Legalize Abortion?

[giddyboy]

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This is a strawman. It maybe isn't a "baby" as far as looks are concerned, but it is human life that has been terminated (if the egg has been fertilized). Just because it did not continue to develop does not make it any less human. If so, then any human being who has been killed must be now be considered "non-human". This is, of course, absurd.

then if we see it that way, then countless lives have been already lost due to this natural phenomenon (menstruation)...

and to add, it will be a Godly crime to just flush it out of the toilet. proper burial is needed here...

[giddyboy]

The proper term is UNFAITHFUL Christian. Christianity involves obedience to Christ's teachings, not making up what simply suits oneself.

yeah right. tell that to the 92% of Catholic Pinoys who believe the same way i do...u myt as well call them unfaithful Christians too.

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from yahoo answers:

The moment of conception does it begin before the fertilized egg implants and if so then.....?
When is the moment of conception and what if the fertilized egg does not implant was that a human baby? What is a woman uses the birth control pill, an IUD or depo shot as those methods deter the fertilized egg from implanting. So, according to those that believe life begins at conception do they believe women that use birth control are abortionists?

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters
No, because - at least in the case of the pill, the end effect is a lack of ovulation, not keeping a zygote from implanting. Progestins as found in the pill are like the natural hormone of a pregnant woman to stop her period until after the birth, and even contain chemicals and hormones that would induce the keeping of a fertilized egg on the uterine wall. I am not sure about IUDs, but the pill can be used by Christians who wish to plan a family. It is merely another tool we have use of, and we must be good stewards of the blessings and benefits medicine gives us.

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ON BOTH SIDES OF THE DEBATE

Damn, it's hard to choose between the freedom to choose and the right to live, isn't it? They both seem like such valid arguments. I mean, yeah, you want people to be able to decide what they want to do with their lives, but you don't want them killing people in the process. And since it's so hard to tell if using the pill or IUD is actually killing people or not, we all get tangled. I'm nominally a pro-choice kind of person, simply because I don't like groups restricting the choices a person can make, no matter what. Then again, assuming the pro-lifers are right, I don't exactly endorse baby-killing either. Actually, I just side with the pro-choice people because pro-lifers are SUCH a**holes.

But I read an interesting synthesis of these ideas in a book recently. It said that the debate itself is badly worded and confusing, because the truth is thusly: Freedom of Choice is a good thing only if that choice holds life sacred; and the sacredity of life is a good thing only if that means respecting the freedom to choose.

[mannyamador]

then if we see it that way, then countless lives have been already lost due to this natural phenomenon (menstruation).

You mean the natural cycle? As long as it does not involve human intervention, then there is no crime committed. Millions more adults are lost to natural occurrences every year. Who do you blame for those?

yeah right. tell that to the 92% of Catholic Pinoys who believe the same way i do

Numbers based on the usual flawed surveys? Yeah, right. We've exposed their flawed methods before. And they keep repeating the same mistakes. 92%? Hilarious!

The Deceptive SWS Survey
http://mamador.wordpress.com/2008/10...ve-sws-survey/

Best Answer - Chosen by Voters

Inaccurate answer! It presumes that the contraceptive ALWAYS suppresses ovulation, which it does NOT. It denies the abortifacient mechanism (interfering with implantation), which is a mechanism CONFIRMED by the manufacturers themselves.

Using Yahoo popularity contests isn't a substitute for sound research and argumentation.

[giddyboy]

You mean the natural cycle? As long as it does not involve human intervention, then there is no crime committed. Millions more adults are lost to natural occurrences every year. Who do you blame for those?

well, natural family planning (weird. i can't even say they are natural. what's natural about abstinence and withdrawal methods anyway?), also involves human intervention. so if we take ur logic, then even using NFP, there is a crime involved.

Numbers based on the usual flawed surveys? Yeah, right. We've exposed their flawed methods before. And they keep repeating the same mistakes. 92%? Hilarious!

and i think it's not SWS. it's Pulse Asia's survey...hilarious?

[mannyamador]

well, natural family planning (weird. i can't even say they are natural. what's natural about abstinence and withdrawal methods anyway?), also involves human intervention. so if we take ur logic, then even using NFP, there is a crime involved.

Wrong on two counts. 1. The human "intervention" introduces nothing to the natural occurences, so there is no intervention at all. 2. In NFP, the egg isn't fertilized, so there isn't any object or corpus to the crime either.

QED.

By the way, human beings NATURALLY have the intelligence to choose NOT to have ***. So NFP is natural. Yiou have your logic backwards. And withdrawal is NOT a form of NFP. You are misinformed.

No to abortion, no to the RH Bill!

[giddyboy]

Wrong on two counts. 1. The human "intervention" introduces nothing to the natural occurences. 2. In NFP, the egg isn't fertilized, so there isn't any object or corpus to the crime either.

QED.

well, u did introduce "abstinence" in the supposed natural way isn't? that's nothing to you?

yes, in NFP the egg isn't fertilized, but so does the use of condoms...

[giddyboy]

Inaccurate answer! It presumes that the contraceptive ALWAYS suppresses ovulation, which it does NOT. It denies the abortifacient mechanism (interfering with implantation), which is a mechanism CONFIRMED by the manufacturers themselves.

Using Yahoo popularity contests isn't a substitute for sound research and argumentation.

ur answer also presumes moment of conception is at fertilization...

my intention is not about popularity contests. my intention is to cite other sources that some people agree upon and let other peeps talk about it if they agree also or not. no problem w/ u disagreeing w/ that...

---000---

comments are always welcome here:

Myth: Personhood begins at conception.

Fact: A potential person is not an actual person; an undeveloped fetus is the former.

Summary

If A has the potential to become B, it follows that A is not B. Likewise, a potential person is not an actual person. The reason why a zygote at conception is a potential rather than an actual person is because it has none of the organs, limbs or other traits recognized of a person. It is simply a genetic blueprint, and aborting it is not the same as killing an actual person.

Argument

One of the most common pro-life claims is that "life begins at conception." Beyond the obvious controversy of this statement, there is actually a second and more subtle error here. And that is that human life began only once: at the dawn of humanity, with the rise of the first human beings. Since then, there has been a continuum of human life: every sperm, every egg and every zygote have been full-fledged signs of human life, complete with all the characteristics of normal cellular activity, and all 46 human chromosomes. (Half of these chromosomes go unused in the case of sperm and eggs, but all 46 are there nonetheless.) The correct question is not "When does human life begin?" but "When does personhood begin?"

Pro-life advocates claim that personhood begins when the sperm and egg join to form a zygote. The zygote is genetically unique and complete and will be the grandparent of every other cell this person will ever have. The fact that the zygote is the first entity to have all 46 chromosomes of a future person seems -- at first -- to be good evidence of personhood. But consider the counter-examples.

There are many entities which are genetically complete, which contain all 46 human chromosomes, which we nonetheless do not recognize as persons: ancient fossils, blood samples, hair cuttings, fingernail clippings, even skin cultures grown in burn centers. This is proof that genetic completeness, in and of itself, does not constitute personhood.

The pro-lifer would then object -- entirely correctly -- that none of the above examples have the potential to grow into a person. Left alone, the zygote will naturally become a person. Please note that this is a switch of argument: the pro-life advocate is no longer claiming that genetic completeness is a sign of personhood, but that the potential to become a person is a sign of personhood.

The zygote, of course, has a long way to go before becoming a functional person; it has none of the limbs, none of the organs, none of the central nervous system, none of the circulatory or respiratory systems; it is a single cell that contains the genetic blueprint of a future person.

The pro-choice argument continues that a potential person is not an actual person. In other words, if A has the potential to become B, then it follows that A is not B. An acorn is not an oak tree. You cannot climb the limbs of an acorn, build a tree-house in an acorn, or rest in the shade of an acorn. And you certainly are not chopping down a mighty oak tree by removing an acorn from the ground.

Pro-life advocates attack this argument in three ways. The first is to publicize how quickly the embryo reaches its potential of a recognizably human form. Photographs of 8 to 12-week fetuses are crucial to their demonstrations. They emphasize -- with great exaggeration -- that the central nervous system begins working at 20 days, the heart at 24 days, and brainwaves at 43 days. What they don't tell you is that these are simply the first cells to maneuver themselves into place, and it will take months to construct these organs. Normally it takes until the 5th month of pregnancy before all the organs (except the brain and central nervous system) are completed, and by this time 99% of all abortions have already been performed. The brain and central nervous system are the fetus' most complex and longest running construction job, and will not be completed until the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy. Interestingly, it is not until the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy that construction is complete enough for a fetus to survive premature birth. Although pro-life literature leaves the impression that the 8-week old fetus is marvelously complete, the fact is that it would die immediately upon premature birth, precisely due to its lack of completeness.

full article:
Personhood begins at conception

[chad_tukes]

one of the few "well-known" U.S physicians who conducted late-term abortions was fatally shot yesterday.

is this good news or bad news for anti-abortion pips?

Abortion provider had guards at work, 'rigorous' security at home

(CNN) -- Dr. George Tiller knew that violence could come at any moment. For a reminder, he needed to think only of the old gunshot wounds in his arms from 1993 or the bombing of his clinic years earlier.
Dr. George Tiller was one of the few U.S. physicians who performed late-term abortions.

Still, Tiller, who was fatally shot at his Kansas church Sunday, continued to provide the late-term abortions that often brought protesters to his Women's Health Care Services clinic in Wichita.

Tiller, one of the few physicians who was still offering such abortions in the United States, "made an effort to live his life as normally as possible, knowing he could be a target at any time," said Peter Brownlie, president of the regional Planned Parenthood office in Kansas City, Missouri.

Abortion provider had guards at work, 'rigorous' security at home - CNN.com

[nItO/pIrEnA]

the topic of abortion really gives me the creeps

it freaks me out how my asian friends here can talk about it like a normal fact of life...i even had a friend complain to me: "it's so expensive (abortion) here in Canada, $3000, it's only $400 dollars in our country"

[mannyamador]

well, u did introduce "abstinence" in the supposed natural way isn't?

No. Abstinence is the normal human state. We are NOT engaging in s** most of the time. We are abstaining from it most of the time. Nothing out of the normal is being introduced. There are fertile/infertile periods and there are times when we are s**ually active and inactive.

yes, in NFP the egg isn't fertilized, but so does the use of condoms...

But that is irrelevant. No one is alleging that condoms are abortifacient.

A potential person is not an actual person; an undeveloped fetus is the former.

This is misinformed. The fetus is NOT just a potential person; the fetus already IS a person with vast potential.

Even a newborn child is not anywhere near fully developed and certainly dos not look like an adult. Following the crooked pro-choice logic, a new born child must also be just a potential person. So we can now justify infanticide! Quite absurd.

The error here is to presume that any other point in time other than the moment of conception at fertilization is a valid point in which to declare there is a human person. But this is contradictory. The same strong arguments against human life beginning at fertilization can also be used against human life beginning at any other time. The absurd conclusion -- if we follow your logic -- is that no one is a human being at any time.

There is a related argument, one based on choosing the most reasonable option that does the least harm to persons. It is stated in the following article, from which I quote:

The Apple Argument Against Abortion
The Apple Argument Against Abortion by Peter Kreeft

So, there are four possibilities:

1. The fetus is a person, and we know that; The fetus is a person, but we don't know that; The fetus isn't a person, but we don't know that;

2. The fetus isn't a person, and we know that. What is abortion in each of these four cases?

In Case 1, where the fetus is a person and you know that, abortion is murder. First-degree murder, in fact. You deliberately kill an innocent human being.

In Case 2, where the fetus is a person and you don't know that, abortion is manslaughter. It's like driving over a man-shaped overcoat in the street at night or shooting toxic chemicals into a building that you're not sure is fully evacuated. You're not sure there is a person there, but you're not sure there isn't either, and it just so happens that there is a person there, and you kill him. You cannot plead ignorance. True, you didn't know there was a person there, but you didn't know there wasn't either, so your act was literally the height of irresponsibility. This is the act Roe allowed.

In Case 3, the fetus isn't a person, but you don't know that. So abortion is just as irresponsible as it is in the previous case. You ran over the overcoat or fumigated the building without knowing that there were no persons there. You were lucky; there weren't. But you didn't care; you didn't take care; you were just as irresponsible. You cannot legally be charged with manslaughter, since no man was slaughtered, but you can and should be charged with criminal negligence.

Only in Case 4 is abortion a reasonable, permissible, and responsible choice. But note: What makes Case 4 permissible is not merely the fact that the fetus is not a person but also your knowledge that it is not, your overcoming of skepticism. So skepticism counts not for abortion but against it. Only if you are not a skeptic, only if you are a dogmatist, only if you are certain that there is no person in the fetus, no man in the coat, or no person in the building, may you abort, drive, or fumigate.

This undercuts even our weakest, least honest escape: to pretend that we don't even know what an apple is, just so we have an excuse for pleading that we don't know what an abortion is.

So far no one has managed to refute Peter Kreeft's quadrillema stated above. It is thus far unreasonable to assume that the fetus is not a human being.

No to abortion, no to the anti-life RH bill!