Abortion

[Scott]

I certainly agree that life is generally easier when a man and a woman have entered some form of contract, such as a marriage, and actually want a child instead of it being the result of an unplanned pregnancy.

This is a fallacy. It's called the "Unplanned Pregnancy" fallacy. It treats a fully foreseeable possibility as though it was a completely unforseen, random event that came out of nowhere, like a meteor falling on a house or a transmission dropout on the freeway.

An unplanned pregnancy is the same as an unplanned loss at the roulette table, i.e. it is an anticipated possibility. The sex was not randomly imposed on anyone, and if you can't afford to lose your rent money for the month, don't gamble it at the roulette table.

I suspect you're unaware of some important facts regarding unplanned pregnancies. I know you don't like Wikipedia, but it does contain important information at times. Quoting from it:
**
Unintended pregnancies are pregnancies that are mistimed or unwanted at the time of conception,[1] also known as unplanned pregnancies.[2][3]

Sexual activity without the use of effective contraception through choice or coercion is the predominant cause of unintended pregnancy. Worldwide, the unintended pregnancy rate is approximately 45% of all pregnancies (for a total of 120 million unintended pregnancies annually), but rates vary in different geographic areas and among different sociodemographic groups.[4][5] Unintended pregnancies may be unwanted pregnancies or mistimed pregnancies.[6] While unintended pregnancies are the main reason for induced abortions,[6] unintended pregnancies may also result in other outcomes, such as live births or miscarriages.

Unintended pregnancy has been linked to numerous poor maternal and child health outcomes, regardless of the outcome of the pregnancy.[6] Efforts to decrease rates of unintended pregnancy have focused on improving access to effective contraception through improved counseling and removing barriers to contraception access.
**

Source:

Unintended pregnancy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Hawkeye10]

I suspect you're unaware of some important facts regarding unplanned pregnancies. I know you don't like Wikipedia, but it does contain important information at times. Quoting from it:
**
Unintended pregnancies are pregnancies that are mistimed or unwanted at the time of conception,[1] also known as unplanned pregnancies.[2][3]

Sexual activity without the use of effective contraception through choice or coercion is the predominant cause of unintended pregnancy. Worldwide, the unintended pregnancy rate is approximately 45% of all pregnancies (for a total of 120 million unintended pregnancies annually), but rates vary in different geographic areas and among different sociodemographic groups.[4][5] Unintended pregnancies may be unwanted pregnancies or mistimed pregnancies.[6] While unintended pregnancies are the main reason for induced abortions,[6] unintended pregnancies may also result in other outcomes, such as live births or miscarriages.

Unintended pregnancy has been linked to numerous poor maternal and child health outcomes, regardless of the outcome of the pregnancy.[6] Efforts to decrease rates of unintended pregnancy have focused on improving access to effective contraception through improved counseling and removing barriers to contraception access.
**

Source:

Unintended pregnancy - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Something like 1/2 the abortions are at the request of women who end up having at least four.

This is a problem.

 

[Into the Night]

At the highest level, the "Unplanned Pregnancy" fallacy is a conflation of "arbitrary" with "random".

Which is the association fallacy I am talking about.

Sex is an arbitrary decision with forseeable consequences, not a random, uncontrollable occurrence.

Correct.
The association fallacy associates the elements of other classes improperly with a particular element.
You have already given several excellent examples.

If a woman deliberately plans on having sex which has the obvious foreseeable consequence of pregnancy, then she is deliberately accepting the consequence of pregnancy which, if it occurs, was deliberately planned, not unplanned.

Correct.

Therefore, at the level just below the highest level, the "Unplanned Pregnancy" fallacy is a semantic fallacy, i.e. dishonestly using the word "unplanned" instead of the correct word "unwanted."

A semantics fallacy is also involved here, but the association is also made of the 'unplanned pregnancy' with other elements that have truly random behavior. It's like a reverse form of the compositional error.

If a pregnant woman were to be honest and use the phrase "my unwanted pregnancy" then she would be forced to explain why she therefore had sex. Surreptitiously swapping in the word "unplanned" conceals the inconvenient responsibility, and resulting judgement, that the dishonest woman is trying to avoid.

It is yet another way of rationalizing the case to commit murder.

How can a woman create a child whom she HATES enough to want to kill?

She is taught to hate it, by Democrats.

What person is so dishonest that he cannot refer to the killing of a living human as a "killing"?

She is taught this redefinition fallacy, by Democrats.

This all stems from the hatred of women by Democrats. They teach them that they are worthless unless they are competing for corporate careers. No room for kids in that model.

No success in any career can compensate for failure in the home.

 

[Into the Night]

Be careful to not assume a false contrapositive.

I'm not, I am nullifying the claim that something isn't alive if it doesn't have a heartbeat.

These idiots don't understand that it doesn't require a heartbeat to designate that fetus as a living human.
To kill it is to kill a human being.

Where there is a heartbeat, there is life. Where there is no heartbeat, there still might be life. [someone might need CPR]

My point exactly.

Where there is breathing, there is life. Where there is no breathing, there still might be life. [someone might be holding his breath]

Again, my point exactly. An unborn child doesn't need to breath.

The unborn child has the advantage of an umbilical cord.

 

[Into the Night]

I suspect you're unaware of some important facts regarding unplanned pregnancies. I know you don't like Wikipedia, but it does contain important information at times. Quoting from it:
...

False reference summarily discarded. False authority fallacy.
Semantics fallacy. Association fallacy.

You cannot justify murder.

 

[Scott]

The problem is when having sex leads to unwanted pregnancies.

I get it. The problem is when procreating leads to procreation.

No, the problem is when having -sex- leads to pregnancy. A lot of sex doesn't actually end in pregnancy, especially if contraceptives are used.

When a life is created, who gets to kill it?

Depends on the life in question. If it's not a human life, a lot of people can end it. Think of all the livestock that is killed every day for human consumption. If it's a human life, on the other hand, it depends- if you're a super power or one of its close allies, you can kill human life with relative impunity- the U.S. government has apparently killed millions over the years:
**
How many people has the U.S. government killed abroad?

ChatGPT said:​

It’s very hard to give a precise number for how many people the U.S. government has killed abroad, because the estimate depends heavily on definitions (combatants vs civilians, direct vs indirect deaths, whether to count U.S.-supported proxy forces, etc.), the time period considered, and the sources. However, I can summarize credible estimates from research, along with their limitations, so you get a sense of the range.

---

Key Estimates & Studies​

1. Brown University — Costs of War Project
   
   • Between 2001-2023, in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan, there were an estimated 940,000 people killed by direct violence. Watson Institute
   • Of those, 432,000+ were civilians. Watson Institute
   • Including indirect deaths (due to consequences like loss of healthcare, infrastructure damage, economic collapse, etc.), the total death toll is estimated at 4.5–4.7 million. Watson Institute+1
2. Airwars & other civilian harm monitoring groups
   
   • They estimate that U.S. airstrikes since 9/11 have killed at least 22,000 civilians, possibly up to 48,000 in some years/conflicts. The Guardian
   • U.S. Department of Defense figures often report much lower numbers; human rights groups believe these are undercounts. Airwars+2The Guardian+2
3. IBON Foundation
   
   • They give a much larger figure, claiming that “direct U.S. military actions in at least 16 countries have caused around 7-13 million deaths,” and U.S.-supported or instigated conflicts in 19 countries have led to 6-10 million deaths. IBON Foundation
   • These are magnitudes higher than most academic estimates and include broader definitions (e.g. indirect deaths, morally or materially supported conflicts, etc.).

**

But to get back to the subject of abortions, that now depends on the U.S. state in question. In some states, the pregnant woman may decide for at least the starting months of her pregnancy. In others, she generally can't. I think at this point, you know why I believe pregnant woman should have the choice to terminate their pregnancies, so I won't repeat myself here.

 

[Scott]

I've already told you why- I don't see the removal of a pregnant woman's fetus at her request to be a killing, but rather a termination. As I've explained elsewhere, society uses different words for procedures that end the life of various life forms. We tend to reserve terms such as killing and especially murder for the wrongful and deliberate removal of human lives. For cases where the life isn't human, we tend to use terms such as slaughter. For cases where the ending of a human life that has some type of mitigating circumstance, we use the term manslaughter. Here's The American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Edition's definition of the term:
**
The killing of a person without malice aforethought but with either the intention to commit an unlawful act that leads to an unintended death, or with an otherwise murderous intent that is extenuated by some partial defense, such as acting under the influence of an extreme emotional disturbance occasioned by a substantial provocation on the part of the victim.
**
Source:

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

All the words

www.wordnik.com

And finally, for cases such as a mother's decision to remove a fetus from her body, we tend to use the term termination. This is certainly the case with The American Heritage Dictionary, 5th Edition, as mentioned and referenced in the opening post of this thread.

It is a termination. Of a life.

Agreed.

If they found a fetus like life form on another planet what would the response be?

I imagine it'd depend on the life form in question.

 

[IBDaMann]

I suspect you're unaware of some important facts regarding [unwanted] pregnancies.

FTFY. Let's keep it honest.

I know you don't like Wikipedia, but it does contain important information at times. Quoting from it:

*Ignoring everything from Wikipedia*

Let me know when you have something to say, and please keep it honest.

 

[Scott]

Again, I believe the handoff of responsibility has nothing to do with the quality of the man, but rather where the sperm now resides- in the woman. I fully believe that even if the man is the most caring man in the world, the choice to continue or terminate a pregnancy should be the woman's choice alone.

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? We have already agreed that it's a hell of a lot easier to inseminate a woman then it is to carry a pregnancy to term. I decided to ask chatGPT how much sperm a man produces a day. Here's its answer:
**
On average, a healthy man produces about 50 to 100 million sperm per day.

Here’s a breakdown:

• Each testicle contains tiny tubes (seminiferous tubules) where sperm are made.
• Spermatogenesis (the process of making sperm) takes about 64–72 days from start to finish.
• At any given moment, billions of sperm are in different stages of development.
• By adulthood, production is essentially continuous: roughly 1,000–1,500 sperm every second.

**

A man will replace the batch of sperm he invested in a woman's pregnancy in short order. A woman, on the hand, would have to be pregnant for 9 months in order to produce a baby from a sperm.

 

[IBDaMann]

No, the problem is when having -sex- leads to pregnancy.

The problem is when -gambling- leads to losing.

Anyone engaging in heterosexual intercourse is accepting the possibility of a resulting pregnancy. Such cannot be "unplanned". It is deliberately planned. If such is not wanted, then one should not engage in heterosexual intercourse.

A lot of sex doesn't actually end in pregnancy, especially if contraceptives are used.

Irrelevant. That changes nothing. See above.

Your word games are noted.

When a human life is created, who do you claim has the moral authority to kill it? Who has the moral authority to kill you?

 

[Scott]

The buck stops with the woman in terms of responsibility. A man might take off or, for whatever reason, be unavailable once a pregnancy starts. A pregnant woman -can't- vacate the scene. There are many reasons why a woman may decide to terminate a pregnancy. I've made a thread on said reasons 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

• 

... and a common reason to "terminate a pregnancy" is to quite literally "vacate the scene".

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

• 

I can certainly acknowledge that some women who terminate their pregnancies may be making a mistake, but I also think that for some, if not most, it was the best decision they could make considering the circumstances.

I suppose if the mother's life was at risk, but even for a number of those 0.0001% of cases, C-sections can be performed.

The risk of the pregnant woman is only one reason. Again, I made a thread specifically to talk about the reasons, linked to above.

If memory serves, a former stepmother of mine once had an abortion. I don't know the exact circumstances, but I strongly suspect that she made the best choice at the time- I believe she said something to the effect that she just wasn't ready at the time. She now has 2 children.

I'd say that she made a rather careless choice to have sex at the time, and that the living human inside of her womb was sentenced to the death penalty because of her careless choice.

I don't know the circumstances that led to her getting pregnant, so I can't judge here.

 

[Into the Night]

No, the problem is when having -sex- leads to pregnancy. A lot of sex doesn't actually end in pregnancy, especially if contraceptives are used.

Apparently mommy never told you the purpose of sex.

Depends on the life in question. If it's not a human life, a lot of people can end it. Think of all the livestock that is killed every day for human consumption. If it's a human life, on the other hand, it depends- if you're a super power or one of its close allies, you can kill human life with relative impunity- the U.S. government has apparently killed millions over the years:

A human being is not a cow. It is not a chicken. It is not livestock. War is not murder.
Abortion is murder. It is a contract murder. The victim is defenseless and presents no danger.

How many people has the U.S. government killed abroad?

Irrelevance fallacy.

 

[Into the Night]

Agreed.



I imagine it'd depend on the life form in question.

False equivalence fallacy. Strawman fallacy.

You cannot justify murder.

 

[Into the Night]

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

• 

You cannot justify murder.

 

[Scott]

There's some evidence that Jesus may have had one or more children of his own, though I fully acknowledge that this may not be true. Hard to know what happened around 2000 years ago- some people question whether he even existed as an actual person. In any case, I'm not a Christian, so appealing to one's idea of Jesus isn't going to score points with me.

The Bible doesn't say anything about Jesus having children

The Bible doesn't say a lot of things. Doesn't mean those things aren't true. I first found out the theory that Jesus may have had children from Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code, later turned into a movie by the same name. Dan Brown's novel is fiction, but he researched several books that weren't fiction. One day, I was in a bookstore and I saw the book Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which mentioned being the inspiration of some of Dan Brown's claims in his Da Vinci Code, including the claim that Jesus had children. I bought the book and found it to be quite interesting. I know that Wikipedia doesn't exactly give the book a favourable review, but I still think it's possible that it was right about Jesus having children.

 

[Scott]

The Bible doesn't say anything about Jesus having children, and parenthood doesn't really go along too well with the life purpose of quickly dying on a cross to save humanity from their sins. I see no good reason to believe that Jesus would have children (or even get married) knowing full well that he'd quickly leave his children fatherless (and leave his wife a widow) in order to fulfill his life purpose.

You are assuming that Jesus knew "full well that he'd quickly leave his children fatherless" and "leave his wife a widow". I've seen no solid evidence of this. Then again, I'm not even sure Jesus was an actual person after seeing a documentary called Zeitgeist. I'll quote the relevant part of said documentary:
**
Furthermore, is there any non-biblical historical evidence of any person, living with the name Jesus, the Son of Mary, who traveled about with 12 followers, healing people and the like? There are numerous historians who lived in and around the Mediterranean either during or soon after the assumed life of Jesus. How many ofthese historians document this figure? Not one.

However, to be fair, that doesn’t mean defenders of the historical Jesus haven’t claimed the contrary. Four historians are typically referenced to justify Jesus’ existence: Pliny the younger, Suetonius, Tacitus are the first three. Each one of their entries consists of only a few sentences at best and only refer to “Christus” or the Christ, which in fact is not name but a title. It means the “Anointed one.” The fourth source is Josephus, and this source has been proven to be a forgery for hundreds of years. Sadly, it is still cited as truth.

You would think that a guy who rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven for all eyes to see and performed the wealth of miracles acclaimed to him would havemade it into the historical record. He didn’t, because once the evidence is weighed, there are very high odds that the figure known as Jesus, did not even exist.
**

Source:

https://zeitgeistmovie.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ZeitgeistThe-MovieCompanionGuidePDF.pdf

 

[Scott]

So far, yes. I reserve the right to talk about non human abortions later on in this thread -.-

Fair enough, although I can't say that I've ever participated in such a discussion.

That may remain unchanged. I just like keeping my options open.

My thoughts on this is that a braid dead human is going to die soon anyway and won't exactly be communicating much for the rest of their short lifespan either. I think pulling the plug at that point should be considered justifiable.

The way that you worded this response sounds like you are in agreement with me that a "brain dead" human is still "living" (due to "being kept alive") and that a human isn't dead until the heart stops beating (meaning the cessation of any "keeping alive" efforts or a continued flatline after several failed revival attempts). IOW, the presence of a heartbeat signifies the presence of life.

Sure. I think the important question should always be whether keeping a given life alive is in the best interests of society as a whole.

 

[Scott]

Sure, they are a very early stage of human development. The important issue for me here is how intelligent a fetus is in comparison to the pregnant woman who is hosting him.

I'm baffled as to why you would find "intelligence level" to be any bit relevant in this discussion. "Intelligence level" has absolutely no effect on whether a human is a human or whether a human is living, correct? In other words, a very stupid living human is still a living human, same as a very intelligent living human is still a living human.

You seem to be saying that you believe that a human life trumps any other life, regardless of how much more intelligent that other life is. Is that what you're saying? Even on those terms, however, when it comes to a pregnant woman, it's pitting 2 lives which are -both- human, with the mother's almost always (if not always) being more intelligent than the fetus. I, for one, think that the wishes of living creatures should be prioritized based on their intelligence. While this may hold little sway with a lot of humans when it comes to any species compared to the human one, when it comes to 2 humans, it's clear that many believe that the pregnant woman's wishes should take precedence over that of her fetus' life and I strongly suspect that the pregnant woman's relative intelligence has a lot to do with this. I certainly think that's how it should be.

 

[Scott]

You removed some of my words.

I did. I solely focused on the relevant ones. Your whole sentence was: "In the case of the removal of human fetuses, the fetus was both a fetus -and- a living human." --- I think it's reasonable to rephrase your words as "the fetus was...a living human" because this context is a superset of what this very thread is about (the subset of abortion). --- My presentation of your words clearly shows that you are asserting (in agreement with me) that "the fetus" was a living human.

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...

The living human -fetus-

A living human is a living human. It doesn't matter what stage of life (fetus, newborn, adolescent, adult, etc) the living human is in.

Here's where we disagree. I will say one thing though- it's not just a matter of the relative intelligence of the fetus vs. the pregnant woman. It's also the fact that, at least at present, if the woman wants to remove the fetus from her body prior to said fetus being able to live outside of her body, this will lead to the fetus' death. If the fetus could simply be transferred to a life support system for the remainder of its gestation period, that would introduce new complications. There's more things too though, which is that a human fetus whose own mother thinks it would be better to be terminated already has the deck stacked against them in life. From an article on unwanted pregnancies:
**
It has been shown that unintended pregnancies in the United States account for half of the pregnancies each year.1 The rates of unintended pregnancies vary based on the relationship status with the highest among those who are unmarried but cohabiting.2 There are two categories of unintended pregnancies: mistimed and unwanted. The former describes a pregnancy that has occurred earlier than desired, while the latter refers to the situation when a woman wanted no children at all.1

Women with unplanned pregnancies that were unwanted are more likely to smoke, use illicit drugs and be at greater risk for maternal anxiety and depression.1 The risk factors for unintended pregnancies are low socioeconomic status, maternal drug abuse, less education, sex trade, type of contraceptive used and younger age.3 Some research studies have also shown that unwanted pregnancies have been associated with poor maternal and child outcomes.1 For example, children born of unwanted pregnancies are at risk of behavioral and psychological issues in adolescence.4 There are multiple reasons unwanted pregnancies are associated with worse outcomes for children, and it is important to be aware of these risk factors in order to address the root cause of the problem.

Women who delivered a child as a result of unwanted pregnancy tend to exhibit a more authoritarian parenting style and report experiencing more parenting stress postpartum. Another important factor associated with worse outcomes for children is the challenge of secure attachment formation between mother and her child.5 The effect on early development has also been investigated by researchers. The stress associated with unintended pregnancy itself along with parenting challenges and commonly coexisting maternal depression influence children’s early development. Lack of sufficient interaction between mother and child may result in insecure attachment and delay of cognitive, motor and emotional development.5 As such, children born as a result of unwanted pregnancies are more likely to suffer from domestic violence and witness parental intimate partner violence.4 It has also been shown that these children are more likely to experience conduct and attention problems at ages 7-9 than those children whose mothers reported a planned pregnancy.4 Last but not least is breastfeeding, the benefits of which are well known for both mother and child. Multiple studies have shown that infants of unwanted pregnancies are less likely to be breastfed and, if they are, the time is significantly shorter than in infants of intended pregnancies.6
**

Source:

Unwanted Pregnancies: Outcomes for Children: Women's Health Education Program Blog - College of Medicine

drexel.edu

 

[Scott]

The dictionaries I've seen reference abortions as the termination of a pregnancy and the removal of the fetus, which causes its death. Killing is not a word they use and I think that's for the best.

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.