The Fire Knight wrote:To PLAYER57832:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Actually you are. See, when you choose to use advanced medical procedures, or to have a child that requires extremely advanced procedures, that cost is not fully born by you. It is partially born by other taxpayers, many of whom lack decent medical care themselves.
And guess what? thousands are dying right now, in the US from lack of proper medical care.
OR, take other countries. Yes, war is a big component in famine, poverty overseas. However, the truth is also that we just plain do not have enough resources to let everyone live as you do. So, you decide its OK for you to live that way, and as a result decide that its OK for others not to have what you have in return.
Health care is a completely different topic.
Nope, abortion is part of medical care. No other place to put it, sorry. And, even other types of medical care are related as I stated.. because these choices are not made in isolation. Every decision does have far-reaching consequences and not considering all the consequences is what leads to misjudgements and errors.
The Fire Knight wrote:
The Constitution does not guarantee that the government will keep you alive. If it did, the have been millions of violations of the constitution ever since the nation was founded. The Constitution grants us negative rights. That is... the government can not take away these rights, and has an obligation to protect its citizens from others taking away their rights. Thus... while the government is not obligated to pay for every medical bill you have (positive right to life), and outlaw drugs in order to protect people from destroying their own lives (positive right to happiness), they are obligated to outlaw murder.
In fact, parents who don't get their kids medical care are put in jail; even, sometimes, when it violates their religious beliefs. (Christian Science parents cannot
necessarily just let their kids die from appendicitis and sometimes Jehovah's Witness kids are given blood transfusions... etc.).
And, hospitals (both private and public) are required to offer emergency care for everyone.
You say there is no mandate to coverage? Except there IS! My taxes, your taxes go to pay for the care of these highly, highly disabled children under Medicaid and Medicare programs. Even fairly well off people can pay into the Medicaid system to get coverage for their kids (CHIP).
BUT.. no abortions. So, the fact is that your morals ARE being put onto everyone else. There is no choice, not for society and not for the parents. If a child is breathing.. it does not matter how bad off they are, what pain they are faced with enduring or anything else.. they have to be given 100% care. Parents have to quit jobs and be supported by other taxpayers. Sometimes parents can get nursing training (a good thing, of course), then get some supplemental assistance from paid nursing staff. Worse, you do all that and then when the child hits 18, poof -- a lot of the aid is suddenly cut. So, the parents spend all this effort, energy, devotion, love and then when that "magic" 18 hits they have to push their child into a nursing home that they know full well is inadequate.
The Fire Knight wrote: As to everyone living as I do, again, this is not a debate about poverty. Poverty is very sad, and we need to fight it. But the way to do that is not prejudice against the unborn (arguing that b/c someone has poor parents they will have a bad life and therefore it would be better if they were dead). The parents have no right to infringe upon the baby's right to life, and arguing that poverty is a good reason is absolutely horrible. It is discrimination against babies with worse off parents.
You are correct that this is not about poor people, though it is sometimes about making people poor.
You have it pretty much backwards. Poor people get Medicaid, but since Medicaid won't pay for abortions except in extreme cases, that is where the "discrimination" you refer to happens.
That, and adults don't get the same kind of healthcare. A pregnant woman will, to some extent, but that skips a lot of care that would have helped ensure her child was healthy from the start.
No, its not about poverty.. except that when you have a child who needs 24/7 care, you either wind up putting them in an institution or getting the training to take care of the child yourself, along with some (paid by taxpayers in most cases) assistance. That child, of course, will never wind up being a tax paying citizen. Does that matter? In an ideal world, no. But this is not that. In this world, programs to support teen parents.. parents of mostly healthy children who need training to ensure that their kids don't fall into cracks, very
successful programs and programs for education, including sex education are all being cut. We had childhood hunger all but eradicated in the 1980's. Now.. it is back, and back with a flourish. At my son's school about 80% of kids qualify for reduced or free lunches. Most of those parents work, in many cases both parents work, but one is seasonal or part-time.
And guess what happens then? See, even though mothers and children get Medicaid, single adults often do not. That means that prospective mothers and fathers, both don't get care that they need to give future children a better chance at life. They also don't get the training they need to be better parents. Those children, then are far more likely to be born with problems, the parents are less likely to be able to give their kids the full education they need to maintain even a middle class life in the next generation.
Voluntary abortions are one way to stop all that. Not the best way, but guess what else is being cut? Education of ALL types, including sex education.. and many times, particularly sex education, due to controversy. Abstinence only education is a crock! It results in increases in teen pregnancies and abortions!
Do I like abortion? No one sane does, but I would far rather a child be taken at 10 weeks than 5 months, even though that 5 month abortin will only happen IF there are very serious issues. I would far rather an unwanted pregnancy not happen, but if it comes to allowing a mother to terminate a pregnancy or forcing her to care for a child that she does not want, is ill-equipped to handle.. then it is her choice, not mine. The time to change her mind about that is before an abortion is even considered, before she even becomes pregnant. NOT putting up laws that dictate what procedure a doctor can and cannot perform outside of medical guidelines.
The Fire Knight wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Except, the percentage of late term abortions is well below the percentage of emergency and otherwise life-threatening cases you claim are "just the exception". Also, remember that those statistics do not include abortions that happened early in order to prevent serious issues later
I can understand when the mother's life is threatened, and think that that is a judgement call (both have a right to life and would be infringing upon the other's either way).
Good, we agree on that, but the next part is pretty critical.
The Fire Knight wrote:
Not sure what your arguing about with the percentages and statistics, so if you want to clarify how this fits in then do so.
Statistics on why women have abortions are very difficult to obtain and error-prone, for a lot of reasons.
First, as I stated earlier, abortions are allowed in the first trimester because there is no legal definition of life at that point. There are a LOT of medical reasons for that, but I talk about that elsewhere, except I will say that at this point can be difficult to truly verify a pregnancy. (there are a lot of both false negatives and false positives). What is tracked, then, is simply the procedure. The procedure is the same whether the child is dead or not prior to removal. As I have noted earlier, ANY termination of pregnancy --fully natural or not, has ALWAYS been termed, medically, an "abortion". "Miscarriage" is a colloquial term, not a medical one. (the medical term is spontaneous abortion, though there are variations on that which most people would call a miscarriage). After a certain point, it becomes a still birth. That time point varies a bit, but is mostly irrelevant to this discussion, because its more a matter of law than medicine. (whether a child has to be buried, etc.).
So, start with that... looking at the rates of D & C, does NOT even tell you how many of those are abortions. However, to confuse things more, those figures are often discarded from statistics on "reasons for abortions". (this is one reason why anti-legal abortionist and pro-legal abortionists figures tend to disagree).
Those classed as "emergencies" usually are limited to cases where the woman is in the emergency room, bleeding, with elevated blood pressure or some other immediately life-threatening condition. As you noted, that means BOTH the mother and child are at risk..the idea that you could somehow save the child and not the mother in these situations is just factually wrong. The truth is that ANY doctor will do his utmost to save BOTH lives, but if they cannot save the child, they at least want to try and save the mother. The cases where they might be able to save the child, but not the mother are very, very rare. The scenario most likely to result in a live child and dead mother happen at birth.. usually things like tears that cause heavy bleeding, etc. The child has to be past the point of viability. If viability is chancey, then the neonatal equipment has to be ready to go. Many rural hospitals don't even have incubators on hand, ready to go. (I went to a nearby hospital with a full unit for that reason, not the local one) For another irony, some statistics do call a C-Section performed a bit early an "abortion", too.. even if the full intent is to keep the child alive. (again, the highest abortion rates put out by the most virulant groups include this... but understand, it is not always completely ill intent, it is also a matter of how
procedures are classified medically).
OK, STILL have not really gotten into the heart of what I was saying, though.. all that is just to clarify the term, because I want to be sure you understand.
When you see statistics, usually the dead fetus' are not included -- or are euphamized into a general description "medical need".
NOT included, but cases that I would still term "emergency" or at least "medically warranted" are cases where the doctor sees that the fetus is lodged outside the uterus, etc. The doctor knows that if this pregnancy is allowed to progress, its not only extremely unlikely that the child will be born alive, never mind fully healthy, but its quite likely that the mother will die or be so seriously injured that she cannot have other children (needs a histerectomy or her uterus/tubes are so heavily damaged future children are unlikely). I pick just one case, but there are many medical circumstances involved here. Anyway, the doctor sees a healthy woman, who is very likely to have more children, WANTS more children.. and his advice will be to abort this one and "try again". This is a case where jay would say "NO, no abortion, its immoral". I, and, based on what you have said, I believe you would probably agree that the above is justified or at least enough of a grey area that it should not be decided by law. There is a grey area there. I don't, for example, think any mother should be forced to abort. Also, the health and age of the mother are important in the doctor's reccomendation. If this mother has been trying for years and years to get pregnant, if there is not a high likelihood of another child, then she may want to take the chance. Even when that is not the case, some mothers may want to go ahead, against their doctor's recommendation, for religious or other reasons. Sometimes it does work out, but the chances are pretty slim. And, this requires yet another side note on statistics. If you look at survival rates for such situations, realize that today, those statistics are skewed by the availability of abortion. Most of those pregnancies will now be terminated. The ones allowed to go forward are those that are more borderline or the situations I described above. They are very heavily monitored, involve women who are in locals with good medical care (or the woman are relocated to be near the hospital -- in parts of Alaska, for example, pregnant women often moved to town). So, the survival rates listed are actually going to be much higher than the real survival rate would be were it not for abortion.
That last bit is very, very important. When you look at survival rates, today, you have to understand they are NOT the same as what they would be if abortion were made illegal or made illegal except when the mother's life is threatened.
If the above type cases are not included, you would instantly see an increase in both still births and maternal deaths. Further, you would see even more children born with highly, highly debilitating problems.
The Fire Knight wrote:
But just b/c a fraction of abortion cases may be legitimate (stated above) does not mean that we should blanket allow all on the judgement call of the parents.
This is rather arrogant of you. I mean, here you are, not even knowing the details and you say "judgement call".. that you, a stranger, has more right to decide what goes on than the mother, her doctor and clergy? I reject that premise from the start. It is not up to me or any other parent to explain the full medical or other details of why I make any particular decision of conscience. In a free society, people have the right to make decisions based on their own morals. The courts have designated the first trimester as that point. The medical points have been discussed above, I have no desire to reiterate them all here. However, the point is that at that point, there is no sensation. Yes, I have seen the videos that claim to show fetuses avoiding instruments.. those are not pain or knowledge responses, they are movements of fluid and, even at later points, automatic responses. It is like a clam shutting its shell, not like a person or animal avoiding something they know will cause harm or pain. I realise that those against legalized abortion still insist on promoting those as something else, but they are wrong or lying.
Though you want to say this is a fully viable child, the facts are that there is only a 50% chance, AT BEST of that child surviving
just the first trimester. So, you are looking at a 50% chance of a child, not a child. After the first trimester, survival rates go up
significantly. Even so, deaths occur. AND, the fact that a child survives does not mean it survives to be healthy. You may have heard of the miracle of keeping children as young as 5-6 months alive. Let me start by saying that, in a fetus, the difference between 5 months and 6 months is HUGE. Even so, while these children survive, now, even the luckiest have serious issues that stay with them for life. At 6 months, right now, I woud say that there is a fair chance, if everything goes right (the child is born in a highly trained medical facility, etc) that the child will wind up pretty much healthy. The chance of ALL problems is much higher than for full term babies, but medical science has advanced so that there is a pretty good chance they won't go blind or deaf, and will have full use of their arms and legs. They likely will have some neurological issues, which might be as basid as ADHD.. or things far more serious. (cerebral palsy is a big risk, just as an example). BUT... why am I even mentioning such late term children when we discuss abortion? Those kids are NOT subject to abortion, in the US. The very rare cases where a child will be taken at such a late stage would be very, very serious medical issues.
However, the reason I bring up the late term births is because even then, even when things go well.. there is still no gaurantee, at all of a live birth, never mind a healthy birth.
Now, think about that for a minute. Which do you think is worse, harder on the parents and on everyone, including the medical community? To have a child "just gone" before anyone really knows they exist, at a point when there is barely a 70% chance of healthy survival (all totaled) OR to let the pregnancy progress and face not just significantly greater medical risk, significantly greater expense, but also significantly greater medical risk to the mother. It is hard to lose ANY child, but to lose a child that actually had real hope of being born is much harder than to lose a child that has only a 30% chance of being born healthy even if everything goes properly.
That is just part of the reality you just dismiss as a "judgement call" by the parents, or "convenience".
When you talk about true later term abortions, those at 12 weeks or later, then that discription is almost evil. Any abortion after that point has to be "with cause". Now, I have already stated that there could be reason to look at that "cause". Among other issues, as medical science advances, the ability of those children to survive, etc, changes. Spina bifida, for example can sometimes be corrected by surgary... sometimes just partially corrected, but sometimes fully corrected in-vitro. That absolutely matters! I absolutely disdain the thought that anyone would abort a child simply because they will have Downs.
YET..e ven then, here is the thing. What is really the worst thing for a child? To die or to be born into a family that will not fully love and accept them. In a nice world, every child would be wanted and any child not initially wanted would come to be loved. But, this is not such a world. You want to look at that child as always preferring life. I have to tell you that is just wrong. The truth is that some children really do live terrible lives. Some manage to survive, somehow, but many do not. This is NOT about poverty, either, though poverty certainly contributes to stress and difficulty in raising a child. The truth is that sure, every child "deserves" to live, but not every set of parents truly deserve to have a child. Several people here have spoken up saying that they chose to have children that were unexpected. Many people DO "rise to the occasion" and find a way to raise a child they did not really expect or initially want. But.. they made that choice themselves. Some other parents decide on adoption. Again, that is a moral choice they make (and one that many reject as not being fully responsible, by-the-way). Parents who decide not to have a child differ. The state can force someone to have a child, perhaps (there are plenty of illegal routes, still). However, they cannot force them to love and properly care for that child, not really. Too many kids already wind up in Foster care, a place they only wind up AFTER "damage" has already been done, and into a system that is truly ill-equipped to take all the children who need it. Some decent foster care homes absolutely exist, but no where near enough. And, many times even a good foster parent is not enough to truly help a child damaged by poor parental care.
No, abortion is not always the worst thing that can happen to a child, not by far!
The Fire Knight wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
This is even aside from the fact that you keep denying that making abortion illegal means you are putting yourself in charge of a woman's health and body. What gives you the right to decide that anyone else, nevermind someone you don't even know has to undergo a life-threatening medical condition. And make no mistake. Births are far, far, far safer than they were just years ago and far safer than in many places in the world, but every single birth very much does put a mother's life at risk. We deny this, pretend it is not the case, because we mostly want so much the other outcome.
Putting myself in charge of a woman's health and body? Well, yes kind of, although the baby is not part of "your body". It is a separate being.
No, it is not. Not legally, not biologically, not according to many, many religious beliefs, including a fair section of Christianity and Judaism.
Note the number of times the Bible refers to a child being born as "breathing life?". Sure, that is because medical science differed back then, but that is the point.. medicine changed, not the Bible!
But, let's look at that statement and see if there is justification for it. In truth, no. For something to be its own self, it has to be able to survive on its own... at least potentially, at that point. (conjoined twins, for example, could potentially survive). A first trimester fetus, even a 4 month fetus cannot survive, not even with the most intestive medical care. Even attempts are now being questioned, for a lot of reasons, most particularly that many of the earliest babies to "survive" have pretty poor lives. At some point, we have to let God say "no". And that is what so many so-called "right to lifers" want to pretend never happens. God DID allow death. God does allow tragedy. For whatever reason. The argument that we have some moral right to subvert that in one direction without any real regard to the consequences, because "all life is sacred" is pure wishful thinking. God very much includes death as part of the equation. And, GOD teaches us that Satan, not death are the enemy. Death of the soul and spirit, not the body are to be feared.
A baby is and always will be part of the mother's body until birth. She eats that it may eat. She breathes that it can breath. She can live without that child, but the child cannot live without her until past the point of "viability".
Then you have the moral question. As already noted, many, many religions plain do not believe that a spirit enters the child until birth or shortly before birth. That is their choice. You wish to claim that your beliefs supercede not just he medical community, but also the moral choices of other human beings who have as much right to their religious beliefs as you have to your own.
That, too, is something ignored by the anti-legalized abortionists -- the fact that so many who make these decisions are doing so with the careful thoughts and guidance of their clergy or other moral guides. NO, they want to basically say, this is just about aborting healthy children because some parents are just too lazy to have their kids, cannot be bothered to abstain from sex.
You fed right into this rhetoric, used it yourself. What statistics and pictures did you post? Repugnant ones about late term abortion.. NOT what the discussion really centers on here, not anything to do with abortions in this country, not really. As noted above, most abortions are in the first trimester (including completely natural miscarriages). After that point, abortions need medical cause. You may disagree with a parent's decision (many times I would) then.. maybe there are cases in those later terms that should be legaly curtailed, BUT, mostly they are moral choices. In this country, neither you nor I get to have a moral lock on the law. The law sides with freedom, with the ability of people to make important choices that are correct for them. You may not agree with someone having an abortion, but that means you have the right to talk to them, to attempt to educate, etc. It doesn't mean you have the right to put down a law declaring all abortions.. or all but emergency abortions.. are illegal, not by a long stretch!
The Fire Knight wrote:
Now, obviously the woman will be affected by pregnancy, but the same logic still goes behind preventing murder as does abortion. I can't use my body to kill someone, even if I am negatively affected by them remaining alive.
Baloney on many fronts. Murder is illegal, killing is not. Police kill, solidiers kill, anyone can kill in self defense.
And, though you want to pretend otherwise, a large majority of abortions are, in one way or another, seen as self defense by those having them and the doctors performing them. It may be a direct defense of life.. because the conditions do or will (are very likely to) result in death. OR, it might be that having this child will mean that the mother, at least, will never have the kind of life she wishes and that not only the life of this child, but that of the mother and future children are put at serious risk if this child is born. Some people just don't feel it is moral to have a child that will need to be hooked up to machines for the rest of their life. They just do not. Many people consider letting such children live, NOT to be the Godly, the correct thing to do. They consider a child an obligation and that if you put forward a child who is never going to be prepared for society, that society will always have to tend, that this is the moral wrong. I don't say this is my thinking, but it is not an antiquated and outdated mode of thinking, either.
Ultimately, the real line that is drawn in this country is one of limited moral intervention. The mere fact that this decision is so rife with conflict and debate is reason why the government, strangers should have no say in it or only very, very limited say.
The Fire Knight wrote:
And asking me what gives me the right to decide that someone else must undergo a "life-threatening" medical condition? Well, although there is a chance of death during pregnancy, in the United States it is 1/10,000.
WITH legalized abortion. As abortions are restricted, this number will go up significantly. So will the injury rate for children. But, even so... do you know what they call a widespread disease in which 1 in 10,000 die (and never mind the injury rate)? Its called an epidemic!
The Fire Knight wrote:
For perspective, the odds of dying in a car accident during any given year: 1/6500. But that is a risk that you take when you have sex. And should you really have the right to kill a child because there is a 1/10,000 chance that it will kill you? If that is the prevailing logic, you should be allowed to kill anyone. There is always a small chance that the waiter who just poured you lemonade is poisoning you. And who knows? You killing your neighbor just might save you from a car accident years later because he always backs his car out of his garage dangerously.
Is sex really a choice at all times? What about in marriage? What about many other situations? That is a moral stance, not one that is consistant with society today.
But, set that aside. Let's say it is fully a choice (and I agree with you to a point, there). If any of those situations could be prevented, the government would work to do so. They DO mandate inspection of food and processing. The waiter poisoning you? Well, murder is illegal. So is getting in a car and driving drunk. So is driving without proper training or licensing. And, millions are spent yearly on safe driving advertising, whether it is "buckle up" or something else.
The point is, these are tackled as serious problems that need correcting. Pregnancy is not, yet it has a significant death rate, even today, even with all of the advanced medical care available. AND.. that is just talking about maternal death. Add in maternal health, the ability to have future children and the chance that the child in question will actually be born healthy and the picture changes, indeed.
The Fire Knight wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Here is one more point.
Several of you have talked about it as being about the "convenience" of the parents.
Is it? Is it just for convenience?
That's a nice argument, but is it the truth? In fact, no. Not even in the most casual of cases. Having a healthy child is a gift, a treasure. But, like anything good, requires responsibility. Having a child and not properly caring for that child means you are not just failing that child, but you are thrusting your harm, your failure onto society. Sometimes society can fix it. Sometimes kids go into foster care and wind up with better, happier, healthier situations, but not always. Even with adoption, sadly, some adopted kids get abused or are just not raised to be responsible, caring adults. If you thrust a child onto society, then there is a fair belief that you are responsible for everything that child does. If you pass off the child to adoption, then you gamble that it will work out alright. Often it does, but not always. Some people plain don't feel that is a choice they will make.
If you could gaurantee every child a good home, a good upbringing, the healthiest life possible (even given whatever conditions they might have at birth), then you would have an argument. But, you cannot. You want to insist that everyone else take YOUR choice, YOUR option and do as YOU would. But, they are not you. And you don't have any more right to tell that mother that she has to bear that child and thrust it onto society than they have to tell you what religion you should practice.
Further, you ignore what is required to enforce this. What really happens when you tell people they have to raise a child for which they are unprepared, a child they don't really want? I can tell you. Too often they wind up in social services or, worse, jails. And yes.. that can be a worse outcome, not just for that child, but definitely for society.
Again addressing this argument. I do wish that every child could have a life as happy and well-off as mine has been so far. It is tragic how many people waste away their lives lost in crime, poverty, drugs, and in general without love. But when you ask what right do I have to condemn them to this, I would answer that I would not condemn them to this, and who are you to say that they are condemned to this? How can you foresee what a child's life will play out to be when they are not yet born?
Well, see, in cases where abortion happens, that is mostly yes, you can. Not only that, but in many cases where a mother won't have an abortion.. that outcome IS pretty much predictable. Further, the more funding is cut for various things from social services to job training to education and student aid for college, the higher those negative numbers will become. And yes, that is GAURANTEED!
So, yes, we do come back to why this very much IS tied into the budget situation, the economy and all those other things that the far right so conveniently wants to claim are "not related".
The Fire Knight wrote:
This is discrimination against them b/c of their situation of their family. You can not make a law about something such as murder based on statistics. That is prejudice, and is not right or just. For example, certain races commit crime more than others,
Gotta stop you right there! You cannot tell me you seriously believe that this is true? It is not.
The tie-in is poverty and education, along with a fair impact of
racism, but not race!
Secondly, laws ARE made based on such statistics. But..that is WAY off topic, so I am not going to get into that at all here.
The Fire Knight wrote:
but that doesn't mean we judge them before getting to know them, or that we make laws that reflect this. I can't help but see the similarities here to the white man's burden: those in power making decisions and judgements on those w/o power that they believe will help those w/o power and be better for them. Apparently we still have not learned this lesson.
LOL... yeah, I know. That is EXACTLY what I am saying. YOU, a man have no right to tell women what to do with their bodies, particularly when you don't even take the time to get the facts straight. Now, in that regard, I will say that it does seem you are at least making the effort now to get the facts correct. However, you already had your position, made your statements, long before you even, just as an example, had any idea that abortion rates might include miscarriages.. OR had any real idea of the true survival rates of fetus' at various stages of development. (etc.).
If you want to harp on this, then admit that historically, reproductive decisions have been used by men to control women. There is an absolute clear and direct link between availability of both birth control AND abortion and the way women are viewed in a society. Those women in societies without much reproductive choice are universally treated more poorly than where they do.
So, don't even try to tromp out the "white male discrimination" for YOUR cause.. unless you want to be indulged with pages of historical documentation and sociological studies.
The Fire Knight wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
EXCEPT, my point is that most of you debating this have not even informed yourself enough to KNOW this is the reality, right now! You are so poorly informed that I have taken serious abuse here in these threads for simply posting that definition, for saying it is so...You were that ignorant and yet, your only response is "well.. you ought to know we just were not talking about THAT!"
NO, YOUR First task, if you feel you have the right to tell other people how to live, to declare that a law needs to be changed is to at least understand what the law is today and what all the ramifications are today!
NEITHER you , NOR NIghtstrike, NOR jay.. etc have even halfway done that. THAT is why I say you have no right to a say in this. You trumpet your ignorance, blast me for informing you.
and post sickening pictures as your supposed "response" to what I have already said is what I don't want to happen, what should be controlled, etc.
So, not only have you failed to inform yourself, attacked me without bothering to verify if I was correct FIRST.. but you won't even pay attention to the real comments several of us have made
AND then you claim you have the right to have a say in this matter for strangers whom you don't even know?
Woah... please back off. I'm not trying to blast you. You are almost definitely more informed on the current laws that we have in place at the moment. And I apologize if it has sounded like I was putting you down for telling me what the current laws are.
Thank you for that. And yes, as I stated above, it does seem as if you, at least are trying to get the facts correct. (Nightstrike and jay.. forget it!) However, here is the thing. This information should be common knowledge to anyone entering into this debate, but it is not. And, it gets pretty frustrating when the first thing anyone has to do is to just clarify the terms, before even getting into the tricky moral issues. In basically any other situation, that type of moral pronouncement would be laughed out as utterly uncredible. But, because this is such a difficult topic to even discuss, facts are often not discussed except in the extremes.
Let me put it this way. When I first detailed a bit more about my miscarriages, etc.. and not in full detail at all, mind you! Do you know how many guys, on BOTH sides of this question basically said some version of "yuck" or "Why are you telling us all of THAT..", etc, etc. And yes, a fair amount of "not that I am calling you a liar, but... ". That from relatively educated and informed individuals!
If the real details are just too repugnant to discuss, then how on earth can you think you have the real facts.
AND.. please, don't try to respond with themost repugnant pictures you can find. I HAVE seen them. So have just about everyone. Its the factual details that somehow seem to be missing. One candidate can trot out his story of seeing a live, late term baby aborted, and just leave that as if it were common or current and without even getting into anything about why that particular situation might have happened. (and sorry, I question if it even did, given his track record!)
The Fire Knight wrote:
However, please try and understand that I am not wanting for this to be a debate with you defending what is and me arguing against it or vis-versa. I'm am simply expressing my views on what I think should be. And I do not think that miscarriages should be classified as abortions, even if they are, and I would agree with you that they should be allowed, and that if the definition remains "abortion" (even though it is not) then obviously this type of "abortion" should be perfectly legal. And as for me saying that I have the right to tell other people how to live, you are right, no I do not. And again, if I did, I would certainly need to be informed of things as they are like you have said. And if there still misunderstanding between us, then please voice them so I can understand you.
I hope that part, at least was clarified above. Took me some time to write it all.
The Fire Knight wrote:
But again, the government does have a right and responsibility to do this.
Nope, not allowing that out. Saying I, personally, don't get to decide this but "they" do is a nice attempt to distance yourself. Laws are about the public, ALL of the public. There is no independent "government", it is people, it is voters, and, if you are over 18 an live in this country, that means YOU. (whether you actually vote or not) If you are not 18 yet, then you will be and it still includes YOU!
You cannot have it both ways. Either this is a decision about which the public is, can be informed and therefore has a right to decide or it is an issue rife with too many moral ambiguities or differences of fact and something, therefore, that needs to be left up to the individual.
The Fire Knight wrote:
There are people who are informed about all of the legal definitions, and they would certainly (I hope) take these things into consideration.
See above.
Representatives respond to whomever will get them voted. Unfortunately, there is no clause that says someone has to be even honest or decent to be elected, never mind intelligent or anything else. That is why it is up to each and every one of US to stay informed before we step out and make political statements, demand changes in laws.
There is a narrow exception and yes, some of medicine does broach that. But, here, you and many others seem to want to have it both ways. You want "medical science" to decide whether a miscarriage happened, perhaps. However, you are not willing to listen to medical science's pronouncements of when life really begins, when a fetus really approaches true humanity, etc.
The truth is, you are not deciding, you want the easy route. You want to say "hey, I like life".. but then want to back away from all the difficult issues and decisions that statement really involves. I will say you are definitely not as hypocritical as either Nightstrike or jay. I think, in your case, you have a lot of misinformation more than anything else. And, well these ARE decisions about which sane, caring, even religiously faithful, even fully
Christian (important only becuase I believe that is your faith.. and is mine) people, will disagree.
My ultimate bottom line for me is that when there is so much
fully reasonable disagreement, then it is something that individuals need to be able to decide for themselves.
The Fire Knight wrote:
PLAYER57832 wrote:
Here is the question you keep pretending does not exist. Is breathing and having a heartbeat enough to really classify someone as truly "living?".
You don't know this, perhaps, but I have said many times that I would not have, could not have an abortion except in the most extreme cases -- the child is dead, sure to die or doomed to a life of continual pain. Even then... I am not sure. But set that aside, because this is not about me, personally. That is key.. a lot of your debate seems to think you are debating with us how we, personally would act instead of understanding that maybe we say there is a limit to what we can tell other people to do.
Interesting story. And I have no idea what nightstrike is saying on healthcare, and don't want to debate it right now. But I agree that the question of breathing and having a heartbeat being enough to classify someone as truly living is a valid one. Going out on a philosophical limb here, I would probably say right now that thinking makes a person truly "living".
And, right there, you would agree to an abortion in many of the most serious cases... as chephalic children, etc.
The Fire Knight wrote:
Addressing the second part, how we would act instead of what limit we can tell other people to do. This is the simple part. We in America have the right to life (it can not be taken from us).
Nope, neither true nor simple. First, either this is a universal right, embued by "God" or logic (not getting into the which religion is correct debate here) OR it is not. Though this is often trumpeted as some kind of right, the real right is the right to pursue life, but even that is has many, many limitations. Further, to claim that this is a "right", but that it does not include a right to food, shelter, basic medical care (as you did above) is pretty disengenuous at best. The right to the latter stems from the basic right to the former. Either we have fundamental rights to both or none.
The Fire Knight wrote:
Government protects that right. Roe vs. Wade has put conditions that are wrong on that right.
No, and this is where your argument gets rather hypocritical. The government did not "take away rights". What the government did was listen to medical science about this decision and say that the federal government, states have no right to tell doctors and women not to have this procedure within the first trimester of pregnancy, because there is just too little there to constitute a real person, yet.
Again, you are quite happy to say "yeah" to medical science when it says what you like, but then want to turn away when it does not. Further, this is very much a religious issue. Those who say that a fetus is human from day 1 often pretend to be looking to science, but are not really paying attention to the whole picture. Nor are they, as I noted above, looking at the consequences of that decision fully.
Again, you cannot just jump from conception to "birth of healthy baby" without the many, many stops and considerations along the way. Yet, that is exactly what happens here. It is exactly what you do when you say that a baby is a baby at day 1, no other considerations.
The Fire Knight wrote:
And these conditions must be revised. Working out the details is another debate, but it must take place under the banner of pro-life, recognizing the fetuses and embryos are alive and human.
Why? Why do you get to decide that and not medical science, people's religions, etc.? What gives you the moral imperative here?
In particular, how can you claim a universal moral imperative when, as I have already made clear most with your position have not even begun to really look at the true definitions or descriptions or statistics of what they proclaim. You certainly want to exclude any ramifications you don't like, such as the impact to society of being forced to spend millions of dollars (not an exaggeration!) for one child who will never function as anything close to a true member of society. And please, don't bring in "but blind.. Downs, etc" Those people CAN be functioning parts of society.
You want to utterly disagree with medical science -- and no, a few doctors agreeing with your position does not equal "medical science". It certainly does not consist of a consensus! Mostly, this is a religious issue, not a medical ones. The doctors who take the position do so based on religious grounds, not medical ones. Yet another reason why the government, strangers have no business deciding this issue.
The Fire Knight wrote:
Once you recognize that, then the moral debate on laws and "what is living" can take place. But before this takes place, the battle for recognizing fetuses as humans with the same rights as them must be won, and it has not been yet.
When a fetus can eat and breath apart from the mother, then it will be eligible for the "same rights" as a born baby. However, you seem rather confused about what most of those rights entail and societies' responsibility, as I stated above.
The Fire Knight wrote:
No matter what way you look at it, Roe vs. Wade has still made it legal for babies to be killed, and even if 99% were going to be vegetative (which is not anywhere close to the case and I have yet to see any statistics regarding all of your "majority arguments" since you are so knowledgeable) then 1% of 50,000,000 still = 50,000 murders.
"Killed", I will give you. To call it murder is a matter of opinion and debate.
The Fire Knight wrote:
. And yes, the United States of America has every right to stop it, b/c that is why we were founded. Rights and the social contract are fundamental to America, and w/o them, we are no longer America.
Really? You really are going to try to argue that rights and the social contract are fundamental to America in the same post where you declare that healthcare is not a basic right?
And.. try telling that to black slaves or even any woman up until not just the 1800's, when most women could not even legally own property or make the most basic of decisions without their husband's approval.
AND.. that is another piece you miss. Yet another reason this falls under privacy is that if it were not, if your rules were instituted, then it would be up to any man to tell a women she could or could not have an abortion. That would require her to identify the father, at a time when no father can be truly determined biologically.
So, basically, there is not one leg here for you to stand upon, except your belief.. and that is all it is, that a fetus' life begins at conception.. a belief that goes counter to medical science, to many religious beliefs and moral creeds, and yet you somehow want to put forward that it is so because the constitution of the US declares it so?
Even aside from all your other arguments, the US constitution is not the arbitrar of morality, even in the US. It merely sets forth a framework for governance.
) is ethics is the study of morality? What are you trying to get at?
