Hmm you really make a good point on responsibility, on which I very much agree with you. Still, condom leaks, birth control failure, all happens, what then? Should I only have sex with chicks I want children with, should we pump her full of chemicals 2 weeks later.. well at that time she's fertilized all right. Or take the responsibility and put the shackles on with a 18 y.o. one night stand and my soon to be kid? Interested in your opinion on that. Tiki
it's a moral choice. it's a value judgement of the relative worthy of the fetus compared to everything else. Judaism is very explicit on this and has been for roughly 3000 years: in certain circumstances abortion is not only allowed, it is MANDATED. yes, mandated. it is considered unethical for a mother to put herself at serious risk for the sake of a pregnancy. put simply, even if the fetus is a full human, its rights are subjugated to the rights of the mother. the idea that abortion is "unbiblical" is complete and utter nonsense. but - that is the Jewish answer and as long as we are allowed to live our ethics, there is no problem if another group wants to live a different answer. besides, a society with an active death penalty, troops on foreign soil, and poor citizens dying while waiting for medical care is in no position to argue the sanctity of life.
Tiki, This is the part where a lot of people have trouble with. Facing the consequences of our actions. If I rape a girl while I'm drunk, can I really use the excuse, hey, I was intoxicated, I had no idea what I was doing, which is probably true btw. The problem is I had the choice to get drunk. When people get drunk they do stupid things. For the most part, once you are intoxicated, all bets are off. Most people cannot think and reason when they are seriously intoxicated all though we all swear we can. Most people think they are OK to drive, most people think they can still determine right from wrong. But we all know this is not true. The point is, everyone should understand that one of the consequences to getting drunk is the possibility that we might do something that under ordinary circumstances we would never do. This is why we have drinking laws in this country. Because most kids under 18 don't have the responsibility to make these kinds of decisions even though they swear they can too. LOL. When you decide to have sexual relations with another woman or man, you have to understand that there could be consequences to that. For some, it could be AIDS. AIDS doesn't care whether you are pro choice or pro life, it doesn't care if you are a republican or a democrat, there is no appeal. AIDS is not a personal rights issue. It's basically a death sentence. On top of AIDS there are thousands of other STD's. And then there is pregnancy. Yes condoms break, and yes, sometimes we are intoxicated and we end up spending the night with a girl that we would never even want to talk to again. Shit happens right? The question is, at what point is it your fault? I mean where do we draw the line? I mean why is it fair for you to be able to use the excuse the condom broke and I can't use the excuse that I was too drunk last night and that's why I couldn't hear the girl yelling stop. Aren't both excuses valid. I mean, I really was drunk, and I sincerely could not hear. In fact when I woke up the next day, I couldn't even remember what happened last night. Yet, I'm going to go to jail and you get to get off scott free and why? Oh yeah, you had a better excuse. See that just doesn't fly with me. Because then our entire legal system and our system of laws in this country could be based on excuses. How could we ever arrest anybody, I mean if the guy has a good excuse, what are you going to do right? We are a very spoiled society. Every day I see people f*ck up their lives and expect somebody else to clean up the mess and it's always the same old song and dance, I didn't know, nobody told me, I didn't think that was going to happen, I had no idea, that was the first time this has happened to me, blah, blah, blah. It gets really old after awhile. I guess at the end of the day, after all the bickering is over about when a fetus actually has life and when it doesn't, I guess it all comes down to this. Can you look at yourself in the mirror? Can you live with yourself? Can you sleep at night? Guilt is often the most harsh consequence of all of them. It's funny, I've talked to a lot of girls who have had abortions years ago, and at the time they said it wasn't that hard to do because they were living in the moment. Years later though they would often find that whenever they saw a baby, they couldn't even look at it without feeling guilty, they would often go into deep periods of depression. And many of them would never be able to be happy for the rest of their lives because of the guilt. Even if they ended having children later in life they would hate them, because of the anger and resentment inside of them. It's very hard for them to live a happy healthy life. Of course Planned Parenthood will never tell them this. This they learn on their own. So I guess in the end, the real burden of pregnancy can never truly be gotten rid of, even by a pill or an operation. The guilt is yours to keep forever. It's your own very special reminder of the biggest decision you ever made in your life.
Mav to ART regarding personal choice: >Wrong. Choice is a freedom we have when life is not >involved. Well, I'm not sure how many times it has to be said before you start listening...We *disagree* with you regarding the point the"life"(your term) part starts. So simply put and applying the same rules of choice that you have above, 'the choice remains'. If we agreed with you on the "life" part then we could have a discussion regarding personal choice and responsiblity that would make sense to you. You keep going off to the "choice and responsibility" thing and claiming dismay because we don't go with you. WE WON'T GO because until the fetus reaches the point that we consider it due full human rights it is no more of a responsibility issue than you going to the ER for food poisoning. >Again, I just don't understand the real motive >here by some. Then you are simply not paying attention and there is nothing we can do to help you on that. To have a meaningful exchange and for you to learn the basis of our position it does no good for you to project your "let's be honest" and what are the "real motives" here attitude on us. We are being honest and our motives are no different than I assume yours are...to support the right conclusion of a conflicting rights (mother/child) situation. JB
Bottom line, should women be given the choice to make the decision of abortion or not? If it is a bad thing, they will find out for themselves. Prohibition is a proven failure.
Turok, we are just going to have to agree to disagree. See, I believe that life begins at conception and you will never be able to convince me otherwise and it's not me intention to change your mind either. Like I said, we all have to live with ourselves, if you can live with your choices, I can live with mine. I sleep really well at night.
ART, can you please stop it already with this prohibition argument. It's getting really old. A woman has the right to choose if she wants to have sex or not. Isn't that free will? Of course it is, end of story.
"Turok, we are just going to have to agree to disagree. See, I believe that life begins at conception and you will never be able to convince me otherwise and it's not me intention to change your mind either. Like I said, we all have to live with ourselves, if you can live with your choices, I can live with mine. I sleep really well at night." You are entitled to your opinion, but without foundation to support that opinion, the government should not legislate against a woman's right to choose based on opinion only. Government functions best on the basis of common sense and fact, not bias of a non secular basis. Again, until there is evidence that our society is in jeopardy of extinction due to lack of population growth, and until there is proof that human life begins at conception, the right of choice is primary in a free society.
ART, I just love how you dance around the woman's choice to have sex. LOL. You are never are going to answer that are you? LOL.
"ART, can you please stop it already with this prohibition argument. It's getting really old. A woman has the right to choose if she wants to have sex or not. Isn't that free will? Of course it is, end of story." If a woman is legally prohibited from having an abortion, that is a form of prohibition, and will not work. Women will continue to get abortions, legally or not, in the same way that people continued to buy and drink alcohol during the prohibition period of alcohol. Prohibition doesn't work. That is what you want to do, right? Prohibit women from the right to have an abortion?