Fat Boy Kyle said
Without giving another massive answer, and without listing tonnes of conditions: Physical issues would obviously include ones where there is a moderate chance that the mother and/or child might die. I would include this to the point where there is also severe handicapping (e.g. one or both becoming handicapped). Something that's treatable or manageable (e.g. a loss of an arm, etc.) should not constitute an abortion. Psychological issues would include where due to genetics (etc.) there is a moderate chance of the child developing a severe issue. I do not know much about this though, so my opinion is limited - if what I just said is bullshit then by all means point it out. Moreover, where there is a chance due to the circumstances surrounding the birth and possible upbringing (e.g. like in the Fritzle case) that the child or mother may suffer further psychological trauma; if from a young age you found out that your father was your rapist grandfather, you might become pretty fucked up. By mental issues I mean the more severe ones, such as (in the most extreme case, and please forgive my wording,) vegetation. However things like autism I do not believe should constitute abortion in the majority of cases.

Fair enough.

The way I see it, an abortion is appropriate if it's a medical/life danger to the mother.

But to argue a child should be aborted because whatever physical and mental illness they have can make life harder for them makes as much sense as the "Should abort them cause they may not be adopted" argument. It's also almost impossible to predict before birth if a child will be suffer mass mental damage like you ended off describing.
Also, arguing mother mental damage simply opens the door for all abortion claims to be approved cause of the mental damage of having said abortion denied to the mother, therefore body violation.

I really hate the gray nature of this topic?
Pro-Choice and it means you're allowing children's lives to end before they even have a chance at life.
Pro-Life and it means mothers are losing some of their bodily rights.

Magic Magnum said
Fair enough.The way I see it, an abortion is appropriate if it's a medical/life danger to the mother.But to argue a child should be aborted because whatever physical and mental illness they have can make life harder for them makes as much sense as the "Should abort them cause they may not be adopted" argument. It's also almost impossible to predict before birth if a child will be suffer mass mental damage like you ended off describing.Also, arguing mother mental damage simply opens the door for all abortion claims to be approved cause of the mental damage of having said abortion denied to the mother, therefore body violation.I really hate the gray nature of this topic?Pro-Choice and it means you're allowing children's lives to end before they even have a chance at life.Pro-Life and it means mothers are losing some of their bodily rights.

The main point of mine really was the life/death part. The other issues to me aren't strong reasons, and in many cases (like the mental example) I only meant it in cases where there are a combination of factors. And I agree, I don't think in many cases you can predict some problems before birth (especially within the early stages where abortions are typically conducted); that's why I used the terms 'moderate chance' and 'severity'. But like I said in the earlier post, I'm an advocate of welfare and social schemes to help parents and children.

Fat Boy Kyle said
The main point of mine really was the life/death part. The other issues to me aren't strong reasons, and in many cases (like the mental example) I only meant it in cases where there are a combination of factors. And I agree, I don't think in many cases you can predict some problems before birth (especially within the early stages where abortions are typically conducted); that's why I used the terms 'moderate chance' and 'severity'. But like I said in the earlier post, I'm an advocate of welfare and social schemes to help parents and children.

We seem to be agreed almost fully on the topic then.

My views are rather strong, so I'm going to use 'stronger words', but please hear me out:

I have a strong legal stance against abortion. I do not see it as being like say, pornography or adultery, but rather a crime against a human person, and not something a just society can simply tolerate. It's not quite as severe as the ancient Greek practice of killing unwanted infants, but it skirts much too close, I think, than what should be allowed. Now, there are some arguments presented by the pro-choice crowd that I feel need to be addressed:

1. Q: What if she can't afford the baby?
A: Put it up for adoption. Sure, it might not be an ideal start for the child, but some chance is better than none.

2. Q: Pregnancy is hard on a woman's body!
A: Abortion is harder on a child's body. For that matter, Abortion is also hard on a woman's body, but that's not really the point.

3. Q: What if the baby has a birth defect?
A: Is it really fair to terminate a human life over a birth defect?

4. Q: What about rape?
A: This is kind of a hard one, as getting impregnated by rape adds insult to injury. Unfortunately, I do not think that abortion is the answer. It's not the child's fault he or she was conceived by rape, and is no less a valuable human being for it.

5. Q: What if the mother's life is threatened by the baby?
A: Alright, I do concede here. While killing a child to save its mother is...questionable, it's not exactly cold-blooded murder...especially if the child is going to die either way.

As for my plans on how to deal with abortion, I believe these steps should be taken:

1. Remove any legal restrictions separating people from contraceptives. Some organizations will get angry at me for saying this, I don't think they have their priorities straight.

2. Have pro-life agencies (carefully) picket abortion clinics and offer women resources and alternatives to abortions.

3. Once society gets to the right place, begin placing certain restrictions on abortion, such as a 20-week limit, with certain exceptions (such as rape, birth defects, ect) to make them more palatable.

4. Once we've opened that door, and abortionists have began seeking other jobs, and there's a certain abundance of resources that render abortion less 'necessary', begin to chip away at the exceptions or the time limit. Slowly turn this into a complete ban.

5. If this is done correctly, underground abortion clinics will be a manageable threat. Send the coppers after them, reducing their numbers even further.

6. Invent methods to transplate, store, and artificially incubate fetuses, rendering abortion obsolete anyways.

I'm pro-choice. I don't care if your morals go against it. If you try to force your beliefs in a way that would require women to relinquish control of THEIR OWN BODY to satisfy your own wants, that is despicable. Pregnancy is incredibly taxing on a woman's body, and to REQUIRE her to bear a child she doesn't want, and then make her go through an incredibly painful experience is just plain wrong and nasty.

It isn't your body, why should you care?

Zaresto said
I'm pro-choice. I don't care if your morals go against it. If you try to force your beliefs in a way that would require women to relinquish control of THEIR OWN BODY to satisfy your own wants, that is despicable. Pregnancy is incredibly taxing on a woman's body, and to REQUIRE her to bear a child she doesn't want, and then make her go through an incredibly painful experience is just plain wrong and nasty. It isn't your body, why should you care?

I offer you this:
Isn't an abortion forcing your will on someone else's body to satisfy your needs?

Protagonist said
I offer you this:
Isn't an abortion forcing your will on someone else's body to satisfy your needs?

Buddy, there's a big difference between controlling another fully developed individual and controlling an under-developed, essentially parasitic organism whose development is already controlled by you.

I get it if you yourself don't want an abortion, but don't try to subjugate other people.

Here's my odd stance.

Personally? I wouldn't want an abortion because I'm a fucking idiot, maybe more likely in a rape case, but I don't have that experience nor do I know anyone who has. Not my cup of tea. But pro-lifers I feel need to learn what the definition of pro-choice is (at least, to me): pregnant women should have the choice on whether or not they want an abortion, no matter the circumstance. They can make the choice to not have an abortion, especially if they do think it's a life. You still get that choice, you made that choice. Good for you. America was built on freedom, and therefore we should have the freedom to make our own choices without government intervention and telling me what I can and can't do with my body. I also don't want other Americans telling me what I can and can't do with my body. There was a law that went into effect today in Michigan, the rape insurance law, that was pushed through by a group of religious zealots who couldn't get the law through in the normal system, so they went through the legal loopholes. The entirety of Michigan now has to pay to have abortion covered in their insurance plan, even if it's cases like rape or incest or woman's health, because a group that represents about 4% of the population forced their beliefs on them. That's not fair to anyone.

Also, I agree with Jorick on the brain thing. Once I feel like this is not some little cell sitting in my womb, I can feel movement, hear a heartbeat, know it's a baby is when I won't do it. I would agree to a cap on what week you can do it by. I don't know much about pregnancy, so I'm not the right person to ask when that should be.

Rose Hathaway said
But pro-lifers I feel need to learn what the definition of pro-choice is (at least, to me): pregnant women should have the choice on whether or not they want an abortion, no matter the circumstance.

I think that really is the definitive point. Not all Pro-Lifers want absolutely no abortion, some just want a little restriction (ie. Stopping an abortion simply because a couple forgot to wear a condom and doesn't want a baby yet). There are a lot of grey areas around the topic in general, but complete choice is something that you either agree with or you don't. In an ideal world, everyone would have complete choice but no-one would choose to have an abortion (circumstances permitting). Personally, as I said before I simply believe there are much better alternatives. The question I would like to ask someone considering abortion (although I never would because of how inappropriate it would be) is: Do you want an abortion because you don't want the baby to live or because you don't want to go through the pain? I know its a very aggressive and upsetting question, but I think it is interesting.

Zaresto said
Buddy, there's a big difference between controlling another fully developed individual and controlling an under-developed, essentially parasitic organism whose development is already controlled by you.I get it if you yourself don't want an abortion, but don't try to subjugate other people.

This is the part of the 'debate' that I despise. The word games. Look, if the only way you can make sense of things is to call it a 'parasite,' or to call it 'subjugation,' you're not really giving yourself a fair shake.

Fat Boy Kyle said
The question I would like to ask someone considering abortion (although I never would because of how inappropriate it would be) is: Do you want an abortion because you don't want the baby to live or because you don't want to go through the pain? I know its a very aggressive and upsetting question, but I think it is interesting.

Could be a combination of both. It depends on the circumstance and the mindset of a woman at the time. A lot of this is case by case because we're all special snowflakes.

mdk said
This is the part of the 'debate' that I despise. The word games. Look, if the only way you can make sense of things is to call it a 'parasite,' or to call it 'subjugation,' you're not really giving yourself a fair shake.

I have to agree.

Pro-Life people are far from innocent with the abortion clinic bombings, contraceptive banning and all that.
(Thankfully me and others as this thread has shown are not doing those things).

But the Pro-Choice also has faults in that often I've them have to resort to demeaning the child inside, or anyone of an opposing view.

With arguments such as
-"The child is just a parasite"
-"You are sexist if you are against abortion"
-"You are against freedom if you are against abortion" <--- Will get back to this one

Both side's have fault's, so when this topic is debated let's debate it like civil adults and not resort to attacks, generalizations or name calling.

---

As for the "Against a mothers freedom to choose" argument I've seen above. Technically yes, it is.
But we have other laws also against some freedoms.

It's illegal to kill, rape, steal etc.
We do not give people the free will do these acts cause we as a society deemed it immoral and harmful to society.
I am not defending people who commit these crimes at all.

But in a case of murder, theft, rape no matter how you handle it, 100% of the time someone is losing their freewill.
Just that it can be either the victim, or the person committing it. We as society have chosen to take the freewill away from who wants to commit the crime.

When it comes to pro-life or pro-choice there isn't an exception either.
There will clearly be the removal of free-will from one side or the other, that will never change until we find the means to grow a newly developed fetus at the moment of conception outside of the womb.

Until we reach the scientific point, we either must remove the freewill from the mother or the child, but one of the two will lose their freewill in this area in the end.

mdk said
This is the part of the 'debate' that I despise. The word games. Look, if the only way you can make sense of things is to call it a 'parasite,' or to call it 'subjugation,' you're not really giving yourself a fair shake.

Calling an embryo or fetus a parasite is a crude and simple way of outlining the truth of matters: before the ~20 week marker (the earliest premature birth that has survived so far was at about 21 weeks), a fetus is not an independent organism, it is a parasitic organism that depends upon its host to survive. It's not the only way to make sense of things, it's the quickest way of getting to the point, albeit an unpleasant one that puts pro-life people's backs up, thus one better avoided if you're intending to have a civil discussion on the matter. This is especially true on the internet, where it would take at most an extra minute to type out a less inflammatory post.

It is rather easy to make the pro-choice argument without these word games, and I find most of them just as distasteful as you. I prefer to make the case on logic rather than trying to dehumanize and demean the opposition, but alas, not everyone holds to such standards.

---

Magic Magnum said As for the "Against a mothers freedom to choose" argument I've seen above. Technically yes, it is.
But we have other laws also against some freedoms.

It's illegal to kill, rape, steal etc.
We do not give people the free will do these acts cause we as a society deemed it immoral and harmful to society.
I am not defending people who commit these crimes at all.

But in a case of murder, theft, rape no matter how you handle it, 100% of the time someone is losing their freewill.
Just that it can be either the victim, or the person committing it. We as society have chosen to take the freewill away from who wants to commit the crime.

When it comes to pro-life or pro-choice there isn't an exception either.
There will clearly be the removal of free-will from one side or the other, that will never change until we find the means to grow a newly developed fetus at the moment of conception outside of the womb.

Until we reach the scientific point, we either must remove the freewill from the mother or the child, but one of the two will lose their freewill in this area in the end.

Except the pro-choice argument is that the woman is the only one that actually possesses free will and rights in the matter, since a fetus (much less an embryo) isn't actually a living human until it gets to the point of actually being viable life outside of the womb, at which point most pro-choice people agree that it's too late for abortion unless there's a great risk to the mother's life. A fetus in the formative stages before becoming viable human life deserves rights no more or less than a sperm or an egg, as neither of those are actual human life yet either. It's not just about a woman's right to choose (among other rights which I shall outline in a bit), it's also an argument about an inherent lack of rights of the other party.

But let us say that life starts at conception, or after the first couple months when a fetus starts to be recognizable as a thing on its way to becoming a full grown human, just for the sake of argument. Then we would have to look to other cases to see what rights (btw, free will is a related but separate philosophical concept, rights are what you're talking about and what actually matter in this conversation) are like when it comes to one person's right to life versus another person's rights. When it comes to full grown adults, if person 1 is in desperate need of something, let's say a kidney transplant, and person 2 is a perfect match and there's no time to try to find another, person 2 has the right to say no and legally trump person 1's right to life with their own rights. Let's say it's something less drastic, just a blood transfusion, but person 1 will still die without it and there's no time to find another match; even then, person 2's right to bodily autonomy trumps person 1's right to life if they don't want to give that blood. Let's go even further out, nothing to do with bodily autonomy. Say this time person 1 is going to die if they don't get money for some medicine they need and cannot afford, then they go to person 2 who is rather well off and has money to spare and they beg for person 2 to give them money to keep them alive; once again, person 2 can say no and it's all well and good, their right to do with their property as they will has trumped person 1's right to life. Change it to food, say person 1 is starving to death and they see person 2 walking down the street with a bag full of groceries, person 2 can refuse to give starving person 1 any food, again trumping the right to life with property rights. Say person 1 is drowning and person 2 can swim, person 2 has no obligation to go and save person 1 if they do not want to, and this time it's person 2's rights to safety and freedom to choose their own actions that have trumped person 1's right to life.

I could have stopped just with those bodily autonomy rights trumping another person's right to life, but look how much farther you can take it. A person's right to live only goes so far as it does not infringe upon the rights of others. It is in fact one of the lesser rights, as fucked up as that may be, since so many of the other ones stomp all over it. Seriously, property is more important than ensuring another person continues to live so far as rights are concerned. The only time a person's right to life is upheld is in cases of murder, which in this context can be seen as ending someone's life when they are not infringing upon your own rights. Self defense as a valid legal defense is saying that once your own rights to safety and life are endangered by another person, you are now legally allowed to supersede that other person's right to life by killing them to defend your own rights. Your right to life ends where other people's rights begin, as can be demonstrated and confirmed in any number of ways.

Apply all of this to pregnancy. Pregnancies that threaten the life of the woman are threatening her right to life and safety, thus termination is completely justified. All pregnancies of any kind infringe upon a woman's right to bodily autonomy, to doing as she will with her property (related to bodily autonomy, your body is your property), to safety (pregnancy and giving birth are risky even with modern medicine), and they infringe upon a woman's right to freedom of choosing her own actions. You can look at it either as the woman having no obligation to continue another person's life because it infringes upon her rights, or you can see it as her defending her rights by killing the person infringing upon them. Either way, so far as rights are concerned, no matter how you look at it, the woman's rights trump the unborn child's right to life even if you say life begins at conception. This is simply how rights work.

Oh, by the way, those crimes you listed can help to outline the whole rights thing even further. Murder is illegal because it infringes upon another person's right to life (without just cause such as your own rights being threatened or infringed upon). Theft is illegal because it infringes upon another person's right to property. Rape is illegal because it infringes upon another person's rights to bodily autonomy and freedom of choice. In general, crime is just people infringing upon the rights of others. It's all about rights, the whole legal system and large segments of how society works is built on rights and how they work, and it wouldn't be incorrect to say that a general summary of how rights work is that your rights end where they begin to tread on the rights of others, to expand on the similar statement I used a couple times earlier. The one who wins a legal case is almost always the one whose rights were infringed upon first, with some wiggle room for severity of the infringement from either party. In the case of pregnancy the woman's rights are infringed upon by the very fact that their womb is occupied, which means their rights are assaulted first, and given the wide array of rights that trump right to life that are being infringed upon by a pregnancy...

Abortion is a no contest issue in favor of women being allowed to do as they wish if you look at it in the context of rights. I had a bit of a rant here about why I dislike those trying to push their pro-life opinions as law, but I reread my response to mdk's post and decided to take my own advice about not being inflammatory. To put it simply and in less strongly opinionated terms, allowing others to choose to do as they will with their life in this matter does no harm to any of the people arguing pro-life. I would like to see this issue, and some other controversial ones, be solved very simply: make your own choices for your life, let others make their own choices for their life, so long as they aren't actually harming you or infringing upon your rights you shouldn't care what other people do. Life would be so much simpler if people could keep their noses out of other people's business and stop trying to force their personal choices on others through law.

I must disagree, it's not a crime without criminal intent. A fetus didn't choose to be formed inside of someone who didn't want them. It has no agency to choose its mother and what it does to it. So, it's not the fetus that's committing any crime other than simply existing. You're not really asking a women to go out of her way for the infant, you're simply asking her to not endanger someone else's life.

Also, keep in mind that the current legal system does require parents to give up a certain amount of autonomy for their children. Child neglect is a crime, after all.

On the topic of whether or not the unborn are people, defining them as 'parasites' is not entirely inaccurate if you use the term loosely enough (they are organisms that live inside another organism). However, dependency doesn't define life. Born infants are still dependent on their parent's for survival, but are still considered to be people. For that matter, a premature infant is nearly identical to an unborn fetus.

Protagonist said I must disagree, it's not a crime without criminal intent. A fetus didn't choose to be formed inside of someone who didn't want them. It has no agency to choose its mother and what it does to it. So, it's not the fetus that's committing any crime other than simply existing. You're not really asking a women to go out of her way for the infant, you're simply asking her to not endanger someone else's life.

Also, keep in mind that the current legal system does require parents to give up a certain amount of autonomy for their children. Child neglect is a crime, after all.

I wasn't saying a crime is being committed by a fetus existing, I was using the crime examples to broaden the point to real examples of how the legal system currently works and then showed how that same logic would work if applied to this situation. Extrapolating the logic of rights in regards to crimes is not the same as calling fetuses criminals. However, I'm now imagining a baby being born wearing something like this and now I'm highly amused, so thanks for that.

Actually, yes, you are asking a woman to go out of her way for the thing growing inside her. Saying that someone isn't going out of their way, and thus not having their rights infringed upon, just because they don't have to actively do a specific task is foolish. Letting someone take your blood wouldn't require you to actively do anything, you'd just have to sit there and let someone else do the work and it wouldn't even be very taxing on your body, but you've still got the right to say no to that even at the cost of someone else's life. You could also make a similar but more extreme comparison by saying (disclaimer: I am not accusing you of thinking this, just using hyperbole) that rape doesn't really infringe on a woman's rights because she can just lay there and let it happen without having to actively do anything, so she's not going out of her way and it's all good. Telling a woman she has to do a certain thing with her body that she does not want to, no matter what it may be, is indeed infringing on her rights regardless of how passive or active following that command would be. Say there was a law passed today that said women cannot cut their hair any more. Even though they wouldn't have to go out of their way to follow this law, and in fact you could argue that this would reduce going out of the way in general by way of no longer needing to get haircuts, it would still infringe on their rights to do as they wish with their body. Rights is what this whole thing is about, and whether or not someone has to go out of their way to do a thing is largely irrelevant when it comes to rights.

By the way, calling a developing fetus an infant is awkward and incorrect as that's the term for the phase of life between birth and being able to walk. Once you get to the point of the term 'infant' actually applying you're quite a ways past things pertaining to abortion actually mattering for that child. Speaking of children, yes, parents have a special set of rights and restrictions applied to them come parenthood. Different categories of people have differing rights and restrictions, which can be seen throughout the life of a person in the United States. From birth through death they have the basic human rights that everyone else has, unless they commit crimes that we have deemed worthy of punishment by infringement of some of those rights; somewhere in ages 16-18 (depending on the state) they are granted the right to have consensual sex; at 18 they lose those childhood restrictions that come in the form of parental rights and acquire some new ones of their own, like the right to vote; when/if they become a parent they acquire those parental rights and restrictions and the cycle begins anew with their offspring. There are different stages and levels of rights applied to different people in different circumstances, and my argument is that one of those divisions is found in fetal development, specifically at that ~20 week old point where they actually have a chance to live outside the womb and their brain begins to actually work like a human brain (though it doesn't truly reach semi-functioning human brain status until ~24 weeks). My model of differing levels of rights would alter the above one I gave by setting conception to ~20 weeks through fetal development as a period of having no rights because they aren't yet a viable living thing, then from ~20 weeks through death they have all the basic human rights.

On the topic of whether or not the unborn are people, defining them as 'parasites' is not entirely inaccurate if you use the term loosely enough (they are organisms that live inside another organism). However, dependency doesn't define life. Born infants are still dependent on their parent's for survival, but are still considered to be people. For that matter, a premature infant is nearly identical to an unborn fetus.

If you want to talk definitions, defining all fetuses in any stage of development as parasites is 100% accurate based on the strict definition of the term: "an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense." They live in another organism and derive nutrients at the woman's expense. This is no stretching of the term, it fits exactly. The only difference between the parasitism of a fetus and a tapeworm is that the fetus will eventually develop past the point of needing the parasitic relationship to survive but a tapeworm will not. Just because fetuses are not permanent parasitic entities does not mean they are not parasites for as long as that phase of their development persists. You might as well argue that it's "not entirely inaccurate" to call newborns infants because they don't remain infants for their whole life. Anyway, parasite definition quibbling aside, time to move on to other things like quibbling about what defines a living thing.

There are different kinds of dependency, some of which do define life. All living things have some kind of dependence on their environment to provide for their basic needs to remain alive. Almost all mammals require assistance from their parents to make it past infancy. Fetuses past that ~20 week mark depend on their mother to live in the same way that fetuses before that point have this same dependency to continue existing. The whole abortion thing is not just a question of dependency, it's a question of rights and what constitutes a living organism.

Living organisms that are not humans do not have anywhere near the same level of rights as humans (you could argue they have some right to life maybe, but not much else), and things that are not even living organisms have no rights in and of themselves; these are basic logic things that should brook no argument. One of the core pieces of the biological definition of a living organism is that the thing must be self-sustaining, not as in it can provide for itself, rather this means that it is capable of maintaining the other criteria of life (including homeostasis, metabolism, growth, and reproduction) if it has sufficient nutrients. An embryo or a fetus removed from the womb before 20 weeks of development (and quite a while after that too if you rule out mechanical assistance to keep them alive, but let's assume that stuff is on the table) and given the necessary nutrients but no other support would still die because it requires the mother's womb support system to regulate a lot of those things that are needed to remain alive due to things like various not actually working or maybe not even existing yet. Embryos and fetuses before ~20 weeks are "alive" in the same way that a virus could be called alive by the technicality that they aren't inorganic or dead things, but they do not meet the criteria to be considered a living organism, thus they have no rights.

That's the kind of dependency that actually does define what is living or not from a biological point of view. You can argue it from other angles, but as far as biology and the definition of life is concerned it's pretty clear that things aren't actually counted as living organisms until they can actually survive as they are. This is sort of getting off topic, but a common counter to this idea tends to go like "what about people who need to be on a respirator or other machine to live? Are they not counted as living things because they can't survive without it?" Yup, that's exactly what it means. The difference there is that they passed that threshold to actually count as living organisms at some point, their living thing rights are not immediately revoked only because of social reasons, and their continued existence doesn't infringe upon all sorts of rights of another person (which is the main sticking point for the abortion thing). However, fun fact, if physicians say that someone in such a condition has no chance to recover and the person is incapable of making their own medical decisions (such as if they're comatose or in a vegetative state), it's perfectly legal for whoever has power of attorney over their medical decisions to decide to pull the plug and let them die. This isn't a perfect analogy to abortion, because given time a fetus will "recover" from its non-viable condition, but it works as an example for how in one circumstance it's legally and ethically okay to terminate the existence of a human thing that can't viably survive on its own. It's okay in this circumstance, so perhaps it's okay in another circumstance. I and other pro-choice people would argue that it is, though for rather different reasons because of the differing circumstances.

I kind of lost track of where I was going with that and I require sleep, so I'll just tl;dr it to reiterate key points. Before a certain stage of development a fetus isn't a viable life and thus fails to meet the criteria of what constitutes a living organism, things that aren't living organisms don't have rights, ergo abortion before that certain stage of development is legally totally fine because no rights are being violated. Even if you call it a living thing, see previous post about why the woman's rights utterly trump any rights possessed by the fetus.

Being in class atm, I can't really give a long response to Jorick's points now.

I could come back after and give a longer one if need be, but the overall idea/message of that long response can be wrapped up pretty quickly anyways.
So I'll just leave this short response and only expand on it if asked to.

TLDT: All of Jorick's points seem to be correct, logical and makes sense from a legal and rights standpoint.
It is precisely arguments like these that has caused me to halt and take another look at my stance on the topic of Abortion.

From a purely logical, legal and rational standpoint I have nothing to challenge the argument with.
My only possible arguments against it would be moral based and founded ones.

That would be isn't it flawed/misplaced in the first place that we as society value things such as property, effort and body rights above the lives of other human beings?
In cases such as organ donation, eating to live etc. I mean, considering everything we value, want and do depends on being alive why is being alive so low on the list of priorities?
This is a separate topic altogether mind you, but one which end decision directly influences people stances and the legal stance on Abortion.

-Note: Stuff like this is why I commonly take part in these debates.
Either I'm on the right track and can help others and/or expand my own knowledge.
Or can be exposed to far better argument's and points that I have, learn from them and change my stance and viewpoint accordingly.

Jorick said If you want to talk definitions, defining all fetuses in any stage of development as parasites is 100% accurate based on the strict definition of the term: "an organism that lives in or on another organism (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the host's expense." They live in another organism and derive nutrients at the woman's expense. This is no stretching of the term, it fits exactly.

Where it fails is 'at the woman's expense,' in that it implies this is a pure negative for the mother (most mothers tend to disagree). I would argue it's a symbiotic relationship. This allows for some 'parasitic' traits, but as a more general (and significantly less loaded) term, also acknowledges the positive aspects of the relationship.

Neither is technically correct, because all forms of symbiont (including parasites) are required to be of another species from the host; biologically speaking this is natural reproductive process, which cannot be categorized in either sense we're talking about. But, hey, language is cooler than science, so eff it.

mdk said
Where it fails is 'at the woman's expense,' in that it implies this is a pure negative for the mother (most mothers tend to disagree). I would argue it's a symbiotic relationship. This allows for some 'parasitic' traits, but as a more general (and significantly less loaded) term, also acknowledges the positive aspects of the relationship.Neither is technically correct, because all forms of symbiont (including parasites) are required to be of another species from the host; biologically speaking this is natural reproductive process, which cannot be categorized in either sense we're talking about. But, hey, language is cooler than science, so eff it.

Feelings =/= Technicality.

There are no medical benefits to having a baby developing in the womb. It consumes resources, makes the host more vulnerable to diseases, and can potentially result in the death of the host upon its escape.

An example of a symbiotic relationship is nurse sharks cleaning other fish. Nurse sharks remove parasites in exchange for amnesty from larger predators.

A baby doesn't give any construable positive benefits to its mother aside from emotional ones, which can vary from person to person, ergo nonscientific, and not technical.

I'm pro-choice because after a woman has been given all possible options and is informed of the consequences of each decision she advocates to be allowed to abort a baby, she should be allowed. After all, as I recall, you don't believe in welfare states--yet tens of thousands of impoverished people would starve to death without them. There are people who live or die off the taxes you make on your paycheck, and in a construable sense of the word, you wish to abort fully developed adults who are incapable of standing on their own financially, but you are against a woman having the right to choose to abort a parasitic entity in a world where we have so many orphan children or single parent children that we are actually in a crisis concerning what to do with them... In the first world. Don't even get me started on the third world.

A christian woman can choose not to have an abortion. A non-christian woman shouldn't be forced down the same path because of some republican rhetoric that states that babies are special and adults are cannon fodder.

Shy said This is interesting

I'm having decent trouble accepting the legitimacy of the article.
But this one honestly doesn't shake or surprise me if it is true.

Those who chose to have abortions (Outside of Mother is going to die otherwise cases) don't view said aborted baby/fetus as a life.
They view it as a clump of cells, a parasite, not a human being. So if they are already saying such a thing is so insignificant and unvaluable until it reaches a certain point, it doesn't seem far off to look at the remains of it and go "How can we recycle this to aid society?" rather than treat it like a deceased person.