed, the feminist hoax of abortion being the cure of a deadly risk has become public knowledge, the chief of the US Navy from this day requesting all future female cadets becomig pregnant during the tour of duty to perform those procedures
directly on the ship or latest during 2 days anchored in harbor? It would be for the sake of national security. The next day MOTOROLA will issue similar clauses in work contracts for producing chips for the Navy, followed by the company producing the toilet paper for the Navy. Would feminists accept such a request to remove a superflous, parasitic and dangerous part of the soldier's or employee's body, comparable to male soldiers cutting their hair? All for the higher value of preserving combat readiness? If not, why not?

 

Forgot one link: http://afterabortion.org/2011/abort...chological-complications-related-to-abortion/

 

The legality of murder doesn't justify it.

If a woman has reasons not to be pregnant, then why become pregnant? If a woman demands that she can have recreational sex without consequence then she should have a tubal ligation.

Profit provides an indispensable service to the market economy, without it there would be no society.

It's the woman that gets pregnant, not the man. Is it sexist for men to impregnate 16 women and have 29 children? Ask Dennis Rodman's dad.

 

WOW!!!

I can tell you are not going to be any Ladies favorites on this forum.

AboveAlpha

 

Your emotional hyperbole not withstanding, murder is a legal term, it only applies to born people.

Obviously you are of the ilk that sex must equal pregnancy, thankfully most others have moved beyond that ancient thinking.

Another word for consequences is punishment.

Yep it also provides the base for poverty, especially when the few own the most .. gotta have that poor section.

Are men not capable of putting a rubber on it, seems not hence why some need to blame women.