ATHEIST ONLY: Atheist View On Abortion

[Magic Man]

All Im saying is yes a woman has to do something out of the "ordinary" to incubate a fertilized egg for 40 weeks and deliver a full term baby.Its HER body that is being put under enormous stress.With risk factors including dangerous high blood pressure..gestanional diabetes. anemia..not to mention the birth which carries a risk as high as death..Oh and not to mention the potential for permanent disfiguration and scarring and nerve damage.

Most women do not come out "unscathed" by pregnancy and childbirth.Its anything but "ordinary" for HER.

And thats just(part) of the physical side of it(potentionally)..We arent even mentioning the emotional and psycological aspects.

So saying that you have to "specifically perform an action" to make a "sperm turn into a human" and after that you dont have to do anything out of the "ordinary" tells me that you are a man.A man that YES you are right does "nothing out of the ordinary".

Love

Dallas

You're still missing the point. All the woman has to do is let nature do its thing. Of course it messes with her. I'm not even arguing about the effects it has on her body, and I'm not sure why you are. I'm simply saying that the argument "If you consider an embryo to be human because of its potential to turn into one, then shouldn't you consider a sperm the same way" doesn't work because the two cases are different. That's all. I'm not really sure why you're taking offense.

 

[Copernicus]

All I'm saying is that the argument from "potential" stops at conception.

I think that you are wrong in every way. Potential is always there, but it keeps changing. Sometimes you need to do something to stop a pregnancy from occurring. After it has occurred, sometimes the woman feels a need to stop a birth from occurring. Giving birth is not a decision to be taken lightly, especially in an age when overpopulation poses serious risks for the future of our species. We cannot make enough room for every potential person, but we can reduce the ultimate number of potential persons by trying too hard to do so.

 

[Magic Man]

I think that you are wrong in every way. Potential is always there, but it keeps changing. Sometimes you need to do something to stop a pregnancy from occurring. After it has occurred, sometimes the woman feels a need to stop a birth from occurring. Giving birth is not a decision to be taken lightly, especially in an age when overpopulation poses serious risks for the future of our species. We cannot make enough room for every potential person, but we can reduce the ultimate number of potential persons by trying too hard to do so.

Well, that really has nothing to do with what I was saying. I am not arguing about the morality of abortion here. I'm simply saying that there's a difference between an embryo and a sperm, and that difference means it's not inconsistent to think killing an embryo is wrong while killing a sperm is not. That was one particular part of you argument and I was just pointing out that it was a faulty part. That's all.

 

[DallasApple]

You're still missing the point. All the woman has to do is let nature do its thing. Of course it messes with her. I'm not even arguing about the effects it has on her body, and I'm not sure why you are. I'm simply saying that the argument "If you consider an embryo to be human because of its potential to turn into one, then shouldn't you consider a sperm the same way" doesn't work because the two cases are different. That's all. I'm not really sure why you're taking offense.

Im offended because someone else thinks they can tell me to let "nature take its course" at my RISK ..That I have to let nature "mess with me".

Cancer has potential too.And it comes from "nature".

Im saying its each individual womans HUMAN right to decide if she wants to let "nature mess with her" or not over a "potential" human.

And just for grins..Oral birth control doesnt always prevent fertilization.And of those a certain amount dont survive because of the birth control.

So anyone taking birth control could be aborting their "potential" humans.But they are off the hook because they didnt "choose"?

Love

Dallas

 

[Magic Man]

Im offended because someone else thinks they can tell me to let "nature take its course" at my RISK ..That I have to let nature "mess with me".

Love

Dallas

But I'm not telling you that. I am pro-choice. I'm just pointing out the problem with one argument.

 

[DallasApple]

But I'm not telling you that. I am pro-choice. I'm just pointing out the problem with one argument.

O>k..

Love

Dallas

 

[leahrachelle]

Okay, but why? You're essentially asking that your opinion be given the weight of law, so I think it should be based on something more than just a feeling if we're going to declare that it should supercede everyone else's opinions.

Thats fair, but why should anyone elses than either?

Only if it is a person, and so far, the only basis you've given for that claim is an unsupported feeling.

Let me try this another way: you have one opinion; other people have conflicting opinions. Why should we put so much weight on your opinion that we declare it wrong for those other people to act on their opinions?

Same answer.

No, I think it does apply.

First off, exactly what laws are you talking about with regard to alcohol? There are offenses that relate to alcohol like underage drinking, DUI, and public intoxication, but I can't think of any law that stops someone sitting at home from drinking until they're physicially capable of drinking any more, and then repeating this every night for as long as they want. There's no provision I'm aware of in the law that stops a person normally considered legally capable of making their own decisions from causing as much self-inflicted harm with alcohol as he or she wants.

Second, you can't look at the effect of the law without looking at the reasoning behind it. Yes, there are laws that address what a person can and can't do to themselves, but that doesn't mean that any law that addresses this is right or just. In a free society, any limitation on freedom must be justified; what's the justification for the specific limitation on freedom you're proposing? Simply saying "its effect is no worse than this other thing" doesn't work.

You are referring to laws that only affect that specific person - I am referring to ones that affect others. You cannot have the freedom to do whatever you want if whatever you want affects hurting other people. This is why you can drink as much as you want, BUT you cannot drive when you are drinking because you are putting other people in danger.

 

[leahrachelle]

If they're in a building that's going to burn to the ground, then it would.

It is not a positive thing, though, is what I am saying.
There are tons of things that could happen. Someone else could come to their rescue, the fire could die out, etc.

 

[leahrachelle]

We also do "not necessarily" have a means of fighting it off.

Well we'll see when that day comes then, but up until this point we've been able to.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Thats fair, but why should anyone elses than either?

I totally agree. In that case, we allow each person to follow the dictates of their own conscience: those who want abortions can get them and those who don't want them don't have to have them. Nobody's opinion supercedes anyone else's.

You are referring to laws that only affect that specific person - I am referring to ones that affect others. You cannot have the freedom to do whatever you want if whatever you want affects hurting other people. This is why you can drink as much as you want, BUT you cannot drive when you are drinking because you are putting other people in danger.

Right, but you're putting the cart before the horse. So far, the only reason we have to classify a fetus as a person is your feeling, which you've acknowledged isn't a reasonable basis for the law by itself. Without that, there's no reason to draw a parallel between things like drunk driving laws and abortion.

 

[leahrachelle]

The point is that once the embryo is there, you have to take action to stop it from becoming a human (most of the time). You have to consciously not give it the nutrients it needs or even more drastically drink something to harm it or do some other procedure.

Exactly. The mother has to physically try to hurt it. And if she is not giving it the proper nutrition, she's probably not giving herself the proper nutrition either.

 

[leahrachelle]

I was responding to the idea of "potential", as you brought up

That was my idea

 

[leahrachelle]

The point I am trying to make is that with your lack of life experience, you could well be the flat-earther in this regard.

Huh??

 

[leahrachelle]

A sperm has the potential to become human if people dont leave them in condoms or "other places" where they are being denied the chance to become human.Why deliberately deny the sperm a chance and opportunity to become a human life?

Love

Dallas

You are against contraception but for abortion? That makes no sense to me.
Is abortion a better form of contraception or something? That is rediculous...

 

[leahrachelle]

Depends on what you choose to call "the world." If it's "everything" then yeah, it's flat. It's spread out there on that screen on which the world is projected to me.

I mean that the earth is flat - what they thought before the 1400s and what not; the reason why a lot of explorers traveled the world, to reach the edge of the world and see if its true.

 

[leahrachelle]

I'm pro-choice. Who am I to poke my nose into other people's situations, deprive others of their right to abortion based on my beliefs or my sense of morality? Who am I to think that what I think is morally right is better than someone else's morals? Who am I to pass judgement on a situation that I am not involved in, know nothing about, and feel none of the emotions that are overwhelming the ones who really are involved. What kind of ******* would I be to stare dispassionately at other people and dictate to them to keep the baby in all situations, regardless if the baby has deformity, disease, if it was a product of rape, endangers the mother, etc.
/pro-choice

But wait! Abortion ends something that has the potential to grow up to be a person! And if you don't do everything you can to make it live its murder! So when someone in the bar makes eye contact with you, you have to screw them as fast and as many times as possible - because that has the potential to lead to a life. If you don't have unprotected sex with everything you see then you're a murderer.
/pro-life

I'll stick with pro-choice thx.

1.) Not agreeing what other people's morals is what makes you a free thinker
2.) You're going to say that you wont judge them but your going to call them a murder -_-

 

[DallasApple]

You are against contraception but for abortion? That makes no sense to me.
Is abortion a better form of contraception or something? That is rediculous...

No...Im pro contrraception.(all forms)

Love

Dallas

 

[leahrachelle]

All Im saying is yes a woman has to do something out of the "ordinary" to incubate a fertilized egg for 40 weeks and deliver a full term baby.Its HER body that is being put under enormous stress.With risk factors including dangerous high blood pressure..gestanional diabetes. anemia..not to mention the birth which carries a risk as high as death..Oh and not to mention the potential for permanent disfiguration and scarring and nerve damage.

Most women do not come out "unscathed" by pregnancy and childbirth.Its anything but "ordinary" for HER.

And thats just(part) of the physical side of it(potentionally)..We arent even mentioning the emotional and psycological aspects.

Awww that poor, poor woman. Stress, diabetes, anemia?!? Oh gosh I'd rather kill my baby than have to go through that!!
Sorry, but that really ****** me off.
I have a blood disease where I bleed insanely more than most people because my blood is very, very thin. I have my period almost every single day of the year. I talked to my gynecologist and she said that it would be risky if I want to have a baby because I'm going to lose a lot a lot of blood when the baby is born.
To me this is absolutely nothing. No amount of suffering I could bare is worth taking my childs life, and I think it is completely, completely selfish to think otherwise.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I mean that the earth is flat - what they thought before the 1400s and what not; the reason why a lot of explorers traveled the world, to reach the edge of the world and see if its true.

Arrgh. I sure hope you didn't learn this stuff in school.

Short version:
- people knew all along that the Earth was round, back for thousands of years.
- all through Western civilization, the educated people in the upper class at the very least always knew that the Earth was round. The Greeks even had decent estimates of its size as far back as the 1st century, which were well known in Europe and the Middle East.
- Columbus' voyage wasn't about proving the Earth was round, it was about finding a better sea route to China.
- Columbus got laughed out of every royal court but one (and even Isabella didn't think he was right; she was just desperate enough to try a gamble) not because they thought the Earth was flat, but because they recognized that his plans were based on an Earth that was half the size it actually is.
- If it weren't for North America, which nobody in Europe knew about at the time (except perhaps for the Vikings, but they were keeping it a secret), Columbus and his men would have certainly died mid-voyage when they ran out of food and fresh water.

That garbage about Columbus trying to prove that the Earth wasn't flat was apparently made up by Washington Irving around 1800.

Edit: sorry for going off-topic a bit. This is just a bit of a pet peeve for me.

 

[leahrachelle]

Im offended because someone else thinks they can tell me to let "nature take its course" at my RISK ..That I have to let nature "mess with me".

Cancer has potential too.And it comes from "nature".

Im saying its each individual womans HUMAN right to decide if she wants to let "nature mess with her" or not over a "potential" human.

And just for grins..Oral birth control doesnt always prevent fertilization.And of those a certain amount dont survive because of the birth control.

So anyone taking birth control could be aborting their "potential" humans.But they are off the hook because they didnt "choose"?

Love

Dallas

Just want to point out that in most cases, when a woman takes birth control after they are pregnant and ends up hurting their baby, it was simply because they did not know they were pregnant. They did not mean to hurt/kill it.