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A lot of people here have arrived from religious backgrounds so I was wondering what your feelings are about abortion. If you had one would guilt follow you around for the rest of your life? What would it take for you to make that decision? I guess mostly women will answer this. Does the fetus have a soul?
For me, pregnancy is no guarantee of life, spontaneous abortions happen, late term ones do, rape would for sure be a reason to have one but there are also other situations in which I would basically because I don't believe there is a god to answer to after death.

K9Kohle789 8 Aug 7
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62 comments (51 - 62)

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1

The only opinion I have is it is a woman’s choice.

1

Each and every case is different. My stance on this one is that it is almost impossible to have a one size fits all criteria.

@Allamanda No, that's not what I said.

@Allamanda Well, you are trapped in a loop here and there is nothing I can do about that. Once again, that's not what I am saying. Of course it's your choice to read it the way you want to read it.

0

Wow, that's a heavy and very sensitive topic... even outside of religion. Hopefully I can put my thoughts out here without sticking my foot in it big time.

We all pretty much have to decide what is best for ourselves and drawing a line at dictating other people's choices and needs should be held in serious check. I feel that it's only a potential for life that slowly grows stronger throughout the pregnancy but is not fully realized until after the birth. Until it can survive outside the womb it is still a part of the woman's body and what happens with it should be her decision.

For me it's a medical procedure to be decided between a woman and her doctor according to her needs. If she feels a need to include the man involved then by all means, her choice. I would think it a good idea to include him for most cases either way but still, her body, her choice. Making those choices for others is just wrong on too many levels to count. It is really not an easy decision to make and to be questioning or putting pressure on someone who needs to make such a decision is just cruel.

As for the soul, no one really knows or can prove one way or another what it is, if it's real and if it were real, when it would actually enter the body. Older traditions and beliefs mostly say after it's born anyway, as it takes it's first breath. In some eras and cultures it was not until a child was blessed and often after a certain age because infant mortality rates were high. It seems now that the medical has that more under control and survivability is at its best, people feel the need to argue, and dictate, and control the choices of others and use religion or spirituality as a control factor for it.

AmyLF Level 7 Aug 26, 2019
0

In an over-crowded World, abortion is an ugly necessity.

Abortion has always been a necessary option for some women. Over-population isn't even a consideration.
There's nothing "ugly" about it, either.

0

It's a sentimental question.

People need to keep their sentimentality over the issue to themselves.

0

This is a very interesting topic, as well as a touchy one. I agree with your stated opinions and would also add that illnesses might also be a reason to have one. As a cis man I will never have to make this decision towards myself but in a hypothetical relationship I might answer your first question. No, not guilt just a deep and profound sadness for the loss of what might have been but with the understanding that it was the right choice for the situation.

0

Each person's decision to make on their own, hopefully with support from others either way.

0

I personally would never recommend it and would try to convince my partner to not do it if she wanted (of course given that it is a normal no risk, well formed fetus), but i recognize that anyone should be free to do it.
And even if someone's think it is wrong, there is the argument that any anti abortion law is an useless law, this act is so particular and so easily done in secrecy or during some travel that forbidding it is just denying the quality of the service for the ones that can't pay for it. The only way to really enforce this kind of law would be to kill all privacy of citizens, and we really do not want it... right?

you don't think that the world is already overpopulated with humans and that they might be doing the world a favour. I am certainly against abortions for polar bears and koalas because they're endangered but there is nothing special about humans.....they're everywhere.

@MsDemeanour nah, we can sustain even 10 bi with current state technology, the problem is that we are uneven, we waste resources and the logistic infrastructure is in average very bad.
Plus, there are other more efficient ways of population control other than abortion, this discussion is not about it. I I was thinking about not having kids I would rather do a vasectomy for instance.

@Pedrohbds In just 30 yrs the world will have a population of near 10 billion. What do you propose then?

@MsDemeanour I suggest let people do their own choice. Besides we already broke Malthusian scaling of resources many times. Even if we do not do it now, what can we do? Forcefully sterilize people? Do like China and say 1 kid per person? (it did not work).
Anyway, birth rates are falling in all places, maybe we need only one more Malthusian break and we will achieve an equilibrium anyway.

0

I say go for it.

Edu_0 Level 4 Aug 7, 2019
0

Well - if I had an abortion I'd be rather surprised, actually. Being a man and all.

0

I reject all religious belief. However, as a Zen practitioner, I've accepted some of the Zen Buddhist rational about life and death. As such, I "imagine" that if there is a soul, it enters the fetus after the 4th month. So I have absolutely no problem with abortion through the 4th month. After that, it's a lot tougher decision.

That’s interesting, why the fourth month?

@Geoffrey51 I was never told why they (centuries ago) determined it was the fourth month. I surmised that they thought the fetus wasn't well enough developed to host the human spirit.

@mischl Sounds like a pretty sound assumption doesn’t it.

0

"a god to answer to" ... and in that tiny statement rests the entire problem with abrahamic religions and most conceptions of religion in the west.

Not all spiritual beliefs involve some judgmental being on high punishing those who don't meet his (usually) lofty moral standards. In some the word god is a pronoun vice a proper noun and such a mythical being is little more than a role model people try to emulate for success in life. For example - if you desired to play QB 100 years from now then Tom Brady might be a god. Or if you are an officer of the law maybe Wyatt Earp. Or if you're a lumberjack then Paul Bunyan. In many cultures of the east this is the concept of a god. Not someone who looks down on you for lapses in judgment according to some standard they set.

By that same token life is viewed different elsewhere for many also. This idea that 2 mortals copulate and somehow instantly produce a being with an eternal soul is a mythos of Abrahamic origin as well - dwelling mostly in the minds of westerners. Much of the world views our inner selves as consciousness that exists before human conception and extends beyond the life of this frail shell. To them that is part of science more than part of religion. It just happens to be science we have yet to comprehend. We see and conceive the concept of consciousness and believe we have found bits and pieces as "proof", but in the end we have no concrete evidence of either an Abrahamic soul or an eastern self. So both views are a matter of conjecture and both, as such, are equally ephemeral and carry equal weight as theory.

I leave you with all this to say that I believe in the eastern view on consciousness and as such abortion is just a lost opportunity to know another person. That is what is lost, not some eternal soul. To that extent it's sad as in a potential lost friend or relative. But the extreme condemnation from moral judgment isn't relevant to me. I find it silly.

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