So, what are your thoughts on abortion?

[Metis]

"happiness," which is a term that people cant even agree as to its exact meaning.

People are happy when endorphins are released in their brain.

No, thats just stimulation of the pleasure centers.

[arriah]

no I am trying to find a reasonable reason as to why murder would be considered wrong. If you know a better alternative, be my guest.

well I can tell you that because it makes certain people feel a certain emotion is not why murder is bad. I feel sad when you petard my town center, so is that wrong as well? Murder is bad because our goal and the goal of every species really is to add to the longevity of its race . Murdering people does not generally benefit that goal and more often than not harms it. Just as abortion does. However, its not politically correct to believe that abortion is not a good thing atm because of "womens rights". To me, it literally makes no sense why you would stop the growth of a human life or something that will very soon be a human life. Its counterintuitive to our survival as a race. If birth rates go down to one child per family like it used to be and still partially is in China humans as a race will not be in for a very good time next generation, as there will be an enormous amount of old people, and not enough young people to take care of them.

Oh, my... First its overpopulation then its not enough babies. Also, having safe an legal abortions (and making it rare by increasing education and access to contraception) is a lot better than making abortion illegal. Wether you think a woman has the right to her own body or not, you cant deny these facts.

[evilcheadar]

People are happy when endorphins are released in their brain.

No, thats just stimulation of the pleasure centers.

I think its reasonable to equate happiness with stimulation of pleasure centers.

[Metis]

No, thats just stimulation of the pleasure centers.

I think its reasonable to equate happiness with stimulation of pleasure centers.

Think of a soldier dying in great pain after throwing himself on a grenade, one cant say that he is feeling anything pleasurable but he may be happy that by his actions he has saved the lives of his platoon. Or, take the rock star who has money, sex, pleasure-enhancing drugs and the adoration of millions yet still commits suicide because he was unhappy. I tend to agree with Aristotle that happiness is less of an emotion than it is a state where one realizes that his life has fulfilled its purpose.

[evilcheadar]

I think its reasonable to equate happiness with stimulation of pleasure centers.

Think of a soldier dying in?great pain after throwing himself on a grenade, one cant say that he is feeling anything pleasurable but he may be happy that by his actions he?has saved the lives of his platoon. Or, take the rock star who has money, sex, pleasure-enhancing drugs and the adoration of millions yet still commits suicide because he was unhappy. I tend to agree with Aristotle that happiness is less of an emotion than it is a state where one realizes that his life has fulfilled its purpose.

Well the rock star could be happy all the time if he was constantly on pleasure enhancing drugs. Also are you suggesting that there is a god who enstills purpose on peoples lives?

[Metis]

One determines for oneself whether his life has meaning.

[adnewswanger]

its wrong. why is murdering somehow magically okay because its a baby? if you don't want to have a baby don't get pregnant?

[Sgt_ROFLCopter]

[quote author="@gibson" timestamp="1445795444" source="/post/70408/thread"]Honestly I'm not sure. It seems like abortions are used to cover up people's irresponsibility. I mean why can't you use a condom? Or pull out? Or take birth control? Or take one of those plan b pills? Or have the girl on the top(not sure if that's an actual thing but I think I saw it in a movie)? When our purpose is literally just to reproduce so our species can survive, it seems counter intuitive to kill a growing fetus that will soon be a human child. And I think there is a certain point where it is murder. When it's gotten to like the 3rd trimester and the baby is a baby and can survive outside of the mother, albeit with the help of machines, I think it is murder. People are always talkin about the women's right to her own body, but I feel like she gave up that right when she let someone stick an unwrapped cock into her, or when she didn't tell the guy to pull out, or when she didn't take her birth control, or when she didn't take a day after pill, or when she wasn't on top. Not saying it should be illegal, but I think it's not extremely straightforward. [/quote]I can't tell if you're trolling or not. You've literally argued that sexual indiscretion results in forfeiture of one's bodily autonomy' are you out of your mind? Furthermore, "having the girl on top" is in no way reliably preventative of pregnancy, if at all. Neither is pulling out. I hope that in light of your own ignorance on proper contraceptive methods you can in turn excuse the same in others. We can cover all the others by mentioning that there are places in America where those types of things aren't widely available to everyone, nor is the education surrounding them.

Let's not even get started on considering reproduction the sole purpose of existence, though I'm glad you've solved that age old question for the entirety of humanity.

Here's my take on it: You're gonna force one of three situations to happen.

1) Sketchy Under-the-radar abortions

2) +1 kid into the foster care system because even though you're "adopting them out" there still aren't enough adoptive parents available already.

3) An unwanted kid is raised by the people that would rather it be dead. That's the start of a fairy tale happy ending now isn't it.

Gibson is right about pointing out condoms, Plan B, and birth control pills. Third trimester abortion also doesn't sit well with me. I'll even get on board with limiting access to abortion AFTER we can SUCCESSFULLY increase education and access to contraception.

Here's the thing, the major prohibitive factor preventing teens from accessing Plan B and Birth Control is privacy laws. They live in an ass-backwards state where they have to go ask their ass-backwards father with his ass-backwards opinions for permission to get Plan B or Birth Control. Some places even lock up the condoms. Some kids don't even know sex can lead to pregnancy because every time somebody tried to give them a reason to use their private parts intelligently their parent's covered their eyes and ears because their poor 17 year-old flower isn't ready to learn just yet. The government could save so much money and stop so many abortions just by increasing education and making condoms freely available' it baffles me that they don't but its largely because of people that think it's appropriate to impose their religiously-derived morals on their fellow countrymen via a strictly secular government.

Even beyond all that, if you're gonna force people to have children then lets be sure the systems in place are able to support that child you're about to force into existence, not even for the sake of the mother or father but for the sake of the child you've just decided is going to exist. None of our problems are gonna be solved by flooding the foster care system and increasing the number of people dependent on welfare (who happen to be the ones with underwhelming access to contraceptives and sexual education). Just my $0.03.

[arriah]

its wrong. why is murdering somehow magically okay because its a baby? if you don''t want to have a baby don''t get pregnant?

but the thing is it''s not a baby, that''s why it''s called a fetus. Also, a lot of people can''t afford or are not properly educated on contraception, and if you were, you would know that all contraception has a failure rate.

People who don''t know about contraception should definitely not be included in a conversation about abortion.

[noissance]

its wrong. why is murdering somehow magically okay because its a baby? if you don''t want to have a baby don''t get pregnant?

Umm why don''t you say that to guys instead... don''t get others pregnant? (Example: Woman gets raped, cant get the morning after pill due to relegious stigma, barriers to access to pregnancy prevention, from a government filled with old penis pumpers)

[Sgt_ROFLCopter]

If a woman doesn''t consent to sex, we call this rape and prosecute the perpetrator accordingly. If the woman, cannot consent to sex, either because she is mentally or physically impaired then this too is considered rape. It''s even considered rape when a sexually mature female desires and initiates sexual intercourse but is too young according to the laws of society. In this instance the law is pretty clear that we must act in the best interests of those who cannot consent for themselves. Very few normal people would consent to being scraped to death, poisoned or having a metal clamp placed around their necks and their brains crushed. Thus we should presume that a fetus probably would rather not be aborted were it capable of making an informed choice.

The reason you are not allowed to have sex with a minor or someone incapable of giving consent is that the law is simply "Sex requires consent." Inability and age were designated as things that in this instance make you legally unable to provide consent. It doesn''t oblige anybody to any course of action, it just says that the person in question is unable to provide consent. Sex requires two parties to legally provide consent and in that way it is treated as a contract. The idea of Statutory Rape doesn''t logically serve as the premise to any argument regarding the legality of abortion unless the pregnancy was caused by it.

[Sgt_ROFLCopter]

Gibson I have to ask that you stop claiming that the main purpose of any species is to perpetuate it's own existence. Evolutionary biology is best described at the level of individual genes. One of the lowest forms of genetic matter is the bacteriophage, a broad classification of viruses that infect primitive bacteria. There is almost no concept of a "species" at this level' there are so many combinations of different genes that are so easily interchangeable that it doesn't make sense to track them as species. We are looking at describing them with mosaic models now, and it has started to become much more widely accepted over just the last few years.

Bacteriophages are very interactively involved in bacterial competition and evolution. Phages can either benefit or destroy their hosts so often times evolutionary successes are determined by a recombination event where a phage integrates beneficial genetic material into the bacteria. Bacteria also engage in many forms of conjugation, transduction, and transformation, all of which involve a bacterium having a modified genome but don't require replications or other reproductions associated with population genomics.

Despite the fact that they represent an astronomical proportion of the genetic material and biomass on Earth, you still may not care. However, it goes a little further than that. Humans are "metabolically incomplete" and have interdependent relationships with gut bacteria. Neither can live without the other. We have similar relationships with the most prominent food crops in that they wouldn't exist in their current forms if not for us, nor would we if not for them. The continuation of human existence depends on the existence of entire networks of species.

Still at this point people will argue that we keep those organisms alive then it is only to help ourselves and is ultimately in the interest of a species wide initiative to perpetuate the human race. To this I retort that in an attempt to better the world for himself, man has changed himself. We are not the race that begat us. They are extinct yet still a success. Failure isn't passing the torch, it's letting it die in your hands.

[Marco1698]

Pools?

[evilcheadar]

Yes Marco, please post your pool specs.

[gibson]

well I can tell you that because it makes certain people feel a certain emotion is not why murder is bad. I feel sad when you petard my town center, so is that wrong as well? Murder is bad because our goal and the goal of every species really is to add to the longevity of its race . Murdering people does not generally benefit that goal and more often than not harms it. Just as abortion does. However, its not politically correct to believe that abortion is not a good thing atm because of "womens rights". To me, it literally makes no sense why you would stop the growth of a human life or something that will very soon be a human life. Its counterintuitive to our survival as a race. If birth rates go down to one child per family like it used to be and still partially is in China humans as a race will not be in for a very good time next generation, as there will be an enormous amount of old people, and not enough young people to take care of them.

Oh, my... First its overpopulation then its not enough babies. Also, having safe an legal abortions (and making it rare by increasing education and access to contraception) is a lot better than making abortion illegal. Wether you think a woman has the right to her own body or not, you cant deny these facts.

I never said it should be illegal, it just doesnt make that much sense to me

[gibson]

@sgt_roflcopter well obviously saying that the only reason we are alive is to continue our race is a slight oversimplification. I mean I dont give two shits tbh. But then why does reproduction exist in the first place? Do we just exist for the sake of our genetically modified wheat or gut bacteria? Or do we exist because of God? Our singular most important duty is not to our food or to our gut bacteria, but too our species. The fact that our primitive ancestors where not exactly the same as us is irrelevant. Evolution is a good thing that basically only betters a species and you can only get better through change.

I mean look at every other species of animal, plant etc. Living and reproducing are the only things they care about. Humans aren't any different. Sex money pleasure, all we care about is staying alive and reproducing, albeit we wanna have a good time at it.

[Metis]

Just because something is legal doesn't necessary make it ethical. Human behavior is controlled via internal and external sanction. External sanction is the law and its enforcement. Internal sanction is when we either determine rationally that an action should or should not be performed or just intuitively feel that it is right or wrong. The most purely moral action is when an agent is disinclined to perform a moral act but does so anyway because it's the rationally correct action. Otherwise, one is only doing what one desires to do, albeit that it also is the right thing.

Is abortion legal? -- yes
Is abortion ethical? -- depends

Examples:

Rape of a twelve-year-old -- abortion probably ethical. However, what if the girl wants to keep the baby? Should she then be forced to have an abortion? BTW, this is not just a hypothetical case, it actually happened to a girl here a few years back. She kept the baby, who was adopted by its grandparents then raised as the girl's "brother."

Late second-trimester abortion by a drug addict who is too lazy and stoned to practice birth control or keep earlier clinical appointments -- abortion probably not ethical. However, do you want to force a child to grow up in the care of a no-account female or become a ward of the state and be passed around in foster homes where it might be abused?

Planned pregnancy where it is determined that the fetus has Patau syndrome (trisomy 13)? Here, I'd say definite abortion as this abnormality results in a fetus that, if it even survives to term, will never really be what we think of as a human. But what about Down syndrome (trisomy 21)? Now, this is a sticky one because some of these people can be happy, self-sufficient and productive.

Note: I thought about putting a picture of a Patau syndrome infant here but decided better of it. Even in my college genetics course people were greatly shocked when seeing the results of this chromosomal abnormality.

[gibson]

Looked up pictures of babies with patau syndrome, was not disappointed. I'm now sure this is what the cyclops in the odyssey had.

[Sgt_ROFLCopter]

@sgt_roflcopter well obviously saying that the only reason we are alive is to continue our race is a slight oversimplification. I mean I dont give two shits tbh. But then why does reproduction exist in the first place? Do we just exist for the sake of our genetically modified wheat or gut bacteria? Or do we exist because of God? Our singular most important duty is not to our food or to our gut bacteria, but too our species. The fact that our primitive ancestors where not exactly the same as us is irrelevant. Evolution is a good thing that basically only betters a species and you can only get better through change.

I mean look at every other species of animal, plant etc. Living and reproducing are the only things they care about. Humans aren''t any different. Sex money pleasure, all we care about is staying alive and reproducing, albeit we wanna have a good time at it.

The reality is that what you''re saying isn''t true and no matter how many times you say it won''t become true. Sorry. It''s not even a slight oversimplification, its demonstrably incorrect and the contrary is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence. We don''t have a single greatest duty at all' we are the vehicles of many genes that share interests and others that are in direct competition with one another. Some of them benefit considerably from mutualisms between us and other life forms due to their near ubiquity. You''re applying a patently human perspective to so much' fun fact: 99.99% of life on Earth experiences neither money nor sex nor pleasure and that''s me being conservative. The reason you don''t think humans are different from any other animal is because you''ve anthropomorphized life on Earth and then compared yourself to your projections and delusions.

[Hazza54321]

Imo abortion is fine, even if you wear a condom you could still potentially get someone pregnant, if the parents arent ready, such as a 16 year old, then the child might have a terrible life if they cant afford the time and money on the baby
Plus if someone is raped , then they shouldnt essentially be "forced" to raise a child

[Sgt_ROFLCopter]

On one hand, I'm totally against women's rights. On the other hand, I just love killing babies.

[oxaloacetate]

Looked up pictures of babies with patau syndrome, was not disappointed. I''m now sure this is what the cyclops in the odyssey had.

Welcome to medschool.

[Metis]

Welcome to med school.

I picked up an allied health degree at a major medical center. Medical schools can be a "chamber of horrors" at times. I''d previously been a soldier and an EMT and was still somewhat shocked by some of the things I saw. The cadaver dissections and autopsies didn''t much bother me but the burn ward rotation and collection of genetic and medical abnormalities sort of did.

[gibson]

@sgt_roflcopter well obviously saying that the only reason we are alive is to continue our race is a slight oversimplification. I mean I dont give two shits tbh. But then why does reproduction exist in the first place? Do we just exist for the sake of our genetically modified wheat or gut bacteria? Or do we exist because of God? Our singular most important duty is not to our food or to our gut bacteria, but too our species. The fact that our primitive ancestors where not exactly the same as us is irrelevant. Evolution is a good thing that basically only betters a species and you can only get better through change.

I mean look at every other species of animal, plant etc. Living and reproducing are the only things they care about. Humans arent any different. Sex money pleasure, all we care about is staying alive and reproducing, albeit we wanna have a good time at it.

The reality is that what youre saying isnt true and no matter how many times you say it wont become true. Sorry. Its not even a slight oversimplification, its demonstrably incorrect and the contrary is overwhelmingly supported by the evidence. We dont have a single greatest duty at all' we are the vehicles of many genes that share interests and others that are in direct competition with one another. Some of them benefit considerably from mutualisms between us and other life forms due to their near ubiquity. Youre applying a patently human perspective to so much' fun fact: 99.99% of life on Earth experiences neither money nor sex nor pleasure and thats me being conservative. The reason you dont think humans are different from any other animal is because youve anthropomorphized life on Earth and then compared yourself to your projections and delusions.

and you can keep on talking about how what you say is correct by science and symbiotic relationships between creatures when in reality nothing you have said that has contradicted what I said is provable by science and symbiotic relationship between creatures are irrelevant. You can ignore the fact that the two strongest urges humans have are the urge for sex and the urge to eat (to reproduce and survive)
You can ignore the fact that looking at the lives of lesser intelligent creatures its obvious that their only purpose in life is to reproduce. And yes, btw I know that 99.99% of life on earth has never experienced sex money etc etc, and I never said they did. I said that the most important things in most humans lives relate directly to the survival and reproduction.

[jacksonpollock]

I'm glad we finally got this all hashed out. We can all agree that abortion has its place