Yantelope V2

This question is the one that gets argued in more places than just abortion. It's the question of one person deciding when another person should live or die. It's not a question of what a person wants to do with their own life but a question of what a person wants to do with another persons life. I can think of a hundred situations in which I would not want one person deciding on whether another person should live or die.

Oh, now we're going to get into quality of life? We can end someone's life if it's not going to be a quality life? What defines a good life vs. a bad one? Where do you draw the line between a life that is worth living and one that isn't?

Then you get to deining conscious beings and it all gets so darn tenuous. Are you a vegetarian? Does it have to be a human who is conscious? I kind of got pushed back from arguing where life began all the way to conception becuase to say "that fetus wasn't human a minute ago but now it is human" is such a hard thing to do.

Well, again, it's not that you can't aruge those things, it's just that I don't really want to on the internet. Some people are arguing where life begins, others are arguing consciousness, it's a very complicated subject with no true answers. I think it's futile to try to find the exact moment when something transistions from being alive to being "self aware" or conscious. You can however point to an exact moment where two cells connect and form a new oganism which begins to grow and take on a life of it's own and that would be conception. If there is a simple moment to point to where there is a dramatic change and bonding of cells and life it would be conception.

I also have told my wife that if I'm gone then just pull the plug on me and give my organs to people who need them. I don't need my body after I'm dead so other people can have it. That's fine by me. I don't have strong feelings on morning after pills and stuff like that. If I were really pressed I'd say that you should probably avoid that stuff but again, it's back to when life begins and that's souch a hard thing to argue.

Oh yeah, forgot to respond to this too. Apparently from people I've talked to it costs in excess of $10,000 usually in all the fees and legal costs just to adopt a child. That's one problem. Additionally, I know a couple who is married, they already have a child and they are in their mid 30's and have been trying to adopt for year unsuccessfully. Truly I don't know why they were so unsuccessful but eventually they finally went to Geuatamala and adopted a small boy from there. That also was not easy. Anway, I find it extremely frustrating that there are apparently tons of kids who need homes and many familys with homes and our government is unable to pair them.

@TN By Ethan's own admisison you're not discussing "life" you're discussing "consciousness" which is a far more dangerous path to discuss IMO.

Talking about when life begins becomes a matter of opinion and even belief at some point. I'm not going to go so far as to say masturbation is murder but I also don't want to go specifically down this road of deciding at exactly what point life begins so I can make sure I terminate it 1 second before it becomes conscious. Whether early term abortion is better than late term is neither here nor there to me personally. Is it a question worth discussing? Yes. If you want my honest opinion I'd say that life begins at conception but I'm not going to try to argue that right now. A simpler question, the one that people really should focus more attention on is the choice that a woman makes. Isn't that the whole argument anyway? The freedom of choice? What is the choice the woman is making? The choice many times boils down to "Do I want to be inconvenienced by this child?"

Johnny's comment is trite because it makes the assumption that I should not care about another person's actions. If I think another person is doing something wrong, for example: murder, then I have a responsibility to try to stop that person.

Hmmmm... That's about as trite as saying "Don't like murder? Don't kill anyone, and stop trying to make the same choice for everyone else." I know the question of when life begins is what everyone would love to talk about but for me the question that is more important is when life ends. It's a question that has an answer and in our society we let women decide when to end life. Women can make a choice to keep children from inconvenienceing their lives. It's the rhertoric from my president that bothers me so much. Obama recently said “And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.” It's this idea that our dreams are more important than the life of a child. The idea that a career or a vacation or financial well being is more important to us than bringing another life into this world is repulsive to me.

Of course having a child has skewed my views. That's exactly what I meant when I said "have a kid, it'll change your feelings on abortion". I didn't mean that it would necessarily change your world view but it will give you a different perspective on what it actually is to terminate a human pregnancy and how much life there is in an unborn child. We could argue big picture but personally I'm not really interested in it too much. Big picture makes it easy to rationalize. it's much harder to rationalize the ending of one life because it was inconveniencing another especially when the actions of the second (usually) led to the creation of the first.

There's something about feeling the baby kicking in your wife's belly. Something about hearing that heart beating on the monitor. It makes it all very much more real and much less hypothetical. Will it change your philosophical stance? I don't know but it sure hardened my belief that children who aren't born are still children. ...you do know what Planned Parenthood actually does most of the time, don't you? Here, let me fill you in. http://front.moveon....-actually-does/ I know it might sound convincing when the GOP goes after Planned Parenthood and labels them as evil abortion monsters, but they are an important organization. And defunding them is seriously screwed up. And you may not like the idea of abortion, but you also probably don't like the money that comes from YOUR taxes that ends up paying the childcare after someone who can't take care of a baby has one and thrusts it into the government's hands. Or would you rather let the child grow up in a piss poor environment and leave the government out of it entirely? Either way, it's a shitty life you're sending those children into. I tell you what, I know a lot of people at my church who would love to adopt children but can't because of beaurocratic nonsense. Maybe instead of aborting kids we should be fixing the broken fostering system in america. No home is prepared and waiting just like it will always be difficult to raise a child. My nephew was a surprise baby and his parents weren't yet married. I find it sickening to think this kid whom we all love so much could've been taken away before we ever met him. I'm in no way anxious to have a kid (my wife is another story) but I can't see every just getting rid of it because it's inconveinent. Every child is inconvenient, planned or not. I've heard it said that you will never know how truly selfish you are until you have children. I've also heard it said that you will never give so much to someone who gives so little in return. Children take your time, your money and so much more. They're worth every second, penny and ounce of love in return but some people never see it that way. Parenthood by defninition is about sacrifice.

Meh, maybe. Sounds like a pretty weak argument just to back a crappy organization like Planned Parenthood. It seems as though they've been shuffling around federal money to fund abortions illegally and they're finally getting busted for it. As an aside, have a kid, it'll change your feelings on abortion. I mean, I know it sounds trite, but all the feelings you have towards kids get amplified x1000 once you have one of your own. I get literally enraged or heartbroken when I hear some terrible things on the news these days and I didn't used to before I was a father. Kids are amazing.

Dogs are the best. My german is indestructible. She has hip displaysia (sp?) and spondelosis (sp?) and survived a stroke and is still going strong. She's like 15 years old too. I think most germans only live to about 12-13ish. Labs are the best dogs in the world though.

I rofled when I read this. Abortion isn't toying with people's lives? That is neither here nor there when you're pulling support for breast exams. There are plenty of people out there who can only afford to get breast exams through Planned Parenthood. By removing the grants, you're essentially denying these people the ability to get examined. Lives will be lost, all thanks to some moron who doesn't respect a woman's freedom to do what she will with her body. Again, the money will probably be reinvested in a different group to provide the exams.

Well in the article it states "Komen spokeswoman Leslie Aun said earlier that the cutoff results from the charity's newly adopted criteria barring grants to organizations that are under investigation by local, state or federal authorities." So it's not simply about abortion but additionally isn't the money going to just go to a different organization to provide exams? They're not going to just throw the money away.

I rofled when I read this. Abortion isn't toying with people's lives?

@Ethan, yeah, it's sort of a grey area. Who decides what's "fair"? I just don't think I buy into the idea that because they can afford it they should be forced to give more. That simply doesn't strike me as just. I think you see it on a lot of tax returns too. A lot of liberal politicians, like Al Gore and Joe Biden give almost nothing to charity and they want us to tax the rich heavily. They go on record saying that paying taxes is doing your part to take care of the poor. More conservative politicians would prefer to tax less heavily and give money to charity to help the poor. It's a difference of ideals. Obama would like to make it so that charitable donations are not tax deductible, something that would greatly increase people like Mitt Romney's tax burdens because they give so much to charity. Personally, and this is even coming a bit from my religious side, I think that it should be individuals responsibility to care for the poor and needy around them. I think it's more damaging and wasteful for the governement to try and be a charity. Anyway, we're just into opinion at this point but that's my $0.02.

I'm confused by this. Is that a english v english thing? Candy from a baby vs. sweets from a baby? Also I thought it was a reference to this:

Candy from a baby eh? That sounds like a larf!

Lets take another sound bite out of context. He saying we already have programs for the very poor. $374 Billion for health/medicaid stuff.

From what I understand while reading about "The Onion" it's all about the headline. "Console game just a sloppy port of the PC version" "Ubisoft's new DRM to require urine samples from players" "John Carmack "My games are still good, really.""

Oh and my mother did use the full phrase "whale the tar out of you". Jokingly of course *twitch*

That's where I think it's wrong to call it "your fair share". If you're stuck paying 40% and someone else only has to pay 10% it's not fair anymore. You're being punished for being successful. To me it's not a good idea to punish people for being successful. It's also possibly a redistribution of wealth thing which is also something I'm against. Edit: To clarify, I think that mentaility comes from thinking rich people just swim in their money. Reality is a little different though I think. http://www.hardocp.com/news/2012/01/14/bill_gates_has_given_away_28_billion_since_2007/ How much money was it that Romney gave to Charity?