Michigan Anti-Abortion Bill, 'Most Extreme' In The Country

I'm sorry, but the idea that a woman should be forced to do something she finds utterly abhorrent and repulsive based upon a moral view she might not share simply because the negative impact on her life is "temporary" is something that I find... well... utterly abhorrent and repulsive.

So, let me ask you the question I posed earlier in this thread - if you're all for denying a woman bodily autonomy on a "temporary" basis in order to "save lives", are you also in favor of denying EVERYBODY bodily autonomy on a temporary basis by mandating that everybody must become an organ/blood/bone marrow donor? According to the Sierra Donor Services website, 18 people die every day due to lack of organ donors.

The Institute for Justice website says that as many as 3,000 people a year die waiting for a bone marrow donation.

And I'm unable to find any real stats on how many people die from lack of blood donations, but I'm willing to bet the numbers are about comparable.

Where's the outrage over the deaths of already fully realized people. People who have families and friends who love them. People with hopes, dreams, wants, needs, loves.
http://www.gsds.org/facts_about_donation/the_basic_facts.aspx

Chrissy said:

You're using the bodily automony argument at the end, which I've already tried to address.

As you're rooting for the fetus, considering it an equal to the woman, then that's the most logical argument to use. I apologize if I haven't seen you address it.

The point is that the fetus is dependent on the woman.

Exactly. Not the other way around. I'm under no obligation to support a dependent. Not even my own hypothetical child, who, in certain states, I could legally leave outside of a hospital and never return for. I see no point in taking care of that which is unwanted.

It is the equivalent (in my mind) of a child with no alternative for care.

Well, the difference is that you can give a child away. You can put a child up for adoption. It can be put in foster care. None of the above can be done with a fetus. You wait nine months, or you abort it. There are no other options.

I see no reason why I should keep it in my body if I'm under distress, even if it might die. We can emote on this all day, but I'm going to keep this short -- there is no logical reason abortion, before the stage of viability -- should be illegal. I'm not talking about how you or I might feel about the situation, or if the woman should just hang on for the duration of the pregnancy.

I mean, to put it simply, that if she can throw herself down a flight of stairs, or take a tea that will cause her to abort, or shoot herself in the stomach and still survive -- and if all of these options are legal -- there is no reason why a professional should not be able to preform an operation that will result in a much safer termination. It might make you feel icky, it might make me uncomfortable at times, but unless we're going to keep tabs on all pregnant women in the US at every moment, making sure all other ways of abortion are also illegal, and that they are taken to jail for attempting, or succeeding, to abort -- it does not make any logical sense to prevent doctors from preforming the abortion.

It's not really a matter of right or wrong. If one route is illegal, they all should be.

There is a fiduciary duty.

If the bank is the woman and the fetus is the person putting money into the bank... I'm going to stop. That's a horrible analogy. In that kind of relationship, both parties get something from the other, though complete trust is put into one. The woman, if the pregnancy is unwanted, gets nothing but pain. It's not a fair exchange. There's a conflict of interest. The fetus... well, we can't even say that a fetus wants to live, or that it wants to die, as it can't want anything.

Starting at that point, if I can then address your first point about harm: those types of harms you mention (financial, emotional, decrease in quality of life--and don't forget, this is all temporary) are not sufficient justifiction to end the life of the child.

Potential child. And that's your opinion. For some, it's not temporary, even if they choose to adopt. For every situation, the variables are different, and the cause and effect change drastically for every possible equation. If you lost your job, you might be alright. If I lost my job, I'd be homeless. And with certain positions, a pregnancy will make your job impossible to work.

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...

I think I heard my position summed up on a tv show today. It was Law and Order Criminal Intent. It was an old episode, obviously. The MC was asked how he felt about abortion and he answered "Life doesn't always go how you planned. Because of that people need options. Abortion needs to be one of them."

I'm wondering. Why is an abortion any different from the 60 to 80 percent of fertilized human ova that never implant, or the 31 percent of implanted embryos that miscarry?

Myself? An abortion is between a woman and her doctor. There are lots of methods of avoiding pregnancy, besides chastity, yet the people outlawing abortion are working very hard to cut those off as well.They try to keep people ignorant of even the simplest facts about sex and reproduction. They also go out of their way to reduce or eliminate any sort of support system to help women who have children they don't want.It seems hypocritical to me.

And let's be honest. All making abortion illegal will do is increase the number of people in jail and the number of children not being raised properly or by those who don't have the resources to raise another child. People who can afford to go somewhere where they can get an abortion will do so. Women who can't travel will get abortions under unsafe conditions which will result very often in both the fetus being lost and the mother dying.

Once again, it seems to me, that the anti-choicers are more concerned with being right than being good.

Oh my God, you guys are killing me.

RichardGarfinkle said:

You are essentially asserting that pregnancy is absolutely unique and has no comparable moral equivalents. Your reasoning seems to be that you think nature must be catered to in the creation of human life even though nature itself is the most merciless abortionist that exists.

You assert that you oppose abortion because of continuity, i.e. a zygote can grow into a fetus can grow into a child so therefore a zygote is a fetus is a child. By that chain of reasoning since we are all destined to die we might as well treat everyone as already a corpse.

But even if you treat that as hyperbole your reasoning is false since a zygote can't grow on its own. It is fed from the woman's body, protected by her body, and cannot exist without it until it becomes a viable fetus.

So. Your position seems to be that there is a single unique circumstance -- pregnancy -- in which a human being must surrender all autonomy. And the uniqueness of that cirucumstance arises because why? Because it comes about naturally? Or because it comes about by sex?

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Becuase it comes about by an independent and freely exercised act (sex) of which there is a complete understanding of what the potential results may be (pregnancy).

You claim not to be treating pregnancy as punishment for sex, but you clearly regard sex as somehow unique among all human activites.

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Well, I suppose that's true. I can't think of any other act that causes pregnancy.

Why?
Why is sex different from any other form of incursion of responsibility? Why is pregnancy the only condition that makes it necessary for person A to give their life to person B without any recourse and where person A is supposed to go along with it absolutely where even murderers have more rights?

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Because it's the only condition upon which a life is totally, singularly, and utterly dependent upon the one who created it in the first place.
Re: bold. What is your obsession with murderers? I cannot find any logical parallel. Okay, how about this: If the murderer was pregnant, then yes, same thing.

Anaquana said:

I'm sorry, but the idea that a woman should be forced to do something she finds utterly abhorrent and repulsive based upon a moral view she might not share simply because the negative impact on her life is "temporary" is something that I find... well... utterly abhorrent and repulsive.

So, let me ask you the question I posed earlier in this thread - if you're all for denying a woman bodily autonomy on a "temporary" basis in order to "save lives", are you also in favor of denying EVERYBODY bodily autonomy on a temporary basis by mandating that everybody must become an organ/blood/bone marrow donor? According to the Sierra Donor Services website, 18 people die every day due to lack of organ donors.

The Institute for Justice website says that as many as 3,000 people a year die waiting for a bone marrow donation.

And I'm unable to find any real stats on how many people die from lack of blood donations, but I'm willing to bet the numbers are about comparable.

Where's the outrage over the deaths of already fully realized people. People who have families and friends who love them. People with hopes, dreams, wants, needs, loves.

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You are not, indeed you cannot be, responsible for every life who needs blood, organs, and bone marrow. You are not responsible for others' lives, except to not harm them.

Completely different from the circumstances in which you brought that life into existence. Now you are responsible.

Editorial you.

thebloodfiend said:

...

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I can't quote this post, but I'd like to address it, if you want to edit it.

Chrissy said:

Well, I suppose that's true. I can't think of any other act that causes pregnancy.

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Artificial insemination, cloning, auto-semination.

Chrissy said:

You are not, indeed you cannot be, responsible for every life who needs blood, organs, and bone marrow. You are not responsible for others' lives, except to not harm them.

Completely different from the circumstances in which you brought that life into existence. Now you are responsible.

Editorial you.

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Okay, so it is about punishing women for having sex because, trust me on this, forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy she does not want to term is punishment.

Chrissy said:

Completely different from the circumstances in which you brought that life into existence. Now you are responsible.

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So does that mean you'd favor laws requiring all parents to donate blood and organs, etc, to their children should the child need it, whether the parent agrees to this or not?

Romantic Heretic said:

I'm wondering. Why is an abortion any different from the 60 to 80 percent of fertilized human ova that never implant, or the 31 percent of implanted embryos that miscarry?

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I don't understand this argument (and you're not the first one to make it, of course.) My thought on miscarriages is that your body detects something physically wrong and corrects the problem. Just like your body fights a virus or bacteria, your body will reject an implant and/or embryo that it deems not acceptable for whatever physical reason. Maybe your body is wrong, or is malfunctioning in some way. But I don't see that as a valid reason to abort voluntarily.

....There are lots of methods of avoiding pregnancy, besides chastity, yet the people outlawing abortion are working very hard to cut those off as well.They try to keep people ignorant of even the simplest facts about sex and reproduction. They also go out of their way to reduce or eliminate any sort of support system to help women who have children they don't want.It seems hypocritical to me.

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Agreed. Those who denounce birth control are crazy, in my opinion. This is the realm of God's Will and other such uncontrollables... women are all pregnant or not at the whim of the unknown all-powerful. I disagree completely and vehemently with that theory.

And let's be honest. All making abortion illegal will do is increase the number of people in jail and the number of children not being raised properly or by those who don't have the resources to raise another child. People who can afford to go somewhere where they can get an abortion will do so. Women who can't travel will get abortions under unsafe conditions which will result very often in both the fetus being lost and the mother dying.

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Again, the rationale that "people will do it anyway" is not a sufficient reason to make something legal. Apply it to any of our laws today that you feel are just.

Once again, it seems to me, that the anti-choicers are more concerned with being right than being good.

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Well, if you mean me, and I don't know if you do or not, I'm not at all concerned about being right. I am concerned about doing the right thing.

Xelebes said:

Artificial insemination, cloning, auto-semination.

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Okay, if a woman is artificially inseminated, she is responsible for the resultant life. Cloning? Is it possible and has it happened? In which case, the scientists are responsible for the resultant life. I have no idea what auto-semination is.

Anaquana said:

Okay, so it is about punishing women for having sex because, trust me on this, forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy she does not want to term is punishment.

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It's not about punishing women! It's about responsibility. I guess it's all a matter of whether a person wants to accept a responsibility or not. That will determine how they view it.
Analogy (not a great one): A person steals money from another person. They are required to pay it back. This is the responsiblity they must assume for stealing. They can view it as punishment, but the fact remains, it is reasonable and fair.

virtue_summer said:

So does that mean you'd favor laws requiring all parents to donate blood and organs, etc, to their children should the child need it, whether the parent agrees to this or not?

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What parent on this earth would not donate? But, if there were no other donor option available, I would say yes, absolutely (so long as there was not a threat to their life) they should be required to donate.

Chrissy said:

It's not about punishing women! It's about responsibility. I guess it's all a matter of whether a person wants to accept a responsibility or not. That will determine how they view it.

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Sometimes the most responsible thing a person can do is have an abortion. You've denied it multiple times in multiple threads, but many of your posts seem to indicate that you think abortions are easy-peasy, tra-la-la, walk in the park procedures for the women getting them.

RichardGarfinkle said:

I'm not obsessed with murderers, I'm trying to deal with responsibility. I am pointing out an extreme case in which a person's action: murder can be seen as justly taking away their human autonomy and I am asking you if your position that sex removes autonomy is unique among human actions. Life or death actions are the extremes, that's why I'm asking about murder.

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To answer, I don't see murder as cause for taking away bodily automony. It does not logically follow that killing someone requires you to surrender your body to medical experiments. There is no resulting responsibility for a particular identifiable life from the act of murder. The person to whom the murderer owed the responsibility of doing the right thing is already dead.

Furthermore, the claim that having sex is choosing to create life is specious. Humans do not have the ability to choose to create life. They can choose to perform an action which might combine living cells in order to begin a process that might lead to another independant human being.

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I don't understand what you are saying here. You are contradicting yourself. I never claimed people choose to create life (although many certainly try) but they do know that it is a distinct and real possibility.

Ask an infertile couple if it is possible to choose to create life.

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Sad, but irrelevant.

Your assertion that choosing sex is choosing to create life and because it can create life it is a decision unlike any other runs into severe problems. Why is making a decision that can create life different from a decision that can prolong life? If you will die if I don't feed you, then your life is as much dependent on me as a fetus is dependent on its mother, more so.
Therefore, if I am in the position to save you am I obliged?

If not, why not? Why is creation more vital than sustaining?

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Because YOU are not responsible for ME. However, YOU are responsible for YOUR CHILDREN, as I am responsible for MY CHILDREN.

And it is not about a responsbility for creation. That makes it sound like we are obligated to reproduce. We are not. It is about responsibility to care for the life that you have already created, whether you intended to or not.

Anaquana said:

Sometimes the most responsible thing a person can do is have an abortion. You've denied it multiple times in multiple threads, but many of your posts seem to indicate that you think abortions are easy-peasy, tra-la-la, walk in the park procedures for the women getting them.

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Having an early abortion is much easier that carrying a child to term and then giving it up for adoption. The only reason a woman would do this is so that the child could live. That, to me, is responsible.

Chrissy said:

Having an early abortion is much easier that carrying a child to term and then giving it up for adoption. The only reason a woman would do this is so that the child could live. That, to me, is responsible.

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This is your opinion and your opinion only. Every woman is different and every woman has a different reaction to having to make the decision to abort.

Chrissy said:

My bold. This is pretty much exactly what I think, except it's not a matter of blame, it's a matter of fact and responsibility.

Sex can result in pregnancy. This is a fact. I don't see anything "moral" about it. It doesn't mean, oh "you whore," you shouldn't have had sex. It just means that there is a risk of pregnancy in any sex act, and women AND men take the responsibility for that risk when they have sex.

That's why birth control is so important, and like I've said before, using birth control should be treated as important as a life or death issue.

Because the law shouldn't be allowed to step in on the basis of "what ifs." Same reason they shouldn't be allowed to force women to use birth control, or sterilize them.

...

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Facts which you claim but are consistently unable to support by any kind of data or evidence whatsoever. Claims that have no support in reality are not facts. They are opinions dressed as facts, and that is not a valid way to structure an argument.

What you are telling me here is that you hold to the moralistic view that condemns women for making decisions you don't approve of, but, for whatever reason, you don't want to say that you are imposing your personal beliefs and preferences on other people arbitrarily. So instead you claim your arguments are based on facts. Unfortunately, you have never shown that your facts actually exist.

Instead, you take a narrow selection of not really related facts and cherrypick an even narrower selection of now disconnected facts from them, and on that narrow and rickety basis ask us to accept your broad, far-reaching, and intrusive position.

Yes, sex can result in pregnancy.

Sometimes, but by no means every time. It can result in pregnancy if a fertilization occurs -- not guaranteed. And if a fertilized ovum implants properly -- fails to occur at all for half or more fertilizations. And if the implantation holds up well -- not guaranteed. And if the zygote develops properly and does not spontaneously abort -- extremely common at stages so early the woman may not even miss a period or experience more than one irregular period.

In fact, the odds are stacked against human pregnancy and live birth, to be blunt about it. So the argument that babies are an inevitable result of sex is, frankly, nonsense.

Further, since women have been aborting pregnancies by choice for thousands of years, the argument that being pregnant results in a baby also fails as a claim of fact.

In fact, having a baby is really a combination of pure dumb luck and the woman's choice. It always has been and it always will be. And if either of those two factors don't get on board, then no amount of claiming fact is going to make the sex-to-baby progression inevitable or a fact, in and of itself.

Anaquana said:

This is your opinion and your opinion only. Every woman is different and every woman has a different reaction to having to make the decision to abort.

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If a woman does not want to be pregnant, and yet makes the decision to carry a child neither she nor anyone else wants, the only reason she would do so is so the child might live.

That is not opinion. That is fact.

Watch Romantic Heretic's link regarding abortions back before they were legal. Toward the end, the woman (who is now in her 60's, it looks like) cries over the memory of giving her child up for adoption. But she was forced to carry her child. She did not do it willingly. She is still angry, and hurt. My interpretation of her emotion was that she would rather have aborted than carry her child just to give it up forever.

Giving up a child is painful. No one wants to do that, especially after carrying it for 9 months. It is the ultimate sacrifice of self-interest, done so that the child might live.

muravyets said:

Facts which you claim but are consistently unable to support by any kind of data or evidence whatsoever. Claims that have no support in reality are not facts. They are opinions dressed as facts, and that is not a valid way to structure an argument.

What you are telling me here is that you hold to the moralistic view that condemns women for making decisions you don't approve of, but, for whatever reason, you don't want to say that you are imposing your personal beliefs and preferences on other people arbitrarily. So instead you claim your arguments are based on facts. Unfortunately, you have never shown that your facts actually exist.

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What facts are you referring to?

Chrissy said:

You're right, it doesn't. Your argument compels me to doubt my stance of rape as a legitimate reason for abortion. If someone harms me, am I then justified in harming someone else who had nothing to do with it?

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The harm being done by the unwanted pregnancy is its own problem. It has nothing to do with the rape.

Two problems. Two solutions. If the problem is rape, the solution is the criminal justice system, for what it's worth. If the problem is unwanted pregnancy, the solution is abortion. Typically more effective than the other problem's solution, sadly.

Chrissy said:

If a woman does not want to be pregnant, and yet makes the decision to carry a child neither she nor anyone else wants, the only reason she would do so is so the child might live.

That is not opinion. That is fact.

Watch Romantic Heretic's link regarding abortions back before they were legal. Toward the end, the woman (who is now in her 60's, it looks like) cries over the memory of giving her child up for adoption. But she was forced to carry her child. She did not do it willingly. She is still angry, and hurt. My interpretation of her emotion was that she would rather have aborted than carry her child just to give it up forever.

Giving up a child is painful. No one wants to do that, especially after carrying it for 9 months. It is the ultimate sacrifice of self-interest, done so that the child might live.

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That is one woman and one woman's reaction to her personal situation. You *cannot* extrapolate that out and say that all women who had early abortions had an easier time of it than all women who carried the child then gave it up.

Having an abortion, even when you don't want the child, can be painful as well. I have a friend who is vehemently against having children, so when her birth control failed and she got pregnant she had an abortion. Even though she didn't want the child and willingly terminated the pregnancy, she was still very broken up by it. So much so that she went to counseling for it.

Alessandra Kelley said:

You have just argued that forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy is not punishment because it is like how criminals are treated.

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Oh, thank you for addressing this! I couldn't do it and remain civil and coherent.

Anaquana said:

I'm sorry, but the idea that a woman should be forced to do something she finds utterly abhorrent and repulsive based upon a moral view she might not share simply because the negative impact on her life is "temporary" is something that I find... well... utterly abhorrent and repulsive.

So, let me ask you the question I posed earlier in this thread - if you're all for denying a woman bodily autonomy on a "temporary" basis in order to "save lives", are you also in favor of denying EVERYBODY bodily autonomy on a temporary basis by mandating that everybody must become an organ/blood/bone marrow donor? According to the Sierra Donor Services website, 18 people die every day due to lack of organ donors.

The Institute for Justice website says that as many as 3,000 people a year die waiting for a bone marrow donation.

And I'm unable to find any real stats on how many people die from lack of blood donations, but I'm willing to bet the numbers are about comparable.

Where's the outrage over the deaths of already fully realized people. People who have families and friends who love them. People with hopes, dreams, wants, needs, loves.

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One problem with championing the right-to-life of such people and advocating for other people to be subjugated physically to their needs is that they can speak for themselves. And having that ability, there's the uncomfortable chance that some of them might say they don't want other people to be enslaved for them, that they don't want to be the cause of other people's suffering. That's the best thing about championing the right-to-life of the unborn only -- it's a constituency that will never go off message or complain about being used as the excuse for injustice and oppression.

Anaquana said:

Having an abortion, even when you don't want the child, can be painful as well. I have a friend who is vehemently against having children, so when her birth control failed and she got pregnant she had an abortion. Even though she didn't want the child and willingly terminated the pregnancy, she was still very broken up by it. So much so that she went to counseling for it.

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I feel for your friend. I too have a friend who actually had several abortions during her child-bearing years--she wanted nothing to do with children, and she was also mentally unstable, which accounted for her lack of proper birth control (actually, she still is, bless her heart) but she grieves for her lost children. She wants a baby now, but she's had a hysterectomy. I'm not at all implying that abortions are not painful. But in the moment, they seem easier than dealing with a 9-month unwanted pregnancy. I considered abortion with my second child. He was mixed race, I was getting clean and not really wanting to, I was homeless, poor as dirt, hated my parents, but found a Catholic charity to take me in after rehab. I also considered adoption. I was scared shitless to have a mixed race child. Once I gave birth and got a look at the little brown peanut
<-----------------that's him, my avie,

it was a no-brainer. And I know, everyone does not react the same way.

You have just argued that forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy is not punishment because it is like how criminals are treated.

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The hell I have! I was trying to use an anology of responsiblity for one's actions, and I admitted straight off it wasn't a good one. If this is the way you react... Badly done, Alessandra.

Alessandra Kelley said:

Are you actually saying that the only person with any possible interest in a murderer is his or her victim? That society has no interest? That the victim's family and friends have no interest? That the murderer bears no responsibility to the community, to the family, to the heirs, to anyone at all except his or her victim?

By your definition, a murderer should not be punished since it would not help the person you identify as the murderer's only responsibility.

By your definition a murderer is less responsible than a pregnant woman.



You did imply it:



How is that not the definition of making a choice?



You have just argued that forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy is not punishment because it is like how criminals are treated.





Are you serious? Have you never heard of any instances of bad parents?



Just so we have this clear. You, Chrissy, would have people made involuntary donors of their blood and organs.

Hmm. Corneas removed don't threaten life. Likewise arms and legs. Tongues. Teeth. Skin.

There is quite a lot people can give up and not die.

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This whole post is insane. I'm disgusted by your inferences.