[vyper]

Only if you hold marriage as a requirement for a loving relationship. It's just sad in general really that it has to happen so often.

[Sapphire]

 

[Ghostavo]

Originally posted by Sapphire
Of course, its all related.   If people are falling off a cliff....isn't it wiser to put more effort into preventing their falls, than to keep performing surgery on them after they've fallen?  Yes.  But how do you keep surgery from being the focus if certain groups feel its the easiest and best solution because there has been little personal accountability on the part of the individual in avoiding the fall?

The problem with abstinance programs is that they do nothing to stop a person from having a surgery after they fall off a cliff, even if they are prone to not falling as often as those who were taught on contraception.

Contraception on the other hand does much to stop the fall from leading to surgery.

A better example would be a car accident. Following the same logic as you seem to state, it would be better for cars not to have safety belts and not to teach drivers to go above 50 km/h, which is...

[Sapphire]

 

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Sapphire
Hmmm...  seatbelts and condoms... interesting.  Perhaps a person should use both a seatbelt and a condom when having sex in a moving vehicle.  And if both fail.....there's always surgery and abortion to make up for the fact that we've been stupid in the first place.

....okay, seriously.  I am not against sex-education including teaching forms of birth control.  But I believe that abstinence is the first line of defense against pregnancy and std's.  Putting an emphasis on that instead of condoning wanton sex would be a wiser solution.  Teach first and foremost that there are consequences and responsibilities in sexual activity.... and when sh*t happens, delivering a baby is one of them.  Lets not reduce fetus's to non-beings so that aborting them can sit on our consciences better.

Sex education doesn't condone wanton sex.  It just educates what sex is, what contraception is, and what the risks of both can be.  Hell, sex education is exactly about the consequences and responsibilities.

NB: it's not a reduction; it's the current medical fact.

EDIt; sodding timewarp.

[Ghostavo]

I was not talking about abortion... just contraception and abstinance.

Abstinance without contraception is like a driver without a seat belt. Both in use can be used to greatly stop the source of unwanted pregnancies, but if choosing between one of them to stop that source,  contraception shows to be the strongest measure.

[Clave]

Preaching abstinence to teenagers is as effective as a chocolate fireguard..

[Kazan]

Sapphire: abortion rates in the US under clinton and under bush as good examples

Clinton pushed comprehensive education -> abortion rate declined
Bush pushes abstinance-only education (aka: ignorance only) -> abortion rate increased


now looking at those aggregate numbers can be misleading because also a good economy lowers the unplanned/unwanted pregnancy rate, and a bad economy does the opposite -- you will have to patiently wait until i get home for me to pull the studies

Preaching absitnence to teenagers is as effective as a chocolate fireguard..

hehe.. bingo

Lets not reduce fetus's to non-beings so that aborting them can sit on our consciences better.

don't need to REDUCE them to anything - you're artificially PROMOTING them

until it can survive outsides its mother's body (without the aid of medical technology) then it's NOT an individual - therefore it CANNOT be considered in a court of law

any other argument is religious and therefore would violate the establishment clause

[Kazan]

additionally: comprehensive education has been PROVEN to reduce the abortion rate - because it reduces the unwannted pregnancy rate



oh.. btw - the studies im quoting are cited in The Fundamentals of Extremism (The Christian Right in America) which makes has all it's source citations (over 900) at the end of it... i really need to buy a copy so i can cite page numbers and then the author's source as well!

[WeatherOp]

I just thought of something, do you know that  most unborn babys are thought of as robots, their your creation you can do what you want with e'm, and they have no soul or life because their not human.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Sapphire
But I believe that abstinence is the first line of defense against pregnancy and std's.  Putting an emphasis on that instead of condoning wanton sex would be a wiser solution.  Teach first and foremost that there are consequences and responsibilities in sexual activity.

I think you'll find that explaining good reasons for abstinence is generally a fairly large part of sex ed. Every class I had when I was kid pushed that kids should think about it fairly seriously before having sex and examine all of the possible concequences including the dangers of getting pregnant.

If you think that good sex ed simply consists of handing out condoms and saying go have sex you're sadly mistaken. In fact a big part of it generally urges you to wait until you're in love at the very least.

What sex ed does differently however is teach kids what do if they are determined to have sex despite that warning. Because this part is missing in abstinence only programs then when the kids do decide to have sex they are forced to rely on rumour and hearsay for information on how to not get pregnant.

Abstinence only programs breed people who believe that having sex in the bath or when standing up is a defence against pregnancy.

Why on Earth would you support that?

[Goober5000]

Originally posted by Kazan
oh.. btw - the studies im quoting are cited in The Fundamentals of Extremism (The Christian Right in America) which makes has all it's source citations (over 900) at the end of it... i really need to buy a copy so i can cite page numbers and then the author's source as well!

That's really your Bible, isn't it?  Do you quote from any other source?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WeatherOp
I just thought of something, do you know that  most unborn babys are thought of as robots, their your creation you can do what you want with e'm, and they have no soul or life because their not human.

eh?  That strikes me as a gross over-simplification of the pro-choice arguement and also somewhat of a strawman arguement.

[Kazan]

goober until you start administrating even handedly do not attempt to debate with me as you have NO credibility because you're OBVIOUSLY giving preferential treatment to individuals on your side of the debate!

AND that post is insulting because i cite A LOT OF FARKING SOURCES - you just see that one a lot because A) that book cites >900 sources that i cite anyways B) it puts all the information into pretty concise language

[aldo_14]

Perhaps Goober feels that the very title of the book makes it appear to sound biased, and thus raise the possibility that the sources within have been selected to support an conclusion rather than derive one from them.

Or maybe it's an ironic jab.

[WeatherOp]

Aldo, well If you look at it, that is what their thought of.

And Kazan, I don't see Goob giving us good treatment, He has'nt flamed anyone, and all he did was tell you to cool off.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WeatherOp
Aldo, well If you look at it, that is what their thought of.
 

No.  Firstly a robot is a mechanical device which is specifically built to perform a task or operation.  A baby - or more correctly, a foetus - is a group of un or partially differentiated cells which form an incomplete entity.

 Yes, they will most likely develop into a baby and with it 'switch on' the basics of intelligence, but at the specific point in time when they are a foetus they are biologically no more alive than, for example, a tumor.  Again, the issue is not whether the foetus is 'human' per se, but whether it is a living individual, with the rights that an individual possesses.

They are not regarded as a commodity as you imply.  They are regarded as developing into a human individual, but not yet one.  They do not have a soul because, medically, no-one has a soul.  The soul is defined as part of a belief structure, not medical science, and can't be relevant to an unbiased medical judgement.  And they are not considered alive because they do not have the functionality to survive as individuals.

[WeatherOp]

Originally posted by aldo_14
And they are not considered alive because they do not have the functionality to survive as individuals.

That still gets to me, just because they can't live on their own, their not considered a living thing.

And when I ment Robot, I was talking about that their like an item, they can be destroyed whenever the mother wants. And it kinda goes back to that other subject, of people who have AIDS or cancer, wouldn't survive without medical care.  I can't remember who said it, but should they be thought of as they can't survive on their own, so their not really a living thing. And it also go's back to when does life start, And I think life starts when the baby first starts forming, if you notice that their is really no jumps, it slowly forms right from conception. And someone said something elso about the baby will not be a rabbit, like that cancer will be cancer, it won't form into something else.

[Unknown Target]

My personal beliefs are that a fetus should not be considered human until it is able to survive on it's own if removed from the womb, which means that abortion should be illegal after about seven months. Plus, if you've had the baby for that long, you should end up having it anyway.


Also, an abortion ban would not go into effect, even with the US pushing it.



That's all I'm going to say in this thread.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WeatherOp



That still gets to me, just because they can't live on their own, their not considered a living thing.

And when I ment Robot, I was talking about that their like an item, they can be destroyed whenever the mother wants. And it kinda goes back to that other subject, of people who have AIDS or cancer, wouldn't survive without medical care.  I can't remember who said it, but should they be thought of as they can't survive on their own, so their not really a living thing. And it also go's back to when does life start, And I think life starts when the baby first starts forming, if you notice that their is really no jumps, it slowly forms right from conception.

Yes, life forms.  But you don't get 1% alive, or 2% alive.  There's a barrier after which you become alive, and individual.  a living thing has to live on its own; the difference between the foetus and a terminally ill patient is that the foetus has not developed that ability.  It has never been alive.

 The patient has and is; and if you want a valid comparison to a foetus and a human patient, the closest is possibly to imagine a person who is paraplegic, brain damaged or brain dead, partially blind or deaf or dumb, and who is suffering from complete failure in certain organs.  The physiological needs of a foetus are not simply equivalent to taking bunch of pills, or even needing weekly dialysis.

That comparison, though,  is almost certainly irrelevant to the issue.  We are pronounced dead when brain activity ceases.  A foetus is still more or less in that same state; the brain has not switched on and became conscious. When it does, the foetus is considered 'alive', i.e. becomes a baby.

But, as I said before (I think to you, maybe Mongoose); our relevant beliefs on when life starts are not the case here.  I'm not going to change your mind, you're not going to change mine.  The issue here is to have the choice of those beliefs, and prohibiting abortion removes that choice.  

And it is, after all, about belief - because medical fact has set the scientific beginning of life and used it to set the limits upon legalised abortion, and our debate here about the validity of it is based upon our belief as to how correct that definition of life is.

EDIT; I'm (going to try to) not going to reply any more on this issue (foetal life), because i think I've made myself pretty clear over the thread.  I understand your views (this being the 'you' in general), and I think I've explained pretty comprehensively why I don't share them, and as such I'm not sure I can do anything but repeat myself...