‘People think I’m the devil for having an abortion, but it’s the only option that&

Frito

liam24 wrote: »

But if a man wants a woman to get an abortion and she refuses, he shouldn't have to support the child financially.

I'm not so sure that he shouldn't make some financial contribution in the same way that a woman should if the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak.

The issue is broader than men shouldn't have to pay child support because women can have abortions.

liam24

Frito wrote: »

I'm not so sure that he shouldn't make some financial contribution in the same way that a woman should if the shoe was on the other foot, so to speak.

The issue is broader than men shouldn't have to pay child support because women can have abortions.

I don't think men should be punished for the rest of their lives because they forgot to use contraception.

sunshine and showers

bjork wrote: »

I don't follow your logic, but as you seem to be a hardline religious person, I'm not suprised I don't follow your logic

I have no idea where you got that from. That's hilarious.

I'm saying that you clearly don't understand contraception, since you think people not using it correctly is what leads to unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Contraception is never 100% effective and you seem to be saying it is.

volchitsa

liam24 wrote: »

I don't think men should be punished for the rest of their lives because they forgot to use contraception.

I'm not sure what your overall stance on abortion is : are you saying that if it were up to you, you'd bring in a law like this in Ireland, where abortion is technically illegal, or that you'd be happy enough to see abortion on request brought in as long as men could also opt out of becoming parents?

liam24

volchitsa wrote: »

I'm not sure what your overall stance on abortion is : are you saying that if it were up to you, you'd bring in a law like this in Ireland, where abortion is technically illegal, or that you'd be happy enough to see abortion on request brought in as long as men could also opt out of becoming parents?

I'm in favour of abortion up to birth. In fact I think we'd be better off if the government gave financial incentives for people to get abortions. And I don't think men should be forced to pay because women want babies that don't have a committed father.

Frito

liam24 wrote: »

I don't think men should be punished for the rest of their lives because they forgot to use contraception.

Not sure I understand where this punishment is coming from.
Or how it theoretically affects men more than women.
Or how you can effectively have an equality of outcome between the two sexes where abortion=no child, and abdication of parental responsibility=someone else pays for it.

liam24

Frito wrote: »

Not sure I understand where this punishment is coming from.
Or how it theoretically affects men more than women.
Or how you can effectively have an equality of outcome between the two sexes where abortion=no child, and abdication of parental responsibility=someone else pays for it.

If a woman has full control of her body - then she must have control of the consequences of her actions. If she chooses to raise a child alone, knowing that the one-night stand she had last night had no intention of supporting any baby, then that's her responsibility alone.

I'm simply reflecting the language used by people when discussing women's right to an abortion - i.e. they shouldn't be punished by pregnancy for a mistake. I agree with that, but neither should men.

nozzferrahhtoo

liam24 wrote: »

I'm in favour of abortion up to birth.

I have no interest to be drawn into the entirely off topic conversation on financial responsibility in parenting between the sexes, but on topic "Birth" would seem to be as arbitrary cut off point as some of the worst suggestions out there. Why would your location on one side of the vagina or the other constitute a right to life or not? What, morally or ethically is the difference between an abortion 5 minutes before birth, or the application of a Cattle Gun, say, 5 minutes after?

liam24

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

"Birth" would seem to be as arbitrary cut off point as some of the worst suggestions out there. Why would your location on one side of the vagina or the other constitute a right to life or not? What, morally or ethically is the difference between an abortion 5 minutes before birth, or the application of a Cattle Gun, say, 5 minutes after?

The difference would be that the law would define right to life as beginning after you've left the vagina.

volchitsa

liam24 wrote: »

I'm in favour of abortion up to birth. In fact I think we'd be better off if the government gave financial incentives for people to get abortions. And I don't think men should be forced to pay because women want babies that don't have a committed father.

Abortion right up to birth, for any reason whatsoever? Seriously?

And you don't see any wider social issue with men being able to refuse to have anything to do with their children? I mean, these children are going to grow up and become - what? Productive members of society? I suspect not. I think you have a blind spot there that is preventing you from seeing that the child, once it is born, has rights too, and that those are the reason why men are not allowed to abandon their existing children.

Unborn children are a bit different, since they don't actually, you know, exist yet. No-one needs child allowance or uniform grants for their unborn children. Do they? And nor do the unborn wish to meet their biological parents, afaiaa.

nozzferrahhtoo

liam24 wrote: »

The difference would be that the law would define right to life as beginning after you've left the vagina.

Yes clearly, but I was asking about the thinking behind the establishment of such a law, not the meaning of the law or how it is applied.

kylith

liam24 wrote: »

If a woman has full control of her body - then she must have control of the consequences of her actions. If she chooses to raise a child alone, knowing that the one-night stand she had last night had no intention of supporting any baby, then that's her responsibility alone.

I'm simply reflecting the language used by people when discussing women's right to an abortion - i.e. they shouldn't be punished by pregnancy for a mistake. I agree with that, but neither should men.

Similarly you would be happy if the woman didn't want the baby (but agreed to carry it to term) and the man did for her to hand it over at birth and for him to pay for everything connected to the pregnancy and raise the child with zero support from the mother?

sunshine and showers

liam24 wrote: »

The difference would be that the law would define right to life as beginning after you've left the vagina.

Sucks to be born via cesarean, so.

Frito

liam24 wrote: »

If a woman has full control of her body - then she must have control of the consequences of her actions. If she chooses to raise a child alone, knowing that the one-night stand she had last night had no intention of supporting any baby, then that's her responsibility alone.

I'm simply reflecting the language used by people when discussing women's right to an abortion - i.e. they shouldn't be punished by pregnancy for a mistake. I agree with that, but neither should men.

I get your point, I cant say I readily agree with you. I believe the social and financial implications of single parenthood often far outweigh a financial contribution from the other party but perhaps there could be more leniency where the other party struggles financially themselves.
The point is though, once a child is born there are three set of needs, and the child's must be prioritised. And this must be so regardless of whichever party agreed to raise it.

DuffmanGuy

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I see Duffman conveniently ignored my rebuttal to his post yesterday quoting an opinion piece white paper. Especially the part where the author specifically suggested not using that paper in the manner that it was used here.

Clearly however what is muddying the waters here is the Anti Choice campaigners leaping between the word "Human" and its various meanings. There appears to be some move by them to establish the zygote as "Human" and then to afford it ALL the implications that word entails.

This is, at the very least, a total canard by the anti choice side. Establishing the zygote as biologically "Human", a biological fact no one is really disputing in the first place, and then attempting to afford the zygote every implication of the word "Human" is simply linguistic trickery facilitated merely be us having one word for several different contexts. Had we two different words for it, their non-argument would be a failure before it even was attempted instead of just after.

We can not merely leap between the word "Human" in a biological sense, to "Human" in the philosophical sense of "Right to Life" and "Legal protection" and any other moral and ethical concerns we may have for fellow "Humans". The work of philosophical rigor is still all ahead of the anti choice campaigner who merely asserts the zygote to be a new human at conception.

Duff, in his apparent MO of avoiding answering questions by asking further ones of his own, asks us when a zygote becomes "full human beings". I think this, in terms of abortion, is the wrong question to ask. Mainly because we do not currently have a scientific answer to this where a distinct line is drawn in the ground. And the measure many people do attempt, that of "viability" is, given advances in our medical sciences, a moving target with respect to time and progress and is so unworkable in something as fixed as law.

Asking when it transitions from developing biological mass into being human is like trying to identify the exact point on a rainbow where red becomes orange. It is a meaningless question.

But another question can be usefully answered in the context of abortion. Even if we can not identify a transition point, are we able to identify points where we can be usefully certain that no "humanity" is there? In other words, even if we can not identify where red becomes orange in a rainbow, can we at least identify a point that is clearly just red?

And I think we can answer that. If for example we define humanity by the main attribute that distinguishes us from rocks, flora and fauna.... the faculty of human consciousness and awareness.... we can identify points in the development of the fetus where these things are simply entirely absent. In fact we can not just identify where those faculties are absent, but where the pre-requisites are absent.

To use an analogy to radio, we can not just point to periods where the consciousness is absent (no radio waves) but that the producer of them is absent (the radio tower is not even built yet.

And going about the question in this fashion very much does support the countries who have targeted cut off points up to 24 weeks. We have clear biological knowledge of the total absence of the radio tower in the fetus in these cases and I therefore have absolutely no humanism moral or ethical qualms about abortion up to 24 weeks, and most certainly not up to 12 weeks where in fact the vast majority of elective abortions are in fact performed.

---

Nos, I was unable to reply directly to your post due to the 'links limitatioin' - as you had included links, I couldn't directly reply, but I did add a post adressing your questions.
You're implying some authority stating this is close to your area. Would that area be philosophical, legal, or medical? It's quite vague.
As regards scientific references, below are some more which I posted yesterday, which you have conveniently ignored.
It's quite a play on words for you to claim that a biological human isn't a human (some on this forum and elsewhere would argue that a human zygote isn't human, hense the repeated clarification by me and others).
References:


"At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun.... The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life."
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943

"Zygote. This cell, formed by the union of an ovum and a sperm , represents the beginning of a human being. The common expression 'fertilized ovum' refers to the zygote."
[Moore, Keith L. and Persaud, T.V.N. Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology and Birth Defects. 4th edition. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company, 1993, p.

"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and Mller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29

volchitsa

DuffmanGuy wrote: »

"Although life is a continuous process, fertilization is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new, genetically distinct human organism is thereby formed.... The combination of 23 chromosomes present in each pronucleus results in 46 chromosomes in the zygote. Thus the diploid number is restored and the embryonic genome is formed. The embryo now exists as a genetic unity."
[O'Rahilly, Ronan and Mller, Fabiola. Human Embryology & Teratology. 2nd edition. New York: Wiley-Liss, 1996, pp. 8, 29

You don't seem to get the bolded but, for some reason. Life is a continuous process. It doesn't "begin" upon fertilisation, it just reaches one of several critical landmarks.

Btw, Irish law doesn't say that life begins at fertilization either. Are you in favour of changing this?

liam24

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yes clearly, but I was asking about the thinking behind the establishment of such a law, not the meaning of the law or how it is applied.

The thinking would be that it would remove the debate about a woman's right to control her own body. It's absurd to say a woman should control her own body and then tell her she must be forced to spend 14 weeks or more carrying a child she doesn't want. It's the most logical point at which to define the right to life.

liam24

volchitsa wrote: »

Abortion right up to birth, for any reason whatsoever? Seriously?

And you don't see any wider social issue with men being able to refuse to have anything to do with their children? I mean, these children are going to grow up and become - what? Productive members of society? I suspect not. I think you have a blind spot there that is preventing you from seeing that the child, once it is born, has rights too, and that those are the reason why men are not allowed to abandon their existing children.

Unborn children are a bit different, since they don't actually, you know, exist yet. No-one needs child allowance or uniform grants for their unborn children. Do they? And nor do the unborn wish to meet their biological parents, afaiaa.

So it's your theory that forcing men who don't want children to pay for children will make the children more well-adjusted? Interesting.

liam24

kylith wrote: »

Similarly you would be happy if the woman didn't want the baby (but agreed to carry it to term) and the man did for her to hand it over at birth and for him to pay for everything connected to the pregnancy and raise the child with zero support from the mother?

Naturally. That's a bit of a no-brainer. We already have something like this - it's called surrogacy.

nozzferrahhtoo

DuffmanGuy wrote: »

I did add a post adressing your questions.

This does not appear on first glance to be truth. Where is it? What is the post number? I just now went over every post you made yesterday following my own and all of them are either replying to people who are not me, or replying to things I never said. Not one appears to be a reply to me.

Given your inability to use the quote function correctly, is it possible you are mixing me up for someone else, someone who you did reply to in actuality?

DuffmanGuy wrote: »

As regards scientific references, below are some more which I posted yesterday, which you have conveniently ignored.

You are the last person who has any pedestal on this thread to accuse other people of ignoring anything. Especially falsely. Given you "conveniently ignored" my entire post and everything in it. Then. And now. I have ignored nothing. You have. But forums do seem to be a playground for people accusing others of actions that in fact they and they alone are doing.

DuffmanGuy wrote: »

It's quite a play on words for you to claim that a biological human isn't a human

Again accusing people of doing what only you are doing. I never claimed a biological human is not human. Anywhere. Ever. You have merely constructed that falsehood and are now attempting to insert it into my mouth.

Perhaps attempt to reply to BOTH my posts, instead of ignoring one, and this time reply to the things I ACTUALLY said, rather than things you have simply invented on my behalf.

Then I can construct a more useful reply to you.

kylith

liam24 wrote: »

Naturally. That's a bit of a no-brainer. We already have something like this - it's called surrogacy.

Not really. Surrogacy is agreed in advance.

nozzferrahhtoo

liam24 wrote: »

The thinking would be that it would remove the debate about a woman's right to control her own body.

So it is an argument of convenience rather than one containing any actual intellectual rigor or ethical foundation. Your choice of cut off point for abortion is founded on nothing more than wanting to remove a debate that is personally distasteful to you.

Fair enough I guess, I wanted to understand where you were coming from. Now I do. Perhaps we should allow murder and theft too. Would remove all those pesky and costly court hearing and trials and jury duty. All to make life intellectually easier I guess.

DuffmanGuy

volchitsa wrote: »

You don't seem to get the bolded but, for some reason. Life is a continuous process. It doesn't "begin" upon fertilisation, it just reaches one of several critical landmarks.

Btw, Irish law doesn't say that life begins at fertilization either. Are you in favour of changing this?

You don't seem to get the bolded bit in context....it's clarified later in the sentence.

Frito

liam24 wrote: »

Naturally. That's a bit of a no-brainer. We already have something like this - it's called surrogacy.

The male equivalent is sperm donation. I don't think donors are financially responsible either are they? I know there is an issue with right to privacy (or the was, at least).

volchitsa

liam24 wrote: »

So it's your theory that forcing men who don't want children to pay for children will make the children more well-adjusted? Interesting.

My theory (though it isn't mine, it's fairly well accepted science) is that children who grow up feeling rejected by either or both parents tend to have very low self esteem and psychological issues that can cause all sorts of problems, including criminality, promiscuity etc among teenagers and, later, adults.

liam24

kylith wrote: »

Not really. Surrogacy is agreed in advance.

Given my position on abortion, the difference is negligible.

Hyzepher

From a legal standpoint:

Everything is geared towards recognizing life at the point of birth. Birth certs, children's allowance, PPS numbers etc. There is nothing for those who have yet to be born. You dont even need a death cert for still born or mis-carried pregnancies.

In fact it may be easier for pro-choice to argue that unborn children are in fact an extension of the mother until they are born i.e. part of the mother's existence and not something that can sustain life on its own. As it stands if a pregnant woman was to commit suicide then only 1 death would even be registered. History books would never register the existence of another life.

The legal aspects of recognizing the unborn as people is a very complex area.

bjork

sunshine and showers wrote: »

I have no idea where you got that from. That's hilarious.

I'm saying that you clearly don't understand contraception, since you think people not using it correctly is what leads to unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Contraception is never 100% effective and you seem to be saying it is.

You ended your post with a prayer "Dear God"

You need to read my posts again if you came to the conclusion of "thats what I think",.
Being raped has being compared equally to going on holidays in this thread and to be honest it's quite sick, but that's how some peoples mind works

smash

DuffmanGuy wrote: »

some on this forum and elsewhere would argue that a human zygote isn't human, hense the repeated clarification by me and others

You're misquoting everyone here. Nobody denied that it's human(in that it contains human DNA). What we have denied is the statement you keep making as fact which is that a zygote is "fully a human being". Which it is not.

I've already cited literature which states that a zygote evolves to become both a foetus and a placenta. Is a placenta fully a human?

volchitsa

DuffmanGuy wrote: »

You don't seem to get the bolded bit in context....it's clarified later in the sentence.

I did see that. I just don't see the huge significance in the fact that this next stage of development has the correct number of chromosomes. That would mean that trisomic children were in some way not properly human.

So it's a major step forward, sure. But not the only one.

You didn't reply to the point that Irish law doesn't recognize fertilization as the significant moment either.
How could they have got that so wrong? :rolleyes: