Poeple with severe mental disabilitiers can have immensely decreased quality of life and impaired faculties. That's suffering.

And please, Hitler also used rockets to bomb people, does that make NASA evil for using them to get to the moon? The Nazis performed inhumane medical experiments, but does that mean we shouldn't perform surgery?

The choice ultimately lies with the mother, as it's her body.

And you can only murder a human being, not a clump of cells with only the POTENTIAL to be a human being.

The people saying that life is too important appear to mean human life. But in general, I'm not concerned about human life either.

I'm only concerned about the mental state of the entity in question. Is the individual capable of thinking at a level similar to what the average human can? Will the individual be capable of thinking in the future before its inevitable death? If the answer is yes to both of these questions, then the individual has a life whose rights should be recognized.

Otherwise, scrap the life as soon as possible.

So yes, I personally not only approve of the abortion of very mind-sick individuals, I believe it's rational and reasonable. There is a contradiction to the rationality of a moral code otherwise, unless you're one of those super-green people.

A clump of cells?  When do you make the distinction between a "clump of cells" and a human being?  Do you just pick a day on the calendar and BAM it's a human at that point?  The mother is only responsible for half of the pregnancy, so I don't think all men should be forever cast off from having a say.  Last I checked, two lesbians cannot conceive a baby.  It takes a man and a woman.

By the way, as I said before... people with disabilities need love and care.  I'm sorry you think they don't deserve the chance to live, but I think that is just abominable.  If a girl is born with Downe's sydrome, and she loved and cared for by her family and friends, she shouldn't have been allowed to be born?  Are we just playing God now?  Only the healthy ones get to live?  I think that way of thinking is the end of civilization.

What the hell is wrong with you?

Bold: That's complicated, but so is the conception argument; does it start the moment the sperm enters the egg? (And does that count as just the head of the sperm, or the whole thing?) The moment it begins to divide? When it embeds into the uterus wall? You could leverage similar arguments about someone becoming a legal sexual adult on their 18th birthday. That's just a chosen day, but it can make the difference between jail time and sex offense registry and consensual sex.

I agree that the man should have a say. I certainly would like to have a say in it if my partner was pregnant and considering an abortion, but ultimately I think the fact that it's her body gives her the final say, I don't think I should have the right to tell her what she can and can't do with her own body.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue when you talk about becoming a legal sexual adult upon turning 18.  That is an arbitrary law fashioned by politcians and therefore it is void in my opinion.  Being appropriate age to have sex is up to different cultures, and different cultures do very much have different ideas of what is appropriate.  You cannot legislate morality, that has been proven throughout history.

As for when it becomes a life, I'm not even arguing that it begins at conception or not...that is beside the point as there is no way to convince you one way or the other... I was merely trying to get at when it was you though it became human vs "clump" (therefore it's meaningless and disposable).  To take this debate to the extreme... Scott Peterson got convicted of two counts of murder and life in prison for killing his wife and their unborn child...but if his wife had had an abortion the day before the murder she is merely exercising her right to choose?  It truly is a nutty thing.

We have fundamentally different viewpoints on the morality of this situation. Though in general I don't support abortion, I do agree and support the abortion of individuals with significant mental problems. However, we must first make sure that the individual actually has the disease. In some cases, the practice leads to inaccurate diagnoses, which can have tragic consequences. But even recognizing the non-zero chance that inaccurate diagnoses would be made, I still believe that, in general, this should be done.

I need you to tell me what you (or any other person with your same opinions) think about these few statements though to see exactly where we differ. You either disagree or agree with these statements, since they're given as true/false.

1. There's nothing special about life in general.

2. The consumption and use of animals and plants, but especially animals, by humans is not morally wrong.

3. All life dies and there is nothing after life (i.e. no Heaven, Hell, or anything)

I believe from saying True to all these three statements, through reasonable logic you arrive at:

4. There's nothing wrong with pre-selection of humans under the condition that it's only done on consideration of mental ability.

This mindset needs to be true, especially if we think into the future. Realistically, in the next century, we should be able to play with the genetic make-up of new-born people. I believe it would not be immoral to require people to have their children be much more intelligent than they would otherwise probably be if we were capable of doing that. In fact, it would be immoral not to allow this, in my opinion.

That's my opinion anyways. Please try to keep it civil and don't call me "sick" or "abominable" for this, even though in your mindset it will appear to be that case.

Human life is different than other life.  We are sentient.  We are able to have subjective experiences.  We have created philosophy and literature...written languages, economies, religions, etc, etc.  So comparing us to other animals is impossible.

In the next century, as you say, we may well have the ability to play with genetic make-up of new-borns.  This is wrong.  We are imperfect beings, and we will never be perfect.  People need to accept that.  There is something beyond tragic at the thought of changing and altering unborn children to make them "better".  At that point, individuality, what makes us human, is lost.

The irony is, I agree with you on the main part of some of the points that you precisely use to say I'm wrong, namely:

1. [Most] Humans are completely different from normal animals.

2. We [humans in our current state] will never be "perfect". (This will always be true anyways by the definition of perfection, so there is no need to consider this. We can, however, become better in a meaningful way, so I disagree with you on that.)

3. Individuality is what makes us human.

However, if you allow me, I'll proceed to show how these points agree with my theory more than yours actually:

First off, statement 3 follows as a corollary of statement 1. If animals had the thought level we have, then they would also perceive individuality.

Here's my bold claim. This is the only statement that is actually bold, as everything else follows logically: Mentally incapable humans are very close to the brighter animals in their thought and behavior. Here, mentally incapable means that they are obviously mentally challenged; I'm not reffering to slightly "dumb" people. This statement is bold because I don't have proof of this statement at the moment, but it seems intuitively clear. Research into neurobiology will show this statement to be true or false. I cannot fanthom it being false though, as there has to be a continuum of cognitive capability of sentient beings.

But other than that, look at this:

It's fine to consume and use non-endangered animals for our long-term and even our short-term benefit. I claim that this would not be true if the animals in question were demonstrably as intelligent as the average of us. This claim seems reasonable enough to me. But then we of course note that there is no special property that should be given to life, not in any general sense at least. And since there is no other-wordly consequence to death, there's no reason to feel bad about the death of an unborn animal, unless that animal was to be consumed or used.

However, we don't consume or use people of our own species because that would be ultimately detrimental to the happiness of the whole human group. In particular, it's not fine to consume or use mentally incapable individuals. But since these individuals resemble the brighter animals closely, therefore there's no reason to feel bad about the death of an unborn mentally incapable person. As you can see, I removed the condition that this person be used or consumed, since that would not be moral. But it is certainly obvious that the existence of these people is detrimental to the happiness of the whole human group.

My last sentence may sound a bit harsh. You may think that it follows "Oh well, then why don't we just kill them all? That'd get rid of them". The problem is that killing them is guaranteed to decrease the happiness of the whole human group, since family members and friends of these people will be emotionally opposed to this, and that is perfectly reasonable. My main thing is about prevention, not elimination.

***

Also, you said that we can't become perfect. We most certainly can't. But we surely can become better in measurable ways. If everyone without exception were happier, don't you think that would be an indication of a better world? Of a better human species? It is because I recognize that humans are imperfect that I believe we can become better. Otherwise, you're settling for a state that guarantees injustice and unhappiness due to the stupidity of people.

coma on braaaw, this whole question is so absurd that it deserves an absurd answer