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

about stopping:
A. You taking things I am saying out of context.
B. You haven't answered my original challenge, and at that point, I would admit I've lost this debate.
C. You can unsubscribe to this conversation at any time. I'm not getting in your face!

So only women should be able to vote on the issue of abortion because only women can have it performed on them? I don't think that is compatable with the traditions and laws in most western countries. We legislate how people can conduct themselves. This is an issue that will be decided by society through our elected representatives.

On a more personal note, the woman may have the final authority for her to submit to the procedures, but other people do have a say. For instance, I do not approve of continuing pregnancies of clearly defective embros or fetuses (or is it feusi). I have made it perfectly clear to my wife if there is a substantial birth defect in any children we might have, it will be aborted. She's agreed to that. Now she may change her mind about if we were to come to that point, as is her right. I have the option of divorcing her, which is what I would do.

One of the great things about living in America, is that I do have a say. I have the right to address the issue of abortion.

Whoah! Sat, I agree with a lot of what you say, and sympahise with most of the rest, but abusing Nerd42 is not helpful: "Nerd, my friend. You are not only a moron, but a disgrace to the male species. Get a clue, get some education, and more importantly, get a life."

Although I am pro-choice, I find it difficult when the argument is reduced to the woman's right to do what she chooses with her own body. As Nerd42 rightly says, there is more than one body in question here.

A while ago I was in a relationship with a married man who had a wife (obviously) and two children and they are a very loving and loyal family. Without going into details, I could understand the reason why he had an affair, and all in all it was meaningless and fun. I missed a period, though as it turned out I was not pregnant. But if I had had a child it would have torn that family apart and destroyed my ability to support myself now and after the end of my working life. So if I had been pregnant I would have had to have weighed a twenty year old marriage, three completely innocent people and two rather less innocent people in the balance. I am very aware of when my periods are due, and would have any termination as early as possible.

On the subect of the differences between late and early terminations, Carl Sagan argued that termination before the fetus has the ability to think (which can be measured using brain-patterns) is acceptable, and termination after the fetus has the ability to think is unnacceptable. Like so much of what Carl Sagan said, he presents a cogent and finely considered argument. I am paraphrasing considerably, and doing him no justice in doing so.

B

So what you're saying is that abortion should be legal until age 34? Is that right?

Nerd - So you don't mean to come across as a completely uneducated fool then? Wow. I don't see how that could have happened.

Two Bit - remember for one, that not everyone lives in the great Free America (which of course is an oxymoron, but let's not get into that.) Of course everyone should be open to give their opinion. However, like women should be sensitive to issues that affect men, vice versa should occur. Demonising women is an archaic, bigoted viewpoint to take. I am actually ANTI-ABORTION. I do not believe that it is the best method to take. I for one, would never put myself in a situation where mistakes would happen. However, they do. And when they do, every single individual woman has the right to decide what happens. Men do NOT, because it does not affect them. The way that not only this society, but the physical structure of a womans body, is built means that usually women are left holding the baby in more ways than one. I don't care what you personally would do : whether you would be *responsible*...on the whole, women get f**ked over when it comes to pregnancy. There are a million and one reasons why a male has no right to dictate what happens to a womans body. If you would leave your wife because she didn't want to bring a damaged child into this world (therefore not inflicting a less-than-great life on it, and making the right decision) then that is your own decision. You aren't much of a man in my opinion, but then you aren't married to me

KittyCat, alright, now I see what you were saying. That can't apply to banning partial birth abortion, which is what I'm trying to get done. Banning all abortions would be a good thing I think, but I really don't want to argue that right now because that's not what I'm trying to get done right now, and that's not really what this thread is about. My point is that we should stop partial birth abortion. Period.

Taking my words out of context: My point just before with health risks was in response to KittyCat's saying something about "terminating a parasitic organism that may cause her physical or mental harm". My point was that having an abortion will cause her more harm.

If somebody proves that abortion is a safe medical procedure, which I do not believe, but even if they did, the mental harm you are talking about would be much worse after an abortion.

And you want to claim that I think pregnant women go around gratuitously killing children right and left? I could just say you think babies are parasites coming into the world determined to kill their mothers, and other much worse things about people who work in abortion clinics. Both claims are rediculous. Please abstain from making comments like those, they don't help anything, and merely damage the person making them.

Just angry.

I did think that that ideal of women was a long time buried. Maybe I was wrong.

Will be more

Given Witty Ditty's observation that the word "abortion" is not the correct terminology here, is there any chance that anyone here is going to get off their high horse long enough to take notice of someone who knows what they're talking about and stop using it?

Given the same observation - that what we're discussing is "termination of pregnancy" - the procedure described seems to be more an induced birth followed by immediate euthanasia by means which have thankfully gone undescribed. Please correct this, someone who knows what they're talking about (Witster, this means YOU, unless there's someone else with more of a medical degree under their belt reading this...).

Humans have terrible trouble with processes. We like nice simple, binary, black and white, start and stop, thing or not-thing situations. We are really, really bad at understanding things which fail to happen in quantised amounts, to the point that we will artificially apply our own arbitrary categories to things which don't have any use for them. This is particularly annoying, because almost nothing in the universe operates in simple, binary, on-off ways, and we practically had to invent computers so that we'd have something in the world which conformed to our expectations.

The concept of a biological species is bogus. Nature has no use for such distinctions. And yet we go on giving species names, as though they're different things. Someone try telling lions and tigers they're different species, willya, when it comes to mating season in the zoo.

Similarly, the concept of a "moment" of conception is bogus. Conception, just as much as any other stage of development, is a PROCESS - not an instantaneous event.

Drawing a line somewhere, picking a time and saying "life starts HERE" is something that you can do if you like. But if you must do it, you must equally recognise that your choice of moment is arbitrary, and has precisely as much value as anyone else's choice, and both your choices are wrong, because no single moment has that property.

So, after that little diatribe, finally, an opinion:

This procedure sounds unpleasant in the extreme, and indeed bordering on euthanasia. However, I am not a doctor. I am not a woman, I have no children nor any intention of ever having any. I am therefore not academically qualified to assess whether this procedure is necessary, I have no particular opinion about this "my body" business, and I don't believe I'll ever be in a situation to need to think about it personally. However: as a human, I recognise the right of other humans to life. As a pragmatist, I recognise the necessity of doctors to make clinical judgements about the best treatment in individual cases. And I reject any attempt to limit the scope doctors have in treating patients. You HAVE to trust these people. Sure, individual treatments - new drugs etc. - should be tested to ensure that they do what they say on the tin. But in the case of *procedures* like this, legislating away a doctor's ability to exercise clinical judgement is a terrible first step on a slippery slope.

So I'm afraid I wouldn't want to see it banned, horrible though it sounds to me - there are plenty of other procedures which sound pretty disgusting too. I wouldn't fancy watching a tracheostomy, or a direct heart massage, or the separation of identical twins - or come to that a boob job or a penis enlargement. There are many medical procedures which would cause the average person in the street to blow chunks, many of them potentially dangerous or fatal to those undergoing them - but that is not a reason to ban them.

H.

I have stated more than once that I am pro=choice, not pro-abortion.

There IS a difference.

Yikes, I'm going to have to try really hard not to say anything about what you all have said, or else you all will say I'm just judging people.



Never mind, I've gotta say it, or else my whole position will be nullified. I think affairs and divorces are all wrong. Wrong. Especially wrong when there's children involved. If you wish, ignore this post and the abortion debate can continue. Or, you can say I'm judging people and we'll end up talking about religion instead of politics and this will eventually degenerate into a slanging match which I don't want to happen. So don't make it happen.

Shouldn't I have my rights too?

I say it's absurd to knowingly bring clearly defective children into the world. If my wife were to go against my wished, I've clearly said that's her right. On the other hand, I shouldn't be responsible for my ex-wife if she induldge in such folly, nor should I be responsible for the child. It was born against my advice.

I'm not going to use 'termination of pregnancy' since it takes a lot more keystrokes, and everyone knows what abortion means. I think it's sitll a useful word.

Besides, I'm mostly baiting people at this point.

S@, you're a tw@.

"If you would leave your wife because she didn't want to bring a damaged child into this world (therefore not inflicting a less-than-great life on it, and making the right decision) then that is your own decision. You aren't much of a man in my opinion"

And you aren't much of a reader in my opinion.

Let's look at what Two Bit actually wrote, shall we children?

" I do not approve of continuing pregnancies of clearly defective embros .... I have made it perfectly clear to my wife if there is a substantial birth defect in any children we might have, it will be aborted."

Sorry, but to me that sounds like if his wife didn't want to bring a damaged child into this world, that would accord precisely with what he thinks. Call me stupid, call me dense, call me able to read a simple English sentence...

"She's agreed to that. Now she may change her mind about if we were to come to that point, as is her right. I have the option of divorcing her, which is what I would do"

Sounds to me more like if she wanted to NOT have an abortion she's on her own. On which point, my own opinion (and that of HB) is precisely in accord with Two Bit.

It's so much more fun, S@, if before attacking people for their opinions, you bother to work out what those opinions actually are.



H.

Nothing wrong with judging people.

You just seem to be living in your own little reality. Are you Catholic by any chance?

Yeah, I said that. It's "Pro-Life" vs "Pro-Choice" Those are fair terms. Use them, not "anti-abortion"

About the abortion term: "Abortion" and "Termination of Pregnancy" are synonyms as far as I've heard.

Oh shoot me down for having a rant, and misreading a bloody post.

Apologies to Two Bit. Didn't mean to be inaccurate.

(Oh look, she can admit when she's wrong, isn't that a novel thing?)

Catholic? No. Whover said the Pope was in charge?

NO. There are three catagories. Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Pro-Abortion.

I've said that already. There's no *versus* anywhere.

Being Catholic explains a lot. for that.

Bloody simulposts. Messing with me head.

You *aren't* Catholic? You sure?

"If somebody proves that abortion is a safe medical procedure, which I do not believe..."

As well you should not. It is impossible to prove something is safe, because it requires you to prove a negative - "doing this will NOT result in any harm in the future". All you can do is prove that the statistical likelihood of an undesirable outcome is acceptably low - or fail to prove that.

Fundamentalists of all stripes, militant pro-lifers, Creationists, etc. often think they've scored some sort of point when they say "ah but you can't prove it's not dangerous/wasn't created out of nothing/insert whatever". And the person who understands what proof is and how it works sighs patiently and agrees and hides the sharp objects and probably doesn't bother explaining why because it's usually a waste of time.

I cannot prove the yeti does not exist. That does not mean it exists.

I cannot prove that abortion is safe. That does not, in itself, mean that it is unsafe.

It is, I think, a fact that termination of pregnancy carries risks to the mother whatever the procedure. So expecting a proof of safety is a waste of time. Once again, the typical fundamentalist, or come to that, human, demand for absolutes.

The world is not that simple. Sometimes there is NO good answer, and you just have to pick the least worst. Learn to live with it.

H.

Now now now. Let's not start being resonable. That wouldn't be any fun. Of course, if we do wind down, I would finally start doing the bills so my wife and I can go for a car ride when she get's home in an hour-and-a-half.

The idea of debating abortion is pretty silly if you ask me. Everyone has their own strongly held opinion, and no one is going to change anyone's mind. Tyring to have a rational debate about abortion is not rational.

There were a bunch of dicussion about it over at 'Talking Point: Should Abortion be Available on Request?' [A472295] a couple of years ago.