Locke9-05

Banning abortion would make sure that people having irresponsible sex wouldn't be able to kill the human being they created just because of their selfishness without consequences. Of course this isn't a perfect world, because people apparently have to think about killing the human beings they create. That's the reason civil societies implement consequences for and ban such rash, irresponsible and outright immoral actions.

__________________
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
-John F. Kennedy

"Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him."
-John Locke

"What worries you, masters you."
-John Locke
___________________

Izzibeth

Abortion has consequences just as continuing with pregnancy does.

Societies that have made abortion illegal have seen nothing but a rise in illegal abortion. This leads to maiming and death for mothers as well as permanently disabled children and/or abandoned children.

I really hate repeating myself in these threads. The data is out there to read if you would like to see what life is like for people in countries where abortion is illegal.

The question of this thread is "Will making abortion illegal solve the problem?" The answer is "No." It is being answered every day if you care to do the research.

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Locke9-05

Yes, every choice has consequences--good, bad, or otherwise. Abortion is a choice that yields the death of a human being for selfish reasons--because of a choice that was already made. That's an unjustified killing and it's wrong. Society shouldn't stand by and just let such choices be made resulting in the murderous "consequences" that abortion yields. There's no logical reason for it--it all comes down to selfishness, irresponsibility and it is society's job to ensure that the human beings most negatively affected by such choices are protected by law.
You and me both, apparently. I don't like repeating myself either. I have yet to see those statistics and that data, actually. I also find it hard to believe that you can blame illegal abortion for living conditions within a nation. If some idiot chooses to go to a back alley abortionist, so be it. She's breaking the law and she's apparently desperate to murder a human being she chose to create. How rational! Yes, a person like that should be prosecuted.
The question of this topic is a foolish paradox. Here's the better question that really explains this: "will making anything illegal solve any problem?" No. Are laws designed to solve problems? No. If they were, all our problems would already be solved. Laws don't solve problems. They punish those who create the problems and they are intended to deter some of those who would not be so strong-willed in breaking the law from doing just that. Laws do not solve problems. Will thieves stop stealing simply because it's illegal? Of course not. But we as society must punish them anyway. Will arsonists and vandals stop destroying property simply because it's illegal? No. But that doesn't mean society can just let them get away with such immoral and heinous behavior. Will murderers stop killing simply because it's illegal? Of course not, but we must punish them for their actions. That's what laws against these things are designed to do--not "solve problems." The solution is up to the idiots who feel they have to kill human beings for selfish idiotic reasons. They're the ones who can solve this problem, and they're the only ones who can completely do so. The law against abortion was designed to discourage them from allowing their irrational, irresponsible and immoral behavior to ultimately destroy the human life they chose to create.

__________________
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
-John F. Kennedy

"Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him."
-John Locke

"What worries you, masters you."
-John Locke
___________________

Izzibeth

It is quite logical to choose not to bring someone into the world when it is apparent that they would suffer from birth OR cause others to suffer.

I'm not blaming illegal abortion for living conditions. What I am saying is that living conditions have effects on abortion rates. When living conditions get better and education is available, abortion rates drop.

They are not "idiots". They are desperate. But women don't go around getting pregnant so they can jump for joy while they get physically maimed in a quack's home. In many places men (and women) are not taught proper sexual education. Or they are fed lies like condoms are tainted with HIV. In many places, men are in charge of birth control by using condoms. If they do not use condoms then women have a higher chance of getting pregnant because birth control pills are too expensive for the lower classes to get (#1. because the pills are expensive anyway #2. because in order to get the pills one is required to get a physical exam which can run upwards of $250 for the 30 seconds it takes to do a pap). In many places it is nearly impossible for women to deny men sex if they do not want to have it (for cultural reasons or what have you). OR people are simply uneducated and are taught techniques for preventing pregnancy which DO NOT WORK. In third world countries, for example, many women are trying to go to college and get an education so that they can provide for their families. If they get pregnant then sometimes they choose abortion and if it's illegal they go to whomever they can because if they do not then it is almost a guarantee that they and their child will grow up in poverty (as the father will be nowhere in sight).

It's not about being "idiotic" and sometimes it's not even about being selfish. It's not black-and-white.

Society has made the decision that terminating a pregnancy is not on the same scale as murder or theft. The law against abortion was removed because people understood that it was a bad law and a law that does way, way, way more harm than good. Laws against murder and theft do not harm people. Laws preventing women from getting an abortion DO.

And again, it's easy to dehumanize thousands and thousands of women by calling them "idiots"... but that is simply not the reality.

__________________

Locke9-05

You told me below that "it's not black and white" and the same goes for your comment above. It's never "apparent" that they will suffer from birth or cause others to suffer. And it's not up to other human beings to end their lives simply because of that "possibility" (which is all it is, mind you--a possibility). We can't play God over human lives simply because some people can't take responsibility for the choices they make. No. That's absurd.
Murder is universal. Killing a human being is a universal language, it does not take any real level of "education" to understand what the effects of such an act are.
What is it about, then? Women who choose to have sex--they know at the very least that they might get pregnant. So they do. And what now? They made a choice that resulted in pregnancy. So they decide rather than take responsibility, rather than even let nature take its intended course, they'll snuff out a human being's life because they don't care enough to accept responsibility for what they chose--the life they created. There's nothing there but hypocrisy, irresponsibility, and selfishness.
Laws preventing women from getting an abortion don't harm people, that's absurd. That's the same logic that pro-drug advocates use. They claim laws against drugs force the drugs onto the street and contaminate them. Poor addicts... Poor women who would rather kill their children then accept responsibility and do the humane and responsible thing... Laws don't hurt people. People hurt people. People's choices hurt people. If women continue to make such selfish, hypocritical choices against laws, the law isn't to blame. Who's making the choice? Who made the choice to get pregnant? Who doesn't want to accept responsibility and allow the natural course--nature--to take place? The woman. The men involved with the pregnancy are also to blame, don't get me wrong, but the final decision is of course the woman's to make.
I see nothing dehumanizing about it. It's a foolish, selfish choice--there is no logical reason for it. What's dehumanizing is the slaughter of human beings that were created by these women in the first place--simply because these women are irresponsible, irrational and selfish and can't accept their role in creating the lives they choose to destroy rather than seeking a humane and moral alternative.

__________________
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
-John F. Kennedy

"Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him."
-John Locke

"What worries you, masters you."
-John Locke
___________________

Izzibeth

A fetus is also only a possibility. There are no guarantees there either. But to get back to my point, it is up to the adults in the situation to decide whether or not the developing fetus will suffer or cause others to suffer. If a woman and her husband already have three children and they are just barely making ends meet and their birth control method fails... then they have every right to make a decision that will effect the lives of the other BORN children that they have. If another child is going to cause significant strain on the entire family (and other factors) then I would say it is quite responsible for them to terminate that pregnancy for THEIR sakes and the sakes of their BORN children. That is their decision to make. Not yours. Not mine.

This completely missed my point, but okay. Living conditions effect abortion rates. The better the living conditions, the lower the abortion rates. Poor minorities are the ones having the most abortions. This isn't because poor minorities are stupid and don't understand that a fetus is a developing human being growing inside of them. This is because they are not giving proper sexual education. THEN they are not given contraception (here's some trivia for you... for a woman to get birth control she has to go get an exam from the GYN. This visit alone (without insurance.. which many poor people don't have) can cost upwards of $250 depending on what you get done. Without insurance, birth control pills (for example) can cost you over $30 a month.) and THEN they are taught lies about birth control methods.

Change all of that and you will see a drop in abortion like we have now.

Or rather to break a cycle of poverty.

Here's the thing. People have sex. Society needs to accept that. It has been shown that no matter what you do.... people are still going to have sex. So instead of fighting the symptoms of the disease... you need to fight the cause. The cause of high abortion rates is lack of correct education AND lack of available contraception AND lack of dispelling of myths surrounding sex, reproduction, and birth control.

Societies that can stop bitching about the symptoms and start remedying the causes see results. Abstinence-only does not work. Banning legal abortion does not work. Pretending like people don't have sex does not work. What we have been doing DOES work. We are at our lowest abortion rates since 1976 and dropping.

Well, we won't get into drug addiction here, but it is something that also needs proper education instead of the "Just Say No" and bullshit "War on Drugs". That doesn't work. Obviously.

Anyway, using loading language like "kill their children" really does no good. A woman with five kids and post partum depression who drowns them all in a bathtub has killed her children. A woman who has taken RU-486 to induce miscarriage has not killed her child. She has terminated her pregnancy and stopped the developing fetus from continuing to develop.

And as I already attempted to explain, this is one of those things that can be remedied properly. You will never, ever get rid of abortion completely. It has been there since women have been able to get pregnant. However, you can reduce the rates. Some laws work. Some laws don't. Putting laws up against abortion has already proven to not work. All you do with that law is force people to go into hiding about it and cause people to suffer. The abortion rates do not drop. You do nothing to help your society.

Seriously. "Slaughter"? That's a good one. There is plenty of logic behind abortion for a number of people. All I can say is luckily the law is not going to change because there are many, many, many people who have been effected by abortion and it's availability; whether it be a woman who has gotten one, a father whose daughter has gotten one, a brother whose sister has gotten one... and they do NOT want to see their loved ones prosecuted for something that the loved one believed to be a necessary decision. People close to others who have had abortions generally do not want there to be a punishment. And are happy that the alternative, an unsterilized hack-job in some basement "clinic" or a self-done abortion, was not what their loved one had in store for them.

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Locke9-05

It's their decision to make to become pregnant. Once that natural cycle has been initiated by their mutual decision, they've made the choice--by nature's standards for Christ's sake... The natural process of reproduction is not to be interrupted simply because two people who made a choice knowing full well what could and in all probability would happen decide they'd rather kill the human being they created than follow through--allow nature to take its course--and do the humane, moral, and responsible thing. No, that's not their choice. They already made the choice to bear a child--scientifically, naturally, morally, etc. (by any and all logical standards). The child has been conceived, and by the same standards, that child is a human being. They made their choice. Their choice does not include murder for selfish reasons. That's not an "extra" little choice that they get as part of the whole deal.
Not really. Your point slightly contradicts another of your points. Poor people aren't given proper "sexual education?" You mean to tell me that poor people don't understand that if they have sex they very well could and in all probability will get pregnant? In this issue, that's really all there is to it. That's the extent of the "sexual education" one needs to understand this issue. There's more than one method of birth control out there--"the pill" isn't the only way. Also, if a woman really doesn't want children, she has a choice to make, doesn't she? Sex is for what? Reproduction. That's its sole purpose. It really doesn't matter what anyone else might make it out to be. Sex is for continuation of the human species. So if that woman really doesn't want children, what's the most effective method of birth control, do you suppose? Abstinence. That's her choice. If she chooses against it and gets pregnant, she's made her choice. She's become pregnant and has now initiated the reproductive process--a natural process. It is not within any natural right of hers to end that process (as that process is inherently a natural process anyway) and she made the choice that led to it. The choice she must now make is what to do with the child when it is born. Tearing away its life is unnatural and hideous--especially for such selfish, hypocritical reasons. It's idiocy.

Yeah, people have sex. What is sex for--like I said? It's for reproduction. If they make sex into a game, then they're spitting at a natural process and saying "consequences be damned." Too bad for them. They do not get to then tear apart the integrity of a natural process and murder a newly created human being because they were too selfish and stupid to understand and realize that. That does not make sense. It seems as if that argument of yours is based on the idea that society needs to somehow solve this problem by looking to the cause of it. The cause of this problem is the selfish, stupid mindset of people who would rather kill a human life than take responsibility for it... Yes, people have sex... Yes, people will continue to do stupid irresponsible things. No, society can't stop them. No, society doesn't want to stop them. What society should recognize is that killing a human being for selfish reasons is completely wrong. Lack of contraception, the myths, and all the things you mentioned are not the problem behind abortion. Contraception isn't foolproof. People don't always want to use it anyway. When they don't, the reproductive cycle kicks in and they think killing the human being that results in an acceptable option... No... It's not. They made the choice they had to make. The natural cycle if broken in such a negative terrible way is nothing but exactly that--negative and terrible...
Abstinence only does work if people were intelligent enough to understand the choice they have to make. Then the people who would want to reproduce (have children) would have sex and those who wouldn't would not. Our culture has turned sex into a game and they won't accept responsibility when the realization that the "game" results in the life of a new human being. Oh no, they'd much rather kill it... How rational. The logical option is adoption. Other alternatives besides murder.
Sure it does, it's no different from abstinence. It's a wonderful thing called constitution. Humans are supposed to have it. Hmmm... I wonder where it all went? I "just said no." I didn't have irresponsible sex. Why the hell can't anyone else seem to do it? The answer is there are plenty of people who can and do. Those at the center of this debate, however are those who can't and don't--and they take it even further by killing the human beings they create.
The studies I've posted show that a fetus is neurologically no different from an infant. A fetus has the human support systems--a beating heart, a brain, spinal cord, etc. A fetus even has rights. A fetus is a human being, it is one of the earliest stages of life, yes... She is killing the human being at a stage nearly identical in every way to an infant. It's really no different. It's for selfish reasons, and she's interrupted the natural process that she chose to initiate. It's unreasonable and illogical by just about every standard.
No laws "work" perfectly. We're back to this again? People break laws--probably all of them at different points in time. What happens when they do? They're punished. That's the point of laws. People have stolen since property became an issue, people have murdered since the beginning of humankind, people have violated speed limits and traffic laws since they've been in existence... People break laws. Laws cannot prevent people from doing the stupid, immoral, and illogical things that they're going to do. The law can only punish them when they do it and hope that other idiots get the picture and are discouraged from doing the same immoral, illogical and stupid things. If people have back alley abortions, that's their issue. If they're that determined to kill a human being that they chose to create by the natural process of reproduction in the first place then they don't really deserve my sympathy. The fetus deserves more sympathy as it will never have the chance that nature was supposed to give it--the mother ripped that chance and its life away from it.
Slaughter - Definitions from Dictionary.com

The Verb definitions are:
Two definitions match up with the context, yes. Abortion is slaughter. Great numbers of human lives are killed; generally in a brutal and--at the very least--unnatural manner.
There is nothing "necessary" about destroying a natural process because of foolish irresponsible selfishness... There is nothing "necessary" about a woman deciding to kill a human being that she chose to create by that natural process of reproduction in the first place. That's a huge fallacy. The only situation in which it might be "necessary" would be if the mother's life was actually in danger because of the pregnancy. Then the abortion would have the purpose of saving a life, rather than just ending one for completely selfish irresponsible reasons. Like I said, if people are that determined to go to "back alley" abortionists so that they can kill the human being they chose to create by a natural process in the first place, they do not deserve sympathy. They do not deserve respect. It's an immoral thing to do--it destroys the integrity of the natural process of reproduction and it destroys a human life as well. It's appalling.

__________________
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
-John F. Kennedy

"Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him."
-John Locke

"What worries you, masters you."
-John Locke
___________________

ninatroup

I cannot see the benefits of making abortion illegal. Take 1970's France - abortion was banned, yet all that happened was it pushed underground and thousands of illegal abortions took place, often with serious consequences. How is that benefitting anybody?

Everybody should have the right to a sterile, safe abortion. I personally don't agree with it, but I do believe that everybody should have the right to an abortion if that's the decision that they want to make. Banning abortion isn't going to change the fact that it will still happen. No matter what the government tries to do, there are always ways around the law if you want there to be.

Locke9-05

It's benefiting only if the women are reasonable and rational enough to understand that killing a human being isn't the logical or natural option. It's up to them--the law can't do anything to solve this problem either way, but what the law can and should do is punish people for killing human beings for selfish reasons... That's logic--straight up. If women are determined enough to commit unjustified (or selfishly justified) back-alley killings, then they are clearly not rational in their thinking. They chose to have the child, once they made the choice to initiate the reproductive process, nature intends that the human being created as a result be born so that it may grow and develop and be given a fair chance at life. That's what society should protect--that's what society did at one time protect because of reasonable thought and that's what society now is failing to protect because of the selfish desires of irrational people that results in nothing but death.
Like the above point, this argument has been addressed numerous times throughout this topic. Laws aren't supposed to "solve" problems. People will always do stupid immoral things in general--that includes things besides abortion that are harmful, immoral and logical. Some people will always steal even though it's illegal, some people will always be reckless and do things like driving while intoxicated even though it's illegal, some people will always kill even though it's illegal. The law can't prevent humans from making the stupid and irrational choice that they do. So the law instead must punish those who make selfish, irresponsible, harmful/immoral choices. That's what this is about. Will making abortion illegal solve the problem? Obviously not. The question of this topic is a paradox because making anything legal or illegal won't solve anything... Laws aren't designed to solve problems, they're designed as authoritative measures--consequences implemented against irresponsible, immoral and harmful behavior. Abortion is nothing but--by scientific, natural, and any other logical standard.

__________________
"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
-John F. Kennedy

"Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him."
-John Locke

"What worries you, masters you."
-John Locke
___________________

Izzibeth

To put it simply, you have a choice to have sex. Your choices do not end once you get pregnant. Sorry. Pregnancy is not a permanent or required state.

How am I making a contradiction?? Living conditions effect abortion and STI transmission rates. The better your living conditions (this includes the access to proper education) the lower those rates will be. Where is the contradiction in that?

Reality check.

I suggest you read the entire article.
You have got to be kidding me if you think that "sex = pregnancy" is the only thing that people need to know. You have GOT to be kidding me. Seriously, I don't even know if I can continue this discussion after that line. This is the reality. Reality is not "All you need to know is sex = pregnancy". That fifteen year old girl didn't make up the stuff she was telling the sex educator... she was TOLD that.. by someone else who was TOLD that... by someone else who was TOLD that... Proper sex education is KEY. And it does not begin and end with "Don't have sex cuz... you'll get pregnant."

Actually, as I have mentioned previously, there is substantial research to show that sex amongst some social animals is not purely for reproduction and can be very important when it comes to social interaction (i.e. dolphins, Bonobos, etc.). We are not the only creatures that have sex for pleasure/social reasons as well as reproduction.