Banning abortion doesn't make sense to me.

[Cabal]

States rights makes no sense to me.

 

[MaxPower]

For those who think Ron Paul wants it to be completely left up to states please go check out the Sanctity of Life Act which RP has reintroduced to congress numerous times. It defines life as beginning at conception.
How do you know the unborn is harmed? If it's brain isn't developed enough then it cannot feel pain anymore than vegetables can. Regardless whether it's morally right or wrong isn't really the issue I'm trying to debate. I don't see how the benefits from banning it would outweigh the problems banning it would cause.
I completely agree that it's not the most important issue but that's no reason to not discuss it. It's not like his stance on this stops me from supporting him or anything, just baffles me.

Read his book, "Abortion and Liberty."

 

[Keith and stuff]

Because Keith is a hypocrite. If he can't morally justify protecting innocence, he cannot justify his position on the wars.

Not wanting to steal your money to throw a woman in jail that killed were negative 8 month old son makes me a hypocrite? OK, fine, I'm a hypocrite BTW, I don't get your statement about war. I don't think there has ever been a case since the US was created when it was involved in a justified war but I'm not against the idea of war.

 

[No Free Beer]

Not wanting to steal your money to throw a woman in jail that killed were negative 8 month old son makes me a hypocrite? OK, fine, I'm a hypocrite BTW, I don't get your statement about war. I don't think there has ever been a case since the US was created when it was involved in a justified war but I'm not against the idea of war.

"Personally, if a woman wants to kill her baby, I will not use force to stop her, nor will I attempt to use force to punish her after the fact. I will also not use force to stop a doctor, nor will I use force to punish a doctor after he kills the baby." - Keith

You admit that you are okay with a woman taking the life of her child/baby. Yet, you are against the wars because you feel they are not justified. That is my point. You are a hypocrite.

I don't mean to come off as rude, but this is a hot issue with me. I HATE abortions and I think they are beyond immoral. To me, murder is murder. I would be happy to see my taxes used to protect life.

 

[Keith and stuff]

I don't mean to come off as rude, but this is a hot issue with me. I HATE abortions and I think they are beyond immoral. To me, murder is murder. I would be happy to see my taxes used to protect life.

I don't like abortions. Murdering babies, even if they are negative 9 months old is not a good thing. I think it is worse to steal from everyone else in a state to pay to put a lady that does it in jail. Personally, I think using taxes to pay to put such a person in jail is well, it makes you a minarchist, at best. It is cool though, it is OK if we disagree.

 

[No Free Beer]

Personally, I think using taxes to pay to put such a person in jail is well, it makes you a minarchist, at best. It is cool though, it is OK if we disagree.

If you are trying to say that I am not an anarchist, I'll thank you. I wear that as a badge of honor.

As an idea, minarchism is great.

I am not that, either though, in a traditional sense. I am a classical conservative. I do think there is role for government in people's lives, as much as I cannot stand it.

 

[Domalais]

Once we define life as beginning at conception, do we just rename 'abortion' to 'eviction?'

 

[MaxPower]

Once we define life as beginning at conception, do we just rename 'abortion' to 'eviction?'

The problem with use of that term being that there is no other instance of lawful "eviction" in which one is expelling someone who is in the first place there involuntarily, nearly always as a result of the evict-er's own voluntary actions, and in a fashion which amounts to the active killing the evict-ee.

Suppose that you are out fishing in the ocean. You cast your nets out, pull in your catch, and empty its contents onto the deck of your boat. Upon inspecting said contents, you discover that you have accidentally pulled a living person who had been adrift in the water onto the deck of your vessel, where they are now lying. Do you now have a "right" to kill that person-- who, let us remember, did not "invade" your boat, but who you inadvertently brought aboard through your own actions-- in the name of "eviction," or have you found yourself in a position in which you need at the least to let them stay onboard until you can reach a port and drop them off without killing them?

 

[No Free Beer]

The problem with use of that term being that there is no other instance of lawful "eviction" in which one is expelling someone who is in the first place there involuntarily, nearly always as a result of the evict-er's own voluntary actions, and in a fashion which amounts to the active killing the evict-ee.

Suppose that you are out fishing in the ocean. You cast your nets out, pull in your catch, and empty its contents onto the deck of your boat. Upon inspecting said contents, you discover that you have accidentally pulled a living person who had been adrift in the water onto the deck of your vessel, where they are now lying. Do you now have a "right" to kill that person-- who, let us remember, did not "invade" your boat, but who you inadvertently brought aboard through your own actions-- in the name of "eviction," or have you found yourself in a position in which you need at the least to let them stay onboard until you can reach a port and drop them off without killing them?

As much as I enjoyed this analogy, I don't think it's fair to apply this to abortion.

 

[GeorgiaAvenger]

See, people who want abortion legal always claim that pro-lifers don't "like" abortion.

Pro-lifers do not simply not like it. They believe it is murder!

It is not a self-crime like drugs, gambling, or prostitution.

 

[NikolayaRadchenkova]

See, people who want abortion legal always claim that pro-lifers don't "like" abortion.

Pro-lifers do not simply not like it. They believe it is murder!

It is not a self-crime like drugs, gambling, or prostitution.

Stole the words right outta my mouth, well keyboard actually

If you believe that murder is wrong and that an unborn child is a human, there is no way you can support legalizing abortion (murder). The government's paramount obligation is to protect its citizens' rights, and the most important of those rights is life!

 

[Billy_McBong]

Read his book, "Abortion and Liberty."

I had no idea he had a book on abortion. I'll look it up, thanks!

I don't mean to come off as rude, but this is a hot issue with me. I HATE abortions and I think they are beyond immoral. To me, murder is murder. I would be happy to see my taxes used to protect life.

That's fine and dandy but banning abortions wouldn't protect life. Women who are desperate(as the majority of women who get abortions are) will get the abortion regardless if it's legal or not. Only thing that changes is whether they can get it done in a legal regulated medical facility or in a very risky manner. Banning abortions is ineffective!

Kiling is wrong. If you don't want a baby, don't have sex. Take birth control if you must, but once a woman spreads her legs, she is opening the door for a new life to be created. This obviously should be taught in the family.

Lowering non-marital sex rates would cut down on abortion rates does that mean the government should ban pre-marital sex? No, this would be dumb of course and wouldn't help anything. If you want to lower pre-marital sex rates you do it through education not law. Same goes with abortion. If it's so obvious to you that killing a baby is murder than try convince others of this too. If you could do this on a large scale abortion rates would drop dramatically more than any law could accomplish. You would have a hard time doing this though since it's a very debatable issue with many factors to consider. Which is why this tough decision should be left up to the pregnant lady not made for her by the government.

Even if you do get preggo, there are other options if you don't want it.... you know.. give it up for adoption, so the millions of people who want kids, but can't have them, can have one.

If there were truly millions of people wanting to adopt kids but can't get one because of a shortage of unwanted children then there would be barely any children in foster homes. Which isn't the case at all.

We certainly can not measure harm by whether the target feels pain. If you were to use that measure, there would be no harm in cutting off the legs of a man who had suffered a spinal injury and had no feeling in his legs. Likewise, brains have no pain receptors so it would cause no harm to drill out bits of brain. That measure of harm just doesn't stand.

I didn't only mean physical pain but psychological pain. Cutting off a man's legs or part of his brain would cause massive psychological harm.

I guess I even question your notion of harm. I think you mentioned a carrot before. Since a carrot doesn't sense pain and doesn't know its alive, there's no harm in eating it. Well, pulling the carrot out of the ground still kills the carrot. It was alive and now it's not. Seems like harm to me.

What's harmful about it? If the carrot isn't even aware it exists and can't care if it's killed then is there harm done? Certainly not close to the amount of harm that self-administered abortions cause if there is any at all.

The abortion debate isn't about whether the fetus is harmed; we all know that it is. It ends up dead. The debate is about whether society has a moral/legal obligation to protect this form of human life. There will always be mothers who kill their progeny -- some unborn, some born. We are debating at what point in the development of that progeny our laws should bar a stronger individual from taking a God given right to life.

Late term abortions are reasonable to ban. But I don't think the laws should be used to try to stop all abortions since even if one believes abortion is murder there's better ways to go about lowering abortion rates than making them illegal.

 

[DamianTV]

I support Post Birth Abortions. There are a couple of people in office right now that I'd like to nominate for the procedure.

 

[MaxPower]

As much as I enjoyed this analogy, I don't think it's fair to apply this to abortion.

Do explain.

 

[No Free Beer]

Do explain.

You didn't take into consideration the whole argument of the pro-choicers. They base their argument on a woman's own body.

This is where your analogy falls short. Again, I liked what you did, it just doesn't get to the root problem.

Reeling in someone onto a boat, then questioning the power/morality to kill that person is entirely different than when that person that you reeled in is in your body.

Now, your argument will probably be, "my boat is my property."

I just don't know if that's sufficient.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

abortion differs from other issues such as "drugs".

the argument itself is about life.

abortion = forceful reaping of another human beings life

there are of course people who make all sorts of arguments to say that human beings do not receive their rights until they are born, and then there are even more people who would say that human beings do not receive their rights until they are 18 or 21. Then you have more people who would say that the government gives rights. If the government says its okay to in my perspective "take the life of an unborn baby" , then the government is also saying that human beings only have rights given to them and that rights are not endowed to them in creation. If you go with the "we aren't created,we were evolved species"..then you have created yourself a contradiction to claim yourself as a "libertarian" because in an "evolved" perspective your rights belong to the survivor of the fittest, and those rights do not belong to "sovereign" individuals.

anyway..I believe in banning abortion clinics and "doctors" aka butchers. I do not believe in eugenics,never will support it as a right, and I will never support peoples ideas of having "euthanasia" facilities...and in this case baby killing shops.

and don't get me wrong..I do not believe in punishing a mother who murdered her own baby..what would punishing her gain?

ban the clinics, but make no punishment for a mother who makes a terrible decision to kill her own baby.

 

[Billy_McBong]

If you believe that murder is wrong and that an unborn child is a human, there is no way you can support legalizing abortion (murder). The government's paramount obligation is to protect its citizens' rights, and the most important of those rights is life!

That's not true at all. One can be morally against abortion and still not want it illegal in the same way one can be morally against drug use but still want drugs legal. Which would be an intelligent position to take since banning abortions wouldn't improve the situation it would just create more unnecessary problems. If you are against abortions then your goal should be to lower abortion rates, there are a lot better ways to do this than with the iron fist of the law. Prohibition doesn't work!

abortion = forceful reaping of another human beings life

That's very debatable. Personally I can't consider something lacking a brain to be human.

there are of course people who make all sorts of arguments to say that human beings do not receive their rights until they are born, and then there are even more people who would say that human beings do not receive their rights until they are 18 or 21. Then you have more people who would say that the government gives rights. If the government says its okay to in my perspective "take the life of an unborn baby" , then the government is also saying that human beings only have rights given to them and that rights are not endowed to them in creation. If you go with the "we aren't created,we were evolved species"..then you have created yourself a contradiction to claim yourself as a "libertarian" because in an "evolved" perspective your rights belong to the survivor of the fittest, and those rights do not belong to "sovereign" individuals.

Personal religious beliefs have no place in politics. The government does give us rights, legal rights. If your arguing about ineligible rights thats a philosophical discussion not political. The US law should not be a place for you to force your own religious morals onto others. A women should not have to risk fatally harming herself to remove something unwanted from inside her own body because others are against her having a safe medical procedure for religious reasons.

and don't get me wrong..I do not believe in punishing a mother who murdered her own baby..what would punishing her gain?

ban the clinics, but make no punishment for a mother who makes a terrible decision to kill her own baby.

By your logic I don't see why we shouldn't punish the mother(beyond the trauma and health risk of getting an underground abortion). If were legally treating abortion as murder then why shouldn't she be thrown in jail?

 

[Black Flag]

... producing a positive outcome....

RP sits on a position of Principle on this matter, not on a position of avarice (that is, seeking only short-term positive outcomes at any long-term cost)

Often, holding to a principle means bearing a significant cost upon one's self and by extension society. It is often hard to do the right thing - which is why so many avoid it and do something else.

However costly doing the right thing maybe, it is far more successful in the long term then avoiding doing the right thing for a mere short-term gain.

As is with this issue:
Yes, the short term gain for the woman is she gets to avoid a long term responsibility of a child by killing it.

You would measure this effect only in your calculation, Billy.

But the long term cost is devastating
- you have rewarded irresponsible behavior by legitimizing a person's action of avoiding such responsibility.
Consequence long-term: massive increase in irresponsible behavior, which leads to social disorder.

-you have justified killing human beings so to avoid responsibility
Consequence long-term: massive increase in the justification of killing all human beings - if you can justify killing the helpless innocent baby, you pretty much can justify killing anyone

 

[Black Flag]

Personally I can't consider something lacking a brain to be human.

So a woman who is clinically brain dead in a hospital is no longer human, and you can do what ever you wish to her (use a perverse imagination) without any risk of recourse because -heck- she isn't human.

 

[CaptUSA]

It seems we are debating two issues here.

1. Should abortion be legal?
2. How do enforce laws against it?

I firmly believe abortions should be illegal. Not just at the state level, but as a protection of life provided by the Constitution for every individual. Murder is a state crime and should be punished as such, but no state should be able to make murder legal.

However, I have serious issues with the enforcement of such laws. I don't know how you can really enforce these laws without violating some sort of privacy. But I also believe this is where each state can make up its own decisions about how far to go when prosecuting these crimes. Is the doctor the murderer? Are the doctor and mother co-conspirators? What sort of proof is necessary? What means are available to law enforcement to obtain proof?

These are questions with which I struggle. And I believe these are questions that are valuable to debate. In fact, if we can turn the debate to topic number 2 and away from topic number 1, I think we will have already won something big for liberty.