Life is sacred! DON'T KILL OUR BABIES PLZ.

hmm.... I think when the situation calls for it, abortion can be the right choice. I don't think people should run around, getting them all the time. But, get 'em when you want/need.

but that was sort of a crazy thread post, phil.

KILL THE CAPITALISTS.

http://www.somethingawful.com/flash/shmorky/babby.swf

Who are YOU to tell me if I can kill babies or not? I can kill babies if I want to. Don't you oppress me!

FUCK THE PROLETARIAT.

Oh, I was gonna post in here, but looks likes you've got it covered...

...or not.

LONG LIVE THE PROLETARIAT!

Aren't you spose to be dead?

FUCK YOUR FACE OFF.

Jaaaaaack!

You know, people who pine about others are really just sad on the inside. After all, you can only measure something by putting it up against something else of equal nature. So everyone who's feeling bad about starving African children are doing it because they have something to prove, to us, to themselves, whatever. The fact that you don't really give a shit means that you're probably A-OK.

On a side note, I once won 200 bucks for designing a t-shirt that had a picture of a starving African child with the caption, "I can has cheezburger?"

See? I'm REALLY super happy about life.

Oh and John Wayne Gacey was A-OK, huh? Jefferey Dahmer, A-OK! Ed Gein, Manson, SUPER!

yep, just some awful things in the world. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with a crowd of people and a magnum, there are way too many sad people in the world who need cheering up, and what can be happier than knowing you're soon going to be the victim of a maniac and in the news the next day?

I'm of the opinion that people should not be allowed to congregate in groups larger than about ten. Because, the more people there are around you, the less you care about each and every one of them. So if humans could only be around nine other people at a time (and, mind you, they could be interchangeable, but never more or less), then everyone would always be cared for. This should be law, I think.

What about on the innernets? Does it double? Halve?

That would make for some shitty superbowls and world serieses.

You could have a world series with just 9 people gathered on each side.

WHO WANTS A WORLD SERIES WHEN THE YANKEES WIN ALL THE TIME ANYWAY?! FUCK THAT SHIT.

GTFO my Constitutional rights!

xec, you're just pissed about the contradictory nature of our society. It's always been, and it will always be, "out of sight, out of mind," no matter what the issue is. People have their values, and will usually do something about lives being lost ONLY if it's directly influencing them, negatively. This is simply normal behavior. I hate it, too, and it seems to be the problem with mass societies (loss of values and individual responsibility). I'm devastatingly sad to say I've held a dead baby in my arms, and I'm emotionally attached to the idea that abortions should not be handed out as easily as they are these days. It's painfully obvious that people are far too focused on themselves, losing the evolutionary instinct of kinship and family in general, or at least the amount of people they care for grows smaller. I care for many things, but no one else seems to have the passion for any of it, anymore. So my passions dwindle, and continue to do so as long as I live my life in places where people only value themselves. I don't hate these people, because I understand them. I simply hate the inevitability of falling into this hole of either blatant immorality or hypocrisy.

And that's where the problem lies. I admit my emotional attachment, thus making my opinion bias. So I obviously can't give a logical answer. But if I can say something, it's the uncertainty of a human being's experience in the womb. I don't know when life begins, or when an individual system could be considered conscious. There's far too much debate over the matter. As an atheist, I'm inclined to believe there's only one shot at existence, and as a society we seem to value people's freedom to live. I know it can be a burden to the mother and such, but it seems to come down to whether we hold the mother's right to do what she wants with her body over the child's right to live, or not. But then there's the idea that it's not even life before the third trimester, and it's a negligible organism. But how can we be certain? Yet, even if it isn't true, there are still cases when it seems inhumane to force a mother to have a child when it could cause serious damage to her physically or psychologically. This is far too debatable, and all I can do is sit back and watch what people do when they have a choice, and simply make my own personal judgments of their character based on the circumstances in which they made that choice, just like everyone else. Any other action could be considered oppressive. So this whole topic's up in the air, for me.

You know what? I've had experience with abortion clinics, and women who've had abortions, and this is horseshit. If you value the "evolutionary instinct of kinship" so highly, please go show some human solidarity to the poor woman you're condemning, here, for having this procedure, rather than waxing poetic about how she should have been less selfish.

And I'd like to know in what universe abortions are "handed out easily...these days." I'm in Gainesville, FL, and the abortion clinic in this town is the only one in the northern half of this state. So you have to deal with sparse placement of clinics, the draconian parental/spousal notification laws various states have passed, and rabid protesters camping out every day in front to harass the women entering. I'd love to hear how that constitutes "handed out easily."

Christ, people are "too focused on themselves?" They goddamn well should be, when it comes to their health care. I wouldn't get a kidney transplant with my high school math teacher in mind. Why should a woman have you in mind when considering this?

Uuuh, you need to read my other reply. And no, it's not a load of horse shit. I've acknowledged there're good reasons for abortions, which you seemed to ignore. You're the one who's neglecting the fact that there ARE places where it's far easier to have an abortion. You're also neglecting the fact that there're women who have abortions for atrocious reasons.

"I wouldn't get a kidney transplant with my high school math teacher in mind. Why should a woman have you in mind when considering this?" - What... the hell... do these sentences even mean?? I'm not sure you're comprehending the idea at all with replies like this.

Eeeh, I'm gonna have to disagree, there. But that's a long, long story that I'm not ready to tell.

I think you're misunderstanding what I meant by "easy". I meant that abortions are given regardless of the reasons, not that the procedure itself was easy. Nor did I say they were inexpensive. I remember a statistic (mind you, it was from 1984, since I couldn't find any more recent ones that were as descriptive) showing that a significant amount of abortions (well over 20%, I recall) were because the mother said she was worried about how a baby might affect her lifestyle. Mind you, there were a huge amount of reasons. It wasn't that a load of reasons were lumped into this category (monetary reasons, being too young, and even what others might think of her for being pregnant without being married were all separate categories that weren't put together into this one). This raises an eyebrow, for me. But values might have changed significantly since then (after all, the amount of abortions has gone down since the '80s), and I haven't been able to research more recent statistics. But again, I'm not suggesting we impose any laws, as I've stated before. I'm only bringing the idea of society's emphasis on the self over others into perspective.

I understand. It's cool.

Glad to hear it. It's nice to see some calm discussion in these threads, every once in a while.

I suppose abortions were the wrong way to go, based on the original issue. I always did find it hard to believe a woman could be so cold as to simply have an abortion for no other reason than she was afraid she couldn't go out dancing and drinking, anymore (although there are cases). For this thread, abortions are a bad example of people's lack of concern for other people, especially since it really is an issue that people do act on passionately. I guess I just brought it up because of the thread's title and xec's concern with her indifference towards abortions. This went in a completely different direction.

Kill the children, too.

I've stayed away from this topic in other places b/c I was afraid I was going to offend, but since xec opened this thread in the manner in which he did, I think this is an appropriate place for my views on abortion. I think that any girl 17 years of age or younger who gets pregnant should be forced to have an abortion. Furthermore, I think that abortions should be free for anyone whose income is near or below poverty. America is falling apart because all our children are being born to morons who can't afford them. If you think that a fetus has an absolute right to life then DON'T FUCK WITHOUT CONTRACEPTION. It's so hypocritical to think that you're morally justified in taking the risk of getting pregnant when you can't afford to raise a child but not morally justified in expelling the fetus for your own sake, the fetus's sake, and society's sake. Almost all of my friends who have children, especially those who knocked someone up/got knocked up in high school, said at the time "I think abortion is wrong, I can be a good parent, all it takes is determination." WRONG. It takes more than good intentions and determination to raise a child. It takes MONEY. And if you don't have the money to raise your child then MTV will.

Life is only precious when properly cared for. It doesn't matter what your intentions are, if you don't have the material goods necessary to raise a child which contributes to society rather than being a burden, you are morally obligated to extinguish it before it comes into existence. (note, planning on one day having the material goods is not sufficient)

Concerning the death penalty, I'm opposed to it but I also believe that here in the States our entire criminal justice system is fucked. Perhaps if people just got shot behind the courthouse I wouldn't have such a big problem with it, but death row is stupid.

Concerning the Africa situation - we'd probably help those people out more if we shipped them birth control instead of food. Regardless, in many of those countries stable economies need to be built, but I have no idea how we would go about it.

It seems that many of the "life is precious" people seem to conveniently forget that we all die. The way I look at it, life can be awesome or a drag, it all depends on the circumstances.

Philippe, stop reading those left wing european philosophers.

Are you going to follow this up all the way by declaring everyone, of any age, who had a child before the age seventeen obviously a horrible parent? With children who have lived a wretched life they would have been better to never have had at all?

I love babies! And they taste good too!

Christopher Lambert?

I've got no idea. I didn't even know he had a brother.

Damn. Gone for a minute and come back to find Phil trippin' on some nihilistic FTW-type shit. How does this reconcile with your other thread about how life is all rosy? I'm confused.

My life is rosy. Human life is not.

I'm a fucking butcher, dude.

also, who is that in your avatar?

Isn't it that chick that was in heroes?

Indeed. I forget her name though, never having watched Heroes.

She was 'electrogirl' I think, no one cares about character names in heroes. She was in something else before that though, playing some sort of high-school detective or something, right?

I've never seen Heroes either. I thought the only blondes on the show were the cheerleader one and the schizo one that was also in Final Destination.
Still though, she is quite attractive.
Back to not killing babbies discussion.

Kristen Bell?

__________________________

big S wrote:

Have a good one! I'd sing you happy birthday but the melody was written by a Sunday school teacher and i know how much you hate God so i won't sing to you. Have a good one though.

I don't think there are any logical answers, it's all arbitrary line-drawing because life and consciousness aren't on-off states. There's no single point during pregnancy when a foetus becomes a living being or when it obtains consciousness. I'd even say that consciousness doesn't fully develop until months after birth.

I would say that until a foetus can survive outside the womb it can't really be considered 'alive', and the earliest point at which a premature baby has a 50% chance of survival is around six months into the pregnancy.