Abortion

[sumbrownkid]

Since when have ordinary Western citizens been responsible for those living in the 3rd world?

Never. But at the same time, it is a bit ball breaking to just say let's invest in their energy/fuels so we can benefit while they go about being third world.

It only builds resentment.

And this is the third world we are talking here, where might makes right, and Democracy is something of a myth.

 

[Dennisch]

But let's leave them to the starvation and disease while we play our PS3's huh?

Seems legit.

Yes. It was the same when we were playing on the Atari. And with the current situation it will stay the same when we play on the PS25...

 

[sumbrownkid]

Yes. It was the same when we were playing on the Atari. And with the current situation it will stay the same when we play on the PS25...

Hopefully Gran Turismo 7 is out by then.

 

[Famine]

Farmlands in Africa are already over-cultivated, and too much cattle is kept on dry grasslands which causes erosion and desertification.

Which is both a self-reinforcing problem and not the issue.

You can't grow food in a desert - doing so at the edge of a desert makes the desert bigger. But you can grow food on 65% of our land surface. It's sorely underutilised for this purpose, but makes sufficient food for 10bn - and that'll only increase as agricultural technology improves.

The issue is distribution of what we grow.

Phosphorus resources are sufficient for only 50-100 years (they run out in the best case in 345 years, some believe they run out in less than 100 years), and they're really important for agriculture because phosphates are used as fertilisers.

Phosphorus has a cycle, same as carbon. It's taken in by plants, excreted by people and washed into the sea.

Also, it's mined largely in North Africa. Imagine if they couldn't make food, but they could make stuff we need to make food. Would that be worth something to us?

Seas are being over-fished which has already caused a drop in fish populations.

Good job fish lay a million eggs a time and we have fish farms, really.

If everyone used as much water as we do, Africa and other dry areas would have run out of water decades ago.

The planet doesn't run out of water...

The population might be sustainable in status quo, but not if the third world people gain access to the same standard of living we have and get our consumption habits.

Why?

What do you think would happen to global resources and standards of living if there were no countries to support financially and the money was funnelled into desalination, agriculture, energy and medical research?

The planet can already cope with 10bn folk - its resources are just not well distributed enough for a variety of political and social reasons.

Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, Japan and South Korea make up for only a bit over 1 billion inhabitants. Yet our energy consumption is over half of the total energy consumption in the world. Just cease all aid to the third world nations except renewable energy funds and let them survive on their own, for the humankind it's better to not raise their standard of living to what we have.

So they can all die off and we can take their natural resources?

 

[Danoff]

Is this actually true? I've tried searching around but I can't find any articles saying this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_test

My daughter is currently 2 months old, and all of the books we have say that she doesn't think objects exist when they are out of view or earshot. She knows they could exist again in the future (like mom and dad, for example), but she doesn't realize they exist in the present.

I do a trick with my dogs regularly where I make them sit and stay out of view. Then I call them one at a time for a treat. When I call one, the other is supposed to stay put. I can tell you with 100% certainty that even though I'm being silent, and am out of view, they KNOW there is a treat waiting for them.

In general my dogs' cognitive abilities are WAY beyond my 2-month old child. Even the dumber dog is significantly smarter than my child. It takes them exactly one time to have a negative experience with a smell or sight to then associate that experience with that smell or sight. My daughter was still not capable of this last time I checked.

 

[FoolKiller]

Dr Harvey Karp (Happiest Baby on the Block) calls this stage the fourth trimester. Compared to most other mammals humans are physically underdeveloped at birth, and he theorizes that if we were developed to the same stage of most other mammals our brain/head size would be life threatening to baby and mother.

 

[KSaiyu]

Bringing this up because I wonder - what should be the rights for abortion? In the UK the Abortion Act was amended in 1990 reducing the limit from 28 weeks to 24 weeks on the grounds of medical technology available at the time. Although patients willing to abort have to legally meet the criteria laid out by this law, in actuality we have abortion on demand in the UK and you will be unlikely to meet both the doctors whose signature is required to complete a termination.

My question is then - is our law wrong? Should we argue for abortion on the grounds of the points brought up in this thread (lack of rights), or is it necessary to flout the law to provide abortion to any woman who is capable of such a decision as the former argument would be unpalatable to the majority?

 

[ChipChaserJ]

I love abortion. Sometimes I will get my girlfriend pregnant on purpose just to get an abortion, It makes me feel like god! I create, I destroy.

 

[Danoff]

I love abortion. Sometimes I will get my girlfriend pregnant on purpose just to get an abortion, It makes me feel like god! I create, I destroy.

Technically the two of you create, and the doctor destroys (unless you're talking about an abortion pill, in which case she destroys).

 

[KSaiyu]

I love abortion. Sometimes I will get my girlfriend pregnant on purpose just to get an abortion, It makes me feel like god! I create, I destroy.

The father rarely, if ever destroys. Can be a huge influence but I'm not sure which countries allow the father to have the final decision.

 

[TenEightyOne]

The father rarely, if ever destroys. Can be a huge influence but I'm not sure which countries allow the father to have the final decision.

Probably best not to feed trolls, otherwise they have more energy to reproduce.

 

[Agent_47]

I'm pro-life. I feel that everybody should have a chance to live. I also believe there are certain circumstances where abortion is necessary. Like rape, incest, etc.

 

[Jay]

I'm pro-life. I feel that everybody should have a chance to live. I also believe there are certain circumstances where abortion is necessary. Like rape, incest, etc.

So the actions of the parents can remove this chance to live?

Doesn't sound so pro-life to me.

 

[Danoff]

I'm pro-life. I feel that everybody should have a chance to live. I also believe there are certain circumstances where abortion is necessary. Like rape, incest, etc.

It does seem contradictory.

 

[Agent_47]

It does seem contradictory.

How? These are extreme circumstances.

 

[Danoff]

How? These are extreme circumstances.

To me it reads:

I'm pro-life. I feel that everybody should have a chance to live. I also believe there are certain circumstances where someone should not have a chance to live.

 

[Intronium]

I believe it's up to the mother, she shouldn't be forced to have a baby she doesn't want, but ONLY within a VERY EARLY time period, i.e. first 10 weeks, unless there is a legitimate reason i.e. rape. After that period without the aforementioned exception for legitimate reasons, I believe the baby should be born and given up for adoption if the mother does not want it.

 

[PsuPepperoni]

I think Feti should have the right to abort their mothers, just to level the playing field.

 

[DK]

The problem with adoption is that it only solves the problem of an unwanted child, not an unwanted pregnancy.

Personally, I'm pro-choice, and I'd draw the line for "abortion on demand" at about 20 weeks, before the foetus's nervous system is fully formed.

 

[TenEightyOne]

The problem with adoption is that it only solves the problem of an unwanted child, not an unwanted pregnancy.

And often gives you a screwed-up child.

 

[Danoff]

I believe it's up to the mother, she shouldn't be forced to have a baby she doesn't want, but ONLY within a VERY EARLY time period, i.e. first 10 weeks, unless there is a legitimate reason i.e. rape. After that period without the aforementioned exception for legitimate reasons, I believe the baby should be born and given up for adoption if the mother does not want it.

Why? That is the tough part of contributing to this thread.

The problem with adoption is that it only solves the problem of an unwanted child, not an unwanted pregnancy.

Personally, I'm pro-choice, and I'd draw the line for "abortion on demand" at about 20 weeks, before the foetus's nervous system is fully formed.

Why? That is the tough part of contributing to this thread.

And often gives you a screwed-up child.

You're probably thinking of foster care.

 

[TenEightyOne]

You're probably thinking of foster care.

I'd say it's true of both, actually.

 

[Imari]

I'd say it's true of both, actually.

Why would a normal adoption at birth be any more likely to result in a screwed up child than normal parents?

If anything, adoptive parents are people who have had to go well out of their way to get and raise a child. There's reasonable evidence that they actually give a **** about raising a child. All normal parents had to do was get drunk and slip one past the goalie.

 

[TenEightyOne]

Why would a normal adoption at birth be any more likely to result in a screwed up child than normal parents?

Because of the documented issues of separation and self esteem.

If anything, adoptive parents are people who have had to go well out of their way to get and raise a child.

Absolutely, that's often the case. I wasn't implying that the problems were to do with the parenting.

There's reasonable evidence that they actually give a **** about raising a child. All normal parents had to do was get drunk and slip one past the goalie.

Well, that gets a little facetious and I'm not sure the evidence you mention exists.

Certainly there's all kinds of evidence for elevated risk of nervous and mental issues in adopted children although the earlier they are adopted the less the risk, but elevation still occurs.

 

[Imari]

Certainly there's all kinds of evidence for elevated risk of nervous and mental issues in adopted children although the earlier they are adopted the less the risk, but elevation still occurs.

When you used the word "often", what exactly did you mean?

I'll admit that adopted children have factors that make them more likely to have mental issues, even minor ones. But I think what twigged me to that sentence, even though I didn't recognise it consciously at first, was the use of the word "often".

It makes me think "50% or more of the time".

If you mean that adopted children have a slightly higher risk of being screwed up then I agree, although I don't think your original choice of words was fantastic.

If you do mean that a significant proportion of adopted children are screwed up, then I'd be interested to know what constitutes screwed up and to see something to support the claim. Maybe it's true, but it feels a bit weird to me.

Well, that gets a little facetious and I'm not sure the evidence you mention exists.

The evidence that I was meaning was the previous sentence. Adoptive parents have to go through all sorts of stuff before they can actually adopt a child. Someone who cares enough to do that has displayed significant interest in being a parent. Colloquially, they give a ****.

You cannot accidentally become an adoptive parent, it is a planned and deliberate action, with many chances to back out.

Normal parents on the other hand, can have children simply by being unlucky. Failure of condom quality control, whoops, you're pregnant.

The vast majority of "normal" parents almost certainly do not fit this profile, but there are a small amount that do. These are people who potentially have no interest in becoming parents, nor the resources to do so, but end up stuck in a bad situation.


It was written in an entertaining manner, but I stand by the sentiment.

 

[jimipitbull]

There are already too many people for this planet, we are killing it.

Abortion is pro life, for our planet, and all the other species we share it with.

 

[TenEightyOne]

@lmari, I see what you mean but the psyschological evidence is still against you despite the sense (on general balance) of what you say.

Given that most people would accept that what you say about elective-adoptive versus non-adoptive parents * is correct, and given that there is a substantial amount of evidence to suggest that children removed from their birth parent(s) for adoption have a greater likelihood of suffering nervous or mental problems... does that suggest that it's the children who hold the root cause of the problem rather than the parents?

* I'm specifying carefully because some adoptive parents are 'with' the birth parent, some are 'inherited' parents from the same family etc etc... there are all kinds of odd exceptions that are irrelevant to the rule of what you're saying

 

[DK]

Why? That is the tough part of contributing to this thread.

I draw the line for "abortion on demand" at 20 weeks because that's before the nervous system is fully formed. I'll admit that I don't know much about abortion procedures, so I don't know if there are any methods that are painless for the foetus and don't have any side effects for the mother.

 

[KSaiyu]

I draw the line for "abortion on demand" at 20 weeks because that's before the nervous system is fully formed. I'll admit that I don't know much about abortion procedures, so I don't know if there are any methods that are painless for the foetus and don't have any side effects for the mother.

So your basis is before it can feel pain?

 

[DK]

Yeah, that's my basis. After 20 weeks I'd be a bit more squeamish about "abortion on demand", but if the mother's health/life is threatened or the foetus is unlikely to survive without major (possibly even fatal) abnormalities, I would have no qualms about it.