abortion classic or dud?

It strikes me that technology will eventually provide a solution to the 'abortion question' by making it the norm for human infants to be conceived and gestated outside of a human womb.

Having said my piece all that way above, I figured I would just watch from the sidelines as El-C complained and all. Sorta sad, really.

Actually, I've figured I'd just watch from the sidelines as you all complained about me with your little ad hominem attacks. I think I'll just sit back and pour myself a nice tall glass of lemonade. Yawn...sorta sad, really.

Enjoy.

Martin said that I'm the one that is supposed to be smug, not you.

el camatcho hasn't made me change my mind at all. but then, is that down to my inflexibility or el camatchos lack of persuaveness. do i feel like i've been 'defeated'? its difficult for me to think in such terms with an issue like this. i haven't been able to accept any of el camatchos points (but then he could say the same in reverse). is an argument like this 'winnable'? should it be?

It strikes me that the mindsets of both "sides" of this conversation are sufficiently alien to each other that it shouldn't come as a surprise that everyone is walking out of this thinking that the other side is incapable of reason or logic.

I am dumb . cheers kiwi

"Damn Jenny, that's a huge zit you've got on your forehead."
"That's not a zit, that's MY BABY, you horrible person! *sob*"

phew...i'm glad i wasn't 'around' back then if this was the case, week in week out.

The repeat:

"Abortion is great (as in INCREDIBLY fucking CLASSIC). Questions about when life begins are stupid. There is NO compelling reason to force a women to carry a child to term. Any argument which distracts from that ARGUMENT is a bullshit one."

So if anyone on THIS board or ANY other board wants to focus on that FUNDAMENTAL question without resorting to the same tired smoke and mirrors of "when does life begin" then does so. But I guarantee that THIS is an ARGUMENT that you cannot win.

1. Supreme Court says it's okay to do.
2. Some people say "b-b-but that's murder!"
3. (Murder is still officially bad.)

I.e., the objection that's being raised is that the act is a "murder," and as such shouldn't be allowed no matter what negative effects that may have on anyone else. And since the number of people raising that objection is a significant one -- and since that's their sole central objection -- you can't really have much of a discussion with them without responding to that objection.

(It's absolutely fine to say "well the Supreme Court disagreed so shut up cause I don't want to hear about it," but then you really shouldn't enter the discussion in the first place.)

That said, I think it would be interesting to have a thread that's not "abortion: right or wrong" but actually "abortion: personal experience thereof" (which is how this one sort of started out).

Sadly, I feel that this argument, if it's ever won, will have to be won by cold, hard, undeniable logic (though I doubt, unfortunately, this will ever happen, especially since you can't logically argue against the existence of an abortion-hating god), because too many of the people fighting against it will NEVER be able to understand or to empathize with the emotions involved...

Tatyana: I was sort of vaguely in agreement with what you were saying earlier, but now I'm starting to think you can sort of fuck off -- you really have no idea how any of us feel about those posts, and it's rude and presumptuous to pretend that simply because we didn't openly express our feelings about them we must necessarily have none.

So you're right: they're using their moral decision on the matter in an effort to change the legal status of it. You can just say "no fair" to that, sure, but don't bother saying it to them.

Though I DO think it's a shame that the emotional element can't be a larger portion of the debate (its bearing on the ethical question, Nabisco), but I'm fairly positive that the powers-that-be (primarily men) sitting in some conference room or court room or white house discussing the possiblity of "reinterpreting" Roe v. Wade or some other such nonsense are not going to accept an empathetic, emotion-based stance.

For the record, my response to those posts ran about how Nory outlined it: I don't pretend to have had anything to say in response to them beyond the most generalized sympathy and good wishes (and approval). If you look at the beginning of the thread, you might agree that it would have run more in the direction you were asking for, if not for the arrival of posters who vigorously objected to the ethical premise of the thing as a whole (no matter what the circumstances, understandable, empathisable, or not).