Woman's Choice

[DealzOnWheelz]

I hear this phrase thrown around so loosely

"it's the womans choice to abort the child"


My thoughts

"It was the womans choice not to use Birth control"
"it was the womans choice not to use a condom"
"it was the womans choice not to take the morning after pill"


and if it is okay for the woman to choose to put a drug into her body to KILL her FETUS

Then why are drugs illegal when I'm only hurting myself???

I always get a confused look out of the people that use this argument

Noone can really answer it

 

[dircha]

Oh dear.

 

[Menthol Patch]

The fact is child is a human life.

Abortion is murder and should be banned by the states.

 

[angelatc]

Lots of people can answer it.

 

[ronpaulyourmom]

The fact is child is a human life.

Abortion is murder and should be banned by the states.

When does it become a human life though? Conception? 12 weeks? birth?

I vote for 12 weeks...

 

[MsDoodahs]

The most basic property right is ownership of your own body.

That's what your question is getting to.

I don't think many people think about the application of "choice" to other areas, so when you apply it, they get confused.

 

[sedele]

and if it is okay for the woman to choose to put a drug into her body to KILL her FETUS

Then why are drugs illegal when I'm only hurting myself???

Word son.

 

[Wyurm]

I'm voting for Ron Paul and I'm pro-choice. I will qickly explain 2 things 1) I am actually against most abortion, however, in the case of rape I am 100 pct for allowing someone to make that decision for themselves. If the law were to state that its only ok in the case of rape, then a woman would have to prove she was raped which could extend longer than the first trimester. 2) Dr. Paul is pro-life, however, he would leave this decision up to the states. This is a very responsible and appropriate way of dealing with this issue.

As for anyone posting below. This is a super touchy subject for both sides, please do your absolute best to keep all aguments for and against respectful.

 

[voisine]

Murray Rothbard's argument is that even if the fetus is a person, it doesn't matter because the woman can't be forced by the state to use her body to support the life of another, even though not doing so is immoral.

This is an interesting argument, but it raises several problems. If we extend this principle to infants, you would have to say that it should be perfectly legal for a parent to leave a child crying in the crib until it dies, since you can't force them to support the child with their time and labor. Even requiring them to call a charity to take the child would be an imposition on the parent by the state.

I would argue that there is an implied contract between a parent and child for the parent to care for the child at least until it can be handed over for adoption. This is similar to the implied contract you enter into when you sit down at a restaurant. You've signed nothing, you don't even have and explicit verbal contract, yet it is absolutely theft to leave without paying. By the same argument, when you take action to create a child, you are entering into an implied contract to provide for the child's basic needs at least until you can give it for adoption.

 

[literatim]

When does it become a human life though? Conception? 12 weeks? birth?

I vote for 12 weeks...

When it has its own unique DNA which is immediately upon fertilization.

 

[RevolutionSD]

I try to avoid the abortion topic with people because it's a distraction issue. MOST states would not make abortion illegal under a Ron Paul presidency. The single-issue voters drive me nuts because they can't see the big picture. They would rather have hillary clinton in there fighting wars overseas, taxing the hell out of us, continuing the federal reserve scam, as long as abortion is legal in all 50 states. I'll never understand this attitude.

 

[VRP08]

Those abortion debates never go well.

 

[RevolutionSD]

Those abortion debates never go well.

I know, too emotional.

 

[AlexMerced]

Your Life, and Your Body are your property, so the womens property rights are being infringed, yet so is the childs if you terminate it.

So there is no right side, it's a very example of two people property being infringed on each other from this side.

But then there is the issue of autonomy, most agree rape is fair instance to allow the choice to be made cause it's violation of autonomy. In your typical abortion which is primarily what this argument is about no autonomy has been violated.

The moral argument is wide open for the question "by what standard of morality?"

The definition of life argument is iffy, because all human tissue is essentially alive, so then life never begins or ends. So then you must define it as when does human life begin but this undermines animal rights if your an animal rights person. I think most people can agree the things is alive during the 2nd and third trimester.

Ok, so if we make this womens rights issue, and you allow 2nd and 3rd trimesters it then sets precedence that womens rights supercede those of man and a child and life itself... which a little presumtuous.

If we attack from the privacy issue... well, that is a property thing and then the child has the same right, so who's rights take precedence.

In most situations thinking to court cases involving children of all types usually the court rules in favor of what's in the childs best interest, you see this precedence set in divorce and chid abuse cases all the time.

other will say, why does it matter, we're overpopulated and these moms can't take care of the children. This is a super flawed argument, this implies that child must be born into an "optimal" living environment to have a life worth living, which is similar to the argument against gay adoption... which is ludicrous. Who here has lived in an optimal child environment, the existence of one is fallacy.

As far as overpopulation, the better route would be legalizing euthanasia cause that would be improving autonomy not hurting it. This would take care of this supposed overpopulation and plus open jobs, and improve productivity.

Although I wouldn't worry about overpopulation destroying the earth, the fossil record shows earth will survive a long time after we're gone.

Bottomline:

= Abortion isn't murder, terminating the fetus is, Abortion is only terminating the pregnancy.
- Murder isn't absolutly wrong as shown in self-defense cases and military action.
- It is an act of violence so it should be settle in the states.
- No ones rights supercedes another, that's the who point of property rights
- violations of autonomy most people can empathize with

anything I missed?

 

[literatim]

"Today, we are seeing a piecemeal destruction of individual freedom. And in abortion, the statists have found a most effective method of obliterating freedom: obliterating the individual." - Ron Paul, "Being Pro-Life Necessary to Defend Liberty," LFL Reports: #1, (1981).

To conceive and then abort one's child — even by mere eviction — is to turn conception into a deadly trap for the child. It is to set her up in a vulnerable position that is virtually certain to lead to her death. Conception followed by eviction from the womb could be compared to capturing someone, placing her on one's airplane, and then shoving her out in mid-flight without a parachute. The child in the womb is like a captive; she is in the situation involuntarily, and she cannot fend for herself. A captive is not trespassing on the captor's property, by definition. (Evicting or abandoning one's child cannot be regarded as releasing her from captivity, because this does not terminate childhood inability.)

http://www.l4l.org/library/abor-rts.html

 

[ronpaulyourmom]

When it has its own unique DNA which is immediately upon fertilization.

A human hair follicle has unique DNA but that doesn't make it life...

I would agree that the mass of cells in the first trimester has a high potential of becoming full blown human life in a short period of time, but I reject the notion that this constitutes life based solely on this high probability of success.

If you buy into spontaneous evolution as I do, then given enough time and circumstance, there are a lot of rocks floating around in space (or here on earth) that will eventually become a source of life, even if it's billions of years from now. Measured across infinite time, a rock has just as much likelihood as an embryo of bringing about sentient life. A life at conception argument then necessitates that we protect rocks as if they were babies, because we cannot use the idea of short time-frames, those easily perceivable by our minds, as a foundation for an objective argument on reality, as our minds do not define reality.

Because of my inability to accept 'potential' as a definition of sentient life, I seek out another measuring stick. One that I can digest is that sentient life, the kind of life worth protecting, begins at self-awareness. Right now science seems to suggest that self-awareness begins around 12 weeks...

I don't expect you to fully agree, in part because you may believe in the idea of a soul, and see it as something separate from the body, as opposed to its more traditional meaning. As an atheist I reject that as well, but I simply say all of these things to point out that not everybody falls into the category of 100% pro-life and 100% pro-choice. Some of us operate in the gray area in-between, and our belief is based on more than just "a woman has a right to..." and all that jazz. I would never condone murder, and I consider an abortion after 12 weeks equivalent to murder, under any circumstance.

 

[frasu]

Those abortion debates never go well.

This is an excellent thread... and it goes well

Indeed in person, it is harder to keep your cool, but this is great, given that all sides could learn from a debate like this

great points, everybody

 

[literatim]

A human hair follicle has unique DNA but that doesn't make it life...

A hair is dead and no, it doesn't have its own unique DNA--it's has your DNA. If you leave a hair at crime scene, it will be traced back to you. If you leave a cells containing DNA from the unborn child in the womb, it will not be traced back to you, but will identify as a separate human being that would be your son or daughter.

I would agree that the mass of cells in the first trimester has a high potential of becoming full blown human life in a short period of time, but I reject the notion that this constitutes life based solely on this high probability of success.

Your logic is completely and utterly flawed. What is full blown human life are we talking about? Human as it is labeled in science today is a species which is identified by its DNA. Do you mean a full blown adult human? We are talking about stages of life of a human. The growth of that specific human individual starts at fertilization when the genetic information needed for it is in place like a jigsaw puzzle.

If you buy into spontaneous evolution as I do, then given enough time and circumstance, there are a lot of rocks floating around in space (or here on earth) that will eventually become a source of life, even if it's billions of years from now. Measured across infinite time, a rock has just as much likelihood as an embryo of bringing about sentient life. A life at conception argument then necessitates that we protect rocks as if they were babies, because we cannot use the idea of short time-frames, those easily perceivable by our minds, as a foundation for an objective argument on reality, as our minds do not define reality.


Because of my inability to accept 'potential' as a definition of sentient life, I seek out another measuring stick. One that I can digest is that sentient life, the kind of life worth protecting, begins at self-awareness. Right now science seems to suggest that self-awareness begins around 12 weeks...

Everyone has faith in something, but that is irregardless of what human life is. Life is life. This isn't an argument about when life begins, but when a separate human entity begins.

I don't expect you to fully agree, in part because you may believe in the idea of a soul, and see it as something separate from the body, as opposed to its more traditional meaning. As an atheist I reject that as well, but I simply say all of these things to point out that not everybody falls into the category of 100% pro-life and 100% pro-choice. Some of us operate in the gray area in-between, and our belief is based on more than just "a woman has a right to..." and all that jazz. I would never condone murder, and I consider an abortion after 12 weeks equivalent to murder, under any circumstance.

http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html

 

[tjasond]

I think Paul articulated his position best when he was on the Adam Curry podcast (sorry, don't have a link). Basically, it boils down to when you can reasonably prove that a crime was committed; to paraphrase his own words, within the first few days it is impossible to know whether or not an actual life is taken if an abortion takes place. However, once it can be established that a human life is living within the womb, it should be considered the same way as a child living in its parent's house (to kill the child would be a crime). On a separate interview, Paul noted that we have the ability to save fetuses that weigh as little as 1 or 2 pounds. So I think he sees a window where it's acceptable, but that window is several days as opposed to several weeks or months.

I'm just paraphrasing here, so look up that interview from Adam Curry's podcast site if you want to hear his views yourself.

 

[BillyDkid]

Lets not get in a pointless argument over this. Ron Paul has very strong believes about abortion and he makes a very logical argument, but even he himself has said that the issue is not necessarily always cut and dried and obvious and there is some room for honest debate. The two extreme positions 1) that any and all abortions are nothing but murder and 2)That the only issue is a woman's right to do what she wants with her own body - are both dishonest and counter productive and do nothing toward helping resolve a very difficult issue.