I am so confused.

[toscano]

that is perhaps the heart of the argument. I think anti-choice people value quantity of life, whereas pro-choice people value quality of life.

Well the anti-choice typically want the deck stacked in their favor:

Don't provide condoms
Don't provide healthcare
Don't provide welfare
Don't give the Mother a choice even if it kills her
Don't let the child marry if it ends up being gay

 

[kafrun]

Seeing the direction this thread has taken, this is all I have to say at this point:

Kodos disguised as Bob Dole: Abortions for all!

Crowd: Booooo!

Kodos: All right, abortions for none!

Crowd: Booooo!

Kodos: Abortions for some ... miniature American flags for all!

Crowd: Yaaaaaaaay!

xx

There. Abortion issue solved.

I think all discussions in FYM should consist entirely of Simpsons quotes

 

[Irvine511]

I don't think of it as quantity at all.


What about adoption then?


You're absolutely right.


I didn't say make it illegal, it just still doesn't sit well with me to deny life when two people had the choice before the fact and knew all the potential consequences going into a sexual relationship, be it financial, emotional, etc etc etc. Perhaps it boils down to people FAR more responsibility for their sexual decisions and their far-reaching implications

we can agree on pretty much all of these things.

i will say, though, that i don't like the idea of "punishing" someone for having sex by forcing them to carry a baby to term. i also think that if a child is conceived through rape and/or incest, and if we are to take the view that all life is sacred or deserves a chance, then allowing abortions in those cases belies the belief that, deep down, it's not about the precious life of the child but about punishing women for having sex (since it is the women who are stuck with the child, as the men tend to leave ... nor do i think pushing people into a shotgun marriage that will likely end in divorce, if not worse, is a good thing either).

so, ultimately, while i fully understand and support people who push adoption over abortion, and are personally pro-life, i think that making abortion illegal would cause greater social harm than whatever harm there may or may not be due to it's legality.

how would you feel if part of sex education involved ways of being sexually intimate but not risking pregnancy?

it would seem to me that pro-life activists (not you, just saying in general) would be quite relieved that oral sex, mutual masturbation, and even anal sex are increasingly part of the sexual vernacular. no one's going to get pregnant with any of those activities, so why not encourage fellatio and cunninlingus? after all, it's all about the life of the child, so let's make sure that mom doesn't get pregnant by making sure that dad's semen stays outside her body. that, to me, seems a very responsible way to have sex.

or is it really just about being anti-sex?

 

[Varitek]

Well the anti-choice typically want the deck stacked in their favor:

Don't provide condoms
Don't provide healthcare
Don't provide welfare
Don't give the Mother a choice even if it kills her
Don't let the child marry if it ends up being gay

yup this is why i made the distinction, the anti-choice typically come with anti-birth control beliefs as well.

or, reject what i said before about quantity of life, and we can go back to saying it's about control of other peoples' bodies: no abortions, no birth control, and telling people when and how frequently it's ok to have sex (and who with).

 

[corianderstem]

I think all discussions in FYM should consist entirely of Simpsons quotes

It would promote greater harmony through laughter, and at this point, I'm just laughing in that scary hysterical way to avoid crying for the next two weeks.

 

[toscano]

yup this is why i made the distinction, the anti-choice typically come with anti-birth control beliefs as well.

or, reject what i said before about quantity of life, and we can go back to saying it's about control of other peoples' bodies: no abortions, no birth control, and telling people when and how frequently it's ok to have sex (and who with).

"Less government"

 

[Varitek]

Mind-meld, Irvine.

And you'd also think that if people were all anti-abortion, they'd be perfectly OK with gay sex which obviously can't produce babies to potentially abort or begrudgingly carry to term and then raise horribly.

 

[financeguy]

It's not my right to decide if a person lives or dies. That right belongs to no man (or woman).

When it comes down to it, it really is as simple as that.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Yes, what constitutes a person is a very simple question, seriously.

 

[toscano]

When it comes down to it, it really is as simple as that.

but in cases where not doing a late term abortion may be dangerous to the mother whether or not a decision to abort is made IS deciding no matter which decision is made. Doing nothing is just as much a deliberate decision.

 

[financeguy]

we can agree on pretty much all of these things.

i will say, though, that i don't like the idea of "punishing" someone for having sex by forcing them to carry a baby to term. i also think that if a child is conceived through rape and/or incest, and if we are to take the view that all life is sacred or deserves a chance, then allowing abortions in those cases belies the belief that, deep down, it's not about the precious life of the child but about punishing women for having sex (since it is the women who are stuck with the child, as the men tend to leave ... nor do i think pushing people into a shotgun marriage that will likely end in divorce, if not worse, is a good thing either).

so, ultimately, while i fully understand and support people who push adoption over abortion, and are personally pro-life, i think that making abortion illegal would cause greater social harm than whatever harm there may or may not be due to it's legality.

how would you feel if part of sex education involved ways of being sexually intimate but not risking pregnancy?

it would seem to me that pro-life activists (not you, just saying in general) would be quite relieved that oral sex, mutual masturbation, and even anal sex are increasingly part of the sexual vernacular. no one's going to get pregnant with any of those activities, so why not encourage fellatio and cunninlingus? after all, it's all about the life of the child, so let's make sure that mom doesn't get pregnant by making sure that dad's semen stays outside her body. that, to me, seems a very responsible way to have sex.

or is it really just about being anti-sex?

This was nonsense the first time you posted it, and it's still nonsense.

Anything to avoid confronting the essential truth, as Flossmay put it, :

It's not my right to decide if a person lives or dies. That right belongs to no man (or woman).

 

[namkcuR]

It's not an absolute truth. It's the truth in your opinion. Don't state it as fact.

 

[anitram]

No pro-life person has ever and I mean ever answered these questions to my satisfaction:

1. When we criminalize abortion, what is the sentence the woman will receive when she gets an abortion done illegally? How much jail time should your wives, daughters, cousins, friends get?

2. Doctors who perform illegal abortions - how will we prosecute them, what will their jail sentences be?

3. People who drive the woman to the doctor or support her actions in some concrete way in getting an illegal abortion will be aiding and abetting a serious crime. What will their jail sentences be?

 

[financeguy]

No pro-life person has ever and I mean ever answered these questions to my satisfaction:

1. When we criminalize abortion, what is the sentence the woman will receive when she gets an abortion done illegally? How much jail time should your wives, daughters, cousins, friends get?

2. Doctors who perform illegal abortions - how will we prosecute them, what will their jail sentences be?

3. People who drive the woman to the doctor or support her actions in some concrete way in getting an illegal abortion will be aiding and abetting a serious crime. What will their jail sentences be?

Do you mean in the US?

What was the position pre Roe vs Wade?

Legalised abortion on demand is extremely recent, a modern conceit.

There are tried and tested means of dealing with these matters under a legal system, as you ought to be aware.

 

[anitram]

Abortion is essentially legalized in the entire Western world (you know the exceptions) and it has been so for decades.

The legal sanctions which were present 30 or 40 years ago are not instructive any longer.

I want pro-life people to start thinking about jail times and tell us what they think the appropriate punishment should be. 10, 20 years for the woman? What about the husband/boyfriend who supported her decision? How long should he be in prison for?

Let's start pounding out some concrete ideas here so that pro-life people can perhaps start to better understand the scope of criminalizing abortion. I think most of them never give much thought to who will be rotting in jail.

 

[financeguy]

The legal sanctions which were present 30 or 40 years ago are not instructive any longer.

Why not?

 

[martha]

No pro-life person has ever and I mean ever answered these questions to my satisfaction:

1. When we criminalize abortion, what is the sentence the woman will receive when she gets an abortion done illegally? How much jail time should your wives, daughters, cousins, friends get?

2. Doctors who perform illegal abortions - how will we prosecute them, what will their jail sentences be?

3. People who drive the woman to the doctor or support her actions in some concrete way in getting an illegal abortion will be aiding and abetting a serious crime. What will their jail sentences be?

Don't forget this one:

But the whole "rape or incest" thing is such a pandering to make them look reasonable. Because not one of them that I've ever seen can cough up a plan where this would work. Do we wait for a conviction? Do we put the women in a room with bright lights and make them tell? No one can tell me how this would work, yet they all trot it out to make themselves appear to give a shit about the woman.

 

[martha]

There are tried and tested means of dealing with these matters under a legal system, as you ought to be aware.

You haven't given specifics.

Answer the question.

 

[martha]

I want pro-life people to start thinking about jail times and tell us what they think the appropriate punishment should be. 10, 20 years for the woman? What about the husband/boyfriend who supported her decision? How long should he be in prison for?

I don't think anyone will actually answer these questions.

 

[anitram]

For the same reason that you wouldn't revive any number of 40 year old laws, criminal law expands with the times. Consider crimes like spousal abuse, consider battered woman syndrome and a host of other newly emerged issues which were simply not within the purview of the legal system 40 years ago. We don't live in a vacuum.

Today's women have more money and the ability to travel out of jurisdiction (imagine border towns in Canada and the potential profitability, or I guess if you're American, criminality). We, as a society, also place far more value on individualism and choice, and our young women have not been raised to think or believe the same things as 40 years ago. We are also recognizing the seriousness of psychological harm that can be caused by the state. But on a more practical level, enacting law that was around 40 years ago would be largely unconstitutional anyway, because we have 40 years of jurisprudence behind us now which has fundamentally changed rights under the criminal law system.

martha brings an excellent point with respect to rape - are we going to demand that young girls submit themselves to rape exams within 48 hours of the rape? How else are you going to prove it? Have the rapist happily admit it?

 

[diamond]

He said that because he didn't want his daughters having a baby if they got pregnant as a teenager.

I've had five children and not one of them was part of my body. They were their own person from the very beginning, just living inside me. I had no right to make the decision to take their life.

My new hero.

The Joan De Arc of FYM.



<>

 

[anitram]

Would you seriously want to put a person "down" if they were in pain?

I support human euthanasia, absolutely.

I do think it would have to be tightly regulated.

 

[financeguy]

You haven't given specifics.

Answer the question.

I don't really believe the question is serious. I think it's designed to create a distraction and focus attention away from the essentially evil nature of abortion.

Once the question is answered, another distraction will be created, or else you'll just give vent to another of your rants.

So, I will answer the question in the spirit it is intended: the woman who has an abortion should be given a zillion years imprisonment, the doctor who performs it should be given a gazillion years.

 

[anitram]

That's insulting. You have no idea in what "spirit" I intended the question. That's ridiculous.

It is a most legitimate question - when you want to criminalize something, then criminal sanctions are part of your "solution." Nobody seems to think of these things, which is also possibly why the fine citizens of South Dakota had a nice case of buyer's remorse once their state actually got serious about banning abortion.

It's a serious question, certainly one that you'd have to have when discussing a legislative ban of abortion. It's actually silly to suggest otherwise.

But I don't think anyone is seriously going to answer it, nobody ever does.

 

[Utoo]

I don't really believe the question is serious. I think it's designed to create a distraction and focus attention away from the essentially evil nature of abortion.

One could say that your response is designed to create a distraction and focus attention away from actually answering the question.

See, the reality of anitram's question is that should abortion be made illegal across the board, then it will have to be punished. If it's not, then the illegality is as frivolous as the illegality of American citizens traveling to Cuba--we just go through Canada, and if caught, the threat of a fine never materializes.

Since I take your "gazillion years" assessment to be a joke, let's pick one of four options...the point of which is to gauge the severity with which one views the breaking of an anti-abortion law would be.

For a woman who has an abortion, she should receive:
a). a fine
b). 1 year in prison
c). 10 years in prison
d). life in prison

Each answer is a fairly unique degree of punishment with regard to the others. How severe should the punishment be? If it's a law, breaking it needs to be punished. If we make it a law, we need to immediately have a punishment at hand. And then we need to be able to visualize people serving those sentences.


Since we're on the notion of laws..... Is killing in self defense to be allowed?


I was going to respond more fully to several of Flossy's posts, but I'll just say a few lines instead. I will accept that it may not be my place to put a value on someone else's quality of life. But let me say this: When you start talking about a fetus as being "viable" and that a baby can be "kept alive," I have to ask you to seriously assess what sort of value you are placing on "life."

I would also encourage you to do more than just read about things. Please, experience them. Don't read an article or a book. Go to a NICU and follow a NICU nurse or doctor for 12 hours a day for two months straight. You can do it--many places allow observers. Then come back and let us know how you feel.

To paraphrase "Good Will Hunting"---You can describe a painting to minute detail, but you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.

 

[~BrightestStar~]

It's not my right to decide if a person lives or dies. That right belongs to no man (or woman).

(but it should belong to the govt apparently? Is the govt God now?)

but in cases where not doing a late term abortion may be dangerous to the mother whether or not a decision to abort is made IS deciding no matter which decision is made. Doing nothing is just as much a deliberate decision.

Qft.

As it is now, in such cases, people can sit down, weigh the risks and benefits, consider the specific set of circumstances (level of risk, for example), and then make the decision that they feel is right. To chose between mother and baby.

Alternatively, the state can make the decision for you - baby always wins.

In either case, a life and death decision has been made.

But I personally don't think the govt should have the right to make that decision.

 

[diamond]

hey what does, "qtf" mean anyway?



<>

 

[corianderstem]

"Quoted For Truth"

although sometimes I like to pretend it stands for "quite fucking true," because sometimes that feels more appropriate.

 

[Lila64]

In adding to anitram's post, if a female were to get an abortion and in asking what the punishment would be were abortion made illegal, would only the woman be punished? What about the male?

 

[corianderstem]

The male would get a hearty slap on the back, congratulations on his virility and a year's supply of Viagra.