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Originally written by Thuryl:

Not until you explain to me why you apparently think it's always wrong to kill people.

Anyway, I'm not sure I want to debate with someone who's so out of touch with reality as to say that the costs of enforcing laws "aren't significant". Every criminal case that goes to court costs many thousands of dollars.

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Originally written by Dolphin:

Arguably plants do hold some sort of feeling and reaction to stimuli. No creature could survive without eating another. Relatively speaking cows, chickens, and fish are lower on the evolutionary chain.

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<If a person tried to kill your dog this would not bother you? After all it's just a dog to you, and they are a human.>
True by societies standards a human holds more value than a dog. This dose not mean that dogs don't have feelings or sensations similar to humans. It is illegal to beat your pets, and people do go to jail for doing that.

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True we as a species have far greater mental capacity than that of most other creatures. This does not make you better than them. I could argue that there are some humans that not only are less intelligent than some animals, but the also behave much worse towards each other.

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My answer to your comment on a child being was molested was not fully answered because a born child (or animal) being abused is torture. We are talking in circles about the issue of conciseness, so it is a waste of time to talk about it over and over.

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Your reaction to my comment about rape shows complete lack of sensitivity to women, and it was quite an ignorant statement.

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Originally written by Thuryl:

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But that's what we're debating here, isn't it? Plus, in many countries (such as mine), it's murder.

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I live in a country where abortion is legal

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Hmm. I wonder which one is the lie.

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Originally written by Kelandon:

But (as is your habit) you are again missing the point. I just made a comparison of cost-benefit ratios for enforcement of a law against abortion versus funding better sex education programs, not enforcement of a law against abortion versus nothing at all.

I don't have statistics for what enforcement of the law in Portugal costs, but I suspect that putting that money into sex education would have a greater effect.

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Prevention in the first place. But there must be a remedy, just in case things go wrong... So that's not an argument to legalize abortion. There must be sex education AND making abortions criminal.

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Originally written by Inegalite:

Build the house at the north pole. That's a task in itself, mind you.

—Alorael, who needs to find or make a clever riddle of his own.

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Originally written by Kelandon:

Several of my beta testers are more experienced testers than I am a designer, so I don't bother giving people like Thuryl or Imban instructions. I give first-timers some instructions.

"[T]he idea is that you should play this scenario all the way through, looking for bugs, problems, logical errors, or anything else to comment on before release to the general public (including, perhaps, anything that you particularly like about the scenario, which is also quite useful). Try to explore around, checking on all the details."

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If we want to reduce the number of abortions, we have several choices. One obvious choice is to make it illegal. This requires a certain amount of money and effort for police enforcement, investigation of claims of violation, court proceedings, etc.

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Another obvious choice is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place by promoting adequate sex education.

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Originally written by Zephyr Tempest:

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Originally written by EviL_TiM:

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Originally written by Zephyr Tempest:

Almost everyone wants to be with me.
They love to be with me.
Some strive to escape me.
They hate being with me.
Many try to never leave me.
My brother will try to snatch you from me.
Eventually, he will.
When he does, you many never be with me again.

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Life?

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Correct.
(Easy) And what was "brother" referring to?

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Originally written by Thuryl:

"Murder" is a legal term. Legally, abortion is not murder.

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Originally written by ef:

I have been taught that it takes two to tango.

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If abortions were made illegal now, those who can afford to pay will still have the proper medical care, within or without the country; those who cannot pay take a greater risk.

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And when it was made legal, the abortion rate did not skyrocket. It remained what it had been, more or less. Women are not so keen on abortions, even if they decide to have one.

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Unmarried women who have children are not socially stigmatized over here, but they do need better working conditions during their kid's early childhood. They cannot work fulltime and halftime gets them not enough money. They need something in between and more flexible hours. Otherwise they have to choose between social welfare and abortion. Women with low salaries find it easier to accept welfare for a while than women in good positions who cannot reduce their working hours without losing the job. A woman in a good position would also never contemplate to carry a child to term and then opt for adoption. Her career and her reputation would both be ruined.

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Originally written by Dolphin:

Overwhelming-

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Then I guess you concept of human life is somewhat limited. Hey, even animals have thoughts and feelings.

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[quote] Most animals, specially mammals, have heartbeat, brain waves and reaction to stimuli. Are you saying there's no scientific way to differenciate humans from animals? Then why not let someone rape and kill you? We're just animals.

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Sure, it's a better care to murder the preborn baby. *sigh* I repeat: if you see your neighbour molesting a child, would you do nothing, because you couldn't adopt that child? Your argument has nothing to do with the abortion issue.

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A child being molested is hardly an appropriate comparison.

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Somewhere you say you want to have children someday. How will you explain to your son that, if he had appeared at the wrong time, you would have killed him? Maybe: "Hey, cheer up! I would have had killed you when you were not a human being! You would have been just a blob of cells or an embryo!"

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Also I agree that labeling abortion as murder in a debate comes off as hostile.

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Originally written by Thuryl:

Failing to save a drowning man is indirectly killing him too, but that's not illegal. If I evict a tenant from my house and he dies of starvation, I'm not legally responsible, even if I knew he wouldn't survive without a roof over his head.

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Originally written by Thuryl:

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No, I'm not missing your point. I'm just pointing to you that your analogy can't be applied, as we have not property, to start with.

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I repeat yet again: the embryo is not the stolen property, the uterus is, and the embryo is the innocent who has come into possession of the stolen property. How hard is it for you to pay attention to what I write?

In fact, the analogy applies not only in cases of pregnancy due to rape, but also in cases of pregnancy due to simple carelessness. There's a concept called "theft by finding": if you find lost property worth more than a certain value, it's illegal for you to keep it; it must be returned to its owner. If a woman inadvertently loses control over the occupancy of her uterus, she's entitled to retain it by evicting its current occupant.

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Originally written by Bad-Ass Mother Custer:

Those abortions will mostly happen whether or not abortion is illegal.

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In addition, illegalizing abortion in cases where carrying to term is impossible guarantees two deaths, whereas allowing it allows for (using your death-standard) only one.

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Originally written by Bad-Ass Mother Custer:

The discussion is getting derailed again, and it's Overwhelming's doing. We have a paradigm here, and that's legitimacy of government intervention.

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For your consideration, abortion still occurs in countries where it is illegal; it is just kept quiet and usually involves considerably greater risk to the carrier.
The question we are answering here is this: should the government effectively impose that risk by forcing abortion into the back-alley? Do the social benefits outweigh the costs?

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Originally written by Drakefyre:

Is an egg a chicken? At one point, not long before it hatches, an egg houses a chicken. Before that, it most certainly is not. And I feel the same way about a fetus.

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Originally written by ef:

More calmly now, what made me feel like going on a killing spree: the mounting disregard for the pregnant woman's life situation, and her value as a human being brought down to be a vessel for a child.

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It is not the purview of the State to decide moral issues, but rather to legislate on issues as relate to the public good. The clearest benefit to the public good is given by laws which allow for legal and safe abortion;

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Originally written by Thuryl:

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Sure. [sarcasm]It was the embryo who chose to be there. He's the guilty one, the criminal and the parasite. So let's kill it.[/sarcasm]

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Again, you are missing my point. Legally, stolen property must be confiscated and returned to its original owner even if the person currently in possession of it is completely innocent of any wrongdoing, regardless of how badly the person currently in possession of it may need it. Why should this be any different?

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Originally written by Dolphin:

What is it you want references for? To prove it's not alive? I never said it wasn't a living blob.

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Going back to the Ameba comment. I'm saying it is not “human” in the sense of now having, or ever having thoughts or feelings.

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The only scientific test for this would be that of a heartbeat, brain waves, and reaction to stimuli. A first trimmest embryo has none of these.

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Every debate on this involves morals, religion, ethics, and personal preference. Little is said about this that is strictly science. This is because this is more a human concept of right and wrong that it is of protecting the quality of life of the masses.

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What it sounds like you want to do is put them into the world without a true care of what becomes of them after that. To say there should be government organization to fund the care of unwanted children is unrealistic.

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Anti-choice people are always talking about what “should” be done to protect the potential lives, but there is currently no care available once the babies are born.

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What will happen to them? They will live their fist 18 years in some sort of childcare facility, (assuming there is space for them in the fist place.) and finally will be sent out into the world to fend for themselves having no parental guidance or love. This doesn't sound to me like it will build happy productive humans.

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You say, “at least they are alive”, the embryo was never conscious in the fist place; it didn't know it was alive.

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Because they are idealists, Creator, Overwhelming, do you two eat meat?

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