EvesApple,
I personally will not be one to judge anyone who is in that position to have to make such a difficult decision...nor give my view point one way or another, it just doesn't matter.
I disagree. If you have a well-thought out opinion, then it does matter. If people stop voicing their opinions then our choice of ideaology will depend on chance (like what our parents told us to believe, etc.).
Cheers,
Pole
Pole, my argument is neither stupid nor nihlistic. It's simply fact. Maybe disconcerting to contemplate, but fact nonetheless.
Notice that I said 'for me personally'. But anyway the two adjectives were largely rhetorics. And rhetorics often generates counter-rhetorics as in this case. Sorry about my choice of words. Still I think saying individual life doesn't ultimately matter as part of your argument doesn't make it better.
As to this: "Simple. Raped women had no "choice" when conceiving a baby", you know very well that there is nothing simple about it. The potential child has no choice whether by rape or consensual sex, and yet otherwise has all the life potential of every other fetus. And if you say "no, it doesn't have all the life potential of every other fetus", due to the fact that it is unwanted by both father and mother, then you have essentially come around to a pro-choice position.
Of course it's not simple. What I wrote is simple was how this situation was different from the woman's perspective. I do understand your argument. And I also think by putting it this way you are essentially using the 'pro-life' logic. I mentioned this case as an example of a situation in which I (and my partner really) would consider an abortion. That's all. You may have noticed that earlier on I wrote I'm not sure if banning abortion is a good idea in practical terms. That was because I understand the delicacy of the issue when one is trying to come up with a perfect answer for everybody.
The truth is however that in many cases abortion is chosen to save a career/lifestyle. That's something I personally can't understand without becoming more nihilistic than the situation actually requires. The price my mother paid was postponing going to college for 25 years and all the effort involved in bringing up a kid as a lonely mother. Is that such a high price for such a sweet dude as myself :-). Maybe it is. Let other people judge.
END OF REPLY TO SIXOFNINE
On a different note: I hate how people buy entire ideologiacl packages. Leftist: pro-abortion against death penalty, right wing: against abortion, for death penalty. Do these sets of beliefs really correlate so strangely with each other?
Pole
For instance, you gave your own life as an example of someone who potentially might have been aborted. If you had been the product of rape, would you now wish to not exist?
As you said - I wouldn't now care anyway, but I would have understood why my mother would've wanted to have an abortion.
Pole
six of nine,
Can't understand why you see rape as an exception? If the all important issue is the life of the unborn child, wanted or not, why should rape be a factor? The potential child had no say in the circumstances of the egg-sperm pairing that produces him or her.
Simple. Raped women had no "choice" when conceiving a baby.
The truth is, if any of us had been aborted, no one would miss us. No one. Simple non-existance is horrifying to us individually, but when it happens, and it happens millions of times every day, no one notices. No one.
From me personally, this is a very stupid and nihilistic argument. Same logic applies to getting killed as a one day old child. So what's wrong with killing an unconscious baby?
Real arguments, please. I can be convinced if I see one.
Pole
Sure, there are early births (I guess from 7 moths on) and many such these babies survive. So, it's a difference of the degree, right?
From a moral point of view this is exactly why I have problems with unrestricted abortion. An embrio is only a few months away from becoming a human being in terms unquestioned by most people. So in most cases embrios have the perfect potential of becoming humans.
For me abortion is like resorting to euthanasia when you know the temporarily brain0dead person has 90% chances of surviving given the right treatment.
Pole
Can anybody explain to me the difference between killing a few week old embrio and killing a 1 day old child? Serious answers only, please.
Pole
I almost got wacked by abortion. My daddy wanted to flush me down the toilet, which was why my mom never married him. Now he has 5 other kids and is a die-hard catholic condemning pro-abortion folks. My mum is an ex-dub with unspecified beliefs.
Calling the right to abortion the woman's choice is pretty dumb IMO. Why not exercise free will by using contaceptives in the first place?
Of course there are excepetions. Rape, a threat to the mother's life or health and disabled embrios to name just a few. Here is when the concept of choice makes sense.
I don't know if banning abortion is good from the practical point of view. But abortion for reasons other than the ones I mentioned above is plain wrong for me.
Pole
theres an interesting thread here:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/14/92000/1.ashx and i thought i'd open up the discussion again in the guise of "coming-out" to jwd.
it's taken me about 5 hours to get the language and style of this post right.
Hi Clive. Welcome to the board!
Pole
recently the awake 2005 july 22 on page 4 states about the december 26 2004 tsunami; .
exactly one year later, a magnitude 9.0 quake occurred just off the western coast of northern sumatra, indonesia, spawning by far the deadliest tsunami in recorded history.
the killer waves claimed over 200,000 lives and left many more injured, homeless, or both.
Do you think they misrepresent the facts on purpose or just do a lousy research job?
There is also a 'third way'. It's easy to imagine an "honest" WTS writer who can justify 'minor' misstatements in the name of the big doctrine. It's a halfconscious process. Of course 80% of the WTS dotcrine is made up of minor and gross lies, but this is easy to forget if you just focus hard enough on your little assigned contribution to the TRUTH.
Pole
recently the awake 2005 july 22 on page 4 states about the december 26 2004 tsunami; .
exactly one year later, a magnitude 9.0 quake occurred just off the western coast of northern sumatra, indonesia, spawning by far the deadliest tsunami in recorded history.
the killer waves claimed over 200,000 lives and left many more injured, homeless, or both.
It is common knowledge that in 1737 there was a tsunami in the same area as the Asian Tsunami of Dec 26 2004. The 1737 tsunami killed over 300,000 people, more people than the one in 2004. Why would the Awake state the current one is by far the deadliest?
Because they want to create the impression of earthquakes having some special significance nowadays without actually saying it explicitly. They seem to have given up on earthquakes some time ago, but the average dub reading this will secretly think this is a sign of the end.
Pole
