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Lighthawk wrote:

BigJKU316 wrote:I don't pretend that any scientific reasonsing guides me on this. I just find the notion of denying something the chance at life for any reason other than it threatens yours to be wrong.

First off, let me just say that I don't condone using abortion as a method of birth control. Use the pill, use a condom, use something to stop if before it happens. I also can't condone late term abortion, while I can not say when exactly it goes from being just a bunch of cells to an actual person, I do believe there is a point where it does, and that said point is before birth. If you're going to get an abortion, get it early as possible.

Now that said, I do take issue with the whole "denying the potential child life" stance. Could that collection of cells become a child? Yes. But you know what, so could every sperm and egg cell produced by every human body. To me, once you start down that "that could have been somebody" path, where do you draw the line? Taken to the extreme, I could say that every man is denying trillions upon trillions of "potential" people a chance at life with all the sperm he lets die just within his own body. Never mind if he masterbates (and lets face it, if you're a guy, you have) and throws them in the trash or flushes them.

Every sperm and egg has the potential, but its not only absurd, but impossible to give every single one of them the chance to become a person. So where do you draw the line? Conception? Just because the sperm and egg met, does that really increase their potential that much more? I don't know, but just because it could have been, doesn't mean it was, and I'm not about to be upset about things that might have been.

Captain Seafort wrote:Why apologise? He was making the same point as the Pythons - that the "potential life" argument is stupid because of the absurd lengths it can be taken to.

stitch626 wrote:Only problem I see with such an argument (nice like btw) is that the aperm/egg by itself is not a potential "life". Do whatever you want to an egg by it self, and all you'll get is a single egg. It requirs both for a child to be a potential.

BigJKU316 wrote:Like I said, what I think has not real basis in scientific concepts or even a good logical grounding. However I don't think either of those really get you to much of an answer on this issue. It is much more of a matter of personal belief than anything. Attempting to attack one viewpoint or another with science or logic really gets you nowhere.

Captain Seafort wrote:

BigJKU316 wrote:Like I said, what I think has not real basis in scientific concepts or even a good logical grounding. However I don't think either of those really get you to much of an answer on this issue. It is much more of a matter of personal belief than anything. Attempting to attack one viewpoint or another with science or logic really gets you nowhere.

Why exactly would anyone who isn't a f***ing idiot base their opinion on something that directly affects people's physical and mental health on anything but science and logic? If you want to advocate a course of action then you should have reasons for that action, not just "it feels right", or similar. Your reasoning might lead to a completely different conclusion than someone else's, but failing to use any reasoning at all is an indication of laziness and stupidity.

BigJKU316 wrote:In short, some issues and viewpoints are not really suited to that sort of process. At some point in the logical chain you end up falling back to what you believe. Does life start at conception? At viability? At birth? There is no science that tells you which one of those is right.

Like I already said, I don't think anyone is advocating not allowing abortion if it would kill someone to not get it done. But outside of that black and white issue how one chooses to weigh the issues at hand is really a matter of personal belief more than anything.

Captain Seafort wrote:

BigJKU316 wrote:In short, some issues and viewpoints are not really suited to that sort of process. At some point in the logical chain you end up falling back to what you believe. Does life start at conception? At viability? At birth? There is no science that tells you which one of those is right.

Yes there is - use the same definition as death. If there's no electrical activity in the brain then there's no life.

Lighthawk wrote:

BigJKU316 wrote:I don't pretend that any scientific reasonsing guides me on this. I just find the notion of denying something the chance at life for any reason other than it threatens yours to be wrong.

First off, let me just say that I don't condone using abortion as a method of birth control. Use the pill, use a condom, use something to stop if before it happens. I also can't condone late term abortion, while I can not say when exactly it goes from being just a bunch of cells to an actual person, I do believe there is a point where it does, and that said point is before birth. If you're going to get an abortion, get it early as possible.

Now that said, I do take issue with the whole "denying the potential child life" stance. Could that collection of cells become a child? Yes. But you know what, so could every sperm and egg cell produced by every human body. To me, once you start down that "that could have been somebody" path, where do you draw the line? Taken to the extreme, I could say that every man is denying trillions upon trillions of "potential" people a chance at life with all the sperm he lets die just within his own body. Never mind if he masterbates (and lets face it, if you're a guy, you have) and throws them in the trash or flushes them.

Every sperm and egg has the potential, but its not only absurd, but impossible to give every single one of them the chance to become a person. So where do you draw the line? Conception? Just because the sperm and egg met, does that really increase their potential that much more? I don't know, but just because it could have been, doesn't mean it was, and I'm not about to be upset about things that might have been.

Mikey wrote:Sorry, but it doesn't work. The slippery slope for which you're looking isn't there. It's not a question of the same potential of a zygote as of a separate sperm and egg; it's the difference between "could be" (sperm and egg) or "will be unless acted upon by an outside influence" (zygote.) Using a false slippery-slope proposition to declaim responsibility doesn't fly.