The Abortion Debate (continued) (3 Viewers)

[*Minka*]

My post never singled anyone out, infact I cant remember who (if any) it was and am too lazy to look.



Neither am I, I support abortion on demand like the majority in that report, that is abortion within the constraints of the law. I side with what most poeple say there. What I mainly wish to see is NSW and perhaps the rest of the country adopt the VIC/QLD position -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AbortionLawsAustraliaMap.png

If that happens I may finally go back to Labour.



How so .. ugh not?



self-contradiction.

I have seen that map before in Legal Studies, but they are pretty much given on demand in Queensland and Victoria correct? Everyone I know in those states has said they are very easy to obtain due to lose intpretations of the law of 'women's health'.

Personally, I support abortion being made legal on demand across all states and territories. If you don't like abortion, no one is making you have one. But keep your business away from other peoples ovaries because it is none of your business.

 

[gerhard]

This national opinion poll of 1200 Australians was conducted in two stages - in April/May and August/September bla bla

Do I take this to mean you have finally accepted that you can gain an accurate portrayal of the whole of australia with only 1000 people polled? Or do you hold that these results are just as useless as the last ones?

 

[bshoc]

Do I take this to mean you have finally accepted that you can gain an accurate portrayal of the whole of australia with only 1000 people polled? Or do you hold that these results are just as useless as the last ones?

Finally , I was expecting this question.

No, it means that since nobody has accepted my reasoning (even though it is correct and proven), we'll be using the ones the majority of people here accept (although given that you accept both - I doubt there is nothing left but opinions to debate) to finalize the factors of this "debate."

 

[*Minka*]

Do I take this to mean you have finally accepted that you can gain an accurate portrayal of the whole of australia with only 1000 people polled? Or do you hold that these results are just as useless as the last ones?

SNAP!

 

[*Minka*]

:rofl: Nothing to do with your ovaries, stop pretending this is a womens rights issue, its isnt. Maybe we should stop police charging people for murder becuase its "none of my businees" too. EVERYTHING the government rules and decides is based on a threat of force, you may not usually of think of it like that, but what happens when you dont pay tax? carry weed around with you etc.

\

No, it is about my ovaries.

If I murder a living person, that harms another person, as does assault, stealing, fraud etc. Having an abortion in the early stages of pregnancy is not harming another person as a fetus is not a person at that point. It is a clear issue of womens rights because no woman should be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term as if is her body and reproductive rights need to be upheld and women to be recognised as indivduals who own their own bodies and are not controlled by men. People should not push their religion on me and respect my rights to believe what I believe and make my own informed decisions about my self.

(My apologise if I am not totally clear when I speak. English is not my first langiage and I stuff it up sometimes)

 

[*Minka*]

Oh and since Wikipedia is now a credible source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:USAbortionbyGestationalAgeChart2002.png

As you can see here, the vast majority of Abortions occur in the first trimester with only a very small number of late term abortions. This is an American graph, but I imagine the numbers would be similar in Australia.

 

[bshoc]

No, it is about my ovaries.

Your ovaries are not the same as a baby, which not only has a different genetic print to yourself (and thus constitutes a person in its own right) but does not in any way belong to you ouside mandatory duty of care (although some twisted people think otherwise). If this was a womans rights issue as you're trying hopelessly to argue, one would have to prove why killing off a baby constitutes less genuine harm that keeping it until birth and handing it up for adoption, especially with all the benefits that get awarded by the government in this sense.

It is a clear issue of womens rights because no woman should be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term as if is her body and reproductive rights need to be upheld and women to be recognised as indivduals who own their own bodies and are not controlled by men. People should not push their religion on me and respect my rights to believe what I believe and make my own informed decisions about my self.

Two words that kill your argument, reproductive rights are the rights to have sex/children, they are not rights to kill them off once they are concieved.

In any case I'm not debating from a religion perspective (since I'm not part of any), but rather appealing to whats left of the common sense in todays youth (although many youth opinions do change later in life) - with abortion everyone loses, the baby, becuase its dead, the state, becuase it has one less working citizen, and the mothers who have regrets - such as the roe from roe v wade, who now opposes abortion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roe

(My apologise if I am not totally clear when I speak. English is not my first langiage and I stuff it up sometimes)

Nor is it mine, unlike some anal people here I'm not an idiot who points out useless diversionary things like that.

 

[transcendent]

The reason why there is an apparently large number of abortions in Australia is because miscarriages are also lodged in with abortions.

 

[Generator]

Two words that kill your argument, reproductive rights are the rights to have sex/children, they are not rights to kill them off once they are concieved.

Ah, if a woman has the right to have sex and/or children, then why is it that a woman doesn't have the right to exercise such discretion after the fact if the need arises (i.e., the right to consider an abortion)? Isn't that an obstacle that stands in the way of a woman properly exercising her right to have sex and/or children?

 

[The Brucemaster]

Ok bshoc heres the thing and WAF said this in the old thread but ill just reiterate seeing as it doesn't seem to have sunk in:

Murder - The unlawful killing of another human being.

I believe your response to this was something along the lines of 'i choose not to believe in that law so it doesn't apply to me'.

Well let me tell you right now: the law doesn't give a shit what you believe in the fact is that abortion is not murder because it is legal. So all your crap about killing babies and supporting murder blah blah blah is a complete waste because it is irrelevant nonsense.

On a more intellectual note there are two immediate facts that contradict your argument about the murderous nature of abortion. One is that mentioned above, the fact that abortion is legal and thus cannot constitute murder.

The other is the human being part.

As I have shown, there is strong evidence to suggest that the foetus is not alive at least until it reaches the uterus, this is about 7-10 days after the moment of conception.
After that, whilst it exhibits at least the beginnings of all the signs of life that I put forward there is still nothing to differentiate the foetus at this stage from any other living thing (plants and animals) so i see no reasonable basis for labelling an abortion at this stage as murder either.
The only point where i see there to be reasonable justification for abortion being labelled murder i at the stage where the baby is able to feel pain and is almost fully developed and this is in the third trimester where as far as im aware next to no abortions occur

 

[withoutaface]

Yet the questions themselves are not skewed to favor any stance, in any way. If you notice the Age actually used some clever wording to get around this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:AbortionLawsAustraliaMap.png

That is, in the AC Neilsen poll. Notice also that I didnt post a link to the blatantly politically biased "customer" (be it the age or the right to life commision) - but rather the report itself, where the data, not the bias, is.



We'll have to agree to disagree, beucase I do not believe this to be in any way a reproductive or womens rights issue, I prefer to focus on the person whose life is being culled, and for what ends. I do not believe "his condom failed and I forgot to take the pill" as a valid excuse to kill some poor defenceless baby off - in other words I'm arguing for MINIMUM personal responsibility in society that women (some, not all) take in this quagmire.





Agreed, when I use "leftist" (and keep in mind I'm a Labour person) I mean whacked out socially misled youths and aging hippies from the 70's that are responsible for this whole mess in the first place.

Abortion is a valid service to sell, and to prohibit its sale would be to interfere with the market. Hence pro-choice is a right wing (i.e. free market) position.

 

[The Brucemaster]

Abortion is a valid service to sell, and to prohibit its sale would be to interfere with the market. Hence pro-choice is a right wing (i.e. free market) position.

Yes but that's only true if you are pro-choice for economic reasons is it not?

 

[_dhj_]

:rofl: Nothing to do with your ovaries, stop pretending this is a womens rights issue, its isnt. Maybe we should stop police charging people for murder becuase its "none of my businees" too. EVERYTHING the government rules and decides is based on a threat of force, you may not usually of think of it like that, but what happens when you dont pay tax? carry weed around with you etc.

Surely both perspectives need to be considered. The right of the fetus - i.e. whether the fetus has the legal rights of individuals by reason of its potential to develop into a born child, or does not have those legal rights by reason of being too dependant on the woman to provide an environment where it can survive and as follows, is too far from reaching the state of being "human" (along the scale from atom to human). If the fetus still requires the intervening act by the woman - that being the act of keeping it alive - before it can develop into a human being, no murder would be committed by an abortion. That is from the perspective of the fetus. Obviously it is also a womens rights issue in the sense that the development of the fetus takes place inside the woman, and she should ordinarily have a large degree of autonomy over what happens inside her body.

Although I disagree with the fundamental objection to abortion (if the definition doesn't inherently encompass killing something that's alive, simply terminating a fetus), I think I understand where you're coming from, and it's obviously an emotive issue given the potential for the fetus to develop into a human baby - a symbol of innocence in most cultures. To be honest if there's any medical doubt over whether the fetus is alive at the stage of a potential abortion, I'd rather give the fetus the benefit of the doubt.

 

[_dhj_]

Abortion is a valid service to sell, and to prohibit its sale would be to interfere with the market. Hence pro-choice is a right wing (i.e. free market) position.

The stance is consistent with both libertarian (as opposed to conservative) and "new left" (as opposed to old-left notions of class struggle and equality) ideology.

 

[*Minka*]

Your ovaries are not the same as a baby, which not only has a different genetic print to yourself (and thus constitutes a person in its own right) but does not in any way belong to you ouside mandatory duty of care (although some twisted people think otherwise). If this was a womans rights issue as you're trying hopelessly to argue, one would have to prove why killing off a baby constitutes less genuine harm that keeping it until birth and handing it up for adoption, especially with all the benefits that get awarded by the government in this sense.



Two words that kill your argument, reproductive rights are the rights to have sex/children, they are not rights to kill them off once they are concieved.

In any case I'm not debating from a religion perspective (since I'm not part of any), but rather appealing to whats left of the common sense in todays youth (although many youth opinions do change later in life) - with abortion everyone loses, the baby, becuase its dead, the state, becuase it has one less working citizen, and the mothers who have regrets - such as the roe from roe v wade, who now opposes abortion

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roe



Nor is it mine, unlike some anal people here I'm not an idiot who points out useless diversionary things like that.

Nope n- reproductive rights refer to the right of a woman to choose when to have sex, if she wants to become pregnant and have children and also her right to terminate any unwanted pregnancy and stop her body becoming an incubator for a fetus. This is all concerned with womens rights to make all relevent informed decisions regarding her body. Put simply - I don't believe a woman has any duty of care to a fetus until a certain point that it is viable outside the womb and is wanted. Not every woman wants to keep the pregnancy and place the child for adoption. That is her choice - there are three choices open to owmen: Keeping the child, adoption, abortion and all three are perfectly valid choices for the woman to make and she needs to pick what is best for her.

Sure - I will explain why an abortion is better than giving birth for many women. Pregnancy has many health issues including morning sickness, back pain, disrupted sleeping as well as the huge financial burden that doctors appointments and time off work leads too. In addition to this, it is simply not a convienent time for many women - educational, career and financial committments often taken precidence and right so over an unwanted prengnacy that is simply a mistake. A young women who completes her education is better able to contribute economically to this country as well as be better able to provide for any children she may choose to have in the future. I don't believe that early term abortins are killing baibies - theya re simply removing some cells that could potentially devlop into a baby if left there. It is not killing. A six week old fetus has no right to life and can not survive outside the womb so I fial to see why its rights are more important than that of a young woman.

And yes, I do believe this is an issue of womens rights as there are many men out there trying to impose their moriality on womens bodies when it is none of their concern. It would be like women attempting to create laws stating that every time a man masturbates or has sex where no pregnancy results, he has killed life and should be forced to be pregnant. Not possible, but I am just pointing it out.

So what if she now opposes abortion? People also go from Pro-Life (Anti Choice) to Pro Choice as well as from Christian to Atheist. Not every woman that has an abortion regrets it and I am willing to bet that many women who have children regret having them. Both situations leave to potential regret, and that is just part of life. I would bet my last dollar that there are women out ther who kept the baby after pandering from religious groups etc and wish they just got the abortion in the first palce. not pretty, but true.

 

[Not-That-Bright]

Arrow's theorem isnt really questionable, thats why I stopped talking to you, Arrow's theorem isnt an opinion, its a mathematical proof, thus any argument against it must be conducted on mathematical grounds, you failed to do this, and the random web page exerpts you posted which I read half way and stopped reading becuase they were so far out does not in any way begin to imagine to relate to what is required to challenge the mind of Arrow.

It doesn't HAVE to challenge arrow's theorem because the theorem is NOT applicable to utilitarianism. You'd know this if you bothered to read. The challenge does not need to be on mathematical grounds because I do not need to disprove arrow's theorem, it stands proven and I accept that, however the application of that theorem to utilitarianism does not make sense.

Utilitarianism is a philosophical framework, an expression of adherence to a particular principle, if you will. The principle, of course, is that an action is moral to the extent it increases the total happiness in the group of interest.

Arrow's theorem says nothing about this. (In particular, Arrow's theorem doesn't even apply to the abortion question, since it only applies to the decision-making process, only applies when there are three or more alternative choices available. A simple yes/no question does not create Arrow paradoxes.)

I would also argue that utilitarianism specifically precludes Arrow paradoxes precisely because "the total happiness," if expressed numerically, creates an objective total order among all choices. Therefore, no Arrow paradox can arise.

It can, when you consider how you evaluate happiness for a single person before averaging.

I don't see it.

For every person and every proposed course of action, there will be a unique happiness score. (Formally, I could even create a matrix of people cross actions and put a numeric value there.) There's room for disagreement about the numbers to plug into the matrix -- but that's not an Arrow paradox, just a disagreement.

Once the numbers are in place, the question is simply which column (or row) of the matrix has the highest total value -- and that's an objective question.

I submit that the disagreement is a manifestation of the arrow theorem.

Suppose I do a happiness enquiry on all people. What do I include?
Lessee... Health? Material comforts? Friendship? Sex?

How do I weigh them? According to whose opinion? Does this opinion correctly reflect how happy people really feel in function of measured parameters?

Where the arrow problem kicks in is when you start juggling these weights.

And I submit that it isn't, because it doesn't involve group decisions. Happiness is a personal decision, not a group one.

To do a happiness enquiry, the relevant question is not "will choice A improve your sex life?" or a similar fractionisation of happiness. The relevant question is "how happy will you be under choice A?"

The relevant person to make that decision is, of course, the person whose happiness is in question.

To do otherwise is to assert that you know better than the other person what will and will not maker her happy, which is of course ludicrous.

Now, practical requirements may force you to forego polling everyone in society. You may need to guess what will make people happy and unhappy. But that's not an Arrow paradox. The Arrow paradox is that, in an environment where everyone's preference is known exactly, there is no group decision-making process that will get the "right" decision.

Utilitarianism "solves" Arrow's paradox because it's got more information -- under utilitarianism, you know not only what everyone prefers, but by how much they prefer it. In technical terms, it neglects the so-called "ordinality" assumption because it does not treat strong preferences equivalently to weak preferences.

Nobody outside the left talks about utalitarianism with any genuine belief.

I'm a closet socialist.

 

[wheredanton]

The reason why there is an apparently large number of abortions in Australia is because miscarriages are also lodged in with abortions.

Yep.

The only way they can gauge how many abortions there are each year is by looking at the medicare number that corresponds with the medical procedure.

Abortions and operations for miscarriages carry the same procedure number. So no one really knows how many abortion occur in Australia each year.

This always lead to a debate as to how many abortion a year is the right number? Well I'd submit that there is no right or wrong answer.

 

[withoutaface]

Yes but that's only true if you are pro-choice for economic reasons is it not?

I'm a free market economist (on a principled basis anyway) because of choice/freedom reasons.

 

[The Brucemaster]

I'm a free market economist (on a principled basis anyway) because of choice/freedom reasons.

Ahhhh comprende senor...

 

[BradCube]

Ok bshoc heres the thing and WAF said this in the old thread but ill just reiterate seeing as it doesn't seem to have sunk in:

Murder - The unlawful killing of another human being.


On a more intellectual note there are two immediate facts that contradict your argument about the murderous nature of abortion. One is that mentioned above, the fact that abortion is legal and thus cannot constitute murder.

It seems pointless to look at one definition of the word muder and claim it to be absolute truth. The english language changes as people use it in different ways. So while that defination may be true it can be also used the way meaning:

To kill brutally or inhumanly.

It would seem to me also that the issue of definition is not what this arguement is about, and certainly does not give a moral indication in regards to what people should do.

The other is the human being part.

As I have shown, there is strong evidence to suggest that the foetus is not alive at least until it reaches the uterus, this is about 7-10 days after the moment of conception.

I don't feel that you have given strong evidence of this, and whilst I may be inclined to agree with you, I cannot justify doing so until you show me real evidence of how three of the seven indications of life are not happening from the moment of conception. From the first of these, my question still stands as to how the featus can have any change if it has no ability to metabolise before it attaches to the uterus wall.

After that, whilst it exhibits at least the beginnings of all the signs of life that I put forward there is still nothing to differentiate the foetus at this stage from any other living thing (plants and animals) so i see no reasonable basis for labelling an abortion at this stage as murder either.

We've been through this already. If you want to say that there is no moral objection to killing a featus since it is of equal nature to an animal (which I don't really agree with) then you must first justify how you believe you are morally fine in taking life from animals.

The only point where i see there to be reasonable justification for abortion being labelled murder i at the stage where the baby is able to feel pain and is almost fully developed and this is in the third trimester where as far as im aware next to no abortions occur

The pain argument also seem to be a bit odd to me.

Firstly in regard to the arguement above, if you cannot draw sufficient reasoning to show why we are morally fine in killing animals, then we must realise that they can also feel pain yet we don't have a problem killing them (why change this for abortion?)

The second point is that this argument would suggest that as long as someone is not able to feel pain, we are fine to kill them.

You also mentioned that the baby is near to full development. Fully developed in regards to what? Other babies that are born? Surely most posters here are still growing and developing?