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Abortion debate (3 Viewers)

Abortion debate

  • Abortion illegalised

    Votes: 51 19.8%
  • Tougher laws

    Votes: 35 13.6%
  • Keep current laws

    Votes: 155 60.1%
  • don't care

    Votes: 17 6.6%

  • Total voters
    258
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erawamai

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Phanatical said:
I see the issue as being analogous to driving a car. It is estimated that every three kilometres we do something that could result in an accident. We manage this risk, but when something Does happen the responsibility must still lie with the driver at fault. If you hit somebody with your car, you can't just say "it was the pedestrian's fault, I managed my risk to the best of my ability".
Um...that's exactly what people do.

phanatical said:
If a woman gets pregnant, the two parents MUST take responsibility for their actions. They cannot just commit a murder without good reason - and "convenience" is NOT a good reason. If they can't handle parenthood or adoption, then they shouldn't have conceived in the first place.
1. What happens when they decide not to take responsibility for their actions? Should the women bare the extra responsibility that would have fallen on the father if he chooses to do a Tony Abbot and run away to Queensland? Do you lock this person up, have them whipped or have them sent off to a 'single mothers camp' away from society like in the 1960s?

2. If a person hits another person with their car killing the pedestrian they are killing a life in being, not a potential life.

In any case a person who kills a pedestrian doesn't make an active choice as to kill the pedestrian or not. That is an accident just like an accidental pregnancy. There was no intention to kill the pedestrian or get pregnant. The choice to terminate is not an accident unlike the case of a person who kills a pedestrian. The accident in the case of the pedestrians kills. The accident in the case of the couple creates a pregnancy.

3. Would you prefer that couples engage in other methods of sexual intercourse, such a mutual masturbation?
 
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Phanatical

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First, let's make something abundantly clear. A embryo, foetus or baby is not a "potential" life. It IS a life, no more or less a human than any one of us.

I've been clear about this from the beginning - any activity that can create life should be avoided. If you can't create life from your activities, then it's not my business. If you DO engage in the act of procreation, and actually conceive a child, then neither parent can deny their responsibility to this human life. Their actions resulted in the creation of life, and they must face the consequences of what they do. This applies to Both parents equally, and if either parent avoids their duty, it is the responsibility of society to punish this - both as a punishment and as a deterrant to others.

If I hit a pedestrian on the road, I could deny my responsibilities as much as possible - but in the end I would still have failed in my responsibility to drive the vehicle in a safe manner.
 

erawamai

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Phanatical said:
First, let's make something abundantly clear. A embryo, foetus or baby is not a "potential" life. It IS a life, no more or less a human than any one of us.
It's not a human life. It's a potential human life.. A foetus does not have rights or responsibilities and cannot gather such rights and responsibilities until the act of birth.

There are many arguments as to when a foetus should be considered a life rather than a potential life. Generally these arguments center around when the foetus would be able to survive outside of its mother naturally.

phanatical said:
I've been clear about this from the beginning - any activity that can create life should be avoided.
Asking a girl out to lunch can lead to a pregnancy. So can getting up in the morning.

But in any case that would mean you support sexual intercoarse where no bodily fluids are exchanged? Heavy petting and mutual masturbation etc. Would you like to see this kind of sexual education? In reality people have sex regardless of the risks (STD's, pregnancy) how do you expect to enforce this kind of rule on society that has, since it's inception, had sex regardless of the risks?

Do you accept that abortions are a part of society and have been for centuries? Or do you feel that you could completely abolish abortions?

Do you accept that sexual intercoarse is pleasurable and that people have sex for the purpose of pleasure ? Or do you feel that sex should only be for the purposes of procreation?
phanatical said:
If you DO engage in the act of procreation, and actually conceive a child, then neither parent can deny their responsibility to this human life. Their actions resulted in the creation of life, and they must face the consequences of what they do. This applies to Both parents equally, and if either parent avoids their duty, it is the responsibility of society to punish this - both as a punishment and as a deterrant to others.
You advocate punishment for all those fathers who ran away or who leave their wifes? How far does this 'responsbility' extend phanatical? Should a father be punished for leaving an abusive wife because he is shirking his responsbility to his child? OR does he have a greater responsbility to society to put aside his personal freedoms and lie back and think of the glorious state?

phantical said:
If I hit a pedestrian on the road, I could deny my responsibilities as much as possible - but in the end I would still have failed in my responsibility to drive the vehicle in a safe manner.
What if it wasnt your fault? In any case your analogy isn't really anologous. The accident in relation to the pesdestrian kills him. The accident in relation to a a couple engaged in sexual intercoarse creates a pregnancy. The killing of the predestrian is an accident and not an active choice. The termination of a pregnancy is an active choice.

BTW have you read 1984? Your view of sex is very much like that of Big Brother.
 
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Phanatical

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Damage Inc. said:
By your defintion, a cancer or a tapeworm is human life.
Don't be stupid. An embryo, foetus, baby, infant, adolescent and adult are human lives because they are built upon the the 46 chromosomes that are the building blocks of our sentient species. The distinction between a cancer and an embryo is that a cancer is a "class of diseases characterised by uncontrolled cell division and the ability of these cells to invade other tissues, either by invasion or metastasis". Hardly the definition of an unborn human being.
 

Phanatical

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erawamai said:
It's not a human life. It's a potential human life.. A foetus does not have rights or responsibilities and cannot gather such rights and responsibilities until the act of birth.
The foetus SHOULD have those rights and responsibilities. We're not talking about what is, but what should be.

erawamai said:
There are many arguments as to when a foetus should be considered a life rather than a potential life. Generally these arguments center around when the foetus would be able to survive outside of its mother naturally.
It's just another form of dependence. Can a newborn baby survive without adult intervention? Can a 5 year old? Can an 85 year old?

erawamai said:
Asking a girl out to lunch can lead to a pregnancy. So can getting up in the morning.
This isn't an existential argument.

erawamai said:
But in any case that would mean you support sexual intercoarse where no bodily fluids are exchanged? Heavy petting and mutual masturbation etc. Would you like to see this kind of sexual education? In reality people have sex regardless of the risks (STD's, pregnancy) how do you expect to enforce this kind of rule on society that has, since it's inception, had sex regardless of the risks?
Frankly, as long as you're not putting your peepee into her bajingo, I don't really give a crap what you do behind closed doors. In fact, I'd much rather not know. And the reason people have sex regardless of the risks is because, despite the best intentions of the do-gooders, PEOPLE DON'T KNOW THE RISKS. They think "it'll neve happen to me", and go ahead and do it. People are stupid. They need to be told quite explicitly that "you have sex and create a child, you take care of the child or suffer the consequences" - certainly not in those terms, but I think the sentiment is clear.

erawamai said:
Do you accept that abortions are a part of society and have been for centuries? Or do you feel that you could completely abolish abortions?
Abortion is murder. But sometimes it's more compassionate to mercifully take a life. I want to reduce the amount of abortions by reducing the amount of conceptions. This must be done by not only encouraging people not to engage in the act of procreation, but also by enforcing parental responsibility on those who Do create a human life.

erawamai said:
Do you accept that sexual intercoarse is pleasurable and that people have sex for the purpose of pleasure ? Or do you feel that sex should only be for the purposes of procreation?
Yes, I do. Driving at 160kmh is also pleasurable, but if I kill someone doing that I still have to take responsibility for it.

erawamai said:
You advocate punishment for all those fathers who ran away or who leave their wifes? How far does this 'responsbility' extend phanatical? Should a father be punished for leaving an abusive wife because he is shirking his responsbility to his child? OR does he have a greater responsbility to society to put aside his personal freedoms and lie back and think of the glorious state?
I believe that bad parents should serve their time in jail. It is the responsibility of society to assist and (if necessary) substitute in teaching proper values if the parents cannot do so.

erawamai said:
What if it wasnt your fault? In any case your analogy isn't really anologous. The accident in relation to the pesdestrian kills him. The accident in relation to a a couple engaged in sexual intercoarse creates a pregnancy. The killing of the predestrian is an accident and not an active choice. The termination of a pregnancy is an active choice.
Yeah. The termination of a pregnancy would therefore be worse.

Damage Inc. said:
Well, by that definiton, a dead person is a human life...
You're an idiot.
 

erawamai

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phanatical said:
Frankly, as long as you're not putting your peepee into her bajingo, I don't really give a crap what you do behind closed doors. In fact, I'd much rather not know. And the reason people have sex regardless of the risks is because, despite the best intentions of the do-gooders, PEOPLE DON'T KNOW THE RISKS. They think "it'll neve happen to me", and go ahead and do it. People are stupid. They need to be told quite explicitly that "you have sex and create a child, you take care of the child or suffer the consequences" - certainly not in those terms, but I think the sentiment is clear.
I think the above illustrates why you have little grasp of social dynamics.

I really hope you are not suggesting that the reason people do have sex so recklessly, as you infer, is because they don’t know that when they put their ‘pee pee’ into another girls ‘bajingo’ that a pregnancy can result. You would have to be severely misinformed or simply stupid to actually not know the risks of sex considering the level of sex education and physical education offered to children of all ages (which, from memory I think you are against?). I think the reason why people engage in sexual intercourse is a long way away from your summation that they do not know that sex can result in a pregnancy. I also think your summation is so far away from the mark because you personally do not want to have sex for for pleasure or for procreation (or at least not considering it any time soon).

Also, as most humans are aware, when contraceptives are used properly the chances of falling pregnant are very low. The average rational human engages in a bit of reasoning and decides that the risk of pregnancy is outweighed by the pleasure of sex.

erawamai said:
Do you accept that abortions are a part of society and have been for centuries? Or do you feel that you could completely abolish abortions?
phanatical said:
Abortion is murder. But sometimes it's more compassionate to mercifully take a life.
That’s an interesting little oxymoron there. So it’s ok to murder if it’s compassionate?
Do you accept that by making it harder to have legal abortions may have a negative affect of creating a black market abortion service where the chance of the additional death of the pregnant mother is a possibility?

phanatical said:
I want to reduce the amount of abortions by reducing the amount of conceptions. This must be done by not only encouraging people not to engage in the act of procreation, but also by enforcing parental responsibility on those who Do create a human life.
How exactly do you force parental responsibility onto people?

How exactly do you reduce the number of conceptions?

How exactly do you encourage people not to have sex?

Making sex taboo only has the result turning back time. Making it taboo may even result in making sex cool unlike today where sex is amost passe.

Another question to consider is whether it is natural to force consenting adults to kerb their sexual desires. Whether sex is something that is learnt or whether it is biologically programed into us. Whatdo you think phanatical?

erawamai said:
Do you accept that sexual intercoarse is pleasurable and that people have sex for the purpose of pleasure ? Or do you feel that sex should only be for the purposes of procreation
phanatical said:
Yes, I do. Driving at 160kmh is also pleasurable, but if I kill someone doing that I still have to take responsibility for it.
You are getting your analogies mixed up again. In the case of a reckless driver having fun his accident results in a death that is not his active choice. You also can’t correct your analogy by arguing that by doing such speeds he has made an active choice to end a life as doing 160kmph in certain situations is safer than doing 40kmph in others.

In the case of a woman who wants an abortion the termination is not an accident but rather an active choice. In this case the accident results in a pregnancy and not the loss of life.

phanatical said:
I believe that bad parents should serve their time in jail. It is the responsibility of society to assist and (if necessary) substitute in teaching proper values if the parents cannot do so.
I’m not sure if it is in the best interests of the child to have his or her father or mother locked up. Your suggested punishment reeks of knee jerk reasoning that evidences that you have not really thought about it. Locking a mother or father up isn’t going to exactly bring the family back together after the father has served his time in gaol. In particular if the person was never emotionally involved with the mother in the first place. Do you expect the parents to live in a loveless relationship at the risk that the all mighty state might lock them up? What kind of impact will that have on the child? Do the parents not have rights as well or are they to be subservient the rights of the child? How far does this responsibility extend?

I think you ideas are limited by your inability to get away from socialist reasoning. There are very easy ways of allowing market mechanisms to influence peoples choices without having them fear the oppressive yoke of your brand of quasi socialist reasoning.
 
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Phanatical, on the whole I agree with a lot of what you say.

Until you say things like this:

Phanatical said:
I want to reduce the amount of abortions by reducing the amount of conceptions. This must be done by not only encouraging people not to engage in the act of procreation
thats just weeeird and bizarre and REALLY freaks me out. i shudder to think of a world where the amount of sex people have is restricted.
 

Phanatical

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Not restricting it. Just reminding people that there are consequences to it too. What's wrong with that?
 

erawamai

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Phanatical said:
Not restricting it. Just reminding people that there are consequences to it too. What's wrong with that?
Reminding people of the risks of sex is different to persuading them not to have sex.

Putting a warning on street corners saying 'if you have sex you might get pregnant' will most probably not reduce the number of people who engage in sex for reasons other than for procreation.
 
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erawamai said:
Reminding people of the risks of sex is different to persuading them not to have sex.

Putting a warning on street corners saying 'if you have sex you might get pregnant' will most probably not reduce the number of people who engage in sex for reasons other than for procreation.
It's actually been shown that preaching abstinence in schools does nothing to decrease the number of pregnancies or STD transmissions, and actually increases it relative to safe sex education.
 

erawamai

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Calculon said:
It's actually been shown that preaching abstinence in schools does nothing to decrease the number of pregnancies or STD transmissions, and actually increases it relative to safe sex education.
It certainly has. Abstinence sex education exacerbates the problem. There are girls in their early 20s who do not how a condoms operates or how a boy should wear it. And eventually a girl is going to engage in sexual activities and this will eventually lead to vaginal intercourse. It would be better for that girl to be armed with the risks and facts rather than being in the dark.

On the original point...telling people that sex will result in a pregnancies is redundant because everyone knows this already. Telling the average 20 year old who is ina sexual relationship that sex may result in an unwanted pregnancy isn't going to stop the curiosity of a young person to experience life.
 
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i don't agree, though, that it should be an attitude of "well, yeah, but thats just to be accepted that people will have sex, get pregnant, and get abortions"

its still an irresponsible choice in most cases, imo
 

erawamai

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davin said:
i don't agree, though, that it should be an attitude of "well, yeah, but thats just to be accepted that people will have sex, get pregnant, and get abortions"
A basic grasp of history indicates that abortions are an unavoidable consequece of society itself. You outlaw it and it will go underground. There will always be a demand for abortions in capitalist society. A society that tolerates abortion is better than a society that outlaws it and feeds a blackmarket for it while encouraging the practice of infanticide.
 

+Po1ntDeXt3r+

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davin said:
i don't agree, though, that it should be an attitude of "well, yeah, but thats just to be accepted that people will have sex, get pregnant, and get abortions"

its still an irresponsible choice in most cases, imo
regretably u assume humans are rational and responsible..

and as things lik economics have discovered to their perils.. ppl are not..

ideally there would be no need for abortions ever.. but this is not an ideal world
we need it to be an option that is heavily controlled to prevent worse outcomes further
 

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i'm for it being legal, i just don't think its responsible. i mean, i also don't think excess drinking or drug use is responsible, but i'm not trying to get that outlawed
 

+Po1ntDeXt3r+

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oh definately but like u cant play the blame game realli cos ppl who get them..
young women .... they do feel guilty.. i mean lik if they are coming back for a buy 2 get the 3rd free sort of thing.. i reckon they need help..

but the main reason is why not avoid surgery/medical intervention when you could just abstain
and not suffer the consequences.. its emotionally harrowing to some mothers and education to have a good understanding of sex will improve abortion numbers and STI's too ..
 

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erawamai said:
A basic grasp of history indicates that abortions are an unavoidable consequece of society itself. You outlaw it and it will go underground.
Ok Erawamai, what about murder then? Murder is also an unavoidable consequence of society itself. You outlaw it and it will go underground. So lets give people the choice of murder. We are not saying its right, we are just giving people the choice. In any case it will be a difficult decision for anyone to murder another.
 
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musik_junky said:
Ok Erawamai, what about murder then? Murder is also an unavoidable consequence of society itself. You outlaw it and it will go underground. So lets give people the choice of murder. We are not saying its right, we are just giving people the choice. In any case it will be a difficult decision for anyone to murder another.
Hey I just had this great idea, let's start an argument about whether or not a baby is "alive" from the moment of conception onward!!!!
 

erawamai

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musik_junky said:
Ok Erawamai, what about murder then? Murder is also an unavoidable consequence of society itself. You outlaw it and it will go underground. So lets give people the choice of murder. We are not saying its right, we are just giving people the choice. In any case it will be a difficult decision for anyone to murder another.
How exactly can murder go underground? There is no market for murder because most murders (that are not contract killings) are not part of an active choice. Unlike when a person chooses to engage the services and labor of an individual to do the abortion. You don't employ people to do murders for you.

That means there is no market for murders ( An abortion is a service murder is an abstract act which isnt a service unless you employ someone for a contract killing. But that is beside the point because most murders in society are not contract killings and the person who does the kill does not employ anyone for the killing)

As such there is NO market for murders which means it cannot go underground. You little self rightious ditty makes no sense at all.
 
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withoutaface

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+Po1ntDeXt3r+ said:
regretably u assume humans are rational and responsible..
So next time I go to grab coco pops for breakfast the state should be standing there forcing all bran down my throat? If I want to be unhealthy it's my choice.
 
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