Woman's right to choose...

[MO]

I bet you were certain your wife would not give birth to a fish!
I didn't say anything about the fish embryo comment, because I thought it was too crass and callus to be serious!

I suppose having salmon for dinner is the moral equivalent of cannibalism! And eating caviar at a party is the moral equivalent of aborting your child!

I guess that's where moral relativity and 30 years of Roe v Wade has taken us!

[Peanut]

Horace, thrilled, you were GOING TO HAVE a child, or thrilled that the hard part was over and now all you had to do was wait? Again i'm not saying i know you, cuz i dont, but i find it hard to believe someone would be THAT happy for a fetus. Makes more sense that you would be that happy for your son/daughter.

[Foamy Dog]

Horace:

All right smart ass, what would you have me look up??

--FD

[Horace]

FD:

"Baby'', "foetus" and "zygote".

Two cells do not a baby make.

All I ask is that people not use words in an emotive way when discussing a serious issue.

Mo:

I really don't know what to say about the salmon comment except that it seems to miss the point.

Peanut:

The "hard part"? Is that a risque comment?

Seriously, you know as well as I do that when someone is pregnant they say they are GOING TO HAVE a baby. They don't say that they HAVE a baby.

[Foamy Dog]

No problem, believe it or not I know the definitions of these words but to humor you I looked them up.

Baby: (as with many words the definition of this one is very subjective)1. an infant or very young child. 2. a newborn or very young child. --and there are several others that don't apply here such as calling your sweetheart "baby"

Here I see that you opt to take #2; I opt for #1 as I see it, what is growing in the womb is an infant or very young child.

Fetus or foetus: the young of the animal in the womb or egg esp. in the later stages of development in humans being after the second month of gestation. young still being in the womb.

Here the dictionary lets us know that this is subjective as well and says "esp. after the second month" but doesn't tell us that it is not before.

zygote: the cell produced by the union of two gametes, before it undergoes cleavage.

Yes, the zygote is one cell, but once cleavage has taken place, growth has begun and in my opinion, this is when it's a baby.

--FD

[Horace]

See my comments in the "ABORTION" thread.

[Ube]

“The problem for you is that two separate cells ARE "one potential life" in any meaingful sense of the phrase. They contain all of the DNA etc. necessary for life to form.

Why is it OK to kill them a moment before conception but not a moment after? It is all very well to say that conception "is the only time that is NOT arbitrary". Why not? Explain it to me.”<br>
To use a somewhat abstract analogy, you cannot condemn a person for a crime which he or she has yet to commit, just as you cannot consider something to be living before it has began life. But it is obvious that this needs to be expanded on...

It is true that separate gametes contain all the genetic information required for the DNA of a living human being but I would not call them “one potential life”. If you look at water (H20), it is made up of hydrogen and oxygen. However, it is not these separate components that makes water but the mechanism by which these atoms interact. The same can be said about life. Sexual recombination is a complex mechanism in which crossing over of homologous chromosomes occurs and is greatly responsible for the sequence of our DNA. This occurs at and ONLY at conception. This is where life begins.

A zygote and your big toe have all the same DNA. Cut off your toe, it still has all the same DNA as the rest of your body but all you’re left with a mound of cold flesh. Cut a zygote in two when it begins to cleavage, both parts have the same DNA but what you’re left with is two living beings. They call them identical twins.

[Peanut]

Let's see if we can bring this back to the topic at hand, is abortion solely a woman's right? She does afterall carry the unborn child (can we argree on THIS term to acknowledge what exactly the woman is carrying?) for 9 months, and i as a man will never experience what she is going through. Hormonal change, bio-chemical reactions, PAIN, possible complications, the whole nine yards. So i am at a disadvantage, i cannot nor will i ever be able to tell from experience, what it's like to carrying a child, or bring it into this world. Also, it does take away the sacredness of a mother/child bond when the mother is told "YOU MUST CARRY THIS CHILD" because the child is in effect, being reduced to someTHING and not someONE - how ironic. But i must bring out one good point, it does take TWO people both a man and a woman to bring a child into this world. Granted the man clearly has only about 10 percent of the involvement in literally CREATING the child, but again, dividing the "work" involved, cheapens the beautiful act of union between man and woman, when creating life. (yeah i know i sound like a hippy but bare with me).
Before we even contemplate about the unborn child, the mother and the father, we need to ask, is abortion in fact a "right"? Me personally, i dont think so, i like to think of it as a necessary evil that is SOMETIMES needed in society. I will never see the day when abortion will be made illegal, and i guess in some retrospect that is a good thing, but i wish more laws were around why a woman should be allowed to have one. There are some absolutes involved, if the pregnancy is an ectopic one(where the unborn child begins to develop in the fallopian tubes, rather then the uterus) this will almost always result in death of both mother and child. In this case, unfortunately, an abortion must be done, we aren't put on this earth to die, afterall. Rape or incest, i personally believe is not a good enuff excuse, but then again, if my daugther or sister were to come to me in the future and say they were raped and are now pregnant, i would prolly be the first to drive them to the clinic. Its very easy to say, how much of a "sin" abortion is, or how wrong it is, and i'm sure it's very easy to hold up that sign and protest outside a clinic, but unles you haven't lived it, you cannot talk about it in depth. I would admire my sister or daugther for giving birth to their child (i dont believe a child should suffer for hte sins of its father) but i would never expect them to raise it. On the other hand, i would never look down on them, if they felt an abortion, in that circumstance, was what would be needed. The father has lost all rights to his child in that (perverted) instance.
Now we come down to the topic of whether or not the mother can raise the child (most likely alone) or not, and would death be a better route for this child. I personally believe, that death is never the answer, raising a child is never easy, and it onyl seems worse, after you've given up and before you've given birth. Adoption, is a great option, but we are living in a society that is telling people, "if it's hard, it shouldn't be done" unfortunately, this harsh lesson is passing into, the most natural of things, giving birth, or lack of it. (sorry for the typos)

[Foamy Dog]

Thank you Peanut for bringing this topic back into focus.

"I personally believe, that death is never the answer, raising a child is never easy, and it onyl seems worse, after you've given up and before you've given birth. Adoption, is a great option, but we are living in a society that is telling people, "if it's hard, it shouldn't be done" unfortunately, this harsh lesson is passing into, the most natural of things, giving birth, or lack of it. "

You really hit the nail on the head with this statement.

The only thing I have to add is one of my original points on abortion. If folks don't want to have a child, folks need to use birth control. It's free at the local health department. In other words, if people would be more responsible, this discussion wouln't be needed.

--FD

[Peanut]

But i think birth control needs to be regulated, i mean, if your an adult, off to have sex, then fine, have condoms free in certain clinics, or seel the birth control pill nice and cheap. But if we make birth control products we will have teenagers too damn eager to have sex. And also, sex to me, is something that should be beautiful, an expression of love, not lust, what message are we handing out (along with free condoms) to the teenagers out there? It's VERY hard to keep that message away from teenagers, when they are the target of se every time they put on the tv, or listen to music(damn i sound like an old fart! and i'm only 19!)

[Foamy Dog]

Great points.

Teenagers are (and I suppose have always been) too eager to have sex.

I agree that providing them with birth control makes it too inviteing. The problem is, if they can't get birth control, will that stop them?

So how do we stop them? The answer is pretty clear, but not an easy one. Parents. Sure it's inconvenient for the parents to put forth the effort and not too great for the teenagers either. It's also not 100% effective.

But that has always been the answer.
(I know, I'm sounding like an even older fart!)

--FD

[Peanut]

Well maybe i wanna re-tract myprvious statement a lil. I mean sex is for lack of a better word (and i know we have problems agreeing with what it in fact means) natural and unless my friends have lied to me, it feels good (still a virgin). So looking further into the future and hoping that i would have children of my own, i would have no problem with my OLDER teenagers having sex, just make sure it's protected, but if my 14 year old daugther or son came to me, saying they want to, then clearly that's not acceptable, i want them growing up, knowing that sex is a way of love, not lust.

[Foamy Dog]

Sound logical enough to me. ;D

--FD

[Ube]

Finally something we can agree on

[Foamy Dog]

Indeed, always glad to find common ground.

BTW--great post in the Abortion topic as well ;D

--FD