The "Bad Kind" of Abortion

@Karalora: Can you show me peer-reviewed studies showing that, controlled for household income, a single parent is just as good for a child as a mother and a father?

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Red Herring is Red.

More specifically, you'd need to compare single parent households with shotgun wedding households.

edited 16th Jan '11 1:55:50 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

I don't know which side this pdf takes, but it is definitely seems cited reviewed and legitimate

@Rott: And can you prove that a loveless, forced and/or abusive marriage is better than a single parent household?

edited 16th Jan '11 1:54:42 PM by JethroQWalrustitty

the statement above is false

One good single parent is better than two bad married parents.

It varies from family to family.

Requiem ~ September 2010 - October 2011 [Banned 4 Life]

A random personal tale out of completely nowhere:

One of the students I helped teach at my martial arts school was a young girl. She had problems with her legs and some brain damage. In spite of these qualities, she tried very hard and made a ton of progress; and she was always very bright and we had a lot to talk about.

Eventually I learned that her mother had written a book about her experience titled "The Peace Of God".

Just... wow.

The doctors kept pressuring her to have an abortion, and later to euthanize her child, but she refused and stuck with her.

As I read this, I stopped and thought about this sweet little girl I loved so much having simply been aborted, and I wept.

It just rubs me the wrong way when I hear talk about babies being "replaceable" and even abortions to protect the mother health. I don't give a damn if that girl wasn't human and point A, she's real now because she was given a chance, and that's all that matters.

edited 16th Jan '11 2:01:28 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

What does that have to do with anything?

"If this girl was aborted because she had XYZ wrong with her, we'd never have been blessed with ABC?"

That line of thinking is fundamentally flawed. You can only say "If she had been aborted she wouldn't have been here" because that's how the world is. But if she had been aborted, it would have changed the lives of the parents-and, indeed, who knows who else-which could very well have brought other just as miraculous life into the world. It's easy to say what would be lost-it's hard to say what would have been gained.

edited 16th Jan '11 2:02:25 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

^^I hit "send" a little too early.

^What would have been gained? I don't care about that, either.

That girl is alive now, and I know her well. I wouldn't conceive of letting her die for the sake of an ambiguous "what would have been gained".

edited 16th Jan '11 2:03:51 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Yeah see, but the problem with that is, there is no way you could no if the child would have gone on to do all the things you said she did. I think if a mother is is about to have a several mentally challenged baby wants to abort so it won't be brought into the world and live with that, go for it.

That's the entire point: Once alive one's alive. But that just brings us back to the same damned question, at what point does "life" begin. Obviously, once she's up and walking around Yes, much earlier than that, stop nitpicking she's a person and becomes part of the equation. But the idea of "Oh it'd be horrible if she never existed" is fundamentally flawed because in a different world, the world is different.

edited 16th Jan '11 2:05:28 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

^^There are many people who all kinds of disabilities, yet are very happy that they are in the world today.

^It begins with conception. Once a life has been set in motion, it counts as a human being. The sperm on their own don't count because they are not a life in motion, but a developing fetus, even when microscopic, is.

edited 16th Jan '11 2:07:03 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

@Jethro: Stack the deck much?

The data is pretty conclusive that low-conflict homes are better for children. However, humans being selfish and lustful, a single parent is highly unlikely to live a life of chastity focused on self-sacrificing care for their children. The typical situation is a single mother who brings in a series of short-term boyfriends, which is correlated with far higher levels of conflict.

Anyway, was that even a sincere question? Because the first several times we had this argument, I linked to studies and books you never read.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Rott, you can't complain about deck stacking when you started stacking the deck.

Rott, don't change the subject. In the kind of situation I'm talking about, a two-parent household isn't even on the table. The father wants nothing to do with the child. The choice is between an impoverished single parent and a financially secure single parent.

@Mighty: Holy Glurge.

She might have also have died from a car crash on her first day at school. You might have died of childhood fever. I might have drowned in a swimming pool (highly common cause of death for children). There's a million ways any of us could have ended up not being here. There's a million potential people who might be here, but for a reason or another didn't live to see the day.

[ed.]

For the books, I don't exactly have high library privileges available, nor are we in court of law or in academics, we're debating on an online forum. But fro the whole debate, yes, single mothers can't provide for kids as well as a couple. That's not anything new. But does it mean a single parent is worse than a bad marriage? And what exactly ARE you proposing as the alternative? Forced marriage?

edited 16th Jan '11 2:12:00 PM by JethroQWalrustitty

the statement above is false

@Anonym: Wow, that's amazing. I am against aborting moderately disabled children at least, because they have a potential of a good quality of life. If she was suffering from constant debilitating pain every day, do you think it would be any different?

edited 16th Jan '11 2:09:40 PM by Shichibukai

Requiem ~ September 2010 - October 2011 [Banned 4 Life]

I'd bet that there's billions or even more people who died as children below age...I don't know, three? If I consider from the beginning of history to now.

edited 16th Jan '11 2:11:05 PM by Edmania

If people learned from their mistakes, there wouldn't be this thing called bad habits.

That's irrelevant. What right does anyone have to steal a life? Perhaps she could have died from a car accident, but what about the life she had leading up to that?

She does suffer from pain. And yet she is a very bright girl. People have lived with insanely terrifying disabilities and kept a smile on their face. Such a person would respond to the idea of having never been born with a frown.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

There is no "bad kind" of abortion. If someone wants to use it as a form of birth control, great. It's pretty much their last chance to fix their mistake.

I feel no need to define the fetus as non-human. Even if it is human, or even a person, it's a person who hasn't experienced life outside of a womb. The most humane thing that can be done for them is to ensure that they never do.

edited 16th Jan '11 2:19:37 PM by Tongpu

But if she hadn't ever been born, she wouldn't know it...and neither would you or anyone else. We literally don't know what—or who—we're missing. Maybe I would be married and have three kids right now if my hypothetical husband's mother hadn't had an abortion in 1978. But hey—maybe he would have been abusive, so I dodged a bullet. I don't know, I can't know, and it's not worth fretting over. I live in the world that wound up happening.

edited 16th Jan '11 2:20:16 PM by Karalora

@Karalora:

Why isn't a shotgun wedding an option?

Marriage is a social contract. Social contracts have to be enforced against cheaters by an armed external power, as Hobbes says. A man who's slept around, impregnated a woman, and wants to escape all responsibility for the child is a selfish cheater.

“Love is the eternal law whereby the universe was created and is ruled.” — St. Bernard

Well good for her regardless. It's not like she can't end it all herself if her life was that bad.

I like this cartoonist take on 'male abortion'. it's bitter.

edited 16th Jan '11 2:23:21 PM by joeyjojo

hashtagsarestupid

People cheat all the time while married regardless. In fact that's far more annoying to me than some slut who just dumps whoever she/he happens to be dating at the time.

If people learned from their mistakes, there wouldn't be this thing called bad habits.

Because that's just insane?

the statement above is false