http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/200 ... ortion.cnn

In a nutshell, they want to define birth control pills, morning-after pills , and IUD's as "abortion".



My main problem with this is that abortion generally means stopping or canceling something while it's in the process or whatever (in this case, killing the child before they're born). Birth control pills and the like, however, are a form of prevention, which is stopping a process from beginning at all, so it shouldn't count as abortion.

I think the government should stay out of it, it is the choice of the mother.

And I think you missed the point. This isn't actually a discussion about when abortion should be accepted or not. This is only to -define- what constitutes an abortion.

Birth control pills are not abortion, anyway - you can't abort something that hasn't even happened. For the others, if you believe life is already there after fecundation, then it is abortion.

Hah! That's kind of like the creationism - evolution debate. If you can't win an argument, change the rules and the point being discussed. In case of creationism, they dropped the biblical stand temporarily, made up intelligent design, and moved the argument from direct bible-bashing to whether or not ID is science. Here they realized that they can't win the actual discussion on the legality of abortion (yet!), but that they can add more stuff under the word and make it an umberella term for all those things that Jesus finds morally repugnant. Next time there's a serious discussion on abortion, they will already have gained ground if this thing passes.

Vote religious right and make sure YOUR future teenage daughter is screwed in two decades from now.

This has been the usual pet cause of the religious right, the whole issue of how to encourage more reproduction, because apparently they need more cannonfodder down the road to continue their crusade to bring Corporatist Democracy to the Mid-East. If these people tried to actually understand the difference between Procreation and mere Reproduction, they'd understand that quality of life is just as important as quantity of lives.

If you ask me, the Religious Right and the Left in America have the same goal, continue the mass expansion of the poor population by encouraging mass reproduction among the uneducated. The Right gives them psuedo-Christian arguments to keep the babies coming via Negative Reinforcement, the Left sends them a welfare check to take care of the Positive Reinforcement.

So, according to his logic, masturbation shouldn't be allowed either. After all, a baby could've born of it. You're killing babies when you masturbate, you murderer.

As hells_unicorn stated, there is an actual reason behind this. It makes as much sense as war on terrorism otherwise.

Not quite. In this definition, the sperm and the egg must fuse before it's called abortion, and unless you're very creative, that does not usually happen in solo sex.

Masturbation is the thing to attack after the next step. The next step is to ban anything but the missionary position under a thick blanket with the lights off, and of course, the man touching his own genitals during the guide-in phase of the shameful act. That should take a few years, but by 2016 your wankings within the borders of the USA are over, sir.

This is all too familiar: the Religious Right treating women as 2nd-class citizens.

Sounds like this "religious right" group has really boring sex.

Edit: BTW, what about condoms? What is the US turning into, a bigger Vatican?

Or just don't have kids. That's my cure-all.

I am against abortions. Why? Just like everything in today's society, we want a quick fix. I'm fat... give me a pill! I can't pay my mortgage... but I lot my head in a time when the economy was booming - it's not my fault! I got pregnant... condoms/the pill/morning after pill/oral just weren't options!

I'm sick of people who can't take the heat.

As far as I go on the abortion issue, I used to say keep government out of it, but I also had a peculiar opposition to the death penalty. One day it dawned on me that it was easier to simply say "It's a woman's right to choose" because even if I had to witness an abortion being done, I wouldn't have to listen to what was being killed beg for mercy and his/her life.

The Pro-Life crowd on the right who support the Death Penalty and are often War Supporters are beholden to this sense of hypocritical justice that I can't get behind. But the Pro-Choice crowd who have this so-called enlightened sense of mercy when it comes to treatment of criminals and passiveness in military matters kind of perplex me. Is it for the same reasons I just outlined? Or is the whole "right to choose" slogan just too good of a euphemistic platitude to even argue against? I'd be curious what anyone would have to say on this.

Ultimately, I think the religious right's goal is to have us all follow Rev. Ted Haggard's example. But without us being caught of course. The best way to prevent abortions is to have gay sex while having a wife who is used for nothing more than breeding purposes. Welcome to the bible belt y'all!

Nietzsche argued (I believe in "Human, All Too Human") that the strongest nation is that one which treats its worst elements most humanely because they can afford to do so. This is analogous to a rich, powerful man choosing not to pursue a lawsuit over damage done to his property by someone belonging to the underclass because it is monetarily insubstantial to him.

Ok. Get used to condoms or abstinence, they will pretty much be the only things left if this passes. And vasectomy, unless the personnel in the hospital have moral and ethical objections to performing the procedure for the purpose of just having fun without justified, Jesus-ordained consequences, in which case you won't get that, either.


Yes, it's scientifically proven that making teenagers have their babies and keep them teaches them a valuable lesson, and when they are ready bringing up an unwanted kid 18 years later, they know to keep their legs together. That will teach 'em! Also, the kids will learn the same lesson through the poverty and neglect they are likely to face in their lives, and they will learn the lesson, too, a lesson they would miss if they were aborted.

If someone considers abortion a "quick fix", the problem isn't the abortion, it's the person. For the record, I'm against abortions after the first trimester, unless the reasons are medical. If the woman can't make her mind at that point, the time ran out. The earlier the better, for everybody involved, and if the foetus is just an unwanted baby, that should be clear from the beginning. Few things are as morally disgusting as "partial birth abortions".

Ah, the amount of potential Waldron/Lavinge children I've cracked off from my wrist. I'm with hells_unicorn on this, the government should get its claws off my womb. Does this article say anything about rape victims? Do they have to spawn little rape babies too? Again the old Bill Hicks rant of "If your so pro-life why not block funerals?" rings true.

"She was 92 and hit by a bus"

Do you not actually live in the real world? Things are rather complicated, contraception can fail for instance. I had a scare when I was 17, thankfully she didn't turn out to be pregnant, bringing up a child when I was that immature would have been terrrible for the kid above all else.

About my earlier comment, I wasn't serious.

As for you anti-abortion people, the reason why abortion is legal in usually the fact that should one not be able to get one from a hospital, they will do it at home. Using a coathanger isn't the most healthy way, and it often damages the genitals so that the mothers may not be able to have babies in future either. Therefore, I'm not against abortion. Education is the answer, in my opinion.

It's no one's problem what stupid people do to their own bodies. That's like taking trans fat out of french fries because fatasses can't control what they eat. "Let's do this so that people will harm themselves to a lesser degree."

At the very least, I agree with Napero in the sense that second and third trimester abortions should always be illegal unless there is a medical complication. What were you waiting for?

To avoid close calls, do the triple play: wear a condom, use the pill, and pull out. Ta-da! It costs money, but then again, so do abortions/raising a kid.

Birth control pills couldnt really be logically defined as abortion, since abortion is the process of killing an unborn baby, not preventing a zygote from forming. Most Christians I know (Except catholics) are not against birth control.

Off topic, but I think abortion should be illegal. I dont think of this as a religious issue. People alsways say a women has the right to there own body. They do. So do men. But babies are not part of the womens body. They are a seperate organism. Killing a baby is wrong, no matter what age it is.
Of course, there is the issue of at what stage the baby should be considered a seperate organism. Im not too informed on the development stages, so any input on this would be appreciated.

It seems like Bush might actually have the right idea for once.
KILLING IS WRONG (though I shall always love gore metal )

[quote="Ilwhyan"]As for you anti-abortion people, the reason why abortion is legal in usually the fact that should one not be able to get one from a hospital, they will do it at home. Using a coathanger isn't the most healthy way, and it often damages the genitals so that the mothers may not be able to have babies in future either. quote]

An illegal abortion trade would surely open up. But that doesnt make it less illegal. We could prosecute anyone who had an illegal abortion, as we do to someone who did cocaine or murdered someone.

You didn't watch the video, now did you? That's the whole point, redefining abortion.

Abortion is very much a religious question. To find proof, just look at the discussion in the western countries that mostly argue about it or have strickt restrictions on it: USA (with their religious groups), Ireland and Poland (with plenty of catholics), etc.

According to this logic, Americans are just so dumb that they get overweight. And even so, that comparison makes no sense. If you happen to get hungry, eating healthy food is still legal.

Even if you were right, wouldn't it be better to educate and help these dumb people so that they wouldn't damage themselves? What do you think the society will gain from such an apathetic attitude? Let the evolution take care of dumbfucks?

That's sickening, I hope that's not what you meant.

What I think JohnStamos is referring to is government forcefully removing the trans-fatty acids from our beloved French style fried potato fragments. There is a difference between education and government interference, or government inaction in the case of Abortion where we are talking about terminating a human being (whether it has the ability to survive without another's help being a separate issue, then again, most of the people the Welfare Statist crowd want to support can't seem to take care of themselves either, which again perplexes me as these people also tend to be Pro-choice).

Apathy tends to be the general reaction to a lot of bad ideas being implemented and good ideas being denounced as either being unrealistic or harsh. In America we have a healthy supply of dumb fucks running things and when smarter people try changing things they usually get slandered or libeled into giving up. Apathy is the inevitable conclusion of the direction the world is going in, and I don't see anyone offering anything to change things in a meaningful way, so why should anyone care? (I'm partially playing Devil's Advocate with this last statement)

Obviously it's a completely different issue, but the same can be applied to both cases. By legalizing abortion under strict conditions and taking small steps to educate the people, one day the wouldn't be need for strict conditions either. Whether it's right to exterminate a human being simply because someone was too drunk to care about protection is another thing, but generally abortion is done at a point where the fetus can hardly be called a human being yet. I don't want to sound cold, but in practice, it makes little difference whether the mother used protection or made an abortion; if anything, it should teach her an important lesson. In this case, the priority should be ensuring that the mother will not be harmed when trying to make an abortion on oneself.

I'm not that fond of abortion either; those people bring it upon themselves. However, considering how non-existant the American social security is, the consequences of not aborting can be very hard.

It's not like this thread was going to change anything anyway, so why not try to come up with an ideal solution?

Sorry. My computer has no sound. I couldnt watch it. And yes, I know there attempting to redefine abortion. That was the point. I was talking about the current definition, and think its stupid to redefine the point.
I dont think abortion is a religious issue at heart. It is an issue that mainly concerns the religious population.

1. I've always been somewhat curious about what the working definition of a human being is when holding such a viewpoint. I do understand that one would have to consider what was being destroyed to not be human in order to either preform the procedure or accept it as normal practice. But the actual standard of applying this definition eludes me, particularly when measured against having the view that executing criminals (who are also a drain on society from a Utilitarian viewpoint) is morally repugnant, or that forcefully sterilizing the poor or genetically compromised to cut down on Social Security costs is questionable.

2. Yeah, it's a neccesary evil, so to speak. The only problem is that when we neccesitate things we consider contradictory to our own principles, we tend to defeat the purpose of having them. Again, I could understand a consistent viewpoint where we have across the board efforts to improve society through use of force (I obviously wouldn't agree with it), but this infinite regression of relative situations seems a bit hypocritical, unless we are speaking of a consistent, hedonistic approach to morality, which would naturally lend to a society of perpetual pleasure and avoidance of natural consequence through synthetic means.

3. Well, speaking as someone who tried pushing for an ideal solution during the earlier part of the election here in the States, coming up with an ideal solution is not a problem, it's getting people not to utterly hate and try to destroy you for disrupting the gravy train in the process. There are too many people invested in the corruption of entire human race and all of it is further bolstered by a collective desire for expediency. Why should anyone even attempt to change anything when they get their own plasma television and lots of fast food? Indeed, why should we even not be fond of abortion in any condition, better that inhuman fetus than me.

P.S. - This is an interesting conversation, so I'm trying to stir it up a bit, I hope no one takes what I've said the wrong way.



Actually it's more of a pet issue for preachers at the pulpit on Sunday or televangelists on CBN for the purpose of duping followers of the champion of the poor (according to the New Testament) into voting for politicians groomed by corporate tycoons and university elitists. It's very effective too, although occasionally a fellow like Pat Robertson will slip up and say things along the lines of abortion being okay for population control provided that it is done only in places like China.

This move is bullshit. What are they going to do next? Ban women from having periods? That expulsion of ovum could have been a baby!

I'm against abortion after a certain pass of time, when the fetus' individual life is debatable. Before that, sure, go ahead and abort. It's not real nice to consider it being done, especially just as a means of getting rid of an unwanted kid, but if the mother is unfit or in danger then it should be done.

It's not too easy for me either to label this human and that non-human, but the line has to be drawn somewhere. There is a point where abortion becomes hard and risky to carry out, and before that, the fetus is barely recognisable as a human. When done incorrectly using home methods, it's more likely that it's done wrong, which also increases the chances of killing something at least remotely human. Anyhow, that question is the same as whether eating a bird egg is the same as eating a bird. I wouldn't claim there was one objectively correct answer. In this case, I'd say it's better to ensure the mother's health (and future life), considering that before birth the fetus is not a separate entity able to exist by itself, and it might never become one.

What do principles mean when trying to make the country a better place? Should the goverment use force to change a law to solve one problem, it doesn't mean they have to change the laws by force in every single matter, does it? I'm not sure if I understood this paragraph correctly.

That is pretty sad. It probably has to do with the American dream mentality, adopted from brits. Somehow, people see those less fortunate deserving of their situation, as if the system actually gave everyone the same chances.

Yes, I know its somethign of a pet issue. And I knwo many politicians have used it to gain popularity among Christians. Yet, I still cant bring myself to call ti a religous issue. While theres certainly a good deal of philosophical and religious problems in the debate, I think it essentially falls to "the womans right to her own body" argument being insufficient since the unborn is a biologically distinct organism.

edit: sorry I have no Idea how I screwed up the code for the quotes.

The reason why this is so dangerous, is because birth control for the poor is really under fire here. Most of the people who can't afford to have more children are under government programs to attain birth control and IUDs. If there is a stop-gap here, then it is going to increase the number of children being born into poor families. Something that the government probably wants, so that they can have an army of drones in the next decade and a half or so. Most probably to recruit as soldiers in an ideological war, or to stay stateside and enter into the workforce to supplement monies paid in taxes to maintain this war effort/machine. What this can be seen as, ultimately, is a way of the upper 1% dictating the rights of a less fortunate, but substantially larger, impoverished underclass.

I wrote this big post and then closed out the window before it was fully submitted. D'oh. Here I go again:

Around 50% of women who have abortions already had one. In that case, legal abortions help teach no lesson.

Hells_Unicorn was right. The french fry example was meant to show how the govenment is BABYING the people. People should know restraint when it comes to eating fries and having sex (not necessarily at the same time). I know you only have to have sex once to get pregnant while you have to eat a ton of fries to have health problems, but the idea is still there. "I had sex, but I didn't intend to get pregnant." Let's not forget, that's the fucking point. Anyway, I can't understand why so many people have that much casual sex anymore. By the age of 19, 1/4 sexually active women already have an STD. GROSS.

But that's getting off topic. As for what W wants to do, it sucks. I define the moment someone has "human rights" as implantation. As a result, birth control should be acceptable.

Do you have any evidence to back up those statistical claims? Also, do they apply to the USA only or are they world-wide?

Yes, because "rape babies" are disgusting, filthy creatures who should be exterminated. Also, it's their fault you got raped.


I used to have the attitude that men don't really have much right to an opinion on abortion because it more concerns women. Then I realized this is a bullshit cop-out which people use to avoid hurting their brains on a difficult subject.

A local reporter named Marc Munroe Dion once wrote a column dealing with abortion. He made a point which pretty much sealed my attitude: "Pregnancy is when a woman's body is least her own." Therefore, the argument that it's "her right to choose what she does with her own body" has absolutely no place in the discussion.

I'll keep writing while I don my riot gear for the compulsory feminine outrage.

It's not for anyone to dictate whether you should have an abortion, but I should point out that everyone I know who has had one has felt like shit about it ever since. If you think you'll be able to live with yourself afterward, by all means do it.

On topic: Life begins at conception, therefore contraception is rightly separate from an actual abortion. Trying to redefine what counts as abortion is an act of desperation which will go nowhere. If they were smart about it, they would have started by attempting to change the terminology associated with the process called "abortion," since the word itself means what Smkiller said:

Oh absolutely. They were plotting it all along while they were little sperm armies in the ball sack. It's all part of their little plan to take over the world and rule with a military made up of mutants, freaks, and outcasts.

But really, I won't really support abortion if the pregnancy is caused by rape. I would suggest adoption, if anything. The only time I really support abortion is if the baby is bound to have some kind of birth defect that could be potentially fatal. Harlequin type ichthyosis comes to mind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin_type_ichthyosis

Don't know about the rest of you, but I'd abort the child to spare it from having such a condition rather than letting it live through that shit.

I just can't comprehend how they can say having an abortion is killing a baby when the fetus has the conscienceness of a fucking vegetable. How is using birth control/morning-after pills etc killing something that either might not ''exist'' or doesn't have the conscience and physical stability to be called ''alive''?

It should always be up to the mother if she wants an abortion. The government shouldn't have a say. I just - uhgh, it just clusterfucks my mind to know that the government now wants to force people to do (or rather, not do) something. I can't explain arguments against it because it's so aggrivating.

As for the not allowing masturbation...well, that just irks me in so many ways. I hope to get into sexual psychology and such...that'd just fuck things up for me, in a way. Well, I'd hope it wouldn't. How could you otulaw masturbation anyway, lol. I'd enjoy seeing the reasoning and planning behind that.

I also agree with the person who said something along the lines that the government is treating women like 2nd-class citizens if they're going to go through with this move, seeing as they think somehow women cannot think for themselves if they want an abortion or if they want to use birth control/morning after pills etc.

Making illegal things associating with sex and sexual things is and will be near impossible because if people find pleasure in it, they'll do it without thinking of the consequences, even though the consequences aren't that...well...consequential. Ehh, I don't know. People are just silly nowadays.

This was basically my point. Before birth, the baby has almost no consciousness, and an abortion before the 2nd trimester probably is before brain function has even developed (Note: I'm unsure of this, I forget the time the brain develops).

Though, this is more of a moral issue than anything. I personally don't mind abortions, and I can eat while watching one. Its just who I am (being in the medical profession does that). Though, someone else could be 100% against it, because of moral or religious (or possibly scientific standpoints).


I think the best thing would be to possibly use the baby and the placenta properly. Maybe stem cells? We need to do more research on finding cures. It would be a waste of tissue and possibly life to abort and dump it in a can or something.

This distinction is revolting.


Don't forget that the father also had a part in creating the child.

You're correct that the government shouldn't have a say in such matters. Unfortunately, governments exist to speak for the majority in a society. It's therefore up to the "majority" to decide what is allowed.

What do you mean by ''this distinction''? And yes, I also agree with the father bit, sorry if that annoyed you.

Apparently most of you didn't even watch the video. They wouldn't be outlawing contraceptives, they would only be giving health care personnel the right to refuse to give contraceptives based on their moral values.

Now beyond the bickering over the morality of abortion (whether real, or this new contraceptive-based definition), I find it appalling that someone can choose a career in medicine, and have the right to allow their morality to interfere with the medical rights of their patients. Medical personnel are not there to barter with their patients, they are there to serve them under the noble calling of their career. If someone has a moral problem with birth control, maybe they shouldn't be in a position to administer it.

Plus, this is still just a rough draft of a revision they are proposing. I highly doubt this will get enacted, and if it does, it will be shot down so quick that it will be insignificant.

Plus plus, abotion isn't a "pro-life vs. pro-choice" debate, it is a "pro-choice vs. anti-choice" debate. Or a "pro-life vs. anti-life" debate. Although the latter doesn't really make sense, since pro-choice folk aren't forcing anyone to get an abortion. Pro-life vs. pro-choice makes as much sense as Pro-rape vs. Pro-castration-of-all-males-ever.