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Rights of an Unborn Child?

Zinjifar

Silver Meritorious Sponsor
I am sad to say that abortion, in the US, might be a survival-level action, no matter what the Catholic Church teaches.

Probably not so much, considering the adoption shortage, but, for me it comes down on not liking 'other' people telling pregnant women what they *must* do by law.

By the way, did you ever read 'A Canticle For Leibowitz'?

Zinj
 

moarxenu

Patron with Honors
Hai!

Another Catholic here. I am personally pro-life and societally pro-tolerance. As far as activism goes I am much more interested in taking down David Miscavige than Roe v Wade. That is why we need to publicize coerced abortion far and wide.

Here are two cases on both sides that test the limits imo:

1. A pro-choice activist spent time finding her birth parents. When she found her birth mother she told her that she had been raped and decided to keep her as a child and put her up for adoption. The woman has changed from pro-choice to pro-life activism.

2. Dr. Gisela Perl was a Hungarian gynecologist whose greatest joy and vocation was delivering babies. She was thrown into Auschwitz where she performed 1,000 abortions with her bare hands. Women discovered pregnant were killed. Dr. Mengele one day ordered 150+ pregnant women be put directly into the crematoria without first being gassed. Christine Lahti does a superb job playing Perl in Out of the Ashes - it is well worth watching.
 

alexm

Patron with Honors
This might seem harsh but, if you don't want a child, don't shag.

Other wise be responsible and take responsibility for your actions in getting someone prego.
I'm not saying abortion shouldn't be used but it shouldn't be used as a form of birth control. As it is today.

Sorry if that's a bit off target from what you were asking.

You pretty much summed up my views too.

As Chris Rock once said, there are somethings I am liberal and about and there are some things I am conservative about. On this issue I would rather see abortion used to save a mother's life or used in rape cases rather then by some irresponcible person, all being probably a small percentage, who just forgot to aks their partner's to wear a rubber or were not smart enough to know better.

In my opinion, but not in my command, I think adoption is a better option.

I also wanted to add that I find it despicable, reprehensible and appalling that young Sea org girls are having several abortions and also late terms ones too just in order to stay in the Sea Org. I am truly offended by this ghastly display of irresponsibility. I hope for the sake of the unborn that there is a God and an afterlife so at least these unborn children did not die in vein. Sometimes, although I do not believe in it personally, wish there be finally justice by God when these Sea Org men and woman pass on and have to face the big chief at the pearly gates. I'd bet not even Scientology PR would get them out of hell for their sins.
 

Moonchild

Patron with Honors
(snip)

Personally I don't believe in any kind of natural rights that one has merely by existing. I consider all of them to be permissions granted (or not) by oneself or other beings, either newly or by tacit agreement, tradition etc.


Paul

I'm talking about life here right now. You have the "right" to a fair trial yada yada yada unless someone with the appropriate authority decides you won't get one in which case you won't get one. That doesn't depend on natural law beyond the fact that the biggest gun wins. I grant rights to people I associate with in terms of how I treat them, and they grant rights to me (or not). You could argue that "natural rights" underlie it all if you wish, but that is not my opinion.

Paul

O.K. fair enough. If you'll allow an idiot guitar-picker's anecdote...

I recall a pub. conversation with an old chum back around 1970; we'd been discussing stuff about "human rights" etc. and I recall my co-boozer proposed this:

"Everyone born into this world has three basic rights: to food, clothing and shelter".

He didn't use the adjective "inalienable", much less "God-given", being the atheist that he was, but that was what he meant. The point was that these rights are absolute rather than open to peer-group arbitration.

This has stuck with me down the years; after many twists and turns of thinking I return to that ethos; IMHO it's a point of differentiation between a civilisation and a mere society. Dare I invoke the notion of "compassion" here... that which separates sentients such as ourselves from the lower forms? An appeal to emotionality...sentimentality you might ask? Yes, and without apology. Do we not consider that these things differentiate us from Mother Nature "red in tooth and claw"?

Looking at the issue of "rights" I can't see how all rights can be dumped into the same bucket; IMHO there are rights which are to be presumed-upon by virtue of being here in the first place (which might be called natural rights) and then there are those which are properly conferred or denied by virtue of the individual's agreement to conform to the norms of his environment; by his volitional societal performance an adult individual's rights are pragmatically determinable according to his conduct within his society...on this I don't disagree, but as regards the "unborn child" that is something else entirely.

Until we know otherwise, an unborn child has come into existence by forces beyond its volition; therefore it can have no responsibility for the very fact of its existence and whatever significances that may attach to that. From the child's POV it is blameless; who then presumes the right to determine its fate...as if it were a weed in the lawn?

Yes of course there will be individual circumstances that sway the argument hither and thither and I don't mean to trivialise such; but it happens to be my firm belief (speaking of opinions) that human life (even if embryonic) should be treated with the utmost respect at every level difficult though it be to define/quantify such....call it a "rule of thumb" if you like.

To reduce human life variously to the level of a "society-unit" or a matter of "expediency" is to degrade the quality of whatever degree of civilisation we have thus far achieved.

That's wot I fink anyway. :D
 
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Moonchild

Patron with Honors
Abortions performed late in term are normally done to prevent further medical complications for the mother,
or due to severe malformation of the fetus.
Any pregnancy constitutes a physical risk to the mother. That is a sufficient justification in itself for the right to medical assistance when terminating a pregnancy. Since the mother or her legal guardian has to make the, often difficult, determination to end the pregnancy, no more is ethically required.

Better to have a successful medically supervised abortion than to put a woman's health at further risk by denying access to trained medical assistance. No one has a right to coerce a woman into becoming a mother, whatever their personal reasons for disapproval of her choice.


Mark A. Baker


And this?

http://entertainment.wagerweb.com/wtf/abigail-brittany-hensel-two-headed-girl-5728.html

Makes you think, eh?
 

Hatshepsut

Crusader
I had also often pondered when a being actually takes over control of the body. I was realizing I thought it was OK to terminate a pregnancy if the being wasn't totally settled in yet. Then I realized this was a completely arbitrary issue. :confused2: As a newbie Scio reading Theta/Mest theory..
I had always felt that I had gotten trapped in the 'net' surrounding the Earth and ended up back on the human treadmill after engaging in spiritual practices to escape. Initially entering Scientology I felt the mest body was a mechanism designed to entrap the theta being. :grouch: Later I discovered that a lot of individuals on upper levels thought bodies were a hot commodity and you had to be ABLE in order to get to be the one "in charge." :happydance:
I had several shifts in viewpoint regarding bodies in my auditing as the years went by. At one point I realized that my own past life stored ''identity" energies were on these beams that were anchored into the etheric structure of my body.:whistling: I build a body with them.:yes: These past life masses seem to form somewhat of an auto-engineering facility. Something I do a Not-Know about. It remains on automatic for me. This was interesting to me. :)

I worked for years in conjunction with dancers who often used abortion as a means of birth control. One girl had several each year. Today, the morning after pill is available over the counter. It puts the uterus in a condition to slough off anything there. Some bleeding involved. Natural spontaneous abortions are quite common and some do not emit strong emotion when they suspect they've just lost a 2 week old fetus in the commode. Its just 'nature doing its thing because the timing wasn't right'.

My mother is strongly anti-abortion. She leads a rather militant group of Catholics and organizes demonstrations in Bosnia for the rights of the unborn..She protests "the slaughter of the innocents."

I have several friends and 2 ex-employers who have mentally handicapped children. The child across the street has extreme retardation from lack of oxygen in the womb. Every member of these families has had their life modified.
As a bartender employed at a large Hilton in a once degraded area of town, I saw many families come in who should not have had the care of an infant entrusted to them. I winced. I have seen so many things that have triggered so many emotions in me on the subject of abortion.
I personally witnessed the abuses and the downside of keeping unwanted children more than the upside while there.

On an opposite note...working at Walt Disney World for a decade I saw many suburban Christian families who brought with them special needs infants taken in by them as foster parents. I saw the agenda of each family member on their vacation change their daily schedule... structured around the caring for the foster child. That is an impressive LOVE there, I tell you.:clap: As a 'died in the wool' Scio you know what the viewpoint on that would've been.

On the processing questions: What should you confront? What should another confront? What should others confront? I realized that whatever one has to occupy a viewpoint of dimension opposite of ___is basically controlling his 'beingnesss'. Space is Beingness. In other words, if you give someone an unsolvable problem, you are putting them in a position where they must confront the item... Their viewpoint of dimension will now be in juxtaposition to the problem. When a family adds an infant, someone's viewpoint is finaggled into the 'confront' problem solving strata. Life is a problem.

Recently statistics have shown increasingly severe domestic violence against women in the home while pregnant . The situation makes some feel trapped to this extent.
I am so very pro choice. But I cannot tell you how many beautiful bouncing babies I see at Disney who look 'natural clear'. These infants are so much MORE than Darwin's developing genetics :p To look at them and think the concept 'abortion'.... leaves me speachless. :ohmy: Here getting born does not equate with "to suffer".
 
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DCAnon

Silver Meritorious Patron
The best way for Pro-Lifers to end abortion is to help people have access to better education, a safer and more caring adoption process, and birth control preventative alternatives. One of my biggest issues with many (NOT ALL) pro-life supporters is that a great majority who are motivated by religious reasons also condemn sex ed and birth control. :confused2: If you're not going to treat the causes of abortions, how could you heal the symptoms?
 

Carmel

Crusader
Adoption has its own set of problems, for both mother and child, and is a hell of a thing for both, IMO.
 

Megalomaniac

Silver Meritorious Patron
I can't add much. But here I go.

lol, as long as there's a whole thread dedicated to it...

...

Like I said, I understand why someone disagrees with when life starts and may see a fetus as a human being, but I find that the vast majority of those arguments are motivated by religious beliefs.

I think if the baby is mature enough to be viable outside the womb, it is surely a human being. I don't think religion is needed to support that argument.

Your other points are well taken. I still am on the fence. Sorry.


I think that the best way to prevent abortions isn't to make them illegal and force women's reproductive rights to be dictated by old white men in the government, but to provide viable alternatives like education and birth control so people can choose to have a family when they're ready. :yes:

Agreed. This is an issue that law doesn't solve. Education and other help is more effective.


My position is that, whatever my or anyone else's opinion of abortion, they *will* happen. People were having abortions long before they became legal and if they become illegal again then they will still continue. With disasterous consequences.
:yes:

There are legitimate differences of opinion on abortion, which, for me means that it's something the person thinking of having one should decide. On their own conscience.
:confused2:

And *coerced* abortions are an abomination in any case.

Zinj
:yes:

The best way for Pro-Lifers to end abortion is to help people have access to better education, a safer and more caring adoption process, and birth control preventative alternatives.

I still agree with you on that.
 

Carmel

Crusader
The best way for Pro-Lifers to end abortion is to help people have access to better education, a safer and more caring adoption process, and birth control preventative alternatives. One of my biggest issues with many (NOT ALL) pro-life supporters is that a great majority who are motivated by religious reasons also condemn sex ed and birth control. :confused2: If you're not going to treat the causes of abortions, how could you heal the symptoms?
Yep, the Catholic stance on the whole thing is one that just shits me! My two youngest went to a Catholic College for their later years of secondary school, and per them, sex education was just a non-event at their school, besides what they learnt in biology.

As far as I know, it is still against the Catholic religion to use birth control, however, some priests are condoning it these days, and many Catholic parents are using birth control, despite it being "against their religion". In the last couple of years I've discussed this with two of my cousins who are priests. I asked what was being taught or 'permitted' in regard to sex education at the likes of the school that I went to (the Catholic Girls College run by 'Mercys' in Christchurch, NZ). Both confirmed that education on contraception was denied, because it was still 'technically' against the religion. I have also discussed it with a family friend who is a 'Vicor General'. Despite them seeing the idocy of it all, they have to "toe the line".

The school I went to (in the early '70's) had one of the highest academic rates in Christchurch when I was there, but so too did it have the highest pregnancy rate. I recall a lay teacher coming in to give us a "sex education" class. She had 2 hours to give us girls the 'brief', the one that would have been 'it' for many of the little protected 'princesses' who went to that school. The lecture was over in 20 mins - With three of the topics that were to be covered, our teacher (a nun), interjected and prevented it being covered, because it was against our religion. One of the topics was masturbation. What a hoot, my girlfriend and I looked at eachother and had to suppress our laughter, 'cause it was the first we had heard of it being a "no, no" - no-one had dared tell us! The subject of 'birth control" was also squashed, as well as the subject of "sex before marraige".

This is where 'morals' as opposed to 'ethics' just suck! Sadly, some of the Catholic parents I know, don't discuss this stuff with anyone, let alone their own kids. I have spoken with some of these kids over the last few years. Their ignorance on it all, is just a shocker. It's not a wonder that some of them have gotten into trouble - 'trouble' that could have been avoided.

IKTM, you said "if you don't want a child, don't shag" - doesn't work mate, it just doesn't work that way - education about "shagging", the consequences of doing so, and informed choices beforehand, might 'help' though.
 

knn

Patron Meritorious
The best way for Pro-Lifers to end abortion is to help people have access to better education, a safer and more caring adoption process, and birth control preventative alternatives. One of my biggest issues with many (NOT ALL) pro-life supporters is that a great majority who are motivated by religious reasons also condemn sex ed and birth control. :confused2: If you're not going to treat the causes of abortions, how could you heal the symptoms?

Exactly. Statistically the less sex ed there is the more abortions follow.

Thus Christians with their anti-education and anti-birth-control ideas CAUSE unwanted pregnancies and thus abortions.
 

Carmel

Crusader
Since my last post on this thread, my hubby and I have argued over what I posted. He asked me why on earth would the Catholics 'allow' their kids to be taught how to 'sin', and how could I expect them to. I accept this, but I don't accept the labelling of what a 'sin' is in the first place (at all), by them or anyone else, when it's based on moralistic crap.

Whether Catholic, Scientologist, Buddhist, or whatever, we should all recognise the difference between 'morals' and ethics. Morals as stable data will cause all sorts of problems and mind fucks. Relying on ethics as the criteria for what course of action we should or could take, would be wiser, AND it would be so, despite how 'immoral' one's choices may be considered within the society in which we live or within any 'group' to which we may 'belong'. When it comes to abortion, it's the same deal, IMO.
 
Since my last post on this thread, my hubby and I have argued over what I posted. He asked me why on earth would the Catholics 'allow' their kids to be taught how to 'sin', and how could I expect them to. I accept this, but I don't accept the labelling of what a 'sin' is in the first place (at all), by them or anyone else, when it's based on moralistic crap.

Whether Catholic, Scientologist, Buddhist, or whatever, we should all recognise the difference between 'morals' and ethics. Morals as stable data will cause all sorts of problems and mind fucks. Relying on ethics as the criteria for what course of action we should or could take, would be wiser, AND it would be so, despite how 'immoral' one's choices may be considered within the society in which we live or within any 'group' to which we may 'belong'. When it comes to abortion, it's the same deal, IMO.


Dear Carmel,

If you ever join a polyandrous cult, please call me. :flowers:


Mark A. Baker :coolwink:
 
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