Abortion is immoral. Period.

So then, we are weighing the rights of the mother against the life of the fetus. If you believe that a fetus is a part of a woman's body, a "growth" rather than a living being, then the issue is pretty simple.

Many people see them as unborn babies and human beings. They have a heartbeat. They have their own separate nervous system. They can react on their own to stimulus and have needs that are separate from those of their mother.

If you accept that unborn babies are independent human beings, abortion becomes a moral issue apart from the right of the mother to make a decision to end a life.

The important question is when life begins.

I think I've read this point from you probably 10 times on this thread.

The horse is dead.

+1 for making me chuckle MaPorsche (jumping onto a dead horse thread to tell people it is dead is funny.)

I was just summarizing the issues so far. If someone has a new point to make on this issue, I would be happy to discuss it. If people simply stop responding, that would be OK too.

conversely, you could just stop replying...

lol.... you obviously don't know me very well.

There is a serious issue here. Instead of discussing the real issues honestly; admitting that there are difficult issues here, there is an attempt to shut down the discussion and mischaracterize the points of the other side.

That is why I am trying to express the real issues clearly and rationally.

There is no way to have a rational discussion about abortion without accepting the fact that abortion ends a life. There is also no way to have a rational discussion about abortion without accepting the fact that restricting abortions puts a restriction on women's bodies.

But no one here is denying that second point.

Indeed, this is a very serious issue. It's isn't a point of discussion when the same argument keeps going round and round. It becomes a stalemate, with whatever group that has the most votes "wins." Until the next round of votes.

If stating abortion ends a life makes you feel better, then ok, so be it. If that's the case, then let's legislate men's masturbation because living cells are killed. I don't think that's appropriate or needed, but hey, let's just legislate the **** out of it because it's immoral not to.

You want to legislate abortion. I don't. Many people feel the way you do and many people feel the way I do. Not too many people are going to be swayed to change their minds, just because it's legislated.

AFAIK Max doesn't even want to legislate abortion. I think he's pro-choice....once again, this is just him arguing with people for the sake of arguing with people, even staking out a position that he doesn't support in order to do so.

You are wrong MaPorsche. I am arguing with people to push back against an ideological bubble.

Neptune, Glennn et al. are starting with an ideological belief that women should have the right to choose to end a pregnancy. There is nothing wrong with this opinion, but it is an opinion.

The problem is that they are picking and choosing the facts to support their opinion and ignoring the facts that are challenge it. They are constructing a simplistic narrative about this political issue that demonizes people on the other side, stifles discussion and ignores any of the uncomfortable issues that are part of any real discussion on a complex problem.

I have made it clear that I believe that abortions should be "safe, legal and rare". Is the fact that I have arrived at this political slogan all that matters? I don't think so.

This is a very complicated issue. I vote "pro-choice" (if you to check a checkbox). But this doesn't mean I don't stand up when people on my "team" make arguments that are wrong, or insulting, or unhelpful.

My arguments on this thread have two goals. One, to point out although I support legal abortion, this is a complex issue that is morally troubling. Two, to push back against an ideological bubble that is ignoring facts to stifle discussion.

Has anyone followed Google's special home screen link today? It sheds some interesting light on this thread, because this doctor fought politically to protect women in Puerto Rico from being sterilized without a waiting period and from being experimented on with various forms of birth control. She was also in favor of legalized abortion, so if you look at the big picture of what was (and could still) going on, it's not as simple as women choosing between abstinence and pregnancy. The question is what it would take to reach a point where everyone cooperates to prevent pregnancy without abortion or sterilization being an option? Can people simply quit coitus? Or is the addiction too strong and more aggressive interventions necessary, such as separating men and women into monasteries and convents when they fail to abstain and lack the economic means to raise children?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Tr%C3%ADas

It is a fact that a fetus is part of a woman's body until it isn't. If you want to call it a baby, that's your choice. But you have to come to terms with the fact that its the woman's baby; it's not yours, and it's not society's.

You're simply having an emotional reaction to people who don't share your opinion. You want us to declare that it is with great reluctance and reservation that we allow a woman control over her own body. And when we don't declare that sufficiently to your satisfaction, you begin campaigning to show yourself to be appropriately troubled, and us to be inappropriately dismissive of your troubled mind.

Glennn, I am able to be honest... accepting the difficult truths on both side of this issue. That's all I am asking from you.

1. It is absolutely true that a fetus grows inside the body of a woman, and that the fetus is attached to, and dependent on a woman's body until the point that it is born (or terminated).

2. It is also true that an abortion ends a life. A fetus has its own heart that beats independently. It has its own nervous system that responds to stimulus independent of its mother. Abortion takes away this developing life; it stops a beating heart.

If you support abortion, but don't accept the fact that it does end a life, you are being dishonest. If you oppose abortion, but don't accept the fact that it restricts the ability of a woman to make a choice about her own body you are also being dishonest (but no one doing that).

I am asking you to look honestly at both sides of the issue... and then accept the consequences of your decision. My real objection is that instead of doing this... people on the left avoid the difficult decisions, create simplistic narrative that demonizes the other side without having to even think about the issue.

Who doesn't call it a baby when a woman is pregnant? This statement only makes sense in the context of a political argument about abortion. You would never say to an expectant mother that what is inside her isn't a baby.

Every couple that has had a baby understand this. From the very first pregnancy test, and definitely the first ultrasound, everyone sees the baby as an individual human. I sang to my daughter in the womb. I bought one of those silly machines who I could listen to my daughter's heartbeat. I had a picture of the ultrasound in my office. We talked about what she liked, and we played with her (poking at her to feel her kicking).

A baby in the womb is a person. Ask any pregnant mother, and they will tell you exactly this. No one sees a baby as a growth on the body of a woman... outside of a political trick to avoid the uncomfortable fact that abortion ends a life.

So what you're say is - anybody who isn't YOU are liars, dishonest, can't tell fact from fiction, unable to make difficult decisions about their own lives and are simplist.

smdh, stfu

A baby in the womb is a potential person. Whether or not that potential is realized is up to the owner of the womb, and not to unrelated parties who have nothing but a self-serving emotional investment in the outcome.

That is the moral question which we, as a society, have to answer... whether the "owner of the womb" has the right to end the life inside. Right now she does, in the near future she might not have that right.

There are two sides to this issue.

Ya think?????


Thanks for pointing that little tidbit of information out to those of you who didn't actually already know that.

If we agree on this, then I don't know what we are arguing about.

No. That is the moral question that a woman, as a sovereign being, has to answer.

I don't think that the word "sovereign" means what you think it means. Are you saying that women are above the law?

Generally the people who describe themselves as "sovereign" want to own assault weapons and refuse to pay taxes.