board77

Lali, I would greatly appreciate if you could avoid the term of "killing babies". A baby is a born child. We are talking about foetus. (Well, I am reading and not talking, it's graduation time, I'm drowned with work).

Sorry, Nin, I was just responding in like kind to TED's post. That's all. Sarcasm.

I think a fetus is a baby, for the record.

ETA: But whatever. I'm done with this discussion. So I won't be using the phrase again, Nin, even if it was used originally in sarcasm. Sorry if it offended you.

TheEllipticalDisillusion wrote:

But let's not get hung up on these silly terms like pro-choice, and pro-life; it is for, or against abortion, nothing more.

Actually, not really - if I had to categorize myself, I would be anti-abortion and pro-choice.

Does that make sense, or do I need to explain?

I'd like to just gently remind folks that this topic is an incredibly emotional one for many of us - some personally. I think we've been doing very well to discuss such a divisive issue with such relative civility. It is a very, very difficult topic to talk about without letting certain buttons get pushed.

So, I hope we can continue our discussion without anyone going over the line.

Jude, I would love to get the explanation. I mean that in all sincerity (just in case my sincerity is in question here). I can venture a guess, but it may be wrong.

I'm pro-abortion, and anti-extremist. Truthfully, I don't care why someone gets an abortion, or how many they get. If I was in the situation, I may not be inclined to push for an abortion, but only because it would be my situation, not someone else's. Lots of people and politicians (let's face it, they aren't real people, right?) want to tell everyone else what to do, while still talking about how they want others to leave them alone. Unfortunately, it doesn't work both ways.

The very serious nature of abortions make it a poor legislative issue. The real question with abortions is where does personhood begin. If it begins at conception, then abortion would be murder, while if it begins sometime after birth, such a procedure would not be so.

I know this is an emotional subject. I know both sides have strong ethical positions drawn up. My own opinion is that if abortion is made illegal, as it once was, then young teenage girls (and adult women too) will die in pain, shame and fear. It's a no-brainer for me. I think of my daughter at that age and her friends and in no way whatsoever would I wish to impose that on any of them to fit a religious concept.
Were it illegal as it once was, abortions would still go on but the rich would arrange it privately and the poor will die in a squalid room. No sir.

As to this murder, I think it's the extreme Right flexing its muscles. Expect more. It may not be abortion next time but consider; what do people think are the consequences of calling abortion doctors murderers? The propagandists bear responsiblity for this murder however much they hide behind the concept of free speech.

ToshoftheWuffingas wrote:

I know this is an emotional subject. I know both sides have strong ethical positions drawn up. My own opinion is that if abortion is made illegal, as it once was, then young teenage girls (and adult women too) will die in pain, shame and fear. It's a no-brainer for me. I think of my daughter at that age and her friends and in no way whatsoever would I wish to impose that on any of them to fit a religious concept.
Were it illegal as it once was, abortions would still go on but the rich would arrange it privately and the poor will die in a squalid room. No sir.

As to this murder, I think it's the extreme Right flexing its muscles. Expect more. It may not be abortion next time but consider; what do people think are the consequences of calling abortion doctors murderers? The propagandists bear responsiblity for this murder however much they hide behind the concept of free speech.

I have been staying out of this for the simple reason that Lali was giving the reasons I am against abortion quite well without me mucking it up.

However, Tosh, I have to disagree with the part of your post that I highlighted above. The person who is at fault for this murder is the man who is in custody. We have a lovely little habit of blaming someone else when anyone does something evil, it's never their fault. We have created people who won't take responsibility for themselves because we never put the blame where it belongs, on the person (or people if a mass act happens) who performed the act.

This murder is the fault of one man.


Nin, I do have a question for you. I am offended by calling it a fetus and not a baby, who then gets to not be "offended?" Or do we just call it what we feel is correct and accept each other's feelings on this topic?

freddy

Call it a proto-humanoid.....

Any animal in utero is, by definition, a fetus. Whether it's also a person in the case of H. Sapiens is precisely the point under debate. I don't know about being offensive, but it hurts your rhetoric to assume the thing you're trying to prove.

ACCCKKKKK!!!!

I was thinking about what to call an egg- a proto chicken? A proto egg? I looked up both terms on google and found something worse than the Filipino balut.

Here it is: Yakitori Chicken Uterus with Attached Proto-Egg

*shudder*





edit: I feel sick now, and I don't know why. People ought to use every part of an animal they kill. Why this strong reaction on my part?

Here is the definition of the word fetus, Note that until the end of the 2nd month, it is called an embryo.

noun, plural -tusâ‹…es. Embryology.
(used chiefly of viviparous mammals) the young of an animal in the womb or egg, esp. in the later stages of development when the body structures are in the recognizable form of its kind, in humans after the end of the second month of gestation.
Also, especially British, foetus.
Compare embryo (def. 2).

And the etymology of the word, which I found interesting (I'm geeky that way.)
Origin:
1350–1400; ME < L fētus bringing forth of young, hence that which is born, offspring, young still in the womb, equiv. to fē- (v. base attested in L only in n. derivatives, as fēmina woman, fēcundus fecund, etc.; cf. Gk thēsthai to suck, milk, OHG tāan to suck, OIr denid (he) sucks) + -tus suffix of v. action

Calling a gestating mammal (human or otherwise) a "fetus" is not anything to be offended about. It is, as Dave said, what it IS, by definition.

Of course, when I was pregnant, I didn't go around saying, "I have a fetus inside me!" I said, "I'm going to have a baby." But when I miscarried, I did not feel the same as I would have if I had lost a child. I felt like I had lost the potential baby it was going to be...because it wasn't a baby yet. It never got the chance to be.

And losing the pregnancy at 10 weeks was certainly different than if I had lost it at 6 months. They say that almost 1/3 of all pregnancies spontaneously abort within the first 12 weeks - some before the woman even knows she is pregnant. What comes out is not a baby.

I think the saddest thing about my miscarriage was seeing that little sack of "potential baby" on the floor and having to pick it up and put it in a Tupperware container to take to the hospital (they needed to check to see everything was "out") and realizing that it would never, never get to be a baby.

I understand what the technical term for an unborn is called but we also don't call everything by it's technical name. If you hit your head you don't say "Ouch, I bumped my cranium" or when you hit your finger with a hammer you don't say "Crap, that hurt my phallanges."

My point is this, if you ask someone to call something by a certain name because you are offended then you are asking them to change their viewpoint and actually demean their point of view.

freddy

Well; what you call something in casual conversation and with your friends and family is one thing, but in the context of a debate, using language that come from a place that assumes your conclusion rather than a point of common ground also demeans the other point of view (which is one reason "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are such uncivil terms).

Edit: generic "you" throughout

I did not say I was offended - look at my post, I just said I would greatly appreciate it, because baby is an emotional term - but maybe that's also my feeling because I am not a native speaker of English.

It's hard to offend my feelings, and once more I did not once say I was offended, it is just that a fetus (sorry to have it spelled the German way) is not a baby. That's just a point, a fact. I could also object the word killing, from my point of view, but I already see how that is a question of point of view. But still then it is a fetus. Of course in conversation I also said: I'm going to have a baby - emphasis on "going to". It was a still a baby to become, not yet one.

Anyway, I am with Tosh and I think it can also be stated that countries which have the less restrictive laws on abortion are by far not those where most of the abortions take place. There is no correlation between the severity of the laws and the number of abortions.

Also, Freddy, of course you are right:

Quote:

The person who is at fault for this murder is the man who is in custody.

Yes, the man who held the gun is guilty and will hopefully be punished for his crime. But if he killed, especially in such a symbolic place, then, because he felt he had the moral right if not even obligation to kill this doctor - and this motive, he has not found it on his own.

Jude wrote:

TheEllipticalDisillusion wrote:

But let's not get hung up on these silly terms like pro-choice, and pro-life; it is for, or against abortion, nothing more.

Actually, not really - if I had to categorize myself, I would be anti-abortion and pro-choice.

Does that make sense, or do I need to explain?

I think this pretty much sums up my views on abortion. I am anti-abortion in that, of course, I do not want anyone to have abortions. I don't think abortions are a good thing. But I consider myself to be pro-choice because I believe the option should be there, and legal. I would never want to be thought of as "pro-abortion" because I am not in favor of abortions themselves, I am in favor of the option being available to women who choose it.

On a subject related to partial-birth abortions, this article in Time brought up an issue that I had never considered before. There are many drugs out there that are unsafe for use by pregnant women--chemo, for instance. The article mentions a couple of cases in which women are diagnosed with cancer after becoming pregnant. Since the chemo drugs are so strong that they might harm the growing fetus, the women is left with only a few options. 1) She can have an abortion, 2) she can take the medications she needs and put the fetus at risk of birth defects or other complications, or 3) she can refuse all dangerous treatment and have the child, putting her own health severely at risk. In one case, a woman died when her child was 9 months old because she had refused the chemo treatment while pregnant. None of these are good options, it seems to me, but it's a choice some women will have to make. I was wondering what the opinion of the pro-life posters here would be on this issue. It's tricky, I think, because the fetus is usually viable, and the birth of the child itself will not put the mother's health at risk. It's the withholding of medications that could bring about the mother's death. So, it's pretty much a matter of the health of the mother vs. the life of the child. Should abortion (even partial-birth abortion) be a legal option in cases like this?

As a pro-choice person, I think it should be. But I'm interested in what a pro-life person would feel about this issue.

Quote:

We have created people who won't take responsibility for themselves because we never put the blame where it belongs, on the person (or people if a mass act happens) who performed the act.

This murder is the fault of one man.

Freddy, oh I place blame on this Christian jihadist alright. I just don't place blame on him alone. People like him swim in a sea of intolerant support. Sure he bears responsiblity for carrying out the act. What is the precise responsiblity of talk show hosts who single out individual doctors? What is the responsiblity of the chorus of people who have supported this murder? Ascribing a murder to a lone crazed gunman ignores where he comes from. It lets all the others off the hook.

That's right. The shooter, of course, is the only one legally responsible. I am not trying to compare the two movements, but would anyone argue that the 19 hijackers and their material assistants were the only people responsible for 9/11, and that Al Qaeda and radical Islam had nothing to do with it? Moral responsibility get cast wider than legal responsibility.

I guess I take an extreme view of this.

Humans, and any 'soul'/consciousness we possess that defines a person, I think are merely the sum of our experiences. Yes, a fetus can have an automic response to outside stimuli, but until it is born I think it's just a mass of very complex chemicals.

An abortion is an emotional loss to the already-living - not the fetus, and I think most proponents of anti-abortion are in fear of either their God or how unspecial and random life really is.

As I said, an extreme view. Having said that, I go into a puddle when I see a newborn.

Agree with DaveLF. I think it is disingenous that many in the far-right are rushing to condemn the guy who gunned down Tiller, after calling him a "baby killer." It is very much akin to Al Qaeda. You get the people all pumped up with rhetoric about how hateful their "enemy" is, how morally reprehensible they are, and then stand back and take no responsibility when the morally derelict enemy dies at the hand of one of your followers?

I really don't think there is much room for any body moving on this issue. If you believe that God has anointed Humans as being uniquely akin to Him and that any Human fertilized egg (or stem cell) as being sacrosanct, it's just the natural conclusion that Human fertilized eggs and stem cells are sacred. Me, while being agnostic on God, I don't believe that human life is any more sacred in a larger sense than any other animal (of course, it matters a lot more to ME, since I'm human). I'm sure elephants could care less about the death of a human that crosses their territory, but care a lot more about one of their "tribe" members death. I believe humans have an obligation to keep their numbers down and share the planet with all the other forms of life on this planet, which we of course are wiping out in the largest extinction since the dinosaurs. Personally, I don't see why far-right Christians arent' more upset about this, since God appointed us stewards of the beasts, but whatever. Humans are given the ability, along with all other lifeforms, to outbreed their resources and we are doing so.

Whatever. I just come from such a different worldview, and I recognize that they don't mesh. I think abortion is unhappy and tragic, and that there is basically an extremely, vanishingly small cohort of people that truly feel nothing for their unborn baby (fetus, whatever) and abort with impunity. All others, have to face an anguishing decision that they will not make lightly, particularly for late-term abortions.

ellienor wrote:

Agree with DaveLF. I think it is disingenous that many in the far-right are rushing to condemn the guy who gunned down Tiller, after calling him a "baby killer." It is very much akin to Al Qaeda. You get the people all pumped up with rhetoric about how hateful their "enemy" is, how morally reprehensible they are, and then stand back and take no responsibility when the morally derelict enemy dies at the hand of one of your followers?

So if I go on about how hateful Dick Chaney is, he beleives in torture, big government, taking away prisoner’s rights, subverting the system of justice in America, arrogant, etc, and you get your gun and shoot him down then I am also morally responsible for his death because I told you how morally reprehensible he is? Does this make me akin to Al Qaeda too?

I'm not sure I agree with the logic here.