Abortion

[Scott]

I don't agree. If he made the mistake of giving her his seed via sexual intercourse and the woman gets pregnant, he's on the hook for child support if she chooses to bring the pregnancy to term.

Why should that be?

I believe that's how things should be because the man made the choice to inject the female via the vagina with his sperm.

The woman made a choice to allow him to do so.

Indeed. For the audience, we're talking about consensual sex here. Because of her choice, if she gets pregnant, she will have to make the generally difficult choice of whether to bring her pregnancy to term or whether to terminate the pregnancy.

After that point the two have made a contract and it should be jointly up to them what the outcome is.

If the 2 people have -actually- made a contract, such as birth surrogacy, that'd be one thing. But most of the time, there is no contract made, unless we're talking about the contract of marriage. Thus, the default laws kick into play- abortion is legally an option in some places, in other's, it's not. If the pregnancy -is- brought to term though, the father is legally required to support the child, assuming he can do so. I believe that's as it should be.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Indeed. For the audience, we're talking about consensual sex here. Because of her choice, if she gets pregnant, she will have to make the generally difficult choice of whether to bring her pregnancy to term or whether to terminate the pregnancy.

I agree, but I also think she should be libel under law to inform the man involved and seek his agreement to anything she chooses. That's fair and equal.

If the 2 people have -actually- made a contract, such as birth surrogacy, that'd be one thing. But most of the time, there is no contract made, unless we're talking about the contract of marriage. Thus, the default laws kick into play- abortion is legally an option in some places, in other's, it's not. If the pregnancy -is- brought to term though, the father is legally required to support the child, assuming he can do so. I believe that's as it should be.

They made a verbal contract. While not as good as one on paper it's still valid. She and he agreed to have sex. That's the contract. Both knew what the potential outcomes of that act might be. That's fair and equal.

The way it is now, it's all one-sided in favor of the woman. She gets to decide everything unilaterally up until birth. Suddenly, upon birth, the man is now libel for 50% of the cost of raising the child while he got no say in anything during the pregnancy. That is NOT fair and equal.

 

[IBDaMann]

You seem certain that I was referring to a he. I was not.

Teachable moment: In the English language, when the gender is not known for a singular individual, "he" is to be used.

 

[Yakuda]

Think of it this way- I give you a seed for a tree. Once given, the seed is yours to do with as you wish. Now, it would ofcourse be different if I gave you a seed after signing a contract wherein you said you'd do x or y with the seed if you manage to get it to grow. This is called birth surrogacy, and there are certainly laws on that:
The Legal Ethics of Birth Surrogacy: Theory and Practice | Georgetown Law

Failing the signing of such a contract, it's up to you what you do with it. Now, ofcourse, there are added complications when it comes to a -human- seed, namely that, unlike a seed for a tree, there are legal obligations once a human seed starts to grow inside a womb.

What those legal obligations are depends on where you reside. I personally believe that since the garden wherein the seed grows is a woman's, she should have the choice whether she wants to keep growing the seed or whether she removes it. If she chooses to keep it, there are legal obligations regarding taking care of the seed after it leaves the garden. There, both parents have an obligation. And again, if a potential father doesn't want to be a father, he should be careful as to who he gives his seed to.

I have no idea what you're talking about as a seed isnt created by the behavior of the two parties. If the woman wants control of her body then fine. The problem is a fetus is NOT her body and she has no right to control the mans money. Thats immoral and unethical.

 

[Yakuda]

Again, I think it'd depend on the life in question. Surely you realize that the alien in the original alien film had some strong similarities to a fetus when they initially found them.

AGAIN no idea what you're talking about. As far as we know every planet in the solar system is completely devoid of life. If they found a fetus like entity that is growing and developing they would shit their pants. Stop with this nonsense

 

[Scott]

There's those twisted definitions again. I consider a fetus a fetus, a baby a baby and a child someone who's at an age where they can usually walk, some disabled children not withstanding. Have you considered that, consciously or unconsciously, you are saying child to muddy the waters?

I didn't know that 'child' was such a hard term to understand. It's basic genealogy. Have you considered that, consciously or unconsciously, you are saying fetus to muddy the waters?

A human fetus is a very definite stage of human development- right after the stage of a sperm. A child, while -frequently- considered to be older than a baby and younger than an adult, can be actually be any stage of development and thus an absolutely ideal term for muddying the waters. The first 6 definitions of child from the American Heritage Dictionary, 5th edition, make this abundantly clear:
**

• noun A person between birth and puberty.
• noun A person who has not attained maturity or the age of legal majority.
• noun An unborn infant; a fetus.
• noun An infant; a baby.
• noun One who is childish or immature.
• noun A son or daughter; an offspring.

**

Source:

child — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

 

[Scott]

The question you might want to ponder - is it truly only less than 1% of cases where coercion is involved?

That seems to be the case, yes.

Agreed.

Remember that statistic I quoted an earlier post of 25%+ women experiencing forced sexual intercourse in the U.S.

Yes. Remember that statistic I quoted in an earlier post of 0.4% of women citing "rape/incest" as the reason for getting an abortion?

Yes, and good point.

 

[Scott]

I strongly disagree with this sentiment. The man should have every much a say in the matter as the woman does [snip]

Why, simply because he inseminated the woman?

Because he is the father of that living human.

That depends on which definition of father one is using. The first 2 definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Edition make that abundantly clear:
**

• noun A male whose sperm unites with an egg, producing an embryo.
• noun A male whose impregnation of a female results in the birth of a child.

**
Source:

father — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

So, you would be right if we were using the first definition, but not right if were to to use the second. Personally, I think there's an easy way to differentiate- father of a fetus and father of a child who has been birthed. Interestingly, The American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Edition, does not directly call a female whose sperm has united with one of her eggs a mother, despite having a total of 10 definitions for the word. I find this interesting. I do acknowledge that one of those 10 definitions could be said to indirectly imply that a sperm that's united with a female's egg is a mother, through that super ambiguous term "child", ambiguous because a child can be in any stage of human development. To whit:
**
noun A woman in relation to her child
**

Source:

mother — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

The bottom line though, as we have agreed, is that men don't need to do a lot in order to produce sperm. The same can't be said for women growing a fetus and then birthing a baby.

I agree that sperm "is replaced" in short order. I agree that the pregnancy process takes roughly 9 months. I'm not sure what any of that has to do with abortion being (or not being, as you claim but refuse to substantiate) contract killings.

I've told you before, though I'm not sure if I told you before you wrote this post I'm responding to. Like dictionary definitions I've cited, I don't believe that the world "killing" should be used when talking about the removal of a fetus from a pregnant woman who wants it removed. For the audience, here are the definitions I've cited in the past:
**
1- noun Induced termination of a pregnancy with destruction of the embryo or fetus.

2- noun the removal of a fetus from the womb prior to normal delivery in a manner such as to cause the death of the fetus; also called voluntary abortion, or when performed by a physician, therapeutic abortion.
**

Source:

abortion — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

 

[Scott]

I think it's clear, especially further down in your post, that your goal is to obfuscate the fact that abortions are only about removing fetuses from pregnant women. Anyway, let's continue...

You continue to obfuscate by continuing to use the term 'fetuses' rather than the term 'living humans'.

On the contrary, it is -you- who is muddying the waters by using a vague term like "living humans" instead of the much more specific phrase of removing fetuses from a pregnant woman. I doubt anyone doubts that the fetuses in question are human fetuses, as no other fetus would reside in a woman's body. A living human, on the other hand, could be at any stage of development- it's another super ambigious word like "child", which is ideal for those who want to curtail abortion to muddy the waters as to the precise stage of development of the human lives being ended.

 

[Scott]

I don't accept any "dictionary definition" as a trump card of any sort. I would argue that the "dictionary definitions" that you are referencing here are in error, purposely using dehumanizing verbiage (and purposely leaving out key verbiage) in order to mask the horror of what is truly happening.

I suspect we're simply not going to be able to agree here.

I suspect likewise.

Well, at least we're in agreement on that point . I did think of adding one point though- you mentioned the horror of what is truly happening. I agree that there's a lot of very bad things happening, but I suspect you don't realize that avoiding abortions can frequently just lead to further suffering down the road. Here's a sobering statistic from 2023 on deaths that year of children between the ages of newborns to 5:
**
In 2023, an estimated 4.8 million children died before the age of five, including 2.3 million newborns.
**
Source:

https://data.unicef.org/resources/levels-and-trends-in-child-mortality-2024/

I think it would make so much more sense for those wanting to end most if not all abortions would instead spend their energy on trying to save the lives of "living humans" who are -not- aborted, but die soon after birth anyway.

 

[Scott]

Agreed. For the audience, I made a thread on why woman decide that their best option is to terminate their pregnancy. It can be seen here:

Thread 'Why women have abortions'

Sep 11, 2025

After discussing why women have abortions in another thread whose topic definitely isn't abortions, I decided it would be better to make a thread for the subject instead. Below is an excerpt from an article that lists the different reasons women have abortions:
**
Generally, people use the term “abortion” to refer to the intentional termination of a pregnancy.
The vast majority of abortions take place early in pregnancy. In 2020, 93.1% of abortions in the United States occurred at 13 weeks’ gestation or sooner.
The Turnaway study followed 954 people from across the United...

• Scott
• abortions hannah nichols medicalnewstoday.com reasons women choose to have an abortion stacy henigsman
• Replies: 146
• Forum: General Politics Forum

• 

"terminate the pregnancy" = "kill the living human in the womb"

Terminate their pregnancy? Within how many people is the pregnancy?

Alright, yes, I should have said pregnancies, not pregnancy .

 

[Scott]

I don't know where you got your statistic, so I decided to do my own research on the subject of repeat abortions. Here's part of an article I found on the subject:
**
About half of all U.S. women having an abortion have had one previously. This fact—not new, but dramatically underscored in a recent report from the Guttmacher Institute on the characteristics of women having repeat abortions—may surprise and concern some policymakers, even prochoice ones. However, policymakers should be more disturbed by the underlying fact that the unintended pregnancy rate in the United States is so high, and that so many women experience repeat unintended pregnancies. Some of these pregnancies end in abortion and some end in unintended births. Indeed, it is not uncommon for a woman to experience both of these outcomes, as well as one or more planned births, during her lifetime.

Reducing repeat abortion must start with reducing repeat unintended pregnancy, which goes back to the basic challenge of helping women prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place. In that regard, the almost 7,500 family planning clinics across the country certainly are doing their share, given that unintended pregnancy prevention is their primary mission. Beyond that, both abortion providers and providers of services to women giving birth also contribute, since contraceptive counseling and the provision of a birth control method upon request are standard components of high-quality postabortion and postpartum care.

Strengthening the linkages between services and between providers would seem to be key, however, if the overall goal is to enable women to better manage their reproductive lives and better plan whether and when to have a child or another child. But fostering continuity of care between abortion clinics and contraceptive services programs might be easier said than done. The contentious politics of abortion and the culture wars associated with it have led to the isolation of abortion as a medical service and to the stigmatization of both abortion clients and providers. Indeed, particularly for young and low-income women among whom unintended pregnancy and recourse to abortion are especially common, state and federal government policies over the last 25 years have only exacerbated the situation, by consciously driving wedges between providers of publicly subsidized contraceptive services and facilities providing abortions.

Abortion vs. Repeat Abortion​

Although not widely recognized, the U.S. abortion rate reached its height in the early 1980s and has been drifting downward ever since. Over the last few years, however, the decline would appear to have stalled. At the current rate, about one-third of all U.S. women will have had an abortion by age 45. Certain groups are overrepresented among women having abortions: those who are young, poor or near-poor, black, Hispanic or unmarried, and those who already have had one child. Fifty-four percent of women having abortions used some method of contraception during the month they became pregnant. The tiny sliver of all sexually active women not practicing contraception (11%) accounts for the remaining half of all abortions.

According to the 2006 Guttmacher Institute report Repeat Abortion in the United States, women having a second or higher-order abortion are substantially different from women having a first abortion in only two important ways: They are more than twice as likely to be age 30 or older and, even after controlling for age, almost twice as likely to already have had a child. (Among all women having an abortion, six in 10 are mothers.)

Just as with women having their first abortion, however, the majority of women having their second or even their third abortion were using contraceptives during the time period in which they became pregnant. In fact, women having a repeat abortion are slightly more likely to have been using a highly effective hormonal method (e.g., the pill or an injectable). This finding refutes the notion that large numbers of women are relying on abortion as their primary method of birth control. Rather, it suggests that women having abortions—especially those having more than one—are trying hard to avoid unintended pregnancy, but are having trouble doing so.

More effective conraceptive use would help women reduce their risk of unintended pregnancy, which in turn would lead to fewer abortions (including fewer repeat abortions) and fewer unintended births.​

Moreover, according to the Guttmacher analysis, women at risk of having a repeat abortion share many of the same characteristics as women at risk of having a repeat unintended birth, including age, number of prior births, and race and ethnicity. The associations with race and ethnicity, as well as poverty, are particularly striking among women having repeat unintended births: Almost half of black women and about 40% of poor and low-income women have had at least one unintended birth.

Indeed, unintended births are as common among U.S. women as is abortion: Almost one-third of all women aged 15–44 report having had at least one unintended birth. A minimum of four in 10 women of reproductive age have had at least one unintended pregnancy, whatever the outcome. Accordingly, as stated in the Guttmacher report, "it is possible, if not likely, that women who have had a prior abortion have also had other unintended pregnancies, some of which they carried to term."

Clearly, more effective contraceptive use would help women reduce their risk of unintended pregnancy, which in turn would lead to fewer abortions (including fewer repeat abortions) and fewer unintended births. To improve contraceptive use, a woman first needs good counseling, which will increase her chances of selecting the contraceptive method that is right for her at that particular time in her life. Then she needs easy and affordable access to her chosen method and to the necessary services to support her choice over time. Although having good access to contraceptive services is important for all sexually active women, it seems especially important for women having abortions and women giving birth (whether intended or unintended), who constitute a self-selected group—perhaps a high-risk one at that.
**

Source:

Repeat Abortion, Repeat Unintended Pregnancy, Repeated and Misguided Government Policies

About half of all U.S. women having an abortion have had one previously. This fact—not new, but dramatically underscored in a recent report from the Guttmacher Institute on the characteristics of women having repeat abortions—may surprise and concern some policymakers, even prochoice ones...

www.guttmacher.org

I dont remember where I saw it but of course this is information that is TABOO. I of course dont know if this is true but the story that a small number of women consume the majority of abortions sounds true....I certainly have heard of individual women admitting to having many abortions.

Well, I think there's some lines in what I quoted to you in my last post that are noteworthy in terms of trying to prevent repeat abortions:
**
Reducing repeat abortion must start with reducing repeat unintended pregnancy, which goes back to the basic challenge of helping women prevent unintended pregnancies in the first place. In that regard, the almost 7,500 family planning clinics across the country certainly are doing their share, given that unintended pregnancy prevention is their primary mission. Beyond that, both abortion providers and providers of services to women giving birth also contribute, since contraceptive counseling and the provision of a birth control method upon request are standard components of high-quality postabortion and postpartum care.

Strengthening the linkages between services and between providers would seem to be key, however, if the overall goal is to enable women to better manage their reproductive lives and better plan whether and when to have a child or another child. But fostering continuity of care between abortion clinics and contraceptive services programs might be easier said than done. The contentious politics of abortion and the culture wars associated with it have led to the isolation of abortion as a medical service and to the stigmatization of both abortion clients and providers. Indeed, particularly for young and low-income women among whom unintended pregnancy and recourse to abortion are especially common, state and federal government policies over the last 25 years have only exacerbated the situation, by consciously driving wedges between providers of publicly subsidized contraceptive services and facilities providing abortions.
**

Repeat Abortion, Repeat Unintended Pregnancy, Repeated and Misguided Government Policies

About half of all U.S. women having an abortion have had one previously. This fact—not new, but dramatically underscored in a recent report from the Guttmacher Institute on the characteristics of women having repeat abortions—may surprise and concern some policymakers, even prochoice ones...

www.guttmacher.org

Another thing I found interesting regarding women having abortions, also from the article:
**
According to the 2006 Guttmacher Institute report Repeat Abortion in the United States, women having a second or higher-order abortion are substantially different from women having a first abortion in only two important ways: They are more than twice as likely to be age 30 or older and, even after controlling for age, almost twice as likely to already have had a child. (Among all women having an abortion, six in 10 are mothers.)
**

Considering this fact that 6 in 10 women having an abortion are -already- mothers, I suspect that one of the primary reasons they are having abortions is so that they may feel they just don't have the resources to care for yet another child.

 

[Scott]

A human being is not a cow. It is not a chicken. It is not livestock.

Agreed. I'm just trying to point out the hypocrisy of caring so much about a human fetus simply because it's human and so little about the welfare of other species.

A human being is not a cow or a chicken.

We'd already agreed on that point. It's my second sentence that you haven't addressed.

 

[Scott]

Think of it this way- I give you a seed for a tree. Once given, the seed is yours to do with as you wish. Now, it would ofcourse be different if I gave you a seed after signing a contract wherein you said you'd do x or y with the seed if you manage to get it to grow. This is called birth surrogacy, and there are certainly laws on that:
The Legal Ethics of Birth Surrogacy: Theory and Practice | Georgetown Law

Failing the signing of such a contract, it's up to you what you do with it. Now, ofcourse, there are added complications when it comes to a -human- seed, namely that, unlike a seed for a tree, there are legal obligations once a human seed starts to grow inside a womb.

What those legal obligations are depends on where you reside. I personally believe that since the garden wherein the seed grows is a woman's, she should have the choice whether she wants to keep growing the seed or whether she removes it. If she chooses to keep it, there are legal obligations regarding taking care of the seed after it leaves the garden. There, both parents have an obligation. And again, if a potential father doesn't want to be a father, he should be careful as to who he gives his seed to.

A human being is not a plant.

Agreed. I was using a seed for a tree as a metaphor for sperm in order to break free of the regular abortion debate: to simply think about what happens when one person gives another person a seed and then apply some of that logic to the subject of a man giving a woman a sperm via the vaginal cavity.

 

[Scott]

If we can expand the definition of God to an individual and collective state of mind we Zennists believe in God as well.

Sounds good

 

[Scott]

We've already agreed with each other that it is a living human that is being unalived (IOW, a living human was directly caused to be no longer living).

A living human -fetus-.

I really don't see why the word 'fetus' needs to keep being inserted into the discussion.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUMVHD86jF0

Does it really matter what particular stage of life a living human is in?

Indeed. I think that even you tacitly agree with this, which is why you seem to have no qualms about the millions of sperm that are "killed" every time a fertile male ejaculates, or every time a woman's eggs are flushed out due to not being fertilized.

 

[Into the Night]

Indeed. For the audience, we're talking about consensual sex here. Because of her choice, if she gets pregnant, she will have to make the generally difficult choice of whether to bring her pregnancy to term or whether to terminate the pregnancy.



If the 2 people have -actually- made a contract, such as birth surrogacy, that'd be one thing. But most of the time, there is no contract made, unless we're talking about the contract of marriage. Thus, the default laws kick into play- abortion is legally an option in some places, in other's, it's not. If the pregnancy -is- brought to term though, the father is legally required to support the child, assuming he can do so. I believe that's as it should be.

You can't justify murder.

 

[Into the Night]

A human fetus is a very definite stage of human development- right after the stage of a sperm.

WRONG! Sperm do NOT become children! I guess no one ever told you it takes two to tango!

A child, while -frequently- considered to be older than a baby and younger than an adult, can be actually be any stage of development and thus an absolutely ideal term for muddying the waters. The first 6 definitions of child from the American Heritage Dictionary, 5th edition, make this abundantly clear:
**

• noun A person between birth and puberty.
• noun A person who has not attained maturity or the age of legal majority.
• noun An unborn infant; a fetus.
• noun An infant; a baby.
• noun One who is childish or immature.
• noun A son or daughter; an offspring.

**

Source:

child — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

Word games won't work. You cannot justify murder.

 

[IBDaMann]

Alright, yes, I should have said [the living humans inside the wombs], not [the living human inside the womb]

FTFY. Don't think I am not noticing your absolute avoidance of recognizing that each and every abortion is a contracted killing, in which you completely dehumanize the living humans you seek supremacy to kill. You will not concede that the killing of a living human is the killing of a living human.

That's pretty shitty.

 

[Into the Night]

That depends on which definition of father one is using. The first 2 definitions from The American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Edition make that abundantly clear:
**

• noun A male whose sperm unites with an egg, producing an embryo.
• noun A male whose impregnation of a female results in the birth of a child.

**
Source:

father — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

So, you would be right if we were using the first definition, but not right if were to to use the second. Personally, I think there's an easy way to differentiate- father of a fetus and father of a child who has been birthed. Interestingly, The American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Edition, does not directly call a female whose sperm has united with one of her eggs a mother, despite having a total of 10 definitions for the word. I find this interesting. I do acknowledge that one of those 10 definitions could be said to indirectly imply that a sperm that's united with a female's egg is a mother, through that super ambiguous term "child", ambiguous because a child can be in any stage of human development. To whit:
**
noun A woman in relation to her child
**

False authority fallacy. No dictionary defines any word.

Source:

mother — definition, examples, related words and more at Wordnik

All the words

www.wordnik.com

Word games won't work. You cannot justify murder.