Roe v. Wade to be overturned?

[Mngwa]

Another problem with your argument about children having an poor upbringing. When do you decide that their poor upbringing is so untenable that they would be better off not having existed? You seem sure that an abortion would be better than the children living. Is the some point post birth that you would make the same choice?

I don't get to decide. The pregnant woman gets to decide. And I've said this before and I'll say it again, it's never just a statistic it is always a human story. And I fully support a woman's right to choose. That means she can choose an abortion, she can choose to bring a child into a terrible situation, she can choose to bring a child into a wonderful situation, or she can choose to give it up for adoption, or anything else that could be chosen. I just I disagree with your entire premise. You don't get to decide just because we're the apex and we're unique.

 

[britwrit]

I don't think you can object to how people reach their political beliefs simply because those beliefs are based on religion. People make a political choice based on any manner of moral theory.

I just spoke with my God and We both agreed that you're wrong. We think you can.

 

[justgladtobehere]

I don't get to decide. The pregnant woman gets to decide. And I've said this before and I'll say it again, it's never just a statistic it is always a human story. And I fully support a woman's right to choose. That means she can choose an abortion, she can choose to bring a child into a terrible situation, she can choose to bring a child into a wonderful situation, or she can choose to give it up for adoption, or anything else that could be chosen. I just I disagree with your entire premise. You don't get to decide just because we're the apex and we're unique.

I don't get to decide. I would like my point of view to be acknowledged as something other than an absolute religious view.
Every choice, every decision is not just statistics. As voters we get to decide about those choices and decisions. Finding abortion wrong is for me the same as any other political choice. I don't believe women have some greater political influence on this matter.

 

[justgladtobehere]

I just spoke with my God and We both agreed that you're wrong. We think you can.

Great because you are arguing against a false premise. Good for you.

 

[britwrit]

Great because you are arguing against a false premise. Good for you.

Fine. Let me engage with this premise. Sometimes you automatically dismiss beliefs based on religion because they're so nutty. As well you should. Life is just too short.

For example, I want the Ten Commandments to be the law of the land. You covet somebody else's wife, you go to jail buddy. Are you supposed to marshall your arguments about how adultery is the price we pay for a free society (despite all the broken homes, the broken marriages, my Dad walked out when I was twelve!)? Or try and reach a common ground. What about just a fine? Or do you just ignore me. Because life is too short.

(And to further flog this horse into the ground, the Bible doesn't menton abortion. God doesn't care about your nutty little obsession. While The Big Man is truly down with my sensible proposition.)

At other times, you have to look at faith-based poltical beleifs with skepticism. They're usually based on really shaky historical texts and behavior that would be worrying in any other context. (God Spoke To Me In My Head.) And beyond the fundamentals, all the different Gods have a problem getting on the same page.

So yeah. I dismiss political beliefs based on relgion a lot. As so do you, I suspect.

 

[Jake from State Farm]

There was a time when this was satire
Now it's reality

 

[doctorquant]

God doesn't care about your nutty little obsession.

Ummmm ... He does. He cares about yours, too.

 

[OscarMadison]

Human beings are the apex of evolution

We share oodles of DNA with potatoes. Are you sure about that?

When do you decide that their poor upbringing is so untenable that they would be better off not having existed?

Personal and anecdotal: I've seen too many young men and women raised by people who would have been better off living life as a potato to say young people can't rise above their tuber beginnings. Many of them let compassion and Appollonic ideals be their guiding principles. Unless you have some kind of gift for prescience, you really don't know how they'll turn out. Having said that, as a civilised people, we cannot make the choices for people who carry children. Don't have a uterus? You don't make that call.

I got pregnant once years, no, decades ago. I had access to help. Being privileged, I had choices. Not everyone does.

 

[doctorquant]

As re: evolution, human beings are a genetic backwater.

 

[Spartan Squad]

All this Christian bashing makes me ask a question. Do people realize that there is a non-religious argument against abortion? A fertilized egg is a unique human being, something that will never be replicated. Human beings are the apex of evolution and to causally dismiss the ending of their lives is disgusting.

From a non-religious viewpoint, we have a responsibility to the continued success of the species and the viability of life on this planet. We have an unsustainable number of humans consuming an unsustainable amount of resources. Abortion while eliminating a unique individual at the apex of evolution (relative to the life around us) also allows the totality of the species to continue.*

I appreciate you trying to take this away fun Christian bashing but unfortunately that's the crux of the objection or at least where it stems from. The science-absent morality of the sanctity of life and when it begins is how we got here. Absent religion, we go down a much different path that doesn't look at abortion as the ending of life but rather the termination of the developmental process.

*before anyone ats me for it, I know how dangerous of an argument this is and how it can be used to also justify eugenics and genocide. My distinction is this isn't to be done en masse but simply to counter the unique life of evolution argument.

 

[Mngwa]

I don't get to decide. I would like my point of view to be acknowledged as something other than an absolute religious view.
Every choice, every decision is not just statistics. As voters we get to decide about those choices and decisions. Finding abortion wrong is for me the same as any other political choice. I don't believe women have some greater political influence on this matter.

Really? Why on earth not? The sad, simple truth is that a guy's life is not impacted by an unintended pregnancy to the degree that the woman/ girl's is. It is just not. And unless you've impregnated someone, from where I sit, you don't get to say anything about someone's pregnancy. I mean the apex species of this Earth is killing it even though we need it to live. We are not all that and a bag of chips.

 

[Batman]

From a non-religious viewpoint, we have a responsibility to the continued success of the species and the viability of life on this planet. We have an unsustainable number of humans consuming an unsustainable amount of resources. Abortion while eliminating a unique individual at the apex of evolution (relative to the life around us) also allows the totality of the species to continue.*

I appreciate you trying to take this away fun Christian bashing but unfortunately that's the crux of the objection or at least where it stems from. The science-absent morality of the sanctity of life and when it begins is how we got here. Absent religion, we go down a much different path that doesn't look at abortion as the ending of life but rather the termination of the developmental process.

*before anyone ats me for it, I know how dangerous of an argument this is and how it can be used to also justify eugenics and genocide. My distinction is this isn't to be done en masse but simply to counter the unique life of evolution argument.

I appreciate the effort to detach religion from this issue. It's really the only way to see there are good points to be made on both sides. I will add three thoughts:

1) The idea that a child is better off having never been born than to have been born into a bad situation, or that they should be aborted for the good of the human race, seems a pretty nihilistic worldview.
2) You can recognize basic morality without being religious.
3) Which leads into the real crux of this debate — is it a clump of cells until 20-24 weeks or is it a person the minute the egg is fertilized? However you answer that question — and you can answer it with or without relying on religion — will probably tell you which side of the issue you fall on.