Abortion is immoral. Period.

And if you only listen to women who agree with you, you are ignoring women’s voices. When it comes down to brass tacks, I doubt any women celebrates abortion or looks forward to one. I suspect a lot of soul searching goes in to the decision. If the women can’t make the decision, who gets to decide?

1. I am accepting that there are valid points on both sides of this issue. I am not denying the woman's voices (or any other voices) on either side. This is a difficult issue with valid points coming from women and men with many different perspectives. I don't think we should ignore any of them. This has been my point all along.

2. My personal position is that abortion should be safe, legal and rare. I don't believe that abortion should be illegal. I have made this clear throughout this thread.

3. People on this thread are misstating the pro-life position. Women and men who oppose abortion do so because they believe that abortion ends a human life. The claims that women and men want to "control woman's bodies" are making a wrong argument.

That is the reason that we are arguing.

4. Women have a special interest in this issue because they are the people who carry babies to term. It is their bodies, and the decision effects them. There is no question about this.

5. There is a living baby involved in a pregnancy an independent being with its own beating heart, its own brain who reacts to stimuli independently. Abortion ends this life.

6. Both sides have valid points. The issue of abortion pits the rights of the mother against the rights of the baby. This comes down to a value judgment with no easy answer.

7. Society does have responsibility to create laws that dictate morality, including banning practices judged go be immoral. This is a function of society.

My whole point in this thread is that this simplistic one-sided argument that demonizes the pro-life position is illogical.

- It pretends that everyone in the pro-life side is the same; ignoring the women and men who are pro-life and support women, children, and social justice issue.

- And, it ignores the core issue of when human life begins and how much value that life has.

I am asking for two simple things.

- Accept that there are women and men who oppose abortion because they believe it takes a human life. They are good people. They include liberals, feminists, immigrant rights supporters, environmentalists, social justice activists and people agree with you on pretty much everything else. And, many pro-life people oppose war, oppose the death penalty and support comprehensive sex education and birth control.

- Accept that the issue of when human life begins is the core issue behind the pro-life movement.

These are the two main points of disagreement on this thread.

I’m not disagreeing that some people find it unthinkable while others believe it might be necessary under certain circumstances. As far as establishing law, abortion is legal. I think it needs to be left alone or else someone other than the individual will be able to make the decision. So, bottom line, if it’s immoral for you, don’t get an abortion. Do you think men would want a committee of women making decisions about the moral rights of people who need viagra. Just picture a man in front of judgmental women trying to explain why they should be permitted to obtain the pills and being asked questions like ‘so, are you married?, do you have children, more than one woman, do you plan to have more children, please submit your financial information proving you can support your current children, do support your children, and do you have the financial means to support additional children”. Then every six months you will have to file again if you hope to be permitted to acquire additional medication. Personallly, I think that would be outrageous.......so, I’m not inclined to force other females to have to get permission from anyone to seek health care.

Abortion is a process that ends a life. There is a living being with a beating heart, a functioning nervous system and a unique set of genes who reacts independently to stimulus (a baby in the womb will turn to face a noise). Abortion ends this life. You can argue that a woman has the right to end the life inside her; but you should acknowledge that we are talking about ending a life.

Many women and men feel that abortion isn't something we can just let happen. There is another life involved. There are lots of medical treatments available to women that aren't restricted, comparing abortion to a treatment that does not take life doesn't address the problem.

People want to end abortion to protect the life of unborn children.

This is clearly your position. You have also stated that you support abortion rights. How do you reconcile those positions?

There is only one disagreement in this thread. That you REFUSE to accept people have their own opinion and you will not accept any other reasoning besides yours. I'm asking you to start treating the people on this thread with dignity and respect. We understand the issue. We just don't agree. How many more pages are you going to drag out your circular argument?

Engineer, you are setting up a false dilemma. That is a logical fallacy. You are asserting that there are only two possible stances. In truth there are a large range of opinions involving what constitutes life, when it is "human" life, and when it is morally permissible to take life.

You are asking my personal opinion (you are trying to set an argumentative trap, but I will walk in any way), so here goes. This is my personal opinion... there are other opinions.

1. I believe that a fetus very early on gains life by any reasonable definition of life. When it has a beating heart and a working nervous system, it is alive.

2. I accept that there are many cases where it is morally acceptable to end a life. (This ends your false dilemma).

3. Early term abortions don't bother me very much (this is my personal feeling). Removing a couple dozen cells from a uterine wall doesn't present a dilemma to me. (I accept that people disagree with me on this).

4. The issue for me starts when the baby develops a beating heart, and a functioning nervous system. At this point, the baby starts becoming human. When a baby starts responding when it is poked, she is able to interact to things outside of itself. At this point abortion is morally uncomfortable for me.

There is a question about what makes a baby human... to me the development of a functioning brain that can interact with its environment is a big part of this.

5. I accept the arguments about a woman's right to make decisions about her body. This is a valid point. The abortion issue involves the tension between the woman's right to make a choices about her body, and the right of the developing baby to have a chance to have a full life.

6. At some point, before birth, I believe that the baby develops enough to the point where it is human, and at this point that ending its is morally unthinkable. Unfortunately defining this point involves an arbitrary moral judgement.

My personal opinion is that this happens well after conception, but also significantly before birth. Society has developed this is idea of "viability", which is just as arbitrary as any other point.

7. The best arguments in favor of the pro-choice side... and the reason that I support a position of "safe, legal and rare" until the last trimester of a pregnancy haven't been mentioned on this thread. I find that a little odd.

People are more interested in demonizing the opposition than in presenting their most effective logical arguments.

You haven’t stated this (I suspect that you’ve been careful not to), but do you have any problems with this being a choice that the woman gets to make on her own, possibly without consulting the father?

You are baiting me MaPorsche. But the answer is no. That has nothing to do with this topic.

It may or may not be on topic, but does that have any influence on your opinion about abortion?

Oh.

Several more pages. Of your opinion only.

Great...

I think I am asked a very focused question, one that occurs fairly frequently. If a potentially viable fetus need to be aborted to preserve the life of the mother, where do you stand? Do you let the mother die, potentially die, insist that the pregnancy continue until one or the other is beyond saving? This question occurs every day in this country.

That's an easy question for me to answer personally. If the doctor believes it was medically necessary to abort a viable fetus, and the patient agrees to this course of action, you abort the fetus to save the woman.

You are inventing beliefs for me that I don't actually hold. there is no dilemma here, this question is not even difficult given my personal beliefs.

Instead of discussion the complex issues, the focus seems to be on attacking people on the other side. I don't feel this is valuable.

There have been 12 pages of discussion Max. Your persecution complex is showing itself again.

If you are trying to apply that statement to engineer, I disagree. I have never seen him attack anyone. Ever, and I've seen a lot of his posts.

Because you perceive attacks where there is none. I'm asking you to logically defend your definition of life and to me you are sliding all over the place, but that's ok until you start telling others that your definition is correct. You think that fetus is a human and easily consign that fetus to death. OK. I'm not inventing beliefs for you because your beliefs are none of my business until you starting writing laws. If you want to write laws restricting someone's rights, then you need to show that you are upholding someone else's rights and those rights take precedence. To me you are not making that argument. You argue that the fetus is a human and entitled to rights. I can't see where that has ever been law in the US although in the last couple of decades state legislatures have tried to right it into law to help them argue abortion is illegal. Then you easily say that that human is not entitled to life in certain circumstances. If I thought the fetus was a human, I'd find your position outrageous, but since I don't, fine. I understand your position, in fact I empathise with your position more than i do with those who feel abortion is wrong under all conditions, but theirs is a lot more morally consistent.

This feels a little personal.

Engineer, you are making stuff up about my opinions. I made my actual position quite clear going point by point. https://able2know.org/topic/466135-12#post-6677966.

Instead of making up stuff that I never said, why don't you look at this post where I carefully outline my actual beliefs?

I agree that you have stated your beliefs. I don't agree that they are internally consistent. All I've done is pointed that out.