Originally Posted by ichigo8504

I got my information from wikianswer, so it wasn't a guess.

I wasn't aware that wikianswer was the authority on... anything.

Originally Posted by ichigo8504

Have you ever been in the inner city? ... blah blah... weren't little innocent virgins.

I'm sorry that my statistical data doesn't match up to your anecdotal evidence.

But yes, I've been in the inner city. I've been a peer leader for inner-city kids. I am grateful not to have grown up there. But, y'know, I was trying to provide data, instead of making assumptions about people and arguing based on hypothetical or dubious circumstances. My bad.

Also, thanks for ignoring the fact that RAPE HAPPENS TO PEOPLE UNDER 13, and HALF OF ALL TEENS RAPED ARE ABUSED BEFORE TURNING 14. And thanks for being so holier-than-thou that you think those prepubescents should suddenly "grow up," have a child, and ruin their lives and their bodies, because that's the kind of attitude you're putting out.

No means no, even if you act slutty. You might as well just straight up say that girls who like to dress that way deserve to be raped.

No means no. Maybe means no. I'm not sure means no. Passed out means no. Drunk or high means no. Coked out means no.

How dare you. I can't respect that kind of attitude.

Originally Posted by Keyori

I wasn't aware that wikianswer was the authority on... anything.

No one really has the authority, because they all say different things. Wikianswer was the one I found first.

I'm sorry that my statistical data doesn't match up to your anecdotal evidence.

But yes, I've been in the inner city. I've been a peer leader for inner-city kids. I am grateful not to have grown up there. But, y'know, I was trying to provide data, instead of making assumptions about people and arguing based on hypothetical or dubious circumstances. My bad.

Also, thanks for ignoring the fact that RAPE HAPPENS TO PEOPLE UNDER 13, and HALF OF ALL TEENS RAPED ARE ABUSED BEFORE TURNING 14. And thanks for being so holier-than-thou that you think those prepubescents should suddenly "grow up," have a child, and ruin their lives and their bodies, because that's the kind of attitude you're putting out.

No means no, even if you act slutty. You might as well just straight up say that girls who like to dress that way deserve to be raped.

No means no. Maybe means no. I'm not sure means no. Passed out means no. Drunk or high means no. Coked out means no.

How dare you. I can't respect that kind of attitude.

I wasn't making assumptions. You said "you know no body under the age of 13 who has had sex willfully". I was just stating the fact that I do know.

I was not stating that I don't think any of the 12 year olds were never raped. There are alot of the out there. I just don't think anybody should have an abortion just because something bad happen to them and that they are too young. As I had stated in my first post "use the money that pays for abortion for ophanages......There are couples out there who can't have babies, so they adopt".

Dressing provocative, getting high, dranking, doing other drugs, ect, ect, ect, has results that aren't good. I am not saying they deserve it, I am saying they are at a higher risk of getting raped if they do those things. Don't do the things if you don't want anything happen to you. I am also not saying that I have the right to tell people what to do and not to do. If you want to do all those things, because you think it is fun, don't do it if you are going to be around men. Do it around you friends who are women. Less likely to get raped and you can't get pregnant. But it is 'THEIR CHOICE' to do what they want to do.

Abortion is and should always be up to the woman in the end. It is her the procedure will have the greatest effect on mentally and physically.

Though I may agree with abortion I don't agree with it as a whole. Using it as a form of birth control is something I can never agree with. Go on the pill, use spermicides, condoms, or whatever type of birth control tickles your fancy. Having multiple abortions just because you are too lazy to prevent an unwanted pregnancies in the first place is just wrong. Get off your back and do something to prevent it, will be cheaper for you in the long wrong.

Now I do agree to it under other pretenses.

The baby has a bad and expensive to care for disorder that can be detected in utero, which there are several of these as I recall. If its something you and your partner cannot afford the medical expenses for and the child would suffer horribly growing up I see no issue with preventing said suffering.

There's also cases where birth control fails. The condom broke, the 1% chance the pill fails/improperly tied tubes/faulty vasectomy etc. If you took the necessary steps to prevent it but they failed you should be allowed to have an abortion.

To save the mothers life. If her life is at great risk she should be allowed to have her abortion. I would rather have an active supporting member of the society then a child that cannot help our economy. For example my cousin was pregnant with twins a few years back. She wound up miscarrying one, however in the process the placenta tore away from the wall of the uterus. This caused severe hemorrhaging. It was a choice between her own life or the life of her other unborn son. She chose her own as in the end it weighed higher on the scale as she also had a 2 year old daughter to care for(I couldn't and still can't see the girls father having taken care of her if my cousin died).

And finally rape. I see no reason why a woman should be FORCED to carry a rape child to term then put it up for adoption. If she can't stand to bare a product of rape the option of abortion should be open to her. Her healing can start sooner if she doesn't have to look down at her stomach and thing 'he did this to me' except not in those words I was thinking something a little more hateful. On the flip side, kudo's the rape victims that have been able to carry a child produced by rape to term and keep or put them up for adoption.

4. The adoption system is a mess. Unfortunately, many adoption centers are for-profit, especially centers that bring children in from overseas. Unless this system is fixed, and gay couples can get rights to adopt children, it is not an acceptable alternative to abortion.

I love you for this statement. Recently a friend of mine(gay and happily married) was finally able to adopt a child(other friends say they only got the little tyke cause he's a crack baby and it just pisses me off ggrrrr). He and his husband are absolutely delighted to have a child, I dare say they are more attentive to their kid then many straight couples I have known. Just because they aren't 'normal' doesn't mean they don't have a right to children. I mean come on scientists have found possible evidence that we are born homosexual or straight (brain shapes of homosexuals looking like that of a heterosexual of opposite general. So a lesbians brain looks like a heterosexual male's brain). So that rules out the 'they'll raise the child to be gay' argument homophobes use.

Originally Posted by ichigo8504

[A quote from the site I just posted: "At 18 days [when the mother is only four days late for her first menstrual period], and by 21 days it is pumping, through a closed circulatory system, blood whose type is different from that of the mother. J.M. Tanner, G. R. Taylor, and the Editors of Time-Life Books, Growth, New York: Life Science Library, 1965, p.

18 days is still FAR from the number you gave. So, you just further proved yourself wrong. Congratulations :D

I am saying in my opinion that if they have a heart beat, then it is alive. And when a human life is alive and then you kill it, it is called murder. It wouldn't be murder if you kill bacteria, according to society.

And I am saying that that is a horrible way of determining whether or not something is alive. By your definition of "alive", bacteria aren't alive. Plants aren't alive. Embryos aren't even alive until 18 days in.

Originally Posted by Philomel

Embryos aren't even alive until 18 days in.

I will have to give her this one ... this time frame is when the heart forms.

When I got pregnant with my first, my "at time bf/now husband" wanted me to take that abortion pill. The one you can take before seven weeks to terminate the pregnancy at home. Of course I didn't and he is glad I didn't agree now. But his logic is that before seven weeks the baby isn't "alive" either...he feels differently now, being a daddy in all.

Originally Posted by Lady_Megami

I will have to give her this one ... this time frame is when the heart forms.

But it is alive. That's the point. It is made up of living cells (which, since they don't have hearts, I guess makes them not really living, too). If it weren't alive, it would be nonviable. The body would flush it out as it does with early miscarriages.

Originally Posted by Philomel

But it is alive. That's the point. It is made up of living cells (which, since they don't have hearts, I guess makes them not really living, too). If it weren't alive, it would be nonviable. The body would flush it out as it does with early miscarriages.

exactly...finally we agree on something lol

Originally Posted by ichigo8504

No one really has the authority, because they all say different things. Wikianswer was the one I found first.




I wasn't making assumptions. You said "you know no body under the age of 13 who has had sex willfully". I was just stating the fact that I do know.

I was not stating that I don't think any of the 12 year olds were never raped. There are alot of the out there. I just don't think anybody should have an abortion just because something bad happen to them and that they are too young. As I had stated in my first post "use the money that pays for abortion for ophanages......There are couples out there who can't have babies, so they adopt".

Dressing provocative, getting high, dranking, doing other drugs, ect, ect, ect, has results that aren't good. I am not saying they deserve it, I am saying they are at a higher risk of getting raped if they do those things. Don't do the things if you don't want anything happen to you. I am also not saying that I have the right to tell people what to do and not to do. If you want to do all those things, because you think it is fun, don't do it if you are going to be around men. Do it around you friends who are women. Less likely to get raped and you can't get pregnant. But it is 'THEIR CHOICE' to do what they want to do.

You really are very disrespectful to these girls.
No one said these girls were drinking or doing drugs. Assuming that if you were raped you then you somehow put yourself in that situation is sickening and disrespectful. Much more than half of rapes are by someone the victim knew, and I doubt that statistic changes for the young.

But, then, not only do you disrespect the pain the rape victim will go through by saying it was probably her fault for getting raped, but then you tell them that's it the least they could do if they just carried the child that came from it. You ignore the emotional damage putting a child up for adopt can have on a person. You ignore the fact that pregnancy costs thousands and thousands of dollars.

Don't you have anything sympathy for anything beyond the fetus?

Just for reference, does anyone have a good estmate of when a fetus can be considered "sentient?" I think that it would perhaps be a good reference point for when we could consider it a "person," as opposed to a heart beat.

Originally Posted by The_Good_Kid_13

Here's my interpretation of what you're saying, and please, correct me if I'm wrong, but you think that using abortions as birth control is acceptable behavior.

Not at all. Half the time the people who end up prego are actually using some sort of birth control.

Your interpretation was more of a twisting of words, not an interpretation.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "sentient". A baby is not sentient.

Instead, I think we should focus on physical independence, but with the exception of sentience and rationality. Note, I did not say independence altogether, just of the physical sort. In other words, the being in subject does not have to be hooked up to a machine or another person to live then they are a person, but even if they have to be hooked up to a machine, if they are sentient or rational still, they are still a person.

This makes sense; it means that a fetus and a person in a vegetative state are not people any longer, and therefore their lives are decided based on the will of those who care for them. However, if a being is hooked up to a machine but still has thoughts and feelings, they are still a person. This seems to be the thought process of most people.

You brought up a very good point. It's definitely something worth thinking about.

It depends on which definition of "sentience" you're borrowing. To the best of my understanding, sentience can mean consciousness, awareness, or the ability to feel pain and pleasure. Under any of those definitions, a baby is sentient, and a fetus isn't - not, at least, until very late in the pregnancy.

Originally Posted by Philomel

18 days is still FAR from the number you gave. So, you just further proved yourself wrong. Congratulations :D

How did I prove myself wrong? I said "4 days after the missed period". Why don't you go to my original post.

And I am saying that that is a horrible way of determining whether or not something is alive. By your definition of "alive", bacteria aren't alive. Plants aren't alive. Embryos aren't even alive until 18 days in.

I was talking about human life, not bacteria or anything else.

Originally Posted by ichigo8504

How did I prove myself wrong? I said "4 days after the missed period". Why don't you go to my original post.




I was talking about human life, not bacteria or anything else.

Every time you scratch your head?

Human cell death.

Originally Posted by Doomfishy

Every time you scratch your head?

Like that really make sense. Why don't you read my first post. It said the same thing as I had just stated.

Human cell death.

Are you trying to say a fetus is just a human cell? Give me true facts on your statement.

Originally Posted by ichigo8504

Like that really make sense. Why don't you read my first post. It said the same thing as I had just stated.



Are you trying to say a fetus is just a human cell? Give me true facts on your statement.

I'm saying that it's nonsensical to think that killing living human cells is automatically murder. You do it every time you scratch your head.

Originally Posted by Doomfishy

I'm saying that it's nonsensical to think that killing living human cells is automatically murder. You do it every time you scratch your head.

So, I kill my next door neighbor who is made up of living human cells, it isn't considered as murder, because if I scratch my head I am killing my own cells and I don't go to jail for that? Hmmmm....I beg to differ.

Originally Posted by ichigo8504

So, I kill my next door neighbor who is made up of living human cells, it isn't considered as murder, because if I scratch my head I am killing my own cells and I don't go to jail for that? Hmmmm....I beg to differ.

Nope. If you kill your neighbor, you're killing a sentient cluster of cells with the capacity to feel, goals, hopes, dreams, a family - you're killing a person. If you scratch your head, you're just killing human cells.

Originally Posted by Keyori

Just for reference, does anyone have a good estmate of when a fetus can be considered "sentient?"

I'm not sure about sentient, but a fetus can first feel pain somewhere between 28 and 36 weeks, if my memory serves correctly. I think that's a fairly good marker, as far as things like that go.

@ichigo- Sorry, I'm not getting you. Because a fetus has 46 sets of chromosomes and a beating heart, its rights supersede that of the mother who actually has wants and goals and dreams? Doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Trust me, the fetus doesn't care if you have an abortion.

Children should not be used as punishment but abortions should also not be used as birth control. From personal experience, condoms are bullshit. Also, people I have heard who are against abortion are complete religious idiots. Not saying all religious people are idiots, but when you have someone complaining about being crowded, and you make a comment about over population, then the first reply you get is, "THAT DOESN'T MEAN ABORTION IS RIGHT." I think there's something wrong with that person. Aka, they're an idiot.

Originally Posted by Cursed

Children should not be used as punishment but abortions should also not be used as birth control. From personal experience, condoms are bullshit. Also, people I have heard who are against abortion are complete religious idiots. Not saying all religious people are idiots, but when you have someone complaining about being crowded, and you make a comment about over population, then the first reply you get is, "THAT DOESN'T MEAN ABORTION IS RIGHT." I think there's something wrong with that person. Aka, they're an idiot.

Even as a pro-choicer, I have to say that it doesn't make abortion right.
Certainly, if we permitted genocide, then the population would be smaller. But that doesn't make genocide correct or good in anyway. We need to find productive, lasting ways to keep our population at a safer level. Because educated women with full rights tend to have less children, it might be for the best if we work on women's rights, rather than asking people to make abortion legal (besides, if we work for women's rights, abortion will more than likely be legal at some point afterward).

Ichigo, you're not understanding what we're saying. If heart = alive in humans, it has to be the same for everything living. You can't just apply it to humans. That doesn't make sense.

Originally Posted by Doomfishy

It depends on which definition of "sentience" you're borrowing. To the best of my understanding, sentience can mean consciousness, awareness, or the ability to feel pain and pleasure. Under any of those definitions, a baby is sentient, and a fetus isn't - not, at least, until very late in the pregnancy.

That's kindof what I was trying to get at. I think that defining a fetus as a "baby in the womb" at its point of sentience would be a good place to start restricting abortions (not banning them altogether, mind you, but at least making them more difficult--or perhaps unpossible--to obtain without a really good reason).

Originally Posted by Fabby

I'm not sure about sentient, but a fetus can first feel pain somewhere between 28 and 36 weeks, if my memory serves correctly. I think that's a fairly good marker, as far as things like that go.

I agree, and I'm fairly sure that at that point it's extremely difficult to get an abortion. This sounds about right, but I'd still like to make it easier to obtain an abortion earlier on (I'm not sure how much easier though, that'd require me to know a lot about the laws for each state which I don't have the time to read up on right now @[email protected])

@Keyori- Yeah, that's well into the third trimester. By the time a fetus could potentially be considered a person, it's very illegal to have an abortion except for medical reasons anyway.
The point of viability is 24 weeks, and that works for me. Not that it magically becomes a person at this point, but in my eyes if it could potentially leave the mother and survive you really don't have any business trying to abort unless, of course, you have dire medical reasons.