Kirkreng mentioned it in another thread. In any case, people have the freedom to have as many children as they like. It's no more your choice to decide how many children a couple can have than it is your choice whether or not a mother wants an abortion.

I never said word one about China, man. I said that we need a population decrease. I didn't say we need to follow China's suit.

I've always thought that having children should require a license, like driving or operating heavy machinery. It's just as (if not more so) dangerous and potentially harmful to the rest of the world and I think only people who have proven they are mentally and emotionally capable should be able to do so. Like being a member of the police force there should be at minimum two requirements for having kids, intelligence and decency.

I'm not completely pro-choice now, but I can see your two's points.

Lux, about needing a license to have children.... maybe. What do you think such a license should entail?

I'm not a lawmaker, mathematician, nor a scientist so I couldn't decide for sure what would be the best criteria for productive, effective parents, but I would guess it would be somewhat similar to screening for adoption.

Probably would get more streamlined, and adoption itself would probably become more popular. It could be made slightly easier to do, or made into the primary way couples get children since there are so many orphaned children in the world and we only need so many to be born for the next several decades.

In hindsight, this does sound like a good idea, but we're on the verge of a thread derail. :/

I'm not terribly knowledgeable about abortion, so it's no wonder my pathetic arguments were demolished, but when do you consider the fetus/child to be alive?

That depends on your definition of 'alive' and if you see being living and consciousness as two different things or one in the same.

I found some good thoughts online in relation to this question:
"Consciousness does not and cannot occur until birth, when the infant is given something different from its previous existence to compare it with. It does have the hard-wired faculty of perception, and even of epistemic logic. But until it is given the gift of the trauma of birth, when all of its senses are sent screaming into its mind--where before there was merely a satisfied watery existence from which it was protected from all senses except perhaps sound--then it never gets the chance to experience perception. Perception is the action upon the brain of sensations, the point at which sensations end and consciousness of them begins.

Though it can suck its thumb, it cannot gain knowledge of either the action of sucking, nor of the object called its thumb, its mouth, its tongue, etc. until it is thrown into the world of sensory overload. The womb is a sensory deprivation tank, by naturally occurring benign forces: the watery womb protects it, but at the same time it shields it from its sensory organs.

Thus, there is really nothing for it to be conscious of, because consciousness is consciousness of something, and until it is forced into the world of the senses, it really has nothing to be conscious of. At the very least, it has nothing to compare its consciousness to, if it is at all aware of the world--which it might be, but it doesn't know it is "the world". Whatever it senses through hearing it presumed to be part of its watery world.

An unborn child has no rights except those that apply to keeping it safe from harm, such as fetal alcohol syndrome or drug addiction; and from wrongful death such as through the murder of its mother, in which case 2 murders ought to be the rule.

But otherwise, an unborn is merely potential, and has no rights until birth."

Or, more personally how I feel, the late, great Bill Hicks put it: "You're not a human 'till you're in my phone book"

Interesting...

I'll stop posting in this thread so you and the pro-life people who actually have a leg to stand on in terms of debating can continue.

I was in somewhat of an agreement up until here:



This implies that a fetus does has rights over its host; this is what is implied when you say a mother should be forbidden to smoke or do drugs. This is a double-standard.

Also, someone who murders a pregnant woman should get charged with two accounts of murder? Why is an abortion not murder, but abortion-by-proxy (that's what I'm calling the Terminator approach from now on) is? Another double-standard.

Someone who kills a pregnant woman should get charged with one account of murder. A fetus has no rights.

actually, I agree on the single charge of murder thing. I was just too lazy to edit that out of the quote.

What is the federal punishment for having an abortion after 6 months for the mother? What is the federal punishment for the doctor helping with the abortion? No, please don't preach to me about murder. I just want the legal terms for abortion; I don't care about pro-life/pro-choice right now.
__________________________
yahoo keyword tool ~ overture ~ traffic estimator ~ adwords traffic estimator

Maybe first state the country you are in? I am assuming the U.S.A.?

i'll ignore what i really wanna say and get to the point.

pretty much when you resume your period, or whenever you start ovulating again is when you can get pregnant.