Yes. I should not be allowed to drink alcohol.

But I was listening to the darned radio and they were railing against abortion again. My ex girlfriend once had an abortion and I didn't want her to do it. My heart was broken. But she had a difficult choice to make and while I tried to convince her, she made the choice. I wish she hasn't, but I wouldn't take her right to choose from her. The thing that gets me is if I hasn't wanted it and she did, I wouldn't be able to sign off my responsibility. Not fair.

I think that was intended for me... He wanted to make a claim that JEROK pwned me by providing a quote from the bible about love..

correct me if I'm wrong CRUDE...

Don't forget that Jesus did not come to abolish the old laws.(according to the bible). There are plenty of quotes that confirm that he did not disagree with the old laws , better yet he stated that they should be still obeyed, all 613 of them or so...

Yeah abortion is clearly equivalent to killing adult human beings with desire to live, concept of self-identity, dreams, emotional life, people to care for, people who care about them and so on. I would rather compare it to "personally, I am against killing fruit flies, but then, if people want to do, I leave them free.”

Relax bro. You don't have to believe. But why are you so upset with people who do?

I'm not upset with people who do... I am just replying to your claims... And what gets me upset is those dumb replies like the one by CRUDEFINDER claiming that old testament is somehow not relevant anymore to Christians...

I got nothing against you.

He came to fulfill the law. And he also stated that we should follow the laws of the land. But the problem with the bible is that it's a book and it only points to something which cannot be described and must be experienced.

I don't need to experience it in order to conclude that some if not many of the laws from the old testament are evil or wicked.

What about lines which can be overruled if the good reason is provided and evaluated by a group of physicians or so?

Doesn't the Roman Catholic church consider sex outside of marriage to be a sin?

It does but as Pawn says he is not very good with following the doctrine...

I'm sure God will understand. His rules are really just suggestions anyway.

yeah, at the end it's all about love...

I haven't always been catholic, silly

A sperm meeting an egg is not magic, it's biology. I'm fairly certain a large percentage of why theists view it as some magic event is because that's when God adds his magical invisible soulthing in, right?

Lines like this make me feel physically ill. You are straight up valuing the potential future viability of a bundle of cells that have been forced into a living, breathing, fully formed human being (with hopes, dreams, friends, family ect) AGAINST THEIR WILL over the person who has already been through way too much already. I can't even.

Any life at any cost, eh? Tell that to the old testament.

edit: and no, I am not a hypocrite. If my mother had been brutally raped and that had happened to result in my conception? If she had wanted an abortion I would want her to have been able to have had one. It wouldn't have mattered to me, I wasn't a person yet.

Well, I would have said that this should be decided by the doctors and depend on the risk of her health but...I retract my last post.

The reason for this is b/c I am pro assisted suicide, so if a pregnant woman wants an abortion, understands the risk for her health and wants to have it regardless, who am I to stop her? It'd be hypocritical on my part.

The toughest moment comes when an abortion simply becomes a forced early birth. And honestly, I can't form a position where I am entirely satisfied with all possible outcomes from an ethical point of view.

Still, as long as the mother wants to manipulate her body, I might not like it, but it is her right to do as she pleases.

If the government or somebody else is prepared to take care of the baby, I'd try to plead with her to give birth but stoping her would be denying her her rights. And a human life does begin with birth and not with conceing, or pulse, or brain activity, so the baby has no rights.

I don't like abortions in general, don't even like pills but this does not give me a right to deny somebody else their right.

Oh, then you're totally in the clear.

I just assumed that Jerok was the only one silly enough to convert to Catholicism as an adult.

Was it all of the child rape that won you over? Or the RC church's complicity in the AIDS epidemic in the third world? Or maybe just the funny hats?

I was raised catholic and confirmed when I was nine or so. Fell away for years and lived in sin, screwed up my life pretty good, and just recently went back because I'm not living it right.

Mostly though it was my mom, but also Aquinas and Merton and Chesterton and Lewis.

And also when I thought about Jesus it moved. The holy spirit within me, that is.

The state of the church had never been perfect. I don't mind teasing, it's shameful what ridicule we have been left open to by foolish and weak humans. It's best not to judge the teaching of Christ based on the behavior of christians though. Same goes for atheists. Surely they aren't all pompous, proud, petty, and paltry

Naw, we're really all of those things and more.

The issue clearly is one of when a human comes into being.
I don't see how its developed anywhere else. Surely a human comes into being when it can have a conscious mind? This is only possible after a given time. This is decided, artbitrarily no doubt, to be at the point after which the baby can survive outside the womb; in England at least thats the principle.

How can you suggest Stu that a conscious mind can exist at conception, or even up to say a point before neurological connections are made?

Morally, there is no case to value a potential human being. This is an uncontroversial point.
Morally, there is a case to value a being with a conscious mind.

If you really think a conscious mind can exist at conception, then I can see why, morally you would value this child.
I don't see how you can think this though, but still kill a fruit fly, as people have stated in this thread. If you think it is possible for a foetus to instantly have the conscious mind of a human; why can't a rock? why can't a tree? why can't a parrot? why can't a monkey? Maybe so if the bible told you that a foetus had a human consciousness; but you have ignored OrP's requests for anything like this.

Morally; most people who reason from this point of an idea of consciousness have to arbitrarily decide when it becomes as if the baby can exist as a conscious being. It is a sad reality of not having complete knowledge. .
Maybe you have a reason to value a human conscious as more valuable than any other; I know I do- which is why I can kill a fly and not feel bad. But I also know a foetus cannot have any conscious brain relatable to a human till at least a month.
You have decided out of nowhere they can

You have it wrong. You are valueing the human being that is the mother over the human being that is the unborn child. You are saying it is okay for society to value some human beings less than others. It is this thinking that is the foundation for women around the world being treated as sub humans.

Did you actually read what you quoted? Simply reasserting your opinion (that a recently fertilized egg is a human being, not a bundle of unconscious cells) probably isn't going to do very much. You should probably start getting into the reasons why you believe that a recently fertilized egg qualifies as a human being, instead of just constantly reasserting that it is.

Pro choicers are as evil as those the Americans who gave blankets laced with small pox to the savages. Pro choicers are as evil as those who make thier inferior wives walk behind them. Pro choicers are as evil as those who make their human property toil in the fields.

Srsly... you think pro choice people are more responsible for misogynistic behaviour than say the bible?