Religion and Ethics Forum
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: SweetPea on April 25, 2017, 06:09:21 PM
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Anyone read the Telegraph? I don't but this was flagged up elsewhere:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
..... you couldn't make this stuff up!
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Anyone read the Telegraph? I don't but this was flagged up elsewhere:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/9113394/Killing-babies-no-different-from-abortion-experts-say.html
..... you couldn't make this stuff up!
It's a misuse of the word expert.
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It's a misuse of the word expert.
Right on, Nearly. The article too, is written in a way that says..... because the experts are professors, this gives them authority.
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Right on, Nearly. The article too, is written in a way that says..... because the experts are professors, this gives them authority.
which reads to me ad if the article is following an agenda to go done the route that expert opinion in general is problematic. Thus leads to the sort of anti vaccination nonsense.
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which reads to me ad if the article is following an agenda to go done the route that expert opinion in general is problematic. Thus leads to the sort of anti vaccination nonsense.
Agreed.
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which reads to me ad if the article is following an agenda to go done the route that expert opinion in general is problematic. Thus leads to the sort of anti vaccination nonsense.
Well, it's not meant to. If 'Joe Bloggs' had been mentioned as the expert (with no title) would anyone listen?
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Well, it's not meant to. If 'Joe Bloggs' had been mentioned as the expert (with no title) would anyone listen?
The article obviously doesn't agree with the conclusion so it isn't using 'expert' as a reason to believe, but rather to disparage the notion of expert.
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At least this stuff is reported, and needs to be exposed. It's almost inconceivable that anyone would be contemplating such an idea.
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NS is right. This article takes an idea that is both absurd and abhorrent and then says it is a theory that 'experts' have. In other words, it sows the seed of the idea that 'experts' believe in things that are damaging to ordinary people. Read on though and it is apparent that they aren't 'experts' at all. See Michael Gove on 'experts' for an idea of how this can be missed by politicians.
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NS is right. This article takes an idea that is both absurd and abhorrent and then says it is a theory that 'experts' have. In other words, it sows the seed of the idea that 'experts' believe in things that are damaging to ordinary people. Read on though and it is apparent that they aren't 'experts' at all. See Michael Gove on 'experts' for an idea of how this can be missed by politicians.
Note it also refers to a 'group' which implies something official when it's merely the two authors and the fact that thet have worked with the editor. It therefore implies that the editor agrees, when from the rest of the story, this isn't clear at all. Further without reading the the actual article,I am not clear if this is the actual proposal of the authors, or an effective thought experiment based on consistency of moral precepts.
It is as is noted in the article not a new idea, and follows generally from Peter Singer's analysis of utilitarianism. At base though the purpose of the article is to denude context and place any academic statement as no more correct than any other statement.
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Yes, it seems to be an exercise in 'if this, so then that'.
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I thought it was quite shocking.
What one person suggests, another one carries out.
:(
Babies are little persons with their own personality.
At only a few hours old, in hospital one of my sons heard a champagne cork and managed to lift his head in an attempt to see what was going on, we were amazed at the time.
They are as fully human as any other person.
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Infanticide happens already.
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Yes and it never used to be illegal.
however I don't think they knew how to deal with the baby blues or what caused it, now you can get help.
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Post natal depression is not a leading cause of infanticide.
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Yes and it never used to be illegal.
however I don't think they knew how to deal with the baby blues or what caused it, now you can get help.
Not quite sure what you mean by it not being illegal and where you are saying that applied. It wasn't a specific crime in the UK till Victorian times (iirc) but it was still murder. The move to making it a specific crime was to avoud the death penalty since it was felt that a woman murdering her children was by definition not of sound mind. That said go back far enough and it was less likely to be enforced, but given infant mortality it was a lot harder to prove.
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I thought it was quite shocking.
What one person suggests, another one carries out.
:(
Babies are little persons with their own personality.
At only a few hours old, in hospital one of my sons heard a champagne cork and managed to lift his head in an attempt to see what was going on, we were amazed at the time.
They are as fully human as any other person.
Agreed, Rose.
What is so frightening is at the moment this is a meme, but over time we have seen all too often memes become reality.... take for example transhumanism, now encroaching on society.
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Any deniers of the slippery slope out there still?
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Not quite sure what you mean by it not being illegal and where you are saying that applied. It wasn't a specific crime in the UK till Victorian times (iirc) but it was still murder. The move to making it a specific crime was to avoud the death penalty since it was felt that a woman murdering her children was by definition not of sound mind. That said go back far enough and it was less likely to be enforced, but given infant mortality it was a lot harder to prove.
Yes I think you are right.
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In English law there's a definition of infanticide. However the article mentions disability and the child just not being wanted after delivery. And of course there is the killing of female babies found in some cultures.
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Any deniers of the slippery slope out there still?
Yes, it's a fallacy. And I would be careful given that your god was keen in the old killing of infants thing, so you would be arguing that it started it.
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Yes, it's a fallacy. And I would be careful given that your god was keen in the old killing of infants thing, so you would be arguing that it started it.
You're deluded.
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You're deluded.
No, you are deluded.
Whose god was it that drowned everyone in the world except one family?
Whose god was it that killed the first-born in Egypt?
Whose god was it that permitted Herod to slaughter the innocents?
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No, you are deluded.
Whose god was it that drowned everyone in the world except one family?
Whose god was it that killed the first-born in Egypt?
Whose god was it that permitted Herod to slaughter the innocents?
It's all right because Jesus. That's why ad-o wears poly cotton.
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You're deluded.
You are deluded if you think the deeds attributed to the Biblical god are acceptable.
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You're deluded.
while you are happy with a God that wanted the infant Amalekites slaughtered. You worship child murder.
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Look! Getting all defensive cos you know I'm right.
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I don't know what he thinks he's right about floo but I do know he doesn't worship child murder. That is truly stretching a point.
It's saying that people like ourselves, Christians, and Jews, who accept Old Testament stories, eg killing of first born (or may believe they are fictional stories attmpting to put over a truth), are automatically happy with children being killed by people in our time - one might as well say that all Christians from AofC down are at liberty to go around wielding a sword or shooting a gun at infants! Stupid and unfair.
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Look! Getting all defensive cos you know I'm right.
not defensive at all. I note you have given UK dealing with any points. Now, I wouldn't presume that it's because you can't deal with them but until you attempt it, then it will look like that.
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I don't know what he thinks he's right about floo but I do know he doesn't worship child murder. That is truly stretching a point.
It's saying that people like ourselves, Christians, and Jews, who accept Old Testament stories, eg killing of first born (or may believe they are fictional stories attmpting to put over a truth), are automatically happy with children being killed by people in our time - one might as well say that all Christians from AofC down are at liberty to go around wielding a sword or shooting a gun at infants! Stupid and unfair.
What's the difference between the murder if the Amalekite children, or the first born and children being killed now. Ad_O worships a god who sanctioned the first and carried out the second. Given that he believes that god cannot do wrong, he worships the act of child murder. If you worship the same god then so do you.
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So if I have misgivings about euthanasia, I am happy for people to suffer? Different scenario but same black and white thinking. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean NearlySane.
For those unfamiliar with the Amalekites :-
http://matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2013/08/the-amalekite-genocide/
We who are Christian believe that Christ came to change things and fulfill the law and his teachings are far more relevant to us than the God of the Old Testament, though we seek to understand things that may have happened then.
I have no answer to that.
In the here and now I believe it is wrong to kill except in exceptional circumstances, such as self defence & war, and only then I am grudging about it because of my belief in pacifism.
Jesus would not condone the killing of an infant and neither would I. What an ancient people did several years BC, whether or not they believed God was on their side, is not relevant to us today, it's at best history and worst, myth.
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So if I have misgivings about euthanasia, I am happy for people to suffer? Different scenario but same black and white thinking. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean NearlySane.
For those unfamiliar with the Amalekites :-
http://matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2013/08/the-amalekite-genocide/
We who are Christian believe that Christ came to change things and fulfill the law and his teachings are far more relevant to us than the God of the Old Testament, though we seek to understand things that may have happened then.
I have no answer to that.
In the here and now I believe it is wrong to kill except in exceptional circumstances, such as self defence & war, and only then I am grudging about it because of my belief in pacifism.
Jesus would not condone the killing of an infant and neither would I. What an ancient people did several years BC, whether or not they believed God was on their side, is not relevant to us today, it's at best history and worst, myth.
I note your use of happy to create a strawman. If you want to throw out all the OT then fine but since Jesus was Jewish and he came not to change a tittle of the law then you throw him out as well. I an happy to accept that to me your morality is by a distance better than that of the god portrayed in the OT but then it's your morality I am accepting nothing to do with god or Jesus.
If ad_o on the other hand, the person I said worshipped child murder, accepts the OT as true and representative if god then he worships child murder.
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I don't know what he thinks he's right about floo but I do know he doesn't worship child murder. That is truly stretching a point.
It's saying that people like ourselves, Christians, and Jews, who accept Old Testament stories, eg killing of first born (or may believe they are fictional stories attmpting to put over a truth), are automatically happy with children being killed by people in our time - one might as well say that all Christians from AofC down are at liberty to go around wielding a sword or shooting a gun at infants! Stupid and unfair.
There is nothing stupid and unfair about challenging ad_o to support his views! ::)
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Oh, goodness, as per usual on this forum this thread has veered off the topic.
The way I read the comments was: firstly Ad-O was saying that this was a slippery slope to baby killing actually taking place. Then NS said that was a fallacy. Ad-O replied with "you are deluded" i.e. it could well not be a fallacy but could eventually happen. Ad-O correct me if I am wrong.
But instead you guys pick-up on the other end of NS's comment about babies being killed in the OT.
Stranger things have happened in this crazy world. Back in the 60s/70s if someone had mentioned the notion of transhumanism we would have thought.... never! But this is now really happening.... and the scary part is, it's accepted, and how many are standing up objecting?
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Oh, goodness, as per usual on this forum this thread has veered off the topic.
The way I read the comments was: firstly Ad-O was saying that this was a slippery slope to baby killing actually taking place. Then NS said that was a fallacy. Ad-O replied with "you are deluded" i.e. it could well not be a fallacy but could eventually happen. Ad-O correct me if I am wrong.
But instead you guys pick-up on the other end of NS's comment about babies being killed in the OT.
Stranger things have happened in this crazy world. Back in the 60s/70s if someone had mentioned the notion of transhumanism we would have thought.... never! But this is now really happening.... and the scary part is, it's accepted, and how many are standing up objecting?
No, the slipoery slooe argument is a fallacy. It doesn't mean that things envisaged will never happen, it means that because you link two things it doesn't mean that the second one will necessarily follow. Besides infanticide as already coveted has happened throughout history. That a an article is published now doesn't mean that it is going to happen because of the article.
I'm not really sure what the link to transhumanism is since the doubts on that were and remain essentially practical. It isn't happening now.
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Oh, goodness, as per usual on this forum this thread has veered off the topic.
The way I read the comments was: firstly Ad-O was saying that this was a slippery slope to baby killing actually taking place. Then NS said that was a fallacy. Ad-O replied with "you are deluded" i.e. it could well not be a fallacy but could eventually happen. Ad-O correct me if I am wrong.
But instead you guys pick-up on the other end of NS's comment about babies being killed in the OT.
Stranger things have happened in this crazy world. Back in the 60s/70s if someone had mentioned the notion of transhumanism we would have thought.... never! But this is now really happening.... and the scary part is, it's accepted, and how many are standing up objecting?
But babies were killed in the Bible, directly attributable to god.
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Yes, I don't get why it's off topic to talk about babies being killed by God (in the Bible), when the OP asks the question as to what has gone wrong? You could argue that it had already gone wrong, when baby-killing and genocide could be valorized in the major Jewish text (OT). If it is going wrong now, then surely it had gone wrong then? One interesting question is why this was approved of in an ancient religion, and presumably some Christians at least, still approve of it. See Craig, for example.
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Biblical literalists, who believe every word in the Bible is true, would describe the god therein as a god of love, which makes no sense to me at all.
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I accept that not all Christians see the OT as literally true, and some would criticize the various genocides enacted by God. Presumably, they say 'God is not like that, these are just stories'.
But there are still some Christians who see the OT as definitive, and all the atrocities therein. Again, have a look at Craig. In fact, I would guess that many evangelicals agree with him.
So the question 'what has gone wrong?' is a good one, and can be addressed to OT believers. Why does God kill so liberally?
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So if I have misgivings about euthanasia, I am happy for people to suffer? Different scenario but same black and white thinking. I'm sure you know exactly what I mean NearlySane.
For those unfamiliar with the Amalekites :-
http://matthiasmedia.com/briefing/2013/08/the-amalekite-genocide/
Which is a load of old hooey, since we have no way of being certain whether such a people ever existed, still less whether they were eternally bent on opposition to God's plans for Israel. The whole OT narrative of these ancient peoples is hopelessly confused in these early books of the Bible (probably because they were cobbled together from different accounts). We get similar horrific narratives in the Book of Numbers (culminating in the obscenities of Numbers 31) where the supposed narrrator, God's prophet Moses, doesn't know whether he's talking about Moabites or Midianites. All we do know is it ends with the wholesale slaughter of every man, woman and boy, with the young girl virgins being taken to be raped. (The passage in question calls the people in for God's 'justice' Midianites here)
Sure, not all the OT is like this, but it does require some pretty specious argumentation (like the dreck in the link you gave) to exonerate a God who many Christians think is the same God as that of Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount. One can speak of evolution of ideas about God - fair enough. One could equally censure many Christians for simply cherry-picking. And that would apply just as much to the New Testament as the Old.
Now then, about that original article....
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I love this forum sometimes. :)
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Good post, Dicky. There's also the point, which I think NS made, that Jesus presumably upheld the OT, to the full monty. I suppose it's possible that he was covertly a revisionist theologian, and argued that these massacres were just stories, and should not be taken too seriously. Well, maybe.
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We don't actually know for sure what Jesus thought. The gospels were written well after his death and as nothing was apparently written down at the time he was strutting his stuff, it would be well nigh impossible for him to be quoted word for word. The so called 'eye witnesses' could well have quoted either what they thought he had said, or their own personal interpretation of what he said.
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Oh, goodness, as per usual on this forum this thread has veered off the topic.
The way I read the comments was: firstly Ad-O was saying that this was a slippery slope to baby killing actually taking place. Then NS said that was a fallacy. Ad-O replied with "you are deluded" i.e. it could well not be a fallacy but could eventually happen. Ad-O correct me if I am wrong.
But instead you guys pick-up on the other end of NS's comment about babies being killed in the OT.
Stranger things have happened in this crazy world. Back in the 60s/70s if someone had mentioned the notion of transhumanism we would have thought.... never! But this is now really happening.... and the scary part is, it's accepted, and how many are standing up objecting?
Had to look up 'transhuman', never heard of it before.
I think I understand wht Ad-o meant about 'slippery slope', new ideas are put into practice, boundaries change. People wonder where it will all end. Nothing to do with religion & I regret joining in with the 'religious' diversion earlier on, forgetting this is 'General Discussion' (despite that I was interested in Dicky's post).
It is an abhorrent idea. What you & Rhiannon said earlier on is right in my opinion.
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Had to look up 'transhuman', never heard of it before.
I think I understand wht Ad-o meant about 'slippery slope', new ideas are put into practice, boundaries change. People wonder where it will all end. Nothing to do with religion & I regret joining in with the 'religious' diversion earlier on, forgetting this is 'General Discussion' (despite that I was interested in Dicky's post).
It is an abhorrent idea. What you & Rhiannon said earlier on is right in my opinion.
. An ad_I is wrong. Not all new ideas are out into practice and this isn't a new idea, and the religious aspect is not a diversion because it illustrates that it isn't a new idea, and isn't what the 'world is coming to now'
Since to me what SweetPea and Rhiannon seem to be disagreeing, what is that you agree with them both on?
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Agree not all ideas are put into practice & it wouldn't have to follow that boundaries would change, but it's possible and some fear that, which is what I think Ad-o was concerned about. SweetPea too. I've thought it myself occasionally about other things, hoping to be proved wrong but still thought it. would have felt the same without any religious beliefs.
SP & Rhiannon seemed to be in agreement in replies 7&8, diverged somewhat later on but we went off tangent.
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I wonder what the human species will be like in a few thousand years time, assuming we haven't been daft enough to kill ourselves off by then. I wonder if we will have continued to evolve?
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I think homo sapiens will certainly change and adapt floo.
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Agree not all ideas are put into practice & it wouldn't have to follow that boundaries would change, but it's possible and some fear that, which is what I think Ad-o was concerned about. SweetPea too. I've thought it myself occasionally about other things, hoping to be proved wrong but still thought it. would have felt the same without any religious beliefs.
SP & Rhiannon seemed to be in agreement in replies 7&8, diverged somewhat later on but we went off tangent.
No, I was in agreement with NS. Utter bilge of an article.
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Agree not all ideas are put into practice & it wouldn't have to follow that boundaries would change, but it's possible and some fear that, which is what I think Ad-o was concerned about. SweetPea too. I've thought it myself occasionally about other things, hoping to be proved wrong but still thought it. would have felt the same without any religious beliefs.
SP & Rhiannon seemed to be in agreement in replies 7&8, diverged somewhat later on but we went off tangent.
It isn't a tangent. The idea was this was something the world was coming too. That's incorrect as was being pointed out. There is a tendency for people to fear the modern, and that is understandable but that's no excuse for them ignoring what actually happened in the past, and ignoring that embedded in their own beliefs is support for the idea they call out as abhorrent.
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I would have no wish to go back to the past, that is for sure.
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That isn't on the cards thank goodness floo.
Going back to the article, I too think it was rubbish and the idea is abhorrent, sure we all agree on that if not on other things.
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The idea isn't worth the effort it takes to think about it. I find the way it's been used in this piece of journalism far more concerning.
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It sure is. I wonder if the Telegraph have got some flack over it, hope so.
Found these comments: https://disqus.com/home/discussion/telegraphuk/infanticide_should_be_legal_oxford_experts_say/
(I hadn't noticed before that the article was quite an old one.)
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To answer the question posed by the thread title, nothing has gone wrong on this occasion. Just because a group of academics have raised a controversial point doesn't mean there is any chance of it actually happening. In the UK, we haven't got to the point of accepting that abortion is OK just before birth, never mind just after.
Given that this is entirely theoretical and there is no chance of it ever happening, would somebody like to take a crack at a rational take down of the argument of these academics? All I've seen on this thread so far is arguments from personal revulsion.
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I really struggle with the logic of some things.
As I understand it, in terms of our current technology, a premature 24 week infant has an approximately 50% chance of survival if given the correct specialist medical care. But there is a 25% chance that those who survive will encounter some form of health complications during their lives. Now in such an instance there seems to be no question of allowing nature to take its course and simply leaving this child to die. The infant is viewed as fully human and such a course of action would be considered highly unethical.
Yet if the mother (and father?) decided at just on 24 weeks in a normal pregnancy that the child was not really wanted, it is seen as perfectly moral and ethical to proceed with an abortion and discard the ‘foetus’. It is considered as no more than some form of living organism, not yet human, and there is no moral or ethical problem in ending its existence.
So is there something extremely remarkable about the process of birth, or a C Section, than transforms an the infant from being a sub-human entity into a human within a matter of a few hours and suddenly produces a whole new set of ethical considerations which we are required to uphold?
The strange logic of a world that has lost its moral compass!
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No, it is a world that judges individual cases with compassion as best as it can. Life is messy. When I discovered my pregnancies they were all at the very early stages and I could easily have miscarried, which would have devastated me. In the vanishingly unlikely event that I got pregnant now, I wouldn't hesitate to abort at the same stage. Not much later though, but that's my personal boundary.
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Yet if the mother (and father?) decided at just on 24 weeks in a normal pregnancy that the child was not really wanted, it is seen as perfectly moral and ethical to proceed with an abortion and discard the ‘foetus’. It is considered as no more than some form of living organism, not yet human, and there is no moral or ethical problem in ending its existence.
The ethical grounds might be questionable but the legal situation is clear. You are not allowed to abort a foetus at twenty four weeks merely because it is "not really wanted".
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No, it is a world that judges individual cases with compassion as best as it can. Life is messy. When I discovered my pregnancies they were all at the very early stages and I could easily have miscarried, which would have devastated me. In the vanishingly unlikely event that I got pregnant now, I wouldn't hesitate to abort at the same stage. Not much later though, but that's my personal boundary.
I do not wish to pry into what could be a very personal reason for you holding this position and you are welcome to simply decline to reply. But, if you are happy to do so, I would be interested to know why you draw your personal boundaries in such a way.
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I was waiting for Rhiannon to reply, if she wanted to.
We all have personal boundaries Dave, I certainly do I wouldn't want to be questioned about them, I'd assume people would accept that was how I felt. K'm sure you have personal boundaries too. Very personal.