[KillerGremlin]

Originally Posted by Vampyr

It's embarrassing that someone with a thinking mind would call aborting a mass of cells not capable of thought as murder. A few weeks before my last school year was out there was a huge protest on campus of "pro-life" people, which all these pictures of "babies dying", and all these signs up saying "Warning: Genocide" ahead. They compared it to the holocaust. One of the professors at my campus, who is Jewish and teaches the Holocaust said to one of the people, "How dare you compare this to the Holocaust."

I have to ask, what is the difference between a 1-year old and a 15-year old? The 1-year old is less developed, so certainly it is less entitled to life than the 15-year old, right? You haven't clearly stated where you stand on when life begins, but at DNA fertilization a human is indeed conceived. Maybe it's not called a baby yet, but it still has life or life potential. Killing that baby may not seem as squeamish as killing a man, but you essentially remove the potential for future life from that living thing, which is morally reprehensible according to MANY people, not just religious folk (I inject the religious folk thing because some people associate morals with religion, however many moral codes have absolutely nothing to do with religion. I just wanted to clarify that). However, by adding the "Holocaust survivor" bs to your statement, you are simply sensationalizing it in an effort to evoke some sort of sympathy out of your argument. It's a clever ploy but it's not going to work on me. I don't really give a rats ass what your professor did or what horrible suffering he went through, that has very little bound on the topic at hand, which is abortion.

Edit: It sounds like you got suckered into your professor's clever sensationalism too. Abortion, by some definitions, is comparative to ending a human life. Your professor has an easy topic to work with; the Holocaust was terrible, so certainly it must be worse than abortion. Your professor completely negated to have an argument. I hope your professor teaches a math or a science and not an English or philosophy or psychology class.

Originally Posted by Vampyr

And did you even consider a situation where having the baby could kill the mother? If my girlfriend and future wife were to be in this situation, I would surely choose her over an unborn.

If the abortion is premeditated, that is to say, if the mother knows she is killing the baby, by many moral codes this is reprehensible. It is morally wrong. You are thinking in terms of reactions, not moral standards, and in a sense you are actually missing out on a great argument.

Originally Posted by Vampyr

It is the woman's right to reproduce, and no one else has the right to tell her how to use her body, and force her into dying because something not even human yet should live.

This is a sensationalist argument, but certainly one that has some truths. I agree, if a woman has to choose between her life or her unborn child's she should be able to make that choice. What I can't agree with is that if she chose to abort that child that it would be morally permissible.

Originally Posted by Vampyr

And what if you know that the baby is going to be horribly defected at birth? Do they deserve to live a life worse than death?

You aren't in a position to answer that question because you aren't deciding if you want to live or die. I can't answer that question either. But, I would hope that a parent would not make a morally reprehensible decision to abort their child because they found it it will be born with down syndrome. There is such a thing as adoption.

Edit: I am playing devil's advocate with this point, as I already stated in response to Bond that I put slightly different values on human life at certain times. However, it still remains morally reprehensible to have an abortion in my mind. I'm mainly trying to stimulate a reaction or argument from you, as I'm curious to where you stand and I think if you give some more thought into your statement you might write out a more interesting response.

Originally Posted by Vampyr

The potential for life isn't life, otherwise every guy who masturbates or every woman that has a period should be labeled as serial killers.

This is absolutely NOT TRUE. Read the biology stuff I posted.

Originally Posted by Vampyr

If an unborn is a human, then why doesn't the census count them? Why don't they have funerals for miscarriages? For that matter, why aren't woman who miscarriage tried for accidental manslaughter? Why do people say "we have two kids and one on the way" rather than "we have three kids." They. Are. Not. Human.

Again, read what I posted about abortions in nature


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I don't want to nitpick, but if this is the path down which future arguments will go in this thread, I foresee this quickly heading the direction of our last politics thread.