business is booming

[Chris Miller]

Roe V. Wade was about living babies being turned into dead babies by women who think their vaginas are so magical that being inside of one means your life doesn't count.

Tuvok has much logic.

[Dechipher]

Roe V. Wade was about living babies being turned into dead babies by women who think their vaginas are so magical that being inside of one means your life doesn't count.

Please. Humans cant survive outside of the womb without parental support. You want to talk about what SHOULD be? We SHOULD all die because we can't fucking fend for ourselves or ACTUALLY survive for at LEAST one year.
I'm not saying we should just kill infants if theyre annoying or otherwise an issue, but if something isn't born yet, and especially if its the first third or two thirds of the pregnancy, then who the fuck am I to tell a woman what to do?

[ctrl-alt-delete]

If you guys don't think vaginas are magical, we should go back to discussing Doma or prop 8.

[rock_nog]

I've always felt that on the notion of abortion, the issue is that basically, for at least the first two-thirds of pregnancy, the fetus is completely incapable of possessing thoughts or feelings. The structure simply isn't there. Once the structure is there, I'm on the fence, but before the structure is there, I have no problem with abortion. It's our thoughts and feelings that define us as people, not our biological functions, in my opinion. For that same reason, I fully support being taken off life support should I ever suffer enough brain damage to basically be in a brain-dead coma.

[Chris Miller]

True, but by that point, you've (hopefully) lived life and had a lot of experiences, and contributed much to society. But taking a life in the womb...they never even get a chance to succeed or fail.
As for not having thoughts or feelings, here's one to ponder. A baby named Nicholas Coke was born a few years ago with a condition known as anencephaly. He looked completely normal, but he was missing most of his brain. He couldn't talk, probably couldn't see or hear, though they're not sure about that, and if he had thoughts, they were extremely limited. But he lived to be two years old, and didn't seem to be in any pain. In fact, he would smile when his mother or grandmother held him. Now, he can't contribute to society, at least in the financial sense. But...he's no more developed mentally than a fetus in the first trimester. Let's say you have the option to take a knife and murder him, with no repercussions. Can you do it? Why or why not?

[Mercy]

If you guys don't think vaginas are magical, we should go back to discussing Doma or prop 8.

As someone with a vagina, I have to admit they are magical. Doors automatically open, packages become lighter, furniture moves, and icky bugs are relocated to hell with merely a word because of my vagina. Having a vagina means never having to pay for drinks. It also magically lowers my earning potential but there is always an accompanying curse to any magical object. Some vaginas even have the power to produce fabulous pieces of jewelry. And who needs guns; my vagina can bring grown men to their knees.

The word sounds less magical the more you say it.
Vagina.

[rock_nog]

There's a difference between having half a brain and having no brain at all. There's a difference between being mentally underdeveloped and simply not existing in the first place. Believe me, I work in special needs, I'm not making that argument at all. I'm saying if the brain doesn't exist, then the person doesn't exist. You can be missing most of your brain and still have neurons firing, but you need to have at least something for neurons to be firing in the first place. Everything you are, everything that defines you as a person, is in your brain. Yes, after a certain point in development, a fetus gains a brain and the brain activates, but there's a large chunk of time before that happens. In that, I fail to see the ethical issue.

And just, I don't know why you'd say that having only part of a brain is the same as having no brain at all.

[Chris Miller]

He didn't have half a brain. He scarcely had more than a brain stem. No cerebellum, maybe a tablespoonful of white matter. It wasn't so much that he was mentally underdeveloped, as much as he was mentally not really there, with that small exception I mentioned above. But he still made a contribution, however small, to his family.

I suppose my attitudes are too simplistic and provincial for the 21st century. I simply can't draw that sort of "line of death", if you will. If I were to look at an ultrasound, I don't think "Well, that's a fetus in the first trimester of pregnancy." I think "I wonder if it's a boy or girl. What will they name it?"

[Gleeok]

[Dechipher]

I just think it's a woman's choice, and old white men need to stay out of it.