Should the government stop abortions?

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

Abortions are completely unethical in my opinion, they destroy life before it has the chance to develop into a useful being in society. You never know what that baby could turn out to be. Also, I think it is very unjust that a teenager, or anyone for that matter, could have unprotected sex and have abortions as a fallback. Its horrible to be able to say, well if things go wrong we could have an abortion. It takes away the concept of getting consequences for your actions. If they consider themselves two consenting beings with common sense and still choose to participate in such an act then i think its too d#($ bad if she gets pregnant cause it was their choice and they have to deal with the consequences.

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

I agree with slipstrike. Teens who believe they are fit enough to have sex should be able to deal with any unfolding consequences. Pregnancies are final, in my opinion, once a human entity has the ability to feel pain. I don't know exactly when that is, but it is a few weeks after the conception. Once this can be felt, the entity has taken on the characteristics of a human being, one with amazing potential. Even though it probably won't reach its incredible potential, it still must be given the right to survive. Although it seems that a girl should have the right to decide whether or not she should bear a child, that decision can be made before having unprotected sex. I am in opposition of most abortions, barring the ones that involve the destruction of only a few cells.

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

Both previous posts have a lot wrong with them, but I'm more inclined to agree with ledwix than slipstrike. Potential is no argument against abortion, drawing a line at when a fetus is a human being does allow an argument against abortion. Most people's emotional constitution gets in the way of trying to make such determinations, however.

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

Congratulations to the anti-abortion users for neglecting the most important aspect of all abortions.

Rape babies.

Why do you think women had abortions in the first place? Surely you don't think every woman out there who wants an abortion made a mistake with her boyfriend and wants to cover it up, right?

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

Well imagine if a girl gets rape?

Where would this lead?

I'm a little stuck on this topic, but I agree more with not having abortions.

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

Well sure there should be some special exception put in place for such a tragedy but even then it should be taken care of immediately or otherwise it was her decision to put it off in which consequences should be endured.

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

This is at the root of fewer abortions than you might think. Despite this, my opinion is that women who are raped are more than entitled, along with all other women, to get an abortion up until the point the fetus develops the cognitive ability neccessary for self-awareness. This is more than enough time for them to determine whether or not they are pregnent and get an abortion.

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

The point (insofar as my ethics professors and the various people I've read on the subject have determined) at which a fetus has developed a sufficient nervous system to feel pain is roughly three months. I, like many ethicists, tend to want to draw the line of moral consideration generally, at the point in which some entity is capable of registering and reacting to sensory inputs such as pain.

How this translates to my view on abortion is this:

For the first two months (I said three above, but since there's a 2-week buffer in development in which you could err, I'll be conservative) any woman should have the universal right to an abortion for any reason. Anything from "I was raped" to "Oops" is fine by me. The thing inside of her does not yet classify in my mind as morally significant at all, and so an abortion has no moral or emotional issues for me whatsoever.

After two months, I feel that a woman should only be able to have an abortion if it is determined either that a) the fetus is disabled in some severe way that being brought to term would either cause its death, or that it would have such a stunted standard of life that it is a mercy to end it sooner rather than later or b) that carrying the fetus to term would put the mother's life in severe danger.

Two months is plenty of time for you to reflect soberly on your options and make a decision. Sometimes it is in fact an accident. A good friend of mine was told by doctors that she would be unable to concieve, had protected sex anyway for STD protection purposes, and still got pregnant. She decided to keep her baby, and she's freakin adorable, but I'd have supported the friend just as much if she'd elected to have an abortion.

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

If pain alone is the only criteria which makes killing wrong, how do you accomodate for the killing of animals? What about human beings who can't feel pain?

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

Well, I used pain because it was the relevant example to the situation. The ability to feel pain comes part-and-parcel with the entire "cognitive ability neccessary for self-awareness" package that you mentioned in your post.

As for my application of that to animals: Bear in mind, considering something morally significant doesn't mean that I consider it -equally- significant to all other things.

Philosophically, something being 'morally significant' simply means that you ought to -consider- it in your decision making. When I'm deciding whether or not to chop down a tree, our current knowledge of trees suggests that it is not self-aware, so I don't need to consider the tree in my -moral- calculations. It's just not a choice that touches on morality at all.

Killing a cow to eat it however, does potentially become a moral decision, because the cow is self-aware, it can feel pain, and will desire to not feel pain. So it must be -considered-

However, since there is no evidence to prove that cows are of a level of self-awareness to (and this is the usual yardstick) form an opinion about its future, and where it would like to be in the future, and take actions towards those ends, cows are morally significant enough that we ought to decide to raise them in a good environment, and slaughter them humanely, but not of equal significance to humans that we ought not to kill it for food at all.

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

I think the government has the responsibility to protect innocent lives. As such, I believe abortions should be illegal for the entire nation.

Squeek, some anti-abortionists don't bother to single out "rape babies" because they're not any different than "oops babies". Regardless of how it's conceived, it's still a living human child, and as such should not be murdered.

No exception for children of rape whatsoever.

I believe that some terminology should be set in place to differentiate between outright abortions and processes required to save the life of the mother that also happen to kill the child as an unfortunate side effect (think radiation treatment), though.

But yeah, the federal government protects my right to life, so it should protect the lives of unborn children just as much.

--Guido

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

Abortion is a population check. There is still an argument that the world is currently well overpopulated. At this current time abortion gets rid of unwanted babies that are not needed in society. I whole heartedly agree that this is a rather draconian view on the matter however I feel we've gone far to liberal especially in the United Kingdom on such matters. I cannot vouch nor say my opinion on how the United States is going. Theres just not enough room or natural resources to cope with the population.

Answering specifically to your question should Governments stop abortions. Completely not, opinions and views on abortion should be dictated by society. You have the choice to have an abortion as well as the choice to not have an abortion. Congress if I am not mistaken theres clearly a higher percentage of males than females. Is it right to let males have such a large overall opinion on abortion when females are usually the ones that advocate it?

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

Oh, please. Population control is only considered when resources are strained. Last I checked, grocery shopping in the US or Britain wasn't too hard. Our populations are easily sustainable.

Abortion's still a form of population control with indigenous tribes of small South Pacific Islands, where their land simply can't support enough food for another child. War is also population control, there. We're certainly more civilized over here to have to even consider that.

So if society says that it's okay for people of [insert your race here] to be slaughtered like pigs just because they're of that decent, it should be okay? Hi, I'm from the United States. We crawled out of the dark ages of social justice forty years ago, and lemme tell you, going back should NOT be advocated, no matter how much society wants it.

In the exact same way, government should stand for certain things such as the equality of man and the protection of life.

The child doesn't, though.

--Guido

Re: Should the government stop abortions?

I thing the goverment can govern the rights and regulations around us, but not inside us. I see it hard for a person to say people cant do anything they want with there bodys. If people want to kill things living inside there body, they can, because that is there country not the goverments. Also i beileve a child isnt acually alive untill its out of the women (mediforical sense)