Which massacres did Jehovah sanction?

by Spectrum 91 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

Abaddon
Hellrider
To claim that "abortion and geoncide are different", that ends the discussion right there

Look in the dictionary. I'm not being rude, I'm pointing out words have definitons for good reasons. Abortion and genocide are different. This is fact. You might wish to characterise abortion as being as morally repugnant as genocide, but as you've not dealt with the facts I have provided showing such a moral comparison is obviously invalid, this is your opinion, not a rational argument. You have every right to your opinion, as so so I.
Rational discussion however, will let us see which opinion should be the best model for society to follow.
it is the same as saying that a featus is not a living person, with the right to live.
Obviously within the bounds I have discussed (a 16 week old fetus is almost literally a no-brainer, for me after that the issue becomes greyer very quickly until at 20 weeks I would only think pressing medical conditions are a valid reason) I don't think a fetus is a 'living person' - as to say a 16 week-old fetus is a 'living person' would be to say a rat is a 'living person' too as the rat is more complex a neurological entity.
- I've given a neurological basis for my stance
No one has dealt with the fact that neurological complexity of first and early second trimester fetuses is NOT equivalent to even a new born human.
- I've given a legal basis for my stance as regards the woman's rights.
No one has responded coherently (saying 'that's extreme' is not a rebuttal, it's an opinion) to the infringement of rights or even enslavement of women that curbing their right to abortions (such as I have described) would entail.
- I've shown how abortion is an ancient practice - one carried out with qualms in societies as moral as ours regarding human life.
- I've shown how some mammals abort if the offspring or mother would be disadvantaged by current conditions.
- I've given a counterargument in advance for those who will claim that even IF a 16-week-old fetus isn't the equivalent of a new born (or even a pet rat), the 'loss of human potential' is what is important.
No one has responded to the clear fact that a lot of human potential locked into those who have actually born could be unlocked before we worry about whatever human potential exists in 2 grammes of neural tissue.
I have also stated at every point that if someone doesn't feel abortion is right, that's fine, they don't have to have one.
You can believe an early term fetus is a human being in the same way a new born is and argue it has a right to live, and act accordingly.
However, I've never said otherwise
All I have said is, on a secular basis, your opinion isn't enforcable as law or demonstrable as 'right'.
I couldn`t disagree more, with just about everything in that statement.
Okay, why? We will not have a very interesting discussion if you just say 'I disagree'.
How would forcing a woman to carry a child to term NOT reduce her to the same status as a slave?
Like I said;
Having children isn't just the woman's responsibility. It is not the sacred duty of woman to bear man's magic seed whenever it happens to blossom in her womb.

A man has to take the responsibility to avoid having sex with someone who would do this if he feels any pregnancy he causes must be bought to term by his broodmare.
Why do you seek to relieve men of all responsibility as regards who they copulate with? And yet allow them to retain every possible right over the product of copulation even if it involves forcing another into servitude for nine months? .
Isn't that, like, massively sexist? - "you woman, bear my child!"
Spectrum
That sounds extreme to me.
Reducing a woman to the staus of slave and men not having to bear responsibility for any 'bad choices' (from that man's point of view) of sexual partner seems extreme to me.
The mother is the custodian of the 46 chromosomes if you like.
In her body. She owns them. Half the chromosomes in her body are from one parent. No parent will try to claim ownership over a child's organs due to this. They are in the childs body, they are owned by them.
If the father wants the baby, the life of the child takes priority over the woman's right to choose death.
Please prove the fetal life (of the type we're talking about, early term abortions) is equivalent to a new born in a rational fashion. You may hold it to be equivalent to a new born to YOU in emotional terms, but that is not what law is based on.
This doesn't reduce the woman to breeding stock or chattel status but recognises the father's right to have his child.
No, it forces a woman to carry a child to term, to have a statistically signficiant chance of death, on a man's whim.
So what if it is in the woman's womb? When women want a child they can't wait to get that sperm inside them and put that womb to good use. When the father wants to keep a child, suddenly, "it's my womb I'll do what I want."
This is more sexist than anything in King Kong was racist. Yeah, them women! Typical!. Just like a woman...
But seriously, I see allowing the man the final say is just enforcing female sexual servitude, and is legally unenforcable for a host of reasons.
MungoBaobab
What many consider barbaric is that if you concede the living entity in question is your son or daughter (which is true), comparing him or her to a vermin worthy of extermination is disconcerting. Wasn't there a Watchtower article comparing worldly people to rats not long ago?
Look, you can have a semi-magical belief a 16 week-old fetus is equivalent to a new born. Go ahead.
As there is no medical basis for this claim in any of the ways we measure an individual's humanity other than on a molecular level, and as at such an early point there is no risk of anything sentient, self-aware or in any way concious being killed, I disagree.
If you feel your argument is made more credible by attacking me personally, go ahead. However, the WT saying grown wordly human beings are rats is like saying Jews are rats or negros are rats; wordly people, Jews and negros all have brains.
A 16 week-old fetus doesn't have anything remotely equivalent to an adult brain. Did you know only about a third of fertilised eggs implant succesfully? That about two thirds of human 'living entities' die without their mother even being aware she has conceived? Why are we so concerned about early term babies when nature is not?
I think the important part of our 'humanity' is in our minds, not our cell neucli (you're free to disagree on this stance as well), I can therefore easily see the difference between my stance and the example you gave in your attack.
Hellrider

To claim that "abortion and geoncide are different", that ends the discussion right there

Look in the dictionary. I'm not being rude, I'm pointing out words have definitons for good reasons. Abortion and genocide are different. This is fact. You might wish to characterise abortion as being as morally repugnant as genocide, but as you've not dealt with the facts I have provided showing such a moral comparison is obviously invalid, this is your opinion, not a rational argument

A) Neither is yours. What is a genocide? How many victims does it take to be a genocide? More than 100? 1000? 10 000? Even counting only featuses aborted that were 20 weeks or older (which you yourself is a "grey area"), would give us such high numbers that it could be called a genocide. As for the featuses under 12 weeks: What has the development of the brain to do with anything? Is that where you set the line for human value? Why? The truth is, a child has no sense of selfconsciousness, no sense of a self, until it is about three years old! Why don`t we allow "abortion" up until the age of three?...because it now looks like a human being? ... I know that this last point might look a bit "over the edge". But look more closely: It is a valid comparison, as it proves a point: If human value is to be determined by the stages in the individuals development (physical, mental, etc), then there is really no logical (!!!) reason why 12 weeks should be the limit, because it is we who set those boundaries for what stage in the physical and mental development that actually has value. There is really nothing more logical about setting that limit to a stage before a certain amount of brain and/or neurological system has been developed, than setting it at a point after the brain/neurological system has developed. It is all a matter of the beliefs/values of whoever sets the limit! As for me, I see the moral and ethical problems in setting such a limit at all.
I've given a legal basis for my stance as regards the woman's rights.
B) Very difficult argument to respond to, because it`s such a touchy subject. To sum it up: I am all for womens rights, or to say more accurately: I`m all for human rights, as in; Not being subjected to any kind of force or violent behaviour (both men and women) - equal pay for the same job, etc. I`m not sure which passage in your/mine posts you are referring to, but could it be this?:
Until a child is born the child is the mother's. If a man has sex with someone he gives up rights to those chromosones until they are born. Any other way infringes the woman's rights in an unsupportable fasion, reduces her to breeding stock, slave, chattel.
C) Anyway, I`ll respond to it: I disagree, because with this statement you are basically justifying the actions of ever man that, after being told by a woman that she`s carrying his baby, just sighs and says "well, that`s your problem. You should have been more careful, used a diaframe or something. It`s your body, not my problem, and I don`t care how you fix it as long as it doesn`t cost me anything. Go ask your dad for money for an abortion or adopt it, get rid of it, go jump in the ocean, I don`t give a shit. Now sod off!" The reasons for this, is: If a man has no rights, how can he have any responsibilities? The point here is: Abortion is a 100% legal. However, if this choice is only the womans, and the womans only, then she (obviously) decides whether or not this featus will be born a baby or not. And this decision (!!!), which (in your opinion) is hers, and only hers, have consequenses for both of them, both financially, emotionally and in matters of responsibility. Now, if abortion is to be perfectly legal (as it is), that any woman has the right to decide whether or not she want`s to carry the featus fullterm or not, then it should also be her, and only her, responsibility to take care of the child, raise it, provide for it, etc! What if the man (who has contributed with half of the DNA) would prefer that the pregnancy was aborted, but the woman refuses? Is it then just "well, tough look buddy, you shouldn`t have laid down with me"? I got you to bed, now you`re gonna pay... The fact is, it takes two to tango. The featus would not have existed, had it not been for the choices of both the man and the woman. Now, if the man is to be deprived over any rights to take part in the decisions about what is to happen to that featus, then he shouldn`t be forced to take any responsibilites either. As abortion is a 100% legal (and nothing more serious or ethically challenging than having a wort or a mole removed, at least until the featus is 12 or 16 weeks old), then the man should be freed of all responsibilites, if he want`s the featus to be aborted, but the woman does not. If the ground rule is established, that abortion is not unethical (at all), and that it is a 100%legal, then it`s to late for that woman to say "but I want the child, this is a life I have inside me, it has human value and I`m gonna have it whether you like it or not", because we have allready established as a ground rule that abortion is not unethical, it is just a matter of having a lump of cells removed. See where I`m going? This is not as simple as you want it to be.
How would forcing a woman to carry a child to term NOT reduce her to the same status as a slave?
D) Well, she shouldn`t have gotten pregnant in the first place, then? (and now you go lol). Anyway, the fact is that everything we do in life has consequenses. If I choose to smoke, I can`t complain, if I get lung cancer, if I choose to get drunk every day for ten years and my liver fails on me, I can`t start whining "why meeeee?", can I? Just because there is a "remedy" for all of these physical conditions, that doesn`t automatically mean that all of these remedies are morally/ethically acceptable, does it? And yes, you are right, you pointed out that you are discussing these things on secual, legal ground, whereas the rest of us are discussing them on moral/ethical grounds, but I think you are wrong on this too. The basis for all law is ethical, no matter how you twist and turn it. Murder is not legal because it is unethical. And by the way: How would forcing a woman to take care of her (allready born) children (at least for a few months, until there is room at the orphanage) NOT reduce her to a slave? It is still forcing someone to do something because of choices/actions they have done in the past! But this fact doesn`t make it morally ok for a mother to leave her child outside a mall, take the car and ride of to another state, does it? (of course, in the example, the basis for the "parable" is that a featus is of as much value as a born baby, and I know you don`t agree with that. Still, in the eyes of someone who are opposed to abortion on ethical grounds, this is the situation)
Life is not as simple as you want it to be.
I have also stated at every point that if someone doesn't feel abortion is right, that's fine, they don't have to have one.
E) You fail to understand the view of the anti-abortionists. This is not the issue for them. Their issue, is that a featus has the same human value as a human that has allready been born. So, there is nothing more inlogical about them protesting against abortions, than it is to marching in a parade against the war in Iraq, on the grounds that innocent lives are being killed. It is,in their minds, protesting against the slaughter of innocent babies, not just a removal of a lump of cells. You think it`s ok to go marching in parades against the Iraq-war, don`t you?
I've shown how abortion is an ancient practice - one carried out with qualms in societies as moral as ours regarding human life.
F) Irrelevant. People in ancient times also used to burn children alive to please gods like Ba`al, and they`d even stab their children to death to please Yahweh. That doesn` t make it right.
Like I said;
Having children isn't just the woman's responsibility. It is not the sacred duty of woman to bear man's magic seed whenever it happens to blossom in her womb.

A man has to take the responsibility to avoid having sex with someone who would do this if he feels any pregnancy he causes must be bought to term by his broodmare.
Why do you seek to relieve men of all responsibility as regards who they copulate with? And yet allow them to retain every possible right over the product of copulation even if it involves forcing another into servitude for nine months? .
Isn't that, like, massively sexist? - "you woman, bear my child!"
G) This wasn`t mine, but I`ll be happy to respond anyway. I have no problem in agreeing with this. One thing I would like to make clear: Yes, it is the womans body. If she really wants to have the featus removed, there is nothing in the world that can stop her from that, not even in countries where abortion is illegal. The woman has full access to her own body, and can do things with it to make sure the featus dies. But that`s not the point. The point is whether or not it is ethical (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) for her to do this! - and also whether or not it is ethical to prevent a woman (who would like to do this) from doing it, by terms of law. You like to discuss this on legal and secular grounds, but that is impossible and completely meaningless! This IS, was and always will be, an ethical question! As for your point "Why do you seek to relive men of all responsibility...", I`m not sure who wrote that in the first place, but I think I answered this above, in C)
When the woman made the choice to lay down with a man (perhaps she even initiated it, that does happen, you know...), it could be argued that she, by that choice, in some cases, have given up the rights over her own body for the next nine months. Just as the man, when making the choice of laying down with a woman, by that choice, has given up the rights over his wallet, his wednesday afternoons and ever second weekend, for the next 18 years... There is nothing sexist about having to take responsibility for ones actions.
Caedes

Hellrider,
I’ll start by saying that the "difficult decision" is to have an abortion not to not have one. You haven’t been through that (at least I assume from your post). It is the most difficult decision you will ever face and it is a huge leap to assume that everyone that makes that decision makes it without realising what a dilemma it is and how much it will affect the rest of their lives.
I have been in that situation and been party to that decision twice, both times through contraceptive failure. I was in a long-term relationship and was neither reckless nor a rapist or in any of the other situations where you deem that it is ok to have an abortion. It is a decision that we will have to live with the rest of our lives, but it was our decision not yours or anyone else’s and I don’t need some arrogant prat telling me I’m a murderer. I’m glad you managed to have your child and were in a position to do so, but it isn’t a choice everyone can make and you shouldn’t judge people because they couldn’t make the decision you did.
One of the other points you raised was that I insinuated that I knew what the poster had been through in order to be qualified to make such a sweeping statement, you are wrong, I directly asked the question, big difference. I knew that the poster was defending god’s biblical track record of massacre so I don’t think it was a huge leap to assume he is christian of some flavour. However I am not in the habit of criticising anybody merely for being a christian (feel free to check my history).
As for saying the poster is a chauvinist? You might care to point out to me where I stated that.
You seem to be missing the point that the world is not black and white and that even if abortion sickens you nobody is taking it lightly, least of all the (majority) of people who have to make that choice.
I won’t stoop to your level by stating that I don’t think you should exist but it seems pretty funny that you are the one accusing me of being self righteous given that it "sickens and disgusts" you that I even exist.
You might also care to make sure that when you are criticising somebody regarding a post it isn’t a good idea to use quotation marks unless you are actually using quotes from that person. I’m sure you don’t need me to point out where you have implied that I have made comments that I haven’t.
Read back your post and my reply and try working out who is "unleashing the outrage"
Tetrapod
How's it hanging dude?
I haven't seen the Bill Hicks sketch but yeah that was exactly the point I was making. But I see Abaddon has expressed it much more eloquantly than I.
Hellrider

I’ll start by saying that the "difficult decision" is to have an abortion not to not have one. You haven’t been through that (at least I assume from your post

If you read my post carefully, you would see that I have been thru that difficult question, in which I singlehandedly had to decide on whether the woman I had impregnated was to have an abortion or not. I wrote:
I have been in that situation! Well, I`m a man, but I had to, on my own, decide whether the woman I had gotten pregnant, was to have an abortion or not.I had a purely (mutual) sexual relationship with someone, and she got pregnant, because we were careless. We never had any intention of moving in together or take the relationship to another level or anything, but she got pregnant. There was never Love, just Lust, so to speak...So, she said that it was up to me. She said she wanted to have it, but it was no biggie (she is not against abortion at all, unlike me). If I felt uncomfortable with it, she would get an abortion.We were both young enough to have kids later on, if we wanted to (and not necessarily with eachother)To many guys, who find themselves in that unfortunate situation, my situation (with a woman willing to have an abortion), was a perfectly cool situation. So, the decision was up to me. I had never given abortion a thought before this, but now I had it thrown at me.
I forgot to mention that at first, I had decided that this was not a kid I wanted for us to have. I totally panicked, I told the woman (whom I now live with), that if she had that kid, I would leave the country, change my name and disappear (I was, in other words, not just having cold feet, I was completely paranoid!). So, the night before she was going in to the clinic to have it done, I was laying in my bed, sweating and having panic attacks, full of guilt and pain...until I just realized: NO! I am not going to be responsible for the death of that featus. I called her up, told her that she could have the baby, I would support her financially (not that she needed it, she makes more money than me, lol), etc. Now, 4 years later, we`re living togehter and raising our kid. Anyway, my point with that whole post was, (and I know I came on very strong in that post, I wish to apologize, at least for the language) that when you show up with something like this:
Forscher wrote:

And really, considering the wholesale slaughter of innocents going on in the name of "a woman's right to choose", I have to ask myself just how we can dare claim the moral right to judge him?
Never been in that situation have you? That kind of judgemental attitude is about as far as you can get from a loving christian one.
All together now "eeeevery speeeerm is sacred...."
...then you are exhibiting the exact same kind of judgemental attitude you are accusing (in this case) Forscher for having. So, just like you did (!!! ...such as in: "never been in that situation have you"...and "That kind of judgemental attitude is about as far as you can get from a loving christian one..."), I jumped to all sorts of conclusions about what kind of person you are, just like you did with him. Predjudice is a two-edged sword. One can attack someone with a firm belief that one is intelectually, morally (and... politically) superior, and then it will all backfire on you when someone tears you down and show you that that`s not necessarily what you are. Just because you believe in, and agree with, what is considered politically correct at the moment, this doesn`t necessarily mean that what is "correct at the moment" is morally and ethically correct per sè (in a more universal view).
Spectrum

Abaddon,

"This is more sexist than anything in King Kong was racist. Yeah, them women! Typical!. Just like a woman..."

Is that why you didn't contribute to the blonde jokes thread?!!!

How can I get those cheeky smileys in my posts?

Oh.. And have you always been a feminist?
Abaddon

Hellrider
Our opinons differ in mine are backed by facts. So far your claim for equivalence is suppostion and assertion; that's not how law is made, if law is a measure of right and wrong.
What is a genocide?
":the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group"
How many victims does it take to be a genocide? More than 100? 1000? 10 000?
There is no quanta involved. But fetuses are not a 'racial, political, or cultural group'.
You can still disapprove of it until the cows come home. But using loaded language to try and make an emotional point (even if inadevertently - genocide = Hitler thus calling abortion is genocide has implications especially as abortion ISN'T genocide) is just not going to work.
As for the featuses under 12 weeks: What has the development of the brain to do with anything?
Because people are legally terminated when their brains stop working, so why is it wrong to legally terminate them BEFORE their brains start working.
Is that where you set the line for human value? Why?
If you had to chose between saving a person with a functioning brain and someone in PVS in a fire, you would choose the person with the functioning brain. If you were in a foxhole, and one buddy had a leg wound, and the other had a serious head wound, had non-responsive pupils, but was still respiring, and you could only get one to safety, you'd choose the guy with the head wound. That's why. You would set such a line for human value yourself using the self-same criteria. I don't mind you being inconsistent in this regard as far as abortion goes, but I do have to point out the inconsistency.
The truth is, a child has no sense of selfconsciousness, no sense of a self, until it is about three years old!
I said "at such an early point there is no risk of anything sentient, self-aware or in any way concious being killed". A 16-week old fetus doesn't have the neurological structures to allow these things. It can't even feel pain yet, the 'wiring' isn't complete . A new born does, can feel pain and suffer, even if in psychological terms it has several stages of the development of awareness of self and others to go through in the next few years.
Why don`t we allow "abortion" up until the age of three?...because it now looks like a human being? I know that this last point might look a bit "over the edge". But look more closely: It is a valid comparison, as it proves a point:
A 16-week old fetus has a couple of grammes of nerve tissue ... a three year old's brain is, what, a thousands of times larger? You don't have a point. You are effectively saying a car with no engine has the same worth as a car with an engine. I know you don't like abortion, and you don't have to, but let's not use emotional and invalid comparisons.
If human value is to be determined by the stages in the individuals development (physical, mental, etc), then there is really no logical (!!!) reason why 12 weeks should be the limit, because it is we who set those boundaries for what stage in the physical and mental development that actually has value. There is really nothing more logical about setting that limit to a stage before a certain amount of brain and/or neurological system has been developed, than setting it at a point after the brain/neurological system has developed. It is all a matter of the beliefs/values of whoever sets the limit! As for me, I see the moral and ethical problems in setting such a limit at all.
The alternative is silly; 60% or so of fertilised eggs don't implant, more spontaneously abort. There is nothing sacred or special going on, even though something very special can happen. But special things can happen all the time and don't. To outlaw early term abortions is to make a concious decison of less worth than biological statistics. As once a fetus hits twenty weeks it 'stops' developing (lots of things to develop further but everything is more or less there), it doubles weight in the next, what? four weeks (from 300g to 600g) about where the 'line' should be is pretty obvious for social abortions.
Yes, it is an artificial line. So it the age-of-concent, the age you can drive, the age you can drink, the age you can buy porn, inlist in the army, be executed... you get the idea.
We all KNOW those lines are arbitary and sometimes get it wrong - in the case of joining the army, execution or driving people can die. But we set them, all the same.
Why is it so important in THIS instance, in the early stare of pregnancy where most fertilised eggs don't make it, where the fetus isn't neurologicaly developed, is it so important we say 'oh, can't draw a line, so you can't do it at all'?
Why especially so when it invades on the rights of what cannot be disputed to be a full human being?
I`m not sure which passage in your/mine posts you are referring to, but could it be this?:
Where I compare forcing a woman to carry a child as a form of slavery, treating her like chattel, a broodmare. Turns her into a thing. I'm pretty sure that is violates her rights.
C) Anyway, I`ll respond to it: I disagree, because with this statement you are basically justifying the actions of ever man that, after being told by a woman that she`s carrying his baby, just sighs and says "well, that`s your problem. ... Now sod off!"
No I am not. How do you stop that anyway? Different subject. I am allowing a woman who gets pregnant and does not want to carry a child to abort. Giving men a right to FORCE a women legally to carry a child is sheer madness, as per above.
The reasons for this, is: If a man has no rights, how can he have any responsibilities?
He can refrain from sex if he doesn't want the risk that a woman will exercise her right and have a child (of his) she is carrying. That is his right. If he waives his right not to take that risk, he has to take the responsibility of helping her support a child which he knew was a possible concequence of having sex.
The alternative is basing the legal system around penises. Which it kind of is anyway.
Anyway, the fact is that everything we do in life has consequenses.
I knew we would agree.
How would forcing a woman to take care of her (allready born) children (at least for a few months, until there is room at the orphanage) NOT reduce her to a slave?
Any mother can be totally delinquent in her responsiblities, just like guys can.
There might not be much choice, but there is choice - I think we'll agree with that, just like we do about conseuences.
You fail to understand the view of the anti-abortionists. This is not the issue for them. Their issue, is that a featus has the same human value as a human that has allready been born.
Oh, I realise the paradigms are incompatable. I said so at the begining; if someone belives a little divine spark is in every sperm and egg (a big hello to traditional RC's!), or it appears when an egg is fertilised, we ain't ever gonna have a common ground.
The day a court allows this to be the arguement that makes abortion wrong is the begining of the end of secular society in a country. I think evolution and homosexuals would be next on the hit list. What then? Porn? Drinking? Ooooweee!
I don't think many secular people want to go there.
Now of course, secular people can oppose abortion just like some religious people can support the right to it.
There are very sound secular reasons (legal and scientific, let alone social ones) why early term abortion is allowed. You don't have to like it or do it. But to support those that would take that right away for religious reasons, when abortion cannot be proven 'wrong' in the logical terms a court of law would hopefully apply, well... it's risky.
If you start allowing things that are logically okay to be illegal because you don't like them, what are you going to do when someone forces their equivalently illogical opinion into law?
It is,in their minds, protesting against the slaughter of innocent babies, not just a removal of a lump of cells. You think it`s ok to go marching in parades against the Iraq-war, don`t you?
Like I say, I geddit, you're right about their POV.
Irrelevant. People in ancient times also used to burn children alive to please gods like Ba`al, and they`d even stab their children to death to please Yahweh. That doesn` t make it right.
But, if in secular terms, a born child is not equivalent to an early term fetus, that's hardly the point in a secular discussion? I just love adding in the bit about the Bible not prohibitting abortion specifically, as (in additon to being true) I am fascinated by how Christians react to this at times.
But that`s not the point. The point is whether or not it is ethical (!!!!!!!!!!!!!) for her to do this! - and also whether or not it is ethical to prevent a woman (who would like to do this) from doing it, by terms of law.
We agree.
You like to discuss this on legal and secular grounds, but that is impossible and completely meaningless!
One could say the same is true of the age of consent, drinking age, etc.
This IS, was and always will be, an ethical question!
The same is true of the age of consent, drinking age, etc.
When the woman made the choice to lay down with a man (perhaps she even initiated it, that does happen, you know...), it could be argued that she, by that choice, in some cases, have given up the rights over her own body for the next nine months.
Not historically. Historically murder has been a wrong. Likewise rape. Abortion has not been regarded the same as murder through history; only where religions have dictated otherwise has it been prohibited, and even then is often considered a lesser crime, or none at all if done early.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion
Due to a misinterpretation of scripture, or an elboration and extension of actual Biblical law (which we know all about), some Christians feel it is equivalent to murder.
But this, unlike attitudes to murder, is a historical quirk, and not even supported by their Holy Book.
I've hoped some such Christian would try to approach it from the scriptual angle, as at least that allows some hope of understanding or agreement to disagree.
Spectrum
If wanting women to have equal rights in practise and law is being a feminist, I'm a feminist. Shoot me.
Why are blonde jokes so stupid?
So men will understand them...
As for PC, hell, when I get going I can be so un-PC you'd think I was in King Kong, unless you listened long enough to realise I am very equal opportunities when it comes to scathing humour. I just thought given the thread we, er got to know each other on, was about racism, seeing you do a thread on blonde jokes was well funny, but I didn't see any reason to piss on your party.
Spectrum

abaddon,

"If wanting women to have equal rights in practise and law is being a feminist, I'm a feminist."

The operative phrase there is "equal rights", and there is nothing equal about a woman telling the father of a child that he cannot have his child.

"Shoot me"
Nah, then who will lambast me when they don't agree with me.

"seeing you do a thread on blonde jokes was well funny,"
Is that funny as in strange or as in that's funny laugh, laugh.
OMG, I can't tell which it is, I'm turning blonde aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!

"but I didn't see any reason to piss on your party."
Piss away old chap, it's not like it's the gonna be the first time!!
Abaddon

Spectrum
there is nothing equal about a woman telling the father of a child that he cannot have his child

WHAT child? At the stage she can legally abort there is legally no child and medically no equivalence to a child. There is only 'a child' if you subscribe to magical thinking or superstitcion. She's telling him he'll have to get another woman to carry a child to term. There is no 'child'.
And what is equal about a man forcing a woman to have a child? There is no measurable risk of a man dying because a woman aborts his child. There is a measurable risk of a woman dying from being forced to give birth. The woman is at a disadvantage, but apparently that's okay
Come on man, you can think better than that.
"Shoot me"
Nah, then who will lambast me when they don't agree with me
At least I don't traduce you, LOL
Is that funny as in strange or as in that's funny laugh, laugh.
Funny as in 'oooo! Consistent! LOL'
tetrapod.sapien

"People suck, there's too many of them, and they are easier to kill when they are fetuses than when they're growing up."

- bill hicks
lol
will

Humm? are some of you JW?
Im lost and have been for yrs.I know theres a god and i thank him everyday. There is so many saying this and that "i just cant seem to find whats right and who to believe". Never mind

Which massacres did Jehovah sanction?

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