Sperm don't have the same DNA as a full human, they have half of it.
Maybe you should brush up on your Bio, before you make yourself look any more retarded.

And mega,
everything that you've said recently is nothing more than a good old Red herring.
What does Iraq have to do with abortion?

this is not about who i voted for. this is not about the war on terrorism. this is not about what's happening in other countries. this is not about invading other countries. you should know what the argument is about before you start arguing your side, otherwise you may end up making yourself look dumb. and i don't support every little thing that bush does. so get your facts straight.

Actually this was abot abortion and you made it very clear:

Since abortion and murder are the same thing we are indeed talking about the same thing here. Here's what the man you voted for did:

"The British medical journal The Lancet has published the first scientific study of the human cost of the war on Iraq. The study has found that at least 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives since the US, backed by Britain and Australia, launched their invasion in March last year. The revelation of this horrifying body count confirms that the leaders of those countries — George W Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard — have committed a crime against humanity.

More than half the dead are women and children, mostly killed by coalition air strikes. The US is now preparing to perpetrate more death and carnage with major assaults on the cities of Falluja and Ramadi following the US elections, which will add to the growing civilian death toll. "

Did you also know that the 'abortion pill' RU 486 had a bill which would have stopped it in July of 2000 but was voted down by the Republican controlled House of Representatives. Did you know that the same pill began being distributed under George W's administration? A year later Republicans didn' try to stop the pill, only to have it more under their control:

"Senator Tim Hutchinson (R-AR) and Representative David Vitter (R-LA) introduced bills which would require physicians to meet new standards before they would be allowed to prescribe RU-486."

Again in August of 2002:

"Three pro-life groups, Concerned Women for America, the Christian Medical Association, and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to take RU-486 off the market immediately. The FDA under the direction of Tommy Thompson (he was appointed by Bush) ignored the petition.

Oddly after the Christian vote won Bush his re-election the stance changed almost immediately:

"Two more women have died after taking RU-486 to end their pregnancies. However, Dr. Steven Galson, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said that he does not think that the drug was related to the fatal infections that the women contracted. Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) reintroduced a bill called the RU-486 Suspension and Review Act. If passed, it would order a review of the drug. It is commonly called "Holly's Law" and has 84 sponsors in the House and eight in the Senate"

Now going back to the first point:

"This past week The Chicago Tribune published a compelling report on an investigation of all 131 death cases in Governor Bush's time. It made chilling reading.

In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial.

In 29 cases, the prosecution used testimony from a psychiatrist who -- based on a hypothetical question about the defendant's past -- predicted he would commit future violence. Most of those psychiatrists testified without having examined the defendant: a practice condemned professionally as unethical.

Asked about the Tribune study, Governor Bush said, "We've adequately answered innocence or guilt" in every case. The defendants, he said, "had full access to a fair trial."

There are two ways of understanding that comment. Either Governor Bush was contemptuous of the facts or, on a matter of life and death, he did not care. "

Abortion and murder are the same thing according to your own statements - yet you voted for a murderer and for a party which has allowed abortions to take place under it's watch - only stopping it when those who wanted it stopped voted for their party.

Again I ask, do you have any idea what kind of person you voted for?

I voted for Badnarik
Stop ruining a good debate. Iraq is not Abortion. Bush is not Abortion.
Please give a real reason why you're pro-life. Because you really don't seem to have one.

Close enough. I did mean to ask that, actually. It's hardly a serious point of my argument, in any case. Was just giving an example.

Maybe you should reply to some of my arguments, before you look any more close-minded. And don't call people retarded because they don't have the same opinion as you. That's just rude (and it makes your "ruining a good debate" argument, which is otherwise sound, seem kind of hollow). :)

@any prolifer. i just raped your mom and now she is pregnant. wham bam thank you mam.

Ask any person that was concieved during a rape if they wish they had been aborted. Ask their mother if she regrets not aborting.

yes, i have made it clear. but you somehow are making it into something else. this is not about who i voted for. who i voted for is IRRELEVENT. if i had voted for kerry you probably wouldn't be bothering me with "bush did this" crap. it's the fact that i'm a christian and you don't like it, so you are attacking me and my beliefs and not the issue at hand here. why is that? lack of a good argument? what is it?

Just because you "just do because I'm a human, and just dont like seeing humans die just because" is NOT a reason to think that I, or anyone else, thinks just like you do.

I'm trying to look at this analytically (sp), not like a human that "just thinks for no reason" that it's makes sense to care for something with human DNA.

Oh, and It's wrong to kill cows, because they have a right to live on this earth as much as we do! Now, anyone that wants to eat cow to LIVE cant, because I just think it's wrong! :rolleyes: please.

We care that You cant understand WE DONT BELIEVE WHAT YOU DO, SO YOU SHOULD HAVE NO RIGHT TO IMPOSE YOUR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS ON US. Period.

ok, well now i just raped your 12 year old sister and she is pregnant.


it doesnt matter if they are happy after the fact, right now, i (therapist) have taken away her rights. what if she didnt want the baby? i have forced childbirth upon her.

Squakmix in response to your cow comment: less than 1% of abortions are done so that someone else can live.


So since your argument doesn't hold water over the long term you're asking me to ignore long term implications?

Get another argument please.

i'm not trying to impose shit on anyone. what don't i understand? that abortion is not the abrubt and unnatural ending of an unborn life? you have no right to impose your atheist beliefs on me.

I'm not trying to affect YOU at all, YOU're trying to affect others.

tell me how you know exactly what my intentions are? besides, isn't that the point of a debate?

What???


Your on the side of anti abortions.

Therefore, you believe that other people that you dont know should be forced to live their life like you THINK they should, because of the fact you're christian.

That's not right.

who cares, dont you know what civil rights are? are you gonna ignore those?

now i have raped your your girlfriend/wife. she has a poorly developed pelvis and would die during childbirth from bleeding.

or how about incest?


These are the extremes btw. for the most part, i would never perform an abortion, when im in practice i would refer the patient. Its the extremes that i am curious about. where can prolifers draw the line.

I think other people should not be allowed to have abortions because of the scientific evidence that shows that unborn humans are still humans, and if left unmolested will, for the most part, be born with no complications.

Whose civil rights are being violated?

Fuck civil rights I'm going to administer some good old fashioned vigalante justice on your ass, STOP RAPING MY FAMILY, YOU ASSHOLE!

what about C section?
These are extremes, and they are all extremely difficult situations to be in. The woman didn't ask to get pregnant, but she didn't ask to be raped either. I think ending the life of the unborn child is just a further injustice as there is now one more innocent victim in an extremely sad situation. In general, I think psychologically for the woman it would be worse to abort. (note: I am not a psychologist, that's just my opinion) "I got raped and then I aborted my baby, I feel really good about myself." (though it depends on the woman I guess).

I have a friend who was adopted. I don't know how she was conceived, but she's mentioned to me that she's glad her birth mother didn't abort her. She likes her life.

I don't think anyone deserves to die based on how they were conceived.

i don't believe that people should be forced to live to live like i think they should. and you don't know a thing about me except that i'm a christian and i'm against abortions. because i'm a christian you think that i am a mindless drone that does whatever god/jesus says. i'm not even close to that.

have the abortion or lose mother and unborn child?

It doesnt matter. This directly has to do with what you believe because of a religion, and it's not your life. You DO NOT have the right to make decisions for other people that YOU DONT KNOW just because that's what your religion believes.

edit:

you're tip toeing around what I'm saying. I'm only basing my argument on what you have told me: That you think that people should'nt be able to have abortions because of your religion.

not that you just mindlessly think what people tell you to.

I dont think I know who you are at all; I just know what you've said.

but is that what I believe? my religion may say one thing but i don't always go by what my religion says.

"you're tip toeing around what I'm saying. I'm only basing my argument on what you have told me: That you think that people should'nt be able to have abortions because of your religion."

i'm not basing anything i've said on "religion". i don't believe every little thing that my religion says is true.

You guys have already said that you dont think that people should be able to have abortions because of your religion's influence on you.

I can almost gaurentee you wouldnt think twice about it if you grew up in an ancient african tribe culture.

I'm going to bed.

and you like creed:rolleyes:

im gonna go study for finals.

I guess murder ought to be legal as well because that law's also based on my uber-wrong religious beliefs. I'M OPPRESSING NONCHRISTIANS BY FORCING THEM NOT TO MURDER OTHER PEOPLE. I AM SUCH A DICKFACE.

oh yea.:p i have finals next week as well. i'm not going to study for them though.:D

But because it has human DNA, it is distinctly human, and because it has a unique DNA pattern, it is uniquely individual, and thus has it's own right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We both know that humans are unique, and are treated so by every facet ever. Yeah, that's completely illogical.
You must have a real reason your pro-choice? Don't you?

No, I'm attacking your stance because it makes no sense at all. Abortion is not murder however Bush flying planes over Fallujah intentionally bombing women and children is (as we imprisioned Saddam Hussein for bombing the Kurds under that same basis). In fact if you were really the christian you pretend to be you would know God actually granted permission to kill children and yes...even infants in Isreal.

But if it's a good argument you want then I'll be more than happy to grant that for you. Let's see if even as a christian you can debate this.

Myth: Abortion is murder.

Fact: Abortion does not meet the moral or legal definition of murder.

Murder is defined as "illegal killing with malice aforethought." Abortion fails this definition for two reasons. First, abortion is not illegal, and second, there is no evidence to suggest that expecting mothers feel malice towards their own flesh and blood.

Not all killing is murder, of course. Murder is actually a small subset of all killing, which includes accidental homicide, killing in self-defense, suicide, euthanasia, etc. When pro-life activists call abortion "murder," they are suggesting that abortion fits the definition of murder, namely, "illegal killing with malice aforethought." However, abortion fails this definition for two reasons. First, abortion is not illegal, and second, mothers hardly feel malice towards their own unborn children.

Some might object the first point is overly legalistic. Just because killing is legal doesn't make it right. Exterminating Jews in Nazi Germany was certainly legal, but few doubt that it was murder.

But why do we still consider the Holocaust murder? The answer is that we hold the Nazis to a higher law. When the Nazis were tried in Nuremberg for their war crimes, they were not accused of "crimes against Germans" or even "crimes against Jews." Instead, they were charged with "crimes against humanity." The reason is because there was no legal basis to charge them otherwise. The massacre of Jews was legal under German law. So in order to punish the German leaders for clearly wrong behavior, the Allies had to evoke a higher law, a law of humanity. (1) The Holocaust was condemned as illegal, and therefore murder, because it violated this law.

Many pro-life advocates claim that the same reasoning applies to abortion. Although abortion is legal under current U.S. law, it is not legal when it is held up to a higher law, namely, the law of God.

Let's assume, for argument's sake, that the Bible is indeed the law of God. Unfortunately, this doesn't help the pro-life movement, because there is no Biblical law against abortion. (Abortion is as old as childbirth.) The Hebrew word for "kill" in the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is rasach, which is more accurately interpreted as "murder," or illegal killing judged harmful by the community. It is itself a relative, legalistic term!

Many forms of killing were considered legal in ancient Israel, and levitical law listed many of the exceptions. Generally, levitical law permitted killing in times of war, the commission of justice and in self-defense. Sometimes, God even gave Israel permission to kill infant children. In I Samuel 15:3, God ordered Saul to massacre the Amalekites: "Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants…"

Unfortunately, the levitical law we find in the Bible today is incomplete, and comes to us in large gaps. That is because the ancient Jews passed down their laws orally, and only wrote down the more complicated laws to jog their memory. As a result, levitical law is filled with tremendous omissions; for example, we know little of their laws on libel, business, lending, alimony, lease, rental agreements and civil rights. But perhaps the most unfortunate gap in ancient Jewish law is abortion. If a law did exist on abortion, then we simply do not know what it was. Fortunately, we have an excellent idea of what the law might have been. The Jews are legendary for their fanatical preservation of the law, and they have never considered abortion to be a sin. That alone should make many pro-life advocates stop and reconsider the legal basis, holy or otherwise, for their opposition to abortion.

Some pro-life Christians claim that just because there is no commandment prohibiting abortion does not give us the right to perform it. Since human life is so precious, we should err on the side of caution, they argue. But according to this logic, we should not drive cars! Each year in America, there are about 40,000 deaths due to automobile accidents. These deaths are accidental, to be sure, but our decision to participate in a mode of transportation that we already know will kill 40,000 people is not accidental. We also know there were virtually no deaths in horse-and-buggy days. We have decided to accept those 40,000 deaths a year simply because we value the convenience -- a notion surely not found anywhere in the Bible. But should we stop all automobile travel just because of Biblical silence on the issue?

One could equally argue that if God thought the issue were important, he would have made sure to include such a law in the Bible. The omission of such a law suggests that God allows humans to exercise their best judgment in the matter.

The second part of the definition of murder involves malice. Is it really reasonable to assume that mothers feel malice towards their own unborn children? Why would they even feel that? What has the fetus done to inspire the mother's hatred, anger, hostility and revenge? This is not the way women react to news of their pregnancy, even an unwanted one, as any woman who has gone through an abortion will tell you. It is a reaction that only men in the pro-life movement find plausible.

Some abortion opponents may then try to claim that the murder is cold-blooded, that the malice involved is really a callous, unfeeling disregard for human life. But again, any woman who has gone through an abortion will tell you that it just isn't so. They are fully aware of what they are doing and the moral implications of it. All would prefer not to go through the abortion, and feel sorrow and regret for having to do so. But they ultimately decide that the abortion is for the best, that they are not ready for the even greater moral responsibility of bringing a child into the world. Christian conservatives may question the wisdom of such a choice, but they can hardly question the emotions behind it.

The accusation that abortion is murder, in fact, places the burden of proof on the accuser. If women do indeed feel malice towards their own flesh and blood, then the accuser needs to supply the requisite proof, studies, or surveys to make his case. But such evidence will probably never be forthcoming.

finally you come up with a good argument. now i understand the situation somewhat better. i still believe that abortion is a bad thing though. i believe that if you don't want kids, don't have sex.

Mega,
I feel sorry that you really took the time to write all that crap out (or so I assume, because you haven't supplied any link (though that "(1)" makes me suspicious)), and I want to put you out of you misery by killing you.
So, I guess morally that's not murder, since I also don't feel malice towards you and since God told the Isrealites to kill men at some point in time, and I want to help you.

i also believe that killing is only acceptable in extreme situations like self defense.

Anyways, this is what I said about this argument before. No debate, no really relevant facts, just opinions restated over and over in the vain hope that someone will listen.

This "debate" isn't going anywhere.

What a løvely country

I'm just not going into what is considered a human or not, it won't change anyone's viewpoint or prove anything, it isn't important.

What i will say is that people need to be better educated about parenthood and concieving. And this abstinence only horse shit needs to be dropped immediately.

As I hinted before, Raz, I think what you suggest would reduce abortion rates far more than any amount of legislation.

In so many places in Africa prostitution is one of the main spreaders of Aids, and that happens because it's the only thing left for some people to do before they die of starvation.

Why does the Catholic Church say its followers should be monogamous? Blatantly that's a bit out of date. And sex before marriage? What's wrong with expressing your love for someone by sharing a bed with them and having sex (however corny that sounds)? The Catholic Church needs to get a grip.

Though I suspect you are also saying that people just have too much sex; one night stands and such, and I don't mind that, but I seriously do NOT have time for people who hav sex and get pregnant by accident because they couldn't say "hey, put a condom on." And even if it breaks, there's the morning after pill. Hell, there's even a up-to-72-hours-after pill. There's no excuse.

And that claim would only make sense in a theocracy.

By the same logic Hindus could demand that the killing of cows be outlawed.

Maybe if you or anyone else in this thread would reply to any of my comments or formulate some kind of reasoning to be pro-unborn-baby-killing, I might be able to agree with you. But sadly, this response of yours is just another attempt at the Relativist fallacy to cover up the fact that you don't really have any argument.
Trying to argue that something is "out of date" isn't a valid argument at all, not to mention you start talking about aids, and end with the morning after pill, which has nothing to do with killing HIV.
As a matter of fact, your post is so incoherant, I kind of wonder why you bothered at all.
Well, please do your best to ignore the topic on hand; it makes whatever else you have to say just that much more valuable and insightful...
I would agree with you about the first point, however, I think that the programs would do best side by side. I mean, if someone is convinced that having sex before marrigae wasn't worth the risk, they wouldn't have to worry about condom ussage.
Yeah, well, a lot of what Mega tried to put in pro-lifers mouths, was undeniably illogical and easily refutable, which is probably why no pro-lifer so far has said anything like that in this thread yet.

I figured since you had not replied to any of mine except to point out minor corrections, that I'd extend you the same courtesy. :)

Relativist Fallacy is not relevant here because there is nothing being true. If you claim that "a phoetus is a person", as a fact, you are wrong - there is no difference in relativistic truth here. You are simply stating your opinion as fact. Since "person" does not have a specific, final formal definition exact enough to give a definition of this type.

My argument is that both sides of this argument are (demonstrably) opinions, and that treating one or the other as fact is a fallacy. This directly revokes your argument that I have no argument.

As for my opinion on the abortion issue, I've not attempted to defend it here, and I will continue not to. It serves no purpose.

For fun, let's attempt to retort to some of your arguments :)
Your argument here is based upon an implicit definition of a "person"* (or a "human", or whatever you want to say - one whom it is wrong to kill) as:

code:
hasHumanDNA(X) ^ isIndividual(X) --> isAPerson(X)

This is your opinion of what makes a "person". That's fine with me, but it's not an opinion I share. If this is not your opinion, this is a Straw Man. If you consider it a tautological truth, you are wrong - this is what is referred to as a fallacy of definition.

Your quote from the Declaration of Independance is a diversionary tactic based on an appeal to emotion.

Good argument. On a side-note, I would have also if I were in the US.

You're never going to be able to convince someone of this in a classroom environment - it's an opinion rather than a fact. Simply telling people the facts enables them to make an educated opinion. Obviously, if people are well-educated about sex, they will know that abstinence is the only risk-free course of action.

Firstly, people in glass houses should not throw stones. Secondly, your constant insulting of other members of the forum is undermining your argument, something you could dearly do without.

If you've made any other points that I have not yet addresses, please feel free to point them out.
___________
I'm going to use this term because it's essentially a matter of nomenclature.

So, pro-abortion or pro-choice people, what are your reasons for abortion? how do you justify it to yourselves? Why do you believe that is isn't the killing of an innocent human life?