Human beings are above animals only because of our ability to make decisions of mercy not based on our instinct to kill. There is a difference in that we have the intelligence which allows us the power to consider killing our own offspring because we find them inconvenient. The corruption of logic in the pro choice ideology is that in reality the "choice" occurs before conception, when a man and woman "choose" to put themselves in a position where a child could be conceived. I find it ironic that the pro choice people are always referring to "a woman's right to choose". What about a man's right to choose? We all believe in the science of human reproduction don't we? The unborn child shares equal genetics with its mother and father. Just as a man's sperm can be used without his participation to create a test-tube baby, it is not beyond modern science to anticipate that an embryo could be developed in an incubator without the participation of a woman. The truth is that women are nothing more than incubators and as a man I would insist that I have a right to "choose" if a woman wanted to have an abortion of my embryo against my will. It's all about reproductive rights isn't it?
I'm not sure this should be considered intelligence. The fact is humans are animals. You can twist that any way you want too I guess. We have the ability, not the intelligence to choose whether we kill our premature young or not. In reality if we had the intelligence to do something like that then more often than we do, we would kill our young. The problems they cause are limitless in many situations where they are allowed to live instead. Thousands are spent to save some baby that was born prematurely and has a high chance of being retarded (generally putting it). Yet at the same time we kill off some perfectly healthy baby. You're going to tell me we have 'intelligence' when it comes to these decisions? I guess we do by literal definition of the word, but we certainly don't use it very well.
The other thing is, based on the fact that the embryo shares equal genetics with its mother and father, why shouldn't I be able to force a woman to have an abortion if I decide I would rather not have the baby after I've gotten her pregnant? Or wait a minute, the choice occurs before conception so this wouldn't be right. See what I'm saying? Women deserve special credit for the suffering they endure in carrying and bearing children but that is only consistent with their natural role as incubators, just as with any other mammal. It is strange that so many men are willing to let our role in society be reduced to little more than a sperm donor. In turn, this will ultimately result in the reduction of woman to the role of egg donor.
We aren't 'better' because we have this capacity, we're simply not the same. Leading back to my first post in here... humans are conceited.
Well! Scientifically speaking, genetic inheritance is NOT equal! We get an equal number of chromosomes, but typically only one or two allelles are expressed in the phenotype, excluding polygenetic inheritance... which succumbs to the same point I'm making here anyhow. So, while genetically the mother and father contribute equally, the probability that the actual, physical child is made up equally of traits from the mother and the father is very, very low - for this reason, children will often resemble one parent more than the other. The most obvious way to look at this is the sex of the child. It's either male or female, only one set of parental genes is expressed and we don't have a hemaphrodite on our hands... But this is scientific nitpicking, and irrelevant. Yes, the man absolutely should have a say and a choice. Ultimately, it's the womans body and she controls it, and if she doesn't respect his choice then he's powerless to stop it. This is fucked up, but in a way it's a good thing - if she doesn't respect what he wants and his beliefs, then it's probably not exactly a match made in heaven and she's not the right woman for the hypothetical man. As for your first point, I have to disagree. What is 'mercy'? Do lions show 'mercy' when they sit and watch a herd of gnu grazing and don't jump up and kill them? Or are they just not hungry? More to the point, does a human show 'mercy' when he doesn't jump up and kill a sheep grazing in a paddock... or is he just not hungry/desperate? Humans really are just another species of animal man, mercy goes flying out the window if a human is put into the same environment as 'beasts'.
I am pro-choice, but I am not going to vote in a poll that uses the term "Pro-Life", because it gives the impression that anyone who is in favor of the legalization of abortion is "anti-life". A fetus is a parasite, which cannot survive on it's own, and the host has the right to remove it from her body.
You totally blew off my statement. Do YOU know women who were raped and kept the child? You never answered. I never attacked you personally. I asked you a few questions and you didn't like it. Don't like my posts and me being straight forward then don't answer. If you think that's a personal attack you have no clue what a personal attack is. Sensitive are we? So obviously you have no idea what you're talking about, go figure. BTW, I love the public school comment. You don't think I've heard of that before? You're just like every other idiot out there, spitting out things that you have absolutely no experiece with just because YOU think its right. I will call you out all day on your unreasonable opinion. That's just me though.
One of the positive effects of the legalization of abortion was a lowering of crime in the United States: Fewer unwanted children means less criminals. This trend was very apparent in New York City, about 18 to 20 years after Roe Vs. Wade was settled. There were other factors involved, naturally, but I believe that getting rid of these unwanted fetuses was one of the primary causes of the drop in violent crime. The book Freakonomics brought up this correlation.
-Humans are animals doing what they are supposed to just like everything else -Polar bear males try to eat their cubs after birth so the female will go back into heat. -Cats and primates also mate for means other than procreation
Yes but the science is also clear that the mass of cells could not survive on it's own until a certain point. Claiming that someone is anti-science because they don't believe something that cannot survive on it's own is a life is a straw man argument, and truly just unfair. Life begins at conception but I think mom helps a little bit too. Edit Addition: I finished reading through the rest of this thread and I think that earlier when you accused someone of an ad hom attack against you that you were wrong. It was not ad hom to ask of your personal experience. What he was doing was attempting to put you in a position of authority, which is bizarre and kind of backwards to how that type of thing usually works. People usually try to say "My soandso chose not to have an abortion so therefore it is right/wrong and applies equally to all situations" which is flawed anyway. Just thought I'd chime in with that as both are flawed arguments.
We've had this discussion before, SE, and you chose to completely ignore me in that thread. Abortion is not a science issue, it's a moral issue. If you want to argue that a single celled fertilized egg should not be aborted because, scientifically speaking, life begins at conception, then you need to be out there saving every fungus cell, fertilized rat cell and e. coli cell. Unless of course, scientifically speaking, a human fertilized egg has some chemical property that makes it more of a life form or has some greater sense of consciousness than any other single celled organism. Note the emphasis on SCIENTIFICALLY speaking, not MORALLY speaking. Give me sources that have demonstrated such cells contain some inherent form of "life" that makes it more alive than any other cell. I've asked you repeatedly to show this, yet you have never done so. Why? Because it's impossible. Put a fertilized rat egg and a fertilized human egg side by side: there is no inherent scientific value to one over the other. Any inherent value you place on the human egg over the rat egg is 100% moral based. If you want to make the argument you are making, yet cannot demonstrate what I'm asking, then all life forms are equally valuable scientifically speaking , in which case you should be out there saving all the fungus, e. coli and fertilized rat eggs in the world. Seriously dude, you need to stop this whole "my text book says so" crap. Your text book says life begins at fertilization because scientifically all life begins when a cell is capable of self sufficiently passing on genetic information to offspring. It is not an argument for pro-life. Abortion is a moral-based argument, not a scientific argument. I know listening to opposing views isn't your strong suit, but give it a try. You could (gasp!) learn something? Edit: To those who want to rebuttal this post by saying, "Humans have unique DNA, therefore all babies need to be saved", I preempt that by saying: Every cell on this planet is genetically unique. Being genetically unique in itself is not reason to call it "special", or to support the notion that the human fertilized egg has any greater scientific value than any other fertilized egg. If the assertion that genetic uniqueness is grounds to save the human fertilized egg, then once again I ask that you go out there and save every single bacterial cell on the planet for it is genetically unique and therefore "special" and worth saving. This only further supports the notion that abortion is a moral argument and is not, nor ever will be, a scientifically based argument.
I truly don't think I'd care, I don't remember being born, I don't think I'd notice /not/ being born. But its funny that you mention that. My mother had an abortion before me, we've talked about it and shes certain that neither my brother or I would exist, and even if we did we wouldn't know our relatives on my mom's side because she would have been cut out of the family for getting pregnant before marriage. Its not that she didn't want the baby, shes very much pro-life, but she knew that she would be setting her family and her child up for a life of hell (if our lives weren't hell enough) by going through with it. I'm quite happy she got an abortion, and I think she is too, despite the "what ifs". Even though my life wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, I was wanted, I was planned, so was my brother, and I think we were better off that way. I've seen how some parents treat their unplanned kids (no matter the financial situation) and its amazing how much of a burden they're treated as. I'm truly glad you and your girlfriend are happy with your choice, and I'm even happier that you still acknowledge other's choice as well, and I hope your path is a smooth one. I think if our society offered less criticism of young couples/unplanned pregnancy (less fear of being rejected by family), and more support, there'd be less reason to abort.
Do you even read your own posts? Your entire argument consists of "We can't say when life begins... so it's okay to abort babies since we're not sure if they're human or not."
Firstly I did answer that question previously. Secondly my answer is irrelevent, because having a personal relationship with a person is not needed to make a moral judgment or conclusion. I need not ever have raped anyone or been raped myself to know that rape is wrong. Thirdly if I am being unreasonable please explain how, as opposed to using personal attacks to try and discredit me. I've never raped anyone, therefore I can not know that rape is wrong. Your argument is pretty weak man. The lengths you are willing to go to justify the killing of cute babies are really very extreme. Wouldn't it be easier to just admit that, in some instances, you are okay with people killing babies? That if killing a baby makes a person 'feel' better about themselves, then it's okay to kill that baby? That not everyone should get civil rights, only some people?
A baby can't be "aborted", because it has already been born. Only a fetus can be aborted, and that is a parasite.