h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

nosretep: You seem to find very little compromise in the world for ethics. Everything for you is black and white. There are many others who see the world as black and white. If we allowed their fundamentalist ideals to rule the world, then here is what your life would be like:

- Meat would cease to exist, except in its living form, because some people wholeheartedly believe that killing animals for food is unnecessary and wrong.

- Islam would be the world's only religion, chosen by popular vote. You would have to have prayer in the middle of the day, and endure the month-long fast at Ramadan, among other annoyances. Nonbelievers would, naturally, be hunted to extinction.

This is just a couple of ways in which your life would be, if determined by the hard-nosed people with beliefs slightly different than your own. Many of them are ready to die for their beliefs... are you? And what makes you more right than them?

Women obtain unwanted pregnancies because they're not terribly careful, or they're victims. If they are victims of rape, they have absolutely every reason to want to terminate the pregnancy. How would you like it if you had a living reminder of the worst nightmare of your life? How would that affect you? How would that affect the child?

Women who get pregnant from sheer clumsiness are usually either very young, very poor, or both. How does it help the woman to climb out of poverty if she is forced to have a child? How does a woman hope to mature enough to contribute to society if she must become a parent before she manages to educate herself? By bringing unwanted children into these situations, we exacerbate the problems of poverty, drug abuse, child abuse, and everything associated therewith. Would it not be a tender mercy to allow these women the choice to terminate their pregnancies, so that they might live the life that you, as a male, are guaranteed? Or would you rather pay the price in escalated crime and welfare to preserve the life of a child who may have preferred not to be? Who are you to make that determination?

And as uneducated and/or traumatized women, desperate for a solution, they WILL choose to abort a pregnancy, any way necessary. Lacking the ability to do so in a sterile medical environment with trained professionals, they WILL resort to home remedies... which are often fatal. Who are you to decide that they must put themselves at such risk? Who are you to sentence them to a life of parenting that they are unready or unwilling to undertake? Who are you to push up the crime statistics and the welfare rolls to satisfy your own personal brand of ethics? For I assure you, there are plenty of people who dissent.

And before you say that you are right because you are right, remember, the guys who steered that boat into the USS Cole believed that they were right, and they had a lot more conviction than you. Hitler and Stalin had the same kind of convictions. If you want to enjoy freedom, then you have to tolerate the freedom of others, and that involves allowing them to choose what to do with their own bodies. We haven't devolved as a society yet that we have to resort to mandatory birth-controlling operations or licensing to give birth. Neither should we devolve to the point that people are forced to bear children, which is what you propose to do.

I would like to begin by apologizing. I apologize for any verbal attacks that I have posted since my first entry. I am driven by my passions which overwhelmed my better judgement. My attacks were not aimed at anyone personally but rather at abortion.

I would like to thank MaW for trying to end the verbal attacks. I believe this conversation can reach new levels of both sides of the argument if we all cease our attacks. Thank you to nosretep for clarifying and qualifying many of my arguments and for defending me.
Thank You

I would like to begin by apologizing. I apologize for any verbal attacks that I have posted since my first entry. I am driven by my passions which overwhelmed my better judgement. My attacks were not aimed at anyone personally but rather at abortion.

I would like to thank MaW for trying to end the verbal attacks. I believe this conversation can reach new levels of both sides of the argument if we all cease our attacks. Thank you to nosretep for clarifying and qualifying many of my arguments and for defending me.
Thank You

>>I believe this conversation can reach new levels of * both sides of the argument if we all cease our attacks.<<

*understanding of

The fact that someone believes something is right does not make it right. If I believe that ramming the USS Cole is right, that does not make it right. No level of conviction on my or anyone else's part can change that. Killing is wrong. There are fundamental wrongs. If this is not the case, then we revert to a "survival of the fittest" mentality. If it feels good, do it. If you think that someone should die, kill them. If we allowed relativist ideals to rule the world, then this is what your life would be like.

What FUNDAMENTAL wrong denounces killing animals for food? Now it may seem that I am defining what is fundamental. Something that is fundamental forms the basis or foundation of a subject and serves as the starting point. It is very important and essential. Killing humans is fundamentally wrong because it degrades society to the point where human life does not matter. As we, as humans, form our human society, we denounce our society by denouncing people. Society is the foundation, the basis and the sum of our surroundings. If denouncing the basis for what we think is not wrong, what is? Animals (creatures other than humans who have blood) do not form the sum of our society. Therefore it cannot be fundamentally wrong to kill them. If can however be wrong to you. You would be unfairly interjecting your view upon someone else to say otherwise. Religion is not something that can be called fundamental. It has to be an individual's decision. Not everyone is is Islamic, not everyone is christian, everyone is alive. I am not impressing my religious or dietary beliefs upon you. I am refering to human life. I hope that I will not get raped. I hope that noone will ever get raped. I recognise that it happens. However, it does not justify homicide because killing a human is fundamentally wrong.

How does aborting a child help a poor woman climb out of poverty? I have found that children often help a parent to mature really fast. However, this is irrelevent. Social status or maturity level cannot justify a fundamental wrong either. Do you have proof that abortion has lowered poverty, drug abuse, or child abuse?

Why do you assume that I am male? I have never said one way or the other. Do not use gender against me.

You said that an uneducated and/or traumatized woman will choose an abortion. Can you make that choice for her? A woman can make up her own mind. The fact that some will choose to kill a human whether or not it is illegal does not mean that we should make it legal.

Can you proove that I have raised crime or the number of people on welfare?

This is not based on my personal ethics. It is based on what is fundamentally right and wrong. The fact that other people disagree with me does not make me wrong. Someone can say that they support oppression of women or wife abuse. This does not make someone who disagrees wrong.

If you want to enjoy freedom, then you have to tolerate the freedom of others. The freedom of someone stops when they invade the freedom of someone else. This is what happens in an abortion. This is why the actions of Hitler and Stalin are evil.

I agree that we need to allow someone to choose what to do with their own bodies. They cannot therefore decide what to do with someone else's body. This is what happens in an abortion. I do not believe that people should be forced to have children. The problem is that when you get pregnant, you have a child. The choice to have a child has been made.

It's interesting to see the divergence of condom statistics. I'd say, that with proper care putting on the rubber (and also proper care towards.. hm.. lubrication issues) condoms are more effective against pregnancy and STD's than no protection at all. Perhaps not as effective as abstinence, but definitely without all the pent up rage, angst, and anger.

Sex does not equal child, and shouldn't, unless a child is wanted.

-jb

>I have found that children often help a parent to mature really fast.<

I find that insurance companies hold the same misconception.

>The problem is that when you get pregnant, you have a child. The choice to have a child has been made.<

By who? The woman? The man? Who will support the child? Who will raise it? What if the woman accidently sat in some semen? Was a choice made? Well, yes, the choice to sit down.

Coincidentally, I don't get pregnant. And I don't make choices, at least regarding whether or not to have a child.

-jb

Since safe (for the mother) abortion became a possibility, this has been a difficult debate. It is little different (for the mother) from having the baby and giving it up for adoption. Yes, the baby lives, but is gone forever from its natural parent(s). To voluntarily give up your child must be a hell of a thing, and I thank God I've never been faced with that choice.

Which brings me to the next point. It doesn't seem that important, but surely the correct term is "pro-choice", as there are several possible routes that can be followed, and the parent(s) have to choose one of them. Specifically allocating the responsibilities where they belong - we (who feel strongly about such things) can offer advice; they (who are the parents, who have the responsibility, who will live with the consequences) make the choice: abortion or not.

Anthony is right in one respect: honesty is the right approach. Abortion is a form of murder. So is the death sentence doled out by a court of law, the bullet fired by a soldier at his enemy and the lethal injection given on request to the terminal cancer victim. Murder isn't always wrong, but pretending that abortion isn't murder is deceit and *that's* wrong.

Kumetanzuka wrote: "None of these posts, including the one you're reading now, have succeeded in looking at the subject objectively. It's really not plausible."

Not only is it implausible, it's impossible. This is not a topic that lies within the bailiwick of objectivity. It's subjective, about making value judgements, and balancing one against another.

If a mother has a baby, it will be dependent for around twenty years, and that is too significant a burden for anyone to take on lightly. Even after conception has taken place, the mother ought to consider abortion if she is not entirely happy. There is too much at stake to make a mistake if it can be avoided or mended.

A baby begins its existence totally dependent on its parents, and reaches the point where it can care for itself around twenty years later. During the time when abortion is a possibility, the baby is so dependent that (IMO) the right of life or death lies totally with the parents. The baby has (as yet) little or no right to life on its own account. The choice belongs with the parents, where the responsibility lies. It is encumbent upon us not to try to take their choice from them, nor to constrain their choice by witholding options that *we* think ought not to be considered.

This planet has a plague of humans. They are breeding out of control, destroying habitats across the world. Nothing can stop them; all other species despair, and those that understand God pray to Her for deliverance. Human lives are not holy or sacred - they are vermin. If whales prayed for our deaths, could we blame them? In their position, it's what I would do. From this perspective, the debate over whether to terminate one human life is insignificant. Even a million human lives would make little difference when six thousand million still remain. This isn't the *only* perspective, but it is a valid one.

Pattern-chaser

It's very interesting to see the differing condom statistics... hmm. Evidently somebody's lying - probably everyone, since the only people who seem to do studies into this kind of thing are the anti/pro-abortion and anti/pro-contraception groups (these days anyway) and they're going to bias their results anyway. Although I wouldn't be surprised if there are a lot of pregnancies caused by misuse of contraceptives by people who are too eager to learn how to do it properly. But then that seems to be a problem with most things that require knowledge to be acquired before effective use can be made of them. We're in an instant society - people want to be able to do things straightaway without any effort beforehand. As I've learned to my immense frustration, juggling doesn't work like that, and neither do many other things.

Now I'm drifting off the topic, so I shall attempt to drift back.

I stick to my own opinions, but I respect those of others - provided they don't try to force them on me. I lose respect for people who attempt to force people to their beliefs, as it seems to me to indicate an insecurity in themselves. Gentle persuasion I can understand - it's only natural to want to let people see your position, perhaps to try to bring them around to it (what else am I doing?) but it's not acceptable to try to force them into it.

Therefore, if you believe abortion is wrong in any form whatsoever, I'm quite happy for you to choose never to have one, to tell people what you think, and perhaps to petition to get abortion made illegal if that's what you want, but I would not be happy for pro-life advocates to attempt to stop women having abortions, or to attack those who provide the service which is surely valuable to so many women.

And as for those of you who mentioned be attempting to stop the verbal attacks, I'm flattered, but all I said was that they're not a good thing. I didn't try to stop them - I just said what I think about them. Hopefully, that's all I've done about anything.

nosretep wrote "Killing is wrong." A short while later, he wrote "What FUNDAMENTAL wrong denounces killing animals for food?"

I don't feel the need to add anything to that.

Pattern-chaser

I can&#8217;t tell you how glad I am to see that the attacks are ending. I really enjoy mixing it up about the issue, but I have a hard time supporting issues when things start getting ugly. It just makes me want to drop out. I&#8217;d also like to suggest that Hitler and Stalin should stay out of the conversation.

MaW, don&#8217;t worry about taking credit for the end to ugliness. How many times have you gone unrecognized for doing something before? This is your chance to shine, even if you didn&#8217;t mean to.

Response to post 34 by nosretep:

Surgery is sometimes the last resort, but there are numerous times when it isn't. Cosmetic surgery, liposuction, etc. are uses of surgery where it may be necessary or there may be alternative means to achieve the same results. Heck, now women can use RU-486 rather than surgical abortions.

Response to post 35 by Ormondroyd:

In life there are consequences even when we're young and ignorant ... particularly when we're young and ignorant. Abortion is an extremely distasteful way to deal with irresponsibility and ignorance. [Actually, the ignorance upsets me more. I have a personal story about that, but this isn't the right venue.]

Of course, I have to agree with Colonel Sellers. Abortion is a reasonable way to deal with young ignorant women who are pregnant. They&#8217;re not going to be any good for the child. Adoption would make be nicer, in a way, but that&#8217;s fraught with difficulties too. If someone can get themselves knocked up through stupidity or carelessness, can we expect them to be rational when the time comes to give up a baby? Heck can we trust them to care for the child before birth?

I always worry about helping people when they make bad decisions. I fear that if we subsidize people when they make mistakes that they may repeat the mistakes because the consequences weren&#8217;t so bad. Still, I think legalized abortion is should be maintained for girls in this situation.

No one here is suggesting that anyone be forced to have an abortion. If it&#8217;s legal, the decision has to be made by the expectant mother. It should be informed, and made without undue pressure. Even in the deal I have with my wife, she has a choice (I don&#8217;t think she&#8217;d be heartbroken to see me go either).

Response to 40 by nosretep re: Condoms:

I expect you&#8217;d find that the problems with Condoms, and probably the same holds true for the pill, is operator error. Which kind of goes back to what I was saying about irresponsibility and ignorance. I bet the differences come from how the operator error was monitored.

Response to 48 by Pattern Chaser

Finally, the only thing that is murder is murder. Murder is by definition a crime. Abortions, executions, euthanasia, and killing in combat are not crimes. They&#8217;re killings, but they&#8217;re not the crime of murder.

Dang it, I hate it when I forget to preveiw stuff before posting it.

Two Bit Trigger Pumping Moron (what a handle! ) wrote:

> Response to 48 by Pattern Chaser
>
> Finally, the only thing that is murder
> is murder. Murder is by definition a
> crime. Abortions, executions, euthanasia,
> and killing in combat are not crimes.
> They're killings, but they're not the
> crime of murder.

I was using the term "murder" to refer to the act of deliberate killing. I accept that it has a narrower definition in a legal context, but only because our law (remembering the differences between countries, and that this is a global discussion) acknowledges that murder (i.e. deliberate killing) is not *always* considered criminal.

[In my view, murder (i.e. deliberate killing) is always *potentially* a criminal act, and should be scrutinised by a court/judge/jury to determine whether or not action should be taken. Obviously, there are cases - such as my examples, perhaps - where no action is appropriate.]

Pattern-chaser

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I thought it might help if we considered as a group what we don't scientifically know and therefore can't agree on. Part of the difficulty with discussing abortion is that we are dealing with unknown variables. The result is that we each make our own educated guesses or assumptions about the variables, and thus we end up with different conclusions.

***

1) We can not scientifically know to what extent a fetus shares the same mental or emotional charictaristics as a baby after conception at various earlier stages of pregnancy.

The fetus can't communicate directly, of course. And our scientific understanding of the fetus' brain is very slim. We can now tell when a baby first exhibits brain wave patterns (the 14th week). But we have no idea what kind of things the fetus is capable of thinking about or feeling.

This may be alleviated over the course of the next 20 years as less expensive open MRIs allow pregnant women to have their unborn babies scanned at various points for mental activity and response to various stimuli. There will be limits even with this, though, as there are ethical standards and practical limits regarding what kind of 'stimuli' scientists could use for evaluation.

2) We can't tell exactly what the social effects of abortion have been. That is, we can't guess what the last 50 years would have been like if abortion were illegal. Nor could we guess how the next 50 years would be different if the laws regarding abortion changed.

Social science at this point is extremely inexact. When it comes to adding millions of people to the population of a country, we have no good way of making scientifically valid predictions. Nor can we factor out all the other possible causes of various social ills and gains to determine what the effects of legalized or illegal abortions are.

It will likely be some time before social science can more accurately predict the social effects of making abortion illegal or keeping it legal. Personally, I don't expect our ignorance on this matter to be resolved in our lifetime. Our mathematical models are faulty here, and our understanding of human society is too sparse.

3) We can't scientifically know what the effects of abortion might be to the after-death experiences (if any) of the fetus or the parents.

Science is pretty darned silent on the after-death experience in general. Some people defer to their religious beliefs. But even these differ wildly from one religion to another when it comes to the deaths of unborn babies, and many major religious texts are simply silent on the matter. Of course, there are also many agnostic and atheist people who don't (and shouldn't have to) look to any religion for answers.

There is no way to guess whether science will recognize any after-death experience within our lifetimes. I think it's safe to say that such a breakthrough is highly unlikely, though. Our scientists don't know where to begin looking for answers.

***

Obviously, our human ignorance is a huge problem in this whole debate. In fact, let's take a look at the past. This will give an idea of how our present argument will look to future generations. Follow me back a couple thousand years, would you? Pregnancy was hardly understood at that time.

Nobody understood the role of menstruation in child birth. They had no idea why women bled for one week out of the month. As a result, women were thought to be unclean and/or less evolved because they had periods. Some religions held that women had somehow lost favor with God and were being punished.

It was thought that men's semen alone was responsible for conception. It was not known that women had eggs, or that these were necessary for conception. Women were thought to be mere incubators. Men who masturbated were often accused of killing unborn children. Some nations had laws against male masturbation for this reason. Also, women unable to give birth were often accused of abortion because some cultures assumed that all warm-bodied women were capable of procreation.

Finally, nobody knew how a baby's gender was determined. Some cultures held that the woman determined the child's gender depending on what she ate or how she took care of herself during pregnancy. As a result, women giving birth to girls were occasionally beaten by their husbands. Now, of course, we know it is the man's sperm that determines gender.

It was thought that puberty was the same thing as adulthood. People of the time assumed that a person capable of procreation was mentally and emotionally ready to fill the responsible adult role in society. As a result, marriages took place as early as age 12. Boys were routinely employed by age 14. Today, we would call this child labor.

People may someday look back at our arguments with wry amusement. For this reason, it may perhaps be best that we remain civil and respect each others' opinions.

Hmm...
>> We can not scientifically know to what extent a fetus shares the same mental or emotional charictaristics as a baby after conception at various earlier stages of pregnancy.

The fetus can't communicate directly, of course. And our scientific understanding of the fetus' brain is very slim. We can now tell when a baby first exhibits brain wave patterns (the 14th week). But we have no idea what kind of things the fetus is capable of thinking about or feeling.<<

Apparently we can't even agree on when a baby first has brainwaves either. I have seen reports that the feotus has brainwaves at around 43 days (The 6th week of pregnancy) could you show me where you got this information? As far as not knowing to what extent a fetus shares the same mental or emotional charictaristics as a baby after conception at various earlier stages of pregnancy, I have to question whether this really matters at all. Does the lack of conscious thought ( and I am linking emotions to concsious thought) make a person any less human? I am defining conscious thought as something that is personally felt. ie. Conscious guilt.

I suppose my next question would be if any of these arguments really matter. Although I would like a clarification on your second statement.That is, "We can't guess what the last 50 years would have been like if abortion were illegal. Nor could we guess how the next 50 years would be different if the laws regarding abortion changed.

I think we could perhaps look at other countries where abortion is illegal and see what the effects are on those countries as an example. Though one could argue that the laws in one country may be necessary to that particular environment. I claim ignorance.

I do agree with your third point. Even the Catholic Church (of which I am a member) claims ignorance as to what happens to an aborted baby or a born child who has not been baptized after he/she dies. We can only entrust them to God's mercy.

Human ignorance is indeed a huge problem in this debate. But I do not think that it is for any of the reasons you have stated. The ignorance stems mainly in the lack of knowlege of the humanity of the unborn. This is why I am pro-life. I have seen evidence that proves to me that a fertilised egg, embryo, zygote, feotus, are indeed human. Being human I believe that I must show respect to them and their right to life.

Another variable that you did not bring up is viability. The age after conception where a baby can survive outside of its mothers womb has decreased through our technological advances. Now 25 weeks is often stated as the limit, but pre-born children have survived at 22 weeks or earlier on occation.

And now we have the Ultimate Answer to the question of Why Should We Permit Choice? Because we have a complete lack of an answer for the other, more important question, of When Is a Human a Human?

Is it a human at conception? Your arguments contain the assumption that it is. However, at conception, it is not very different from the egg and sperm that combined to make it. It is simply a cellular zygote that divides every once in a while. If you argue that the zygote is a human, you can just as easily argue that all sperms and eggs are human. And don't they deserve a chance at life?

Is it a human when it becomes recognizeably human-shaped? Some argue that it is. But even when it begins to appear human, it is nothing more than a parasite in the womb of the mother, since it cannot yet beat its heart. It will, though... as soon as it has one.

Is it a human when it begins to exhibit brain-wave functions? It seems here that some of you believe that to be true, or else the argument over when that occurs would be invalid. We humans pride ourselves on our brain functions, since it is the only thing that seperates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. However, since we cannot even agree when brain function begins, how can this be a valid argument? And how deep is that brain activity, really?

The ONLY thing we can agree on is that the child becomes a human on or before the day of its birth. All the rest is subject to interpretation. Therefore, making the choice for other people is idiotic. I made the comment about eating meat, and I received the cleverly contradictory statements "Killing is wrong" and "What FUNDAMENTAL wrong denounces killing animals for food?" Well, if killing is wrong, then killing for food is also wrong. So you backpedaled to "Killing humans is wrong." Well, it is wrong... except when it is not. Killing in self-defense is something every civilization accepts. Killing in wartime is something that all civilizations also accept, although a vocal minority within those civilizations denounce it. Euthanasia is becoming more popular in the world... I just read an article in the newspaper where a European country (Denmark?) recently legalized it.

So, killing is wrong, except when it is right. Abortion is wrong, except when it is right. There are extenuating circumstances to everything, and just plain outlawing things is counterproductive, foolish, and ineffective.

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