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The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

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Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

So stating the issue is black and white qualifies as open minded? Love it.

My point is that some on some topics, people are very rigid in their beliefs, for what ever the reason is, and that there's no really point in discussing it because it will just become a flame-fest. This is one of those topics.
 
Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

jokes, aside, because this isnt a funny issue. here's my take.

I do believe life begins at conception. duh. and the properties that make us human, beating heart, brain activity, feeling pain, etc, begin far earlier than was once recognized. I'm against it. I would make a fuss if someone in my family were to consider it. but I also believe I shouldn't have the right to push my opinions on others. this issue is so personal it's between the couple (and screw those who say its about "womens rights - its about a couples rights - unless its rape or incest) their beliefs, their conscience, and their doctor (is their threat to the womens life, to future child bearing, etc)

I dont like laws that outlaw it and I dont like laws that allow it up until the very last minute. the issue is so serious it needs to be used wisely and with a great deal of thought and (as I have sadly seen) not as a method of birth control.

so there. off the soapbox. on to happy hockey thoughts! may your team win to tonight! excepting (sorry) Mankato.
 
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Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

My point is that some on some topics, people are very rigid in their beliefs, for what ever the reason is, and that there's no really point in discussing it because it will just become a flame-fest. This is one of those topics.

This thread does not exist to change anybody's mind, or even to shed any new light on an old, old, old disagreement. It's just a ground so whenever another thread circles the abortion drain the combatants can be siphoned off to here.

The only way abortion will ever be "decided" one way or another is by technology that completely insulates it from the political process. Once that happens (and it's coming soon), people will have to find something else to bray at each other about.
 
Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

The only way abortion will ever be "decided" one way or another is by technology.

and that may not be "progress" at all. recall Brave New World for example.

and there already is a solid middle ground consensus that most people can grudgingly accept, especially if it is decided in an acceptable procedural manner.

naturally not everyone agrees on the following, but if you can imagine the Bell curve graph of opinion on this issue, I'd say that a standard deviation from the median either way would find what follows an agreeable summary. In other words, I suggest that twice as many people would agree with the following as disagree with it, and half of the people who disagree would say it is too lenient while half would say it is too restrictive.

1. contraception is fine
2. ejecting a fertilized egg from the womb before it implants in the uterine wall is fine
3. even though technically "life" begins with the first mitosis, that's not yet "human" life, and so disposing of embryonic tissue before it becomes recognizably "human" is probably okay
(although we still have a little more work to do to determine when "undifferentiated embryonic tissue" becomes "recognizably human organism")
4. Between the time the organism becomes "recognizably human" and the time at which "it is able to survive on its own outside the womb" is a gray area that we'd have to work on a little bit
a. some people are okay with that
b. some people are starting to get a bit queasy here.
c. If you are having a discussion with people who don't have children you might find one opinion
d. if you are having a discussion with people who have seen an ultrasound of their prenatal child inside the womb, you might find another opinion.
5. Once the infant has reached a point at which it could survive on its own outside the womb, then even if it is still inside the woman's body, you still can't kill it anyway. Maybe you can remove it, if it really cannot remain inside the woman any longer for some reason, but you just can't kill it.
 
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Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

and that may not be "progress" at all.

I never said it would be progress. I said it would render it moot.

The abortion debate is a huge failure. Here you have an issue of transcendent importance, where the vast majority of people hold the middle ground, yet our representatives have had a forty-year run of demagoguery that still, somehow, flips even normal people's brain's off-switch and gets them swinging at each other.

If ever there was an issue that the middle 80% should have told the fringe 10% on each side to go get stuffed, it was this one, but the middle did nothing.
 
I never said it would be progress. I said it would render it moot.

The abortion debate is a huge failure. Here you have an issue of transcendent importance, where the vast majority of people hold the middle ground, yet our representatives have had a forty-year run of demagoguery that still, somehow, flips even normal people's brain's off-switch and gets them swinging at each other.

If ever there was an issue that the middle 80% should have told the fringe 10% on each side to go get stuffed, it was this one, but the middle did nothing.

If it was the legislature that let the genie out of the bottle the public may be a bit less strident. But it was the courts that popped the cork and that IMO was the big mistake.
 
Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

If ever there was an issue that the middle 80% should have told the fringe 10% on each side to go get stuffed, it was this one, but the middle did nothing.

The middle never had a chance to do or say anything. SCOTUS told everyone to shut up, we know best. no one likes to be told to shut up on something this important.

the only reason it is still an issue is that SCOTUS pre-empted the debate prematurely. we'd have wound up in pretty much the same place but it is not at all where we got to but how we arrived there that stokes the continued debate on it still.

paradoxically, absent Roe v Wade, the results of R v W would still be the law of the land anyway but the debate would have been settled decades ago through legislation not by imperious dictum.
 
Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

The middle never had a chance to do or say anything. SCOTUS told everyone to shut up, we know best. no one likes to be told to shut up on something this important.

the only reason it is still an issue is that SCOTUS pre-empted the debate prematurely. we'd have wound up in pretty much the same place but it is not at all where we got to but how we arrived there that stokes the continued debate on it still.

paradoxically, absent Roe v Wade, the results of R v W would still be the law of the land anyway but the debate would have been settled decades ago through legislation not by imperious dictum.

Yeah, it's definitely out of bounds for the Supreme Court to make decisions on important issues.
 
Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

SCOTUS' mistake wasn't the decision, it was the grounding.
 
Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

Yeah, it's definitely out of bounds for the Supreme Court to make decisions on important issues.

Most especially when they're getting "emanations from the penumbra." Most of us have to be wearing tin foil hats for that to happen. Not those dudes.
 
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Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

SCOTUS' mistake wasn't the decision, it was the grounding.

Exactly. Many states were moving in the direction of legalizing abortion. Most of us can draw up a list of the ones that ultimately would have were it not for Roe. Some of us may have forgotten that the "Wade" of Roe v Wade was Henry Wade, the Dallas DA. Same guy who was DA on 11/22/63.
 
Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

For me, it boils down to my distaste for the government interfering in private care decisions made between a doctor and a patient, just because a certain treatment/procedure/medication makes some people uncomfortable. It's similar logic that applies to liver transplants for alcoholics with end-stage cirrhosis. Despite the strenuous objections of a large segment of the public, the medical community has generally decided that they will do the transplant if the patient dries out and remains sober for at least six months. You don't have to approve of it, you are welcome to campaign/advocate against it, but whether patients can have the procedure or not, isn't for you and the rest of the "armchair MDs" to decide. I take the same view on abortion, and other controversial procedures. I don't like it when it's used as contraception and I wouldn't recommend it, but it's not my business.
 
Re: The "I Can't Believe There's No Abortion Thread" Abortion Thread

You don't have to approve of it, you are welcome to campaign/advocate against it, but whether patients can have the procedure or not, isn't for you and the rest of the "armchair MDs" to decide.
I agree that it's none of our business if a chronic alcoholic seeks a liver transplant - as in, doing so should not be illegal. I also agree that a doctor should be allowed to perform the liver transplant - again, not illegal. However, neither of those matter at all in this discussion - the key decision point is whether a donor liver is allocated so that the procedure may proceed. There are necessarily a whole lot more than 2 parties (the doctor and the recipient) in that discussion - the donor, the donor's doctor, the various hospitals, etc. Donated organs are an extremely scarce resource (sign your driver's license, people!) with extremely high demand - leaving the allocation decision to market forces does not strike me as the most fair approach in this situation.
 
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