And I agree.

Thought you were athiest :wink:

No, life support is a man made thing, not natural. Putting a baby on life support then taking it off, bc it may be in pain, is not the same as injecting fluids into the body so it will die, without even having thechance to live.

Here's an article on the subject I read not too long ago: http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archiv ... =printable

There were more, I'm trying to look for more links.

Believe me, Krem, I think this is something that should be reserved for the absolute most extreme cases, this kid has zero chance of survival and is in extreme amounts of pain situations. I just think the parents should be allowed that option in cases like that.

Money quote:



Emphasis mine.

See, this is where I get confused...and let my emotions come into play

And that's exactly what I had the problem with. The article did not make a distinction, even though there might not even be onemorally.

Read the article I posted. Doctors don't always know 100% what will happen to the baby.

Also, if you think parents should not be "playing God" then I guess you don't agree with putting anyone on life support in the first place...right?

I read it. Granted, doctors do make mistakes, but I think there is a line where it stops becoming quess work and educated theories and starts to become an obvious reality that the child will die. I think that when that line is crossed, the parents should be able to decide.

Playing god is an expression I reserve to those situation when someone is trying to end someone else's life, not when they're helping survival.

I don't think abortion and euthanasia are the same thing.

In the case of euthanasia, the question is: is it right to take someone's life, even in extreme situations where there is terminal illness, etc.?

In the case of abortion, the key wuestion, at least for me, is: does a woman have the right over her own body, the right to choose what to do with her body and what not do?

There is a great example that was given to illustrate the point:

Imagine you're sleeping one day, and someone comes in and without asking for your permission connects you to a violinst on life support. You wake up and realized you're now connected to this person. Now, if the person is disconnected from you, he or she will die. If her or she remains connected, that means you will have to support him/her for 9 months.

Now, the key question here is not whether the person has the right to live, but whether the person has the right to your body.

For me, the answer is no. the person might have a right to life, but that doesn't mean the person has a right to your own body. You did not choose to be in this situation; you were forced into it.

The connection with abortion is obvious; a woman is raped, impregnated against her will, and is stuck with the baby. She didn't choose it, so does the baby have a right to her body?

Again, the doctors simply don't know. They have this cut-off line of 24.5 weeks, and not much else to guide themslves by.

Here we go. Its a bit like the death penalty. If there's a one percent chance, should we do it? I think no. But this is pretty damn tricky for comepletely different reasons.

1. This is the shoddiest reporting ever and that's saying something. What parents say yes when they think there is even the slimmest of chances their baby will survive? Not many. None I should think, unless its from the sheer trauma of the situation. Trauma subsides. Even if a city/country goes ahead with this, there should be a lengthy wait/stabilize period. Gives everyone involved alot of time to think if say, the period is 25 weeks.

Now the other question is what it means to "eliminate" beings because of conditions. Which is nasty, and reminds me of the 1930's all over the globe.

Technology changes...such issues as brain damage would be anything but, if stem cell research was encouraged. I find it interesting that many who coach their oppostion to putting a baby out of its misery in terms of "morality" but don't care to encourage ways to make their future's happier and healthier under the same empty blanket statement.

hmmm, I wouldn't say that to often then.

Good argument

Wow. This is a really good post. Great arguement.

Here we go again:

1. Regular stem cell research is not at all controversial. It isn't any different from cancer research, as far as the government is concerned.

2. Embryonic stem cell research IS controversial,. That's why federal government has limited federal funds to fund the research. Researchers can use fed. money to use existsing stem cell lines. If they want to create new ones, they have to use private or state funding.

3. It is not at all obvious that embryonic stemm cell research will lead to new breakthroughs. COnsidering that it's only been around for 5 years, it is ingenuine to suggest that it would've changed anything by now.


Can we please not muddy the issue with political jabs?

Or bring God into it :wink:

Not so fast. While this sounds great with this neat hypothetical example, you and I both know, this could never happen. Besides, you're talking about only one kind of abortion - when the pregnancy is caused by rape.

Does that mean you're against all other kinds of abortion?

I hate to cut out on this debate, because I really want to discuss it, I have to get some work done,

Adios!

Pretty much. I'm only in support of abortion in extreme cases like rape. All of my thinking about this topic up to this point has so far brought me to that conclusion.

I see. It's just that your argument was giving off the impression that you were justifying all abortion.

This has nothing to do with politics. I'm not talking funding right now, I'm talking fear of exploring new technologies that may render such questions addressing brain and spinal damage void.

Look, if you don't want to end a baby's life (and I was agreeing with you that its not a good idea for the same reason the death penalty isn't, and for the same reason lobotomies and scientific experimentation on "defected" people in the 30's wasn't), but you don't want to see it suffer from its first to last breath, you should be encouraging medical and scholarly exploration of new methods to help. If someone wants to walk the line saying no to either, and even using the same blanket staement as to why, than I don't know what power trip they're on, cause they sure could care less about the well being of the baby.

And c'mon Krem, I always thought you had a bit more faith in the medical research field than to say prove me now or I won't endorse further exloration. You need to encourage progress, the whole point of medical research is to explore new options and not resort to blood-letting and leeches.