The Student Room Group

Should Abortion be made illegal?

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Original post by Plantagenet Crown
I know it hasn't, but that's why abortion was illegal for so long, was it not?


The OP brought up no religious stuff whatsoever.
Original post by Grace by Yahweh


What you are saying is a woman has sex and an unwanted baby is conceived. What an inconvenience. An unwanted baby is then aborted because the woman doesn't want it. This isn't looking good is it.


It depends completely on your philosophical position on when the fetus becomes a person. This "baby" you are talking about is just a lump of cells that are less complicated than the skin cells you shed every single day. Most pro abortionists agree at this stage there is no moral justification in not allowing the pregnancy to be aborted.
Original post by Grace by Yahweh
When a woman is pregnant it is meant to be because (call me old fashioned I don't mind) she is happily settled down and married and wants to have a baby, start a family.

No force going on there. An adult and mature decision has been made to have a baby who will be loved, wanted and cared for.

This is the ideal.


Dunno why you brought this up, as if this was always the case then we wouldn't need this discussion.

Life isn't ideal, I realise that.

What you are saying is a woman has sex and an unwanted baby is conceived. What an inconvenience. An unwanted baby is then aborted because the woman doesn't want it. This isn't looking good is it.


Yes, what a potentially fatal, at least completely uprooting 'inconvenience'. And what a fantastic thing that if a woman chooses to do so she has the option to abort with as little risk to her health as possible to avoid her having to have her life completely uprooted and her child maybe only be loved begrudgingly or be reliquished for adoption and grow up in case because of something that probably isn't her fault and even if it is it still seems pretty harsh.
Original post by SmallTownGirl
While something is in MY body and depending on MY nutrients it is MY right to decide what happens to it. A foetus is not sentient. It has no rights and definitely no right to leech off MY body and MY life.


This shows you're not educated on the subject. Could be one of the reasons you have such a psychotic view of human life.
Original post by ChickenMadness
This shows you're not educated on the subject. Could be one of the reasons you have such a psychotic view of human life.


Nope, because they're right: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14767059209161911?journalCode=jmf

The capacity for sentience doesn't develop until between 18 and 25 weeks. The legal limit is 24 weeks - a foetus that can be aborted (which is what we'd be talking about) is not sentient.
Original post by Stiff Little Fingers
Nope, because they're right: http://informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/14767059209161911?journalCode=jmf

The capacity for sentience doesn't develop until between 18 and 25 weeks. The legal limit is 24 weeks - a foetus that can be aborted (which is what we'd be talking about) is not sentient.


so you kinda just proved my point there since theres an over lap. Especially since babies can be born as early as 23 weeks whilst the legal limit is 24 weeks.
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
It depends completely on your philosophical position on when the fetus becomes a person. This "baby" you are talking about is just a lump of cells that are less complicated than the skin cells you shed every single day. Most pro abortionists agree at this stage there is no moral justification in not allowing the pregnancy to be aborted.


You are right, it totally does.
Original post by ChickenMadness
so you kinda just proved my point there since theres an over lap. Especially since babies can be born as early as 23 weeks whilst the legal limit is 24 weeks.


No, try reading the article again - the capacity for sentience doesn't arise until around the legal limit, sentience itself comes later.
If you're a pro-lifer then you're a fascist. You can't dictate people what to do with their bodies.
Original post by ChickenMadness
This shows you're not educated on the subject. Could be one of the reasons you have such a psychotic view of human life.


Cells are not a human life.
Original post by Stiff Little Fingers
No, try reading the article again - the capacity for sentience doesn't arise until around the legal limit, sentience itself comes later.


Original post by PC2852
Cells are not a human life.


Premature born babies are still sentient. What are you trying to argue. Babies aren't sentient?

And premature births happen as early as 23 weeks. While abortions can happen at 24 weeks. So you'l be killing a sentient child.

Also babies have dreams in the womb well before 24 weeks as well. Not sure what your definition of sentience is tbh. But if you can dream you can have thoughts and feelings.
Original post by ChickenMadness
This shows you're not educated on the subject. Could be one of the reasons you have such a psychotic view of human life.


and you are educated on the subject?
Original post by ChickenMadness
Premature born babies are still sentient. What are you trying to argue. Babies aren't sentient?

And premature births happen as early as 23 weeks. While abortions can happen at 24 weeks. So you'l be killing a sentient child.

Also babies have dreams in the womb well before 24 weeks as well. Not sure what your definition of sentience is tbh. But if you can dream you can have thoughts and feelings.


Im arguing that foetuses as the current limit are not sentient, so they're not really any different to any other clump of cells.


citation needed - the only bits I can find on foetuses dreaming talks about the 32nd week onwards.
Original post by Grace by Yahweh
You are right, it totally does.


So you saying "it doesn't look good now does it?" is based on a position that can not be said to be objectively true and at worst has less science backing it than the pro abortion lot.
Original post by Darien
In the UK, abortion is legal beyond that point.

See my post here.


yeah it can survive with respiratory support in ICU. i meant survive normally. be healthy without medical intervention. their organs arent fully developed at this stage so there's no way a baby premature at 24 weeks could live on it's own- so technically it's still a fetus in my opinion
Original post by 2344277
yeah it can survive with respiratory support in ICU. i meant survive normally. be healthy without medical intervention. their organs arent fully developed at this stage so there's no way a baby premature at 24 weeks could live on it's own- so technically it's still a fetus in my opinion


There's no way any baby could live on it's own. The fact it needs medical intervention to survive says absolutely nothing about the personhood of it.
Original post by limetang
There's no way any baby could live on it's own. The fact it needs medical intervention to survive says absolutely nothing about the personhood of it.


a baby can breathe on its own, its heart beats on its own, it wouldnt drop dead if left alone for an hour.
a baby born at 24 weeks needs a machine to breathe for it, simulating it still being in the womb. so it's essentially a fetus.

not that this matters, as we could argue about when a fetus becomes a human for days.

the thomson argument is what i was trying to reference earlier in the thread (forgot the name of it)- nobody and nothing (even a grown up human being) has the right to leech off someone else's body without their permission
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
The OP brought up no religious stuff whatsoever.


I already responded to the OP concerning that.
I don't like the idea that you can kill something inside you, but I don't think it should be illegal because women will still want to end pregnancies and they should at least be safe.
Original post by Rosie786
But i think its immoral regardless of religion. What if religion didn't exist then would it not still be immoral to kill an unborn child?


Look at Rome and Greece afaik before Christianity attitudes to this were pretty liberal, although their methods were much more messed up.

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