@whitenoise I would make the case that most of the abortion cases (that’s what we’re talking about, right?) are not a result of women merely unwilling to give up their lifestyle.and a result of poor education on healthy sex in general and on how to have sex without getting pregnant in particular.
In the end, how one became pregnant is irrelevant to their aborting the unborn child. If you have poor safety habits in the shop or factory, you may find yourself in a cast for weeks or living the rest of your life missing a limb. If you nend up pregnant because you did not know, or a failed contraceptive it is irrelevant. If you were that ignorant of sex and where babies came from, that is even more evidence you should keep your clothes on. –I know you don’t want to make any case because there is none to be made that would stick—
@Blackberry I’ll be selfish with money instead of selfish with no money.
People are selfish with money all the time. If you have little money (or feel you do), they call that being stingy; you are afraid to give any to anyone else for fear it is money you need to survive etc. and you will compromise that by giving any away. If you have lots of money, they call that greed, because you have means to give some to others without depriving yourself the ability to meet your expenses but you simple want more and more, even if you can’t everr spend it all in your lifetime.
@cazzie I will end a pregnancy because it’s my body and selfishness has nothing to do with it.
Keep telling yourself that…..I did not expect any different.
@Darth_Algar This certainly has the potential to spark thoughtful discussion.
If people can be real, honest, and logical (which I thought ruled around here). It seems some people are convicted and need to try to defend themselves or their belief shy of any real fact or measurer, and dare I say, logic.
@LostInParadise How do you determine what is selfish and what is not?
Let’s go to the very lowest bar of selfishness; *any act that one does for their own pleasure, gain, or benefit and causes. Lost, injury to another in the accomplishment or completing of their action, one where doing an action affects another in ways they had no say or did not ask for. Now let’s see people try to say that has nothing to do with selfishness.
Looked at one way, everything we do is selfish, because whatever decision we make is the one that gives us the most pleasure.
Surely you jest. You are going to tell me of you decided to have a ham and cheese on pumpernickel you made yourself with items you bought with your own money, you are causing some disadvantage to someone else? Maybe it would be selfish if it was the last sandwich at a function and someone wanted it who did not get one, but you took it and ate it after having some already.
@hominid @LostInParadise is correct that this entire question probably hinges on the concept of selfishness, which you haven’t defined.
I gave him the low bar logically what selfishness is, unless you know of some other way, or how what I said to @LostInParadise doesn’t fall within the sphere of selfishness?
1. Choosing to have a child.
You state that there is the risk of having a child who can suffer (“health issues”), True. And you may agree that with all life comes pain and suffering. So, parents choose to create a being that will suffer. This is a legitimate concern, and one that we could talk about. Note: The undefined “selfish” is crucial here before we can really go further.
Where is your low bar for ”suffering”? If a child smashes his finger in an open drawer you will equate that to chronic and systemic suffering? What % of a child’s life has to be less than rosy for you to believe the child is suffering? Would you say every human at this moment is suffering because the potential to be unhealthy and or unhappy is plausible at any moment? There is one thing to have a child which you know unpleasant happenstance will happen, but you do not know for sure if, when and how it will occur, and another to know there is a great likelihood that a child will be born or develop a chronic and /or systemic health issue. It is like taking a plane trip where you know unforeseen mechanical problems can cause the plane to crash as oppose to flying over and area where there is an armed conflict and the likelihood someone will attempt to purposely bring the plane down, or is that too deep to follow?
2. Terminating a pregnancy.
Here, you seem to be making two claims that I am not willing to accept. First, that ending a pregnancy = death. Second, that this “death” is inherently bad.
If you want to avoid the fact that an entity of left to do its thing in 9 months on average will be a human, you would not want to say termination is death any more than someone who is torturing their prisoner believe they are just using harsh interrogation methods to get information from a person who deserve no compassion because that information will potentially save innocent people. People can rationalize around the science of biology all they want, but as it has been said of science, a lot of it that is known is quite precise and unchanging to the whim of man.
If I do not see the termination of a pregnancy as death, then terminating pregnancy means terminating suffering.
What your scenario one hinges on is untenable, to equate unknown occurrences one can say is an episode of suffering that was just happenstance is a reason to not have children because they can find themselves in one of those situations, that same premise can be used by mass murderers and terrorist. I could simply say let me kill as many people as I can because they may supper some health issue, a break up, job loss, loss of a loved one and that will equate to their suffering and I was sparing them of that pain. Would you go along with that, I hope not?
@janbb “If you did the crime, you have to do the time” is such a wrong way of looking at sex and having children that I can’t really even engage with this question seriously.
The question really had no footing in the right and wrong way of having children, it was about the selfish decision made of having or not having…..you back on track now?
@dappled_leaves Neither choice is about being selfish. Choosing the direction one’s life will take is not about selfishness. It’s about freedom. I thought Americans were all about that.
So, if the direction in life I choose to take for my believed freedom is to amass money, and part of that is smashing the glass on your car and stealing it, or something valuable inside, even though you are affected by my action, if I can get away with it it is all good? People in the US are about freedom, though it is a folly that never exists in its pure form.
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