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Abortion
Pro or anti abortion? I am anti abortion and am wondering the opinions of other buddhists on this topic. Should it be legal?
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goodnight all. :hair:
Shit! .....no comment.
I am pro-choice, meaning I believe people should have the right to do it, even if I wouldn't. Though, only for the first trimester. Within the first 3 months, the fetus is unable to feel any pain. Aborting the undeveloped fetus would not be inhumane in this case. Coming from a Buddhist standpoint, we aren't supposed to kill any "sentient being." If I remember correctly, a sentient being is a being that is aware it is alive, and/or can feel pain. The first trimester fetus is neither of those, thus not a sentient being.
After the point of it developing a nervous system, then I feel it is not right to kill the fetus.
Not for life saving measures of the mother.
This is the beginnings of another person's life.
When have we become so calloused towards life that we can just throw it away like trash.
We either honor life or we don't.
At eight months it's still part of the mother's body.
Is it okay to kill it then?
If I attack you and this attack terminates your pregnancy but doesn't kill you, can I be charged with murder?
What does it say of one's moral or ethical compass that could terminate another life for convenience?
We all have the right to live and grow and to arbitrarily decide to end life, whether your killing innocents with a bomb or the innocent life in your womb is not ethically or morally justifiable.
I wonder what would happen if there were no abortion allowed, but after the child is born, it's then handed over to the father to raise. I wonder if enthusiasm for an abortion ban would suddenly wane. :scratch:
Just asking questions and posting my thoughts on the subject.
I guess it depends on how we view life.
I am an agnostic, honestly I don't believe that there is anything after this life.
For this only life we have, to terminate it so easily, I have difficulty with that.
We live in a society where life is a cheap commodity, whether your a porn star, a factory farmed animal, or someone in the middle east whom we bomb without so much as a thought. We have turned life into a commodity, a means to an end.
If one were to say an abortion needed to occur to save their life (pretty rare) then it is their right to protect and save their life.
If one were to say that they needed an abortion because it was inconvenient, bad timing, wrong guy, I find that line of reasoning unethical.
BTW the government tells you in a multitue of ways how to live and conduct your life. Do I suggest that the govenment needs to get any bigger (Budda forbid) or try to legislate or enforce some sort of morality? No. You cannot make a people ethical or moral especially through hamfisted attempts from government.
But I do think we need to challenge and question.
Would the Buddha have an abortion?
The Buddha's Words on Kindness (Metta Sutta) (part of it anyway)
"Wishing: In gladness and in saftey,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether they are weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born,
May all beings be at ease!"
http://dharma.ncf.ca/introduction/sutras/metta-sutra.html
...now to sleep.
:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown:
That is why I don't want to get the legal system involved before an early time, after a certain amount of time regardless if the baby is part of a mother's body then that choice is gone (my godaughter was a 24 week preemie who is doing perfectly fine at 16).
What about cases of rape and incest? Why should the girl be stuck with bringing a pregnancy to term when she's already dealing with severe trauma? It's like traumatizing her doubly. It's easy for people whose gender leaves them incapable of childbearing to say it's not a big deal. One thing they can't say in such an instance is that she "got herself into it".
One thing that would happen if states banned abortion is that a lot of Indian tribes would open abortion clinics. A tribe in Montana threatened that when the state had an abortion ban on the ballot.
I was just having fun with him.
Sorry bothi...:)
But having said that, I also took a bus to Washington DC in 2004 and marched along with Planned Parenthood, so it's clearly something I feel very strongly about.
@Theswingisyellow You've explained your personal feelings on the topic, but does this mean that you actually believe abortion should be outlawed? And if so, are you aware of the suffering that would be caused due to a reversal like that? Or rather, the suffering that existed before abortion was made legal...
Here's the thing. Whether you believe in it or not, a desperate woman will find a way... the only problem is that sometimes the ways they find/try can have truly detrimental side effects.
Fun fact: Lysol used to be touted as a douche for feminine hygiene. This sounds ridiculous until you find out that Lysol was actually a discrete form of contraception. You know, back before you couldn't actually talk about these types of things.
I don't, however, think abortion should be made illegal. Not everyone is going to agree upon when life begins and to try and force keeping an unwanted child, or a rape baby at the extreme, would only serve to send abortion underground making it unsafe.
If at some point in the future science can definitively say that a fetus is indeed a person then maybe I would change my mind about the legality of it.
As I said I don't believe you can make a people ethical or moral.
I don't believe in bigger government or it's attempts to burden us with more laws or to enforce someone's idea of morality.
This is a question of ethics. It involve the termination of a life and the reasons this is done.
By it's very nature abortion it is a destructive act.
If this destructive act is carried out for matters of convience-I question that.
To quash a life simply because it is easier for one, seems ethically indefensible.
Its down to ethics and compassion.
I ask again, would Buddha have an abortion?
However being into the teenage years with 3 kids and an uncooperative ex in a society such as it is I doubt that simple convenience or embarrassment is always that. The simple things in raising kids gets me, somedays it really is too much and I think I am a strong person.
I have compassion for the potential mothers, There is so much to say about raising kids right now but I don't think this is the conversation we are trying to have here.
Chomsky vids.
Now, more seriously, I think one of the problems is that most people seem to think that on most issues there are only 2 positions -- the right position and the wrong position.
But life is not that simple. Theswingisyellow has a valid position. I understand the logic he/she is using. And, to some extent, I agree with the ethical position he/she is taking.
But, the key place where I disagree with Theswingisyellow comes with his statement that, "I don't believe you can make a people ethical or moral."
In a sense, that's exactly the point when you pass a law -- whatever it is -- regarding abortion (or certain other topics)...you are, in a sense, codifying morality. And, we do it every day. Take the 5 Precepts or at least half of the Ten Commandments. We have codified them, and thus defined morality.
I also disagree with you in terms of the importance of whether government is "big government" or "small government". This has gotten to be a cliched manner of political jingoism. The only thing that should matter is whether some thing that the government is doing is a right decision or a wrong decision. I know a person who rails against "big government"...condemns the interstate highway system for that reason, but drives on it 5 days a week or more. Condemns the social security system, but cashes the check every month. Etc. It's sort of like when someone says, "We can't afford that war." Whether we can afford a war or not should never be the reason to go to war, or not to go to war. The question should always only ever be about whether that war is the "right" thing to do.
And finally, when you say, "It's down to ethics and compassion", you make that sound so simple. It's not.
Life is so much more complex than "most abortion is used as birth control". People's birth control fails, even oral contraceptives. There are abusive partners who sabotage the birth control. There's violent crime. Just a few weeks ago a 12-year old in my town went to the only hospital, a Catholic hospital, and was refused an abortion. She was accompanied by her parents who said it was a "family friend" who raped her. They had to drive over an hour to another hospital in the nearest city. The body of some 12-year olds isn't even fit to hold a 9-month old baby and give birth without complications. Those who would ban abortion on humanitarian grounds really need to study and carefully consider all the facts. Sometimes abortion is the humanitarian option.
And I do feel that a Catholic hospital should be able to refuse abortion cases.
Here's a question: in a no-abortions world, would labor law be changed to support pregnant women and those who have just give birth? Would funding be provided to create childcare centers in every locale? Would free parenting classes be made available, and affordable health insurance for the mothers? In an abortion-free country, would society and the government bend over backwards to provide the services and maternal leave, sick child leave, etc. all those mothers would need?
I may be a Democrat, but it bothers me to see how much you want government to be in control.
It's a fair question--if women will be required to carry all pregnancies to term, is society insists on imposing that on them, what does society plan to offer to facilitate that? Or does the anti-abortion segment of society just plan to abandon women to their own devices? Does "right to life" end once the child has exited the womb? No concern about that life in subsequent months, years?
But:
"If the only hospital in town is Catholic and refuses to perform abortions, there need to be abortion providers locally available." -- Would some body regulate this?
"would labor law be changed to support pregnant women and those who have just give birth?" -- law is government.
"Would funding be provided to create childcare centers in every locale?" -- government.
"Would free parenting classes be made available, and affordable health insurance for the mothers?" -- government.
"would society and the government bend over backwards to provide the services and maternal leave, sick child leave, etc. all those mothers would need?" -- you said it, I didn't.
further, cultural buddhism is never real buddhism
some of us carry a lot of Christian baggage into our fondling with buddhism