Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

All right. We have already had numerous posts on this sort of topic, and they always become disgustingly abusive. This is not a topic that will ever be settled. It's great that you are pro-life, but the point is, not everyone is. People have different ways of perceiving what is wrong or right, and they have the right to. Pushing pro-life beliefs is intrusive, rude, and annoying.

Post like this are great. You get many responses where you can see many people's views on a topic. I myself am Pro-Life. Life begins at controception and I belive abortion is killing a child. I think if you can't handle being a parent you should choose to give a child up for adoption.

"In Roe vs. Wade it has been decided that abortion is an issue of privacy. I think not."
-I agree. I, too am a pro-lifer. How can abortion be a matter of privacy when it has to do with another human? I believe it's the government's duty to protect life at all stages of growth.

I'm so glad there's another pro-lifer on this site. A while back I posted a pro-life thing and there was almost nobody else who agreed with me.

I am a pro-life person, because I believe that life begins at conception. The weird thing about people are pro-choice is that they don't believe in the death penalty, but believe in killing an innocent child. I have always found that a murderer's life is more valuable than a child that has no choice.

I am a pro-life person, because I believe that life begins at conception. The weird thing about people who are pro-choice is that they don't believe in the death penalty, but believe in killing an innocent child. I have always found it weird that they believe a murderer's life is more valuable than a child that has no choice.

Perhaps we are pro-choice because it is just that -- a CHOICE that I am not willing to make for anyone else.

It doesn't mean that I would abort my own zygote or encourage others to abort theirs'.

It doesn't mean that I don't get utterly disgusted when a woman is going to have here third abortion -- uh, hello didn't you learn the first two times!

It doesn't mean that I have no morals -- quite the opposite. It's all a matter of perspective -- mine being let's make sure the people alive and able to make decisions aren't shunned, hurt, or brushed aside by our insensitivity.

It doesn't mean that I have no compassion -- if anything I feel I have more compassion because I am not willing to force an underage girl, a mentally instable woman, or anyone who made a mistake to pay for it the next 18 years of their life. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment!!

It doesn't mean I disrespect those who choose to raise children. I respect the practice of child-rearing so much I think that if anyone doesn't want the zygote they are carrying to live to be a child -- then they don't deserve the child.

I find that many pro-lifers misunderstand my point of view and are quick to defame me and claim me immoral, when in actuality I am more moral than many strictly religious persons.

As for the death penalty -- I am against it, true. But this is the govt inforcing death unto it's citizens. Any govt who uses death as a punishment cannot be very civilized. Opposingly, abortion is privatized; no govt money is going towards obtaining abortions. In essence, my political opinion has no bearing on Jane Doe who wishes to end her pregnancy, but does when MY govt is executing citizens. Very different scenerios -- thank you for allowing my to clarify.

I am pro-life but I believe it is just MY choice. I am not going to tell anyone else what their views should be and shove my ideas down their throat. It is everyones own individual choice. People must live with the choices they make for the rest of their life.

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I've presented an alternative to consider in the debate between the Pro-Lifers and the Pro-Choicers. Niether side's base will agree with it. It is a philosphy of reproduction for sentient beings that denies both life and choice, yet encourages just and moral action. Give it a chance, and then bitch all you want...and keep thinking!

Regardless of all the good that can possibly come out of life, the good is balanced with death. Good and bad are subjective interpretations anyway. Compassion and true love would dictate that one maintain the nonexistence of a person rather than force a world upon them.

As an analogy, what if I came to your home and messed with all your shit--your financial shit, your material stuff, rearrange your books all without any input from you--in other words, force a system upon you that you did not ask for. Maybe eventually you'd appreciate it, or maybe you'd hate it; but, if given the choice between your known and the very questionable unknown you would undoubtedly refuse me the liberty of imposing something that acts upon and encompasses only this handful of elements of your life. Now, amplify that analogy by a lifetime and tell me that if you had the choice, would you refuse me permission to disrupt--indeed violate--your status of nonexistence to the liking of my own whim? Regardless of how noble I thought or felt my actions would be, you would not allow it.

As I said, "if given the choice" you "would not allow" me to do that, whether the results were beneficial and seen as good to you, or whether the results were destructive and seen as bad to you (or any combination thereof). My intention was to relate a situation where you were choiceless. You would choose to avoid the unknown, and go so far as to tell me that you would stop me. This isn't an analogy about growing-up, this is an analogy about being conceived and born. It is an optionless process forced upon a previously nonexistent being--a being which cannot "find a way" to stop or manipulate it. Since there is nothing in oblivion, there is contentment. This is the philosophy on life Siddhartha reached, apparently a contradiction, but in the absents of everything there remains...a nothing. Nothing was contentment to Siddhartha, as the world was ultimately a place of suffering--regardless of one's perceptions.

Arguments have been made that aborted children are "choiceless" in whether they will live or die, but this argument is logically flawed in that the granting or prevention of sentience is a choiceless matter. At the threshold of consciousness is a thin line where the actions of others become authoritarian. An embryo at any stage growing cancerously inside a woman's uterus is not sentient--destroying it would not affect it's status of oblivion. But once placed by the choices of others into existence, it become sentient regardless. Just because someone or something does not have a voice doesn't imply that we can do as we wish with them until they do. Creating something out of nothing is a process that should be left to mythical omniscient beings with total control over all aspects of the universe--interesting how the idea of such a cosmic force helps assuage the question of why we weren't asked before we were placed here--it helps people deal with the decisions of their parents in which they had no voice.

Maybe you might think I'm speaking as if we're ripping a being out of some sort of heaven and forcing them into a hell that is our world. This world (you might say) is not bad simply because there is no good to compare it to. Perhaps you think I see the world forced upon a person, whereas you may see a person forced upon the world, and that a great opportunity.

In the above statements, though, there is a contradiction. First is the suggestion that there is a good or bad that could be taken into account (analogy of heaven/hell). Then there is the suggestion that there is no good to compare our world to, logically implying that there isn't bad. The world is (as exposed by this contradiction) neutral and completely open to perception. How much freedom we have over that perception is debatable. The world is forced upon a person--Evangelicals smart enough to formulate an argument often describe birth as a choice made by a will from oblivion. Oblivion is the absence of anything, so will could not exist there even if it were a rational concept. So, the generation of consciousness out of nothing through the awesome and complex interactions of chemistry and physics is an action where one party has no choice in a decision that will certainly lead to its death. Opportunity (in the challenging argument) simply implies optimism. On what can we base that optimism? If there is pleasure and their is suffering, which one of these two opposites is completely avoidable in life?

For the sake of argument, let's define a life as the period from birth until death. Unless a child is subjected to heroin from before breeching the womb until the moment of death, it would seem stupid to claim that it is possible to live a life void of suffering. Alternatively, it is very possible to live a life completely devoid of pleasure, as one can witness among the parentless, starving children of war-torn, impoverished areas of the world. Regardless of whether you define pleasure and suffering as good or bad, it is visible that these physical conditions are not completely avoidable nor subjective when experienced.

Perhaps it appears that I think abortion is the final answer for all potential births, or that everyone that has already been born deserves to die...

I don't necessarily feel this way--I believe that though it is wrong to force life upon peaceful oblivion, in some cases the amount of suffering in life may be reduced. Since some human DNA should be carried on (I'll leave you to answer "why"), when a stable and supportive developmental environment is set firmly in place I do not run headlong into the barricades to stop pregnancy--it would be futile effort. But when I see a situation which is opposite that environment, guaranteeing increased suffering and ill-preparedness before the ultimate death, then I will try to prevent what I see as a great injustice. I've come to this conclusion by looking at the whole picture--trying as hard as I can to understand what life is. Buddha was right--life['s defining characteristics separating it from oblivion are] suffering followed by death. With the knowledge that Siddhartha wanted to transcend the ridiculous religions of his day through developing a philosophy within a religion, I am allowed to remove the barriers of Hinduism to rational thought:

If life is suffering, death unquestionable, oblivion Nirvana and overpopulation a problem; until we solve a couple of those issues it is irresponsible and cruel of us to force beings into existence.

Parents often talk about "their" children--how "they're" proud. How glad they are to "have" kids. How "they want" them to be a certain way. The language reveals the innate selfishness sentient beings are misled by when making the decision to reproduce.

It may be depressing to read the following, and it might piss some of you off, but the following was a response I made to a rather angry young mother who disagreed with my observations. It concluded the conversation:

"Did it ever dawn on you while you were selfishy deciding to force a world onto an otherwise nonexistent being that through 'your' actions of what 'you wanted' to do for 'your' child, that that being which you love so much and would now give all for will necessarily suffer and die? If it existed before conception (which it didn't) it would have never felt death. It would be nothingness. Nirvana.

I'm sure your child will have a wonderful life without few trials and suffering or poverty--of course there is very little control you have over the future--but no matter what happens during the course of life, you will ultimately be responsible for a human's death. Without your choice to give birth, your child would have never died."

I agree with you 110%!! I went to thins exhibit in Atlanta called the Bodies Exhibit... It showed the stages of a child's development in the womb and they were real babies (as were all the people in the exhibit). At 8 weeks old you can see the babies hands and feet!! It was incredible!! Anyone who has seen this exhibit could see that abortion is murder!
::Steph::