Incorrect. There is no such lack of concern, only a recognition that "only rich people get to murder their kids" is better than "everyone gets to murder their kids". Put another way - and I'm repeating myself here - restricting a "bunch of them" is an improvement but not by any means a finishing point. The concern would not be fully satisfied in the face of such an improvement.

Please don't do that. It demeans us all.

To put forth the idea that 'fairness' should not always be the first priority, that there are other ideals of more pressing importance.

It's directly on-topic.

Yeah, no shit...

On the other hand, I must say that I'm impressed with the majority of the TFP men's opinions here. For that alone, I'm glad Will started this thread.

For my part, I support Crompsin's opinion.

And Will, I mean to say this gently... we all know that you just love to argue for the sake of arguing. You're not going to change the status quo, and thank goodness for that. But go on making your case, because I like seeing all the rebuttals. :)

Will, leave my guns out of this. *flexes* They're huge, I know.

Oh, the nature of the political beast itself.

Yea that's what I'm saying :rolleyes:

You are just learning liberalism isn't about fairness either, you will learn that more and more the older you get.

For the record though I'm for abortion but for totally evil reasons....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_effect

This is bordering dangerously close to sounding like "Life isn't fair, so this shouldn't be either!" Maybe it's just me, but I find such a stance as purely evasive.

Anyway, I'm getting tired of the "Outlawing abortion wouldn't necessarily do anything!" lie. I've said this on previous threads, so I'll just copy and paste to save myself the hassle.

And:

But, yeah, outlawing abortion would be a bad thing.

You mean this status quo?

;)

I simply see it as a difference in priority. I prioritize justice and equality, and others prioritize apologism. This is to sexism as affirmative action is to racism: it's intended well but executed poorly. IMHO.

Regardless, I am about fairness. Whether a policy is liberal or conservative is less important to me than whether it's reasonable and fair.

IL, that's an interesting post. Very informative.

So in one post I'm agreeing with IL and Ustwo. Whoa.

Ustwo i'm fairly liberal also and what side am I on? I have many liberal friends who agree with me. This is not a liberal vs conservative debate stop trying to make it one.

Its a pro-anti abortion thread even if its not posed as one.

That then normally divides on conservative liberal lines.

You can NOT give a father any rights until birth if you want to maintain the current sophistry which is employed to make abortion seem less immoral.

As long as liberalism keeps open abortion as a defining issue, there can be no compromise.

No IL, contrary to your interpretation, the subject of this thread is not abortion in itself. I was referring to the status quo which Will himself brought up in the OP, which is the default of giving the mother 100% of the right to choose (terminating or continuing the pregnancy). I support that status quo, though of course there are always ways that these things could be improved.

This is not the thread to be discussing the other status quo, that of the Roe vs. Wade decision. I thought that was made clear on the first page, but apparently not to everyone.

How about this:
1) The father is notified upon completion of the abortion. He's not given say but at least is aware of the procedure.
2) Fathers who disagree with the abortion are given the opportunity to be added to an adoption list.
3) Women who get more than a dozen abortions that are not connected to rape are put on a watch list. At 13 the court requires them to go into therapy and a sex ed class. Don't laugh, there are women who have gotten more than 20.
4) Women who tamper with contraceptives or lie about being on the pill (and there's real evidence to support this) are guilty of theft. Men who tamper with contraceptives are idiots and will pay for any and all bills, be they abortion or child support.

I'd go for that, except #3 requires modification. A dozen sounds more like birth control.

A quick albeit unrelated response to an unrelated statement by IL, be careful of stats. The percentages you quote are based on "reported" abortions. When it was still illegal, there were back-alley practitioners who took advantage of young ladies who "got in trouble". Those were amongst those not reported.

So you would be comfortable with a lower number? Say 8?

I think there should be steep percentage of net worth based tax on all abortions after the first. This would stop people from using it as birth control.

A price increase would only punish the poor. But I like the direction you're heading in.

I do like the sliding scale idea. But I think 8 is still way too much.

I'd go with three max lifetime. That should be more than sufficient to cover errors, omissions and menopause.

This seemed to be in response to FoolThemAll's discussion of "when a fetus becomes a human," which he's right in identifying as the critical "stalemate" in any discussion regarding the "right" of a fetus to live.

And similarly, I think it is a VERY important question to the discussion of father's rights, because it is again where I draw the line. I do not believe that a father should now or EVER have any rights regarding a child until the moment of birth.

My entire opinion about abortion and father's rights stems from my belief that a parasite (or symbiont, should you choose to use that word) is the property of the mother and no one else, in line with every other piece of anatomy.

I similarly reject the position of pro-life individuals who believe that the cells, even in a "human-like" arrangement, somehow constitute "human life", particularly at the moment of CONCEPTION! I fail to see how that a position like that could coexist with a belief that antibiotics are an acceptable practice?

Why? Because for much of a pregnancy, especially immediately following conception, the magnitude of cells in a zygote is equal to the number of cells constituting a bacterial infection.

A "human-like" appearance is similarly unconvincing, and although I grant that the organism is multi-cellular, I do not hold that as a defining characteristic of humanity. There are billions upon billions of multi-cellular organisms which we do not protect from death. Some of them we actively work to destroy.

If you don't believe a baby is a child until birth, then you must see how that changes your opinion of what rights a father is entitled to regarding a fetus.

Unworkable I'd think. The woman would have to give your name, and if she doesn't want you to know she just won't give it. If you 'force' her to give the fathers name the feminists will eat you.


Eh? So a woman you had sex with had an abortion of your child without your consent so you are now on an adoption list?

1 abortion?
5 abortions?
10?
20?

What difference does it make? If its not a human life, and if its a womans choice how can you limit it or call it a problem? Its just another form of birth control right?


A dirty trick, but damn hard to prove.

I've always thought it would be interesting to order child support payments from all parents/guardians involved whenever these cases come into court.

Jinny my boy, its great to have strong beliefs and all but its best you understand them a bit better.

Equating pregnancy to a biological infection requiring antibiotics is perhaps the most unconvincing argument I've heard on the issue, well ever.

A pregnancy involves a mothers and fathers DNA, fusing, recombining, shuffling, to form a new human. We are designed to be good at this, it is a requirement for the species survival. A fetus is just about half mother half father, in DNA, if you don't count the mitochondria. It isn't a foreign organism sapping the mothers strength it IS her and the father.

The whole parasite view cute as a joke, but wrong biologically. Are eggs chicken parasites? Seeds plant parasites? Having children is simply a function of the organism human or otherwise.

Mind you I'm not arguing about the morality of the whole thing. Personally I think abortion is an excellent way to purge the gene pool of some anti-survival traits, but lets get our biology correct.

It's as evasive as the "if you don't want kids don't have sex" position. Neither really offers anything of value to the discussion. That was kind of my whole point.

Who said it wouldn't do anything? I said it wouldn't do anything to protect the father's rights to have an unwilling woman carry a child to term.

ustwo, unborn children fit the definition of parasite just fine. The fact that it irks you doesn't mean that jinn is ignorant.

Yep.

And the fact remains: anytime two people engage in ANY form of intercourse, sabotaged contraceptives or not (assuming the woman is beyond puberty, but not yet through menopause), there is an undebatable risk of pregnancy, whether either party wants that to happen or not.

It follows that EVERY time you have sex, there is an undebatable risk of either being responsible for a child for the rest of your life, or having "your" fetus (at least, that you contributed 50% to conceiving), be aborted. There are no two ways around this biological fact. It is the responsibility (and right) of the man to decide where he inserts his penis and ejaculates, knowing these undebatable risks that he is taking every single time. And it is the responsibility (and right) of the woman to decide not only whether she will leave herself vulnerable to those same risks, but also what to do if/when she does actually become pregnant.

There are no equal rights in a discussion about pregnancy. The fact is that it is still the woman's body, not the man's. And it is the man's sperm, not his body, and not even his child yet (assuming the dominant argument for abortion, which is that it is a bunch of cells). It is a fetus, and as such, it belongs to its harborer until it emerges.

Beautifully said, abaya. Thanks for saying what I've been trying to get across all along. :p

Well if you say so, I mean I'm sure his argument that you can't be for abortion if you are for antibiotic therapy is spot on :rolleyes:

Ownership is different than a responsibility for. Ownership went out with slavery. Humans cannot be property, especially young humans.

Your decision about life beginning at birth is just as arbitrary as the notion that life begins at conception. Neither have scientific basis because science's description of "life" is different than the term people wish to use in this debate: the philosophical meaning of life.
Then she can't have an abortion. The feminists (and outdated term) can eat all they want. This is a point on which I will not budge because I had a friend who was lied to by his horrible, hateful girlfriend at the time about having an abortion when she was lying about being pregnant.
This is a consideration for men who wanted the child. While it's not their child it at least provides them the option of giving a child in need a good home.
Abortion shouldn't be just another form of birth control. Those who view it along side condoms and pills clearly have lost perspective.
Yes, hard to prove. Not impossible, though.

I already know what you were 'trying' to get out and, no, it's not equal to my position. In a society where we advocate personal responsibility, it's amazing how readily one is to toss aside that concept when they feel like it. You (Not singling you out in particular) still haven't been able to come up with a reason why I'm wrong-- Other than, of course, "Because that's what humans do", hence why I called it evasive.

This skirts dangerously close to sounding like the justification upon which women were/have been entrapped throughout history (Properties of their father/husbands to be done with as pleased, etc.).

Anyway, biology and fetal development aside (Which I'm convinced 99% of pro-abortionists don't really understand), I find your attitude quite appalling. A fetus doesn't belong to the woman, otherwise she'd be able to do as she wishes with it when she wants (And she can't, as I'm sure you're well aware) nor is a fetus an extension of your body as you have no direct control over it's development.

Already responded to that. Unless you can, with confidence, assume that nearly 25% of women were self-aborting their unborn children prior to 1970, then I'm going to have to say that the number of abortions has indeed skyrocketed since 1973-- Not because they're more needed than they were in the past, but because people are relying on them more so as a form of birth control then they were in the past.

A fetus is an extension of the body, at leaslt in a parasitic way. It cannot exist without the mother, receives its nutrition from the bloodstream of the mother who feeds it through her own diet. If her food doesn't contain the vitamins and minerals required to grow, it will seek minerals from her bones and teeth, destroying them to get what they need.

It seems to me you're talking about ethics.

At the same time a baby cannot survive without someone to care for it....

Semantics aside. Since you (Among others) want to equate a fetus to a parasite, then it's important to note that parasites aren't extensions of the host body in which they occupy (They're separate entities). A woman has to go to extreme measures in order to not gather the required nutrients needed for fetal development.

Oh, and ethics is a completely different subject.

(PS> I'd like to point out that there have been cases of fetal development outside a mother's womb. I once posted an article on the subject. Let's see if I can find it...)

While I completely agree with you, this doesn't follow with the 'logic' given for why abortions are not murder.

If there is no moral reason not to have an abortion, if there is no value to a fetus, then it must be no different than the pill.

This is the place abortion has led us to. If you put a limit on abortions, then you admit there is something wrong about it, and if you do that you open yourself up to saying how is one different than 20.

Fair enough. You're wrong about parasites, jinn is wrong about antibiotics.

Why you're wrong about what? That you think it shows a lack of personal responsibility to have an abortion? That's a value judgment, there's no way to show you that you're wrong. Though it could be argued that since you have never been pregnant, or had an abortion your opinion isn't all that informed.

SHHHHHHH!!! Jesus!

No I wasn't. Activities a woman is evolved for and are required for the existence of the species are not 'parasitic' unless of course you feel the mans DNA is parasitic which would be fitting with liberal ideology.

Look up parasite in a dictionary. I have yet to find one that makes the distinction you're making. Perhaps it's because most dictionary publishers are liberals?

I made my case for the label of parasite being wrong and symbiant being correct. Unless you'd like to argue that the continuation of the species isn't beneficial.

Since when does a parasite have your own DNA? Is your Pancreas a parasite considering it saps food/air/etc from you and does nothing in return?

Fair enough, I do not want a man's right to say a woman has to have his child. Would you then at least grant the man the same right of opting out of parenthood and not be forced into child support? It's a right the man does not have pre-birth which a woman does, only makes sense he gets it somewhere in the path so long as it's stated pre-birth.

Ustwo, very good argument.

Well, its a complex thing. It would nice if it were a simple matter of "every child carried to term is beneficial to the species" but that's not always the case. Beneficence is in the eye of the beholder. Clearly a pregnancy that threatens the life of the mother isn't necessarily beneficial to the species, and a pregnancy that perhaps threatens the livelihood of the mother isn't necessarily beneficial to the species. Even an ideal pregnancy with ideal parents isn't necessarily beneficial to the species. In fact, there seems to be a natural predisposition by the species towards abortion if you count all the pregnancies that fail without abortions.

Speaking of natural predispositions, humanity seems to be spreading like wildfire. Nobody knows the earth's carrying capacity, but we do know that it must exist. It might be argued that the cause of species continuation might benefit from a decrease in the birth rate, which is something that the legalization of abortion accomplishes, though perhaps not to a very significant effect thus far.

But that isn't even necessarily that important. Until humanity reaches a point where the continuation of the species is threatened by abortion then your point is null.

Apparently, "the smaller, less complete member of asymmetrical conjoined twins" is considered a parasite. So the answer to your first question is probably a long time.

As for the pancreas, doesn't it produce insulin? A better example would be the appendix, which i think just sits around waiting to get clogged with shit so that it can be surgically removed.

My point is simply that propagation of the species is something demonstrated in every species as necessary. This doesn't suggest that everyone born is productive, but most everyone who is born carries with him or her the opportunity to reproduce.

If you're speaking of abortions as a form of population control, you'll likely be met with strong disagreement. As of right now there is no solution for overpopulation that doesn't involve a human rights disaster.

I don't disagree with this. But there is a difference between the general necessity for humans to reproduce and the fact that there are many instances where reproduction has been anything but beneficial to everyone involved. The distinction you're making is not represented in any of the definitions of parasite that i've seen.

I'm not saying that abortions are an effective policy for population control, or that i think that they should be mandatory. What i am saying is that there might be just as much reason to believe that abortion will damage humanity's prospects for the future as improve humanity's prospects for the future. That is to say either perspective is speculative and tenuous.

Unless you're arguing to determine the nature of a fetus being a parasite or symbiote on a case by case basis, then you're in for an incredibly difficult time.

Also, parasites harm the host. Unless you call morning sickness and mood swings harmful, a fetus does not fit the definition.

I think that it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that all unborn children fit the definition of parasite. Whether they contribute to the continuation of the species is irrelevant to whether they are parasites, since the continuation of the species doesn't necessarily have anything to do with providing a benefit for the host.

No, parasites don't contribute anything to their host. They need not necessarily harm the host. In fact, it's probably in their best interest to do as little harm to the host as possible. I suppose the ideal parasite would treat its host like a national park should be treated. As parasites go, unborn children are pretty good.