Brewkinbrew

OK I'm finally off the porn site and here to make a comment.

We are about to have another baby any day and are not prepared for it. That sounds bad. We planned the baby but don't have the house ready for another child yet. We don't know what it is going to be. My wife is having a c section and will be out for 6 weeks, I have 2 jobs. So we have boy and girl clothes and all sorts of stuff everywhere.

Now technology would allow us to know what the baby is. However, apparently because in British Columbia many Chinese and East Indian people will abort their babies if they find out that they are expecting a female. To stop this, the health authority stopped telling people what the sex of the baby is during the ultra sound.

Now for my question.

A girl can go to an abortion clinic and get an abortion for many reasons, it's not the right time, I don't have enough money, I was planning on going to college.

But if a person says I wanted a boy, OH NO that's not a good reason, we can't do that.

Does anyone have any reason why you could abort a baby because you wanted to go to college but not because you wanted to have a boy ?



For the record, I am pro life in most circumstances.

Daniel_

I think it's that all the cases that societies accept as valid pace no greater value on one gender of child over another. They say "I wll not have a baby for economic reasons" or "I will not have a baby because it has CF/Downs/etc" is valid, but "I will have a boy but ot a girl" is invalid because it causes societal problems (too many boys) and is gender biased ("girls are worthess").

In general people are more upset about the value judgemet being made in abortion for gender reasons than they are in abortion for health or financial ones.

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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Lindy

Are these not value judgments as well??

Lindy

Plan9

Oh, philosophy. My favorite.

...

My question to people who think abortion is wrong is always, "Why does the world need another selfish monkey to carry? Because you were bored?"

The whole gender pick thing is reminiscent of primitive garbage culture that still dominates poor countries... places where men are men and women are kitchen appliances. Folks looking at abortions in the US don't have the "poor" problem. Americans seeking out abortions because they're unhappy with the gender of their child? Part of me says, "Why not? They made the damn thing in their own E-Z Bake Uterus," and yet it seems so petty and trivial that even I feel a little like a species sell-out. I'd abort a kid with birth defects or if it was the wrong time in my life but I wouldn't abort a kid because of the M/F contents of their crotch-mounted species-replication device assembly.

I think "control" is a good idea here. Government regulation that stipulates valid reasons for an abortion such as unwanted pregnancy (no info on human tumor), health of mother, birth defects, rape/incest, etc. Technology shouldn't allow for people to "BUILD YOUR OWN" like some car manufacturer's website where they get an abortion because their kid doesn't have the cute freckles they wanted.

...

Unnecessary rant ensues:

I'm all for abortion. I believe it makes for a better society when it is properly controlled. Abortion is a smart choice for those who can do it.

You're screwing around with your girlfriend suddenly she misses her period. Do you screw up the rest of your life? No. You get an abortion. You go to college and get that good job and set yourself up for a life that allows you to create the required environment to start a family.

You're married and already have a kid. Your wife forgets a birth control pill and gets pregnant. Do you just accept the burden of an unwanted child? No. You get an abortion and can afford to get your current kid braces and send them to that ass-rape expensive state school.

...

The planet is way past the point of needing to be populated. Humans are in no danger of going extinct. We consume resources like soft-sided bipedal locusts until there is nothing left. Balance is not a word in our vocabulary despite our lame attempts with concepts like "public recycling" and jerk-me-off gimmicks like "Toyota Prius." We are self-centered crabs crammed tight in a barrel of dirty, water stacked on top of ourselves with illusions of grandeur to keep us from seeing our flaws.

I'm tired of the crowd that is populating god's army... soccer moms or religious types or trailer trash. If you can't afford to take care of it, you think it'll fix your failing marriage, you're lonely or bored or whatever lame excuse... don't do it. Get a fucking Playstation or adopt a dog or smoke meth or something. Just don't think that needlessly pushing out another screaming poo factory is going to solve anything for you or society.

When people say: Think of the children!
I say: I am. And they'd be unhappy here.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Daniel_

They are value judgements about the mother(or parents). They are independent of the child.

Selecting gender suddenly makes the choice of whether to abort about which foetus is "better" not about whether the mother is "ready" or "able".

__________________

╔═════════════════════════════════════════╗
Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
╚═════════════════════════════════════════╝

Brewkinbrew

You mentioned that people should have the right to abort a baby because they made it. Why then couldn't my parents abort me when I was and asshole 17 year old, they made me.

I think that everyone knows what can happen when you have sex. I'm pretty sure that everyone knows that condoms and birth control are not 100%. If you can't understand this you shouldn't be having sex.

Fact of the matter is that every cell on your body has your DNA. If you test the baby it will have totally different DNA. If there was a murder and they found blood and the blood was somehow from a fetus, the cops would be looking for a person. This tells me that
the baby is a person. Nobody should have the right to snuff out another life whether you made it or not.

If a wife wanted a certain style of life that having a child would not allow for and she took her child to an alter and sacrificed the child to the God of Mercedes, or God of Million dollar house it would not be tolerated. Personally I don't see any difference other than the age of the child.

In any case I love debating !!!

Have a great day !!!

By the way I live in Northern Canada. There is 400 miles between cities of less than 20000 people here. The earth has lots of room. And who know maybe the baby we slaughter today would have been the savior of the environment tomorrow.

I know if Al Gore would have been aborted there would be a lot less global warming today

ASU2003

I have a problem with aborting because of the gender, but that's because I think that you should know if you want an abortion before the baby is that developed to be able to tell the difference.

Even though there is open space, there is a reason that we aren't living there right now. Most people move to the city because it's easier than living in the middle of nowhere. And the large number of humans is causing prices to go up and a lot of other negative aspects.

Shell

[b]...so you'd kill this so you could buy meth, playstation, braces, an expensive school, and a dog...i see. I agree with your comment about "self-centered crabs"...but not everyone is.

IMAGE OF INFANT REMOVED BY MODERATING STAFF

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..."Say what you think. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind" ~ Dr. Seuss

Plan9

Digital or not, I don't think the photo is appropriate for the forum* based on the rules... I'm sure the mods will figure it out.

* (unless it's a cartoon zombie baby)

...

Pretty sure I thoroughly beat this dead horse into Hamburger Helper above, lady.

Shell, you have to see it from my side: I don't see it as murder. It isn't a person until you push it out 9 months later.

From your side? Yeah, I'd pull the plug and dump That Thing (C) in a dumpster faster than a man who catches the business end of a branding iron.

I don't believe in god. I don't believe in the Sanctity of Human Life (TM). And I don't believe the world needs more humans.

I've seen starving kids in other countries. I've seen Crazy Christians with license plates like "7 Kiddos." Makes me nuts.

...

Some estimates put it at 1/3 of a million dollars to get a kid to age 18. I'd rather get a PhD, travel, and adopt a herd of cats.

...

I also believe that the right to reproduce should be restricted, not the right to drive or own guns or drink or smoke or wear pants.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Punk.of.Ages

Since we've eliminated natural selection from our society, we have to keep the numbers down somehow. Murder's as good a solution as any other. Especially when the victim is most likely unaware of its existence, let alone its demise.

To think that accidents don't happen is naive. To think that one should pay the consequences of a simple accident for the rest of their life even though there's a way to avoid it is silly.

It's just a grouping of cells at a very low level of formation. There's no brain. Spiders have a higher level of comprehension. Have you truly never squished a scary fucking spider? This is the world; not everybody gets to survive...

(Abortion threads are fun for a minute, but don't expect me to stick around and flog the dead horse with you guys for too long.)
_______

I don't think one reason to get an abortion is really any better or worse than any other. It's murder, and murder is the same no matter what the reason.

__________________
"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..." - Henry Steel Commager

"Punk rock music is great music played by really bad, drunk musicians." -Fat Mike

Plan9

You kids need to look up the legal definition of murder and stop murdering the word.

...

Don't worry, PoA... I'll fuck this horse up... all night long, all-night.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

Punk.of.Ages

Murder: To kill intentionally and with premeditation.
________

Killing a spider is murder according to definition.

I label abortion as murder because you are ending another human beings life. That is how I define murder. It can be argued that the fetus is not quite human yet, but it cannot be argued that, if one fails to abort, a human life will take place. Simple skills of logic should tell you that is killing intentionally and premeditated.

__________________
"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion..." - Henry Steel Commager

"Punk rock music is great music played by really bad, drunk musicians." -Fat Mike

FelixP

I agree that we need a way to keep the human population, but the solution is to kill adults and teenagers, not babies. Babies are innocent. There is not a single human being over the age of 14 that doesn't derserve to die for some reason or another. So kill someone who deserves it.

__________________
Free will lies not in the ability to craft your own fate, but in not knowing what your fate is. --Me

"I have just returned from visting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world." --Douglas MacArthur

BigBen

I have to jump in there;

I humbly remember when my hormones (whore-moans? naw, too cheesy of a joke, it will only distract from my beautifully arranged argument) kicked in as a young teenager. It was scary. If you told me that there was a girl that wanted to have sex with me, I would have climbed Everest, cured Cancer and knocked out Muhammed Ali to get it.

Hey! Ben!! You might get that girl pregnant! You better think twice!

Are you kidding me? I'll be having sex, right? Sex WITH A GIRL, right? I will do anything. Anything. If you think that normal teenage males don't think like this, then I guess that's it for the discussion.

Well, the fact that girls did not want to have sex with me (I didn't understand why) caused me to be in the enviable position of not having to make the moral decision on the abortion issue. Academically speaking, I probably would have kept the kid and tried my best. I saw a couple buddies do it, and they seemed to really love their kids.

Still, philosophically speaking, I am torn on the issue. I don't know what I would do. What I am certain of is my firm belief of staying out of the way when someone else has a moral decision to make. I don't judge. I think that they should stay legal (back-alley clinics are disgusting and equally immoral) and be very hard to get.

Young men should be held responsible for their actions, but not their thought process. It is a pretty clear, although flawed process. Kill it or fuck it.

__________________
3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

Plan9

I've got a room temperature IQ. The above statement made no sense to me.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

BigBen

In my opinion, young men have a primal urge to kill things and fornicate with things. All else is submissive to those two urges.

Alas, I do not grant young men to kill and fornicate with abandon. They should still be held responsible for their stupid and unplanned actions.

Alas, people often try to rationalize young men's actions, and I state that there is little to be gained in diving into a young man's psyche.

Sorry for not being as clear as possible. Still shaking off the rust.

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3.141592654
Hey, if you are impressed with my memorizing pi to 10 digits, you should see the size of my penis.

UnclearContent

Too many people enter into parenthood without the means or discipline to really care for a child. Some can't afford it, some can't handle the responsibility. I don't think we should punish those who freely admit that they are not at a point where they can adequately care for a child. If they aren't ready, should we force them to carry to term and just hope for the best? Hope that the parent will suddenly get their act together and raise a happy, healthy child? Or should we wonder if maybe the parent, who admits to their inadequacy, may be right in their decision?

To the OP:
Men and women have near equal potential in this culture. In our culture I would say aborting the child for being the 'wrong' sex would be abortion for cosmetic reasons.

Plan9

You, sir, are like a ray of sunshine.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

FelixP

Has anyone brought up adoption yet? One of my uncles is a foster parent, and he later went on to adopt at least one of the kids he is taking care of; he is one of the best parents I know, far better than most any biological/step parents I have ever met.

__________________
Free will lies not in the ability to craft your own fate, but in not knowing what your fate is. --Me

"I have just returned from visting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world." --Douglas MacArthur

levite

*stands and applauds*

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

Plan9

Adoption is a good idea, but it's not the end.

The problem is that there are too many humans.

And not nearly enough zombies.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

SecretMethod70

I generally agree with Crompsin here. In fact, strictly speaking I'm not sure I think aborting because of the baby's sex is any worse than aborting because the parent isn't ready. The problem is that if all unprepared parents abort, then it doesn't have an effect on the balance of sexes. If parents get in the habit of aborting girls, then you end up with a country full of men and not enough women to pair with. It's not that one reason for abortion is inherently worse than the other, it's that one is much more capable of getting out of control than the other.

__________________
Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

jewels

Babies soon become teenagers and adults.

Babies are innocent is a purely emotional statement. (Did I just say that?) You see, they're raised by the teens and adults that deserve to die.

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We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

Shell

...i said "kill". When something is living and you cause it not to live you haved killed it. Here is a picture of this "non-living object as you believe"...in the womb for only 4 months.

...at just 4 months in the womb, ultrasound can tell us now if it's a boy or girl. This is a boy. He has his own heartbeat and can hear his mother's heartbeat and other outside noises. All his major organs are now complete.

...his bones are growing stronger and his muscles longer. His reflexes also are sharpening up—he can now swallow, kick and execute an occasional somersault with relative ease....and suck his thumb.

Crompsin...you say your biggest concern is overpopulation of the earth and your solution is to kill off all these "objects" as pictured below. Why don't you let the unborn babies live and just kill yourself and all your followers? Seriously, look at this picture, read of his development above, and tell me why he should die and you should live?

IMAGE OF INFANT REMOVED BY MODERATING STAFF

__________________
..."Say what you think. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind" ~ Dr. Seuss

jewels

Hey Shell ...

The pic was removed from your previous post and you post it again? Please respect the few rules that TFP insists upon. That would go a long way towards earning respect for your opinions.

I don't think many pro-choice folks are into late-term abortion, other than in extreme cases, so there's really no need for those pics anyway.

__________________
We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.
Mark Twain

genuinegirly

Thanks, Jewels.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Shell

...i did not post the same picture twice

...one was a baby and the other was a fetus

__________________
..."Say what you think. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind" ~ Dr. Seuss

snowy

A fetus is more like a parasite than a sentient being at this point. 4 months is also not when most abortions take place; they typically take place at the embryonic stage. 4 months is also before the age of viability.

This is why I have a difficult time with the "it's a living being" argument. It is and it isn't. It cannot live on its own at this point.

To be honest, it is better for all involved if a child is aborted instead of being brought to term if he or she is going to grow up in a household with awful contextual factors and bad parents. Children should be cherished and loved, not resented.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

ratbastid

I have a really hard time with abortion.

I'm as liberal as they come. I actually think that under certain conditions, Socialism could work pretty well (not any way we've ever seen it implemented so far, but just maybe...). I don't say that to start a threadjack (so PLEASE), I'm trying to make the point: I'm liberal.

I really want people to have the freedom to do whatever they want with their bodies. Crazy body modifications, physician-assisted suicide, you name it. I'm for individual liberty, and I'm for that being damn-near absolute when it comes to people's bodies and their reproductive choices. And there was a time in my life when I thought anybody who made abortion more than an issue of personal choice was pushing some sort of religious agenda and should be dismissed.

But the more I think about it, the harder it is for me to shake the concern that we're talking about ending a life. The state and condition of that life at its end doesn't matter to me as much as the potential future that life could have. I don't know.... I'm really really torn about this. I want women to have reproductive freedom--I'm all for open and free access to birth control from her very first period, no matter what age she is. But once the genie's out of the bottle, so to speak... Is it still birth control of the same category as the pill or the IUD? I have a hard time equating the two the way some pro-choicers do.

I hate to admit it, but I think I'm against abortion. I think so... I don't know. I really don't. And I really do hate to say that. It goes against some pretty fundamental beliefs, but there it is. I'm super torn.

Maybe in my ideal world, abortion would be legal and available on demand, but nobody would ever get one.

Cases of rape and incest are a different deal. I'm talking about abortion for reasons like "the time isn't right/I can't have a baby now", etc. For sure "I wanted the other gender" doesn't for me rise to the level of a sufficient reason to terminate that pregnancy--so to answer the OP, that just seems like a no-brainer. I think that if that's a sufficient reason, you're just not taking what you're doing seriously enough.

purplelirpa

I wouldn't have an abortion in the case of consensual sex, myself.

However, I feel that abortion for any reason should be allowed.

With birth control and condom use, are we still pretending that sex serves the sole function of creating babies anymore? So our pleasure-mongering may have the side effect of creating a baby? Cosmopolitan didn't mention this anywhere in their "how to please your man" section!

Casual sex is on the rise, and it's no wonder with all of the teenage single mothers out there. Women are much less focused on marriage, and with the choice to abolish everything else that makes them a baby factory, why not take matters into their own hands/coat hangers when the system isn't foolproof?

Society goes about in denial over the function of sex. Ladies--how sexy is it if a guy tells you he wants to impregnate you? I don't care how cute he is...I'd run like hell.

Abortion because of the sex of a child is just one more measure of control we're trying to exert over our own biology. With sex, most species will have a regulated ratio to ensure proper breeding. We've pretty much messed up proper breeding with all of the artificial hormones floating around. As our males disappear further and further into androgyny, we have to ask ourselves--does it even matter anymore?

snowy

I too would prefer prevention. Unfortunately, we're not there yet.

And purplelirpa, casual sex is not on the rise. Casual sex has always existed in society to some degree; we're just more comfortable talking about it now than we were, say, 80 years ago. I would say we're actually having less casual sex as a society now than in previous eras/generations. People really went crazy after the birth control pill became widely available, but that wasn't even the first Sexual Revolution--the introduction of the diaphragm led to a lot of casual sex in the 1920s. Ask your grandparents; I bet they have stories to share.

And the number of teen mothers has actually decreased in recent years.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

genuinegirly

To be fair, I will state for the record that her first and second images were in fact different. Each was equally not permitted per the rules of the board.

---------- Post added at 09:08 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:07 AM ----------

This made me laugh, Purpleirpa. Thanks for infusing some humor into a very difficult, polarizing topic.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

Plan9

That's kinda harsh, Shell. I mean, everybody here knows I don't have any followers.

As stated above, unborn babies are more like parasites than human beings.

Granted, some remain parasites after birth... but that's a whole 'nother thread.

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

genuinegirly

It is not right in either case.

You say that the law states that doctors cannot divulge the sex of your child based on the ultrasound. Is genetic testing also covered in this law, or is it unavailable or perhaps prohibitively expensive? (Seeing as how this thread is over a year old, I doubt you'll return to share the answers to these questions but I still ask).

To be fair, I don't understand the cultural implications of male vs female in your part of the world. I kind-of hope that I never will.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"violence is no more or less real than non-violence." roachboy

FelixP

Not really. They haven't done anything to deserve to die. Even if they kill the mother during birth, it's not a concious decision. And obviously not everyone could die; that would be the end of the human race as we know it.

I'm just saying we need a few more World Wars and murderous plagues (Captain Tripps, anyone?) to hit the US, China, Western Europe, Africa, Russia, etc. Basically any place that's over populated (US; China) or provides a useless population (much of Africa, especially Sub-Saharan Africa; Middle East).

__________________
Free will lies not in the ability to craft your own fate, but in not knowing what your fate is. --Me

"I have just returned from visting the Marines at the front, and there is not a finer fighting organization in the world." --Douglas MacArthur

SecretMethod70

Wow, that's a pretty harsh statement, contending that the populations of Africa and the Middle East are generally useless. The Middle East, in particular, has a ton of cultural value and a rich intellectual history just waiting to rear its head again. Africa, while it shares in the fault for its problems, is largely a victim of past colonization. It, too, has a lot of cultural value, and I'm sure there's even more to offer underneath the surface. Unfortunately, in both cases they are dealing with the primary concerns of food, shelter, and security, which leaves them less time to be productive in the way our arrogance in the west deems appropriate. I'm perfectly fine making value judgments about the life of a fetus which is not even self-aware, but making value judgments about another fully developed, self-aware human individual is something I am not comfortable with, nor am I comfortable with judging their worth across completely different cultures.

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Baraka_Guru

Yay eugenics! We should just try to colonize Africa--teach 'em really how to live. Oh, wait....

You know, we could really have more than double our current global population....if only we'd stop living like North Americans.

/pro-choice

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Reese

Of all the statements in this thread, I agree with this one the most. As a liberal I have to tell myself it's none of my business and it's a moral debate with compelling arguments for both sides and that means I should accept and support the person that makes that decision regardless of the decision I'd make in the same situation.

Abortion is preventable, true. But even if there were no abortions, would we not just start arguing about the next step of the reproduction chain? Would we start arguing that every time a man spills his seed on the ground that he committed a sin, or every unfertilized egg is a child that goes unborn? If not, Why not? I've already seen the argument made, I could only see it being more popular if abortion was non-existent.

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“It is better to be rich and healthy than poor and sick” - Dave Barry

MSD

On top of that, widespread availability of cars made it possible for young adults to drive out into the countryside, or wherever the place of choice was in their town.
Unfortunately these gains decreased 2001-2008 as well as STD rates among teenagers and young adults due to abstinence-only education programs.

Jinn

I'm just glad the regular posters chimed in, because it became clear with the second post by the OP (their second post ever, actually) that the thread was just a colossal fucking troll, and I thought the thread might die.

Yea, that sounds like someone looking for intelligent dialog and discussion.

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"I'm typing on a computer of science, which is being sent by science wires to a little science server where you can access it. I'm not typing on a computer of philosophy or religion or whatever other thing you think can be used to understand the universe because they're a poor substitute in the role of understanding the universe which exists independent from ourselves." - Willravel