The Abortion Debate (continued) (4 Viewers)

[crazyhomo]

Firstly its not a good thing for the west, the third world can execute their children all they want, I dont really care, but here in the west is another matter. Nor does this justify abortion in any way, abortion is a pretty sick way of population control, no better than the nazi death camps really, since they both work on the same principle. Also wrong is you conception that population/economic growth is consistantly bad, this is hardly the case

http://450.aers.psu.edu/images/envkuznets.gif

take that kfunk! that scientific graph that had heaps to do with population growth sure took you down a peg! so take your abortion lovin ass to africa where it's ok to murder children. just as long as you don't do it here

 

[bshoc]

take that kfunk! that scientific graph that had heaps to do with population growth sure took you down a peg! so take your abortion lovin ass to africa where it's ok to murder children. just as long as you don't do it here

learn2sarcasm

The environmental Kuznets curve is well known and fairly verified, its not a scientific curve, its an economic one.

 

[crazyhomo]

learn2sarcasm

The environmental Kuznets curve is well known and fairly verified, its not a scientific curve, its an economic one.

and since when is per capita income directly proportional to population size?

 

[bshoc]

and since when is per capita income directly proportional to population size?

Becuase per capita income operates on a similar curve, to present a very simple example what state is more likely to have a higher per capita income - a state of 100 people or of 1000000 people, which can produce more in terms of solar techonology, innovation etc. In western terms obviously

 

[KFunk]

Firstly its not a good thing for the west, the third world can execute their children all they want, I dont really care, but here in the west is another matter. Nor does this justify abortion in any way, abortion is a pretty sick way of population control, no better than the nazi death camps really, since they both work on the same principle. Also wrong is you conception that population/economic growth is consistantly bad, this is hardly the case

http://450.aers.psu.edu/images/envkuznets.gif

Economic growth does not equal population growth. The logic is simple:

(1) The earth is composed of a limited about of matter... similarly there is an upper limit to how many resources the earth can provide.

(2) Each human requires a base level of resources for survival (and a higher amount if we're talking about a reasonable quality of life... i.e. not being fed through a straw while being kept inside a cell to save space).

(3) If population growth is allowed to continue indefinately, we will eventually hit this limit.

From what I can see in the world, we seem to be reaching a point where the upper limit is approaching (or has been passed, based on certain studies). Millions of people already live a quality of life which is unnacceptable: starvation, absolute poverty, disease etc. (random food for thought, could every individual in India and China, feasibly, be property owners?) Things might look ok from where you sit in your privaleged position but if you look elsewhere you'll find truly grim circumstances. The fact that you 'dont care if the third world executes their children' shows the weakness of your 'moral' stance. The justifications that are given for selfish or state-centric ethics are poor - if you're going to hold an ethical stance on an issue then it should hold universally, or at least without descrimination.

 

[KFunk]

(2) Each human requires a base level of resources for survival (and a higher amount if we're talking about a reasonable quality of life... i.e. not being fed through a straw while being kept inside a cell to save space).

Also, readressing this point: That we can exist with the quality of life that we do (in the western world) relies a lot on ensuring that parts of the third world remain with a sub-standard quality of life where they live off of very little resources. Cheap labour in the third world ---> affordable goods for us. One might argue that 'we pay them a sum which buys them an equal amount in their country'... unfortunately important medications still sell in $US at prices that the average individual in the 3rd world is unable to afford. Something i'm curious to find out: if we reduced/increased everyone in the world to the same standard of living (whilst remaining at the limit of sustainability) would we each have enough resources to survive on?

 

[dagwoman]

Wow, totally offtopic!

I'm pro-choice. I believe in the woman's right to make her own choices about her body, and should have safe, legal access to abortion up until a foetus has been proven to exist outside the mother's body (I think about 24 weeks). The fact is that whether or not abortions are legal or not, they will happen. It is better to keep them safe and legal so that a woman's life is not in danger. Many women have died due to horrific backyard abortions.

 

[The Logical One]

I think this is quite a difficult issue the world is facing. I've also come to an immoral but logical conclusion. I've also though of steralisation but on a larger scale. Even to the extent of 80% steralisation in overpopulated countries for up 1 and a half generations. (roughly 30 years). This will decrease ammount of population and thus provide better living conditions for the living. It will also allow third world countries to develop. It may seem inhumane but quality life outweighs a life of suffering for others. It would also mean in the future they would be able to continue procreating as they did before. (after the country has developed. It's well know that countries like somalia and ethiopia have some of the worlds largest natural gas reserves which have been untouched.)

Check out the CIA FactBook.

Abortion is ineffective and inhumane. It shouldn't be advised but I guess it's good as a last resort.

All this wont be a problem if the future is bright. ie(We're able to fully understand and develop Entangled Transportation...)
Otherwise, matrix style!

 

[ur_inner_child]

Such a thing doesn't necessarily "allow" third world countries to develop.

 

[dieburndie]

I think this is quite a difficult issue the world is facing. I've also come to an immoral but logical conclusion. I've also though of steralisation but on a larger scale. Even to the extent of 80% steralisation in overpopulated countries for up 1 and a half generations. (roughly 30 years). This will decrease ammount of population and thus provide better living conditions for the living. It will also allow third world countries to develop. It may seem inhumane but quality life outweighs a life of suffering for others. It would also mean in the future they would be able to continue procreating as they did before. (after the country has developed. It's well know that countries like somalia and ethiopia have some of the worlds largest natural gas reserves which have been untouched.

I have very conflicting ideas concerning compulsary birth control. I think about personal freedoms, and about it being inhumane, and then I consider what is most likely the alternative. That is, the third world's population growth combined with the first world's ecological footprint being the cause of the degeneration of the planet to the point of no return.
Maybe it's a better idea to further promote birth control and increase education in the required areas, as well as introducing a financial disincentive to reproduce?
Also, the issue of ecological footprints also arises with your point about those developing countries becoming developed.
With this change, despite a population reduction, further problems will occur as individual consumption and waste rise dramatically.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

The justifications that are given for selfish or state-centric ethics are poor - if you're going to hold an ethical stance on an issue then it should hold universally, or at least without descrimination.

Why? I don't care about people that exist outside of my own civilisation, they are only potential enemies and rivals for resources. There's no reason to be concerned about their poverty as long as they're still able to provide us with the services we need, and we can limit their population enough that they don't consume too many resources.

 

[KFunk]

Why? I don't care about people that exist outside of my own civilisation, they are only potential enemies and rivals for resources. There's no reason to be concerned about their poverty as long as they're still able to provide us with the services we need, and we can limit their population enough that they don't consume too many resources.

Well, if you're going to ask that, why should you care about your state? or your family? Why should we care about people at all? I'll offer you a few ideas:

(1) People should be treated as ends in themselves (to abuse an overused and somewhat ambiguous claim), i.e. the fact that they are rational beings who have experiences, as we do, entitles them to a certain degree of dignity and respect. I hope that you possess empathy and that you can try to enter the existence of an individual who is starved, dehydrated and diseased and see the amount of pain which exists in such a life. If that was your next door neighbour, you would probably feel compelled to give them a drink of water and a bite to eat... why? Perhaps it's the notion that we can make an immeasurable difference in the quality of a person's life while hardly damaging our own. If one is to be concerned with the experiences of beings such as ourselves then, in its most mature for, that concern will extend universally... I will admit that this whole argument is quite weak right now - I might come back an elaborate on it after my exam tomorrow.

(2) Using a utilitarian kind of approach. You experience pleasure and pain and you probably understand that pleasure = good, while pain = bad. Likewise, empathy allows us to realise that the same holds for others - though it will often be the case that what illicits pain or pleasure differs from person to person. Why is it bad to cut someone with a knife? ---> you cause them pain. Why is it good to give someone a gift? ---> they experience pleasure. A loss of $500 from the account of an individual with $30,000 in savings causes very little 'pain' compared to the relative gain an individual with no money receives from $500. Alleviating poverty in the third world is one of the main ways we could maximise quality of life for people worldwide.

(3) Poverty leads to an early death and it limits ones actions in the world. If one is to act morally then they must a) exist, and b) be free to do so. If one accepts that 'the good' exists and that it is possible to act in accordance with it then the 'right to freedom' and 'the right to life' should be looked upon as universal rights (being necessary conditions for moral action). In particular we deny their 'right to life' in allowing poverty to exist. How is one to stay alive without food/water/medicine?

(4) One could argue that we have a duty to alleviate their poverty because we have exploited their countries to our benefit. Cheap labour, cheap resources and easy income (i.e. international debts... how responsible is it to loan an individual/country a sum of money that they won't be able to pay? or that they won't be able to pay while having a decent quality of life?). We use the third world for medical research and yet do they reap the benefits? No. They simply get to act as test subjects, generating medicines that they will never be able to afford for the benefit of the first world. Much of our prosperity has grown out of their squalor. Isn't it about time we paid off our debts?


Anyhow, (3) and (4) are possibly the strongest arguments from my point of view. Ultimately, and this is usually the case in value theory, if you don't want to accept my arguments then that's that. You can be selfish if you want, and there's very little I can do to stop you. Still, I would emplore you to have empathy and develop some concern for the human plight - for without such concern we are left with a world full of sociopathic tendencies, where people act solely as self-serving agents without regard for others (does this situation even benefit the selfish man? Maybe it should be looked at like the prisoner's dilemma). Perhaps this could be used as the grounds for practical arguments for ethical behaviour? Well, that's all from me... I hope that's not too much to read,

KFunk


(*Edited a sentence which didn't make sense and added prisoner's dilemma link*)

 

[bshoc]

How about a child concieved due to rape.

If you want to execute anyone for rape, execute the rapist.

 

[bshoc]

I'm pro-choice. I believe in the woman's right to make her own choices about her body, and should have safe, legal access to abortion up until a foetus has been proven to exist outside the mother's body (I think about 24 weeks). The fact is that whether or not abortions are legal or not, they will happen. It is better to keep them safe and legal so that a woman's life is not in danger. Many women have died due to horrific backyard abortions.

No better they be completely illegal, multiple times scarcer and women who have them in the illigality suffer the consequences of abortions being non medicalised.

 

[bshoc]

Economic growth does not equal population growth. The logic is simple:

(1) The earth is composed of a limited about of matter... similarly there is an upper limit to how many resources the earth can provide.

(2) Each human requires a base level of resources for survival (and a higher amount if we're talking about a reasonable quality of life... i.e. not being fed through a straw while being kept inside a cell to save space).

(3) If population growth is allowed to continue indefinately, we will eventually hit this limit.

And once that limit is hit the Earth will sort itself out, it always does, needless to say it wont be the western world suffering the brunt of the consequences, since our contribution is small population wise. Thinking in terms of an "Earth" is far too broad, this is about the nation and the any others one cares about.

From what I can see in the world, we seem to be reaching a point where the upper limit is approaching (or has been passed, based on certain studies). Millions of people already live a quality of life which is unnacceptable: starvation, absolute poverty, disease etc. (random food for thought, could every individual in India and China, feasibly, be property owners?)

Let them solve their own problems, maybe if you were in China or India you could make a case for abortion - but here, there is absolutely no grounds.

Things might look ok from where you sit in your privaleged position but if you look elsewhere you'll find truly grim circumstances. The fact that you 'dont care if the third world executes their children' shows the weakness of your 'moral' stance.

I spent most of my childhood in a country where the average income was 5 times less than the average Australian one, through those kinds of times and the ones here one learns a few things about "privalege." Circumstances happen because people themselves create them, if people in India wish to have 10 children each let them suffer the consequences, here the case is opposite in terms of population - the fact that I "dont care" does not reflect whether I think its right or wrong, simply that each society makes its own rules, and the world is made up of hundreds of societies we call countries. What other societies decide is their business.

The justifications that are given for selfish or state-centric ethics are poor - if you're going to hold an ethical stance on an issue then it should hold universally, or at least without descrimination.

Why? Ideas should be pragmatic, not bound by your conception of "universality"

 

[$hiftyIceQueen]

No better they be completely illegal, multiple times scarcer and women who have them in the illigality suffer the consequences of abortions being non medicalised.

What if the womans health was at risk, and she had to have an abortion?

 

[bshoc]

What if the womans health was at risk, and she had to have an abortion?

Only if probable death of the woman would result, if you can only save the woman, save the woman (yes).

 

[bshoc]

A child born prematurely, and living the rest of life with a disability such as Cerebral Paulsy created the situation for themselves? Or their parents MADE the Prem birth happen? Your reasoning is shallow at best.

Its not personal circumastances that were discussed as such.

 

[ElendilPeredhil]

I'm conflicted. I'm pro choice. but i think abortions aren't a procedure one should enter into willy nilly.

I don't think that a human being is a human being upon the moment the sperm meets the egg so essentially an early abortion, IMO, is like cutting your fingernails or your hair- they're just cells.

You are destroying a possibility, not a life.

I don't think rape victims shoudl be forced to keep a visible reminder of their ordeal and raise it.

Regaring kids with lifelong disabilites...yeah, it varies from case to case, but basically, what kind of life is it? What kind of a life will a severly mentally disabled, blind and deaf child have? You have to weigh that with the parents, who are saddled for the rest of their lives with a child who would need constant, 24 hour care. When they are 80 and their child is 50 physically, he/she would still be 1 or 2 mentally, still need the same amount of care.
On the other hand, maybe the parents give up their kid, maybe they can't handle the responsibility, in whihc case the state pays an enormous amount of money to keep the child in care for the 80+ years it lives. Abortion in this case, not only makes sense morally ( although I realise some people would disagree here) but also economically- maybe appeal to you bshoc?

"No better they be completely illegal, multiple times scarcer and women who have them in the illigality suffer the consequences of abortions being non medicalised."

Isn't that a little harsh? Why do you care so much for possible life i.e a foetus, and not any for actual life- those women.

 

[Captain Gh3y]

If you knew a woman who was pregnant, and she had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis; would you recommend that she have an abortion?

(sorry)