Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Well, what do you think?

I personally believe that it's the woman's right to decide whether to have an abortion or not, not the government's. I guess the main reason here is the crime of rape. A pregnancy caused by this will most likely ruin a woman's life. I guess that, in my mind, the only moral problem with abortion is if the baby is aborted when it is has a developed a brain and can feel emotions and physical things, but then again, I think that the woman should still be able to choose.

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Evidence of the ol' glassies! Nothing up our sleeves, no magic little Alex! A job for two who are now of job age! The police!

Okay, I'll bite. The abortion debate, much like the gay marriage debate, is a solely religious one. Religion is the only valid argument against the wholesale ban on abortion, because all arguments against abortion rely on the concept of a soul, and that the biological mass that makes up the sperm and egg is more morally significant five seconds after the former penetrates the latter than five seconds before.

All other arguments against the wholesale ban on abortion rely on scare tactics, "conception magic", and pseudoscience. They all suppose that a fetus (and you'll almost never hear a "pro-life" activist use the scientific terms "zygote", "embryo", or "fetus" -- instead, they will always say baby, child, or human being; watch this thread and you'll see), no matter how few days along it is, is a complete person (see above), despite the fact that (unless you're willing to make the soul argument) a few-weeks-old fetus is no more biologically significant than a fetal zebra.

To summarize, these are the arguments against abortion:

1. It's against god's will
2. A zygotes, embryos, and fetae are people

The latter is bunk, at least (and not being a scientist I have no opinion on this) until a certain stage quite a ways into development. The former is find and dandy, but thankfully in this country we don't make laws based on certain people's religious beliefs.

Concerning that "certain stage", like I said, I'm no scientist. Many people draw the line many ways. Some will say it's where the fetus is "viable", i.e. when it could potentially be removed from the womb and live. Others say it's when the fetus becomes "self-aware", which would be handy if we had any idea when that is. Scientifically we're not even sure it happens before birth (ttbomk). But in making laws in the United States we have always drawn this line very, very conservatively. Could it be moved back? Probably.

All I know is that if a woman that when I am married and if I encounter a situation in which this becomes an issue, if my wife asks me for my preference, I will always ask her to do what's in the best interest of her safety and well-being. And I know that if someone I love is going to have a child, I will always urge them to look very, very closely at the hospitals available to them. Did you know that many Christian-funded hospitals, as a policy, put the safety of the infant ahead of the safety of the mother?

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So you claim. But contrary to your parenthetical statement, this is your attempt at imposing your opinion. Unborn children are just that: unborn children, whether you attempt to impose medical terminology on them or not.

And I object to your attempt at trying to force this issue into a purely religious category. It IS an ethical issue just as much as a religious one: does an unborn child have the right to live, and does that right to live supercede any perceived right to choose? Long before there was Jesus Christ, there was Hypocrates, the father of medical ethics, and he had a few things to say about abortion.

There may be a reason why, in our day, it seems to be mostly religious people who continue to discuss ethics, but that's a different subject.

Now here's a good question: do you honestly believe that an individual's humanity is dependent upon their mental development or "self-awareness"? If so, then if you were to accompany me to Laclede Groves, to the dementia ward, would you be in favor of putting those people to death? Even people in later stages of dementia have rights; in which case, where is the justification for denying those rights to those who are still in the development process?

And I would claim that a few-week-old fetus is more biologically significant than a zebra for the simple fact that it is a human being and not a zebra.


Do you have any statistics or citations to back up this claim? I happen to work in a Christian-funded health facility (albiet a nursing home--not too many cases of pregnancy here), and we have obligations to respect our patient's health care wishes. This is a different situation, but I'd be interested to know where you get your information on this.

I applaude your effort at attempting to cut us off at the pass by throwing out terms like "pseudoscience" and whatnot. But I did notice a severe lack of definition on your part for the terms you used. Therefore I will supply a couple:

Zygote - (1) The cell formed by the union of two gametes, especially a fertilized ovum before cleavage. (2) The organism that develops from a zygote.

Embryo - (1) An organism in its early stages of development, especially before it has reached a distinctively recognizable form.
An organism at any time before full development, birth, or hatching.
(2) The fertilized egg of a vertebrate animal following cleavage.
In humans, the prefetal product of conception from implantation through the eighth week of development.

Fetus - (1) The unborn young of a viviparous vertebrate having a basic structural resemblance to the adult animal. (2) In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth, as distinguished from the earlier embryo.

The common element I see in these different terms is that they describe different stages of development in the same creature. A human zygote becomes a human embryo, and a human embryo becomes a human fetus (the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary even refers to them as "developing humans"). At no point in the process is the creature anything other than a human being. But you seem to use these developmental terms as if they describe entirely different creatures, and not processes in human growth, as if calling it an embryo makes it something other than human. And yes, I do prefer the terms baby, child, and human being, because that is precisely what they are.

Can you say with any certainty when the zygote/embryo/fetus becomes a human being? If so, how can you be so certain? Sounds to me like someone else is engaging in a bit of pseudoscience.

And in your last paragraph, you attempt to base this right of choice on the issue of health, as if the only cases of abortion are those that endanger the life of the woman. If this were the case, I would be supportive of the woman in the decision to protect her health. However, the vast majority of abortions are cases of simple unwanted pregnancy, not health risk. In these cases, the issue is convenience, not health. I would support laws that allowed abortion in those cases where health is of primary concern--including rape and incest. But to take what should be a resort in extreme cases and treat it like a constitutional right in all cases--especially when so many children will lose their lives as a result--is taking it way out of proportion. The convenience of the mother should never outweigh the health of the child.

Just for point, I will also post the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary's definitions.

Zygote - a cell formed by the union of two gametes; broadly : the developing individual produced from such a cell

Embryo - an animal in the early stages of growth and differentiation that are characterized by cleavage, the laying down of fundamental tissues, and the formation of primitive organs and organ systems; especially : the developing human individual from the time of implantation to the end of the eighth week after conception

Fetus - an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind; specifically : a developing human from usually three months after conception to birth

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No I didn't. The latter part of my post was more a personal anecdote than an argument.

I could have copied and pasted the definitions of zygote, embryo, and fetus here, too, but I figured readers who didn't already know could look it up on their own. I guess you've saved them some work, at least.

My point remains: apart from a religious definition, an embryo is not a person or a baby or a child. At some point it becomes a person. Is it at birth? Or before? Or after? This is a question neither of us is qualified to answer. But I know enough biology to know that there's no person inside a woman's womb at 72 hours, but part of the pro-life agenda is to ban emergency contraception.

But let's talk about what's legal in this country. Like I said, our abortion laws have always erred on the conservative (in the literal sense of the word, not the slimy sense) side. We don't terminate fetuses that might be viable outside of the womb, and that line is at about 24 weeks (at a stretch). Abortions are almost never performed after 20 weeks (in such cases I believe it is almost exclusively for the sake of the mother).

So the actual question is: is a 20-week-old fetus a person? How about at 18 weeks? Twelve? Six? One? I, for one, am not willing to say "all of the above" just because a sign on the highway says "abortion stops a beating heart" (hey, so do fishing and Wars on Terror).

To be honest, I could write pages more, but I'm hesitant. There's just too much to write. I'm poorly versed on the scientific specifics (that's a fun phrase) and perhaps too well-rounded on the social specifics. I could write pages about how the pro-life movement is a misogynist, racist, and classist establishment, but I'm not sure I have the energy.

But I'm sure more will come later.

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This is why I went ahead and added the Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary entries at the end of my post (I just should have used them to start with, I guess). Apparently, the medical community does define embryos and fetuses as developing humans (zygote as a developing individual, but I'll let that slide for now). But even in the American Heritage Dictionary (the one I quoted earlier in the post), it is clear that these terms refer to stages in human development. Therefore, regardless of which stage of development it is in, it is still a human being. I do not know if you distinguish between human and person, but I do not care to make that distinction.

I will concede this: abortion in the cases of medical emergencies. I've always held that line.


All terms that don't mean anything unless you can prove your main point: that unborn children are not really human and have no right to life. It would be like calling someone a "Nazi" just because you disagree with them on something. Because if they are right, then they are acting for the most part in the best interest of unborn children.

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A "developing human" is not a human. That's why they call it a developing human and not just a human. If one were the same as the other, there wouldn't be two terms for it. You could call a speeding automobile a "developing car accident", but that doesn't make it a car accident. The potential for something to occur does not equal the occurrance, even as the likelyhood of the occurrance approaches certainty.

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That's a clever little word play, IJ, but I am unimpressed. A human is a human, regardless of its stage of development. Trying to interject some garbage about a speeding automobile has no bearing on this argument. Let me counter it with my own irrelevant analogy:

If I have a role of film and take it to the drug store to be developed, it is still film, whether it is in the process of development or not.

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Being an illegitimate child myself, I'm against abortion. But I oppose abortion not so much on the grounds that it is undeniably the taking of a life (that much is absolutely no matter of debate -- it's a life; the value of the life is what is in question), but because putting the baby up for adoption is, I think, a valid alternative. I don't think abortion should be totally prohibited so much as very heavily regulated and allowed only under extraordinary circumstances. Never have I once found a good reason why abortion should be used instead of adoption. It's shocking to me how infrequently adoption is even mentioned in abortion debates I've heard or read. It's as if people take it as read that it's not a good option without ever explaining why, or they just conveniently forget about it.

I also take issue with the idea that a developing human is not a human. I actually caught Interruptor Jones using (or actually accidentally suggesting, since it probably wasn't a major part of his reasoning) a logical fallacy here: he says they're not humans because they're developing humans. This reminds me of a story told by a Chinese philosopher whose name escapes me and I'm too lazy to look up. According to the story, he was riding his horse and he reached a point where "horses are not allowed to pass". He told the guard, "My horse is white, and a white horse is not a horse." He and his horse were allowed to pass. Absurd, eh? Of course I know Jones didn't mean that adding an adjective suddenly makes something completely different, but it's a point to bear in mind: language can deceive us.

But I take issue with the idea itself. When does it stop being a pile of cells and when does it start being a human? There's no clearly defined boundary (I certainly don't believe that birth itself is that boundary). It's not something one can really think about easily. When is it just killing a bunch of cells, and when is it murder? You can't draw a hard line, and the whole thing makes me uncomfortable. That there are alternative options tells me that abortion is silly and, in many cases, wrong (but of course my ideas of right and wrong are entirely subjective).

I think this way everybody wins (at least as much as anybody can win). Obviously lots of other people feel differently. So what am I missing here?

- Kef

For one thing, you're missing the fact that many woman can't afford to give birth to a child. Proper pre-natal care (and post-natal care for the mother) costs many thousands of dollars that the government (especially the current government) will not provide in many cases, not to mention the time that a woman must take off of work for the last weeks of her pregnancy (and unlike in my workplace and perhaps yours, for many women there is no such thing as maternity leave). If an impoverished woman gets raped, putting the child up for adoption is a fine alternative for the baby and your peace of mind, but the fact is there's inadequate to nonexistent relief for such women after they give birth.

Not to mention there are some far-right groups that believe adoption should be abolished. Now those people are anti-choice.

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Yes, good points, not everybody can afford it, but I have a hard time believing that the cases are as common as they would seem. I admit I argue from ignorance here, it's just something doesn't feel right to me. I agree about allowing abortion when an impoverished woman is raped -- those are among the "extraordinary circumstances" I mentioned. It's not the way most babies come along, not even among only those who would be aborted. What I mean is an average woman who is in a good financial situation and in a sexual relationship probably shouldn't toss a baby (developing or not) off like it were a sack of potatoes. Of course that's only my point of view. Remember, this is exactly how I came into being, so I admit my emotions cloud my judgement a bit here.

I'd still like to hear your rebuttal to my other points, by the way. Wow, a debate between you and me. Watch out kids, it could become a bit pyrotechnic

- Kef

I'm not gonna touch a lot of this topic, seeing as Furrykef and Didymus are already arguing the side I'd be on anyways. However, I just wanted to address this quote:



My wife and I had our first child when we were both still in college and making ~$9000 a year. That put us in the very bottom rank for income at the medicaid office. They paid for everything. We didn't have to pay one cent for anything from prenatal vitamins, doctors visits, labor and delivery, birth control afterwards, childbirth classes at the hospital, etc. It was very easy to get on medicaid as well. We just had to show our paystubs from the last month, and if it was under a certain amount, we were covered 100% (my wife to 3 months after the birth, and the baby till his first birthday). Even if you get a new job or insurance later, you are still covered through those dates. The health care situation (medicaid) isn't working for everyone, but they bend over backwards and spend more money than most insurance companies will when it comes to taking care of pregnacies and children.

This of course doesn't address the people who fall in the middle, too rich for medicare, but working at a place with no insurance.

Is that right? I hadn't heard that before.

But such people are on the fringe. I think we can safely ignore them for now.

An epic battle between Furrykef and InterruptorJones? Maybe I should give a blow-by-blow commentary in my newspaper, The Wiki News: Dedicated to Journalistic Hilarity. But I wouldn't want to be accused of pulling a Fox News on people.

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Yes, these people do exist, but you're right, they're pretty, er, fringy.

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There are anti-abortion people on the very fringe, I remember when a prisoner was about to be executed for bombing an abortion clinc and a anti-abortion protester played taps on a trumpet before he was excuted. Thats what you call fringe, I mean playing taps, come on the guy was a killer.

That's not what we mean by "fringe". We mean that people opposed to adoption (as opposed to abortion) are rare (and silly). We're not talking about total nutcases like hypocrites who murder in the name of stopping abortion -- those are just lunatics, particularly since they're working at cross purposes (killing in order to save lives).

Does anyone know anyone else who got an abortion?

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my ex had one (before we dated, so don't go thinkin I made her do it)... She was against it, but decided to anyway, cus she wasn't really ready to take care of a kid, as she was taking care of elderly parents as it is... She's been on both sides of the issue, and strangely enough, she's apathetic to the issue. It's a non-issue to her. She said "never again" for her, but she's neither for nor against a ban on abortions. guess that answers your question.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Correct me if I'm wrong (because I do that a lot), but I think I'm the first female to reply to this topic.

I do not agree with abortion as a means of birth control. In this age, women have many precautionary options like oral contreceptives, condoms, and good ol' reliable abstinence. Having an abortion for reasons other than protecting the mother/fetus' lives or because the pregnancy was a result of a rape seems irresponsible. HOWEVER - just because I would never have an abortion doesn't mean I am about to take away another woman's right to do so. She has her own personal sense of right and wrong - who am I to impose my beliefs on her?

That being said, I have a big problem with partial birth abortion....just seems like a method of torture to me. I agree that this subject has some very gray areas, though. It's not all cut and dry.

I do know a girl who had an abortion. She doesn't regret having it, but she does regret the fact that she had to have it...if that makes any sense. But she said it changed her life forever, made her "settle down", so to speak.

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Just so you know, in the medical community there's no such thing as "partial birth abortion". The term is a political one fabricated by pro-life groups and is (as seems to have been their intent) extremely confusing to by-standers to the abortion debate. To quote Wikipedia (which describes the issue far better than I could and has some very valuable links on the subject):



The important distinction here is that this type of abortion doesn't, despite what pro-life groups will tell you, mean "late-term". The act signed by Bush (and opposed by John Kerry because it includes no provision to protect women in life-threatening medical situations -- re: "compassionate conservatism") last year bans all abortions falling under a very broad definition which includes many procedures that are only undertaken in the first trimester.

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Well the government can punish people for murder. Isn't murder sort of like an abortion? Killing a living human (or fetus). I really don't know, but I thought I'd just throw that out there.

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[porplemontage studios]
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See, now that's ironic. You're exactly the person that many would expect to be in favor of abortion, because you've led a sub-standard life of emotional wounding and misery knowing you were an "unwanted child." (That's irony, by the way. You don't sound miserable or wounded to me. Nor do you sound like someone we should have assumed would rather not be, without having her opinion asked on the topic.)

I'm not even touching the central debate, especially since I dislike uneven debates, and as I see it there's only one staunch abortion advocate so far. I would like to say that Furry had a good point, though; the percentage of spotlight that adoption gets is staggering little compared to the one on abortion. So there isn't much government $$ going toward adoption options (obligatory "poet & don't know it" statement); why not? (Yes, I know the long answer, that we can't pay for everything, and we got regimes to change 'n' such)--but I guess I'm saying in an offhand way that I think there should be.

Secondly, a warning to both sides in this thread: Already two or three times someone has referred to the fact that one side uses a certain terminology and the other doesn't. I want to alert people to the fact that semantics matter, and you can't be surprised by their existence. It goes right back to the beginning, in that the party opposed to abortion prefers to be called "pro-life," whereas the other party objects that this is a charged term with certain semantic implications and connotations--as indeed it is. But, to be fair, so is "pro-choice." "Anti-abortion" is simple and descriptive, even if it's not what they wish to be called.
I simply encourage everyone on both sides 1) to be aware that semantics are at stake here and are significant, 2) not to act as if it's some sort of surprise, and 3) to be respectful of the other side's preferred semantics--in so far as to recognize why they prefer them and not to criticize them for wording things in line with where they're coming from. For instance, I understand why pro-abortionists will prefer to say "fetus" and anti-abortionists "human"; the difference is rooted in everything that makes the two beliefs different! Personally, I think I'd compromise by saying "human fetus"; it's scientifically valid, and reflects both sides' points.

Lastly, I know it's a while back in the thread now, but I'd also like to point out to IJ that it doesn't have to be an inherently religious debate. Yes, statistically, especially in America, it's drawn along religious lines, and perhaps this is what you were really driving at. However, as you say, objection to abortion relies on belief in "soul" (or the definition of human identity). This is not necessarily a religious belief, much less solely that of any one religion. One does not have to have religious beliefs to object to abortion.

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"Good job, The Cheat! Now try harmonizing with the butternut squashes!" ... "Side effects include wine, women, and song."

I think "sort of like" is the operative phrase here. Euthanasia is "sort of like murder", too, and so is suicide, and so is killing in self-defense, and so is hunting, and so is the wholesale bombing of Iraqi civilians (sorry, couldn't resist). In order to make the case that all abortion should be banned absolutely, one must make the case not that it's sort of like murder, but that it is exactly like murder.



I think you're right about the first part (by design, the term "pro-choice" implies that the other side is "anti-choice", though to be honest I think as a loaded term, "pro-life" is far more successful), but wrong about the second. "Anti-abortion" is clear and descriptive, but the opposite term would then be "pro-abortion", which doesn't characterize the pro-choice movement. StrongCanada is the perfect example -- she's not pro-abortion (she doesn't ever want to have to have an abortion) but she is pro-choice. Though the main focus of the pro-choice movement is to ensure that a woman has the right to safely terminate her pregnancy, pro-choice means choice in many aspects of sexuality and parenting, including contraceptive choice (including emergency contraception) and realistic sex education, and making all of the above available to all people. (I don't intend to suggest that all pro-life people are against all of the above, though many are).

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"Her"? I ain't a "her", yo. What, is it my avatar? My ambiguous name? That I like furries? (Heh, actually, I'm well aware they're ambiguous. It's an odd little thing I have. No, I'm not "flaming" or a transvestite or a transsexual. )

I'm guessing your point is that being an illegitimate child doesn't mean in itself that I'm against (or for) abortion, and that's right, I'm just explaining one of my own reasons.



You're drawing hard lines where none exist. You're saying "either something is murder or it is not murder" -- murder XOR (NOT murder) in logical terms. In binary logic, that's a true statement, but that doesn't say much. The truth is, reality does not operate on binary logic. That something is either A or not-A just doesn't work well. To what degree is a half-eaten apple still an apple? You'd say it's 100% true it's an apple. Now what if I had finished eating the apple? It's not an apple anymore, we can agree on that, right? Now let's say I ate every bit of it except this tiny speck of apple skin. Is that an apple? Hardly. It's not 100% an apple at all. The rule only works when you just accept it as given. It doesn't model reality. In the same way, I think it's fallacious to apply the logic of "either this is murder or it is not murder" to the real world. Yes, a line has to be drawn somewhere for the purposes of law, but what you're failing to recognize is that the line is, in a sense, artificial and arbitrary no matter where you draw it.

- Kef

Believe me, I recognize that fact completely. I know arbitrary when I see it, and I think I demonstrated that earlier. I don't believe that an embryo at 72 hours is a person and I defy anyone to argue otherwise on a scientific basis. But at some point that I cannot define and which science cannot yet define, it becomes enough of an apple to call it an apple, so to speak. The line isn't entirely arbitrary, however, because we do know some things. We know when a fetus begins to have brain activity, and we know when a fetus is "viable". So really the line, assuming scientists and medical professionals are the ones to draw it, can be, how shall I say, an educated arbitrary.

And as I mentioned before, we have always drawn this line conservatively.

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I think that has less to do with politics and religion and more to do with the idea it's better to err on the side of caution. If we assume the conservative stance and aborting a fetus is murder (or "almost murder" even), you're killing human lives by doing it. If we assume the liberal stance and it isn't, then... then... then what? Whatever you may say it wouldn't be enough to outweight murder, I think. I'm not saying abortion is murder, but it might be, so we err on the side of caution. This may not entirely make sense because "murder" is just a name, but it does make many people feel better (for religious reasons and otherwise).

- Kef

That's what I meant. As noted in a previous post, I mean "conservative" in the literal sense, not "the slimy sense".

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So we agree. Except we don't. Um. Say something, I wanna argue some more.

- Kef

Oh. Wow. I need to check my facts before I start ranting about something....the first time I heard about "partial birth abortion", I was told that it involved literally sucking out the baby's brain. My bad.

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I seriously don't think that abortion is wrong. The cause of having a baby such as having carless sex is wrong. Don't get me wrong to kill someone, but with an unborn child, he/she hasn't met life yet. Take a look at it this way. If a person had sex and got pregnant and she has no way to take care of it but still does, the baby will grow up in a bad way, possibly have a disease or die of starvation or something of that matter. It would be hard for them to see there child dying because they can't support them. If they get an abortion then it would be a favor for the child, in a way(God this really sounds harsh of me to say). Yes I know that they can give it away for adoption, but it will still be hard for them to know that their kin is roaming the earth without even knowing where they are. People who have abortions and have "settle down" should tell others how bad it is so we can prevent abortions. Once again, I am not trying to be a horrible person, just a person who can show a different point of view of the topic being discussed. I mean to have no quarrel with anyone.

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Terribly sorry; I thought I had seen that on some other thread.


Sorry, but could you clarify what that sentence meant? I'm really not sure.



I know what you're saying, but I feel that that argument applies more in some other issues. In this one, anyway, of course people-who-are-the-opposite-of-anti-abortion aren't "pro-abortion" in the sense of insisting that everyone get an abortion personally; they are, however, in favor of the continued existence and legality of abortion. And "anti-abortion" means the opposite of this. It doesn't describe so much a personal conviction that that individual would never have an abortion (although it usually does--except in Cider House Rules :)); it describes an opposition to the continued existence and legality of abortion in general.

Now in other issues, such as sexual orientation, it isn't the same; "pro-choice" as you define it, meaning basically a Libertarian outlook, means giving people the option; "anti-gay" IS an opposition on an individual level. (Whether an anti-gay person recognizes that or not--it's a lot easier to oppose a faceless mass.) I guess that's because abortion is a debate over a legal phenomenon, and therefore exists apart from questions of personal inclination.

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"Good job, The Cheat! Now try harmonizing with the butternut squashes!" ... "Side effects include wine, women, and song."