Pro-life atheists

[*Deidre*]

I don't care for the terminology "pro life." For we all are. It has only become synonymous with conservative Christians as a way of swaying votes during elections.

I'm pro life but I also believe that abortion should remain legal. I believe that we as a society can do a much better job in equipping both men and women with proper tools and education so that abortion doesn't need to feel like an only option, like it often turns out to be. I've had friends who have had abortions, and they still mentally torment themselves over their decisions to abort.

I can't tell someone else what to do in such a situation, but I consider myself pro life on many levels. I'm also against the death penalty for similar reasons.

[Elskidor]

I kinda quit thinking about pro-choice/pro-life topic after PTSD was mentioned. I'm very close to a couple people with PTSD and neither were soldiers. I find it pretty disturbing that some people don't take PTSD seriously unless they served in combat. That is a very judegemental, but I suppose that should be for another thread.

[BlackSwordsman]

I kinda quit thinking about pro-choice/pro-life topic after PTSD was mentioned. I'm very close to a couple people with PTSD and neither were soldiers. I find it pretty disturbing that some people don't take PTSD seriously unless they served in combat. That is a very judegemental, but I suppose that should be for another thread.

I suppose, but honestly it bothers me that such an extreme term is over used and even feminists are using the word. I am not saying you had to have served combat never once did I say that.

But there was a mother on the news who claimed PTSD from child birth.

There is another feminist whom claimed PTSD after being called a name.

There was another person who got in a fender bender and tried claiming the bump gave her PTSD

Yeah some things can give it to you, but let the word be reserved for actually serious shit.

353,015 births per day, and 128.9 million births per year.

So that is a lot of people giving birth, and you got PTSD? From giving birth?

Come now, I brought up my example saying that I don't like how nonchalantly the word is used.

Not every traumatized person develops full-blown or even minor PTSD. Symptoms usually begin within 3 months of the incident but occasionally emerge years afterward. They must last more than a month to be considered PTSD. The course of the illness varies. Some people recover within 6 months, while others have symptoms that last much longer. In some people, the condition becomes chronic.

A doctor who has experience helping people with mental illnesses, such as a psychiatrist or psychologist, can diagnose PTSD. The diagnosis is made after the doctor talks with the person who has symptoms of PTSD.

To be diagnosed with PTSD, a person must have all of the following for at least 1 month:

At least one re-experiencing symptom
At least three avoidance symptoms
At least two hyperarousal symptoms
Symptoms that make it hard to go about daily life, go to school or work, be with friends, and take care of important tasks.

PTSD is often accompanied by depression, substance abuse, or one or more of the other anxiety disorders.

My gripe is with the ease at which people throw the word out.

Sorry if you or anyone else in the thread got offended by it, it was never my intent to make it sound like no one else can get it, I just hate seeing so over used.

[Autumnlicious]

You claim it is overused. Please provide evidence for the claim.

What I can see is that trauma is not necessarily restricted to only one group for one set of actions.

And birth is widely held to be a traumatic experience – That is why we have drugs, training, doctors and carefully thought out procedures to ensure that most births do not become highly traumatic enough to provoke PTSD.

[BlackSwordsman]

You claim it is overused. Please provide evidence for the claim.

What I can see is that trauma is not necessarily restricted to only one group for one set of actions.

And birth is widely held to be a traumatic experience – That is why we have drugs, training, doctors and carefully thought out procedures to ensure that most births do not become highly traumatic enough to provoke PTSD.

Citing personal experience?

I can't these are things I have read over the past years, as much as I would love to back them up I never thought this topic would arise in where I would have needed to save such links or posts.

The best I can do is 'google' to pull them up or even find them.

So I guess I can't really back them up. Believe what I said is -plausible- or don't.

Again I apologize in most cases I do back my sources up, but this is a recant from awhile ago.

[ThePinsir]

I know a few atheists who are pro-life. In fact, I know of a well recognized atheist who considers himself a "cultural" Christian, Richard Dawkins.

Dawkins went on a pro-choice ramble in The God Delusion. You cereal, brah?

Anyway, I'm extremely on the fence on this one. Both sides make such compelling arguments...I just don't know.

I suppose either extremely early, or in cases that are life-threatening to the mother...maybe...fuck...I don't know...

[rexbeccarox]

I know a lot of people take offense to the statement I'm about to make, but I really don't care in this instance. If you're not a woman, you should have no say in this debate at all.

I'll say it again: If you're not a woman, you should have no say in this debate.

Now, on an individual basis, I think most of the time the father's opinion should be considered, but that's as far as it goes.

My body, my choice. Fuck off if you think you have any right to tell me otherwise.

[Autumnlicious]

Citing personal experience?

I can't these are things I have read over the past years, as much as I would love to back them up I never thought this topic would arise in where I would have needed to save such links or posts.

The best I can do is 'google' to pull them up or even find them.

So I guess I can't really back them up. Believe what I said is -plausible- or don't.

Again I apologize in most cases I do back my sources up, but this is a recant from awhile ago.

Interesting, but not a strong assertion.

So I will indulge a side study to illustrate the common sense holding of overdiagnosis is often wrong due to ill consideration of all factors.

Let's take a common assertion espoused by others with similar modes of thought: Autism.

Some people assert autism is over diagnosed due to the increase in diagnoses over the years. However, let's look at it skeptically by examining the recent changes in our environment:

1. Increase in data collection abilities and improved analytics - the emergence of Big Data. Compared to a decade ago, we store hundreds to hundreds of thousand times more data.

2. Loosening of criteria to allow for borderline diagnosis of autistic sufferers and differentiate between severe and less severe cases.

3. Increased health care access

4. Increased awareness (ties into #3) as parents are vigilant to catch problems earlier, increasing the absolute number of false positive and false negatives as the medical system struggles to catch up.

5. Increased population.

Assume a fixed false positive rate M - for any population N, the absolute number of false positives will increase with an increase in population.

By the above criteria, any vegetable without even a shred of sense will claim Autism is over diagnosed, even if we lower the false positive rate, population increases, access to health care and frequency of health visits will continue to offset all but massive reductions in false positives.

Since nothing is perfect and significant scientific break throughs are rare, slow to deploy and unpredictable, it is clear that the bounds on reducing absolute numbers of autism overdiagnosis are difficult to overcome.

Now consider PTSD and tell me it is over reported and diagnosed and show that analogous changes listed above do not sufficiently control for that to make your claim valid.

[Chad32]

I know a lot of people take offense to the statement I'm about to make, but I really don't care in this instance. If you're not a woman, you should have no say in this debate at all.

I'll say it again: If you're not a woman, you should have no say in this debate.

Now, on an individual basis, I think most of the time the father's opinion should be considered, but that's as far as it goes.

My body, my choice. Fuck off if you think you have any right to tell me otherwise.

Not being personally affected by something doesn't mean you should have no say in it. That's probably why it gets on a lot of people's nerves. If someone is cutting themselves all the time, you should have no say in the debate. His body, his choice. Close down all the suicide prevention agencies.

You want to kill something that could live for 80+ years, because you don't want to be inconveniences for 6-10 months, and you don't understand why some people have a problem with that?

[rexbeccarox]

I know a lot of people take offense to the statement I'm about to make, but I really don't care in this instance. If you're not a woman, you should have no say in this debate at all.

I'll say it again: If you're not a woman, you should have no say in this debate.

Now, on an individual basis, I think most of the time the father's opinion should be considered, but that's as far as it goes.

My body, my choice. Fuck off if you think you have any right to tell me otherwise.

Not being personally affected by something doesn't mean you should have no say in it. That's probably why it gets on a lot of people's nerves. If someone is cutting themselves all the time, you should have no say in the debate. His body, his choice. Close down all the suicide prevention agencies.

You want to kill something that could live for 80+ years, because you don't want to be inconveniences for 6-10 months, and you don't understand why some people have a problem with that?

Kill a clump of cells? Inconvenienced? Yeah- like I said: fuck off.