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 Peregrine wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Self-awareness and higher-level thoughts are also not found in young infants and many handicapped people. So you would argue those are not human? Tell me, where do you draw the line of what is human and what is not?

There is no clear line, but that doesn't matter. The gray area exists far, far away from the state of mental development where virtually all voluntary abortions occur. To give a 40k analogy, if your opponent isn't perfectly accurate in moving their models at what point do you call it cheating? 0.0001" of extra distance? 0.5" of extra distance? Regardless of what small number you personally favor everyone can agree that a player moving their models an extra 24" to get into range is cheating.

Bad analogies are bad. Humanity and life are not something gradual, something is either human and alive or it is not.

 Peregrine wrote:

In my opinion, there is only one criterion for being human, and that is being a member of the genus Homo. All those who belong to that genus are human.

Do you support immediate cuts to everything else to solve the urgent crisis of miscarriages, which result in the death of vastly more "humans" per year than any other cause? There are ~130 million miscarriages per year, and ~50 million deaths of people that have been born. So, for example, would you support ending all work on cancer research in favor of trying to prevent miscarriages?

It depends. If halting work on cancer research is likely to result in real results in the prevention of miscarriages, and if in that cases more or a similar amount of lifes can be saved, then I would certainly support it.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Humanity and life are not something gradual, something is either human and alive or it is not.

Life is not gradual, but "alive" is not a very informative quality when deciding whether or not something deserves protection. Cancer cells are alive and human, but clearly don't deserve protection. A person who is brain dead and hooked up to life support machines is both human and alive, but few people would consider it murder to remove life support and allow the process of death to finish. So clearly we need something besides "alive and possesses human DNA" as our test, and the obvious answer is to consider the things that separate us from things with no rights (like cockroaches): self-awareness, capacity to feel and understand pain, higher-level thinking, etc. A fetus at the state of development where virtually all voluntary abortions happen has none of these things.

It depends. If halting work on cancer research is likely to result in real results in the prevention of miscarriages, and if in that cases more or a similar amount of lifes can be saved, then I would certainly support it.

Well, that's consistent at least, though I doubt you'd really stick to that belief outside of a forum debate. Remember that most of these miscarriages happen without the woman ever knowing that she was pregnant, so we aren't even talking about the emotionally devastating "my child is dead" kind of miscarriages.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Self-awareness and higher-level thoughts are also not found in young infants and many handicapped people. So you would argue those are not human? Tell me, where do you draw the line of what is human and what is not?
In my opinion, there is only one criterion for being human, and that is being a member of the genus Homo. All those who belong to that genus are human.

Are you insinuating that infants aren't sentient?

Are you confusing self-awareness and sentience?
Sentience is the ability to perceive and respond to external factors of any kind.
Self-awareness is the ability of introspection and to recognise oneself as an individual.
Infants are sentient. They are not yet self-aware (at least not until they are about 18 months old, after which self-awareness starts to develop).

Are you sure? I'd love to see some research on that.

 Knockagh wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Knockagh wrote:
Self centred beliefs like, your weaker and more vulnerable than me, I can kill you and create clever arguments to justify it because it suits my individual purposes.

So you would not kill a cockroach in your house because it suits your individual purposes?

So now you compare human life to cockroaches....

Psalm 14

1The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
there is none who does good.

well if you want to get biblical about it, god doesn't count you as a person til you're 1 month out of the womb.

The Book of Numbers, starting in verse 3:15, tells of a census God ordered Moses to carry out among the Israelites. Pregnant women are not counted as two people. In fact, this verse specifically says that even children less than a month old weren’t counted!

also god is OK with abortions as long as the man asks for it, Numbers 5. Numbers 5 is a great read and explains quite nicely when god considers abortions to be cool.




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 Peregrine wrote:

 Knockagh wrote:
I don't know anybody opposed to abortion who would allow it for rape......

Sounds like you aren't paying much attention because "no abortion, except in cases of rape or medical problems" is a standard policy argument.

I also know many many people who have had miscarriages and view it 100% a death, many people carry metal scars and trauma as a result of miscarriage.

Yes, of course people are hurt by it. But it's treated as an individual tragedy. Nobody is saying "stop funding cancer research and use that money to deal with the more urgent problem of miscarriages" or "we can't afford that new military project, we have to pay for anti-miscarriage research" or whatever. It's just accepted that some percentage of women will lose a child they want, and very little effort is put into preventing it.

except for rape has been the compromise, there has been many lately who just want no abortions at all even if it risks the mothers life.

speaking of miscarriages, lets not forget Utah who says a miscarriage can get you charged with murder.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/utah-abortion-bill-punishing-miscarriages-preventing-crime/story?id=9955517

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Personally I have a test for all those apposed to abotion.

a. Will you support government support for the woman you have forced to have their fetus become a baby?

b. Are you willing to fun real, practical sexual education (as in not abstinence only bs) and give government assistance to groups that provide contraception?

Of course and of course.

Though on a. I think it's always hard to devise a welfare system that supports but can't be abused. On many issues I take the capitalist view over the socialist view, when it comes to giving kids opportunity and education though I'm all for levelling the playing field.

On b. I think realistic sex ed is important, I don't think either extreme is good, as in, you shouldn't teach abstinence only, but you also shouldn't take the position that it's a foregone conclusion that all kids are going to be banging like rabbits.

I think the idea that people against abortion won't support government aid or sex ed comes from the idea that if you are against abortion you must be crazy right wing and/or crazy religious, I think most people are actually more middle of the road.

sirlynchmob wrote:
well if you want to get biblical about it, god doesn't count you as a person til you're 1 month out of the womb.

Yeah, the history of religion and abortion/birth control is kind of interesting. It used to be a Catholic thing and other Christians didn't really care, up until it was useful to have a political alliance with the Catholics ~50 (IIRC) years ago. And suddenly doctrine on what God thought of the whole subject changed to suit the needs of politics.

 whembly wrote:
O.o

There are MASSIVE funding and research in ob/gyn field that touches on all the development phases of the fetus AND the mother. Mostly in genetic defects and cancer research. So, I'm not so sure that's a valid argument Peregrine.

The question remains, and will always remain so, that since there's no more denying the humanity of the preborn at any stage... the only thing abortion supporters can do now is claim that a human life only has value if they say so.

So these debates will devolve in expressing this value one way or another. THAT is why it's a challenging and often times heated discussion.

Or that cases should be judged case by case. Forcing carriage go through can easily create more human pain and death than abortion.

Moralities should never ever EVER be dictated from above with absolute laws. That's incredibly stupid and idiotic thing to do.

@sirlynchmob

That buddy has to be the strangest read of those passages I have heard...... I have no idea were you are getting your ideas from numbers 3:15 is rules for conducting a census..... If children under 1 month are left out it probably has more to do with extremely high infant mortality rates amongs children. We are talking about people who at 5 days of age were C ducting ceremonies to bring children into the communities.
Numbers 5 is about adultry and a judgement that the womb would be spoiled for future use, no mention of abortion........

If you want a bible verse t show you how age feels on abortion look at Jerimah 1:5

Numbers 5 literally calls for making women miscarry future pregnancies as a punishment for adultery. If miscarriage results in the loss of human life...

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Numbers 5 literally calls for making women miscarry future pregnancies as a punishment for adultery. If miscarriage results in the loss of human life...

It doesn't, at least as far as I can see. The NIV translation uses the word "miscarry" but other translations don't, they don't even suggest that the woman was pregnant, simply if she drank the water and had been unfaithful, "her womb shall swell, and her thigh shall fall away, and the woman shall become a curse among her people. 28 But if the woman has not defiled herself and is clean, then she shall be free and shall conceive children."

The NIV translates the "thigh rot" to mean she miscarried, but it doesn't suggest elsewhere the woman was pregnant to begin with and verse 28 says "then she shall be free and shall conceive children." which would suggest the woman was NOT pregnant to begin with.

So no, I don't think Numbers 5 describes miscarriage as a punishment for adultery, rather the NIV did a poor job of translating it.

Disclaimer: I'm not a theologian, that's just what makes the most sense to me reading the various translations and having been told previously that the NIV has a history of spurious translation.

Your basing this on the niv translation which is just one translation out of many, and the word miscarriage has been recognised as a ms translation.

The punishment described is a barren womb.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
In the USA, the number is much larger. around 700,000 a year, or roughly a 1:5 ratio abortions to live births. The 80's and early 90's in the US had a high rate, around 1:3 ratio to live births or 1.4 million per year at its peak. So in the 30 years from 1982 through to 2012 there were 33.4 million abortions in the USA, at a guess that's gotta average out to something like 1 in every 3 to 5 women of child bearing age?

When you say the 80s and 90s are "high" is that in the context of the impact of Roe vs Wade?

One of the many interesting topics in the Superfreakonomics series of books is that one of their research studies suggests a link between the decline in crime rates in US and the legal decisions regarding abortion law.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
Personally I have a test for all those apposed to abotion.

a. Will you support government support for the woman you have forced to have their fetus become a baby?

b. Are you willing to fun real, practical sexual education (as in not abstinence only bs) and give government assistance to groups that provide contraception?

A: No. On the other hand, I would use the current child-support system to force the sperm-donor to step up to the plate and help support the kid, or face harsh prison sentences. You play, you pay. Period.


B: The old issue of sex education is nothing more than a deflection. One, teenagers are well aware of the risks and possible results of sexual activity, but they don't care. And two, it doesn't address the problem of adults who play around, and don't want to take responsibility for their actions. A good sex education curriculum is a great idea, one that I'm behind 100%. But it won't make a difference when it comes to out of wedlock pregnancy.


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 Baragash wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
In the USA, the number is much larger. around 700,000 a year, or roughly a 1:5 ratio abortions to live births. The 80's and early 90's in the US had a high rate, around 1:3 ratio to live births or 1.4 million per year at its peak. So in the 30 years from 1982 through to 2012 there were 33.4 million abortions in the USA, at a guess that's gotta average out to something like 1 in every 3 to 5 women of child bearing age?

When you say the 80s and 90s are "high" is that in the context of the impact of Roe vs Wade?

One of the many interesting topics in the Superfreakonomics series of books is that one of their research studies suggests a link between the decline in crime rates in US and the legal decisions regarding abortion law.

These studies are a big part of the reason that many among the American right support so-called "abortion on demand" (i.e. fewer welfare babies and hood rats running around). However, I highly doubt that this is the case, considering the large families (usually headed by single mothers) that are common in disadvantaged areas.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
A: No. On the other hand, I would use the current child-support system to force the sperm-donor to step up to the plate and help support the kid, or face harsh prison sentences. You play, you pay. Period.

I see. So it's prison sentences for anyone who is unemployed and can't afford to support the child? You are aware that the goal of government-provided child support is to protect the child, right? No matter how much you disapprove of the parents the child is innocent, and I think you should see the obvious problem with leaving the child to starve if their parents can't afford to support them.

Also, why is the father responsible for providing money? Why doesn't the mother share equal responsibility, with an equal threat of "harsh prison sentences" if they fail to meet their required payments?

B: The old issue of sex education is nothing more than a deflection. One, teenagers are well aware of the risks and possible results of sexual activity, but they don't care. And two, it doesn't address the problem of adults who play around, and don't want to take responsibility for their actions. A good sex education curriculum is a great idea, one that I'm behind 100%. But it won't make a difference when it comes to out of wedlock pregnancy.

Too bad the statistics disagree with you. Good sex education makes a significant difference in teenage pregnancy rates.

 Knockagh wrote:
Your basing this on the niv translation which is just one translation out of many, and the word miscarriage has been recognised as a ms translation.

The punishment described is a barren womb.

Perhaps the bible isn't the best place to go looking to reinforce your arguments at all. You can't pick and chose psalms considering that a couple of pages later they'll be stating eating a certain animal will make your eyes fall out, or to go kill the scary foreign people and non-believers...

As a general rule, your average teenager knows very little about the risks involved with sexual activities without having the proper education about it. You only have to look online to see that people will believe anything that they read. Which includes myths and the like. The amount of times I've seen people believe that Mars will be as big as the moon on X day is unbelievable.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

A: No. On the other hand, I would use the current child-support system to force the sperm-donor to step up to the plate and help support the kid, or face harsh prison sentences. You play, you pay. Period.

What if the father is either unknown or somehow unavailable for the duration of the childs growth (dead, for example)? Should mother and child live in poverty and suffer?


[quote[B: The old issue of sex education is nothing more than a deflection. One, teenagers are well aware of the risks and possible results of sexual activity, but they don't care. And two, it doesn't address the problem of adults who play around, and don't want to take responsibility for their actions. A good sex education curriculum is a great idea, one that I'm behind 100%.

 Wyrmalla wrote:

 Knockagh wrote:
Your basing this on the niv translation which is just one translation out of many, and the word miscarriage has been recognised as a ms translation.

The punishment described is a barren womb.

Perhaps the bible isn't the best place to go looking to reinforce your arguments at all. You can't pick and chose psalms considering that a couple of pages later they'll be stating eating a certain animal will make your eyes fall out, or to go kill the scary foreign people and non-believers...

A lot of people's values still come from their religion, so while I don't think it's a great form of argument in an open public forum, I respect people who can point to their religious book as to why they think something as much or more than someone who believes something cuz science but can't point to a reputable text book or scientific article to back themselves up.

And a lot of the crazier stuff you hear people say "the Bible says blah", it's usually just taken out of context and it can be put to rest just by reading a couple of verses prior or checking what context the chapter was written in.

For example, I'm not aware of anywhere the bible says to kill non-believers, but there is a couple of points in the old testament that talks about killing people who turn away from god and try to lead others away from god, but I'm not aware of anywhere it says to kill non-believers. Also it's in the old testament, which for a christian has to be taken in context with the new testament which puts a lot of the old testament in a different light.

 Knockagh wrote:
@sirlynchmob

That buddy has to be the strangest read of those passages I have heard...... I have no idea were you are getting your ideas from numbers 3:15 is rules for conducting a census..... If children under 1 month are left out it probably has more to do with extremely high infant mortality rates amongs children. We are talking about people who at 5 days of age were C ducting ceremonies to bring children into the communities.
Numbers 5 is about adultry and a judgement that the womb would be spoiled for future use, no mention of abortion........

If you want a bible verse t show you how age feels on abortion look at Jerimah 1:5

not quite, god only wants the names of those older than 1 month, if your younger than that he doesn't count you and doesn't want your name.

I see your jerimah and raise you Ecclesiastes 4:3

"So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. 3But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil activity that is done under the sun. 4"

see their better off for never being born.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Self-awareness and higher-level thoughts are also not found in young infants and many handicapped people. So you would argue those are not human? Tell me, where do you draw the line of what is human and what is not?
In my opinion, there is only one criterion for being human, and that is being a member of the genus Homo. All those who belong to that genus are human.

Are you insinuating that infants aren't sentient?

Are you confusing self-awareness and sentience?
Sentience is the ability to perceive and respond to external factors of any kind.
Self-awareness is the ability of introspection and to recognise oneself as an individual.
Infants are sentient. They are not yet self-aware (at least not until they are about 18 months old, after which self-awareness starts to develop).

Are you sure? I'd love to see some research on that.

Yes, I am sure.
The relevant Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness has some links to research on it if you are interested. You can also test it yourself by placing an infant in front of a mirror. Young infants (generally below 18 months) will not recognise themselves.

That doesn't really prove much. There ware many days when I wake up and don't recognise myself in the mirror

 Peregrine wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Humanity and life are not something gradual, something is either human and alive or it is not.

Life is not gradual, but "alive" is not a very informative quality when deciding whether or not something deserves protection. Cancer cells are alive and human, but clearly don't deserve protection. A person who is brain dead and hooked up to life support machines is both human and alive, but few people would consider it murder to remove life support and allow the process of death to finish. So clearly we need something besides "alive and possesses human DNA" as our test, and the obvious answer is to consider the things that separate us from things with no rights (like cockroaches): self-awareness, capacity to feel and understand pain, higher-level thinking, etc. A fetus at the state of development where virtually all voluntary abortions happen has none of these things.

And just like life is not gradual, humanity is also not gradual. Something is either human or it is not. Cancer cells are not human, a fetus is. The only neccessary test to determine humanity is to determine whether the subject in question belongs to the genus Homo or not. Attempting to use any other qualities to define humanity inevitably leads to weird, hypocritical and very disturbing implications.
Like your conclusion that a fetus who has no self-awareness, capacity to feel pain or higher-level thinking is not human. What about an handicapped person with severely reduced mental capabilities? In some serious cases, those people do not exhibit any of those qualities either. Following your logic, we then have to conclude that those people are not human and can be killed without implications.

The logic used to exclude fetuses from being human is the same kind of logic that has in the past been used to exclude groups of people from being human and justify all kinds of atrocities. That makes it even more disturbing.

 Peregrine wrote:

It depends. If halting work on cancer research is likely to result in real results in the prevention of miscarriages, and if in that cases more or a similar amount of lifes can be saved, then I would certainly support it.

Well, that's consistent at least, though I doubt you'd really stick to that belief outside of a forum debate. Remember that most of these miscarriages happen without the woman ever knowing that she was pregnant, so we aren't even talking about the emotionally devastating "my child is dead" kind of miscarriages.

Oh yes I would. Not that it would ever be needed, considering the fact that it is an unrealistic scenario.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
That doesn't really prove much. There ware many days when I wake up and don't recognise myself in the mirror

That probably indicates that something is seriously wrong with you on those days, rather than a lack of self-awareness. Indeed, the very fact that you recognise that you do not always recognise yourself is proof of your self-awareness

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
I think the idea that people against abortion won't support government aid or sex ed comes from the idea that if you are against abortion you must be crazy right wing and/or crazy religious, I think most people are actually more middle of the road.

Well, realistically, at least here in the US, it's because the people who are in the public view are the religious right. The same religious right that pushes their religious views into law, with gak like abstance only sex ed, and such like. And the religious right is allied with the rest of the right, a large amount of whom want to do away with our safety new programs. And then politicians court both of them, and people get their politics from those politicians. So it leads to far too many people who are actually like that.


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 Iron_Captain wrote:

Yes, I am sure.
The relevant Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-awareness has some links to research on it if you are interested. You can also test it yourself by placing an infant in front of a mirror. Young infants (generally below 18 months) will not recognise themselves.

Interesting, although the validity of the mirror test is called into question on it's own article.


More to the point (and something I really should have addressed), I don't really think self awareness should be the issue, but sentience. Fetuses are supposed to gain sentience at around 12-13 weeks or so (If my memory holds up), and that's the point where I, personally, will treat it as a baby and not just a fetus. When it is more than a bundle of cells with potential.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

More to the point (and something I really should have addressed), I don't really think self awareness should be the issue, but sentience. Fetuses are supposed to gain sentience at around 12-13 weeks or so (If my memory holds up), and that's the point where I, personally, will treat it as a baby and not just a fetus. When it is more than a bundle of cells with potential.

An unconscious person is also not sentient. Do you think it is okay to kill people when they are unconscious?
And if not, then why do you still think it is okay to kill fetuses? What is the difference?

Also, what is the difference between a "bundle of cells with potential" and a human being? Scientifically, that is not a possible distinction because all human beings are bundles of cells. Again, the status of "human being" is decided by membership of the genus Homo, irrespective of developmental, physical or mental state. An embryo of H. Sapiens is as much a human being as a full-grown specimen of H. Sapiens. It is not possible to make a distinction in this by scientific means.
To make a distinction in this one has to fall back on pseudoscience and emotional reasoning based on subjective criteria that inevitably leads to much the same arguments as those once used to exclude large groups of people from 'personhood' based on such criteria as 'race', religion, ancestry or geographical origin.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

More to the point (and something I really should have addressed), I don't really think self awareness should be the issue, but sentience. Fetuses are supposed to gain sentience at around 12-13 weeks or so (If my memory holds up), and that's the point where I, personally, will treat it as a baby and not just a fetus. When it is more than a bundle of cells with potential.

An unconscious person is also not sentient. Do you think it is okay to kill people when they are unconscious?
And if not, then why do you still think it is okay to kill fetuses? What is the difference?

Sentience and consciousness are two very different things. And you know this. Try and make actual arguments.

Also, what is the difference between a "bundle of cells with potential" and a human being?

One has sentience and the other doesn't. I literally just explained this.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

More to the point (and something I really should have addressed), I don't really think self awareness should be the issue, but sentience. Fetuses are supposed to gain sentience at around 12-13 weeks or so (If my memory holds up), and that's the point where I, personally, will treat it as a baby and not just a fetus. When it is more than a bundle of cells with potential.

An unconscious person is also not sentient. Do you think it is okay to kill people when they are unconscious?
And if not, then why do you still think it is okay to kill fetuses? What is the difference?

They pull the plug on unconscious people all the time.

where's the ron paul supporters here, chanting let them die just because they don't have insurance.

and also, what about babies born without brains, clearly not sentient, should they be kept alive just to make you feel better?

 whembly wrote:

The legal terms of 'miscarriage' could also fall under, "taken some meds and drinking alcohol to force a miscarriage".

They do make distinctions between a natural one v. a wilful one.

Natural vs willful, really? Have you even read one of the articles I linked or even just the quote? Random people assume a miscarriage is just an abortion attempt and get to cause more pain (without having actual evidence). These laws are vague and lead to more suffering. Women literary die (the unborn child too and they can leave actual living children without mothers) because other people get to make choices about their life. They are meddling in other peoples' lives and playing devils advocate as if women abort pregnancies for fun all the time.

And you get doctors who either can't or don't want to help with miscarriages because it could be seen as a late stage abortion and they could get into trouble and end up in prison.

Here's another example where the supposed "sanctity of life of the unborn child" led to the death of a woman (just because they couldn't abort a miscarriage, great job!): http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-20321741

Or how about this: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-abortion-banned-criminalized-pregnacy-npr-el-sa-20140927-story.html

Earlier this month, NPR told the astonishing story with video, of a Salvadoran woman, Christina Quintanilla, who served four years of a 30-year sentence after being convicted of murder at age 17 for giving birth, prematurely, to a stillborn baby.

"The hospital had found no evidence that she had intentionally aborted the pregnancy," NPR reported. "But the district attorney pushed forward anyway, arguing that Quintanilla had terminated the pregnancy because she couldn't support another child."

She was released from prison, NPR reported, only after a young lawyer stumbled across her case and was able to argue that her baby's cause of death was never established.

These types of laws are just inhumane.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
And just like life is not gradual, humanity is also not gradual. Something is either human or it is not. Cancer cells are not human, a fetus is. The only neccessary test to determine humanity is to determine whether the subject in question belongs to the genus Homo or not. Attempting to use any other qualities to define humanity inevitably leads to weird, hypocritical and very disturbing implications.

A brain-dead person on life support machines still belongs to the genus Homo, yet we recognize that they are no longer a "person" in any meaningful sense and do not have the same rights anymore. And so it is not murder to disconnect the machines and allow the rest of their body to die.

Like your conclusion that a fetus who has no self-awareness, capacity to feel pain or higher-level thinking is not human. What about an handicapped person with severely reduced mental capabilities? In some serious cases, those people do not exhibit any of those qualities either. Following your logic, we then have to conclude that those people are not human and can be killed without implications.

A person that has reduced mental capabilities on the level of a fetus at the stage of development where virtually all voluntary abortions occur would be brain-dead. You're talking about the kind of situation where the person's mind is entirely gone, even if it is technically possible to keep some of their organs functioning with enough machines to support them. And yes, in that case it is ok to "kill" them without implications. In fact, we do it all the time.

The logic used to exclude fetuses from being human is the same kind of logic that has in the past been used to exclude groups of people from being human and justify all kinds of atrocities. That makes it even more disturbing.

No it has not. Those atrocities have been motivated by hatred towards a race/culture, any "scientific" justification was just flimsy excuses for that hate.

Oh yes I would. Not that it would ever be needed, considering the fact that it is an unrealistic scenario.

No, it's an entirely realistic scenario because it's the one you have right in front of you. Deaths from miscarriages (most of which happen without the woman ever knowing she is pregnant) far outnumber deaths from all other causes combined, and yet very little is being done about this problem. You could be lobbying your politicians for more research funding, donating your personal money, making all of your voting choices based on who is most likely to support anti-miscarriage work, etc. If you are not doing these things then you do not sincerely believe that the fetus is a full person.


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 Iron_Captain wrote:
An unconscious person is also not sentient. Do you think it is okay to kill people when they are unconscious?
And if not, then why do you still think it is okay to kill fetuses? What is the difference?

The difference is that the unconscious person still has the "hardware" for sentience/consciousness/etc, they just aren't using it at the moment. The fetus does not have those things, nor has it ever had them.

Herzlos wrote:


What if the father is either unknown or somehow unavailable for the duration of the childs growth (dead, for example)? Should mother and child live in poverty and suffer?

That's what we have government programs and charities for. I'm a firm believer in programs that are aimed toward helping children and their parent(s) in hard times.

Except it's been proven that good sex education reduces unwanted pregnancies, as does a good social attitude. In the UK/US, teen pregnancy rates are comparitively high because our attitudes and education regarding sex are awful, whereas they are lower in Europe because their attitidues are generally more liberal (which I'm assuming also results in better education).

Unintended pregnancies tend to be highest in areas where sex education is essentially just lectures about abstinance.

I agree with you on the problems relating to "purtianical" attitudes toward sex, even healthy sexual activity. That has, traditionally, been part of the problem. However, there are pros and cons to "abstinence-only", "abstinence, but", and the way comprehensive sex-ed programs are run in schools, based on past studies. And there are studies that sing praises of all three methods. However, teen STDs and pregnancy is still a serious problem in the United States. As to statistics, the numbers tend to be all over the place, from my readings into the subject.

The best sex-ed programs tend to be those that approach it from the standpoint of health, and not purely on matters of sexuality. The United States Centers for Disease Control has what I consider to be the very best program in existence. I'm of the opinion that schools across the country should adopt the CDC model, for it seems to be more effective than traditional approaches to sex education in schools.

What has wedlock got to do with whether a pregnancy is intended? Married couples can get accidently pregnant too, and unmarried couples can raise families.

Traditional families, with married couples, tend to offer the best chances for a stable family life, even in this age of high divorce rates. While there are exceptions, this is generally a good "rule of thumb".

When we were teenagers there were all sorts of crazy claims made about pregnancy that were widely believed as fact, because no-one knew any better. Some claims I remember being made were:

* You couldn't get pregnant on the first time
* You couldn't get pregnant if you rinsed yourself out with a popular carbonated beverage
* That condoms were re-usable.

Here is my question: How old are you? Because if you are close to my age, I can validate this 100%. You would hear this kind of crazy teenage "conventional wisdom" back in my day (late 70's to late 80's). But just from my personal experience alone, teens in the 21st Century tend to be better informed than they were 20 or 30 years ago. Hell, my nephews and step-daughters knew more about STDs and pregnancy risks than I did in my teen years, even with my "hobby" of reading my mother's nursing text books. There is also the matter of the time-honored teen beliefs in their invincibility and the "it won't happen to me" attitude. Then you also have those that won't let the risks get into the way of a good time.

Plus, there was usually a trend that the poorer performing school children were normally the ones who dropped out due to pregnancy, but that may be more related to their social life than their educational level.

I agree with you that this is a troubling trend. But how much of it is due to the issues that is affecting their school performance, and how much of it is due to a lack of knowledge of sexuality?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:


I see. So it's prison sentences for anyone who is unemployed and can't afford to support the child? You are aware that the goal of government-provided child support is to protect the child, right? No matter how much you disapprove of the parents the child is innocent, and I think you should see the obvious problem with leaving the child to starve if their parents can't afford to support them.

Also, why is the father responsible for providing money? Why doesn't the mother share equal responsibility, with an equal threat of "harsh prison sentences" if they fail to meet their required payments?

Like I said to the poster above, that's what government programs and charities are for. They are there to help the child and the parent(s). There is no excuse for it. Besides, I said nothing about child welfare and assistance. My point was about making people take responsibility for their actions. In this case, harsh penalties are needed for the sorry who are willing to do the fun stuff, but don't want the responsibility for the end result of said "fun". Even with government assistance, parents are not absolved of the responsibility for the kid's well being.


You are coming across as making excuses for "deadbeat" parents,whether that is your intention or not.


I mention fathers exclusively because, more often than not, it's the male partner that takes off and leaves the mother holding the bag. Especially among younger people and people in disadvantaged areas. There are exceptions to this rule, and in any case, harsh measures need to be taken to insure a child's well being if something isn't right. There is also the fact that with the mother performing the heavy lifting (figuratively speaking) in directly caring for the kid, the father should do his part in providing for his new family, in addition to helping with the child. It may seem "outdated" and "old fashioned" to you, but it's what I firmly believe in. I'm aware that the financial situation might not allow for a traditional arrangement, but it's one that should be pursued if possible. That's my take on it.

Too bad the statistics disagree with you. Good sex education makes a significant difference in teenage pregnancy rates.

Like I mentioned to another poster. There are pros and cons to all schools of thought regarding how to run sex-ed. And there is no doubt that current programs have helped to a degree. But considering the serious problem we still have with teen pregnancy and teen VD, I wouldn't call it "significant". Many of the sex education curriculum across the country tends to vary in effectiveness, and there are plenty of contradictory studies out there. So, despite what some may claim, there is no hard consensus regarding effectiveness. I'm of the belief that we need better sex education programs, ones that tackle it as a health issue and not just about sex. The CDC program is the way to go in my opinion, since it leaves no stone unturned and gets parents involved in the educational process.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:
Like I said to the poster above, that's what government programs and charities are for. They are there to help the child and the parent(s). There is no excuse for it. Besides, I said nothing about child welfare and assistance. My point was about making people take responsibility for their actions. In this case, harsh penalties are needed for the sorry who are willing to do the fun stuff, but don't want the responsibility for the end result of said "fun". Even with government assistance, parents are not absolved of the responsibility for the kid's well being.

Sending people to prison doesn't help the child. You seem to be far more concerned with punishing people for doing something you don't approve of than actually helping the victims of the situation.

You are coming across as making excuses for "deadbeat" parents,whether that is your intention or not.

Like it or not "I can't find a job that pays enough to survive" is an excuse. The reality of the modern economy is that there are a lot of people who are either unemployed or barely able to make enough to cover their basic needs, and that's including people working a lot of hours trying to meet those needs. Those people can not afford child support (at least enough to cover the child's actual needs), and you propose sending them to prison for the crime of not making enough money.

Now, there are definitely people who make enough money to be reasonably expected to pay but still refuse, and I'm not making excuses for those people. But those are not the only people you'd be sending to prison.

There is also the fact that with the mother performing the heavy lifting (figuratively speaking) in directly caring for the kid, the father should do his part in providing for his new family, in addition to helping with the child.

But why are you assuming this? Once the child is born men are perfectly capable of taking care of them, and women are perfectly capable of working to provide financial support. I don't think we need to consider outdated and sexist stereotypes here.

Like I mentioned to another poster. There are pros and cons to all schools of thought regarding how to run sex-ed.

No there aren't. Abstinence-only programs have been clearly demonstrated to fail at their goals, and the only reason anyone likes them is that they support right-wing Christian ideology. From a secular point of view there is nothing good about them.