Abortion

[Keith Houchen]

I won't quote everyone I disagree with here and dissect every post, but just a few questions:

 

What's the difference between a moral position and a religious one?

What I meant by this was making the distinction between someone saying "I disagree with this because it doesn't fit in with my morals and world view" and someone who says "It is wrong because the *religious text* says so". The latter indicates to me that these people object to something because they are told to. If the religious text and leaders said, say, contraception or homosexuality were fine, then these people wouldn't have an objection to it. Unless they are the sort who hide behind a religious viewpoint to mask ugly bigotry while simply cherry picking which parts of the doctrine to follow.

 

That is why I made the distinction. To me, they are separate basis for objection. Of course, there are folk who object due to both religious reasons and personal moral reasons, such as yourself.

 

 

Rape and incest are actually such exceptionally rare causes of pregnancy that they're pretty much a red herring

No, it does happen, to dismiss them as pretty much a red herring is terribly dismissive and quite insulting. I know this wasn't your intention.

 

With regard the feminism part, feminism isn't about giving a voice to the voiceless or power to the powerless as you put it. It is about giving an equal voice to a voice that exists but has had the volume turned down or is ignored. The voice and the power are already there, they are just dismissed and kept under male control. To compare the Feminist struggle to the rights of a foetus/unborn child/clump of cells is, in my opinion, not a valid comparison. As Loki pointed out, Human Rights begin at birth. I understand your view that the unborn should have rights too, I particularly liked your villagers all helping the village line, I thought it was an excellent analogy.

 

Also, thanks for posting your views, Kenny, I did suspect when I started this thread that we may not have any articulate posts from the "No" camp. I think this thread has produced some excellent discussion on a very emotive topic. Good arrows, UKFF.

[King Pitcos]

With regard the feminism part, feminism isn't about giving a voice to the voiceless or power to the powerless as you put it. It is about giving an equal voice to a voice that exists but has had the volume turned down or is ignored.

 

No it's not, it's about making friends with the cool, short-haired girls at uni.

[Keith Houchen]

With regard the feminism part, feminism isn't about giving a voice to the voiceless or power to the powerless as you put it. It is about giving an equal voice to a voice that exists but has had the volume turned down or is ignored.

 

No it's not, it's about making friends with the cool, short-haired girls at uni.

Well, yeah, that as well.

[Loki]

Far from it. It's a very relevant, interesting point. It raises the question of whether the moral absolutism to do with abortion comes from the belief that man was created in God's image, that we're the end-point in evolution (if evolution is real), that we're the superior species and that animals are to be treated as we see fit or that only human life is sacred. If not then why don't those morals apply to animals and our treatment of them? If so, then I think it's an indefensible position.

 

If I've learned one thing from our discussions on this forum, it's that the moral absolutism that comes from religious indoctrination tends to contradict itself in all but the most simplistic of discussions. I guess that's to be expected though - the world just isn't black and white, so to speak.

[bobbins]

Interesting statistics from the Economist that I think help back up my point about the counter-productive effect of restricting abortion rights.

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdeta...1/daily-chart-7