So I was walking to the local high school today and i passed a lady holding a 5x5 foot poster of a decapitated baby head covered in blood, displaying an expression of pain. She was anti-abortion. I didn't think she was viewing the idea from a full perspective. I told her so. Her only rebuttal to my statements was that "Killing is wrong.". I personally don't believe in morals, only things that make me feel guilty or not guilty. Aside from that, I asked her if she thought it was wrong to kill something without a consciousness (i.e. mold or a weed). She avoided the question and said that a fetus' heart starts beating within 2 weeks of its existance. I wasn't sure if the amount of time was right but I didn't care. I told her that a heart does not have consciousness. She then said that the fetus begins sending brain signals when the heart starts beating. I then told her that brain signals did not suggest consciousness, and that consciousness was being aware of ones thoughts. Then an evangelist lept to her aid and condescendingly prayed for my salvation. I told them that they were full of shit and left. But honestly, isnt the fetus still a part of the woman's body? Shouldn't it be her choice to keep or remove it? And no one else's place to say whether it should or shouldnt be kept? It would be like removing ones hand. I certainly wouldn't like to see my friends lose their hands, but its not my place to choose whether they decide to cut them off or not. Secondly, the lady was addressing a teen-age (high school) audience. (Which is funny because they can't vote and are easily manipulated.) Wouldn't having a child severely complicate a teenager's life? Why don't I see anyone holding giant posters with gruesome and disturbing pictures of dead homeless teenage mothers clutching their malnourished children? Oh, right. Because that would be rude and would offend many people. Not as much as a gigantic photo of a decapitated and bloodied babies head being held by metal clasps would, but still. People are f*cking nuts. Does anyone feel my pain?
technicaly no. the placenta/baby has an independent blood supply from the mother. but i also believe that a baby /fetus/ group of cells/ blob/ whatever doesn't exist independently until the umbilical cord is cut. edit we discussed abortion at length in the following thread: http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=51174
Where did it get the blood in the first place?? Agreed! But I might even go so far as to say that, right at the end of the last trimester, we could call it a living being ....but that's ONLY right at the very end of pregnancy. And I think I lean that way so we can charge some scumbag of double murder if he harms the woman and the fetus! Baron Max
The fetus is technically a parasite on the mother. Several nutrients especially micronutrients are passed on to the fetus at the expense of the mother's health, for example calcium. The fetus also gets glucose preferentially so that sometimes the mother breaks down her own muscle from peripheral tissues to meet her energy requirements. Not counting the discomfort and hormonal upheavals, nausea, emesis, changes in bone density and strength, and complications (e.g. edema and toxaemia of pregnancy) associated with the process.
The lamphrey(?) is a blood-sucking parasitic animal that attaches itself to large fish and sharks ...it, too, has it's own blood supply. I'll ask you again .....where did the fetus first get it's blood supply? Baron Max
Oh, I don't know ...many people enjoy watching such things. I've read that surgical pictures are a popular website item. Almost as popular as porno sites ....except nothing on Earth is quite THAT popular! Baron Max
Lamprey Biology isn't my speciality, but given that leo is correct, and that the baby can be a different blood type to the mother, lead me to suspect that it's the same place it got its heart.
A baby gets nutrients from its mother while in the womb. It uses those raw materials to build its own body. Isn't this fairly basic stuff?
Saying a women should be allowed to kill the baby until the umbilical cord is cut is pretty extreem. Is there that much difference between the baby before and after the cord is cut? I cut the cord on my first son, I didn't notice any sudden change afterwards. Is an infant any less a parasite after birth than it was before? Should the woman be allowed to kill her children if they inconvienience her in any way? If not, why not? Doesn't an infant also derive its nutrients from the mother, especially if breast feeding? Old people can also be inconvenient, sitting in nursing homes, drawing social security. Kind of like parasites. Should we kill them too? How about all the retards, just more parasites. Cripples? Who else? Hmmmm. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Pro-Lifer's are against the murder of innocents. Killing the enemy in war, or executing criminals, is justified. I feel fine about our wars.
At least it was a woman with the sign. My wife says she'll give a flying fuck what men think about abortion the first time one of us bastards gets pregnant. (She doesn't say it so politely, I had to really clean up the language to post it here.)
I'm sorry, I don't buy that argument. Nine months of carrying a child doesn't compare with eighteen plus years of supporting him. They say the man makes his choice when he decides to have sex. I say the same should apply to the woman.
Pro-life and pro-killing are oxymoronic. "Anti-abortion" and supporting death are at least not contradictory terms, but "pro-life" is a stupid term to use unless you are really pro-life, which some pro-lifers actually are. Madanthonwayne - you are not.
So what about in a case of rape where the woman did not choose to have sex? How about in a case where an abnormality or illness in the foetus means that it will not live the full 40 weeks? Would you rather the woman continue the pregnancy knowing her child will probably die at any time in her body and have to wait, feeling it growing in the meantime inside her and feeling it move.. but knowing that she will be delivering a dead baby after an inducement or miscarriage? I can tell you now, if I were faced with such a choice, I'd want to abort it so that I did not have to go through something like that. And since I am currently 14 weeks pregnant, I went to my 12 week scan and I had to think about that if there was something significantly wrong with the foetus. I'll be going to my 18 week scan and still be thinking about it if they find something significantly wrong. And what about the cases where the woman simply does not want to have the child? Where she hates the very thought of it. No one can force a woman to carry a child if she does not want to. You can make abortions illegal, but the woman who really wants to be rid of the child will find a way to kill it, and as a result, possibly herself. One of the reasons abortions have been legalised is so it is safer for women. Women have been performing abortions long before political systems even existed or before there even were organised religions. Backyard abortions were quite common and frequent before it became legal for a woman to go to a doctor and have the pregnancy terminated through a surgical proceedure. I am always amazed that people would prefer to go back to those good old days where women had to resort to squirting bleach into their womb to end a pregnancy.. just so long as it's not legal it seems.
That's a tough one. The baby is still innocent, but I'd support early abortion is such a case as a form of self defence. Well, that's a pretty rare situation. Many chromosomal abnormalities result in spontaneous abortions, but the women rarely knows about it in advance. Indeed, she often doesn't even know she's pregnant. She should have had her tubes tied, used multiple forms of birth control, or not had sex. This is the kind of abortion most people hate. Killing a child for convienience. And I am always amazed women would kill their own children. . Congratulations. I have four kids. When my girlfriend got pregnant in college, my first son could have easily been aborted. I could have done nothing to stop it, and probably wouldn't have objected much at the time. That thought makes me sick to my stomach. Another of my children has Down's syndrome. If I had known in advance , I don't know what I would have done. I very well might have opted for abortion. Again, the idea now literally makes me sick. These are children. They deserve the chance to live. You don't want the kid? Suck it up, put up with nine months of inconvienience, then put the kid up for adoption. Your nine months in exchange for a life.
