Fun Stuff > CHATTER

HHS Moves to Define Contraception as Abortion

<< < (15/17) > >>

tania:

--- Quote from: Misconception on 22 Jul 2008, 07:35 ---if you have a chicken coop full of only hens, they will still lay eggs but those eggs won't be fertilized and won't become little chickens someday.
--- End quote ---

chicken menstruation.
man eggs are delicious though.

Johnny C:

--- Quote from: Misconception on 22 Jul 2008, 07:35 ---Just the fertilized ones, Johnny. If you have a chicken coop full of only hens, they will still lay eggs but those eggs won't be fertilized and won't become little chickens someday.

--- End quote ---

The point still stands that it is a baby chicken that ain't had the chance to be a baby chicken ever because humans intervened.

I'm going to kind of ping-pong to a bunch of different thoughts here, occasionally at the same time, so bear with me, I've been thinking about this most of today.


--- Quote from: Oli on 22 Jul 2008, 09:52 ---Honestly I don't think that anything has a right to life (in the sense of being an independent and sentient being, not in the sense of existence because saying something has the right to exist is positively absurd) that exceeds the right of what someone does to their own body.

--- End quote ---

I'm a little in need of clarification. Why is suggesting that a fetus has a right to exist - or that anything that has a right to exist - absurd? Especially since it already does exist in the case of said fetus.

As for the latter part, I've finally figured out what my main issues are in terms of making abortion about the right to choose. Calling it an issue of choice regarding your body is putting it on the same level as deciding whether you want a McGriddle or some fresh fruit for breakfast.* There is also the fact that while choice might be a firm legal ground it is a tremendous grey area from a philosophical and a logical standpoint - try defending the idea of abortion being a "choice" without making an appeal to emotion. You can do it about as easily as defending the notion of free will with the same condition. Finally, suggesting that choice overrides the right to exist severely trivializes the decision to get an abortion and does no real service to anyone considering it. You will be ending a human life. That is a huge decision to make. Sometimes it is the right decision, but it is even then an incredibly tough decision, and should be one because otherwise we have a bit of a problem.

That kind of brings me around to the original post on this topic. What I realized today makes me uncomfortable about equating birth control with abortion is that it, at least at some level, equates abortion with birth control. No way. Two totally separate things. It is one thing to decide "I want to have sex and not have consequences," which is even something you can do without physical contraception, and another thing to say "I do not want this baby which is currently inside of me to emerge living from my vagina."**

Even if you have unprotected sex there is still a chance that a fetus won't get born. Once there is the fetus inside of you it's a totally different scenario - even with Chuck Klosterman odds*** it's either gonna be a baby or you're gonna miscarry. Birth control and abortion are two very different decisions with two very different sets of conditions and consequences (and they don't even necessarily share the same results as birth control generally has a failure rate - yes, even vasectomies have a tiny failure rate). Trivializing the latter by equating it with the former is, I feel, very dangerous thinking, especially considering that the Western world doesn't have a very good track record with sexual education at the moment.

Reading this post, I come across as kind of anti-abortion, I think. To clarify, while I do think an abortion is something that by and large should be reserved for when it's necessary, I don't think it should be made illegal or considered immoral. And actually in terms of birth control, I'm okay with that, too.


*Rereading this, I appear to be fixated on breakfast foods.
**EDIT: Honestly, the more I think about it the more I think that the reason I'm so stunned this is even an issue is because never in my wildest dreams would I imagine someone to connect the two and go "Hey, these are the same thing!" It's so stupid that it beggars belief.
***50/50: "Either something will happen, or it won't."

Oli:

--- Quote from: Johnny C on 22 Jul 2008, 16:07 ---
I'm a little in need of clarification. Why is suggesting that a fetus has a right to exist - or that anything that has a right to exist - absurd? Especially since it already does exist in the case of said fetus.
--- End quote ---

Firstly I'd like to say that I think this point is mostly a difference in definition and largely peripheral to the discussion at hand, but then it is interesting I suppose.

It is hard to word exactly why I think this so I'll try to put it in the form of a step by step argument.

Part of the defintion of a right is that it must be something that can be violated. (E.g The right to life can be violated by a murder.)

To hold rights P must exist.

If P had the right to exist then P's right to exist must be able to be violated.

To violate P's right to exist then P must be made non-existent.

If P is made non-existent then P cannot have any rights.

Therefore P cannot have the right to exist.

This depends entirely on your definition of existence. I view existence as something that starts as soon as anything is created in any form, for example the thought I had when I woke up this morning came into existence as I had it, and as something that is never ending. That's a bit of a trickier one but basically the thought I had this morning still exists despite it not being in my head at the moment, it didn't cease to exist simply because I stopped thinking it as we will not cease to exist when we die. It is hard for me to think of a really good way to put exactly why I think this across and I don't want to litter the thread with inane babbling. I guess if anyone really wants to discuss this with me they can PM or gabble with me or something.


--- Quote from: Johnny C on 22 Jul 2008, 16:07 ---Finally, suggesting that choice overrides the right to exist severely trivializes the decision to get an abortion and does no real service to anyone considering it.
--- End quote ---

I believe that giving any right a weighting in any situation is wrong as giving rights weighting suggests that it would be okay to remove one in protection of another and I think that the removal of a right is a violation of rights. Incidentally I do not believe that rights begin at implantation.

To clarify I didn't mean to suggest that the right to choose what one does to their own body overrides the right to life, but merely that the right to life doesn't override the right to choose what one does to their own body. I can see how it could be easily be confused because of the wording on my part though.

Also I am really not expecting what I am writing to be useful for anyone making a decision over an abortion. As I've said before it's really none of my business. I am simply saying that it is my belief that any attempt to make abortions illegal creates a confliction with rights.

I have written rights so many times now I think I am going to explode.

Thlayli:

--- Quote from: Johnny C on 22 Jul 2008, 07:16 ---What about eggs? They'd grow up into chickens at some point.

--- End quote ---

If you catch them at just the right point in gestation, you have a wonderful Filipino delicacy.

RedLion:
I guess what it boils down to is I value a living, thinking, feeling, sentient, human being more than a blob that will eventually become a human being.

I don't enjoy or support the loss of any life, whatever animal it may be, human or otherwise. But death happens. Animals eat other animals for food, so I'm comfortable with eating other animals. But as an individual, I can't and couldn't bring myself to kill almost any living being, the exceptions being insects and spiders, mostly, and then only if they're wandering about my bathroom/kitchen/bedroom. But that's just me. I cherish life in all its forms including plants and such. I can't contemplate killing something. The only time I could really see myself doing so is if I was about to me mauled to death by a bear, and I happened to have something that would kill it and spare me my life, and that would just be instincts driving that. I think I'm too sensitive in many regards. Now, regarding humans, and fetuses, the question is a bit trickier. The world is already far over-populated. Fetuses shouldn't be punished for that, but if every potential baby came to be born and there weren't some termination, the current energy, resource and food problems that the world has would only be magnified unknowably, and war would intensify and grow as resources became mor eand more scarce. I'm sure that sounds callous, but it's a practical and realistic way of looking at it.

Now, using abortion as a form of birth control (as in "oops, I messed up..now I'm going to wait a few weeks/months agonizing over what to do until I abort it"), is something that I have large moral qualms about, as I do with partial-birth abortions. However, I think people should have the right to have a safe, legal abortion, if only for the fact that if it isn't legal and safe, it will be illegal and unsafe. In numerous cases, the woman simply wouldn't be a competent mother either, and the child wouldn't have much of a life. The ghettos of America and the world do not need more children born to single, poor, un-partnered mothers. To be honest, the life that they would be born into makes me feel that perhaps it would be better for them to not be born into that endless cycle of poverty, crime, suffering and death at all. Of course I'm uncomfortable with, and don't like the idea of, snuffing out a potential life. But I try to look at it through an objective, neutral view: The fact is , many of the women who get abortions just couldn't' handle having a child--financially, emotionally, etc. Yes, there's adoption, but orphanages across the country and globe are already over-crowded and are not a happy, fulfilling place to live, generally speaking. As cold as this will sound, not every fetus can be born, or should be allowed to be born. The world just can't handle it. I know that sounds horrible, but it's how I legitimately see the issue. Some of you may say "why stop there? Why not just kill people who are already alive?" And that's the point--they're already alive, they have lives. A fetus in the early stages of development doesn't; they don't know they're 'alive' in the sense that an amoeba doesn't know it's alive.

But, I don't know why I feel worse, I feel sadder, about animals being abused or treated cruelly or killed than I do about fetuses being aborted. Again, maybe it's because it's already alive, born and here in the world. When I see an animal that's been abused, I almost invariably cry and blubber like a baby. When I see photos of aborted fetuses, I cringe and feel a sense of repugnance, but it doesn't affect me in the way that the prior situation does.

Partial birth abortions are different, in my view. I don't think they should be allowed, unless the mother will die if the procedure isn't carried out. Why? For semantic reasons, mostly. If the abortion was going to take place, there's absolutely no reason for the woman to wait that long to do it.

Sorry, this post was kind of me thinking out loud. However, I'd like to hear your take on what I've said, if anyone has anything to say.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page