windovervocalcords

I thought I'd start a thread here in the religion forum rather than in the abortion forum on the topic of the ethics of choosing to terminate a pregnancy. I'm a Buddhist and Buddhist principles inform my view of this issue.

I am philosophically of the opinion that life begins at conception and that early abortion is the taking of potential human life and that late term abortion is the taking of a human life--or killing a human.

At the same time, I don't feel that I have a right as a Buddhist to impose my ethics on a pregnant woman unless she has solicited my counsel. So, I am pro-choice. I think the pregnant woman deserves equal consideration in the dilemma of facing an unplanned pregnancy.

What do you think?

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Marshall Rosenberg, author and trainer in Non-Violent Communication.

GManNickG

As you might know, I don't think anything is inherently good or bad. Any "problems" associated with an action are human created responses. My take then is that abortions are just an action humans make and for some arbitrary reason, many people have a negative response. But there isn't some inherent reason they should be stopped.

If we want to assume a few morals are true, things most people agree on, I actually think allowing abortions makes more sense. For example, in my experience non-aborted children that had mothers who considered it tend to be raised to be less-than average intelligence and helpfulness. (Now making loads of moral assumptions ) I don't feel any human being that doesn't honestly try to become intelligent or helpful to the continuing improvement of mankind isn't anyone worth missing. That is, all they've done is use resources without giving anything back, and that's negative improvement. Better would have been for the person to have been aborted, to leave the resources to someone else. Additional, the mother (and father) could have had a much more fruitful life.

I don't understand that "it's a potential human", "it's a human" arguments. So? I promise not to resort to "well you can't prove any morals to me", since I do have a moral system (arbitrary of course), but I honestly don't understand the need or desire to save every potential life.

About politics: Most abortions don't effect a majority of people. Why should people be worried about something that doesn't even effect them?

Hoplite

I feel that life for the sake of life is absolutely meaningless.

My question is where does CONSCIOUSNESS begin? Consciousness is the key in my view. We have no moral qualms about simply ending what we view to be non-sentient life, we do it on a daily basis, so why should this be any different?

You could argue that a fetus IS sentient, however I think you'd be hard-pressed to present proof of that.

Beyond that, I look at it on a cost/benefit plane; the cost of banning abortion is (I feel) greater than that of allowing it.

Let me hastily quantify that by pointing out that black market abortion clinics have, without fail, sprung up wherever abortion has been outlawed with some rather gruesome outcomes. Many women in African countries die every year from botched abortions performed with tools so crude as to be below that carried by a doctor of the Dark Ages. Such places can be breeding grounds for disease and sickness as well as cause young women to risk prison or worse out of fear.

Some scoff and accuse me of being melodramatic, pointing out that we have a system of foster care in most first world countries. I would point out in response that almost every foster care system in every country is dramatically overburdened, under-funded, under-staffed, and is handling far more children than it could ever hope to. Why this is preferable I am unsure but I can only guess that it is a reflection of people who disagree with my sentiment that life for the sake of life is meaningless.

On the other hand, if we permit abortion and ensure that it is a regulated practice as well as establish better methods of making birth control more widely avalible to all people, I feel it would make the demand for abortion go down and while yes you would still have it, it's impact would be minimized.

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samsmart

My feelings is that until we implement a system in which everybody has free and easy access to birth control and people who are not able to adequately and healthily raise a child are able to have sex without conceiving until they are ready to do so, then abortion should remain legal until better ways for people to exercise their reproductive rights are discovered. Prevent more unwanted pregnancies, and allow people free access to those prevention methods, and you prevent more abortions. That is my belief as a deist.

Winnb

Well as a follower of the Taoist philosophy I tend to have similar feelings about the abortion issue. I have a different philosophical view of life beginning at conception though. My answer is "I don't know" when life begins. I realize the "potential" for human life begins at conception, but I'm not sure that warrants passing legislation making abortion illegal.

So I feel if we should err on this issue as a society then we should err on the side of freedom. Meaning personal choice and individual freedom should be more important than anything else.

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Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

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Korimyr the Rat

My ancestors waited for nine days after the birth of a child to give it a name. Until that time, they held nothing wrong with the practice of leaving the child outside the front door of the house to die of exposure.

Abortion is nothing more than a humane alternative.

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cpwill

how do you feel about illegalizing murder?

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"Hitherto no one, in the United States, has dared to advance the maxim, that everything is permissible with a view to the interests of society; an impious adage, which seems to have been invented in an age of freedom, to shelter all the rants of future ages." - Alexis deTocqueville, 1835

The Baron

Romans 1:22

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"We can't expect the American people to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have communism." - Nikita Khrushchev

Winnb

Well that cleared everything up. Problem solved. Nice talking to you.

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Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.

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GManNickG

Murder is already illegal.