Would this Change your Position on Abortion?

[Thanda]

If said invention worked, wouldn't forcing kids on the unprepared and unwilling be the worst idea? It's been seen that it's not a good idea almost ever.

If it is properly supported it can actually be the best idea ever. Of course if you just dropped kids off with someone who didn't want them things would not turn out that great but if you provided support of all kinds necessary then the situation would turn out to be a very positive one.

First fix the attitudes so the born are taken care of that we have now. If we can't even do that, why make things even harder? Now that we are ruining nature as is, how do we support more irresponsible folks having larger families? Because it's not free.

There will never be an incentive to fix the situation until the easy stop-gaps are taken out of the equation. So making sure people know without a doubt that they will have to bare the brunt of their irresponsible behavior will be a first step in making sure they are receptive to the education programs I propose.

I have no idea what you mean by reproductive spaces is why I asked.

I meant the topic of reproduction.

Indeed, but the kids would be the ones to pay for their parents mistakes. Especially when society, with this invention, would force them to take them. They would develop more negative attitudes towards them than they do now.

Kids always always pay for their parents mistake and they always benefit from their parents successes. That is the nature of life - it is nothing new.

Not necessarily: most people are quite decent. They may not feel they don't want a kid and may feel bad that they did but most such people will not be horrible to their own child as retribution for having to raise them. Many people I know had children at a when it was not convenient but now that the children are here they are doing their all they can to bring them up in the best way they know how.

 

[Thanda]

So what's the point of that machine at all? Seems like a waste of money?

Stop people killing babies.

 

[averageJOE]

Stop people killing babies.

Then no, wouldn't even come close to changing my position.

 

[Jumi]

If it is properly supported it can actually be the best idea ever. Of course if you just dropped kids off with someone who didn't want them things would not turn out that great but if you provided support of all kinds necessary then the situation would turn out to be a very positive one.

It sounds nice on paper, but it's not realistic. In my country all sorts of support is given, free maternity packages, free school, free school lunches, free dental and healthcare, benefits for parents. Probably all the support you need and still you get people who treat their kids like garbage.

There will never be an incentive to fix the situation until the easy stop-gaps are taken out of the equation. So making sure people know without a doubt that they will have to bare the brunt of their irresponsible behavior will be a first step in making sure they are receptive to the education programs I propose.

Problem is, it never worked before even when abortion was something done at great risk.

I meant the topic of reproduction.

You said "Furthermore not only is a lack of personal responsibility an issue that causes problem is reproductive spaces it causes problems in many other parts of society too" and I still have no idea what that means.

Kids always always pay for their parents mistake and they always benefit from their parents successes. That is the nature of life - it is nothing new.

What I mean is punishing the parents and making sure they pay for their mistake will have consequences. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Not necessarily: most people are quite decent. They may not feel they don't want a kid and may feel bad that they did but most such people will not be horrible to their own child as retribution for having to raise them. Many people I know had children at a when it was not convenient but now that the children are here they are doing their all they can to bring them up in the best way they know how.

Because I'm a decent person most people I know personally are decent and would try to make life worth living even for kids they were forced to take care of. I've had plenty of experience with kids whose parents didn't care much for them to suggest that not everyone thinks the same and what you suggest, would move the burden more to the people who wouldn't care enough. I think that this is even less of a great idea when I remember my talks with my relative who worked with child protection services...

There are people who shouldn't have children and they usually don't want them but mistakes happen because they aren't acting responsibly in the first place. The kids might turn out good, but their childhood is filled with stuff you probably can't imagine. Having society punish them and make them pay for consequences? The parents are used to getting punished, it's just another raw deal they get. They often don't have enough forethought to think about how to survive the month after spending all their money on getting drugs, gambling, alcohol or even giving their money to some cult preacher or scam.

The invention you have in mind combined with forcing the parents to take of the child would require a lot of people working to make it pan out even as decently as any western country has now.

 

[Nous]

Of course I don't have that money. Yet we (collective) have it.

The US doesn't. The country is running on a huge deficit.

Moreover, what is the supposedly rational reason to spend such an enormous amount merely to add to the population ~1 million unwanted, psychologically damaged persons who would have to be raised in some unloving institutional facility? Obviously it would cause the crime rate to increase in less than a couple of decades.

Source?

As Justice Breyer noted in his dissent in Glossip v. Gross last year, one of the primary reasons that so many states have either repealed or abandoned their death penalty statutes is due to the stunning cost. A 2008 report by a California Commission found that the death penalty costs the state $137 million per year whereas comparable life sentences without parole would cost $11.5 million per year. A 2000 investigative report in the Palm Beach Post calculated that each execution in Florida cost an additional $23 million above a sentence of life without parole.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/14-7955#writing-14-7955_DISSENT_6

(1) I haven't even vaguely espoused moral relativism. (2) How do you plan to "teach values that will help people make better choices and prevent" the births of nearly 2 million unwanted children in the US alone?

BTW, why do you consider abortion of a non-viable fetus worse than birth control?

1) It is just a commentary on how we pretend there are multiple equally valid truths . . .

I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. I certainly haven't pretended that any proposition here is an "equally valid truth" to any other proposition.

[2) The same way we teach sex education - through schools, supporting civic organisations that would teach that, developing programming on TV, Radio, the net and in other mediums that promotes these messages.

So in other words, you have no proposal to prevent the births of millions of unwanted children that will have to be raised without a family, in a unloving institutional facility.

[3) Because the life has already starting developing

Some contraceptives prevent the implatation of a fertilized egg.

 

[SkepticThinker]

The very first reason cited claims that more than 50% are from people who hadn't wanted to be pregnant in the first place. Therefore this indicates that the majority of abortions are not for medical reasons.

Here's another more straight forward source.

https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3711005.pdf

From the study:

RESULTS: The reasons most frequently cited were that having a child would interfere with a woman’s education, work or ability to care for dependents (74%); that she could not afford a baby now (73%); and that she did not want to be a single mother or was having relationship problems (48%). Nearly four in 10 women said they had completed their childbearing, and almost one-third were not ready to have a child. Fewer than 1% said their parents’ or partners’ desire for them to have an abortion was the most important reason. Younger women often reported that they were unprepared for the transition to motherhood, while older women regularly cited their responsibility to dependents.​

After having her second child, my grandmother found out that her uterus had two linings, which meant that when she had her period or went through childbirth, she would bleed very badly. When she gave birth to my uncle she needed a blood transfusion and she almost died. She couldn't have a hysterectomy due to some sort of complications. So she was a woman who "hadn't wanted to be pregnant in the first place" and/or "had completed her childbearing" after finding out that having another baby could kill her, and so she would probably also have "cited her responsibility to dependents" as another factor influencing her decision. Apparently in your view, not wanting to be pregnant in the first place, having completed one's childbearing years or citing responsibility to dependents are trivial reasons for wanting to obtain an abortion. But hopefully my grandmother's situation illustrates some of the complexity that you seem to be overlooking when it comes to the reasons people want to have abortions.

 

[Thanda]

After having her second child, my grandmother found out that her uterus had two linings, which meant that when she had her period or went through childbirth, she would bleed very badly. When she gave birth to my uncle she needed a blood transfusion and she almost died. She couldn't have a hysterectomy due to some sort of complications. So she was a woman who "hadn't wanted to be pregnant in the first place" and/or "had completed her childbearing" after finding out that having another baby could kill her, and so she would probably also have "cited her responsibility to dependents" as another factor influencing her decision. Apparently in your view, not wanting to be pregnant in the first place, having completed one's childbearing years or citing responsibility to dependents are trivial reasons for wanting to obtain an abortion. But hopefully my grandmother's situation illustrates some of the complexity that you seem to be overlooking when it comes to the reasons people want to have abortions.

This is obviously not true. If the reason someone is having an abortion is because they might die trying to give birth then obviously that counts as a medical reason - I'm sure you're well aware of that.

 

[FTNZ]

This is obviously not true. If the reason someone is having an abortion is because they might die trying to give birth then obviously that counts as a medical reason - I'm sure you're well aware of that.

Do you realise religious-owned hospitals in the US have been known to let women die from a miscarriage or other unintended complications of pregnancy just because of their anti-choice religious views? And other countries in the world also refuse to intervene if it might kill the fetus, or if the patient is a 10 year old, or if she was raped? To me, such views are immoral in the extreme, and show that religion doesn't necessarily provide a superior moral framework than humanism. In fact I would argue that Abrahamic religions provide a vastly inferior moral framework, but that's another thread.

 

[Mindmaster]

Do you realise religious-owned hospitals in the US have been known to let women die from a miscarriage or other unintended complications of pregnancy just because of their anti-choice religious views? And other countries in the world also refuse to intervene if it might kill the fetus, or if the patient is a 10 year old, or if she was raped? To me, such views are immoral in the extreme, and show that religion doesn't necessarily provide a superior moral framework than humanism. In fact I would argue that Abrahamic religions provide a vastly inferior moral framework, but that's another thread.

No where in any bible does it mandate that anyone must become an insensitive ******* devoid of common sense, and I fully agree with your points. Before we get on the religious high road let's remember all the baby stealing and mother killing promoted by these supposed authorities, and then take any such superiority they think they have to the curb with the rest of these ideas. A 10 year old girl is unfit to be a mother, and having the child would be detrimental to her health even if it can happen. Forcing a rape victim to have a child is effectively pro-longing the rape for another eighteen years. Anyone that advocates that nonsense needs to step out of the room.

Any morality not based on necessity is a false morality subject to being abused or ignored at any convenient time. That is a lot of what is going on here, pro-lifers stop women from getting abortions but also block contraception that would just prevent the pregnancy anyway. (There is no fertilization there is no life, so it is not KILLING the baby...) Basically, they cause their own problem -- the abortion wouldn't be needed if the birth control was easily available or handed out for free. It's easy for someone to speak from a high horse when they don't have to deal with the damage, but it's a unicorn in this case not a horse. I think it is far more immoral to subject women to emotional damage for absolutely no reason at all.

 

[Wirey]

I've been thinking: if I understand correctly the main argument behind abortion is the bodily autonomy of a woman. Basically the thought process is that a woman shouldn't be forced to house another human being in her body.

In line with this thinking is the belief that if a child relies on a woman's body to live then they are not actually fully human yet and she should be allowed to cease supporting the child's existence by having an abortion.
Now as technology develops it may become possible for fetuses to be transferred from the earliest stages (a few weeks) to some machine that can help the fetuses develop into a fully viable baby.

Should such a system become available would you, if you currently support abortions, cease to support them as the baby is now no longer solely dependent on the mother's body for survival but the baby now has an option to develop independently from the mother through science?

If anything can change your position on abortion, you probably don't have one. I don't. I just believe that everyone should do what is right for them within the confines of a just, unbiased legal environment.

 

[FTNZ]

If anything can change your position on abortion, you probably don't have one. I don't. I just believe that everyone should do what is right for them within the confines of a just, unbiased legal environment.

I agree that this view on abortion is logical and moral in terms of humanism, but, in the US anti-choicers have made abortion all but inaccessible in many places, which is why I prefer to take a more pro-choice view than you. I think that to fully uphold the right to bodily autonomy for all genders, the free market has failed, which justifies government interventon to ensure reasonable access to services. If I lived in one of these places and was physically able to, I would volunteer as a clinic escort, and probably provide a place for people to stay before and after their procedure, which they may have had to travel some distance to obtain.

 

[Thanda]

Do you realise religious-owned hospitals in the US have been known to let women die from a miscarriage or other unintended complications of pregnancy just because of their anti-choice religious views? And other countries in the world also refuse to intervene if it might kill the fetus, or if the patient is a 10 year old, or if she was raped? To me, such views are immoral in the extreme, and show that religion doesn't necessarily provide a superior moral framework than humanism. In fact I would argue that Abrahamic religions provide a vastly inferior moral framework, but that's another thread.

That is indeed another thread. And I think those who espouse the "no abortion under any circumstance" views can easily be found to be a small minority (don't confuse them being loud with them being many).

From the very beginning of this thread I have focused on one type of abortion and one type only - lifestyle abortions. Essentially I am against the use of abortion as a method of birth control.

 

[Thanda]

If anything can change your position on abortion, you probably don't have one. I don't. I just believe that everyone should do what is right for them within the confines of a just, unbiased legal environment.

And that is why there is an abortion debate in the first place - it is a question of whether it is just for a woman to kill her and her partner's child just because the child resides in her body.

 

[FTNZ]

That is indeed another thread. And I think those who espouse the "no abortion under any circumstance" views can easily be found to be a small minority (don't confuse them being loud with them being many).

From the very beginning of this thread I have focused on one type of abortion and one type only - lifestyle abortions. Essentially I am against the use of abortion as a method of birth control.

If you'd used the term lifestyle abortion in your OP, I and probably many others would have ignored your thread on the grounds of (what's a word I can use without breaking a rule?) ... ill considered word use?

I think almost everyone is against the use of abortion as a method of birth control instead of regular contraception. The thing is, the data shows almost no one uses it that way. And for the few who do, so what? Do you really have nothing better to do than chase down a handful of people who would rather have (expensive) minor surgery than use birth control? There are far more people suffering, that your time would be better spent helping, IMHO. I can't imagine a woman would prefer abortion to BC after having an abortion, and if she did, she may have a mental illness of some kind, in which case, abortion starts looking like an even better option. No, these debates are really about controlling women, and their sexual lives in particular.

 

[FTNZ]

And that is why there is an abortion debate in the first place - it is a question of whether it is just for a woman to kill her and her partner's child just because the child resides in her body.

No, for others, it's a question of whether it is just for strangers and governments to control what a woman does with her own body. I think you probably don't understand that protecting women's bodily autonomy actually protects everyone's bodily autonomy. One day you might be one of the small group of men who need that protection for some serious medical reason. Women and enlightened men are usually more keenly aware of this risk than you appear to be.

 

[Thanda]

If you'd used the term lifestyle abortion in your OP, I and probably many others would have ignored your thread on the grounds of (what's a word I can use without breaking a rule?) ... ill considered word use?

I think almost everyone is against the use of abortion as a method of birth control instead of regular contraception. The thing is, the data shows almost no one uses it that way. And for the few who do, so what? Do you really have nothing better to do than chase down a handful of people who would rather have (expensive) minor surgery than use birth control? There are far more people suffering, that your time would be better spent helping, IMHO. I can't imagine a woman would prefer abortion to BC after having an abortion, and if she did, she may have a mental illness of some kind, in which case, abortion starts looking like an even better option. No, these debates are really about controlling women, and their sexual lives in particular.

This is patently not true. I have already posted statistics that show the more than 50% of abortions are for birth control

 

[Thanda]

No, for others, it's a question of whether it is just for strangers and governments to control what a woman does with her own body. I think you probably don't understand that protecting women's bodily autonomy actually protects everyone's bodily autonomy. One day you might be one of the small group of men who need that protection for some serious medical reason. Women and enlightened men are usually more keenly aware of this risk than you appear to be.

That women should have bodily autonomy is not the only consideration. No right is absolute - other factors must also be considered. E.g. no one questions that a person who starts a company has a right to do with the company and it's property as he chooses. However there is a limit to how far that right can be taken. There are laws that regulate, for example, when a company can fire their employees. There are also laws that regulate whether a company can refuse to serve a client (the gay wedding cake sagas are an example). All that this shows is that while in a free society there are rights, no right is unfettered.

 

[Thanda]

Consider this:

I, a man who has bodily autonomy, goes up to a hospital in the neighbourhood and I ask for a surgeon. When the surgeon arrives I explain to him that I would like him to chop off my left arm. He asks whether that arm is no longer functional - I explain it is working just fine. He asks whether I'm worried about a disease spreading from that arm - I tell him there is absolutely nothing wrong with my arm and that I do not foresee there being anything wrong with it in the near future. So he asks me once more why I want my arm chopped off. I give the Doctor a lecture about my bodily autonomy and then explain that I don't need to have a reason - I have money and I want my arm chopped off.

If you were the surgeon what would you do? Would you feel there was a moral dilemma in this situation? How would you reconcile going through with this procedure considering your oath to "do no harm"?

Now if there would be a moral dilemma about chopping someone's perfectly good arm off, how much more of a moral quagmire is killing something inside someone that isn't just a part of their body? Something with a heartbeat of it's own? Something that can feel a pain not felt by the mother?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

That is indeed another thread. And I think those who espouse the "no abortion under any circumstance" views can easily be found to be a small minority (don't confuse them being loud with them being many).

Small or not, they run a LOT of hospitals.

 

[RRex]

As my mother was psychologically destroyed at 18 when she was forced to have a child out of wedlock in 1956, I will always support abortion no matter the circumstances.

Why?

Mother became very physically and mentally abusive to her new husband and children because she was so angry about being forced to have a child when she'd just started college with the goal in mind of becoming a surgical nurse.

Her biggest dream was harpooned by ten minutes of pleasure.

No one should lose their dream to such a thing. The consequences are devastating.

Her inability to get a legal abortion resulted in her destroying her second family as well as her first.

Nobody won.