There is a big difference between...

[fr0d0]

I'd like to fix the population being a problem (by finding more efficient ways of producing food..<snip>

There's a population problem because we're already too efficient at producing food. The production of rice and potatoes enabled support of very many more people per area. It's the other things we're raping the planet of that's the problem here. We're at viral mass and apparently can't reverse our own destructiveness.

How I think of it is this: If the would-be parents truly love the children they will have... I should expect them to love their children enough to wait on having them.

They love each other first. Children are the result of love & not necessarily planned (did you miss sex ed? )

As a side note: do you all realize how difficult it is to respond to 5 people at once?

Erm.. Yes! Welcome to the dark side!!!

[Eilonnwy]

On an interesting side note: Teen pregnancy seems to have a correlation with a state's religiosity: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32884806/ns/...parenting/

[Violet]

Eilon... I will not apologize for making conclusions on how the facts were presented (I do apologize that I cut you down though). Circumstances are just this: circumstantial. They are evidential of nothing. I have debated this with simple logic... and I refuse to apologize for you having brought up your own circumstances. We all have our own lives, and all of our lives are different... and in this way all of our lives are similar. All of us have little pieces of personal evidence we can cite... and I could cite my own, as you have. But what would the point be? I could let you understand what I am coming from, and exactly every reason why I need to be free to make my own choices... but then I would be telling you too much, and you would argue that I don't really need what I truly need.

We always try our best to do what is right... but we are often wrong.

You tell me to grow up a little more... but I ask you: what will that help? You are convinced I am wrong, yet you have given only generalizations and circumstances as your evidence. I should like to turn your statement upon you, the "grow up a little more, it isn't all about you" statement... but how would that help you? You will come away with no more understanding than will have I. Logical debate though... that will allow one such as I to understand.

We must not base our rights upon what we are... but instead upon what we could (with very little work) be. You think my ideals are only possible in a perfect world: but you undervalue our world because of where it is right now. Most of the movers and shakers of our world were so doubted because they held an ideal that they knew the world could meet... but which the world didn't dream was possible. Tell me how I am so different.

At its core, what I say is only fair. At its ends, what I say is only fair. In every application of this system: it is by definition fair. Abortion is no different than eating... and to think otherwise is to hold an unfair double standard for humans... one that they do not deserve. To make abortion mandatory would be unfair of course... but to make it highly recommended, and to fully educate the possible mother on every part of the matter: that is fair. That is 100%, undeniably fair. And I do not see why you would argue this. The final choice lies with the mother... but logic is heavily on one side of this issue.

I eat, Eilon... abortion is easy for me I will not talk about your family anymore, and I am sorry I gave you the hard line for bringing them up. Please do not bring such things up in future though: I have no interest in highly circumstantial personal evidence. I know it is not an easy, or uncomplicated choice... but there is the simple and far easier option... or there is the difficult and time consuming option. Once again, I apologize for cutting down your family... but you should never have brought them up (Just as I have not brought up all of my very unique circumstances).

---

I'd like to fix the population being a problem (by finding more efficient ways of producing food..<snip>

There's a population problem because we're already too efficient at producing food. The production of rice and potatoes enabled support of very many more people per area. It's the other things we're raping the planet of that's the problem here. We're at viral mass and apparently can't reverse our own destructiveness.

How I think of it is this: If the would-be parents truly love the children they will have... I should expect them to love their children enough to wait on having them.

They love each other first. Children are the result of love & not necessarily planned (did you miss sex ed? )

As a side note: do you all realize how difficult it is to respond to 5 people at once?

Erm.. Yes! Welcome to the dark side!!!

Oh, I agree on how the problem began But now there is the new problem of dealing with 4-5 billion people too many to consider optimal. I don't want to kill them... and I would like to keep as many of them alive as possible... but how could this be done feasibly is the question

No, I actually was ahead of sex ed by several years Use several forms of contraception, and your chance of having children will be much lower. You can't ever rule it out entirely (Unless you do something as drastic as removing the ovaries or something...)... but you can be reasonably certain you won't get pregnant. Also, children are not the result of love... but of non-contracepted heterosexual sex among reproductive adults.

Ooh, the dark side!? Do I getz a ?

[Eilonnwy]

Something that may be the completely logical choice doesn't mean it's the right choice. You're getting into dangerous grounds when you say human life should be the simply the decision of whether it's logically sustainable through money and quality of life and nothing more. If you would agree that the sick and elderly should be killed off because they are too expensive and their quality of life isn't optimal, then that's really sad for you and we have nothing more to talk about it. If you don't believe that, however, I've only tried to show you how abortion is an emotional decision as MUCH as it is a logical one.

I have never tried to say that people who abort for reasons you have stated are wrong, but just that people who decide to keep their baby despite these factors are not wrong either. You seem to insist they are. It's just not that simple. People who have children despite certain factors that may be reasonable for them to abort simply have a different experience and it can be wholly positive lives, irrespective of their poverty.

And personal experiences can be very important. It's easy to say what people should do without putting a human face on it. Experiences help shape our not only beliefs and opinions but our knowledge. You can't look at things from a 100% logical angle and really get at the heart of the issue. I shared the stories of my sisters to help show that. You took it a step farther and suggested I should have been aborted. Funny, you never told EvF he should have been aborted when he shared that he's lived at the poverty level, too.

I do not think you're entirely wrong, Sae, in your stance on abortion. I just think you're ignoring a very real emotional and personal factor.

As far as food and babies go, I don't think it's the same. Yes, it's "speciest", to value human life over animals, but I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And as I said, I think abortion and animals rights are two separate issues looking at two separate criteria, and I have chosen not to go down that road in this argument because I don't think I need to.

[fr0d0]

Ooh, the dark side!? Do I getz a ?

LOTS

[Retorth]

It's Oreo-heaven, practically

[Violet]

The elderly have the value of how long they have lived, and the knowledge they can pass on to the next generations. What would be logical in killing them? They perform an important role... and they are still members of the society. I think the resources spent on them are far less than what they are worth... although it is true that everything, even our respected elders, have a price.

I am in no dangerous grounds... what is logical is by definition 'right'. Any correctness not based on logic, is by definition: not right. This applies to religion, morals, value, and in fact everything. Tell me one thing that is right, and is not based on logic.

I have not refuted that it is an emotional decision... but I have stated that a decision based on such is illogical. There is logical application of emotions... but emotions are in themselves not logical. Logic must always trump emotion, lest unfair things be thought 'right'. As a side note, that is where the jury especially fails... it is no impartial logical judge... but an emotional one.

I insist that they are, for they have put their child's (and their) life on the line to have it... when they could wait a few years, and have a child when it is much more likely to survive. I recognize that this is sometimes not possible (I.E. unfair government types)... but it should always be an available option for everyone... to have a better life because of one's hard work. It could be a better life for them... but it would be far better than this 'better life' if they had the patience (and the option of course).

I have put a human face on everything I eat... I should know the experience. And my experience has shown me how brutal life and death are... and how life must be preserved except when it must necessarily die, so that more life can be preserved. This is a very emotional angle, supported 100% by the logic that 1 does not equal 2. That is the only way you can truly get to the heart of any issue: by logic. If you derive your heart of the issue from anything else: you are not at the true heart of the issue... and you are almost certainly wrong in some way. In my stance on abortion... I am embracing the emotional and personal factor... but I am realistically doing so with logic.

EvF didn't mention that he didn't get health care. If only we could all live without unnecessary suffering of, say: not getting health care... or of starving half the week. And we could live that way... it would be hard to make us do it at first... but it could (and one day will) be done.

It is exactly the same. Tell me one thing: what is special about your life... that doesn't also apply to most other advanced animal specie on the planet? We all have similar roots, and we are made of similar matter, all of us have the same attributes, all of us can make choices, and they have the same exact right to life as we do. It comes from understanding this... that one truly learns the value of life... and that life truly is valuable. You, however... have the burden of proof in telling us how human life is any more special.. any more valuable...

You can choose to get into this or not... though as with abortion: your bias seems strong in this matter.

---

It's Oreo-heaven, practically

Keep the chocolaty outsides! I just want the middle!

[Eilonnwy]

Honestly, if you think that for the simple fact of me not having insurance as a child, without knowing any other details of my life that it is justifiable for suggesting I should have been aborted....well then I think I'm done with this conversation. I've said my piece. If you want to go down the road of heartless "logic", that's your prerogative.

[Violet]

Of course i don't, you have since told me that your parents didn't plan perfectly, as apposed to them having been deeply in that situation and then chosen to have you regardless. Accidents happen, and I understand this. It would have been better for all involved had such not happened... but it did, and they fought through and survived. There much is strength in your parents... at least there is in the way you have described them.

A logical heart... does not disbecome a heart... by being a reasonable heart. When we allow our emotion to become unreasonable... there accounts for the majority of rape, murder, physical and verbal abuse, uncontrolled anger, and more otherwise avoidable things.

I have said a great deal of my piece, and I stand by it, lest it be proven to me false. A logical heart... is only a reasonable heart.

[Edwardo Piet]

Elionnwy: Well for me personally it's not about when the foetus can survive on it's own that matters. It's indeed about the suffering. Because if it can't survive on it's own but it's still developed enough to suffer, I think that makes it less reasonable to abort it, if it's that developed.

If you just meant the definition of "baby" then yeah, it's a baby when it can survive on it's own - by definition basically. But I think of it as human once it can feel, when it can suffer. So I think it's better to think of it as a baby when it can feel pain.

EvF