Hi Julia
Julia said:
Hi Bullmarket,
I respect your right to hold the views you have expressed so clearly.
However, I'd like to ask you to consider a scenario along the following lines:
A 15 year old girl has been raped by her father (this is not as uncommon as you may like to believe) and she is pregnant. This girl is physically and intellectually handicapped. She would be incapable of caring for a child.
Tests have indicated the baby will probably inherit at least some of the disability. The father has been charged and will go to jail. The girl's mother is devastated by the whole situation.
Do you think this girl should continue with the pregnancy?
If so, what do you think should happen to the baby?
Now, the above hypothetical situation may sound like something from a bad movie, but unfortunately it is something that occurs remarkably frequently.
Another situation which is even more common is two adults, not in a committed relationship, both drug addicts and alcoholics, chronically unemployed who have simply had sex a few times when stoned/drunk, and a pregnancy has resulted. They have both been in and out of jail most of their adult lives and have no intention of trying to quit their addictions. They both use crime as a means of funding their addictions. Neither of them have any supportive family who could care for a child. Because of the prospective mother's drug addiction, the baby would be born drug-dependent?
Again, do you think this baby should be brought into the world, and if so, what would you do about it.
Both of the above scenarios, if the pregnancy was completed, would be eligible for the government's baby bonus, now $ 3000 soon to be $7000.
How do you think that would be spent?
And then there's the whole huge question of which people are having the most babies, and the resulting effect on society's gene pool.
The above questions are asked in the spirit of furthering the discussion and hopefully increasing empathy for differing points of view, and in no way represent a personal attack on you, bullmarket, or anyone else.
Julia
Both of your scenarios are extreme but valid questions as I agree they unfortunately happen on far too many occasions in our society
I feel my answer to your two scenarios is summarised by the 2nd paragraph of an extract from one of my earlier posts (post 19 in this thread).
Given my view as expressed earlier that the human life of an embryo/unborn child call him/her what you will, is just as important, valid and relevant as your life and my and everyone else's life, then how is aborting a pregnancy any less cold blooded murder than if someone in the street walked up to you, me or anyone else out of the blue and shot us dead?
Sure, some pro-abortionists can try to argue that for some reason an unborn child/embryo is somehow less of a human being (for medical, physical or whatever reasons suit their arguments) but that is simply not true imo. Using an unborn child's physical or mental disability to justify aborting the pregnancy is just as ludicrous and unjustifiable as terminating the life of say a 5 year old that becomes severely mentally or physically handicapped for whatever reason.
So my anwer to both scenarios is that the pregnancies should be allowed to run to full term, unless as I said even earlier it can be shown that allowing the pregnancy to continue would be life threatening to the mother.
The other part of your question was what would I do about the handicapped or drug addicted child after it was born if the parents were unable or unwilling to look after it. To be honest I don't have a definite answer apart from the obvious putting them up for adoption, foster parents etc. I don't know atm what other options of support would be available from the gov't, medical, welfare support authorities. Maybe someone else can provide more info on what options are available.
But at the end of the day, to me terminating a life during pregnancy because of some disability, addiction or whatever would be no different to a mother (or anyone for that matter) terminating the life of say a 5 year old who became severely handicapped for life after a car accident for example, using the excuse that either they couldn't look after the handicapped child or that the child would no longer have a meaningful life.
I just can't see how someone can support killing an unborn child because of some disability and then be shocked and horrified if another mother killed her 5 year old child because the child suddenly became drug addicted, disabled, handicapped or whatever. I would imagine that the available gov't and community support available to that 5 year old would also be available to the disabled, handicapped or addicted baby the moment it was born.
This is obviously an emotive subject and I don't have exact answers for extreme cases, but I refer you back to my original argument, which is the crux behind my views and that is that imo an embryo/unborn child is just as alive as you and I and everyone else and has the same right to life as everyone else whether it is handicapped, disabled, drug addicted or whatever. The only difference between an embryo and us is that an embryo is in a very early stage of physical development. There is no other difference imo.
I hope this clears up, at least a little bit, where I am coming from. I could go into the religious aspects but I won't do that here as I'm sure all hell would then break loose in here
.
Anyway, to finish off, I hope everyone looks at my earlier posts in the light that although I have strong views on the topic, my posts with their reasoning/logic are aimed at providing food for thought, hopefully for at least those who might be wavering between pro/anti abortion. I'm not trying to impose my views on anyone - I'm just stating what my views are.....and to those that disagree with me...that's fine...lets agree to disagree and move on.
Phewwwww......my 2 typing fingers are battered and bruised after all this typing today
might have to give them a well earned rest...
cheers
bullmarket