Should Abortion be made illegal?

Do you therefore think it is acceptable to continue that violence and abuse by killing the child? Perhaps that child will be the Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi of this world that contributes widely and significantly to peace. Is it at all fair to end their lives before they can realise their potential?

That fetus had all right to be born and see the world as you and me are seeing it today

It would demonstrate to you that abortion is always wrong. I am a utilitarian, however, and in some cases, killing innocent beings is morally permissible because it may stop more innocent beings from being killed. Additionally, killing a foetus is morally permissible because it is not a person and has no interests or preferences, and so the preferences of the mother axiomatically outweigh the preferences of the foetus. I think that you even agree with me that killing innocent human beings is not always wrong on the basis of wartime situations (I never stated that killing innocent human beings is always wrong; I was merely stating that your use of the word 'generally' opens your argument up to attack.)



Evidence from the brain development of foetuses as well as observations from even newborn babies make it highly likely that the foetus is not self-aware; newborn babies, even, are not self-aware. And, the further we go back in the pregnancy, the less likely it is that, frankly, a ball of cells knows that it exists.



The foetus cannot have any rights because it does not have any preferences. Whatever the circumstances of the conception, the rights of the mother, who is self-aware and has a preference, should automatically outweigh the "rights" of the foetus. For me, your proposal is akin to favouring the rights of a desk over the rights of a sentient being.

Its not acceptable for it continue, but it would be one less innocent person on the recieving end, less to say, the child could be the next Hitler/Bin Laden.

This topic can be tossed back and forth, we are not going to get anywhere

But do you not see that it doesn't make it acceptable to kill the child because it could become a Hitler or a Stalin. Two wrongs do not make a right. Either abortion is morally wrong or it isn't. It's a simple question.

1.3 billion people have been murdered by abortion in the last 34 years. This is more than all the genocides in world history combined. We need to get somewhere, fast...

In wartime situations, it may be morally permissible for human beings to be indirectly killed in order to save the lives of others but it is not morally permissible to directly kill them. The intention is to save lives, not to promote death. This therefore cannot be compared with abortion, which is the direct ending of an innocent child's life. A child which is not attacking or verbally abusing anyone. Abortion, as far as I can see is pro-death.

Quadriplegics are for the most part not self-aware, nor are people in comas. This doesn't make it morally acceptable to kill people who are in these conditions. Just as it is discriminatory to kill a disabled person, it is discriminatory to kill an unborn person.

Just because a person has a preference, doesn't make the preference right. If I had a preference to kill you, would it be morally acceptable for me to kill you? If the mother has a preference to kill the child in the womb, does that make it morally acceptable for the mother to kill the child?

Abortion is wrong because it kills an innocent human being in its most vulnerable place at its most vulnerable stage of development.

I have not said it is right to kill a child or person.

How would you define a child or person ?


Because to me, abortion is to do with a fetus not a child/person

I see, so you invoke the doctrine of double effect. An argument that I, ultimately, reject. If one is aware of the consequences of one's actions, motives are irrelevant.



Quadriplegics, insofar as I am aware, can still have a preference as to whether they want to live or die. I believe that it is morally acceptable to kill people in comas, also known as non-voluntary euthanasia, if the family of the comatose patient wishes it. Disabled people often have a preference as to whether they want to live or die, unborn beings do not. I do not consider a foetus a person - they lack the essential characteristics for even having preferences in the first place. These characteristics, such as rationality, self-consciousness and the ability to feel pain and suffer are not characteristics of discrimination - they are characteristics necessary for a sentient person in general. A stone can be kicked across the road because it lacks self-consciousness and the ability to feel pain; an adult human, for example, cannot, because it has these characteristics and therefore has the ability to object to being kicked.



It would not be morally acceptable for you to kill me unnecessarily. Not only would it violate my preference to stay alive, but it would violate the principle of "acts with outcomes desirable to you should be carried out when considering others". In other words, treat others as you would wish to be treated.

So, strictly, with the two examples you brought up, the difference between myself and the foetus is that I have a preference to continue to live, whereas the foetus has no preference whatsoever.



I can see that this will remain your position, and I respect your right to hold this position, but I would urge you to consider the fact that the foetus doesn't care whether it lives or dies but the mother clearly cares what happens to her body. You desire a situation in which a person is forced to carry an unconscious, uncaring being in her body for 9 months against her will.

The unborn are innocent human beings/children/persons at their most vulnerable stage of development. You appear to think ending their life is morally acceptable because they may grow up to be a Hitler or Stalin. You therefore support the choice to end this life. I believe the foetus is a individual human person for the following reasons, already aforementioned.

1) The unborn are growing so they must be alive. If they were not alive, then you would not need to abort them.
2) The unborn are human because they have human DNA and have human parents.
3) Unlike sperm or cancer cells, the unborn are complete organisms capable of growing into an adult unless they are killed by someone or something before that time.
4) Do these foetuses deserve to be killed? If not, then they are therefore innocent of the punishment being handed to them.

Therefore killing them is outright murder and should not be tolerated, despite the fact that 1.3 billion murders have been tolerated.

4) Do these foetuses deserve to be killed? If not, then they are therefore innocent of the punishment being handed to them.

Would you prefer I said very rarely then? The vast, vast majority of late terminations are for medical reasons - this "look at this 22 week old foetus" stuff is irrelevant if you say that medical termination is not part of the abortion debate. People who abort because they don't want the child abort it early into the pregnancy

Well I would disagree that the unborn are not innocent human beings for a number of reasons.

1) The unborn are growing so they must be alive. If they were not alive, then you would not need to abort them.

2) The unborn are human because they have human DNA and have human parents.

3) Unlike sperm or cancer cells, the unborn are complete organisms capable of growing into an adult unless they are killed by someone or something before that time.

4) Do these foetuses deserve to be killed? If not, then they are therefore innocent of the punishment being handed to them.

First and foremost, Law and Morality are extremely different things...

I am actually quite shocked and disgusted that anyone actually thinks this is still up for debate. The reasons for it being legal are there, and the only people who argue to repeal the act clearly just haven't quite grasped them.

First and foremost, Law and Morality are extremely different things;







Morality has no place in a law. Subjective moral viewpoints are not compatible with modern legislative.



Secondly, we live in a biopolitical society. What this means is that our culture and government, at it's core, is focused primarily around the biological well being of it's populace. Reasons for that such as productivity aside, making abortions illegal would be counter intuitive to that focus. Abortions are sometimes necessary due to the health of both the mother and the child. I despise anecdotes, but in the example of an impending miscarriage in which the mother is risking serious mental or physical damage, why on earth should her solution be illegal?

The only justification for making abortions illegal from a cultural biopolitical perspective would have to involve infrastructure changes in which;


- Every Child Was Adopted,
- Every family was required to be a loving home,
- Every woman was reduced to a subservient position.


What anti abortion people are actively arguing for then, translates to;



- Strict Government rules on how to live
- Authoritarian enforcement on moral choices
- Scrapping of feminist advancement



Finally, I just wanted to say that what we're discussing here isn't whether 'such and such' should have had an abortion or not. We're discussing whether there should be a blanket ban on all abortions.


I'd like anyone, particularly the women posters but the men can try too, to imagine for a moment that this was all flipped around.

YOU NOW HAVE TO HAVE AN ABORTION by Law. We're telling you 'You absolutely, regardless of circumstance, have to agree with our morals'. How do you feel about that? Wouldn't you rather that, if you didn't agree, yo could choose not to have an abortion? Well too bad, because you're arguing against that and you got your way. Enjoy.


There's just no getting around the fact that if you're arguing for abortions to be illegal, you're arguing that some people shouldn't be given a choice.


Hopefully, we can finally put this ignorant and disgusting view to rest now. /Thread.

Yes. The important part there is 'capable of'. It is a potential to become, rather than something that has become.

Are the majority of abortions a result of the failure of the contraception to actually work, or are they a result of failure to use contraception in the first place? If abortion were made illegal, what proportion of the people who fail to use contraception would become more careful start to do so, thus no longer needing to turn to abortion out of desperation? What proportion of people would simply obey the abortion law and keep their unplanned children, despite the difficulties it may cause them?

Unless we have definitive answers for these, it is not possible to make reliable claims about what effect it would have on the numbers of unwanted children, or the number of unauthorised abortions. There are reasons for it to move in either direction. It just depends on which effect is stronger.



It's a very subjective area of discussion, with very little established in plain fact. One could argue that in general, the mother's rights are more important than the foetus' rights - e.g. if the pregnancy was life threatening, the mother's right to life would supersede that of the foetus.

However, there are many other factors at play. When the mother's life is not at risk, this is an issue of the foetus' right to life, vs. the mother's right to what is essentially convenience. Even if we argue that the mother is more important than the foetus, it can also be argued that the right to life is more important than the right to convenience. It also weakens the strength of the mother's right to choice, when we consider that she made the choice to engage in an activity which she knew had a chance of leading to pregnancy. In effect she has already exercised her right to choice. The point at which a foetus becomes a life of its own, and the criteria used to define this are again, another grey area.

There are lots of arguments for and against the right to abort an unborn child, but there is certainly no conclusive, clear cut answer.



This isn't a great argument either to be honest. What if someone said "If you don't agree with child abuse, don't do it. It doesn't affect you if other people are doing it"? We make laws, not just based on whether or not they affect us personally, but based on whether or not we think they're good for society and humankind as a whole.

They might not be but making all abortions illegal would mean even the ones who had used contraception responsibly would have to keep them, I've fallen pregnant twice whilst using contraception but I miscarried before I had the choice to decide what I wanted to do about my pregnancy but I would like that choice it then becomes a punishment for having sex. Should a rape victim be forced to carry a child?

If the mother is going to be punished for having sex which if using you argument that "she made the choice to have sex which could lead to pregnancy" essentially is then there would have to be laws put in place to ensure that men couldn't just walk away from children they had created as well and get away with just paying a pittance to the mother each week. With option of abortion at least it was the mothers choice to keep it and she knew what she was letting herself in for if he wasn't going to stick around but with no option there would have to be something to stop that and that wouldn't go down very well.

Why does it make a difference if the mothers life is in danger? You're still saying that the life and well being of the mother is more important than that of the child so why should it make a difference only if it is life threatening? Is it right to kill someone before they kill you? No you'd still be prosecuted so if the mothers life is more important in that situation is it not more important in every situation?

I don't agree that with most people it's simply a convenience it isn't a decision that is made lightly and many women regret their decision for many years to come abortion is usually done because it is the only option and the child would be better to have never lived than live the life it would have to lead.

I think something that has no self-awareness and that cannot exist without being inside a womb has less rights than a fully functioning human being.

Child abuse is effecting other people abortion is not. Abortion doesn't harm society child abuse does. The only thing abortion affects are the parents involved and a clump of cells waiting to be a person.

Can I just say thanks for discussing this in such a calm manner I really value your points and you've put them across in a really good way usually with topics like this it gets really heated and angry and you lose track of the debate but that hasn't happened here, obviously people are going to agree and disagree but it's respecting each other that counts

Im not sure if you have source's for your information, but its just like saying a seed is a plant.