Where on the spectrum are you?

[Mr Khan]

Egann said:

Kasz216 said:

Eh, I'd suggest something functional would be better.  As there are much less arbitrary decisions.

For example, the commonly used in the US "Survivability" metric.  Where if it medically has a good chance to survive out of the womb it's life should be perserved since people will adopt it.  

Or just general brainwave functions.   Which is used in Europe.  Funniest part about the abortion debate is that it's less of a issue in Europe, but also far more restricted.  

I kinda disagree with the "human/ non-human" divide. A first trimester fetus is not functionally all that inferior to a toddler, but they're both valuable because they have the same thing: nearly limitless human potential.  This is not to say that my idealism knows no bounds and abortion shoul never happen, but arguments over what is and isn't human kinda miss the point.

That said, the major reason most parents have abortions is that raising a child from infancy to adulthood costs on average $240,000 dollars. A child COSTS a quarter of a million dollars. Abortion exists as an issue because traditional family structure depended on apprenticeships and child labor. Without those or a reasonable compromise, children become dead weights on families for almost two decades. The cost of raising children has ballooned out of control and abortion became an issue in response.

If pro-life supporters addressed the root economic cause--the real reason people are devaluing the fetuses in question--rather than picketing fences, people would love them. I mean, who doesn't want the cost of raising a child to go down?

It's not like abortion is anything new, though. In the old days they'd just leave an unwanted newborn outside to die of exposure.

Though you are quite correct that more focus should be made on weeding out the underpinning reasons for abortions, and to be fair, many pro-life groups do also engage in charitable work to make the baby they want you to have something more treasured than a financial curse. It's just that the overall narrative woven by the right tends to forget the "good works" part, creating an impression of "we'll fight like hell for that baby until its out of the womb, then it's your problem and you're a drain on society for having that baby that we made you have."

(which, again, is not true for the whole pro-life community, but a contradiction in the right-wing platform as a whole)