The Rise of the 'Cosmetic Abortion'

Stop the bickering NOW. This conversation needs to get back on topic and the topic is:

The Rise of the 'Cosmetic Abortion'

Stop the fighting and personal attacks. You have been warned.

mrwupy

Originally posted by mrwupy
Stop the bickering NOW. This conversation needs to get back on topic and the topic is:

The Rise of the 'Cosmetic Abortion'

Stop the fighting and personal attacks. You have been warned.

mrwupy

oh well Just about everything on this site is a fight or a bicker or absolute crap!

" oh well Just about everything on this site is a fight or a bicker or absolute crap!"

Yeah common sense and intellegent debate are an endangered species here...

But anyway If someone does not agree with what somebody else does then so be it but why can't people agree to disagree.

What's it to somebody if a woman gets an abortion cause she don't want to be fat. You know some people rely on their figures as it makes them their bread and butter.

I am not advocating it certainly but I reckognize the rights of the individual and I do not beleive that it is murder. A developing child in the whom is a life in progress not yet developed life. It does not yet have a concsiousness and therfore not murder. Seriously people it is not like your killing a baby with a developed brain that has already existed in this world for a period of time.

Nope, you don't abort a child with minor defects that can be handled. Pro choice? That baby deserved a chance to live. Are we just supposed to throw things in the trash because they are imperfect? Do we divorce our spouces because they burn the toast from time to time, or forget to take out the garbage? There isn't one thing, on this planet, that is "perfect" in the strict sense of the word. But obviously there is a point where it would be unfair to bring a horribly defective child into the world.

Sure, it would be great to erradicate birth defects. If we can safely do it, fine. I've got no problem with improving the human body, as long as it's done ethically and morally.

Troy

This is an extremely touchy issue, but one that should be addressed of course. All of us here who have access to ATS, are likely from priviledged and "Free" countries where our personal freedoms are far greater than 2nd and 3rd world countries. The fact that we even have the option to end a pregancy, is tantamount to the fact of how lucky we are to live in these industrialized/wired nations.

Something which has piqued my social freedom curiosity stands out for me.

When is your freedom more improtant than my freedom?

They told us to stop smoking in Restaraunts, Mall's and Office Buildings, and we did. They told us we could smoke in bars and we did. Then they told us we couldn't smoke in bars, and we did. They told us we could smoke outside, and we did. Then they told us we can only smoke in designated zones outside, and we did.

What's next?

"They" have been impressing their views on others, when really an individuals rights are just as important as another's.

Are you more important than me?

Save a fetus, shoot a Doctor dead? Which is murder?

-ADHD

""They" have been impressing their views on others, when really an individuals rights are just as important as another's."

I beleive that the decision to abort for whatever reason is up to the individual and though some people do not approve they do not have to participate and get an abortion too.

Take gay marraige for example though many do not agree with it does that give them the right to tell a gay or lesbian they can't get married?

Every person no matter your backround should be entitled to the same civil rights and priveledges as the next person.

How about this for an Idea people...MIND YOUR OWN #ING BUSINESS!!!!

Why should you give a # it's not like your being forced to have an abortion. Infact I do not even see how this is such a big deal.

Originally posted by The_Doctor
Why should you give a # it's not like your being forced to have an abortion. Infact I do not even see how this is such a big deal.

Because some see abortion, expecially late term (in this case even many supporting pro-choice) as ending the life of a viable human being. How can you not ponder where the rights of a woman supercede the right to life of a viable child?

Originally posted by Graystar
Perhaps you should stand in on a late term abortion, maybe even help with the crushing of the head right before they suck out the brains. Hell you can hold the bag for those buthchers. Careful don't want to get any blood on your hands though.

I believe that those who say that they are pro choice are either comepletely sadistic or value their own lives too much and are unable to take a stand against anything that might cause them to be hurt or looked upon as out of touch and biggoted-- weaklings all of you!!!!!!1

So can I ask, since you feel so strongly about this. How many unwanted or deformed/handicapped children have you went out adopted over the years?

"Because some see abortion, expecially late term (in this case even many supporting pro-choice) as ending the life of a viable human being. How can you not ponder where the rights of a woman supercede the right to life of a viable child."

You use the term viable child but let me correct you by sayin it is not viable until it is born. The fetus has no rights until it is born and it is up to the mother whether or not she wants to abort for whatever those reasons may be. Let people do what they want it's not like they are coming into your home and forcing anything upon you. A mother only supercedes her rights after the child is born to terminate it.

Bottom line still is that it is none of your business whether or not someone gets an abortion for whatever their reasoning might be.

Originally posted by The_Doctor
You use the term viable child but let me correct you by sayin it is not viable until it is born. The fetus has no rights until it is born and it is up to the mother whether or not she wants to abort for whatever those reasons may be. Let people do what they want it's not like they are coming into your home and forcing anything upon you. A mother only supercedes her rights after the child is born to terminate it.

Bottom line still is that it is none of your business whether or not someone gets an abortion for whatever their reasoning might be.

I believe this issue will never find a satisfactory resolution. This is where our biological nature, and our social nature as member of society which has morals, intersect at an odd angle. There are other examples, but this is the most glaring.

I sort of disagree that the woman should have the freedom to abort at will under any circumstances. I used to be pro-choice, and that changed the moment I saw the ultrasound picture of my own child, in early weeks of pregnancy. The chest was not fully formed at this point, and there was little in the way of the ribcage, but the heart was huge and beating... And she was holding her little hands around it as if trying to protect it.

The way I see it, when a woman becomes pregnant, she assumes custody of a child. Yes, circumstances can be different, but more often than not pregnancies come from consensual s*x. Adult people should be able to handle the consequences of their own actions in a graceful manner.

You can argue all you want that the fetus is not fully human yet, and is not alive yet, and there is some merit to these argument, but it just appears to me that that fetus is so darn close to being alive that it's just wrong to kill him/her. In later months, you can see them kicking around and sucking on their thumbs in their sleep... Would be damn hard to convince me the kid is not alive and doesn't have rights at this point. I frankly no longer see the logic of the more pro-choice people anymore. Have they seen at least as many sonograms as I did?

Just a suggestion, to try to keep everything civil and peaceful...

Maybe let the women decide this one...

although it takes two, to make a baby, it is untimately the mother who enables the birth... and whether we like it or not, there are a hundred natural ways to lose a baby...

Men dont really have the same right to decide this, because if we pretend to, then we are putting ourselves back to middle ages, where women did as the men said (the good ol days, ahhhh).
Instead, we need to let the person responsible for keeping or ridding the pregnancy decide (they always ultimately do anyway)
It is her diet that will be altered, taking on major extra poundage, changing the hormone action forever more, and also many other health risks taken on her back (no pun).

So as a man, I am not equiped to decide either way...

Originally posted by LazarusTheLong
It is her diet that will be altered, taking on major extra poundage, changing the hormone action forever more, and also many other health risks taken on her back (no pun).

Well, pregnancy is definitely a drag. My wife's pregnancy was real hard on her. And yet, like I said, women should also carry responsibility for having conceived that child. And... look at it this way - pregnancy is natural, after all. It's part of the lifecycle.

Originally posted by Beelzebubba
Is it right to abort a six month old foetus for having a cleft palate?

Most deffinitly not. Thats just disgracefull. Personally I dont ever want children, but I'd never abort one. In my opinion its murder. -Which I know I may get slated for saying that but remember, thats my personal opinion.

I mean I sort of understand it if the child is a outcome of rape, Then yes the mother would most likely want to abort, but never should a mother want to abort her unborn child because it is not 'perfect'

People are too obsessed with looking good.

Blue.

What I had hoped to achieve with this thread is not whether it is right or wrong for a person to abort for whatever reason, rather to look at ourselves and what we are becoming.

What I want to really look at is the modern obsession with perfection.

What right does a person have to abort a child simply because "It's not good enough"?

In the future will we see people aborting because their child doesn't have the desired hair colour or eye colour?

Will we see technology advance enough for a prospective parent to be able to abort because it has been discovered that their child is going to suffer from ADHD, or a stutter, or dyslexia?

It's not about the choice to abort, it's about people who are so puffed up on self importantance that they think they are too good to have a child that is less than "perfect".

These people need to look deep within themselves and try to see at what makes them so perfect.

People were once humble enough in general to see a prospective child as a gift, warts and all.

"In the future will we see people aborting because their child doesn't have the desired hair colour or eye colour?"

No in the future you will be able to choose due to the emergence of genetic engineering.
The future clearly will be about designer babies and we will eventually become a subspecies as we boldly push forward into a new era.

Originally posted by The_Doctor
No in the future you will be able to choose due to the emergence of genetic engineering.
The future clearly will be about designer babies and we will eventually become a subspecies as we boldly push forward into a new era.

And this what you want to see is it Doc?
An end to the beautiful variety that nature provides us with?
A society of cookie-cutter look-a-likes?

Don't tell me that variety will still exist as each person creates their own definition of perfection. The majority of us are so unimaginative that we let the media tell us what is perfect and we follow suit.

Will you enjoy the vilification you will suffer at the hands of these new perfect people, who will also be a product of the perfectionist environments that they will undoubtably be raised in?

Your "bold new era" faintly smacks of Nazi ideology.

"I have seen the new man. He is intepid and cruel. I was afraid of him." - Adolf Hitler

[edit on 8-6-2006 by Beelzebubba]

Cosmetic abortions . . . very generalized subject . . .

Perhaps with all the technology available out there we should be looking for the perfect child gene so we do not have to worry about the unwanted defective unborn.

My fear is once these standards are applied to unborn children, it will eventually lead to living people having standards applied against them (the elderly, the infirm). Who will make these decisions that a life is not worthy of life?

As I mentioned earlier, we already see this with a progrossion of feeling that the elderly and infirm at a certain point should be "put out of their misery. This is a dangerous trend, putting criteria on life.

These cases that started the thread are also frivolous criteria for ending a life and there are plenty of cses where the doctors were wrong. don't many of you know of cases where the doctors were wrong? I know of a woman who was told her child would be born with Down's syndrome for sure. She had her daughter anyway and in fact she was perfectly normal.

No, this is very dangerous ground that is being treaded.

"And this what you want to see is it Doc?
An end to the beautiful variety that nature provides us with?
A society of cookie-cutter look-a-likes?"

No but it is an inevitability that a technologically advanced species such as ourselves realize that genetic imperfections can be overcome. The conventional human being will cease to exist as new species of cybernetic and genetically enhanced men emerge within the next 35 to 45 years. Sure some will resist, protest just like they do with this abortion issue and every other issue some would consider playing God or pro life issue.

Doc, as I see it, it's not a matter of overcoming imperfections. It's a matter of hubris blinding us to how little we really know about what will qualify as advantageous tommorow, next year, or ten thousand years from now.

When we make judgements, based on our limited perspective, about something as enormous and complex as evolution, errors are unavoidable.

An example...

Say we take it upon ourselves to eliminate albinism, because it's a 'defect' in the eyes of the prevalent culture. A few hundred years down the road, a cosmic dust storm blots out all but the faintest light from the sun. Albinos could have survived, but since we've gone ahead and eliminated them from our gene pool, we're SOL. A crude example, but I think it will have to do.

Suitability changes with the winds, it's not something we can accurately predict without God's eyes and God's brain. What is desirable today, and suitable today, and preferable today, is almost certainly guaranteed to change in time.

This will end badly, if we keep up this level of presumption. GE/GM crops are a godsend, but releasing them into the wild is bound to bite us where it hurts. We should have quarantined them from the start, to avoid contamination of the naturally occuring varieties that insure diversity. The banana problem is an interesting example of this.

If humans, in their vain and foolish quest for beauty, eliminate diversity in the name of perfection, we're digging our own grave. One virus, or one bacterial bloom, and the homogenous population bites the dust. Bad idea, yaknow?