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Abortion

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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    Greentopia wrote: »
    I see. If abortion was introduced and paid for by the HSE obviously it would be just another service covered by taxes. No "sponsorship" needed.

    Or perhaps pro-choicers should randomly stop lone women of a certain age category going through our airports who look like they might be on their way to the U.K. for abortions? Perhaps we should ask them to kindly identify themselves by wearing a sticker or a t-shirt that states their intentions. :pac:

    There are pro-choice crisis pregnancy organisations who do what they can within the narrow constraints of the law here to help provide councelling and information about abortion options in the U.K., and who actively campaign for a change in legislation to allow abortion here. That's the most can be done right now.

    I would prefer the thought of pro-choicers sponsoring abortions than thinking about my taxes being used to pay for something I do not think is right.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    Sharrow wrote: »
    My point is that there is not the want or will to prosecute women for having abortions. So what do you think the consequences should be?

    It's not up to me to decide what punishments fits but certainly law breakers should be brought to justice on some level, regardless of the crime. A law not being implemented is a case for making changes so that said law is implemented, it is not a case for removing said law.
    Mainly because I do not think mere convienience is enough of an argument. Either there is good arguments for assigning a fetus rights at 20 weeks... or there is not. It is not both. So while you or I might have some personal emotional distaste at the concept of abortion at 20 weeks... our distaste does not equate to an argument against it or the morality of it.

    However I am sure one could construct arguments taking the form of pointing out that the later the term at abortion the more psychological issues the mother can have with the decision both at the time and retrospectively. Using such arguments one could push the cut off term back to 16 or 12 weeks if one was fighting for the pro-choice side. That would at least make some sense and your own anecdote about how a mother can feel like she "lost a baby" or the earlier anecdote on this thread of the user who was unconvincable that her 12 week old fetus did not die in agony should just how strong the psychological arguments on that point could be.



    Nothing wrong with me to my knowledge. Like I said while I have sympathy for the emotional turmoil of the experience... that does not in any way preclude me from also having an intellectual response to the situation. So let us not act like just because I am discussing the latter with you that I am somehow devoid of the former.

    The intellectual and factual response simply is that her fear/belief that the fetus under went or experienced any discomfort, let alone pain, much let alone pain on the level she described, is false. Unfounded. Baseless. Untrue. No I am not, as you put it, expecting her to just "Shake it off" but at the same time I am not expecting her to beat herself up further by imagining the whole thing is not just worse but MASSIVELY worse than it actually was.

    While I can sympathise with her emotional turmoil, and we all should because miscarriage of a pregnancy can be horrific on many levels, let us not pretend that some of the reasons for that turmoil in her specific case are simply false and she is beating herself up over nothing. Miscarriage is horrific and emotionally devastating enough without inventing imaginary reasons to make it worse.

    So in short you seem to have got the impression that I am saying she should not have been emotionally invested AT ALL and that it was "just a bunch of cells" and she should just "shake it off". I never said or even hinted at any of that. All I said, in her particular case, is that she ALSO thinks the fetus underwent massive amounts of pain and this belief is frankly baseless on every level.

    Like the pro-abortionists say, you cannot judge until you have been "in their shoes" so I would ask you to apply the same to the woman in question and do not try to lay down the law about how you think she should feel or whether she is right or wrong in her method of grief. In fact, I think you were wrong to bring her into this argument in the first place. You claim you want to discuss on an intellectual level (fine of course) then why hash up stories about a grieving woman who has lost her unborn baby and (shock horror) cannot see through "baseless" fears that her baby mght have suffered. Pretty poor form to use such a plight to drive your own agenda. (As far as I remember you introduced this in an effort to convey how pro-lifers can be emotionaly charged and incapable of detracted, intellectual discussion, right?) I think this argument needs to be dropped as it is insensitive to her and others who have lost their babies, and it brings nothing to the table.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 12,468 ✭✭✭✭OldNotWIse


    Sorry, but that's utter nonsense! What makes you think that?

    You're talking about other people's carelessness - if you ask me it's pretty careless to use protection and ignore the fact that it states it's not 100% effective.

    True, I think they only have 97% or something (maybe less). We joke that the cheapo ones have 50% success lol. I think it is ridiculous to claim that anything is 100% effective, but of course the vast majority of abortions carried out are not the "3%" where the condom didn't work.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    Like the pro-abortionists say, you cannot judge until you have been "in their shoes" so I would ask you to apply the same to the woman in question and do not try to lay down the law about how you think she should feel or whether she is right or wrong in her method of grief.

    Thankfully I do not see ANY reason to believe that cliche. If I did then clearly I would never have a say in the rights of the homeless, womens rights, animal rights, politics in foreign countries, cancer issues and much MUCH more because I have never actually BEEN any of those things.

    The idea that one has to reserve judgement until one has actually directly experienced a thing is simply bogus and I would not subscribe to it as readily as you appear to.

    Again I am well aware of why a woman in such a position would feel emotionally distraught. All I am doing is simply pointing out that adding to that distress by ALSO being upset about things there is no reason to be upset about is to me simply absurd. I see nothing wrong with pointing that out and certainly make no apology for it.
    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    why hash up stories about a grieving woman who has lost her unborn baby

    Get off the high horse there son, you in fact did it first. You brought your mothers loss into it as an example for your own position, a person who is not even ON this thread posting and hence you dragged into this yourself.

    I merely added to your example by mentioning one of my own and at least I had the decency to mention someone who was ON this thread willingly and willingly posted their own story.

    So not only did you do it first, but you did it using a person who did not even come here and willingly post their own story. You have no pedestal at all therefore with which to presume to judge my "form". Check the mirror first and then come back to us.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    OldNotWIse wrote: »
    but of course the vast majority of abortions carried out are not the "3%" where the condom didn't work.

    "Fifty-four percent of women who have abortions had used a contraceptive method (usually the condom or the pill) during the month they became pregnant."

    - Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States


    The Majority of women who have had abortions did use contraception but either used it incorrectly or it failed.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 27,564 ✭✭✭✭steddyeddy


    Given the right manipulations any cell "can". I am not pretending that we currently have the ability to make such manipulations though, do not get me wrong. However there is little reason to think that we can not achieve that if we were capable of introducing or removing the relevant elements to any cell.

    However again you are focusing too much on this point and missing the actual point I am making which is that simply containing Human DNA is not really that compelling an argument for assigning human rights. While emotionally we might want to treat one cell different to another, the arguments appear to be emotional only and I see no argument being made as to why a cell containing human DNA requires "rights" simply because it has more potential than some other cell to become something else. The whole use of the words "become" and "human" to me tells us we all recognise it is NOT "human" now.

    I dont or didnt say the foetus should have human rights nor do I think it should. However I think that a tumor and a foetus are very differnt ball games.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    steddyeddy wrote: »
    I dont or didnt say the foetus should have human rights nor do I think it should. However I think that a tumor and a foetus are very differnt ball games.

    I am responding to the point in general not just to things you said directly. Sorry if that was not clear. Not everything is a direct reply to everything else but a continuation from it and a discussion together had about the same topic.

    Whether two things are different or not depends on context. Clearly apples and oranges are different but if I am merely talking in the general context of "fruit" then they are the same.

    So yes clearly the fetus and the tumor cells are different things, but in the context of a discussion on abortion and application of human rights and the like I do not see them as that different at all. They are just cells loaded with Human DNA and I simply do not see containing Human DNA as a basis for assigning rights.

    Clearly however I differ on that from many of the anti abortion advocates here who very much do think a clump of cells containing Human DNA is deserving of human rights for no other reasons than they might become something else in the future.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    So yes clearly the fetus and the tumor cells are different things, but in the context of a discussion on abortion and application of human rights and the like I do not see them as that different at all. They are just cells loaded with Human DNA and I simply do not see containing Human DNA as a basis for assigning rights.

    Clearly however I differ on that from many of the anti abortion advocates here who very much do think a clump of cells containing Human DNA is deserving of human rights for no other reasons than they might become something else in the future.
    Put it this way.

    If I managed to kill all the stem cells currently in your body, what would I have done to you?


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    Put it this way.

    If I managed to kill all the stem cells currently in your body, what would I have done to you?

    His point, I believe, is that in terms of complexity it is more comparable to a tumor than an adult, for example.

    Essentially, the complexity of our make up is what makes us distinguishable from underdeveloped fetuses in the same way complexity is the difference between a 2 foot wall and the pyramids.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    Seachmall wrote: »
    His point, I believe, is that in terms of complexity it is more comparable to a tumor than an adult, for example.

    Essentially, the complexity of our make up is what makes us distinguishable from underdeveloped fetuses in the same way complexity is the difference between a 2 foot wall and the pyramids.
    What gave him the idea that a gastrula (Because I highly doubt anyone would know they're pregnant until around that stage) is less complex than a tumour?

    A tumour cell is a malformed cell that has suffered some form of genomic damage to reduce from a fully differentiated and functioning somatic cell to an uncontrolled, aimless dedifferentiated cell that has no goal other than to keep making even more damaged copies of itself.

    A gastrula (Or any stage of development really) is far more "complex" than a tumour cell. The intricate mechanistic proteins and pattern generators it expresses gives the organism an ultimate aim. It has structure and order. Something a tumour cell distinctly lacks.

    As I said in my previous post... if I killed all your current stem cells, what would I have done to you?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    What gave him the idea that a gastrula (Because I highly doubt anyone would know they're pregnant until around that stage) is less complex than a tumour?

    A tumour cell is a malformed cell that has suffered some form of genomic damage to reduce from a fully differentiated and functioning somatic cell to an uncontrolled, aimless dedifferentiated cell that has no goal other than to keep making even more damaged copies of itself.

    A gastrula (Or any stage of development really) is far more "complex" than a tumour cell. The intricate mechanistic proteins and pattern generators it expresses gives the organism an ultimate aim. It has structure and order. Something a tumour cell distinctly lacks.
    I never said it was less complex than a tumor, I said in terms of complexity it was more comparable to a tumor than an adult.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,753 ✭✭✭davet82


    have we not sorted this out yet? sheesh!

    :P


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    If I managed to kill all the stem cells currently in your body, what would I have done to you?

    Invaded my personal space? :) Not to mention invented a cell targetting weapon so specific that you may also be on a route to curing cancer?

    Sorry, really not sure what you are asking me or where you are going with that.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    Invaded my personal space? :) Not to mention invented a cell targetting weapon so specific that you may also be on a route to curing cancer?

    Sorry, really not sure what you are asking me or where you are going with that.
    If I kill your stem cells, you'll die. Perhaps not instantly but fairly soon afterwards. To put it one way, they're really the main cells keeping you alive.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    If I kill your stem cells, you'll die. Perhaps not instantly but fairly soon afterwards. To put it one way, they're really the main cells keeping you alive.

    Indeed but I am still not seeing what the point is here :) You seem to have gone off on an interesting but unrelated tangent so I apologize if I am unsure how to continue the conversation.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    Indeed but I am still not seeing what the point is here :) You seem to have gone off on an interesting but unrelated tangent so I apologize if I am unsure how to continue the conversation.
    Those stem cells currently in your body aren't hugely different from the stem cells that existed when you were nothing more than a blastula.

    Your stem cells are your "lifeline" and are essentially the only cells keeping you from withering away and dying.

    Go back in time to when you were a newborn baby and imagine a doctor who could and was instructed to selectively kill your stem cells. Why would that doctor's actions (Essentially, preventing you from "growing and generating") be considered immoral then but perfectly acceptable a few weeks previous?


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    Go back in time to when you were a newborn baby and imagine a doctor who could and was instructed to selectively kill your stem cells. Why would that doctor's actions (Essentially, preventing you from "growing and generating") be considered immoral then but perfectly acceptable a few weeks previous?

    Because having stem cells does not make a fetus the same as an adult anymore than having bricks makes a wall the same as the pyramids.

    Composition is only one aspect of what makes us people with rights, it's not the definitive one.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    Seachmall wrote: »
    Because having stem cells does not make a fetus the same as an adult anymore than having bricks makes a wall the same as the pyramids.

    Composition is only one aspect of what makes us people with rights, it's not the definitive one.
    A brick can be used to make anything providing it's structured and ordered by an outside force. Without someone to order and structure it alongside more bricks it will just remain a brick.

    A developing foetus on the other hand is capable of structuring and ordering itself in to something bigger without any outside element orchestrating things.


  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    A developing foetus on the other hand is capable of structuring and ordering itself in to something bigger without any outside element orchestrating things.

    Indeed. But what it will become is not the same as what it is.

    I will die. I am not dead.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    Seachmall wrote: »
    Indeed. But what it will become is not the same as what it is.
    By that same logic, there's nothing inherently wrong with killing stem cells as they're yet to "become human" (Something I disagree with).

    In that case, is it considered murder if you selectively kill someone's stem cells? Haematopoietic stem cells for example. If someone collectively killed your haematopoietic cells (Which do nothing other than "generate and grow") would they be killing you or just killing a few cells?


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  • Registered Users Posts: 7,041 ✭✭✭Seachmall


    By that same logic, there's nothing inherently wrong with killing stem cells as they're yet to "become human" (Something I disagree with).
    True.
    In that case, is it considered murder if you selectively kill someone's stem cells? Haematopoietic stem cells for example. If someone collectively killed your haematopoietic cells (Which do nothing other than "generate and grow") would they be killing you or just killing a few cells?

    Depends on how many haematopoietic stem cells you kill and where they're located, I guess.

    If you kill enough of them to kill me, then you've killed me.

    If you don't kill enough of them to kill me, then you won't have killed me.

    I'm not sure what the point of this is.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    Seachmall wrote: »
    True.

    Depends on how many haematopoietic stem cells you kill and where they're located, I guess.

    If you kill enough of them to kill me, then you've killed me.

    If you don't kill enough of them to kill me, then you won't have killed me.

    I'm not sure what the point of this is.
    I kill all of them or to put it another way I cut off their blood supply and interfere with them so that they do.

    The above situation would be little different to inducing the death of a gastrula. You kill a few differentiated cells which cause the stem cells and hence the entire organism to wither and die.


  • Registered Users Posts: 706 ✭✭✭MoonDancer


    Personally myself, I am pro life, but I support pro choice.

    I don't think it's fair to force my views onto someone else.

    Everyone should have the right to choose.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    By that same logic, there's nothing inherently wrong with killing stem cells as they're yet to "become human" (Something I disagree with).
    They're yet to become differentiated cells, that's nothing to do with being human and even if it was it's relevance is questionable.
    In that case, is it considered murder if you selectively kill someone's stem cells?
    The question at hand isn't what kind of cells are you killing when you get an abortion. We all agree that killing a birthed human is wrong, so yes, if it leads to death it's wrong. It being wrong doesn't have anything to do with abortion being wrong. The tumor/foetus comparison was not about what the cells are doing at that stage, the whole point of it was to point out that having cells doesn't give you rights.
    MoonDancer wrote: »
    Personally myself, I am pro life, but I support pro choice.

    I don't think it's fair to force my views onto someone else.

    Everyone should have the right to choose.
    That's not pro-life. That's pro-choice.


  • Registered Users Posts: 706 ✭✭✭MoonDancer



    That's not pro-life. That's pro-choice.

    I know what I am... pro life


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    Those stem cells currently in your body aren't hugely different from the stem cells that existed when you were nothing more than a blastula.

    Your stem cells are your "lifeline" and are essentially the only cells keeping you from withering away and dying.

    Go back in time to when you were a newborn baby and imagine a doctor who could and was instructed to selectively kill your stem cells. Why would that doctor's actions (Essentially, preventing you from "growing and generating") be considered immoral then but perfectly acceptable a few weeks previous?

    I am still not sure where you are going with this because where it SEEMS you are going with it is really unexpected.

    It SOUNDS like you are trying to differentiate between killing cells in a zygote and killing cells in me that would ALSO kill me. But if you are then this actually makes my point for me about how human DNA needs something more attached to it before you assign rights to it. Which is just fine by me!

    I am actually curious though how you reached the conclusion that the sudden death of all the stem cells in my body would kill me.


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,331 ✭✭✭nozzferrahhtoo


    MoonDancer wrote: »
    I know what I am... pro life

    Thing is most pro choice people are pro "life" too. The only difference is where you define the word "life". That is why these emotional labels are not worth the toilet paper they were written on :)

    We are all pro "life". But when it comes to things like human rights and morality we are equivocating over the word "life".


  • Registered Users Posts: 706 ✭✭✭MoonDancer


    Thing is most pro choice people are pro "life" too. The only difference is where you define the word "life". That is why these emotional labels are not worth the toilet paper they were written on :)

    We are all pro "life". But when it comes to things like human rights and morality we are equivocating over the word "life".

    Well being as simple as possible and not getting into any of the extended arguments, I would believe that pro life is anti-abortion, and pro choice, is just that, the right for one to choose an abortion if they want.

    Thats my simple view on it, A "when life begins" debate is a whole other topic.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,992 ✭✭✭✭partyatmygaff


    I am still not sure where you are going with this because where it SEEMS you are going with it is really unexpected.

    It SOUNDS like you are trying to differentiate between killing cells in a zygote and killing cells in me that would ALSO kill me. But if you are then this actually makes my point for me about how human DNA needs something more attached to it before you assign rights to it. Which is just fine by me!
    I'm not trying to differentiate between the two. I'm trying to show you how the two are more or less the same. No stem cells ultimately leads to a dead human.

    Essentially, what i'm saying is: You consist of many differentiated cells and stem cells. A gastrula also consists of differentiated cells and stem cells (Obviously a lesser number of cells and lesser degree of differentiation).

    It's not human DNA that i'm assigning rights to. DNA is nothing more than a "recipe book" for proteins. It's not capable of anything and has no real worth on its own. What i'm assigning rights to is the entity as a whole. Biologically, at the most fundamental level, the main differences between a gastrula and a newborn are the number of cells, the proportion that are differentiated and their degree of differentiation.
    I am actually curious though how you reached the conclusion that the sudden death of all the stem cells in my body would kill me.
    Most of your cells are constantly being recycled (With a few exceptions). The most obvious example of a cell that's constantly being recycled are your red blood cells. If your haemocytoblasts are all dead then your body will stop growing and generating new blood cells and you'll die.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 28,390 ✭✭✭✭Turtyturd


    A brick can be used to make anything providing it's structured and ordered by an outside force. Without someone to order and structure it alongside more bricks it will just remain a brick.

    A developing foetus on the other hand is capable of structuring and ordering itself in to something bigger without any outside element orchestrating things.

    Make me a fully functioning car out of a brick, complete with radio.


This discussion has been closed.
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