How To Finally Resolve the Abortion Debate

I havn't ignored anything. But anyways thanks for the straight answers here, even though I disagree with some of it.
I am curious though... you say that a fetus gains rights at birth but gains protections at 23 weeks...
What is the difference between rights and protections in your view?

Not sure where/how you got that idea from what you were quoting. I have repeatedly stated... and I will state it one more time, that of course the pregnant woman has rights. The question here is how to balance those rights against the rights of the unborn. And you of course have stated that you feel the unborn does not have rights until they are born. I and many others disagree with that notion and feel that the unborn should be thought to have rights as a living being a bit before that point. Again, my personal stance is that the point should be based on mental life, pain perception, and or viability which occurs within the 23-29 week time-frame.

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Note, if you have to reference someone elses argument(s) when replying to something,
that's usually a pretty good indication that you're constructing a strawman.

Anyways, if you want my personal stance on exceptions for rape, here it is.
Again, prefacing this with my position that the cutoff line for abortion should be
based on mental life, pain perception, and or viability and placed between 23-29 weeks.

I think that for abortions after that point, exceptions for rape may make sense depending on the circumstances, because there is less culpability on the woman's side in that case. This isn't to say that I don't feel a 29 week old fetus shouldn't have rights if it was created through rape, the rights of a fetus are the same regardless of whether it was created through rape or not.

Ideally of course, any abortion, whether due to rape or not, it would be preferable that it happen prior to the 23-29 week time-frame. In the circumstance that we find ourselves at 29 weeks though and the woman wants an abortion, then I say that the rights of a fetus and the rights of woman both still exist but are in conflict. They are in conflict if the pregnancy was a result of rape, and they are also in conflict if the pregnancy was not a result of rape. In other words, there is no great win-win resolution here, either you give one set of rights precedence over the other, or you assume as you do that one of them doesn't have any rights.

So the question that then comes to my mind in either case is who is responsible for creating such a regrettable set of circumstances? My view is that if the woman had control of kicking things off and then chose to voluntarily wait for 29 weeks before trying to get an abortion, assuming that there weren't any external factors preventing her from getting an abortion before 29 weeks, and that there are no other extenuating circumstances, then I believe the rights of the 29+ week old fetus should be given priority in that case. If the woman doesn't have any control though, such as in the case of rape, then of course, it would still be best for the abortion to happen before that 29 week point, but that slight reduction in culpability along with the added emotional physical and physiological stress that can come from something like rape not to mention the ramifications for the fetus itself were it to be born... leads me to think that priority should then be given to the woman's rights in that case.

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That isn't a terrible point, but the problem is a fetus doesn't really have a choice in the matter.

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Just... abortions in general...

If you think that the cutoff point should be different based on different sets of conditions,
then what exactly are those conditions in your opinion, and how do you feel they should change where the cutoff line is?

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Straightforward explanation. I like that, even if I have a different opinion.
Anyways, I went ahead and marked you down for option D in the Abortion Ranked Vote thread.
But you should drop by there anyway. You can, if you want, add backup options to your vote in case option D does not win.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...te-how-should-the-law-handle-abortion.539893/

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You should vote for that in the Abortion Vote thread.
I think that options G, J, K, L, and M would be right up your alley.
Also, it seems we both pretty much share the same position on this.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...te-how-should-the-law-handle-abortion.539893/

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Perhaps. BTW, in case you didn't know, there's actually a politicalforum vote regarding the issue going on right now.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index...te-how-should-the-law-handle-abortion.539893/
You should vote too.

In that case, if you want, I can just mark you down for option A, B, and or C in the vote thread.
But like I was telling Josephwalker, you should go to the thread and pick out some backup
options in case options A, B, and or C don't win (which they probably wont, they don't seem that popular)

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...te-how-should-the-law-handle-abortion.539893/

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I'm not concerned at all with the number of abortions. I'm not really concerned with how countries compare against one another abortion-wise either, though I do think considering the pitfalls various other countries may have experienced is a good idea. But what I'm really interested in here is simply where the cutoff line for abortion should be placed morally and legally speaking, and what the exceptions to that cutoff line should be. Keep in mind, there is more than just one position on this; it isn't a case of either, all abortions must be allowed, or all abortions must be outlawed. I'm also very interested in just simply getting folks to realize that there is more than one position, and also I'd like to hopefully get folks to start using better arguments to justify their positions regardless of what they are.

BTW, you should vote in the abortion Ranked vote thread too Bowerbird.
I know you're in Australia and all, but that particular vote isn't meant to be U.S. specific.
Even though I talk a lot about how our country (the U.S.) needs to change this or that and how this or that state needs to stop trying to skirt around our own rules,... I want more for that vote thread to be thought of as more of a representation of what we as a forum think, rather than just specifically what the U.S. forum members-only feel.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...te-how-should-the-law-handle-abortion.539893/

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Hmm, well, can't say that I agree with that. But if you really do believe it yourself, you should vote for it in the Abortion poll thread.
Or, if you want, I can just mark you down for B, and or C, which I think is about what you're looking for...

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...te-how-should-the-law-handle-abortion.539893/

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That seems like a pretty rational stance to take. You should vote in the Abortion Ranked Vote Thread too.
Options E, F, and or L are probably close to what you're looking for,... though based on what you wrote here,
I'm guessing that you might actually prefer one of the other options if possible?
Like I was telling Josephwalker and Nonnie, if you vote in that Ranked poll, you can, if you chose,
specify a whole list of backup options in case your number one preference doesn't get enough support to win.

http://www.politicalforum.com/index...te-how-should-the-law-handle-abortion.539893/

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Why would you say that? Of course sovereign countries should be allowed to each make the decision by themselves on how to handle it. What I was saying there is that I didn't want forum-members from other countries to feel left out or as if the vote thread wasn't for them to participate in. That the idea here is to gain an understanding of what this forum, politicalforum, of which those members are a part of, feels on the issue. Do you think there is a problem with that?

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I wouldn't say poll results would be worthless. They give us a good idea of what the most liked positions are. Keep in mind that even taking out the foreign posters (assuming there were actually an easy way to do that), politicalforum isn't exactly one-to-one representative of the entire country to begin with. Its merely a slice, a small cross-section of the people and the way they feel. But that cross-section can give us hints on how others might feel, as well as highlighting top options which people not particularly in tune with the debate at all might be likely to find appealing if they were promoted more. Of course, if we could get an accurate one-to-one representation of the country (or the states as you said below) then that would be ideal, but such a thing ain't easy to do.

And at any rate, I don't think Bowerbird was planning on coming to the U.S. and starting a riot over abortion.
Then again, I guess I should let her speak for herself, lol!

I agree. That would be interesting.

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Last Chance to Vote in the Abortion Voting thread!
Ranked Vote: How Should the Law Handle Abortion?

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