Would you abort a down syndrome fetus?

[Napoleon Ier]

but I mean if people get pregnant by accident they should be able to have an abortion. Technically the child doesn't have the right to live because it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place..

Ok. Take it forward a year. The parents, for whatever reason, couldn't get an abortion and have the child, then kill it at 2 months old. -"That's infanticide!", you exclaim, but surely it doesn't have a right to live, being accidental and all...

You see the flaw?

Accidental or no, it is a human, and has rights. Otherwise every child who had an unintended birth isn't really human.

oh but that's another thing. If they made the decision to keep it, they gave the child its right to live. Because they made the choice..

Ok. they were unable to get the abortion, and killed the kid when it cam out the womb at birth...infanticide.

[Snorri1234]

Your post of highest irrelevance.

Mine? Snorri's? Unriggibles?

Snorri's.

Uhm... I was never saying it was rellevant. You just brought it up.

[Napoleon Ier]

Riggy: your point is that because we can't efficiently bureaucratize this, we should not respect the right to life. You know, a long time back, there was no census. Murder was still wrong....
Furthermore women "wanting to preserve their bodies"....sounds like a horrific reason to kill a child for me.

This formula sums it all up nice :

[Neutrino]

I'll try...I found them ages ago in a leaflet though

Your leaflet is utter crap. According to those figures, abortion causes a solid 30% of all deaths, the world over. Screw disease, hunger or war, abortion is the single most likely thing to die of.

No they're not.

200.000 abortions per year in the UK alone...
1 million per year in the US...

I mean, we're making the numbers add up pretty fast here...

No you're not. 1 billion in ~50 years equates to 20 000 000/ year. Unless there are 20 US' hiding somewhere your figures are utter crap.

This (http://www.indexmundi.com/world/death_rate.html) site lists the average death rate to be 8.37/1000. For a population of 6.6 billion, 55 million people die/year. This means that 20 million abortions compose a whole third of this figure. Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Rate) lists the top cause of death in 2002 to be heart disease with 12.6%. How could they fail to miss abortion which almost triples this figure?

EDIT: This page(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ca ... th_by_rate) lists "Pregnancy with Abortive Outcome" under "Maternal Conditions" and comes in at a massive 0.89% of all deaths. Even lumping abortion in with every other possible maternal condition, 50% more people die from suicide.

[Neoteny]

Nappy, you are ten or eleven different kinds of absurd.

[Neutrino]

Nappy, you are ten or eleven different kinds of absurd.

He's going for the record, I think...

[Backglass]

If someone is taking away the liberty of a child, I will fight for its rights to a life.

As long as it is someones else's problem...I am sure you would.

No surprise here.

So. How many babies have you saved by taking them into your home exactly? How many babies are saved from the abortion clinic and handed out at your church for people to take home and raise, hmmm? Zero. None.

You talk the talk...but you don't walk the walk.

Go ahead...point some more fingers at strangers and tell them how bad and evil they are and how wonderful and pure you are. It will help preserve your already inflated self-righteous ego.

[Frigidus]

So. How many babies have you saved by taking them into your home exactly?

Counting the ones I stole from the delivery room or just the ones I found in trash cans?

[Ariel*]

but I mean if people get pregnant by accident they should be able to have an abortion. Technically the child doesn't have the right to live because it wasn't supposed to be there in the first place..

Ok. Take it forward a year. The parents, for whatever reason, couldn't get an abortion and have the child, then kill it at 2 months old. -"That's infanticide!", you exclaim, but surely it doesn't have a right to live, being accidental and all...

You see the flaw?

Accidental or no, it is a human, and has rights. Otherwise every child who had an unintended birth isn't really human.

oh but that's another thing. If they made the decision to keep it, they gave the child its right to live. Because they made the choice..

Ok. they were unable to get the abortion, and killed the kid when it cam out the womb at birth...infanticide.

jeeze.. of course not! I never said it was okay to kill children. I just said it was okay to abort unwanted babies. That the parents should have the right to choose that. If it's born and they don't want it they can give it up to adoption.

You guys always have to take everything literally. It obviously speaks for itself that it's not okay to murder a living child. You know what I meant when I wrote my first post, I don't see the point in arguing in something pointless just because I worded it slightly wrong.

[Dancing Mustard]

So. How many babies have you saved by taking them into your home exactly?

Counting the ones I stole from the delivery room or just the ones I found in trash cans?

I hate you. People in this library are now looking at me funny, and I am pretty sure I'm going to have to pay to replace this coffee drenched monitor...

[heavycola]

Nappy, you are ten or eleven different kinds of absurd.

Oh QFT.

Nappy - your argument from potentiality is bullshit.

Let's take a sliding scale of the progress of human life.

Zygote-----embryo----foetus-----child

Are you suggesting that a zygote is a human being? Does an embryo have human qualities? You mentioned a cerebral cortex and a beating heart - these are not indicators of human-ness. Rats possess them. Creatures you eat possess them. You need to look elsewhere for your definition of what it means to be human.

Otherwise, you condemn IVF (as is aid, 1 million embryos have been binned since 1993 in the UK as a byproduct of the IVF process, according to DoH figures). Mayeb you do, i dunno. What does the pope think?
And given advances in cloning, soon every flake of skin and blolb of phlegm will be a potential human.



By the way - if abortion is murder, doesn't that make every woman who has a miscarriage guilty of manslaughter?

[Napoleon Ier]

1) Yes, embryos discarded by IVF are killed. The Holy Father agrees as far as I know, it being in conformity with Humanae Vitae (1968).
2) I am not arguing from poetentiality but from substance. The substance if the embryo is human, not anything else. In fact, this is scientifically accepted, : a human life is given (by God for a theist) or comes into existance when embryo and sperm meet. For example Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, since it could deny the humanity of the foetus, ruled "personhood" must be different to "humanity" and since "personhood" starts at an uncertain time, we must take the "right to dispose of body" argument and allow abortion.
The idea however that a skin flake is human is different. To allow it to begin reproducing, it needs to be stimulated, by electricity in some cases. Scientifically, this is not really understood, but we know some form of stimulus is needed to activate the DNA in the nucleus. Once it has started to divide, it's substance can be said to be human (accidence(hence no "semblance" of being human)/substance). Obviously you can fiddle the humanity/personhood line, but it seems to me the concept of personhood is simply made up to justify removing the existence of a homo sapiens.
3)By the Way-- Do you believe an 8 month, 3 weeks, 6 day old foetus is a human? If so, and one is hypothetically miscarried, do you believe that this is manslaughter? No, since the woman was not responsible for causing it. The doctor might be if he turned up drunk say, and managed to screw up the procedure, I guess....

[sam_levi_11]

at first i thought this thread read "would you shoot a downsindrone foetus"

dunno why but i did

[Frigidus]

at first i thought this thread read "would you shoot a downsindrone foetus"

dunno why but i did

What did you vote?

[Neoteny]

1) Yes, embryos discarded by IVF are killed. The Holy Father agrees as far as I know, it being in conformity with Humanae Vitae (1968).
2) I am not arguing from poetentiality but from substance. The substance if the embryo is human, not anything else. In fact, this is scientifically accepted, : a human life is given (by God for a theist) or comes into existance when embryo and sperm meet. For example Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, since it could deny the humanity of the foetus, ruled "personhood" must be different to "humanity" and since "personhood" starts at an uncertain time, we must take the "right to dispose of body" argument and allow abortion.
The idea however that a skin flake is human is different. To allow it to begin reproducing, it needs to be stimulated, by electricity in some cases. Scientifically, this is not really understood, but we know some form of stimulus is needed to activate the DNA in the nucleus. Once it has started to divide, it's substance can be said to be human (accidence(hence no "semblance" of being human)/substance). Obviously you can fiddle the humanity/personhood line, but it seems to me the concept of personhood is simply made up to justify removing the existence of a homo sapiens.
3)By the Way-- Do you believe an 8 month, 3 weeks, 6 day old foetus is a human? If so, and one is hypothetically miscarried, do you believe that this is manslaughter? No, since the woman was not responsible for causing it. The doctor might be if he turned up drunk say, and managed to screw up the procedure, I guess....

This was a very difficult read; both in structure and in content.

[Backglass]

1) Yes, embryos discarded by IVF are killed. The Holy Father agrees as far as I know, it being in conformity with Humanae Vitae (1968).
2) I am not arguing from poetentiality but from substance. The substance if the embryo is human, not anything else. In fact, this is scientifically accepted, : a human life is given (by God for a theist) or comes into existance when embryo and sperm meet. For example Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade, since it could deny the humanity of the foetus, ruled "personhood" must be different to "humanity" and since "personhood" starts at an uncertain time, we must take the "right to dispose of body" argument and allow abortion.
The idea however that a skin flake is human is different. To allow it to begin reproducing, it needs to be stimulated, by electricity in some cases. Scientifically, this is not really understood, but we know some form of stimulus is needed to activate the DNA in the nucleus. Once it has started to divide, it's substance can be said to be human (accidence(hence no "semblance" of being human)/substance). Obviously you can fiddle the humanity/personhood line, but it seems to me the concept of personhood is simply made up to justify removing the existence of a homo sapiens.
3)By the Way-- Do you believe an 8 month, 3 weeks, 6 day old foetus is a human? If so, and one is hypothetically miscarried, do you believe that this is manslaughter? No, since the woman was not responsible for causing it. The doctor might be if he turned up drunk say, and managed to screw up the procedure, I guess....

This was a very difficult read; both in structure and in content.

I am sure his 27 adopted children are equally as confused.

[unriggable]

Napoleon, if that were true than every skin cell of mine is an individual human being and I should be labeled as a murderer for scratching my ass and getting skin cells off.

[Napoleon Ier]

Napoleon, if that were true than every skin cell of mine is an individual human being and I should be labeled as a murderer for scratching my ass and getting skin cells off.

Not really. Your cells aren't embryoes, are they?

[unriggable]

Napoleon, if that were true than every skin cell of mine is an individual human being and I should be labeled as a murderer for scratching my ass and getting skin cells off.

Not really. Your cells aren't embryoes, are they?

No, but what makes an embryo more than a cell? Is it a special cell? Not that I know of.

[Napoleon Ier]

Napoleon, if that were true than every skin cell of mine is an individual human being and I should be labeled as a murderer for scratching my ass and getting skin cells off.

Not really. Your cells aren't embryoes, are they?

No, but what makes an embryo more than a cell? Is it a special cell? Not that I know of.

The fact that it is a seperate human being, and is replicating to make one via mitosis or meiosis, I forget which,

[unriggable]

Napoleon, if that were true than every skin cell of mine is an individual human being and I should be labeled as a murderer for scratching my ass and getting skin cells off.

Not really. Your cells aren't embryoes, are they?

No, but what makes an embryo more than a cell? Is it a special cell? Not that I know of.

The fact that it is a seperate human being, and is replicating to make one via mitosis or meiosis, I forget which,

It replicates in the exact same way as skin cells do.

[Napoleon Ier]

^^Not really, its about to form a seperate human being, not replenish your store of ass-cells.

[Frigidus]

^^Not really, its about to form a seperate human being, not replenish your store of ass-cells.

Hey, I value my ass. Don't talk about it like it isn't important.

[Napoleon Ier]

^^Not really, its about to form a seperate human being, not replenish your store of ass-cells.

Hey, I value my ass. Don't talk about it like it isn't important.

Fine. Then you respect the ass of the unborn. Belongs to them, and no one else.

[Frigidus]

^^Not really, its about to form a seperate human being, not replenish your store of ass-cells.

Hey, I value my ass. Don't talk about it like it isn't important.

Fine. Then you respect the ass of the unborn. Belongs to them, and no one else.

I respect all asses, no matter their color or creed. That said, this thread needs more dead baby jokes.