I don't think it makes a lot of difference whether a person has an ethics major or not. These seem like general human issues we all have to think about.
I'm trying to figure out why it should or shouldn't be a personal issue. Why should the State not interfere in our reproductive acts?
I'm thinking that all creative acts, reproductive or otherwise, are our most divine acts. Good ones require foresight, planning, calculation and aim for some good state of affairs. Creating the social conditions for responsible creative choices seems necessary to live out our full potential. Recinding those decisions if they seem to be poor ones, seems to be part of the equation. God destroyed the world in the days of Noah. This was God's abortion.

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Firstly, I do not consider myself the puppet of god, yahweh, allah, siva, vishnu or whatever. Is there a devine power? Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. I do not have a bumper sticker that asks "What would Jesus do?" I could care less what anyone does. I do what I do and you do what you do. Of course, we live in a society so I cannot just rape some girl because I felt like so.

Secondly, if I can help it, I do not pay out on potential. Yes, an acorn can become a tree but I am not going to pay you the average price an oak tree for an acorn.

Is the fetus viable? Well, lets look at it closer. If I took it out today, can it survive on it's own within REASONABLE means or do I have to keep it alive by some fantastical means and it goes thru life with all the wonderful effects of being a preemie. Now if you say at 8 months it is alive, I'll buy that. 3 months? No. Like Kerry said, if I remove the fetus and it can be adopted out, go for it. If not, No.

Also, I am the host. I can invite you to my house and I can ask you to leave if I so choose. Just because it is 50 below and no houses for miles and there is a blizzard doesn't mean I should have to keep you there one second longer than I want.

Yes the fetus has a heartbeat from a 2 chamber heart. I do not consider a heartbeat to be the be all and the end all of life. When your heart stops, the doctor tries to restart it. He doesn't just say "Heart stops ticking, I go home". So should I use that to signify life? You hook a corpse to a ventilator and stimulate the heart and it will "live" forever. At what point will it have recognisable brainwaves like you and I? Not in the first trimester. Probabal electric activity but that is not worth counting.

So, Religion is fine thing but I don't let it control my life. I am the host. Therefore you go when I say you go. If someone else can and will adopt you when I say for you to go, fair enough. If not, oh well. Game over.

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I just mentioned that I was not a logic major to indicate that the structure / language of the argument is a bit of a stretch for my brain to wrap it's self around.

be that as it may, how does a person like me, who does not believe in a 'god' per-say, argue against that line of reasoning. My belief is that I am here as a matter of happenstance. Mom and dad got nasty (geez I hate that thought) and poof, here I am. The state, IMO has no interest in what my mom and dad did, much less if they decide to undo what they did.

I go through life on my own path as I believe everyone else does. I do not belive that our life has a purpose or an overseer. I am a molecule of water in a river finding the path of least resistance.

It seems to me that this is an argument that assumes some sort of belief structure to begin with. Since I do not believe in god, the idea of a ‘divine act’ is a bit alien to me.

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No Scripture that I'm familiar with. But it's not surprising since medically safe abortions are a fairly recent thing. Some religious people believe life begins at conception and abortion is a sin. But others disagree with both of them or agree with one and not the other. I think religion is getting pushed further and further to the political/cultural/social right in the US so the connection between being religious and being anti-abortion is becoming more and more common but I don't see any necessary connection between the two at all. I think the connection tends to be made because the transformation in family life and women's role made possible thru artificial means of birth control, has produced a conservative reaction which connects (correctly) these fundamental changes with reproductive freedom. It then turns to religion to try to gain some leverage in reversing those changes. Hence the connection between abortion and religion.

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I, like you davidmash go thru life doing my own thing. I allow others to do their own thing too. I don't take it upon myself to make sure that others do as I believe or don't believe. You want to bark at the moon? Do it so I don't hear you when I am in bed and you can do what you want.

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Aklim

I like that explanation for the most part. BUT, I know there is always a but. If I were to bring a child into this world I want it raised ‘right’. If I decide to abort a child/fetus (what ever) that is viable out side the womb. There is no guarantee that someone will want the child. Since that may be the case, I would argue that I should have the right to terminate that ‘life’ as by beliefs that I do not want to burden a society with an unwanted child or to let something ‘I created’ grow up in an environment that I do not approve.

Not sure how this fits in this whole argument but it some thinking I have been thinking of since I have heard the whole ‘adoption’ argument.

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- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Yes, I think this raises a problem. If you decide to abort because you're dying for instance, having someone else adopt the child might be a good idea. But if you discover that your child to be has a disease which will cause it to suffer its whole life and abort it for that reason, adoption could we worse than death in the potential mother's view. But at the point of viability, does the judgment about the value of the potential child's life become a broader social decision even if it was the pregnant woman's decision prior to viability? In other words, does it become a euthanasia question at that point?

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What I'm thinking is that while your view does make sense of abortion rights, it's not the only way to make sense of abortion rights. A theistic view of the world could also make sense of abortion rights. A consistent theistic defense of abortion rights could be an important social contribution in our world.

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Why stop at ex utero? I mean, a human being isn't really plausibly viable until they're 7 to 12 years old when they can scrap with the other scavengers at the garbage heap.

Bot

I think you lump religions to a degree that is meaningless. There are all sorts of religions out there and all manner of perspectives on abortion. That variability is true within various religions, too.

Bot

Regardless of whether one thinks abortion is sinful or not, I'd like to know if the anti-abortion people think it's ok to let a woman die from her pregrancy that went wrong for some reason. What if it's your wife who's dying from that kind of pregnancy? Are you still going to be against abortion and let her die? Or what if the fetus is diagnosed with a serious physical or mental condition and he or she will suffer and die at an early age? Are you saying it's more humane to let the kid live and suffer and die at an early age than to abort it before it even becomes self-aware? Or what if your teenage daugher gets raped and impregnated? Are you going to force her to suffer through the pregnancy and raise an unwanted child? For these very reasons I will always be pro-choice, though I think it's ok to have reasonable restrictions on abortion and in my own case I'd opt for abortion only as a last resort.

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That may well be true.

To clarify my streotype, I was addressing the religions that seem to be voicing their opinions on the issue of where life begins, abortion .. etc. The religions that are speaking up seem to be taking the position that live begiuns at conception ... etc. They seem top make up the majority but I could be wrong. Most of the arguments seem to a them (religion and 'true' believers) verses us (non-believers or those who do not believe all of it).

Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

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- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I think the argument is based on circular reasoning.

1. Life can only be created by free choice. 2. Free choice is only free if it iincludes the freedom to change your mind. 3. If there is life present then the "creator" had free choice. 4. Therefore the creator has the power to change its (her) mind.

Seems to me that just as in the case of Nancy Regan and her stance on Stem Cell research, it seems to be ok as long as it is not you who is at risk. Once someone has a personal experience with what ever one is against, there seems to be a tendency to change ones position. All of a sudden there is this click in the brain and "OH, that's what you meant!" Then again there are those who would say it is 'gods will' that this child suffer so that we may learn or some other such dribble.

Now before someone goes off half cocked that we do not know what regans position of stem cell research was I belive it stands to reason that since she was a staunch opponent of abortion that she would have been against stem cell had it been an issue when her husband was president. Again, just my opinion, I could be wrong.

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Sent from an agnostic abacus

2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

I'm not completely sure I agree it's circular but I was trying to draw out the implications of a view of existence in which things are not necessary.

The alternative is the existence Kuan described in which responsiblity, freedom and simple acts which attempt to modify nature such as 'taking an aspirin' to relieve a headache seem to have intellectual inconsistencies insofar as acts like that are admissions that the universe is not as good as we wish it was.

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1977 300d 70k--sold 08
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1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
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1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13