Why do you insist on bashing religion even if the subject clearly doesn't have any religious connotation? Has Slashdot turned into Reddit?

Is the idea behind this to harass religious people so much that they quit Slashdot? Is the immaturity on your part really necessary?

Sulfur causes acid rain. Yes, a lot of sulfur is emitted by volcano - but this is usually quite a bit away from population centers.

There is no shortage of metals - most of the earth is metal. The problem is that it is difficult to dig deep enough.

already has a semi-developed heart or nervous system is conscious, means that *every* mammal is conscious and should be due the same rights as you would grant a human.

Every mammal is conscious. But being conscious does not mean that it is human (and should have human considerations). There are many other things to consider (such as being self-aware).

Your arguments are biased in the extreme, and you only pull in science or logic when it suits your case ...

Yet your argument is completely devoid of science and logic. Your argument that abortion is correct because a foetus isn’t conscious is scientifically wrong (a foetus is conscious, so is all other mammals).

And I'm tired of arguing with someone who is not prepared to even modify their stance based on debate.

Did you modify or change your stance during this debate? You argued that abortion should be legal because a foetus isn’t conscious – in many cases it is (and other mammals are also). You did not come with another argument of why abortion should be allowed.

I know that it is the populist opinion on Slashdot that abortion is a good and moral thing – yet you do not give any justification for it.

I think that at this point in the debate we can only agree to disagree.

Because it is quite viable for a premature born baby to survive after 7 months gestation without any aid.

Again, there are many 7th month old babies that will not survive outside the womb (or without machine assistance). The only reason why young foetuses do not survive is because of lung development. Is someone on a heart and lung machine alive or not?

As far as I know, there is no case of a 3 month old gestated foetus surviving outside the womb, even with the miracles the doctors can perform today.

Again, the abortion limit is not 3 months. There are many cases of babies surviving *before* the US abortion date (24-26 weeks), with some even surviving as young as 21 weeks.

It has been mandated by law that a 7 month shall not be aborted because it is viable outside the womb, and therefore by a scientific definition, it is a life.

This is circular reasoning. Because someone is mandated by law, it is not a scientific definition. A scientific definition would be based on factors such as consciousness, etc It is a “legal” definition that a foetus at that stage isn’t a life.

The viability criterion does not hold up to any other circumstances. There are many cases where babies and adults are dependent on machine assistance for life, yet they are not treated as “non-viable” (i.e. non-human). The same with babies after the “cut-off” date – many of them are not viable, yet they are treated as alive.

Even the Supreme Court judge stated that this date is arbitrary. Here is what he said:

You will observe that I have concluded that the end of the first trimester is critical. This is arbitrary, but perhaps any other selected point, such as quickening or viability, is equally arbitrary

Can't you even acknowledge the difference between a gestation period of something that is 3 months old and something that is 7 months old ?

Yes, just as I can acknowledge the difference between the age of an old person or a child. (In roman times children had less rights than adults can could have been killed by the head of the household).

Fine, if you have such an objection to "the taking of a life", I assume you must also be a vegetarian, and that you have never killed a cockroach or swatted a fly ? Because that is plainly "murder" by your definition.

I have an objection to taking the life of a human being.

At the end of the day, when staying within what is the current "laws" regarding abortion, it is the choice of the mother, not the state, not the church, no one else.

Why can’t a mother then abort a child at 8 months? Why does the evil state prevent her?

It is cool with you that the father doesn’t have any say in his unborn child?

As I again said, the current immoral laws may be laws – but it doesn’t make them any less immoral than the multitude of immoral laws there were in the past. Abortion laws are the ultimate law for the hedonistic and self-centered generation Y.

Since I present the majority, I doubt it :) But there is a saying about thieves... :P Check out this map, nice company [wikipedia.org]

Yes. Slavery was also practiced a few centuries ago by the majority of countries. Yet it is now condemned by the majority of countries.

Similarly, if a fetus does not want or desire anything, it is properly not immoral to kill it. So the question would rather be if a fetus about 12 weeks (still going by local law) desires life. I sincerely doubt that, though I am really no expert.

Any organism does not want to be killed. Whether it vocalises it or not, it is a fact of life. A good example again is a newborn baby. A newborn baby cannot vocalise whether it wants to live or not. It probably doesn’t reason that way – but I am pretty sure that there is an innate desire to life (otherwise they would not eat, etc). Is it moral to kill a newborn baby?

We do not know, as can easily be inferred by the fact that we cannot objectively measure intelligence at all.

Innate intelligence in adult humans can be measured btw, using factor analysis (called the general intelligence factor). All evidence point to the fact that there is a neurobiological basis for intelligence.

I think you screwed up the prose here, at least I cannot make head from tails of it.

You compare a foetus to an animal and say it is okay to kill an animal, therefore okay to kill a foetus. The two comparisons that are used (intelligence and consciousness) is however shaky. A newborn baby has a lower intelligence than many animals and a foetus is conscious. Animals are also conscious (as is babies) – so, what does consciousness have to do with deciding whether it is okay to kill a foetus/baby/animal?

It is one of the cases where I think that the experts should draw the line.

Experts are divided. In the USA a system was thought up by judges (who themselves labelled it arbitrary). The limit in the USA is about 24-28 weeks. This is termed by “viability” – the ability of a foetus to live outside the mother’s womb. Note that there have been premies who survived at 21 weeks. The reason why babies do not survive at such a young age is because the lungs don’t develop surfactants.

It has nothing to do with cognitive development and everything to do with the development of the lungs.

Ah, but we do not. It is always understood as a self-reflective concept; you have to be aware of a "you" to be conscious.

The quote I gave you is the textbook definition of consciousness (Princeton wordnet). The Cambridge dictionary def. is similar. What you are probably referring to is self-awareness. What is interesting about this is that it develops in about the first year of a baby’s life (i.e. a newborn baby is not self-aware in any meaningful sense).

Note that several other primates, dolphins and elephants are also self-aware.

Most people thinks otherwise.

Popular opinion on abortion is (in most countries) equally divided. In most countries abortion laws are not passed through referendum or through legislative actions, but through judicial activism.

Also note that throughout history, there have been various actions and views that were popular, but morally wrong (e.g. Iraq war, Nazi movement, slavery, etc).

lol. Or maybe you have no humor? ;)

Or you are a psychopath?

An no, saying "infanticide" is silly conversational trick in itself; Killing a person against its will is what matters, not if it was a child or an adult or whatever.

Or a foetus? Most unborn babies do not want to be killed (as most living things do not want to be killed).

Concerning abortion the breaking point is whether the fetus is more or less a person than say a pig, which we will happily kill for convenience. (Or a dog, or whatever).

This is an extremely bad line of reasoning. Babies have intelligence lower than many animals. Is a mentally handicapped person less of a person? Is it okay to kill a baby (that is one of the reasonings used to justify infanticide btw. The other is that a baby “doesn’t have a personality yet”)

Around here it is 12 weeks. You can debate the exact limit, of course, I am no expert.

In most countries it is around 20 weeks (for the convenience) and as high as 26 weeks.

What matter is whether the fetus is conscious or not, or if such a line cannot be drawn, more conscious than say a dog.

If we define consciousness as “knowing and perceiving; having awareness of surroundings and sensations and thoughts” then foetuses are conscious well before the limit of abortions. I also want to note that consciousness is an extremely bad indicator. Many people are unconscious – yet you still do not have a right to kill them (e.g. patients with serious head trama, etc).

Claiming that slavery and abortion is in any way related was vile, and you know it.

Why? They are both some of the most barbaric things practiced by man.

My second point (possibly badly worded) meant to say that in the cases of rape / incest, there *is* no choice in contraception ... therefore it isn't effective to say "using contraception is an alternative to abortion".

In the case of incest there isn’t. In the case of rape there is (if the rape is reported within 36 hours). Victims of rape are usually given anti-retrovirals, strong anti-biotics and medicines that prevent the release of egg cells (after the rape happened).

In general terms, I am saying that the *only* person who is qualified to make the decision whether something is "justified" or not is the person who will spend the next 9 months carrying it,

No, it is not. Firstly, why are abortions in the 7th months illegal? You could use the same line of argumentation (only the person who is qualified to make the decision is the person who will spend the next 2 months carrying it and the next 21 years nurturing it).

You also seem to ignore the fact that a large amount of abortions are coerced (either through the father of the child, the parents of the women or the employer).

Secondly, there are things such as adoption. I find it strange that murder is acceptable to save a person the convenience of carrying a baby for 9 months. I guess that in today’s convenience society we want our McDees and will not tolerate any inconvenience (however minor).

Unwanted children are often unloved and abused, simply perpetuating the cycle of rape, incest etc into the next generations.

There are many orphans who turned out to be highly successful individuals (I grew up in a town with a large orphanage). If there is a problem with the care of orphans in a country, then that is a problem that needs to be addressed.

It was a) me and b) a joke pertaining to the reply I replied to.

Your post wasn’t a joke. If you think it was a joke then you have no taste.

You tried a vile conversational trick, and were called out. I

Really? So you do not see any similarity between abortion and infanticide?

And around here, anti-abortion really is considered old-fashioned fringe thinking.

So? Modern society is surprisingly lacking in moral values. Abortion is something that is probably two millennia old and even the moral justification that people now use (i.e. that a fetus before 26 weeks is not a human) is based on Victorian era religious pseudo-science (the so called “quickening”).

So, I would say that pro-abortion justification is really old fashioned pseudo-science.

So what you are saying is we should issue all rapists with condoms, and the problem is solved yeah ?

Rape and incest account for less than 1% of abortions. This is unfortunately used to justify lifestyle abortions.

Contraception is only effective *if* you choose to use it.

So, according to you, somebody is justified to have multiple abortions because they are too lazy to use contraception?

Yes, we really should be making sure rapists all wear condoms and then force birth control pills down their victim's throats once their done!

This is a really bad line of argumentation. Research (such as those by the Guttmacker institute) says that less than 1% of abortions is due to rape or incest and less than 4% is due to fetal malformation (these are the reasons that are usually touted).

In the case of rape the victim can use medicines that prevents egg cells from being released.

Oh, and you know that more than 40% of abortions are second time abortions? (i.e. by women who had abortions before). They just couldn't be bothered to use contraception.

And there's certainly no way contraceptive methods could ever *gasp* fail!

The abortion rate is much higher than any imaginable failure rate for contraception. The biggest reason why contraception fails is *because it is not used*. If double contraception is used, then the failure rate is extremely low.

That has got to be the stupidest argument against abortion I have heard yet.

I did not state an argument (however you like to construe it). I stated my opinion - that abortion is a vile, barbaric and unnecessary practice that has no place in a civilised society. I stated my opinion in contrast the above poster's opinion (that you do not have a problem with). To quote, he said:

As for the anti-abortion, they just *need* to be dragged screaming and kicking into the century of the fruitbat.

You'd like to think that individuals who are opposed to preventing unwanted children would be standing in line for the opportunity to adopt such children and raise them in a loving environment.

I know many people who are adopted (and who adopted children themselves). Adoption is never easy (and it is a lifelong commitment). And yeah, the only orphanage in my town is run (and funded) by one of those evil churches who are opposed to abortion.

As for the anti-abortion, they just *need* to be dragged screaming and kicking into the century of the fruitbat.

Really? Slavery, abortion and infanticide is all centuries old. Unfortunately only two of these barbaric practices were stopped. Even the rationale for abortion has become weaker (since the efficacy of contraception greatly increased).

It is the pro-abortion folks who need to be dragged into the "century of the fruitbat".

"Fuck Star of David" pic on phone

I wonder if you tried that with a Fuck and a picture of Mohammed in other middle eastern countries.

What's wrong with visiting an arab country? or do you believe in enclosing a race to their own land and prevent them from outside contact?

The reverse is actually true. Try to get a VISA from an Arab country with an Israeli stamp (you can't) - the solution is to get a clear passport. Israel will actually give out VISAs even if you have Arabian country stamps in your passport.

I as neither a Jew or a Muslim feel much safer in Israel than Arab countries (except Dubia).