24 Week Abortions

[MyTown]

Yes but nature and circumstance will take its course if both parents die after a child has been born, both parents could die, but the baby might get picked up by the health services and go on to live, but thats all down to circumstance.

For me there's an inherent contradiction in being pro choice and then pointing out how nature will take its course.

Now I begin to see how the likes of your fellow citizen the Minister for Guns gets such a huge personal vote. Obviously there's no problem with holding contradictory positions.

I think you should apply for a handle change to Dahamsta......*Janus would be much more appropriate than Jebus imho

(*The god of gates and doorways, depicted with two faces looking in opposite directions. )

[jebus]

Do I start by insulting his pro-life views, his Latte United support, or his anti-humour posts? Choices, choices

[dahamsta]

Lads, while I enjoy the witty banter as much as the next guy, can we leave it out of this thread and keep it as a straight debate please? It's an emotive issue and people WILL take jokes the wrong way. Usually on purpose, don't give them the opportunity.

THanks,
adam

[SeanDrog]

I'm pro-choice. I feel a foetus is not alive until it's out of the mother.

I'm well aware of the development of the foetus but I still think until the foetus comes out of the mother, it's not alive.

Had to stop reading this thread when I came to the above post. Are you for REAL!!!

My wife is due in 8 days and I can feel the baby kicking etc etc, so its not ALIVE??? until it is born?

Its a person - a baby, get use to the terminology , I think an earlier post referred to the mother as the host

People need to get a little real and stop trying to sterilise the terminology, the process involves killing a baby in the mothers womb.

Scans happen at 12 weeks (if your private at least) and there is a little baby bobbing around clear a day.

Prochoice - so if the kid is one year old and the mother decides, nah can't live this life , can she book into a clinic and have the child disposed of? To me there is no difference no matter how you want to dress it up.

Abortion can be called whatever it wants but it is simply one individual deciding to take the life of another.

But hey its the politically correct world so if calling yourself Prochoice insulates you from the reality of baby killing - work away - free world.

[osarusan]

Its a person - a baby, get use to the terminology , I think an earlier post referred to the mother as the host

In that case, the poster used the term 'host' because the reason the woman is having an abortion is because she doesn't want to be a mother, at least not to that foetus.

[micls]

In that case, the poster used the term 'host' because the reason the woman is having an abortion is because she doesn't want to be a mother, at least not to that foetus.

While I see the point, plenty of mothers don't want to be mother's. If the child has been bron though you wouldnt call the mother 'the host' whether they want to be a mother or not.

I dont really see how being a mother is a choice. Maybe it depends on your definition of the word

[GavinZac]

At 12 weeks the foetus is basically an amphibian with all the intelligence, emotions and nervous system of a newt. It may have a head, 2 legs and 2 arms but a baby it aint. If you're strongly against its termination you're either a vegan or you attach some symbolic/mystic/religious value that makes what is essentially a parasite hiding itself by secreting hormones through the placenta, a potential human, and you start going down the murky road of souls and sins and that malarky

[micls]

If you're strongly against its termination you're either a vegan or you attach some symbolic/mystic/religious value that makes what is essentially a parasite hiding itself by secreting hormones through the placenta, a potential human, and you start going down the murky road of souls and sins and that malarky

Rubbish. If the foetus isnt terminated it will become a baby. It's the 'future' baby that people are against he termination of not the 'parasite'. It has nothing to do with sybolism or religion.

Sure kids arent much use to us, but if you let them grow into adults they will eventually contribute to society and carry on our genes.....

[osarusan]

If you're strongly against its termination you're either a vegan or you attach some symbolic/mystic/religious value that makes what is essentially a parasite hiding itself by secreting hormones through the placenta, a potential human, and you start going down the murky road of souls and sins and that malarky

Yet again Gavin, you assume that you know the character and motivation of people who have a certain opinion.

Didn't you receive a warning for that kind of thing recently?

[SeanDrog]

At 12 weeks the foetus is basically an amphibian with all the intelligence, emotions and nervous system of a newt. It may have a head, 2 legs and 2 arms but a baby it aint. If you're strongly against its termination you're either a vegan or you attach some symbolic/mystic/religious value that makes what is essentially a parasite hiding itself by secreting hormones through the placenta, a potential human, and you start going down the murky road of souls and sins and that malarky

What a sad world you live in.

[GavinZac]

Rubbish. If the foetus isnt terminated it will become a baby. It's the 'future' baby that people are against he termination of not the 'parasite'. It has nothing to do with sybolism or religion.

Isn't that the point though? They don't want it to become a baby, and it isn't a baby. Im sure some people would protest a 12 week abortion but be ok with a morning after pill. They both prevent future babies - the morning after pill stops the "parasite" from attaching itself. That makes it a hypocritical position; there has to be a point where we define what is 'human' and what is not. The idea that we would balk at the termination of a small squigly thing yet hunt/kill/experiment on gorillas and chimps with the mental capacity of a 3 year old or cows with the mental capacity of a 6 month old is again, hypocritical. If you're going to protect something which isn't human but might be some day, you have to ask why? What makes it special, now? And at what point does it become special? And what is the difference then, between special and not special? If the ability to someday have a human thought is the differentiating factor, we cannot differentiate at all once fertilisation has occurred in the fallopian tubes; one could go further and call a sperm racing toward an ovum collectively a potential human.

Sure kids arent much use to us, but if you let them grow into adults they will eventually contribute to society and carry on our genes.....

If ever there was a time for population control, it is now. As it is, we can barely sustain ourselves and food prices are rocketing. As Jared Diamond put it, if population continues to grow at the rate it is now, we'll be stacked on top of each other within 200 years and will have doubled the mass of the earth within 2000*.

With the age of genetic experimentation dawning it very much raises the issue of what we seek to protect and what we don't. We've already seen the ignorance that can exist when emotive issues cross genetic ones with the stem cell "controversy"; a day will come when someone identifies a gene that can be switched on or off and make a massive improvement to human quality of life; lactose intolerance, or susceptibility to cancer. One 'parasite' will have to be the first to be experimented on. Will people shout for joy because of the advances, or make sweeping hateful comments about souls, 'future humans' not having a choice, or eugenics?

*(based on reading Collapse about a year ago so figures might be off in either direction)

[GavinZac]

Yet again Gavin, you assume that you know the character and motivation of people who have a certain opinion.

What base have i not covered? Either they are against the unnecessary killing/abuse of living things, or they see the human foetus as special in some way. I can't think of any other reason but I'm open to correction.

Didn't you receive a warning for that kind of thing recently?

No?

[jebus]

Isn't that the point though? They don't want it to become a baby, and it isn't a baby. Im sure some people would protest a 12 week abortion but be ok with a morning after pill. They both prevent future babies - the morning after pill stops the "parasite" from attaching itself. That makes it a hypocritical position; there has to be a point where we define what is 'human' and what is not. The idea that we would balk at the termination of a small squigly thing yet hunt/kill/experiment on gorillas and chimps with the mental capacity of a 3 year old or cows with the mental capacity of a 6 month old is again, hypocritical. If you're going to protect something which isn't human but might be some day, you have to ask why? What makes it special, now? And at what point does it become special? And what is the difference then, between special and not special? If the ability to someday have a human thought is the differentiating factor, we cannot differentiate at all.

That gets a big hear hear from Jebus

[osarusan]

No?

Apologies, I was wrong (on that part only).

Isn't that the point though? They don't want it to become a baby, and it isn't a baby. Im sure some people would protest a 12 week abortion but be ok with a morning after pill. They both prevent future babies - the morning after pill stops the "parasite" from attaching itself. That makes it a hypocritical position; there has to be a point where we define what is 'human' and what is not. The idea that we would balk at the termination of a small squigly thing yet hunt/kill/experiment on gorillas and chimps with the mental capacity of a 3 year old or cows with the mental capacity of a 6 month old is again, hypocritical. If you're going to protect something which isn't human but might be some day, you have to ask why? What makes it special, now? And at what point does it become special? And what is the difference then, between special and not special? If the ability to someday have a human thought is the differentiating factor, we cannot differentiate at all once fertilisation has occurred in the fallopian tubes; one could go further and call a sperm racing toward an ovum collectively a potential human.

I agree with every word of this though.

[GavinZac]

Apologies, I was wrong (on that part only).

Well correct me then! Tell me what possiblity I left out and therefore made assumptions on someones character?

Edit: If I have/do offended anyone, I do apologise. There is obviously emotional issues here, and we're dealing with science that isn't complete; no-one really knows if a third trimester has ever had a thought, consensus has not been reached on the comparability of human, primate and general mammal emotion. I find the easiest way to talk is in terms of the science that we do know; I am not some cold borderline psychopath who sees no value in potential human life. However, when you try to take something which is entirely a grey area, you need to find some sort of delineation to speak in terms of legal and illegal, right and wrong. Abortions and genetic experimentation and our own value of what is human, what is not and what the difference is anyway, are the single greatest philosophical and moral challenges faces us as we move into an era where creation moves from a mystic power to the manipulation of proteins. I don't claim to hold the definitive answer and 3 years ago I probably would have argued an entirely different position.

[micls]

Isn't that the point though? They don't want it to become a baby, and it isn't a baby. Im sure some people would protest a 12 week abortion but be ok with a morning after pill. They both prevent future babies - the morning after pill stops the "parasite" from attaching itself.

Not necessarily. Sperm can live up to 3 days in the womb, the egg may not be fertalised when the morning after pill is taken. What it stops in that case is the fertilisation.

With the morning after pill, there is a chance fertilisation may have happened, yes, but there are also the chances that it hasnt. You are stopping the possibility. If there were a pill that only stop fertilisation, not fertilised eggs(after the event) then I would advocate that, bt there isnt.

With termination, there is a fertilised egg that more than likely will become a baby. The same cannot be said for the morning after pill

[GavinZac]

Not necessarily. Sperm can live up to 3 days in the womb, the egg may not be fertalised when the morning after pill is taken. What it stops in that case is the fertilisation.

With the morning after pill, there is a chance fertilisation may have happened, yes, but there are also the chances that it hasnt. You are stopping the possibility. If there were a pill that only stop fertilisation, not fertilised eggs(after the event) then I would advocate that, bt there isnt.

With termination, there is a fertilised egg that more than likely will become a baby. The same cannot be said for the morning after pill

The same can be said It may kill sperm, but it also kills fertilised eggs that more than likely will become a baby. Pills do exist that stops fertilisation, and there are gels and such that kill sperm. They aren't popular and aren't commercially viable because people are buying it for both effects.
If you're against termination simply because it might one day be a human, but ok with the combined effects of the morning after pill, its a hypocritical stance. The differentiating line that you use between right and wrong then shifts to be based on something else, something entirely less material than whether the egg is fertilised or not.

[pete]

Can everyone calm down so I don't have to close this thread.

The UK 24 week law is based medical evidence that fetus cannot survive outside the womb pre 24 weeks. The argument not to change to 20 or 22 weeks was because they received no new medical evidence. Thats the facts of the UK debate no matter which side you are on.

[osarusan]

Can everyone calm down so I don't have to close this thread.

It has gone off-topic alright, but nobody's angry Pete, as far as I can see.

[dahamsta]

SeanDrog, and others, you need to calm down and drop the emotive and/or abusive language or the thread is going to be locked, as pete says. People are entitled to their beliefs just like you're entitled to ours, and if you want to rebut them you have to do them calmly and with facts. If you can't do that, you're not welcome in the Current Affairs forum in particular.

adam