Is Abortion Murder?

Nor have I. It's not "great" - it is sometimes merely the least-bad option of several bad options.

I have, however found a great deal of stories where women describe how glad they were that abortion was an option available to them. Here are a few notes from women who have had abortions:

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I am here for my checkup. I had the medical procedure done two weeks ago. I thought it was going to be worse than it really was. I’m glad I had – and still have—a choice. I have a six-month old son, and having two babies right now wouldn't be fair to any of us.
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I am 28 and have had two abortions and right now I’m pregnant and very happy. I am here with my friend who just five months ago had a baby and has decided that right now isn’t a good time to have another one. She is scared, just like I was, but we all get through it. You know what’s right for you and only you.
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I’m 20 years old and feel this is the best choice I’ve made for my future. It’s scary and extremely hard because before I was always against abortion, but I know in my heart that it would be more selfish to bring a child into this world when I myself am still such a baby.
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You need to be mentally, financially, and spiritually ready to have children. They deserve 100% of you, 100% of your heart, your time, your soul. If you’re not ready, you’ve already made the best decision.I had an abortion two years ago and I don’t regret it. I love my son more than life itself – he’s almost three. If I hadn't had the abortion it would have been harder than ever for me. Respect yourself and love yourself. Don’t be mislead by the ignorance of others. . . decide what you think is right for you.
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I feel confident in myself and comfortable doing this procedure. I have support from my family and friends, and even my boyfriend and the clinic. I feel this clinic is doing good for the community and myself.
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I won’t lie and say I’m not nervous. I am. I also know this is for the best. I am already a mom of three wonderful children. My youngest is 13 years. I know everything will be fine.

 

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I would think the same. If you've watched those that came to regret their choice... I've never seen one that regretted having their child.

 

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Nobody has advanced that proposition here. Nobody has advanced that proposition anywhere. So that's not what's on your mind, in reality.

 

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I was surprised to come across it myself, but unfortunately this Nobody did advance such a proposition.

 

LOL, yeah, you just cannot make this stuff up. I'm always amazed at the conspiracies people make up. A Democratic money laundering scheme...well I didn't see that one coming. But I guess I should have expected from Wellwisher.

 

your comment inferred that anyone who deals with death be it to help save a life and doesn't succeed or as a soldier/cop trying to protect someone else is a murderer. this is inferred due to your "opinion" that i responded to. it is all good to have an opinion, but it could have been stated more clinically which would allow for a less accusatory inference.

i beg to differ. each example sometimes has to make a direct choice to save a life over another, or to allow someone to die for whatever reason. sometimes this is an easy choice (a dead person could possibly save a lot of people, but a dead firefighter, say, is guaranteed to have a far greater potential to save a lot of people). this is exactly the same thing as abortion. directly making a choice of one life for another.

this is the meat of my point, though!
where do you draw the line between a viable life and parasite, etc?
do you cherish life, or is it just human life? why the delineation?
this can be taken so many different ways, from:
-why should a baby's life be more important than the mother?
to
-why should the life of your gut biome be less important than a zygote, oostocyte or other cellular mass, simply because it is in the uterus of a human?

what about chimp zygotes? the difference between us and a chimp is very, very small... are you pro-life for all chimps?
we can extrapolate this further... because it really is my point!
the point is your choice to assign viability to a cellular grouping simply because of fertilization (just because it is in a human uterus) is ridiculous when taken in the light of modern scientific evidence. if you were pro-life, why stop at human fertilization? why not give the same regard to Taraxacum officinale, or perhaps T. erythrospermum.. why not also Pan troglodytes ...
but most importantly... does your regard extend to Homo floresiensis and Homo denisova?? What about the rest of the Homininae or even Hominidae? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homininae
given that we are descendant from Homininae, does your "reverence for life" extend to our other relations?
this is the absolute point of my argument re: your pro-cellular fertilization argument!
which brings me back to your comment:

no, there is no difference

at that stage of development, the difference is only what you think you assign to the importance of being human. can you honestly see pictures of the various above mentioned species, families or taxonomic references and tell the difference between them all? Can you tell the difference between a gorilla, chimp, bonobo, human and other mammalian fertilised eggs?
that is part of my point. you assume some great import to being human that is not justified at the same stage of life as any other animal even though any other mamal would be equal in stature given the time period, gestation or development. there is the exact same potential for all life: existence, reproduction and the food chain. you are assigning import to something (human) that can only be designated after said life is complete. all life has the exact same potential. just like all life is intricately woven into not only an ecological niche, but is also interwoven in many degree's that we still don't comprehend today.

do you get it yet?

you can also ask that same question about every other living thing that works in concert with the environment to form our little ball of dirt floating in the Goldilocks zone, can't you.
one example comes to mind: wolves in Yellowstone
how about insects. most people kill insects with wild abandon... but they are absolutely necessary to many things, from pollination to decomposition. where would humans be without either of those?

like i said above: there is the exact same potential for all life: existence, reproduction and the food chain. you are assigning import to something (human) that can only be designated after said life is complete. so, by definition - all life has the exact same potential.

 

i now have chewed pistachio's in my nose... that hurts! worth it, totally!
THANKS

now, about Bowsers reply to this:

assignment of the quality of a life can only... and i mean ONLY, be done when said life has ended.
you claim potential, but you forget about the simplicity of life itself. you are assigning your morality and beliefs to a situation that cannot be assigned until after there is evidence ... you can't hang your "moral label" on something when the actual chances (statistically speaking) that any blastocyst (snicker- sorry... still laughing) will become viable and turn into the "potential" that you specifically state is very small, very, very small indeed!
one major point about that is simply: your personal morality is of no concern, nor will it likely be judged with said cultural assignations at some later date. a very real demonstration of this is any historical figure.
lets take someone like: Ludwig II or Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm (25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886)
to many, including in my own history classes, he was known as "Crazy Ludwig"... but to the Germans that i spoke to around Bavaria and some other places, he was mostly revered for emptying his own pockets to keep his people working. even in his own culture, there are people who hated him and assign negative morality etc to his actions, as seen on this single page alone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_II_of_Bavaria

so, -IMHO- to assign a potential to a cellular mass while ignoring the simple statistical knowledge that said cellular mass is far more likely to be a drain than an Einstein in society is a mite silly

 

and i would say to provide the empirical evidence...
but that also goes back to my point about all life having the exact same potential, doesn't it?
so if you must use the "womb survival" instinct argument, then you should also respect all life, from weeds and insects to gut biome, because at that level, it is all exactly the same

but only for humans... you intimated that yourself to me.
WHY? potential?
see what i just wrote... at the level of conception and fertilization all life has the exact same potential.

really?
sigh...

you need to get out more. perhaps you should get an EMT certificate and ride an ambulance for a while... you will see that your "belief" is limited by your exposure. i've met plenty of women who have the sensitivity of a rock.
but that is just IMHO... i can understand that you can't judge any person without evidence. mass application of a paradigm because of a personal belief based upon cultural limitations is simply ridiculous.

James R
i am thinking that this will be overlooked in light of his need to share his specific morality on the thread (this is common for the "morally superior" mindset ... something i also pointed out earlier)...
this is also a point i made (albeit far less direct) WRT potential...

the absolute best, concise, clear point i've read yet regarding the "potential" of life



Great points though!

 

Wait... on the same logical leap, we can also find people who defend Noah's ark on video on you-tube, but given the physics involved, from the sheer size of the craft (physically impossible to maintain integrity) to water and food for the SEVEN PAIRS of clean animals (only the unclean animals went in by two's- see GEN 7:2), there is also the whole fecal matter problem... tons of fecal matter to be disposed of daily, but wait! then we get to distribution and isolated islands like Australia ... or the whole fish problem... evidence of a flood problem... etc etc etc etc etc

do you see the point yet?
you can find a lot of video's on the web. especially those being promoted by religious dogma. that doesn't make them any more true than anyone randomly stating "faerie farts cause global warming"

then again... you need to get out more. perhaps hang out in some of the lower income areas.
like i said above: get an EMT, preferably an EMT-A or Paramedic and then ride an ambulance or Fire Truck. you will learn that there is true horror in people, just like there is true heroism.

what your comments say to me, based upon your posts in this thread alone, are that you lead a very sheltered life with limited exposure to reality, especially other cultures, religions, beliefs or lifestyles.
I've met plenty of women who hated their kids, and a few who tried (some succeeded) in killing their kids. plus there are the national attention grabbers who kill their kids for their boyfriends... can you call them outliers? maybe. some who are sheltered would. but those who experience this regularly? the Ambulance jockies? ER nurses/doc's? Firefighters? Cops? ... you would be surprised how regular some of those type horrors are.

 

Part the First

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It would seem that in many cases, our American conservative neighbors tend to behave as if it's not so much that reading comprehension is hard, but the expectation thereof violates their rights.

The question of Capracus' inability to be honest presents an interesting choice. Does one complain? He cannot support his statement. Then again, what is the point of complaining? We cannot force Capracus to actually be decent or honest, so what then?

The way I see it, the more Capracus wants to lie and humiliate himself on behalf of the anti-abortion cause, the better.

Because when he's not lying―

"I wasn’t arguing for repealing anyone’s statutory rights, only extending them one way or another gestationally."​

―he's writing insane excrement that only shows how intellectually bankrupt anti-abortion argumentation actually is. I mean, really, what does that string of words about gestational extension even mean? It's clearly an evasion, includes a weird sleight of irrelevance about statutory rights, and finishes with that strange politispeak about gestational extension. Not only is it a cheap political line, it's hilariously awful. To the one, I'm thinking there are plenty of spokespeople for Tea Party members of Congress who would envy that line, but there were also some Republican campaigners who thought it was a good idea for Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin to follow Ron Paul down a rape hole.

Still, though, we should not overlook the whole point of Capracus' latest spectacular iteration of dishonesty:

Tiassa: The problem is that the human rights of a woman are alien to their outlooks. The idea that a woman has human rights is unnatural to the paradigm underpinning the anti-abortion argument. Entirely foreign. A liberal conspiracy of modern vintage that is the ruination of society.

Capracus: It’s not that human rights are necessarily alien to their outlook, it’s that maternity sets up a potential for conflicting rights of the two entities involved in the process.​

That's the isolated portions of the exchange leading up to this.

If you go back and look at the posts (click the names), it really is an interesting functional sequence; Bowser↑ made a traditional appeal to the idea that, I know someone who didn't have an abortion, and her kid is real cool .... And after all these decades, what are we actually supposed to do with that appeal? This is a longer detail of what I wrote to Bowser:

If you want the appeal to be anything more than yet another selfish excuse to assert your own will over a woman, then you need to recognize that not all ends are happy; life is an agonizing death sentence; and this process, this pregnancy, is taking place inside the body of a human being.

We went through this not so long ago; when the equally protected rights of the zygotal-assigned "person" were stacked up against the equally protected rights of the mother, anti-abortion advocates could not figure out how to cope with it. And while I appreciate your answer, Bowser, in the early going of that discussion, I would beg you recall what happened afterward. Nobody really could answer the conundrum.

And it's not just the fact that nobody could answer the conundrum; there is also the question why. That answer, in turn, isn't simply unsettling; it's dangerous.

The problem is that the human rights of a woman are alien to their outlooks. The idea that a woman has human rights is unnatural to the paradigm underpinning the anti-abortion argument. Entirely foreign. A liberal conspiracy of modern vintage that is the ruination of society.

(#130↑)​

Now, I know you recall the LACP↑ threads↑, though in truth I'm stuck reading through another exchange in the first iteration, a marital tag team of provocateurs; I forgot how long that part went on. But somewhere in there, someone tried the same bit Capracus did, about how the proposition identifying the human rights of both a woman and the statutorily-assigned "person" inside her and considering the equal-protection conflict this creates somehow overlooks the rights of the "child". Capracus' version from this thread: "It's not that human rights are necessarily alien to their outlook, it’s that maternity sets up a potential for conflicting rights of the two entities involved in the process."

It seems to me he's come all the way back 'round to the issue at the heart of the LACP "compromise" proposition I offered. But notice, the argument only acknowledges the rights of both people while explaining why a woman's should be taken away.

What is actually happening in the states right now is that personhood bills are generally being passed by one house (usually the lower) and then stalling in committee when it reaches the other (usually the state Senate). At some point, much like the RFRA bill in Texas that would protect as religious conscience the right of state agents to force abused minor females to carry pregnancies to term, one begins to wonder if maybe the state senators aren't aware at least of the magnitude of what they're considering. What is less clear is whether their hesitation is a fear of backlash or an instinctive notion of approximately how much damage they are about to do for failing. Because the greater risk is losing in the Supreme Court, and then the personhood bill fundraising appeal goes away. And even if they manage to get the four conservative justices to convince Kennedy to go along, conservatives risk being punished by a majority of society for a generation. Politically speaking, actually winning the personhood fight is a dangerous prospect for conservatives. Meanwhile, personhood bills are a good fundraiser, and over the long run they are softening the ground, planting seeds, and hoping to cultivate a shift in societal thinking such that Americans are willing to―finally―explicitly assert that women are not suitable for human rights.

This is a long fight, and what Capracus has tried is an expected maneuver; when the FAPpers move their fight to the national discourse―and Mr. Huckabee, at least, is trying―the first wave of conflict will look something similar to what we saw here, with conservatives trying to push away the obvious. When that doesn't work, the next thing to do in basic politics is to seize the initiative and the issue; Capracus has tried to do that. He has fallen back to the question anti-abortion advocates in our community recently spent sixteen months fending off, and hopes to reframe it as a political asset for his camp's argument. But the problem for anti-abortion is simple enough; they wouldn't know exactly what they have or how to use it, and this actually hews toward certain mythopoeia we see discussed in art and legend. An easily accessible iteration is a shonen called Inu Yasha, a fairly simplistic story some Americans might know through Cartoon Network. In the story, the "evil", self-centered brother wants a certain weapon, and does in fact get his hands on it. But he doesn't know how to use it, and part of the reason for this is that he cannot know how to use it; the real power of the weapon is accessed in a manner that he not only doesn't know how to execute, but fundamentally cannot. But even the "good", slightly less self-centered brother takes a long time to learn how to wield the thing, because he must cultivate the behaviors and attributes that allow him to use the thing.

Then again, myth only goes so far, and this is neither television show nor magical sword; we are not half-demons arguing over our dead father's tooth, except perhaps in some broad allegorical sense I'm not going to bother figuring.

―End Part I―​

 

Part the Second

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Capracus, like our other anti-abortion neighbors, cannot answer the FAP conflict, so he tries to seize it, once again reminding that the only reason the movement will acknowledge the proposition of a woman's human rights is to remind us why she shouldn't have them.

This, of course, is weak tea, so it needs to be stregthened not with sugar but, rather, a stiff dose of bitter: "If a 5 year old child unintentionally threatened me with a gun," Capracus explains, "I might be forced to kill it to protect myself."

The assignation of existential condition―that of a five year-old unto a zygote, by general anti-abortion rhetoric, or subjectively determined "suitably developed fetus"↑, in Capracus' explanation, as if what constitutes suitable development is somehow an objective, fixable standard―is pretty obvious, but what stands out to me is the lack of various useful talents and attributes if one gets down to the last resort of killing the five year-old with a gun.

Like the cops in the San Bernardino tale. We can say what we want about liberal media conspiracies and copy editing, but it doesn't seem the lieutenant speaking to the television station actually thought it possible that his officers would actually shoot a three year-old. It doesn't seem to have even occurred to him, at least not in that statement. And, well, you know how I feel about cops; if they can figure it out? Then again, I'm not actually surprised they can; even at my most cynical, I would still necessarily concede they're smart enough to figure this part out. Nor do I think they would shoot a five year-old. A six year-old? Depends on the department, and from there the individual officers, but overwhelmingly, no, though in some cases, why not. But that invokes a larger asserted problem with police, which I don't think is in effect for our uncreative neighbor.

But he's just trying to seize the issue, and the pretense that it's somehow new or unconsidered, especially in the face of observable evidence in the historical record, is part and parcel; it's a really standard maneuver that only works if people let it. You know, kind of like how we changed our standards for how a president should look in 2007, when Hillary Clinton was still the frontrunner, yet Republicans tried to sieze the glass ceiling initiative by arguing it sexist to hold Sarah Palin to the same standard as other vice presidential candidates? And Rich Lowry wrote that awesomely sexist bit about how she won on sparkle by titillating men? I mean, come on, how clumsy was that? Or the one congressional candidate in the 2012 cycle―it seemed almost a passing note at the time, a distinct but seemingly insignificant signal amid a wash of misogynistic signal and noise―who tried to argue that allowing a rape survivor to abort was visiting further violence on her? This shit is so fucking clumsy, and for some reason we're expected to spot such arguments some degree of merit in order to assert a meritocratic discourse. And if we apply the full context of such arguments, standard oral, intrauterine, and emergency contraception are all acts of violence against women.

It is a Machiavellian-capitalistic formula; the ends justify the means. That is to say, it doesn't matter to them how much damage they do to the discourse, as long as they win. And this turns out to be part of the Republican magic; it lets large numbers of fringe ideologies feel included and important.

One of the early warnings about the internet was, "Remember, any nut with a web page now has a pulpit". Where most of us took this as an actual warning, others saw an opportunity for calculation; it is easy enough to point to World Net Daily as a primary example: It is far more than the actual nuts with web pages and newsletter mailing lists. Rather, it is the conduit by which such potsherds are introduced to the second or third tier of our political discourse, proximal enough to have tremendous influence―e.g., Birtherism.

Still, though, by embracing this absurdity, the Republicans have engaged a complex, risky tactic that will pay large dividends in the short and middle terms, and eventually crash in the longer. It is not sustainable unless we should presume, say, the RNC, to be consciously and wilfully aiming for dystopia, in which case, the crash would be part of ... the ... I mean, "part of the plan"? I really disdain conservatives, but they ain't the Devil, and they clearly haven't the discipline. This is just straightforward, Machiavellian-capitalist profiteering without any useful consideration of the future.

But the thing is that Capracus' incredibly clumsy execution is, really, no worse than we're seeing on the electoral level, and, yes, that is part of the magic about raising these conservative absurdities to some asserted degree of legitimacy. Consider Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, two people very much removed from the everyday experiences of average Americans, yet they do have an inroad, a common bond with the average conservative voter: Whatever else you might be, and whatever other talents you might have, you are absolutely terrible at running for president. That applies to most of us from sea to shining sea. Nearly all of us. Barack Obama is great at running for president. Hillary Clinton is not as good. But Mitt? Terrible. Jeb? Shockingly awful. And in a conservative marketplace that rallies to some significant degree around ritual licking of wounds, yes, being terrible at running for president actually adds to the weird Republican everyman magic.

This false legitimacy can feel glamorous, or seem dazzling, but the marketplaces pretending that legitimacy are either epistemically closed, such as the anti-abortion and several other driving conservative movements, or indifferent, as we see with the press, whose job is to remember that facts are merely one side of the argument.

But I would suggest this is part of the reason our neighbor, and others in the Sciforums experience or even at large in the American public discourse, might feel so comfortable making absolutely no sense and showing such vituperation about certain issues; the examples from on high really aren't any better.

Nor does my describing their behavior as sickness help close the rift, but I'm also out of reasons to not describe what I'm seeing; this is really, really blatant. And, in the end, it is only reinforcing of epistemically closed solidarity.

This is not responsible discourse; what they ask is dangerous, and as we see pretty much any argumentative route they come up with is a fucking minefield. There really is no way for them to do what they are trying to do without being seen doing it, and that basic fact somehow hurts their feelings. It is circular, epistemically closed, very nearly ritual maneuvering. It's all they have left.

―Fin―​

 

Can we declare that his brain is not a part of him and have it considered to be medical waste?

 

Yes, I’ve read and reread it many times, but judging by your own take on his statements I have to question your motivation for not representing them as they were written. Do you deny that he stated that a woman has jurisdiction over any organism growing in her body? Or that a fetus cannot be granted rights of personhood as long as it remains inside a woman’s body?

Of course it does, it’s written in plain English text for anyone to read.

I’d have to say the same about you considering your denial of the obvious.

If you remember, the vagina interpretation was your choice of imagery, not mine. Funny how you idiotically chose to focus on the imagery of the example rather than its obvious intent, just more predictable ideological smoke screening I suppose.

I’d suggest the same to you, but we both know in your case it’s not about comprehension, but rather ineptly trying to whitewash the message.

 

Which message?

 

Well, people, I can't add any more to this thread. We just simply disagree. I was arguing for life while you are arguing for a woman's right to choose. There is certainly a lot of passion on both sides of the issue. I really didn't know how far this thread would go, but I think it proves there is a great deal of disagreement around the topic of abortion. Thanks for participating.

 

This is what you demanded it say:

It does not say anything like that.

Now that is much closer to what was said, and is of course much different from your rather bizarre version above.

As far as flushing developing human embryos down the toilet like goldfish, often while still alive, that is of course standard practice in the US and has been since the invention of indoor plumbing - it's the common fate of miscarriages in the home, and not unknown as a disposal method for ectopic pregnancies and miscarriages etc in medical settings. Oddly enough, the philosophical position on abortion held by the principals apparently makes no difference - pretty much everyone treats an early miscarriage or an ectopic pregnancy even fairly well advanced in the same manner. There are no special little graveyards next to prolife churches for the little children so tragically deceased and fished out of the toilet rather than flushed, for example.

No, you weren't. You were insisting that people accept your incoherent justifications for systematic abuse of women as a viewpoint, a possible description of reality.

 

We all want a Human life to extant.

But cruelty to that life matters as well.