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Why we can't have a rational conversation about abortion

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  • #122
    FoxT
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,204 ✭✭✭FoxT


    PinkLemonade wrote: »
    This is so incorrect, pro choice does not mean you think its grand to kill fetuses, that's pro abortion, pro choice is not deciding for other peoole what they should do with their bodies.
    Every active pro choice women I know is incredibly cautious about not letting it get that far and are very responsible, that's just my experience

    Pinklemonade, I agree with you. In my opinion,people who regard themselves as 'pro-choice', do not 'think its grand to kill foetuses'.

    However, the 'pro-choice' websites that I have seen , including the one I linked to, are quite open about stating that they want 'abortion on demand'.

    This fuels the 'floodgates' fears of the anti-choice lobby, thus leading to an impasse. Whilst the 2 extremes frighten politicians away, essentially preventing any change, the 'majority in the middle' are sidelined, with tragic consequences for many.

    on a side note, my personal views on the subject are here

    Thanks,
    -FoxT


  • #123
    666irishguy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 469 ✭✭666irishguy


    squod wrote: »
    That's working out well for New Yorkers. 41% of whom don't even have the right to life.

    http://www.nyc41percent.com/

    The people who had those abortions are the ones who will have to square their actions with their conscience or beliefs if they feel they did anything wrong. Nobody's business but their own. Let's worry about our own country first, instead of what happens in New York. Legalizing it here would be only facing up to the fact that thousands of women are leaving to have abortions in Britain each year anyway. I find it amazing that any group or individuals should have any interest or desire to have a say in how women manage their own bodies, fertility and lives. Should be matter of personal choice.


  • #124
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    ...the whole "floodgates" notion seems to imply that the average irish woman just can't wait to start abortin, and is only held back by the law. As soon as it becomes legal, they'd stop the sponsored seal clubbing events and be down outside the abortion clinic in a flash. Some might even start queing before they've managed to get pregnant.


  • #125
    FoxT
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,204 ✭✭✭FoxT


    Nodin wrote: »
    ...the whole "floodgates" notion seems to imply that the average irish woman just can't wait to start abortin, and is only held back by the law. As soon as it becomes legal, they'd stop the sponsored seal clubbing events and be down outside the abortion clinic in a flash. Some might even start queing before they've managed to get pregnant.

    Spot on. That is exactly how SPUC/Youth Defence/Catholic church see it.

    -FoxT


  • #126
    lanyard
    Closed Accounts Posts: 84 ✭✭lanyard


    I think it's extreme forcing 1000's of young women overseas to have a termination. That is the reality of the current situation.

    I would vote for abortion on demand. The state and the church should keep its interfering nose out of people's lives.


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  • #127
    Czarcasm
    Closed Accounts Posts: 10,076 ✭✭✭✭Czarcasm


    Rezident wrote: »
    Because it's life or death. It might only be the death of a foetus which doesn't have any legal rights or anything but it is still a part of life and life is the most amazing, fragile and precious thing in the universe.


    It's the quality of that life is more important than life itself IMO, as in forcing a woman to give birth against her will is all sorts of just completely wrong, and then that child knowing they were unwanted, that's an incredibly cruel burden for any person to have to carry through life.

    All the arguments over religion etc. boil down to a single question, perhaps most succinctly put by Dawkins when he asked: where did life come from? with only two possible answers. There is no fence to sit on.


    Dawkins talks shìte at the best of times tbh, IMO he is only a carricature demi-god who is an embarrassment to atheists everywhere. Well, at least those that don't subscribe to his theory that the sun came out of nowhere and shines out his àrse hole.

    I'm still struggling to think of the two possible answers you're alluding to, a little help if you wouldn't mind? Not being ignorant but Google isn't throwing up anything helpful.
    I do wish people would debate it less negatively though which is why I normally don't get involved anymore. In 35 years I've never seen one person from either side of the debate suddenly switch sides based on the opposition's arguments so you're mainly wasting your time. It's not worth killing each other over, the irony of which is appalling.


    I'm only a year older than you and when I read about abortion at ohh, I would've been about 12 at the time, I likened it to the idea of throwing out a teddy bear that had lost an eye, or an arm, and thought how cruel it was when somebody else might appreciate it, the concept in my immature opinion being that just because a baby could be born with any number of disabilities, didn't mean that they should be discarded when they could be given up for adoption.

    I've since changed my opinion completely when I came to understand that the issues were far, far more complex than I ever could've wrapped my head around at the time. This change of opinion, I agree with you, wasn't brought about by either divisive camp, their various meaningless waffle and chants went right over my head. My change of opinion was brought about by educating myself on the actual issues involved, then later personal experience, having to witness people go through their own personal hell, I wouldn't wish any further degredation on them than they felt themselves already, for no other reason than they felt they couldn't cope with a life they were ill prepared for.

    Abortion isn't an easy choice for any woman, but sometimes it's a necessary one, and they shouldn't be punished and shunned, scorned, for making a decision that ultimately it's one only she will have to come to terms with. It's not helped by god botherers and moral high grounders talking shìt about "baby killers" and "murderers", etc.


  • #128
    Phill Ewinn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,007 ✭✭✭Phill Ewinn


    666irishguy wrote: »
    Should be matter of personal choice.

    It's a human life not a pair of shoes FFS. Appalled at the heinous attiude of some posters here.


  • #129
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Phill Ewinn wrote: »
    It's a human life not a pair of shoes FFS. Appalled at the heinous attiude of some posters here.

    That's nice Phill. You might, however, be as good as to clarify what your own is by responding to the questions I asked you earlier....
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=84450085&postcount=61


  • #130
    Phill Ewinn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,007 ✭✭✭Phill Ewinn


    Nodin wrote: »
    That's nice Phill. You might, however, be as good as to clarify what your own is by responding to the questions I asked you earlier....
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=84450085&postcount=61

    I can make no sense of your posts. I don't keep poking at you about it. We're on two sides of two different fences it seems. Seems you're fine with 4,000 or more deaths per year. I'm not.


  • #131
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    Phill Ewinn wrote: »
    I can make no sense of your posts. I don't keep poking at you about it. We're on two sides of two different fences it seems. Seems you're fine with 4,000 or more deaths per year. I'm not.


    I'm just asking you questions related to what you said. It being a "discussion" board, thats generally how it works. Otherwise we'd all be furiously blogging into the ether.

    I'll lay it out for you
    phill ewinn wrote:
    Many people abusing UKs abortion laws. Making a nice few quid doing it too.
    Theres no evidence the 4,000 terminations of Irish unborn fetouses are all
    legitimate or warranted.

    Would you care to make an estimate as to how many are or aren't "legitimate or warranted"?

    For further clarity, do please explain what you classify as being "legitimate" and "warranted".


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  • #132
    666irishguy
    Closed Accounts Posts: 469 ✭✭666irishguy


    Phill Ewinn wrote: »
    It's a human life not a pair of shoes FFS. Appalled at the heinous attiude of some posters here.

    It's two human lives actually. Let's not forget the one who will literally be left holding the baby after the moralizers have gone home to bed to prepare for another day of telling others what they should, can and can't do.


  • #133
    jobeenfitz
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,454 ✭✭✭jobeenfitz


    I'm a man and I think it is very sad that for whatever reason women feel the need to have an abortion.

    I am sure that in most cases it is not an easy decision to make.

    For some women as far as they are concerned it is the right decision and for many they may feel it is wrong but something they must do.

    I personally know one women who had an abortion and regrets it.

    Maybe there should be more help for women who find themselves in a crises pregnancy an feel they cant go through with their pregnancy.

    I have three daughters and I do think I have the right to advice them if they had a crises pregnancy.

    I do not feel I have the right to tell any pregnant woman what to do.
    Why should I have this right?


  • #134
    oppenheimer1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,084 ✭✭✭oppenheimer1


    jaffacakesyum wrote: »
    Because people are idiotic judgemental pr1cks who can't mind their own business and want to dictate to others how they should live their life, what they can and can't do to their own body, what deity they should believe in, who they should be allowed to marry and always be told by the men in government whats what.

    I fúcking hate people sometimes.

    This is something I really dislike about this debate, those that are against abortion are all branded as religious fanatics. Well here's a newsflash for you - they're not.

    The extremists from both sides of the debate are extremely irritating.


  • #135
    marienbad
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,463 ✭✭✭marienbad


    oppenheimer1 wrote: »
    This is something I really dislike about this debate, those that are against abortion are all branded as religious fanatics. Well here's a newsflash for you - they're not.

    The extremists from both sides of the debate are extremely irritating.

    That is not quite the case though is it ? One side is saying all the extreme arguments -there will be no abortion for any reason in Ireland - no exceptions.

    What argument do you suggest against that ?


  • #136
    Reindeer
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,076 ✭✭✭Reindeer


    I wouldn't have any issues with being able to abort your baby up to the age of maybe 17


  • #137
    Swan Curry
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,805 ✭✭✭Swan Curry


    I find it extremely irritating when people say "there are extremists on both sides".There's only one side that murders doctors and firebombs abortion clinics.


  • #138
    Grayson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,773 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    oppenheimer1 wrote: »
    This is something I really dislike about this debate, those that are against abortion are all branded as religious fanatics. Well here's a newsflash for you - they're not.

    The extremists from both sides of the debate are extremely irritating.

    Are the fanatics the eighty something percent of people who want legislation for cases where the mothers life is in danger? Or are the the nutjobs that are against it and want to see the mother die?


  • #139
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,138 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    If you don't believe in the vitalist fallacy, then you don't believe that life is a binary yes/no proposition. So the question is no longer whether abortion is acceptable or not, but when, during a pregnancy, it is acceptable.

    Is it acceptable the day after conception? If your answer is no, then you're probably against the "morning after pill" and call that "abortion".
    So, is it acceptable in week 10? Week 20? Week 30 ...Week 40?

    If you can't trust people to decide for these things for themselves, and you feel the government has to make a law about it, then you're trying to draw a hard black-and-white line through a grey area. You're not going to satisfy everybody.

    The law is (or should not be) a replacement for personal ethics and common sense. If you don't personally agree with abortion, then you will never take part in it, and that should be sufficient for you. But it's not, is it? You have to tell others how to behave, because you know "better", don't you? The abortion question in Ireland is basically one group attempting to impose its morality on everyone else.

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



  • #140
    Dripping Ice Cubes
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 5 ✭Dripping Ice Cubes


    Shenshen wrote: »
    Well, considering that there is no person alive and breathing today whose right to live supersedes another person's right to determine what happens to their own bodies, where would unborn children get this right from?

    The mothers own actions led to the pregnancy, so the mother put the child in a position where it could suffer so the mother's rights IMO come second to the child. Assuming if course she wasn't raped.


  • #141
    squod
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,704 ✭✭✭squod


    bnt wrote: »

    The law is (or should not be) a replacement for personal ethics and common sense. If you don't personally agree with abortion, then you will never take part in it, and that should be sufficient for you.

    What about the life of the unborn? Who gets to ask them? How ''pro-choice'' are dead people do you think?


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  • #142
    Nodin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 46,938 ✭✭✭✭Nodin


    squod wrote: »
    What about the life of the unborn? Who gets to ask them? How ''pro-choice'' are dead people do you think?


    Presuming they're people from the get go again, are we?


  • #143
    Grayson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,773 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    Dripping Ice Cubes wrote: »
    The mothers own actions led to the pregnancy, so the mother put the child in a position where it could suffer so the mother's rights IMO come second to the child. Assuming if course she wasn't raped.

    So if she was raped, then the "childs" rights aren't valid?

    Here's a thought for you. If they are "rights" then they are inherient. That's what rights are. They can't be removed. You could say that the "childs" rights are greater than the mothers. But they either are or are not. They can't change depending upon the situation.

    That's the problem with discussions like this. People use the word rights like it's some kind of easy thing to through around. And generally they mean human rights but they don't clarify. If rights are to have any value then they have to be defined. And a right has to apply in all situations.

    So using the same logic you use above, if we assume that a foetus has rights that are as stong as a person's, then the mother has as equal a claim to rights. So when a mothers life is in danger, their rights should be as strong, if not stronger than the foetus. This is because it is the foetus that is endangering the life of the mother, not by it's actions as such, but by it's existance. So in any case where the mothers life is in danger, the foetus should be aborted. And considering pregnancy is inherently dangerous, then it could be said that a woman should be able to abort whenever.

    Not that this is my opinion, it's just logic. And it's that way because of how you define rights.


  • #144
    Shenshen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,453 ✭✭✭Shenshen


    Dripping Ice Cubes wrote: »
    The mothers own actions led to the pregnancy, so the mother put the child in a position where it could suffer so the mother's rights IMO come second to the child. Assuming if course she wasn't raped.

    If I cause an accident tomorrow where someone gets hurt seriously and will die unless they receive a donor kidney, and by some strange coincidence I'm the only donor available, there still is no law on the planet that could force me to donate one of my kidneys to them.
    Even assuming I had died in the same accident and wasn't carrying an organ donor card.

    So no, putting someone else in a position where not being able to peruse your body will mean they die does not mean they suddenly have the right to peruse your body.

    Corpses have more right to bodily integrity than pregnant women, and I find that thought repulsive.


  • #145
    looking_around
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,491 ✭✭✭looking_around


    Phill Ewinn wrote: »
    It's a human life not a pair of shoes FFS. Appalled at the heinous attiude of some posters here.

    Its not a life until it's born, my own opinion of it, would be similar to 'having a parasite'.
    And my life WOULD be at risk if I was "forced" to endure a pregnancy(regardless of how I got pregnant, because there's so many if's and buts in that.)

    Why should I be forced to endure a parasite, that will permanently change my body and life, because someone else thinks it's "living".
    It is a foetus, nothing less, nothing more. It is NOT "human" yet. >.>
    __

    However, if abortion became legal, I think two appointments should be made with a counsellor prior to the abortion. To make sure the woman isn't making the choice impulsively or out of fear of not being able to support a baby etc.
    This would help women make a fair choice and hopefully lessen those who may regret such a decision.
    ___
    squod wrote: »
    What about the life of the unborn? Who gets to ask them? How ''pro-choice'' are dead people do you think?
    They're not people. It doesn't have choices, it isn't really alive. And so, it won't know when it's no longer being fed through the mother, it'll just be gone, and perhaps the stem cells can be used to help people who ARE already here and alive.


  • #146
    Pinewoo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 79 ✭✭Pinewoo


    This thread makes me wish I was aborted


  • #147
    Lord TSC
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 42,934 Mod ✭✭✭✭Lord TSC


    Of course there's extremists on both sides.

    Personally, I can't stand those pro-choice extremists. The bastards, telling everyone they should have the right to make their own decisions about their own lives. Where do they all get off, letting people make judgement based on things like "personal circumstances" and "scientific evidence", and not letting the viewpoints of others determine major, and possibly devastating, life changes. The ****s.

    :P


  • #148
    Phill Ewinn
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,007 ✭✭✭Phill Ewinn


    Teamshadowclan wrote: »
    Of course there's extremists on both sides.

    Personally, I can't stand those pro-choice extremists. The bastards, telling everyone they should have the right to make their own decisions about their own lives. Where do they all get off, letting people make judgement based on things like "personal circumstances" and "scientific evidence", and not letting the viewpoints of others determine major, and possibly devastating, life changes. The ****s.

    :P

    One side of a two sided story in fairness. Life changing vs life ending.


  • #149
    bnt
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,138 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    squod wrote: »
    What about the life of the unborn? Who gets to ask them? How ''pro-choice'' are dead people do you think?
    So, you're a "vitalist", then? Do you understand what that means, and what I mean when I say I'm not?

    You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets.

    ―Oscar Wilde predicting Social Media, in The Picture of Dorian Gray



  • #150
    Madam
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,501 ✭✭✭Madam


    I try to never get in abortion threads as I can see both sides of the arguement for and against! Confused as I am by it all I can see that a woman needs a choice and she at the end of the day has to live with it:( I for one wouldn't castigate her for whatever her choice may be, I may or may not agree with it but its really none of my business what she does with her and her unborn's life.


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  • #151
    Grayson
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,773 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    Madam wrote: »
    I try to never get in abortion threads as I can see both sides of the arguement for and against! Confused as I am by it all I can see that a woman needs a choice and she at the end of the day has to live with it:( I for one wouldn't castigate her for whatever her choice may be, I may or may not agree with it but its really none of my business what she does with her and her unborn's life.

    All this rational thinking and discourse.

    You're no fun.


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