Relationships.

[Tasselfoot]

chardish... being that my gf and i live on opposite coasts, when we see each other it is usually for an extended period of time, and we are with each other 24/7... take this summer... from mid may til mid august we lived together. same roof, same bed, same car for us both to get to work with every day... sex is something to be shared and enjoyed, its not a commitment. marriage is.

my gf is on the pill, so only .01% or something like that odds of pregnancy (don't use a condom), and we've both been tested for VDs. we've both had sex with people before each other, and are comfortable and confident in our abilities to have safe sex. also, we both HATE children. so... in the extremely off chance of pregnancy, we sure as hell would have an abortion. i'm not going to bring religion into this too much, but being jewish, abortion isn't preached as wrong. i don't view it as wrong because a) although it is living, it is not able to sustain itself. it has to live off of a host (mother) and b) some people just aren't ready or don't want children... and they should have the right to choose if they want to keep the bastard or not.

and eric... its called a crush or puppy love. all teenagers get it.

why is it that everyone who posts here is such a conservative... i've never run across so many holier-than-thou teenagers... why can't y'all be honry little buggers like i was/am?

[User6773]

The baby is also a live, complete human being. He or she is simply a lot younger than any of us. Whether or not it's viable outside the womb is irrelevant. As a former fetus, I appose abortion.

I believe everyone has the right to not get pregnant. You're being responsible about your sexual activities, which is good - but you of course acknowledge the fact that there is a risk of pregnancy. Question: if you're allright with abortion then why are you even using birth control? After all, you seem to be treating abortion as just another form of birth control.

[GuidoHunter]

why can't y'all be honry[sic] little buggers like i was/am?

I was, but then I grew up.

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com

[Tasselfoot]

sorry to hear that Guido.

and chardish... this isn't a debate over pregnancy and abortion. abortion isn't a form of birth control, its a last resort if ones measures of protection fail.... at least it should be. some that are less educated, or less able to afford BC certainly do fall in the category of abortion as a form of BC.

yes, well... we all are former fetuses, but again, its still not a self-sustaining being. if it makes you feel better, think of it as Darwinian selection... they just happened to fail first. and at the same time... say someone unable to care for a child gets pregnant... you feel that the child should be foreced to be born into poverty or a hostile environment? i'd much rather see dead fetuses than inner city slums or trailer trash.

[whorlichan]

A couple of things: My name is Orli, and I am Tassel's girlfriend. Hi, yes, I am real. Also, any jokes you may have to make about my sn, believe me, I've already heard from much more enlightened wits than you. So let's not start, eh?

PLEASE NOTE: I am going to be very frank in this response to all I've read here. That includes talking about periods and dead fetuses. If you can't handle this, or it's too much information for you, please don't read this.

The ladder theory seems pretty sensible to me, but my ladders aren't quite the same as what's pictured in the article. The basis is good, okay, but the reality is that both regular and reverse ladder jumping are possible and do happen, and although we girls judge guys from the moment we see them the money and the power are really NOT the point (at least for me and my female friends, who are really all I can base this off of). We do actually care about the guy himself under his money or lack thereof. And unlike Playgirl Magazine, which intimates that a woman wants nothing but a 12" stud muffin with nothing between his ears but air, we like to TALK to a guy. And we like to know he can read, too. And think about stuff we say and read.

On to the more important topics:

Tasselfoot, I really don't understand you...You have sex, but don't think you're mature enough for marriage. Pardon my teenage ignorance, but I feel if you are responsible to have sex with someone, shouldn't you feel responsible enough to marry that person.
What if something happens, and she becomes pregnent? I'm sure you don't want to hassle with a kid. and abortion is wrong, so I dunno how that works out.

Please let's not turn this into a thread about abortion. Cypher's opinion is that it's wrong, lots of people feel otherwise (including me) and that's a whole other debate.

I pretty much feel the same as Tassel does. Sex and marriage are completely different things, and even if you're ready for one that most certainly does not make you ready for the other. I lost my virginity at 17 also. In no way was I ready to get married then, but I was ready to have sex and share this intimacy and admittedly fun aerobic exercise with another person.

Waiting until marriage was not right for me; it hasn't been right for anyone I know. If you want to wait until marriage and this is right for you, go for it! But don't preach to me that now that I've committed the utter sin of fornicating with someone I am happy with, I have to marry them. That would have had me married several times by now, to people I know I could never live with but had a great physical relationship with. Some of them I am still friends with, others were purely sex partners and knew it and--here's the thing--they had no problem with it. None of them wanted to get married, all of them knew I wasn't looking to trap them into marriage with sex, and everyone was happy.

Marriage is something you do when you're mentally ready for it, not just physically ready. Yes, you have to live with the other person day in and day out, and you have to compromise and do a lot of things that aren't just have sex and be happy together. I'm certain I will be able to do this. But not now. I have school (in California, but soon that will change), I have a job, and I have no desire or need to be married right now. The time I spend with Tassel is precious to me--I love him more than I can ever express, and we're both very satisfied with our relationship as it is. We can live together without going insane or hating each other, the sex is great, we're equally intelligent and creative in our mindsets, and we're emotionally connected. Why go screw all that up just for a piece of paper and better tax benefits?

As for pregnancy, I am on birth control as Tassel said. The reason I started it had nothing to do with sex--many girls are on BC from as young as 9 years old to control cramping and major bleeding problems stemming from the beginning of their periods. I was 12 when I got on it, and I don't think I'll be able to stop using it until I hit menopause because of the severe anemia and heavy bleeding that goes on if I'm off of it. I highly doubt I will get pregnant with how careful I am about taking it, but there is always that tiny chance. In this case, again in complete agreement with Tassel, I would have an abortion. This is my body, my choice, and my life, and I don't need a child that I wouldn't WANT to care for, much less be ABLE to care for, ruining it.

The baby is also a live, complete human being. He or she is simply a lot younger than any of us. Whether or not it's viable outside the womb is irrelevant. As a former fetus, I appose abortion.

I believe everyone has the right to not get pregnant. You're being responsible about your sexual activities, which is good - but you of course acknowledge the fact that there is a risk of pregnancy. Question: if you're allright with abortion then why are you even using birth control? After all, you seem to be treating abortion as just another form of birth control.

Chardish, read the above and you'll see why I'm on birth control. Abortion is NOT "just another form" of it, as a whole lot of welfare bimbos seem to be using it for, but again--NOT THE POINT I'm trying to make. I don't WANT to get pregnant, so I'm avoiding it. Abortion is the last possibility in the event that such a catastrophe occurs.

And seriously, people, read up on your medical journals. A fetus is not a human being. It's not a baby yet. It's a PARASITE until approximately the 4th month of gestation, and even then it can't survive without its host. It can't think for itself, as higher neural functions don't come into play until about the 6th or 7th month of pregnancy. It can't move on its own. It can't CARE. It's basically a really really big sperm--and I don't see any of you anti-abortion boys complaining when you masturbate into a Kleenex and murder thousands of potential human beings.

Is someone going to open an abortion post so we can hash it all out there? I've got lots of fun arguments about it.

[The_Q]

Abortion can't be decided through math or economics, therefore I won't bother. I can't take a side until I'm in that situation. It's not part of the topic though. I will now slink away and go to the social fairness threads.

Q

[CypherToorima]

(edit)I should read more often.

btw, I wasn't making it into an 'Abortion' thread.

[User6773]

Read my medical journals? It's rather evident that you haven't.

"The changes occurring between implantation, a six-weeks embryo, a six-months fetus, a one-week- old child, or a mature adult are merely stages of development and maturation. "The majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg, or at least the blastocyst stage, and the birth of the infant at which point we could say that this was not a human life." - Dr. J.C. Willke, First International Symposium On Abortion

In addition, the U.S. Senate considered a bill called the "Human Life Bill" in 1981. I take this from the official Senate report, 97th Congress, S-158: "Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception [they defined fertilization and conception to be the same] marks the beginning of the life of a human being — a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings." (p. 7)

On pp. 7-9, the report lists a "limited sample" of 13 medical textbooks, all of which state that the life of an individual human being begins at conception.

On pp. 9-10, the report quotes several authorities who personally testified:

- Professor J. Lejeune, Paris, discoverer of the chromosome pattern of Down’s Syndrome: "Each individual has a very neat beginning, at conception."

- Professor W. Bowes, University of Colorado: Be-ginning of human life? — "at conception."

- Professor H. Gordon, Mayo Clinic: "It is an established fact that human life begins at conception."

- Professor M. Matthews-Roth, Harvard University: "It is scientifically correct to say that individual human life begins at conception."

Now, I'm not going to pretend that ths went unopposed. Yes, there were witnesses that claimed that the human being does not begin at conception. The report comments as such:

"Those witnesses who testified that science cannot say whether unborn children are human beings were speaking in every instance to the value question rather than the scientific question. No witness raised any evidence to refute the biological fact that from the moment of human conception there exists a distinct individual being who is alive and is of the human species."

You refer to masturbating as killing potential human beings, and you're right. It is. But after sperm and egg have joined, there is no more "potential" human being. There is a human being.

I would write more on this issue but my wireless keyboard is giving me issues.

[LEGO]

I hate politics, they ruin everything

[Tasselfoot]

so... why aren't fetuses counted in census records, or still-borns considered among the lists of dead for human statistics, etc... if they are human beings, the same as you or me.

[whorlichan]

...the U.S. Senate considered a bill called the "Human Life Bill" in 1981. I take this from the official Senate report, 97th Congress, S-158: "Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception [they defined fertilization and conception to be the same] marks the beginning of the life of a human being — a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings." (p. 7)

You refer to masturbating as killing potential human beings, and you're right. It is. But after sperm and egg have joined, there is no more "potential" human being. There is a human being.

Are you aware that for every scientist who can use the evidence out of a medical textbook showing that life begins at conception, there is another who can quote the SAME PASSAGE and show the opposite? Science is based on what supports your own hypothesis, and the Senate just used those scientists who could claim that it did.

Also, there are innumerable times when, after a sperm and egg have already joined, for some reason the zygote doesn't implant in the uterus. The woman never knows she was pregnant at all; it flushes out of her just like any other waste material. Are you saying these women are wrong for having a natural abortion that they never knew about?

Okay, so a zygote is a living creature. But it's not a human being yet, and doesn't need to be treated as one. Listen to George Carlin's abortion sketch. He is rude and crude about it, but he makes very good points.

[The_Q]

Science, Orli, is based on proving your hypothesis wrong until you have no choice but prove it right. You can't use scientific passages like you described unless you have evidence against it. That means cold hard evidence. He has it. I can trust him more, no offense. Read any Junior High textbook and it'll have the scientific method listed in at least one chapter.

I do think that you two are putting up a decent fight, but I also think that both sides should drop it. This is about the ladder theory, not abortion or the rights of unborn fetuses(feti?...joke). If you can prove the ladder theory wrong or right, fine. Unfortunately you can argue ideals all day about abortion and never come up with a solution to the dilemma. This is all you can hope for...until you can learn to put human life into a money value (all potential earnings, good deeds, joy, and pleasure the person gives and recieves minus all the hate, spite, destruction etc. the person causes.) I value mine at around...2 million. That's what I'd pay to stay alive and out of suffering. Don't say it's stupid to put money value on life, it's a logical way of thinking and a perfectly ok way of thinking.

Ok, I'll drop it. Any questions, take it to PMs. Just no more abortions.

Q

[User6773]

Better debaters than you have tried me at the abortion debate and lost.

http://www.flashflashrevolution.com/...ewtopic&t=5855

Every living being has a species. If the unborn child is not of the species homo sapiens then what is it? You're attempting to redefine biology here.

It's not a wrongdoing when unborn child accidentally dies (through failure to implant itself, or miscarriage, or something). It's as "wrong" as natural death. That's the natural selection you should be thinking about. Darwinism doesn't apply when willful manslaughter gets thrown into the picture.

And no...you're wrong about not being able to find any scientific proof. The Senate report said that the people who were saying that an unborn child is not a human being had no scientific proof, and rather were just trying to turn it into a question of values. The people of science, on the other hand, had proof that unborn children are human beings.

Values don't enter into science, milady.

[The_Q]

Actually, Darwinism still kicks in. Those who are most willful to commit manslaughter will survive. Those who don't die. Most helpless die, least helpless survive. When the babies are helpless they are subject to Darwinism.

And don't bother on this. I already said why. When you give me numbers, it's worthwhile. Until them, arguing ideals against ideals just isn't worth it. On to the actual topic.

Q

[Bloodsik]

Heres a novel idea. Think of what could happen...

a) woman who cant support herself, much less a child, gets pregnant
b) woman is convinced out of an abortion
c) woman has child, and is even poorer now
d) baby lives shitty life

Only one of many possibilities my friend.