About Life and Death

[ethure]

I saw in another thread that someone talked about anti-abortion, I really felt something to say and think

I'd regard I'm one of the 'anti-abortion' people, though I don't like it to be that absolute, there should always be exceptions. One thought that goes against it is that the life which may be bound to be miserable shouldn't be given. But the birth of life itself is a joyful thing, and I feel like no one is entitled to judge or give right to decide another life's come and go when it is formed, which brings up another issue: killing.

I've been trying to think of some special situations where something else can be more cruel than killing a new life. and one that I think of is the kill of the mother's life, or sacrifice of the mother's life(or the life of any others who is/are relevant in the case). but if so, its still fully support for anti-abortion because they two don't conflict. the new life which is ended is then with a meaning(sacrifice) rather than taken while given nothing(abortion).

I guess the essense of the issue might be, what is more than life itself.

to some extent, I think the reason that not everyone supports anti-abortion is because there're different takes on life. those above are my thoughts and I think there'll must be other views. and that's why I set up the thread. I'd really love to see what other thoughts there might be  

[birba]

Holy smokes.  You've really taken on a problematic thread.  I think you're referring more to abortion then life and death, in general.  I used to be very pro-feminist in my way of thinking.  You have to remember I came from the turbulent 60's when betty friedan's "the feminine mystique" and Erica Jong's fear of flying came out.  demonstrations and marches all over the place.  The uterus is mine and I'll use it like I want - that way of thinking.  The catholic church was very adamant about who was to live if there was a choice during a difficult pregnancy.
I, too, have changed my way of thinking.  I guess you could call me "pro-life", though I detest that phrase and all it's right-wing connotations.  I, too, feel abortion is innately wrong, but, on the other hand, it's not my right to step into the life of a woman and decide for her whether it's right or wrong.  I tend to think that the life that has been smothered,  like any other life, "returns" to it's origins until the next "step".
But here I bow out.  I'm not going to be drawn into the ring that you've set up!  (like a boxing ring!) 

[costicina]

  No, oh, NOOOOOO!!!! please, please don't start again a thread like that, the insensate rambling it may generate could destroy the sheer joy to read daily PS posts!!!!

[thalbergmad]

I've been trying to think of some special situations where something else can be more cruel than killing a new life.

When ever I see pictures of babies and young children starving to death in some African hovel, I wonder if it would have been better had they not been born.

To bring a child into this World who you know you cannot be supported and is likely to have a short painful existance is beyond me and far worse than ending a life before it has begun.

Thal

[db05]

I've been trying to think of some special situations where something else can be more cruel than killing a new life. and one that I think of is the kill of the mother's life, or sacrifice of the mother's life(or the life of any others who is/are relevant in the case). but if so, its still fully support for anti-abortion because they two don't conflict. the new life which is ended is then with a meaning(sacrifice) rather than taken while given nothing(abortion).

I used to think the same way. That abortion can be justified only for health reasons. Now I've changed my mind. If life were simple and easy, this would be ideal. But it's not like that for everyone.

Reading Freakonomics made me see things in a different light. The book has little to do with economics, and more on observing statistics on seemingly random things. A chapter is devoted to the effect on legalized abortion on the US crime rate after 17+ years - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Impact_of_Legalized_Abortion_on_Crime

The premise is that would-be criminals among the unwanted children weren't born, hence the sudden drop in crime when they would have been active teenagers. But this is after the fact. Nobody could have anticipated such an effect.

There are also success stories - adopted children usually do well. Since well-to-do parents are the ones that are also kind enough to adopt.

For most people, abortion is a personal thing, or a human rights thing. It's your body, your child's life, and there isn't much info to go on. Will the child go on to be a good person? Will he even survive? You can't tell what will happen until it does. There is more to life than what we know. Life can be terrible in some countries now, but it could get better. Some poor kids end up being good and healthy people nonetheless...

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Well, if you're talking about abortion, a lot of people talk about when does life start?  Some people say life starts from conception?  I say it started from the carbon atom.  But lets say that life started from conception, or around that area.

Well then how come that whenever a man ejaculates or whenever a woman has her pleasant period, the don't they call them serial killers?

People also say that when the sperm meets the egg, it's human.

Well if it's human, then a woman is pregnant, why do they say that they have three kids and one on the way?  Why don't they say that they have four kids?  If it's a human, then how come whenever someone has a miscarriage, they don't have a funeral? 

And then people say that life is sacred and that we should always preserve it or something in that nature.

Well then why do we kill EVERYTHING?  Are somethings more sacred than others?  Why is it an abortion when it's a human but if it's a chicken, it's an omelet?  And who said that life was sacred?  Only the living people are saying that life is sacred so it's from a completely BIASED point of view.

And besides, there's SEVEN BILLION people on the planet!  We're using up the Earth's natural resources!  But that's not really a big problem, nothing bad is gonna happen when I'm around at least!



But seriously though, I'm kinda 50 50 on this abortion thing.  I think that there should be a license to have a child because there's a lot of inadequate parents out there that can't raise a child.

[ajspiano]

loaded question - no right answer..   

My emotional reasoning and rational reasoning completely contradict each other, its paralyzing. I can argue for what I feel most strongly to be right, but at the same time I can only be completely understanding and accepting of the complete opposite, because I agree with that too.

[candlelightpiano]

I look at it this way and none of you may agree with me and it's fine with me.  

When it comes to a baby I may carry, it's my body and my choice.

This world is already over populated.  There are millions of starving children.  There are countless abused children.  Abortion should be legalized, if it isn't already, because a woman should have the right to decide what she wants to do with her body.  Why bring another unwanted child into this world?

Regarding death ...I think of death as simply the absence of life.  Before I was born, I didn't know what was happening in this world.  When I die, life on earth goes on, and it would be the same as the time before I was born, when I didn't know what was happening in this world.  Life ceases.  End of story.

[costicina]

Epicuro said that death should'n be a problem for us: when it's there, we are no more there, when we are there, it's not there. As  Wittgenstein put it: death is not an event of life; we cannot live the death.
But if it's true that death is beyond the realm of what we can experience, it has a fondamental role in our existence, not as  empirical event, as a 'fact', but as a 'possibility', the "possibility of the possibility of not being" (Heidegger). In this way, death is always present in our life as  "negative necessity", as  a 'limit situation'.

Death is also the  big problem of bioetics, more precisely, the problem is the definition of a "death criterion". When is a living being dead? With the progresses of the medical science, we can shift virtually ad infinitum  the threshold between life and death. Many biological processes go on in the corpse, so when does death really occur? When our brain ceases its activity? And what part of the brain? The brainstem? Or are we dead when all our pshychic  activities have ceased to occur?  From this perspective, death is a "moral construc with a biological basis"....


 

[thalbergmad]

I think that there should be a license to have a child because there's a lot of inadequate parents out there that can't raise a child.

Could not agree more. You need a license to get married, a license to watch a television and a license to own a dog. Why in hell there is not a license to have a baby I do not know.

If prospective parents had to be means tested for suitability to breed, we could stop the scum section of society from spawning the next generation of criminals and loafers.

Thal

[pianowolfi]

Let's assume death is like darkness and life is like bright light: both need to cooperate to create colours. And how would life be without colours?

[general disarray]

When ever I see pictures of babies and young children starving to death in some African hovel, I wonder if it would have been better had they not been born.

To bring a child into this World who you know you cannot be supported and is likely to have a short painful existance is beyond me and far worse than ending a life before it has begun.

Thal

Agreed.  And, for the record, pro-abortion activists in the US have a broader view of the issue than abortion simply being an "extreme form of birth control" for "feminists."  The fact is women in all ages and all times sought out abortions for a variety of complex and personal reasons, many dying from crude "back-alley" procedures that killed them as well as the fetus.  Pro-abortionists traditionally argue, correctly, that legalizing abortion will enable women to have safe medical procedures that won't maim or kill them.  Safe, medically-supervised abortion is not strictly about the ending of life:  it's also about the preservation of a woman's life.

[birba]

Let's assume death is like darkness and life is like bright light: both need to cooperate to create colours. And how would life be without colours?

I swear I've always thought of death as bright white light! 

[pianowolfi]

I swear I've always thought of death as bright white light!  

Sure. I was in this case only using an analogy. It could as well be said the other way around

[rachmaninoff_forever]

Could not agree more. You need a license to get married, a license to watch a television and a license to own a dog. Why in hell there is not a license to have a baby I do not know.

If prospective parents had to be means tested for suitability to breed, we could stop the scum section of society from spawning the next generation of criminals and loafers.

Thal

Seriously you need a license to own a dog and to watch television?

And here's another stupid thing!

Some people are pro life but anti gay?!

You have an ENTIRE CLASS OF PEOPLE GUARANTEED NOT TO HAVE AN ABORTION!

[zezhyrule]

Some people are pro life but anti gay?!

You have an ENTIRE CLASS OF PEOPLE GUARANTEED NOT TO HAVE AN ABORTION!

Separate issues completely. That's a silly way of looking at it 

[alessandro]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would like to bring in a little "nuance" in the notion of 'abortion' in this discussion.  
Some say "pro-abortion" ; I don't think one can be "pro" abortion.
Some say "legalise" abortion ; okay, that's a little bit closer.  

In this topic we are talking about 'provoked' abortion.   Abortus provokatus is thousands years old and it is never joyfull (with probably an exception for the cultures that feel the need to sacrifice life for the gods).   Not hundred years ago it was sometimes provoked with non sterile knitting-needles.  
We can simply say that in most traditional cultures it is religion that bans it, where I live it was christianity.   Now there is a legal frame wherein "abortion" is tolerated.
So, one could use the term "legalise" but always with keeping in mind why it has been made "illegal".   There can be a general consensus about a maximum life of the foetus, in northern Europe approximately 24 weeks, but than again, a lot is possible.  I'm drifting off, what I wanted to say, and I don't think it has been said this way, we are talking in this topic about "abortion out of criminal law", "depenalizing abortus provocatus" and (I hope not) about being pro-abortion, or about 'legalizing' it, because making it "totally illegal" was and is a mistake in itself.   I will hide behide my manhood and for the moment not express much feelings towards this terrible thing (the very least for the woman), let me just say this ; as often, pope, pro-life movements, and other high-priests, can talk a lot of rubbish

[costicina]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I would like to bring in a little "nuance" in the notion of 'abortion' in this discussion.   
Some say "pro-abortion" ; I don't think one can be "pro" abortion.
Some say "legalise" abortion ; okay, that's a little bit closer. 

In this topic we are talking about 'provoked' abortion.   Abortus provokatus is thousands years old and it is never joyfull (with probably an exception for the cultures that feel the need to sacrifice life for the gods).   Not hundred years ago it was sometimes provoked with non sterile knitting-needles.   
We can simply say that in most traditional cultures it is religion that bans it, where I live it was christianity.   Now there is a legal frame wherein "abortion" is tolerated.
So, one could use the term "legalise" but always with keeping in mind why it has been made "illegal".   There can be a general consensus about a maximum life of the foetus, in northern Europe approximately 24 weeks, but than again, a lot is possible.  I'm drifting off, what I wanted to say, and I don't think it has been said this way, we are talking in this topic about "abortion out of criminal law", "depenalizing abortus provocatus" and (I hope not) about being pro-abortion, or about 'legalizing' it, because making it "totally illegal" was and is a mistake in itself.   I will hide behide my manhood and for the moment not express much feelings towards this terrible thing (the very least for the woman), let me just say this ; as often, pope, pro-life movements, and other high-priests, can talk a lot of rubbish

Bravo Alessandro!!!!!! I subscribe every word

[ajspiano]

Some people are pro life but anti gay?!

You have an ENTIRE CLASS OF PEOPLE GUARANTEED NOT TO HAVE AN ABORTION!

Guaranteed not to procreate either, therein lies the problem - (I don't agree that its a problem)