You know what really grinds my gears? RAPE-UBLICANS

[Mystical]

Your argument fails because rape is something done to a consciously self-aware person.

So you support rape as long as the victim is unconscious?

He gotcha there, Rahul.

Denying safe abortions to women kills and maims women.

So you’d save 47,000 people by killing 21,600,000 people? What kind of math is this?

Don't tell me you're a "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" type of guy now, that would undermine your value of all life.

So in the case of rape your advice would be to just suck it up and take one for the team?

Take one for the baby; mothers have done that for thousands of years prior to abortion on demand. Parents will endure a lot for the wellbeing and life of their children, and I praise them for it. However, I smell the red herring fallacy. Would you support illegalizing all abortions accept those pertaining to rape, incest, and the life of the mother?

Mothers have also aborted their babies for centuries, too. Not to mention the kind of life one leads as a rape-baby and rape-baby-momma. Yes, a bit of an appeal to emotion there. But it's a real statistic, a real situation, with real people, and real consequences. Not all people can have those rape babies and look the face of their rapist down every day with love. Are you as a governing body going to pay for these kids to be raised? Are kids that are alive now (under responsibility of the state) being raised adequately in any shape or form? I'd say that's a big fat no.
Unprecedented populations are what's new in this debate, Statler. What are your sides' plans to combat these issues? Because there's someone with a plan for those babies, and it involves money. Lots and lots, of money.

I believe you're fighting a losing battle, Statler. That's why I'm talking to you about this. I've been arguing the very stance you face.

No, more Americans are pro-life today than in any time since Roe. We have logic, morality, and science on our side, the other side can only make appeals to emotionalism.

Prove to me more Americans are pro-life today than at any time since Roe--you said it, Pics or it didn't happen.

From my POV in Colorado, one of the most secular states in the union:

The initiative was proposed jointly by Kristine Burton and Michael Burton[9] of Colorado for Equal Rights.[10] Colorado Amendment 48 was a proposed initiative to amend the definition of a person to "any human being from the moment of fertilization." On November 4, 2008, the initiative was turned down by 73.2% of the voters.wikipedia Abortion In the United States

For one, I discounted your comparison because the legality of when a person is a person is not defined as how you believe it should be. So the comparison is non sequiter, and an appeal to emotion, thus invalid.

Prove my definition of a person is wrong; do not merely assert it is.

Right, you got me. Define personhood for me, in your opinion. Preferably the legal definition seeing as we're arguing the legalities of abortion. The distinctions between moral personhood, legal personhood and constitutional personhood are significant. What kind of personhood are you talking about?

Interesting to note:

According to Criminal Code:
223. (1) A child becomes a human being within the meaning of this Act when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother, whether or not
(a) it has breathed;
(b) it has an independent circulation; or
© the navel string is severed.

The official report of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, issued in 1983 after extensive hearings on the Human Life Amendment (proposed by Senators Orrin Hatch and Thomas Eagleton), stated:
“Thus, the [Judiciary] Committee observes that no significant legal barriers of any kind whatsoever exist today in the United States for a woman to obtain an abortion for any reason during any stage of her pregnancy.[4]”

One aspect of the legal abortion regime now in place has been determining when the fetus is "viable" outside the womb as a measure of when the "life" of the fetus is its own (and therefore subject to being protected by the state). In the majority opinion delivered by the court in Roe v. Wade, viability was defined as "potentially able to live outside the woman's womb, albeit with artificial aid. Viability is usually placed at about seven months (28 weeks) but may occur earlier, even at 24 weeks." 

The choice of saving herself or the baby should be hers.

That’s not how we do things in civilized societies; neither parent possesses the right to kill their innocent child. Think about what you are saying.

I don't know about yours, but in my "civilized society" the already formed and breathing being, aka: the mother--takes precedence over the baby in all trimesters.
Not to mention those cases where the fetus is going to be born into a horridly diseased life and is terminated 'humanely''. Or in cases where the mother's life is at risk which is completely legal in a many states, even before Roe vs Wade:



Illegal
Legal in case of rape
Legal in case of danger to woman's health
Legal in case of danger to woman's health, rape or incest, or likely damaged fetus
Legal on request

In Roe vs Wade, the Supreme Court ruled that a woman has a constitutionally guaranteed unqualified right to abortion in the first trimester of her pregnancy. She also has a right to terminate a pregnancy in the second trimester, although the state may limit that right when the procedure poses a health risk to the mother that is greater than the risk of carrying the fetus to term. In making its decision, the Court ruled that a fetus is not a person under the terms of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. However, the Court also maintained that the state has an interest in protecting the life of a fetus after viability—that is, after the point at which the fetus is capable of living outside the womb. As a result, states were permitted to outlaw abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy except when the procedure is necessary to preserve the life of the mother.

The way to this resolution barring of course: totalitarianism either direction, is free public funded contraception including the day after pill as well as support services provided to post rape victims, including access to the day after pill. If they refuse those services they should have to carry out the pregnancy through lack of another legal choice or file for an extension of decision making time.

That’s a possible alternative, although I would like to see more research on Plan B, the accepted position by the FDA is that it still causes an abortion, so you cannot reduce abortions by causing the same number of abortions. I would be open to a discussion about making abortions an emergency court-ordered procedure. That way they can still be available for all of the instances the pro-choice community always harps on, but they are not available as a means of birth control.

The day after pill supposedly keeps the egg from attaching to the walls of the uterus. They are not particularly palpable to the human body, I know from experience, and you're right: they aren't a feasible means of birth control. But boy are they handy if you were raped. Or if the boyfriend thinks he'll get you pregnant to keep you. I look back at my typical American girl circumstances: and the biggest hurdle for me was getting the birth control. But in all realities here, it's not an issue for girls who aren't educated or who don't care. What to do about those ones? Eat the cost of their babies (in welfare and childcare and education) as opposed to the day after pill? Or a one time cost abortion? I think from a monetary standpoint, again: abortion is going to win.

What would help is if Police could actually enforce the laws they represent. Like by processing those rape kits, getting the funding they need to do so. And giving a shit by actually prosecuting the big cases (like colleges) and taking the little cases just as serious. Girls shouldn't feel like no matter if they report or not, it wont matter. Thats what kept me from reporting in part. Why traumatize yourself anymore than you already are?

I agree with this.

Everyone agrees with this. Why is it an issue still? Monetary costs. Where are you going to pull the money from to give towards this direction? Would it not be simpler to use your millions to fight for birth control and rape judgments if you truly care about how many are going to die? Because fight or not, money, or not--there will be abortions. The only difference between your way and another is how many more lawyers and lobbyists get paid.

I also think deterrents like an appeal panel where a woman must account for why the contraceptives and day after pill didn't work, along with receiving fines (as well as the father) for women who want abortions, is in order. Along with a limit on what term of pregnancy is too fargone for an abortion.

A step in the right direction, but probably not harsh enough, we’re talking about killing babies here.

'We' might be, but what is the constitutional definition of a baby? That's what matters, in the end, after all. The law. Obviously it's not what we consider it to be. How do you plan on changing law? There's more money in aborting than saving the fetuses, hands down bar none: long term and short term repercussions considered. You still haven't proven how your side has science on its' side, either. Other than establishing when a fetus is viable outside the mothers' womb, which I've done for you..
Nor have you shown me how you plan to plow through established law with money "like the 'abolitionishts'" who, by the way, caused a civil war.

Overall if a reasonable system is made for people to adhere to and is enforced accordingly, they will start to conform and prevalence of abortions will drop. In a perfect world they'd stop. Not in my perfect world, but our perfect world. For us as a species. We could just fight eachother about it for years more, or we could start the road to reformation and answers.

I think you underestimate the power of the pro-choice movement, just look at how many outdated and illogical arguments they still use. They do not care if they are right, all they care about is getting abortions.

I checked out the National Abortion Federation, and they are indeed incorrect on the very science they claim 'anti-choice' proponents to be. They are also highly biased in their views. Maybe it's all the money. Either way, money and government have always been tied together. Maybe someone aught to fix that problem first, eh?

I think it's more amusing that you can't see how your entire argument here is one big exercise in question begging. Unless we assume your conclusion that abortion is murder from the outset, everything you've said here doesn't make sense. And yet, regardless of the position we take on abortion, Luckie's arguments still work.

Not sure how you define murder, but it doesn’t really matter; the taking of an innocent human life is murder, so therefore abortion is murder. You cannot get around that no matter how hard you try.

Are we talking about the moralistic murder of another human being, or the legal standpoint on the matter? The two vary, is why I ask.

I'd beg the question to both of you, what constitutes an HLA in criminal court, so that an unborn fetus can be considered a person in a murder case and why is this reasoning not applied to all unborn fetuses?