Abortion don't favour life .....

[Said1]

Re: RE: Abortion don't favour life .....

And a fetus is not a parasite. A tumour is a parasite. A fetus is a symbiotic relationship. If the mother dies, the fetus dies. If the fetus dies, something within the mother dies. Unless the mother is a complete btch.

I had a misscarraige (sp??) when I was 19 and honestly, I wasn't all that disappointed about it. I'm not so sure I would have continued with the pregnancy had this not happened, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I wasn't mature enough, either was my husband, (then boyfriend), secondly I was drinking heavily and doing an assortment of drugs that more often than not caused our already volitile realationship to become worse, often escalating to violence, on both our parts. I think back to the person I was then and literally crindge at the thought of what we probably would have put that child poor child through, not to mention the damage from drug and alcohol use. So no, a part of me didn't die with the fetus and I'm not in a complete bitch either.

I wasn't the happiest camper when I was pregnant with my daughter at first either. But I was much more mature, stable and able to see where changes needed to be made in my life in order to bring a child into the world. I was ready to change. Had I lost her, I would have been devestated.


I still hold the opinion that people think quite differently when it's their turn to decide, as I know many who said they would and couldn't and a few who said never, ever and did.


I also had my tubes tied, one is enough. :lol:

 

[fuzzylogix]

Re: RE: Abortion don't favour life .....

Very very early on, a fetus has human features and does human things like sucking its thumb. The fetus can hear. There are many studies now that suggest that a very immature fetus can experience pain. This of course, is too much for us to contemplate. If this is true, then abortions are torture for a living being.

I think that's quite a leap. We do painful things all the time, that doesn't necessarily make them torture or even immoral. Some people think quick and minimally painful euthanasia is compassionate in certain circumstances. Trust me, none of my patients like me sticking them for IVs because it's painful but sometimes the ends justify the means. It's sometimes hard to see what's best in these situations.

Euthanasia is of course another topic that is not a black or white issue. I have similar feelings about euthanasia. It is sometimes a necessary and probably ethical decision in certain situations.

But to try to equate euthanasia with abortion is, in my mind, not an acceptable analogy.

1. Euthanasia is a decision made to end the life of an individual with their consent. Abortion is a decision to end the life of a fetus without its consent.

2. Euthanasia is used to end the pain and suffering of an individual. Abortion ends the life of a fetus which is not in any pain or suffering.

3. Euthanasia is used to end the life of an individual who either is very near death anyway, or who does not have any hope of the remainder of their life being anything but painful and intolerable.
Abortion ends the life of a fetus who has in most cases a full and tolerable life ahead of them.

4. Euthanasia is done with humane methods by gently putting the individual to sleep. Abortion is not.

I guess you can only equate them if you use euthanasia on an individual without their consent when they were happily enjoying life, and you did it by waking them up and then ripping them to shreds with a machete.

 

[darkbeaver]

RE: Abortion don't favour

A difficult question for many women for sure, I am pro-choice and I believe that most of the decision must remain with the women.

 

[tracy]

Re: RE: Abortion don't favour life .....

[quote="fuzzylogix]

Euthanasia is of course another topic that is not a black or white issue. I have similar feelings about euthanasia. It is sometimes a necessary and probably ethical decision in certain situations.

But to try to equate euthanasia with abortion is, in my mind, not an acceptable analogy.

1. Euthanasia is a decision made to end the life of an individual with their consent. Abortion is a decision to end the life of a fetus without its consent.

2. Euthanasia is used to end the pain and suffering of an individual. Abortion ends the life of a fetus which is not in any pain or suffering.

3. Euthanasia is used to end the life of an individual who either is very near death anyway, or who does not have any hope of the remainder of their life being anything but painful and intolerable.
Abortion ends the life of a fetus who has in most cases a full and tolerable life ahead of them.

4. Euthanasia is done with humane methods by gently putting the individual to sleep. Abortion is not.

I guess you can only equate them if you use euthanasia on an individual without their consent when they were happily enjoying life, and you did it by waking them up and then ripping them to shreds with a machete.[/quote]

1. Actually, euthanasia how we do it (withdrawing life support) is often done without a patient's consent. None of the babies I've taken off ventilators have given their consent. Their parents made the decision. Spouses and adult children decide for their loved ones.

2. Abortions are often done to avoid suffering for a fetus. I worked in Vancouver and part of my job involved caring for women undergoing late term "abortions". ALL of them were for serious, uncorrectable birth defects.

3. I don't know how to judge how tolerable a fetus' life will be. Is it better to be aborted than raised by an abusive mother? I dunno.

4. Euthanasia isn't done by putting people to sleep in our society because that's actually euthanasia so it's illegal. Instead, we let Terry Schiavo dehydrate to death. I've cared for 2 babies who underwent the same process. I've seen patients struggle after being taken off a ventillator. It isn't always gentle or painless. It is as painless as we can make it. That's no different than an abortion. A 6 week old embryo doesn't feel pain or fear like a living person does (it isn't even termed a fetus until 8 weeks).

 

[fuzzylogix]

Thanks for your input, Tracy. But I must rebut.

1. Withdrawing life support is not technically euthanasia. Euthanasia is the painless killing of someone. Withdrawing life support is technically allowing someone to die instead of keeping them living artificially. Life support is withdrawn when the person has all ready suffered brain or cardiovascular death or has virtually no chance of recovery. In these cases, nature has all ready made the decision of death. The family are not consenting to death. Not to minimize the trauma of the decision to remove life support however.

2. I have all ready indicated that I understand the use of abortion in many situations, and a severe uncorrectable birth defect would be one of them. But even then, many women cant face the actual choice of death for their child. I have a friend who carried a severe genetic defect to term knowing that the child had a 100% chance of death within a few weeks which was the scenario.
But again, it becomes a very slippery slope when you get into less severe defects such as many cases of Down's syndrome, many of whom are mild enough to be fully functional citizens and have happy lives. Do people have the right to abort then if then want a girl and have the "defect" of an XY chromosomal pattern?

3. That is correct. You dont know how tolerable a fetus life would be. You have no right to assume that a mother would be abusive. And if she is, the child protection agency has the right to take the child away. Would a child rather be aborted or adopted? I am not sure that it is my right to make that choice for them. We can never be sure that any child born will have a happy life, but that doesnt mean they dont have the right to try. Many many children come from horrendous family backgrounds and make immense successes of themselves and vice versa. Many many kids from very well off supposedly wonderful families are terribly screwed up.

4. The problem of removing life support is exactly that- the patient may not die immediately, and society has to face the fact that the patient MAY in fact be suffering. We assume that the brain has shut down and doesnt recognize the suffering but we do not know.
We also do not know if or how much a fetus feels. And in most cases, it is a Fetus that is aborted, because only about 1/4 of abortions are performed at the embryo stage of less than six weeks. But of course,I think that is semantics anyway... life is life as an embryo, fetus, or infant.

 

[cdn_bc_ca]

This is an interesting thread...

I don't know if somebody has already touched on this but I believe that abortion and euthanasia are controversial because of one important detail - it involves murder.
Let me explain.
In this country, for one person to end the life other another is against the law... that is why euthanasia is so conterversial. A doctor may end the life of a patient because the patient wishes to die, but that is considered murder under the law. No person has the right to end the life of another.

For abortion, the controversy is determining when a fetus is actually a human being. Some think it is at the time of conception... some think it is when they develop arms a legs...some think it is after 3 months... the arguments never cease. However, the whole point of determining when a fetus is a human being revolves around the fact that no person can end the life of another person. Because if it is determined that a fetus is a human at the time of conception, then it would be unlawful to have abortions according to the law. That is why anti-abortionists often use tactics relating to "killing a life", "ending a life", and "a fetus is a human being".

Even so, I personally believe that some abortions are justified regardless of the law. These were excellently outlined in previous posts so I will not reiterate them here. And yes, I have seen actual abortion videos floating around the internet and they are disgusting at best... I couldn't watch more than 2 seconds of it before I shut my browser down. And it didn't help that I was eating lunch at the time. But still, as one poster eloquently put it, it is a necessary evil.

Anyway, something to think about.

 

[I think not]

Short of any medical necessity how many of you in this thread would have preferred they were aborted?

 

[LittleRunningGag]

Short of any medical necessity how many of you in this thread would have preferred they were aborted?

That isn't really relevant, is it?

I am greatful that mother chose to carry me to term, as I am sure she is too. But I don't believe that she was in any way obligated to do so. She made a huge sacrifice, risking her life, supporting and nurturing me. For that I am eternally greatful. Probably more so than the person who thinks that their mother had a moral obligation follow through with her accident.

 

[I think not]

Short of any medical necessity how many of you in this thread would have preferred they were aborted?

That isn't really relevant, is it?

I am greatful that mother chose to carry me to term, as I am sure she is too. But I don't believe that she was in any way obligated to do so. She made a huge sacrifice, risking her life, supporting and nurturing me. For that I am eternally greatful. Probably more so than the person who thinks that their mother had a moral obligation follow through with her accident.

Actually I think its very relevant. I'm all for a woman's right to choose, and I am by no means implying it is an easy choice for a woman. But i think there should be limits.

And I also don't think matters of life and death should be viewed lightly. You have to attach every angle to it, it is a complex issue, very complex.

 

[tracy]

Short of any medical necessity how many of you in this thread would have preferred they were aborted?

I wouldn't know the difference if I was, so it really wouldn't matter to me.

 

[I think not]

Short of any medical necessity how many of you in this thread would have preferred they were aborted?

I wouldn't know the difference if I was, so it really wouldn't matter to me.

That's not what I asked though.

 

[tracy]

Short of any medical necessity how many of you in this thread would have preferred they were aborted?

I wouldn't know the difference if I was, so it really wouldn't matter to me.

That's not what I asked though.

OK, I'm not suicidal, so no I don't wish I was aborted.

I just think that question is about as relevant to the abortion discussion as "what's your favorite colour?". You can't choose whether or not you are conceived or who conceives you, so why would you get any choice as to whether you're aborted? That's just reality.

 

[cdn_bc_ca]

Short of any medical necessity how many of you in this thread would have preferred they were aborted?

I think you would get more accurate answers if you went to a hospital and asked this question to those who were born with some kind of physical or mental disability.

Better yet, I think the "hunchback of Notre Dame" would have an opinion on this