On Tuesday 13 April, the fierce battle over abortion rights in the US took a new twist as Nebraska became the first state to restrict abortion to prevent alleged pain to the fetus.
By using this as the rationale for banning almost all abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the new law contradicts the scientific consensus, which holds that fetuses are unlikely to be able to feel pain before 26 weeks. It is also the boldest and most direct challenge yet to the Roe vs Wade ruling of 1973, which gave US women almost unrestricted access to abortions.
So have there been new discoveries in fetal pain research that justify the Nebraska ruling? Or is the law based on a moral judgment?
Read the article for a Q&A on the issues.
Traaxx said, “Such people that can not keep their genitals or use protection should be jailed and tried for murder, including the impregnating father assuming he agreed to the abortion.”
Would you pull the trigger on your own mother’s death because of an abortion? Your father? What about your sister? What about your best friend? No? How about a neighbour? Getting more comfortably now are you? How about someone you don’t know anything about? That helps I bet. … Or how about one of those thieving Mexicans you mentioned in post #23? Having an abortion just icing on the cake?
HEY!! – Nice hamburger construct there Skeptic. You know what happens when you leave hamburger (ie-religion) out in the sun for a few days??? Yep, it starts to stink just like Traxx has pointed out.
Traaxx–ha, ha. Keeping the spin machine well oiled and turning. More error and propaganda than any truth. Sad.
People should only be put on trial when a DA has determined that a law has been broken. Morality is BS as is your call and reference to it. YOU can have all the morality you want===don’t want to abort?==then don’t. but leave other people alone you taliban thought thug!!!!
Unborn fetuses are not children, and they are not people==its the law. They are human beings and the only relevant way to phrase the issue is: “at what stage of development does society have a duty/obligation to override the mothers privacy rights?”
I agree with you that non-supporting post birth life should be aborted at their mother’s election. Thats my morality. Why don’t I force my opinion on you as a counterforce to your trying to force your illegal anti-constitutional opinions on me? Because I respect the FREEDOM of people to disagree with me. You don’t. Hamburger.
The decision to abort is not a comfort issue. Stop demonizing people you have no ability to empathize with. Makes you look religious.
Re #30, the Warden said, “What is known is that pro abortionists and communists both are responsible for the killing of millions of innocent lives.”
By that logic, as a con abortionist, you are responsible for the millions of unwanted and orphaned children living in filth and poverty, and/or with physically and mentally abusive parents, and wishing they were never born.
In the time of the bible, Old testament…
The average survival rate of child birth was UNDER 50%..
And even NOW, in the middle east and Asia, they WANT BOYS..NOT girls. And many females are killed at Birth.
If abortion has been Against the bible/God, why hasn’t it been there LONGER then in the last few years (100-150)??
2000 years of Hebrew/christian Beliefs and ALL that have read the bible…and ONLY in the last 100-150 years do we DECIDE that its against GOD to ABORT a child??
http://greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/
Figure out which version you REALLY want to read.
Traaxx said, “Such people that can not keep their genitals or use protection should be jailed and tried for murder, including the impregnating father assuming he agreed to the abortion.”
If a woman could be tried for murdering a fetus along with the father, then the mother and father would also have to be tried for murder for raising a killer. All serial killers had parents. These parents killed others by using a weapon that is their child.
People are a bit fuzzy about morals when it comes to killing.
Re; Bobbo, “HEY!! – Nice hamburger construct there Skeptic.”
Thanks. I still like the original recipe better, but hamburger is a versatile meat to work with. 🙂
Morality is a very subjective thing. Before finding myself in the position of having an unplanned pregnency, it seemed to me a cut and dry case of convenience. When I found myself in that situation I decided it’s the woman’s body let her decide. When she decided to abort I was relieved. Unfortunately, even though she’d made the decision carefully, deliberately, and logically, she soon felt truckloads of guilt and regret. I was there for her and kept myself busy keeping her from obsessing and giving her all the support I could. I didn’t realize it at the time but a smudge had formed on my self esteem due to this issue. Many years have passed and if you ask me now if I’d do it differently I’d probably say hell yes. But not because of some theoretical or dogmatic morality. It’s because my values and priorities have changed, I now know that my decision to leave the responsibility up to her was cowardly, and to be honest, in retrospect, it’s feels like the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.
Having lived in the south for the past 11 years, I can state with some authority that your headline should read “Religion Overrules Science, the Constitution, Legal Precedent, Common Sense and anything remotely resembling Rational Thought”
Do you think they might get a clue and give high school kids realistic sex education and access to contraception so the question of abortion will never crop up ? NAH !!! The Fundies are TOTAL WHACK JOBS and even opposed to the word SEX !!!
aNIM..
My point is Why is it against your religion NOW, when the bible has been around(most of it) for over 2000 years.
Why in the last 100-150 years do you/they consider Abortion BAD??
It popped up during a Time of Inbred RICH folks couldnt have kids.
Any child past the age of 2 years, is almost NEVER adopted.. Yes there are a few out there that DO, adopt the older kids.
Education and ALTERNATIVES must be given to our children.
Expecting your child to Fight against Hormones and ANIMAL nature is ridiculous. the worst thing you can do is make it FORBIDDEN/never to be spoken of. It damages the child, mentally.
Amodeoma–guess what? YOU aren’t responsible for everything that occurs in life. Other People have their lives to live as well. As with ALL OTHER morality issues YOUR OBLIGATION was to understand the truth and do the right thing however that may play out in your situation. I almost posted your responsibility was “to tell the truth” but I’m no Kantian. I don’t think telling the truth is the highest morality/good in every situation==sometimes lying to give comfort is the higher good. Can be a tough call, sometimes better to go agnostic.
This time I think the law is correct: Its the mothers decision, not the mans. I don’t know how you now think you should have shown more responsibility but I hope the wisdom of the law is partially incorporated? What would you do differently if you care to go public???
My own fiancee told me she thought she might be pregnant. I said it was her decision and I would stand by her no matter what she wanted to do. I said I personally did not want a child, but it was her decision. I said I would marry her now or later and with or without a child. Turned out she wasn’t pregnant and she married someone else who wanted kiddies.
Do I wish I had been wiser and been more self centered. I “should have” said: “Oh you’re pregnant. Thats wonderful. Lets get married and have five more.” After the bastard was born, I could have then evaluated my options.
FREEDOM–letting other people live their lives. Quibbling is a great temptation and should be a mortal sin, if it like everything else that defines us as human, isn’t already.
ECA–its a little bit more nuanced than you say. Natural Abortions, born dead, born dying, early baby death was so common at the birth of the Catholic Church that the theology was you weren’t a person until you got baptized into the church ((different notions for non-baptised adults)) which normally took place 2-3 weeks after birth to make sure they weren’t wasting their time. Thats not directly on point because as Animby points out, abortion techniques did exist at the time, some must have been effective?? But I don’t think what people were doing in their mud huts was well known outside of a small circle of friends. I think the Church may have been overloaded on the poverty and death issues at this time with not much to gain from going on a jihad against vinegar and cotton salesmen.
Anybody actually know what the early position on abortion was?
Seems to me the current one is entirely consistent with the bibble: go forth and multiple, no birth control, etc. but just because I don’t know doesn’t mean they didn’t have a well formulated position that they did or didn’t campaign on.
I think we can all safely blame the media too.
BOBO,
DO YOU READ THE COMMENTS OR NOT..
Go check out #36.
ECA–I read what you said, understood it, agreed with it but still have remaining questions as posted. Are your comments meant to be completely dispositive of an issue? Catholics didn’t even get going until several hundred years after year zero. So, the “real” issue is what was the position of the Jews at the time in question?
To that point, I just googled (Jeish position abortion) and immediately got fed up with the double speak. History is nice but often irrelevant. Why not deal with reality?
OUR REALITY is Roe v Wade. A mandatory read for anyone “really” interested in the subject. It covers enough of the history, science, morality to be a real touchstone on the issue.
http://law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html
2/3 of this planet..
Its NOT that its a practice.
Its JUST WHAT HAPPENS..
In the muslim/arabic regions..IF a girl is raped, she must PROVE IT.. NOT the COPS.
She must have 5 witnesses..
In and around india..If you have a female child, you must give a Dowry, when she gets married. It has become WORSE then a Ransom to KEEP the girl. Every time the Father wants more money, he tells the Females parents..and if they dont GIVE the money, he can THROW her back. ALSO with a 10-1 ratio of males, RAPE is very Abundant.
In China, they ask that families have NO MORE then 2 children. since most of China is Farms, Who is going to take these children that are OVER this count? HOW about the MEGA cities with over 1/2 the population of china, along the coast? Slum here, there and everywhere…I really doubt there are enough jobs.
Africa and all the poverty. Abortion happens many times.
Also to think about, is the plight of women in other nations..FEW are like the USA/Canada/Europe/Australia..
Wars, poverty, mistakes, rape, MORE children are born EACH day then you could imagine.
IF you are willing to CARE for every child that is Thrown away. Be they syphilitic/HIV positive/crippled/… Be it on your own head.
In the USA after you get to 10, I would think the State would step in, or you would need to be working 20 hours per day, EVERY day. when you get to 100, in about 1 year.. I hope you get the assistance the Church has promised.
How awful! Religious people trying to keep us from keeping people, while the non-religious take the moral high ground and try to keep us from killing cows and pigs. One book I read defended a vegan position on the grounds that even if the death was quick enough to keep the cow from pain, the cow was terrified beforehand.
Pro-abortion arguments have never been on the side of science, insisting a being that grows and eats is not real life because it is small and not completely developed. (A tree, however, is considered alive to some.)
#48 ECA – Who can disagree with an argument like that?
On the other hand, who could understand an argument like that?
You really need to slow down and figure out what you’re saying before you start typing.
If pain is the rationale behind this stupid law, why not just use anesthesia during the abortion?
Also, if you don’t like abortions, don’t have one. Telling others what to do while staunchly defending your right to do as you wish is the height of hypocrisy.
“FREEDOM can not exist without morality and the respect of life, liberty and property that non-pagan morals usually entail.”
Odd. People have been making that very argument in favor of business / bank regulation. But it has been said that those people are dirty, dirty communists.
#44 bobbo
I’ve never been very good at adapting to the rules and values of others, probably because regardless of whether something is legal, logical, or even moral, I still have to deal with the emotions resulting from my decisions. The downside of being excessively sensitive.
How easy is it to find a doctor in Nebraska who will do an abortion?
I’ve heard there are huge areas in “red” states where they have effectively overturned Roe v. Wade by scaring doctors away from doing abortions.
Can anyone here confirm this?
All these pointless arguments would stop if people just accepted to themselves that the fetus is alive and working, and when they commit abortion they kill a living human being. All people need to do is stop denying the truth and accept the fact that they commit murder when they abort a fetus.