The Abortion Paradox

Originally posted by Xtrozero
I didn't say life as sacred, I said human life as sacred. So you are suggesting that we should all die if we view any life as sacred, or if we didn't then all life has zero value?

Can I view plants and other animals as sacred and thank them in preserving my sacred life as I eat them?

You are jumping off in a very different direction than "the abortion paradox"

So once again why is a mother's life more important than the baby in her womb? Or why does it matter if the future has changed because a child was born and not aborted?

I never suggested that we should all die if we view any life as sacred, or that all live had zero value.

What about how we kill plants to make things that simply provide us with a convenience?

I'm not jumping off in a different direction, I am using a comparison to illustrate a point.

Why is a mother's life more important than the baby in her womb? How about: Why is the baby's life more important than the mother's?

Back on topic: It matters because people equate abortion with mindless killing, however, there are many lives that would not be here if abortion were illegal or if the abortion were not had.

Originally posted by TasteTheMagick
If you're going to find life sacred at all (I'm not taking a stand either way on the subject) then you must consider ALL life.

My house is on Elm street, therefore Elm street is my house. Do you really see logic this way?

[edit on 15-1-2009 by saint4God]

reply to post by saint4God


Against the law that "you ascribe to"? You don't get to make up the laws and therefore, until there is a law against it, abortion is not against the law so it is not murder.

Why is a person's life more important than a mouses? Or a trees? It doesn't matter that those things are not "people", the point is that they ARE alive.

Originally posted by TasteTheMagick
Why is a mother's life more important than the baby in her womb? How about: Why is the baby's life more important than the mother's?

They both have the right to live, and neither the right to live how they want as a consequence of the other.

Originally posted by TasteTheMagick
Back on topic: It matters because people equate abortion with mindless killing,

I don't, I see it as mindful killing.

Originally posted by TasteTheMagick
however, there are many lives that would not be here if abortion were illegal or if the abortion were not had.

How do you figure?

reply to post by saint4God


How is that what I said at all? If that's what I said my sentence would read like this: Live exists on earth, therefore earth is life.

This is not what I said. If you're going to say that LIFE is sacred, then how is the life of any animal different from your own?

Originally posted by saint4God
How do you figure?

This was already explained to you.

If you want my answer to THAT question, just go back and read my other posts because I'm not going to go through that again and make this whole conversation more redundant than it already is.

Originally posted by TasteTheMagick
How about: Why is the baby's life more important than the mother's?

Well it is not, they are the same, would you not agree?

Back on topic: It matters because people equate abortion with mindless killing, however, there are many lives that would not be here if abortion were illegal or if the abortion were not had.

Hehe this ends my last post, you win, for you just flipped back to that very statement that I spent many posts explaining why it is so illogical. Reread my posts and answer your own questions…

reply to post by Xtrozero


Seeing as how the whole thing has flipped back entirely, this is my last post here as well. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one and leave it at that.

Originally posted by TasteTheMagick
Against the law that "you ascribe to"? You don't get to make up the laws and therefore, until there is a law against it, abortion is not against the law so it is not murder.

"Or if anyone has a stone in his hand that could kill, and he strikes someone so that he dies, he is a murderer..." - Numbers 35:17

This law is older than my country's mere 200 year old law and the dictionary. Replace stone with scalpel, the law applies the same.

Originally posted by TasteTheMagick
Why is a person's life more important than a mouses? Or a trees? It doesn't matter that those things are not "people", the point is that they ARE alive.

I hope someday you discover the answer for yourself because I'm confident my answer will not be sufficient for you. You've somehow convinced yourself that it's okay to kill babies (little people) so it takes no great leap of logic to say it's okay to kill grown people as well. After all, little people become big people. Kill kill kill and someday whether you're legally killing babies or on the battlefield against your country's foe, you'll have to answer for it.

[edit on 15-1-2009 by saint4God]

Originally posted by TasteTheMagick
This was already explained to you.

I was hoping that if you explained it another way that it would make sense.

reply to post by Irish M1ck


Thanks for a cogent argument on a most difficult subject. As far as abortion is concerned, I have allways had problems with sancramonious men who can never get pregnant, telling women what they can do to their OWN BODIES!A fetus is a person? Prove it. A "fetus" is a prehuman biological construct. A soal? Well guys, speak the hell up! Lead, follow, or get your ass out of the way.

Originally posted by arbiture

Thanks for a cogent argument on a most difficult subject. As far as abortion is concerned, I have allways had problems with sancramonious men who can never get pregnant, telling women what they can do to their OWN BODIES!A fetus is a person? Prove it. A "fetus" is a prehuman biological construct. A soal? Well guys, speak the hell up! Lead, follow, or get your ass out of the way.

so when does this "prehuman biological construct" magically become human?

[edit on 15-1-2009 by Xtrozero]

Originally posted by arbiture
A fetus is a person? Prove it.

We did by dictionary, by law and by scientific definition. Which do you dispute? Where is your proof saying otherwise?

Originally posted by Xtrozero

Originally posted by arbiture

Thanks for a cogent argument on a most difficult subject. As far as abortion is concerned, I have allways had problems with sancramonious men who can never get pregnant, telling women what they can do to their OWN BODIES!A fetus is a person? Prove it. A "fetus" is a prehuman biological construct. A soal? Well guys, speak the hell up! Lead, follow, or get your ass out of the way.

so when does this "prehuman biological construct" magically become human?

It depends on the current level of medical and biogenetic knowledge. This changes by the moment. We learn more, the more we realize we know nothing.
[edit on 15-1-2009 by Xtrozero]

The one that is more striking to me is this:

Saying that the unborn child would have been something if he was not aborted assumes that there is something omnipotent, in most people's minds, God, determining its fate.

Yet, the fate-creator cannot see that the child is going to be aborted.

So those who abort the babies are preventing them from fulfiling the destiny set out for them by someone/thing that couldn't see that the pregnancy was going to go to term.

Well... I've said it before and will say it again:

If one looks to many of the planet's scriptures, including the Jewish Talmud (given by the God of the Bible), it is said that the soul enters the body at first breath.

So... Any abortion would be of a soulless entity. Much like killing a cow or a chicken.

Though I hold no dogma, I am willing to use these scriptures as a measure of the morality of abortion. I abhore the practice of demanding a woman bring a pregnancy to first breath and then abandoning the infant to fate, where most often they are neglected, abused and otherwise treated poorly.

Much better to ensure that every child brought to first breath is loved, nurtured and cherished. Fetuses that are unwanted should not be forced into a life of hell.

Having an early abortion is "like" wearing a condom or using contraceptive pills, as the fetus cannot feel pain until around the third trimester. Personally, if you plan to have a baby and on the third trimester you don't want it anymore, too bad, but if you "accidentally" get pregnant and are deciding within a couple of weeks/months if you should or shouldn't, then you should be allowed to have an abortion (if you choose).
Of course, none of this will really affect me as I am a man.

What I have always found chuckle inducing with the Abortion Paradox is how abortion is condemned and said to be so evil... yet some of those same people will praise In Vitro Fertilization as a great technology to help those who can't otherwise have a baby... hellloooo, does anyone realize how many fetuses are killed in IVF?

If you want to talk about what's killing more children/lives/souls... IVF should be banned way before abortion....

I'm going to say this as nice as I can:

Are you people intentionally trying to be thick or is this just blowing your mind away? Xtro, hypothetically, if your mother had an abortion and then later on met someone else and had you, but instead, due to abortion being illegal, she couldn't have an abortion, you would not exist.

She could still go on to meet your father and you still wouldn't exist because someone else would (a theoretical sibling). For you to still exist, it would have to be the same sperm, the same egg, and the same genetic make up.

Can you imagine the odds of that happening? Are people not getting this? I am not talking about a ratio of human beings (are there less or more), I am simply talking about the ones that are alive today.

The Bob you know today could still exist if abortion was illegal, but he wouldn't be the same Bob.

If you accept the concept of soul, them killing babies is completely ok as long as no soul is occupying them, right?

That's not a trick question. Just think carefully how you choose to answer it.

If we believe that physical bodies are simply vessels that consciousness occupies on a limited basis, and that it is "soul" that really "is who we are," then destroying the physical body isn't such a big deal, right? The question becomes at what point does "soul" enter into the phsyical body? Or is consciousness a result of the phsyical form?

I haven't read through the whole thread yet, but wanted to comment because this is an interesting idea that I've thought a lot about because of my personal experience.

When I was young, I was dumb and in love and not nearly as careful as I should've been. Needless to say, I got pregnant. I grew up in a fairly religious household and even though I always rebelled against that, it's amazing how strong those feelings of guilt and fear (and SHAME) sprang up when I considered abortion. I remember at the time being absolutely terrified of either choice and it was one of the most emotionally distressing times of my life. So I did nothing for a long time (denial) until one day I was overcome with the strongest compulsion to call Planned Parenthood. I went down there and they told me if I had come in the next week I would not have been able to get the procedure (not legally anyway), and I had to get a D&E, which is the kind of abortion pro-lifers rail against the most as being murder (I didn't know that at the time. I was so naive and clueless about a lot back then).

I went to get the abortion - it was a three day affair and I had to be put under anesthesia on the final day when the actual abortion would be performed. I'm not quite sure what happened to me, if I had a near death experience or what, but I had the most profound spiritual experience I've ever had. There was no tunnel or dead family or anything, but I was in the most beautiful garden talking to the most beautiful being I'd ever seen (an angel? I have no clue, I'm still not religious so am reluctant to put that kind of label on it) and behind us there was a glowing crystal city, and the whole time I was filled with the most amazing feeling of love. In my journal I described it as "molecules of liquid love flowing through my lungs and veins, bathing every cell of my being." When I woke up I remember being distraught and crying because I was "back in a body." Hours later when I was leaving, I was sitting in the back seat and I felt relieved, but also overwhelmingly sad and guilty. Then I felt a presence next to me and I heard the voice of a little boy (audibly, not just in my head) telling me "It's alright, don't be sad. God forgives you." And I felt so at peace and just knew I did the right thing and never felt sad about it again.

So I grew up and later got pregnant again and decided to keep it. The weird thing is throughout my entire pregnancy I had this knowing that the baby I was carrying was the same child that I had aborted before. I even knew it was a boy before I ever got the ultrasound to determine gender. I've since talked to other women who've had abortions and then gone on to have children later, and a few of them have said they also felt they were having the same "child" (or soul or whatever) that they previously aborted. So maybe it's not so much a paradox, because those souls get born eventually.

All in all, what I got from my experience was: a) whatever we are, it's not contingent upon a physical body and b) if abortion was so sinful and wrong, I doubt I would have had such a profound, loving experience and c) the idea that a human can actually kill a soul is kind of silly and arrogant. But, if I'd never had the experience, who knows what I would think.