darth_ender said:
^Not my point of view. I work in behavioral health with children 0-5 years old--children that only qualify for my program if they receive Medicaid. I'm not into state mandated insurance, but I do believe that some sort of option should be available for everyone. Ideally that's how our system would work, with the poor qualifying for welfare, but it's inefficient, broke government trying to manage this so it never works. I hear you though. That's one reason I am a self-admitted RINO. I'm much more of a middle of the road independent in reality.
I think even if people don't want to cover the health of other humans through taxation there should at least be full and complete coverage for children. Children can't help the circumstances of their parents.
As for your previous comment, as well as Frink's held tongue (that's not like you, Frink ;), I know babies are damaging, but if you got drunk, a perfectly legal and enjoyable (to many) activity, and did something stupid that resulted in someone else living on a life support system. Now let's say that this life support system required that your body provide nutrients to this injured person (an abortion advocate created this analogy, not me, only she left out the part where you are responsible for the person being hooked up to you). Would it be right or wrong for you to disconnect yourself from this life support system and allow the other individual to die? It would certainly be damaging to you to remain on it. But you did make the choice to drink, which ultimately led to this person's needing it.
You are comparing the act of love making to drunk driving? Crackheads may be crackheads but they should not be denied love or loving each other through intercourse. However if two crackheads who love each other dearly get pregnant they should have the right (and be encouraged) to have an abortion.
I realize that you were talking about casual sex, but even then I would argue that sex is a more natural and socially accepted behavior than driving drunk.
I'm sorry that God (or Mother Nature) decided that females carry the babies. Take that up with them. But instead of leveling the playing field by killing innocent children, couldn't the playing field be leveled by demanding more of irresponsible fathers?
I'm not trying to level the playing field on who chooses whether abortion is appropriate, I'm saying mother nature gave them the baby carrying duties they should be the ones deciding whether they are able to properly take on that duty. Before technology, nature would help make that decision for them. Thousands of years ago if you were poor or an addict, you would not have the physical health to carry a baby.
I know that this thread will do nothing to change anyone's mind. I just will never see the logic. Injuring mothers, family economic difficulties, family contentedness, healthy sexual relationship...all very important considerations. Killing someone...oh, wow, that outweighs all other considerations to me.
By terminating an abortion before a certain point you are not killing a thinking, feeling person, you are ending the potential of a thinking, feeling person. You make it seem like it's premeditated murder.
Do you believe that a miscarriage and a still-born birth are the same thing? Should we start naming and burying miscarriages? Maybe I should open up a miscarriage cemetery in my backyard. It's wouldn't take up a lot of space.
I know this is long and CP3S doesn't like that, but one last thought for the day: as the baby progresses, it causes more damage to the mother's body. Yet we illegalize abortion after a certain point that most pro-choicers agree is acceptable. All the same rationales apply at this point: the damage to mom, the economic difficulties, the potential for an unwanted child...but now it's wrong to kill that baby. Why the change of heart? My point to this is that those other issues don't matter at the end of the day if we acknowledge that we are killing a person. The defining point really hinges on how we define a person then, and when an unborn human gains its humanity.
The change of heart happens when there is brain activity the fetus begins to think and feel.
CP3S said:
I honestly don't even think the hard pro-life side takes the unborn baby that seriously. Almost all of you stated that you are okay with abortion in the cases or rape. So, because this human life was created out of the horrible actions of someone else, killing it is justifiable? Just about all of you also stated that when the mother's life is at risk it is also acceptable. If we say an unborn child is a person who deserves all the rights any post-natal human would be granted, how is putting the health and well being of the mother above that of the baby justifiable?
"Sorry, you have every right to live, but in this case you're going to have to die so your mother can live". Before the obvious rebuttal of "Well, if the mother dies, so does the baby", there are so many cases where it is just a precaution that abortion is recommended on account of the mother's health. It is possible the mother and baby could both make it through the gestation period, or that the mother could make it long enough to carry the baby to the point that it is viable to live outside of the womb.
I agree. What darth_ender believes is an "innocent child" is suddenly put to death to save a mother who has already lived her life. That sounds messed up.