DOTD - Debate of The Day #52

Messaggio di Adamsm

Which is why the abortion date, just like the homosexual marriage debate always hit a stalemate, since so many different countries and as seen in the US, states themselves have different laws about it.

I've heard everything from the fact that you are killing a child to it not being healthy for the mother to abort at the point to many other reasons. So, for myself and my own mindset, I just leave it at the choice of the mother and the father if he's in the picture: Everyone else should, no matter how 'good' their intentions are, just butt the heck out of it.

Messaggio di Ksero

No need to apologise, but thanks for clarifying.

I believe the following are inconsistent:

My whole premise was that as long as the fetus is part of the mother it is her option what to do with it

if she goes past the 23 weeks carrying the baby then she has made the choice not to get an abortion, it's that simple.

After 23 weeks (or whatever the number should be), the fetus is still part of the mother. Is it still her option what to do with it, or does it become murder if she aborts?

http://www.arcc-cdac.ca/postionpapers/22-Late-term-Abortions.PDF
The Canadian Medical Association's abortion policy defines abortion as the active termination of
a pregnancy up to 20 weeks of gestation (Canadian Medical Association, Policy on Induced
Abortion, 1988). 90% of abortions in Canada are performed during the first 12 weeks of
pregnancy, and just over 9% of abortions take place between 12 and 20 weeks of gestation. A
mere 0.4% of abortions take place after 20 weeks of gestation. These are considered late term
abortions.
It is consistent, she knows that after the 20th week there are no doctors to perform the abortion (unless her life is at risk), therefore she must make the choice before that point or carry the baby full term. Just because she can't have an abortion in week 21 doesn't mean that she never had the chance to get an abortion.

Messaggio di Adamsm

Huh, always heard week 23; well you learn something new every day.

Messaggio di Ksero

The article says that some clinics perform abortions up to week 22 and 23, but 20 is the norm.

Messaggio di Magician22773

Day 1 - conception takes place.
7 days - tiny human implants in mother’s uterus.
18 days - heart begins to beat.
21 days - pumps own blood through separate closed circulatory system with own blood type.
28 days - eye, ear and respiratory system begin to form.
42 days - brain waves recorded, skeleton complete, reflexes present.
7 weeks - thumbsucking.
8 weeks - all body systems present.
9 weeks - squints, swallows, moves tongue, makes fist.
11 weeks - spontaneous breathing movements, has fingernails, all body systems working.
12 weeks - weighs one ounce.
16 weeks - genital organs clearly differentiated, grasps with hands, swims, kicks, turns, somersaults
18 weeks - vocal cords work – can cry.
20 weeks - has hair on head, weighs one pound, 12 inches long.
23 weeks - 15% chance of viability outside of womb if birth premature.
24 weeks - 56% of babies survive premature birth.
25 weeks - 79% of babies survive premature birth.

Now, we all know my opinion here. I believe that life begins at conception. But, look at the bolded part. At just 18 days there is a heartbeat. What is the 1st or 2nd thing a paramedic looks for in an emergency to determine life? A heartbeat (or breathing...take your pick). At the very most, i could see someone without a "moral" or religious issue, debating that maybe within the first couple days, or up to the 2nd or 3rd week, that a fetus is not "alive", so it is not "a life". But how on earth, regardless of what you believe or do not believe, could you look at what a fetus is, and can do at 20-23 weeks, and still think that destroying that, is some kind of 'right'?

Messaggio di Squishalot

Messaggio di Adamsm

And if third-trimester abortion is murder, why isn't first / second trimester abortion also considered murder?/shrug Really can't answer that.

Messaggio di Squishalot

/shrug Really can't answer that.

From a Wiccan perspective, where does 'causing no harm' fall on that spectrum then, as far as responsibility by the mother is concerned?

Messaggio di Adamsm

/shrug Really can't answer that.

From a Wiccan perspective, where does 'causing no harm' fall on that spectrum then, as far as responsibility by the mother is concerned?

That is up to the individual; if they are having an abortion due to the bad situation that there life is in, I doubt the Rule of Three is going to come down very hard on them for ending a fetus. Now, if they are doing it for a selfish reason, then expect them to get slapped hard in the face by it.

Guess it would also depend on the mother's mind set and if she herself is pro-life or pro-choice: After all, to a point, a fetus is technically is a part of herself, which means she's isn't harming another only herself.

The thing some people have to understand about Wicca is that beyond the Creed and the Rule of Three, it's not a very...well, organized for lack of a better term, religion. It is about doing what you will to make the universe better by trying to put more good then evil into it, and pretty much every single Wiccan is going to have slightly different ideas on what does that and how they want to worship the Goddess/their ideals.

Messaggio di pioneers14

I wonder how many women are responding to this discussion. Sorry guys, it would be completely different if you knew what it was like to carry a child. And even worse if it was one conceived by something as horrifying as rape...

Just food for thought...

Messaggio di Adamsm

Messaggio di 331902

This post was from a user who has deleted their account.

Messaggio di Ksero

It is consistent, she knows that after the 20th week there are no doctors to perform the abortion (unless her life is at risk), therefore she must make the choice before that point or carry the baby full term. Just because she can't have an abortion in week 21 doesn't mean that she never had the chance to get an abortion.

See my point to Adamsm. What convention or legal status says doesn't matter - the question is, "is it right?". Should third-trimester abortion be murder? (Canadian law would seem to suggest the answer is 'yes'.) And if third-trimester abortion is murder, why isn't first / second trimester abortion also considered murder?

Edited to use trimesters instead of 'late-term'.

I believe it is because in the 3rd trimester there is a chance the fetus could survive without the mother (in hospital of course), before that it NEEDS the mother to survive.

I wonder how many women are responding to this discussion. Sorry guys, it would be completely different if you knew what it was like to carry a child. And even worse if it was one conceived by something as horrifying as rape...

Just food for thought...

Elhonna, Ksero, Fatal.....to name but three.

I'm not a woman... from the faces of wowhead thread

Messaggio di Squishalot

I believe it is because in the 3rd trimester there is a chance the fetus could survive without the mother (in hospital of course), before that it NEEDS the mother to survive.

With that in mind, if medical technology were to advance, such that we could increase the likelihood of survival into the 2nd trimester, would that make 2nd trimester abortions murder, if that were the case?

Messaggio di ElhonnaDS

@Pioneers- I don't think it's a men vs. women issue. I think it's what you consider to be a human being. I think that it has human DNA, if not killed it will continue to develop into a child and then an adult like any other person. So, I think that's a person. I don't think of a newborn baby as less of a person because it hasn't formed self-awareness or the ability to reason yet. I don't think of someone who is handicapped and limited in mental capacity or ability to feel physical pain as less of a person. People are people, and have the right to live unless they harm other people so badly that they forfeit that right.

If you are proposing that women are more likely to believe abortion is right, because they are the ones who will have the burden of carrying through with the pregnancy, there are only 2 ways that could be true: either they are more likely to believe it is not a human being because they'd be more the ones dealing with it, or they'd be more likely to do it despite it being a human being because they're the ones carrying it.

That's kind of a scary thought. That you'd suggest that someone would make the decision about whether or not something was not human enough to deserve life based on how personally inconvenient it would be if it was a human being. I'd rather think that women who are pro-choice are so because they have different views of what it is to be human and have made the decision objectively, than they made the decision because carrying a child is hard and they don't want to deal with it. I think it's kind of an insult to women on your side of the debate for you to suggest that.

And as much as people argue that the baby can't exist without the mother so it's not a person, I have to ask who put the baby in that position in the first place(excluding the .35-1% that are the result of rape)? Did the woman get pregnant because she breathed in a pregnancy germ? Or did she take the specific actions, without the specific protection, that led to the baby being dependent on her for life. It's a hard sell to for someone to put someone else in a position that they need that person to live, and then claim that the person has no right to live if it relies on the first person. If you set up the situation where the baby needs you, how can you them complain that it's unfair that it does?

And Adams is correct- I am a woman.

Messaggio di asakawa

Thread locked at the request of the OP who is happy for anyone else that's interested to use the format for a new thread.

Thanks to the participants of this thread for (in the vast majority of cases) approaching the discussion maturely and respectfully and to Fatal for running it so successfully for so long. You're all a credit to the site.

(Apologies if I've cut off a still-active discussion)

DOTD - Debate of The Day #52

Invia risposta