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Abortion Debate

Abortion?

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    79
taffboy gwyrdd said:
1. I mean the human species, sorry if that wasnt clear. The human species exhibits tendencies for killing that are only matched by the variety of excuses for that killing. That is why I believe the abortion issue has much in common with how we treat other life forms and why most anti-abortionists (being meat-eaters) are vacuous hypocrites barely worth listening to.

2. Actually, being too pissed up to protect yourself from consequences as serious as unwanted pregnancy DOES imply a degree of disempowerment, but I take your point partly. However, as I said before, subsequent to conception the real pressures for abortion are very often capitalist / consumerist / careerist or a matter of "convinience".

Life is cheap and disregarded - the lives of animals and humans in the womb alike. This is a key issue to be dealt with within the human psyche if we are to evolve beyond the current mess we are making of the world.
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1. I think many people care more about humans than animals (and vice versa in some cases) so I still don't think that argument holds water for me.

2. I disagree. Pregnancy labour and birth are not "inconvenient" they're fucking harsh. They mess your body up. You may see it as capitalist/consumerist/careerist but the simple truth is that many people just don't want children. They don't like children. Children are bloody hard work, and unless you're willing to make them the main focus of your life, they will be a burden to you.

I agree that it may appear in some cases that life is cheap, but I don't think anyone takes abortion lightly.
 
"Consider hunting peoples such as the Inuit as an example, - is their consumption of meat based upon a choice led by a tendency to kill and a lack of respect for life? No."

This argument is again common, but something of a red herring.

1) Indiginous peoples tend to respect the life of the animal a great deal more than "developed" societies do.

2) The fact that one bunch of people kill for whatever reason doesnt justify another bunch doing so when the circumstances are different.

"Its environmental factors that lead to a meat eating diet"

For those without modern agriculture that is possibly the case, though vegetarianism has been pursued by many peoples since the dawn of time.
In fact (and as a long time veggie you will know this) the meat diet is very harmful to the global environment. So the opposite of what you say is almost the case.

"the traditional hunting culture show a great deal more understanding of, and reverence for animal life than even most western veggies posess" not sure about that, but they certainly have more reverence for life than the western meat-eater.

"I think your argument is a little simplistic tbh."

Being against killing is a fairly simple position I'll grant you.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Consider hunting peoples such as the Inuit as an example, - is their consumption of meat based upon a choice led by a tendency to kill and a lack of respect for life? No."

This argument is again common, but something of a red herring.

1) Indiginous peoples tend to respect the life of the animal a great deal more than "developed" societies do.

2) The fact that one bunch of people kill for whatever reason doesnt justify another bunch doing so when the circumstances are different.
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Of course not. As I said, I don`t think you can make a correlation between vegetarianism and abortion on the basis of respect for life. thats my point.


For those without modern agriculture that is possibly the case, though vegetarianism has been pursued by many peoples since the dawn of time.
In fact (and as a long time veggie you will know this) the meat diet is very harmful to the global environment. So the opposite of what you say is almost the case.
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Not neccessarily - a meat diet based upon large scale farming of cattle etc.is, but low intensity hunting practsied in a sustainable manner is way better for the global environment than a diet of supermarket purched quorn, soya and unseasonal vegetables, no?

"the traditional hunting culture show a great deal more understanding of, and reverence for animal life than even most western veggies posess" not sure about that, but they certainly have more reverence for life than the western meat-eater.
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Maybe, maybe not. But you can kill (as you said above) in certain circumstances and have reverence for life.



Being against killing is a fairly simple position I'll grant you.
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:cool:
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
It clearly relates to very personal matters for you, and you dont have to answer the question with relation to yourself, but how many women who definetly DONT WANT to be pregnant (for many reasons including yours), actually get pregnant?

If women were fully empowered they wouldnt get pregnant when they didnt want to. I believe that the "accident" stories are less frequent than many would pupport.

There is sometimes an implied criticism of abortion-skeptics that they are criticising individual choices when they may well not be. It is more a question of the general values of society that put convinience and money ahead of life. I deplore the cheap attitude to life that abounds in society, which is why I am a vegetarian.

To imply "you cant criticise abortion because I / someone I know had one and our circumstances are unusual / you might upset us" is emotional blackmail and a shut-down of debate.

I dont think you are doing that by the way haylz, but it is a very common set-piece argument in the debate. Anyhow, most anti-abortionists are reactionary people who very often have excuses for killing in other aspects of life. While such hypocrites dominate one side of the debate the pro choice lobby shouldnt have too much to fear in logical terms.
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Accidents and contraception failures do happen and always will as long as men and women have sex while they are of a fertile age. That is a fact.

On what grounds do you believe that accidents are uncommon?

It sounds like you're saying that many woman who have abortions actually did want to get pregnant. Why, because they relished the thought of an abortion? :confused:

I also don't get how the continued existence of abortion is an example of the failure of feminism; firstly, no feminist would claim that feminism has succeeded and there's nothing left to fight for - feminism hasn't failed, it just hasn't won yet.

Secondly, I presume you're saying that feminism should be about giving all women access to contraception; well, that has practically happened, in Britain at least, but, unless feminism is secretly a scientific miracle process as well as a school of thought, feminism doesn't magically make all contraceptives 100% infallible. Neither does feminism make all women 100% infallible.

People will never be perfect (how's that for stating the obvious), so mistakes will always be made. Contraceptive failures will always happen, and people will always make mistakes. Abortion will always be a necessary back-up procedure.

Anyway ...

For me, it's not about a woman's right over her own body, it's about whether a living human being is actually being killed when an abortion takes place.

Up until the stage at which a foetus can breathe outside the Mother's body (which is at 24 weeks - slightly less time for some foetuses, slightly more for others, but 24 weeks is a strong average), the foetus doesn't exactly tick all the boxes for the standard definition of 'life.'

That's why I support abortion up until that stage, although 21-24 weeks is a grey area, and do not support abortion after that stage.
 
Poot

"I think many people care more about humans than animals"... so I still don't think that argument holds water for me."

This isnt about one species being above another or more cared for than another. This is about life per se. Besides, people care a great deal about their pets, quite possibly more than they care about some starving kid they'll never meet. Our attitudes to animals are not clear-cut, but riddled with hypocricy.

"2. I disagree. Pregnancy labour and birth are not "inconvenient" they're fucking harsh. They mess your body up. You may see it as capitalist/consumerist/careerist but the simple truth is that many people just don't want children. They don't like children. Children are bloody hard work, and unless you're willing to make them the main focus of your life, they will be a burden to you"

Dead right about all that. That's why Ms TG and I wont be having kids. And guess what...she's never been pregnant as a result.

As a result of the percieved advance of womens rights, a main gain advance is that women can now expect to be wage-slaves for capitalism the same as men. Much of the gains of feminism are thus bogus.

It is these pressures that women feel pursuade them towards termination of pregnancy. Children are all the ballache you describe, but it is interesting that many many terminations are carried out by women who have had kids and / or are in stable relationships. If they dont want more kids there are clear steps anyone can take to avoid that, many many forms of birth control including the morning after pill

"I don't think anyone takes abortion lightly"

I certainly dont, though I think the emotional legacy of abortion is a bit of a taboo subject. And I do think that abortion, lightly or not, functions as an extension of birth control.

Above all the idea that "a womens right to choose" be some wimmins rights totem is a farce and an insult to genuine womens rights. If abortion is so potentially horrendous then those working for womens rights will pesevere the right to not be pregnant, not the "right" to be pressurised by capitalism into a very undesirable situation.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Children are all the ballache you describe, but it is interesting that many many terminations are carried out by women who have had kids and / or are in stable relationships. If they dont want more kids there are clear steps anyone can take to avoid that, many many forms of birth control including the morning after pill
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The ease in which that statement is trotted out makes me want to puke.....

if only life was that fucking simple eh...but then hey ho lets talk about bloody veggies instead, that will give us some perspective.....

im off to do the dishes
 
t_g, I'm very pleased that the contraception that you and your partner use has worked, if you don't want kids. But it ISN'T infallible. Even the morning after pill only has a 75% success rate (and it makes you very poorly. And the fact that many women would rather take the chance than spend 24 hours throwing up does not make them "disempowered" either imo). So, what would happen if your partner, say, picked up a bug, her pill stopped working and she became pregnant? You might look at things differently.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
It is these pressures that women feel pursuade them towards termination of pregnancy. Children are all the ballache you describe, but it is interesting that many many terminations are carried out by women who have had kids and / or are in stable relationships. If they dont want more kids there are clear steps anyone can take to avoid that, many many forms of birth control including the morning after pill
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Yes. Or a woman could get really lucky and go out with a sanctimonious moralising fuckwit. I'd imagine that would reduce the need for contraception immeasurably.
 
Poot said:
t_g, I'm very pleased that the contraception that you and your partner use has worked, if you don't want kids. But it ISN'T infallible. Even the morning after pill only has a 75% success rate (and it makes you very poorly. And the fact that many women would rather take the chance than spend 24 hours throwing up does not make them "disempowered" either imo). So, what would happen if your partner, say, picked up a bug, her pill stopped working and she became pregnant? You might look at things differently.
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Also, the morning after pill hasn't existed for very long, so it doesn't apply to the decisions made by women even just a few years ago. The morning after pill also only applies if the woman realises that she might be in a position to be pregnant - and not all contraceptive failures are that obvious. It is a big step forward, though.

Taff, those women who campaign for women's right to an abortion do also tend to campaign for women's right not to get pregnant in the first place. So that's a pretty poor argument you have there.
 
haylz said:
The ease in which that statement is trotted out makes me want to puke.....

if only life was that fucking simple eh...but then hey ho lets talk about bloody veggies instead, that will give us some perspective.....

im off to do the dishes
Click to expand...

As you said in the longer post, unwanted pregnancies do happen. But they happen a great deal more than they should, partly because people arent encouraged to think about it a great deal. To do so would be to muddy the oversell of sex bequeathed to us by advertisers et. al.

I'm sorry you want to puke at the idea that avoiding pregnancy is not as well done as it might be. Vegetarianism is a reasonable parallel to bring up, and actually helps the "pro choice" case in that most "pro life" people eat meat and so are "pro life similar to mine but not others" i.e ego-led hypocrites.

Your longer post about foetues and weeks was interesting and not as unlike my position as you might think. However, life begins at conception. The capacity to suffer happens later, the capacity to survive later again.

My preference is to tend to "capacity to suffer" as a guide, though I am not for a significant change in the law as it stands. What I would like to see is more honesty about our attitude to killing per se, the emotional legacy of abortion, the hyping of sexuality by capitalism and firmer attitudes taken towards pregnancy by women of fertile age and any partner they may have.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
As you said in the longer post, unwanted pregnancies do happen. But they happen a great deal more than they should, partly because people arent encouraged to think about it a great deal. To do so would be to muddy the oversell of sex bequeathed to us by advertisers et. al.

I'm sorry you want to puke at the idea that avoiding pregnancy is not as well done as it might be. Vegetarianism is a reasonable parallel to bring up, and actually helps the "pro choice" case in that most "pro life" people eat meat and so are "pro life similar to mine but not others" i.e ego-led hypocrites.

Your longer post about foetues and weeks was interesting and not as unlike my position as you might think. However, life begins at conception. The capacity to suffer happens later, the capacity to survive later again.

My preference is to tend to "capacity to suffer" as a guide, though I am not for a significant change in the law as it stands. What I would like to see is more honesty about our attitude to killing per se, the emotional legacy of abortion, the hyping of sexuality by capitalism and firmer attitudes taken towards pregnancy by women of fertile age and any partner they may have.
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id rather start with better sexual education in all spheres, rather than this that and maybe using this issue as some political or moral vehicle...
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
As you said in the longer post, unwanted pregnancies do happen. But they happen a great deal more than they should, partly because people arent encouraged to think about it a great deal. To do so would be to muddy the oversell of sex bequeathed to us by advertisers et. al.

I'm sorry you want to puke at the idea that avoiding pregnancy is not as well done as it might be. Vegetarianism is a reasonable parallel to bring up, and actually helps the "pro choice" case in that most "pro life" people eat meat and so are "pro life similar to mine but not others" i.e ego-led hypocrites.

Your longer post about foetues and weeks was interesting and not as unlike my position as you might think. However, life begins at conception. The capacity to suffer happens later, the capacity to survive later again.

My preference is to tend to "capacity to suffer" as a guide, though I am not for a significant change in the law as it stands. What I would like to see is more honesty about our attitude to killing per se, the emotional legacy of abortion, the hyping of sexuality by capitalism and firmer attitudes taken towards pregnancy by women of fertile age and any partner they may have.
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You seem to think that advertisers are trying to make us have more sex, and I don't think that's the case. i think they're using sex to sell their products, which is different. Certainly the only effect these adverts have had on me is to make me feel slightly inferior to the flawless models they depict.

Listen, if you've had any kind of tummy upset, your pill stops working. Sorry to spell it out but there it is. And possibly in the heat of the moment you discover that you've no condoms and suddenly you're up the duff. There's no great mystery here.

I'm not going down the vegetarian avenue because I still don't understand the relevance. And I'm vegetarian.
 
Pigeon

You have told me to "fuck off" and called me a "moralising sanctimonious fuckwit" or something similar.

My first offence was to speak up for life forms generally and point out the hypocricy of many anti-abortionists. Your reaction to this says more about you than it does about me.


Poot

I know "accidents happen". I dont think the law should be changed to disallow terminiation in those cases. I also know too many accidents seem to happen and a lot of suffering could be averted with a more mature attidude to sex and sex education than currently exists. btw when my partner was on the pill and a bit ill or whatever we avoided penetrative sex. If unwanted pregnancies are to be more avoided a better approach to non-penetrative sex would help. This is not likely to happen though because penetration is considered some kind of "right" in a still predominantly sexist society.

Halyz

Yep, you are right about sex education. I wouldnt myself use abortion as some kind of political issue, though it is inately a moral one.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Halyz

Yep, you are right about sex education. I wouldnt myself use abortion as some kind of political issue, though it is inately a moral one.
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i think its neither and as long as we focus it that way we will always sit in disagreement and judgement
 
I'm neither pro-choice nor pro-life. I am pro-abortion. I think being able to have abortions if you want them is a good thing and needs no window dressing or word play.
 
haylz said:
i think its neither and as long as we focus it that way we will always sit in disagreement and judgement
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It is partly a political issue, because it's partly funded by the government, and it's something the have to pass laws on. It is used by all sorts of people far too much, though, to get across an unconnected point or to encourage certain groups of people to like them - callous bastards.
 
haylz said:
i think its neither and as long as we focus it that way we will always sit in disagreement and judgement
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If how we regard life and human rights are not moral issues then it is hard to think of anything that is a moral issue. Morality has been effectively written out of the picture by left and right. Capitalism is by definition amoral and liberals too often cant stand to actually have a firm opinion on things for fear of being called "judgemental" or "sanctimonious".
 
Of course them subjects impact and are surrounded by this issue, but they shouldnt be used as a focus for finding a balance and solution to the abortion arguement.........

its all good and well to say..."they should be more responsible, they should have used contraception"

Should is shit , lets just cut to the chase and get some radical shake up of this countries sex education and as a must...introduce the emotional aspect of sex education....as thats where its at, but no one is saying that.... just banging on about practicalities....
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Your longer post about foetues and weeks was interesting and not as unlike my position as you might think. However, life begins at conception. The capacity to suffer happens later, the capacity to survive later again.

My preference is to tend to "capacity to suffer" as a guide, though I am not for a significant change in the law as it stands. What I would like to see is more honesty about our attitude to killing per se, the emotional legacy of abortion, the hyping of sexuality by capitalism and firmer attitudes taken towards pregnancy by women of fertile age and any partner they may have.
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How do you define a capacity to suffer? There is a lot of debate when foetuses start to feel pain, but there's no doubt that it doesn't start within the first few weeks. (I'll go and check for cites in a sec).

OK, this is only Wiki, but it's a neat summation of at least a couple of the articles it cites:

After about 26 weeks gestation there is a complete link from the thalamus to the cortex of the brain. Cortical responses in premature babies of about 25 weeks gestation have been recorded during the usual heel lance procedure performed shortly after birth (for blood sampling). In summary, there is good evidence that from about 26 weeks gestation the fetal brain can be considered a functional unit capable of processing noxious sensory input, and pain before that point may also be possible.
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... Which fits with current UK laws rather neatly.
 
Poot

At the risk of winding more people up, I'll try and explain the vegetarian anology better.

non-human animals and human foetuses have at least 2 essential things in common:

1) They are living and have the capacity to suffer (probably not initially for the foetus.

2) Without activism on their behalf they would have no one to speak for them.

If a person (say a christian) is blathering on about how abortion is killing and is this and is that, I might think some of their points are well made but if they are party to killing themselves they totally lack credibility.

Likewise a vegetarian or vegan, who is so through the suffering and killing of animals, that says they have no problem with what a pre-birth human might go through during abortion, is on a sticky wicket.
 
taffboy gwyrdd said:
Likewise a vegetarian or vegan, who is so through the suffering and killing of animals, that says they have no problem with what a pre-birth human might go through during abortion, is on a sticky wicket.
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How about if, like me, they have considered the likelihood of whether the foetus is suffering, and discovered that it's unlikely that it does suffer, up to our legal abortion limit?
 
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