Originally Posted by BenDover

id like to bring up this point ray made

we've brought the discussion down to whether or not its murder by defining at what point a fetus becomes a person. which is all down to the perspective of each person. and will never reach a conclusion in this particular discussion.

Id like to change the direction to "can abortion be counted as euthanasia?"
No. Euthanasia is voluntary (in the cases I've read about). Abortion is definitely not voluntary.
is it ethical to abort a baby that will not be wanted by its parents?
As per my post, I think the the right to become is more important than the convenience of the parents.
is it ethical to force a woman to go through the trauma of pregnancy if they do not want to go through it at all, simply to give it up for adoption?
Again, I don't think this trauma outweighs the child's right to become and consequently, right to life. Though, this becomes questionable in cases of rape, where the trauma is so much more severe.
is euthanasia ethical at all, and can it be applied to the abortion discussion at all?
I don't think it can be applied to abortion. And personally, I think that euthanasia can only be ethical in certain circumstances, and not in others.

Originally Posted by Oracle

I view abortion as a perfectly ethical option to unwanted conception for several reasons, but I'll state the main ones I support that haven't been touched on.
I don't think anyone can say that. Pro-life or pro-choice, it is a hard decision to have an abortion. I think we all know that it is not perfectly ethical, just that some people see abortion as justified, and others don't.
First, I view the anti-abortion, or "pro-life" as they are referred as sometimes, as a flawed stance at this current time due to the poor standard of living the majority of aborted children would be raised in were they not aborted.
This is not the stance of pro-life people. They see abortion as murder, and is never justified. What you say here is that if the quality of living if the child was born would be bad, so the mother is justified in having an abortion. I really oppose that. I will elaborate later.
Statistically, the majority of women who get an abortion nowadays are single mothers, unemployed or working poor, and young. Therefore, the majority of children who would be "saved" by banning abortion would only be placed in miserable living conditions.
This is very true. But does that outweigh the right to become and vicariously that of life?
Likewise, children who grow up in adverse conditions, such as poverty, are statistically more likely to grow up to be in poverty, and are statistically more likely to have a child at a young age, therefore repeating the cycle of suffering.
Again, this may be true.
In addition, children who grow up in poverty are statistically more likely to become criminals than other children. By this reason alone, I view a "pro-life" stance as flawed until adequate preparations are made to support children who would otherwise grow up in said conditions without being aborted. Pro-quality of life before pro-life as I've come to say it.
Again, this is not the stance of pro life. Also, this is a clear case of argumentum ad consequentiam. In ethics, this is not a fallacy, but when the conclusion is based on likeliness, I see it as an unsound conclusion.
Second, to those who argue that adoption is a viable option, the adoption process isn't all sunshine and rainbows like people believe. There are a fair number of children who will not get adopted, and even more who will be assigned to a foster home (which tend to have very poor standards of living and high rates of abuse compared to standard homes). These children then suffer the same statistical fate as those who would grow up in poverty. Again, this is a pro-quality of life before pro-life argument. If the adoption process was a more well funded and well supported option, I would be less inclined to support abortion, but as it stands it seems an inadequate alternative.
I know. This is also a horrible situation.
Lastly, if the mother didn't want the child to begin with, forcing her to take care of it is probably the worst fate you can give the child. Being born into a poverty is bad enough, but being born into poverty with parents that don't want, and probably do not love you? That's just cruelty to the child, and to the parents. Ethically, it seems only right to allow the child to not come into existence to experience such a depressing situation rather than force it upon them.
No. That is not just cruelty to the child. That is the case when you value the right of convenience (and partly the right of the pursuit of happiness) in front of the fundamental right of becoming and life. Poor quality of life is a better solution than no life.

tl;dr: I do not support anti-abortion, and will never support anti-abortion until the life of the child who would be aborted is assured to obtain both a reasonable standard of material and emotional care. Pro-quality of life before pro-life.

Originally Posted by RayA75

How do you justify the statement that quality of life is more important than life? As I said before " We see that we put the apparent, near sighted, immediate good of convenience in front of a right as simple, as important, as universal, and as human as the right to become. We cannot afford to think this way, and I will challenge anyone to tell me otherwise."

Originally Posted by Hippybob

I think if a Woman isn't ready to take full responsibility of caring for and nurturing the child then she should be allowed to abort the foetus (Not saying she should have an official reason or anything). There's no sense letting a child be born into a world where it will be malnourished or not cared for. I mean there is the whole issue of what is better a bad life or no life at all but I think that if a foetus is aborted, you can just make another one when you are ready. I mean if it doesn't have a life how will it know that it had no life?

+ Aborted foetus' have stem cells.

Originally Posted by Oracle

I justify that belief because I believe that unless a human being can live to their fullest potential due to at least adequate emotional and physical needs being met, the life might as well be the same as willingly condemning the person to a lifetime of torture. Oddly, I would ask how you can justify life over a life worth living.
Because through life, we gain the opportunity to live a life worth living. If the opportunity of living a life worth living is derived from the right of life, and the right of life is derived from the process of a fetus becoming into a human which has life, then we can infer the following
The the right process of gaining life (or the right to become) must be more so or at least equal to the right of life. In the same breath, the right of life is more so or atleast equal to the right of living a good life.
Those of you who have read my posts have caught me saying that the right to become must then be almost as, or equal to;instead of here where I said the right to become must be more so, or equal to the importance of life. That was an error on my part. If you have something, and that something is derived from something else, that something else must be more important.
My argument was not over the short term of convenience, but the long term of repercussions should a ban occur.

That part is what I conflict with. The definition of becoming something is up for interpretation.
To some, becoming human is as simple as being born, as your argument seems to be hinting at (correct me if I'm wrong, because I won't be surprised). However, I view birth not as becoming human, but merely the beginning of becoming human. Humanity is established through growth, not through birth, in my eyes. Therefore, I view the necessity of securing that growth more important than securing birth.

Originally Posted by RayA75

The fetus is not a human. It does not have life. What it is is a fetus, an organism in the process of becoming human. An organism in the process of gaining life. An organism of becoming.

Please, read my post. It explains the right to become to which I refer to so much.
http://forum.toribash.com/showpost.p...49&postcount=8

Also, I've realized something about my argumentum ad consequentiam note. This is not even argumentum ad consequentiam. An argumentum ad consequentiam in here would be as follows
Action in question: Eradication of the fetus
Consequences: The fetus ceases to develop, thus negating any life to come from it.

What your argument is would be some sort of intermediate form of argumentum ad consequentiam:
Action in question: Leaving the fetus alone, and not eradicating it
Consequences: The fetus lives, and is birthed. (Here comes the immediate part) After the fetus is birthed, it lives a life which is not optimal.

What you then have a problem with is giving birth, not abortion. You would then be able to say the following:
Those who are poor and cannot support their child to have what is best CANNOT have birth.

This is the negative side of your argument. The positive side of which you are using, which is basically this:
Those who are poor and cannot support their child to have the best CAN have abortion.

Originally Posted by Oracle

This is again up to an interpretation. You believe the fetus is the beginning of becoming, I view the child as the beginning of becoming. A fetus cannot establish the basic functions that most people would consider "human", so it cannot start becoming a human. However, a child at birth will already start developing basic memory and exhibit the traits that make what would normally be a shell of flesh, human. To me, humanity is not the physical manifestation of a person, but the consciousness of being. A fetus doesn't have this level of consciousness, as far as we know, therefore I don't view it in a stage of becoming. If it were possible for a human being to become disembodied, I would still view this new entity as entirely human, so long as it exhibits a consciousness of its existence. But I'm now starting to get a little sidetracked.

Originally Posted by RayA75

Here is my take on that argument:
It's a fool's argument. It's a trap. I will not have a position on it. Why is that?
This argument comes down to the question of "What is person hood?" This question has never been and probably will never be answered. It is a quasi scientific, quasi metaphysical question with an answer to which will never be found in either topic. We will never draw a definitive line between what is a person and what is not.

Originally Posted by RayA75

I will present my own argument:
When debating whether abortion is ethical or not, we need not argue about when life begins; but the process by which life comes about; and how abortion interferes with said process.
That is to say, abortion ceases the fetus' process to become. Murder ceases the human's being.
Allow me to define my terms.
A sperm in itself is in the process of being a sperm. Over its existence it will continue to be a sperm, unchanged, not becoming something else. This is overlooked when proponents of abortion talk rhetoric such as "Are you gonna say masturbation is as bad as abortion?" A sperm will not become a human being. A sperm will not gain person hood if left to its natural processes. When you kill sperm, you are killing sperm, because in itself, it is only being.
A fertilized egg, or fetus in itself is in the process of becoming a person. If left to its natural processes, it will become a baby, and then a person. A fetus is in the process of becoming. When you perform abortion on a fetus, you are ending the process to become whatever the fetus is becoming, namely a human. When you commit abortion, you are then infringing on the right to become. I will touch upon becoming later again, and how important the right to become is as well.
A human in itself is in the process of being a human, a person. When you murder a person, you kill that person. The person is not becoming something in that a fetus is becoming a person. When you kill a person, then you are infringing on the right to life.

Ok, so those rights I mentioned:
In America, and through our common western ethics, particularly the Nicomachean Ethics presented by Aristotle, our right to life is held in extreme regard. That right to life is derived from the right to become. One cannot live without becoming into a living being, as a fetus is.
We can now reasonably infer that the right to become is, or atleast almost as, important as the right to life.

Now, why is abortion legal? Our legality of abortion shows us, who have done such an analysis of our natural human rights, see that our right to become has been infringed on. What is the right on the other side of the argument? Sometimes, it is the mother's right to life. In cases like that, I think the cease of the right to become is justifiable. In other cases like that of rape, it is the trauma of the mother that should come into account.

We see that we put the apparent, near sighted, immediate good of convenience in front of a right as simple, as important, as universal, and as human as the right to become. We cannot afford to think this way, and I will challenge anyone to tell me otherwise.