What about women who bled to death from botched
Backyard abortions.

You would be surprised at the large numbers of women who sought backyard abortions. And it was quite often the men who didn't want a child when their girlfriends got pregnant who pushed them to have an abortion too.

So if abortion is banned it will just go underground again, and the backyard butchers
Will still do it for money.

The foetus and quite possibly the women too will die a much more horrible
Death in the hands of the backyard non medical abortionists.
It is best left in the hands of the professionals who can make it as medically quick and painless as possible for both foetus and mother. Banning it certainly doesn't stop the demand for it that was obvious when it was illegal before.

After 4months I think it should only be allowed in extremely rare cases.
But be legal until that time to stop the practise going underground again

Well hasn’t this thread taken a turn since I was last here?

Is Mise,

Yes, there are many conversion stories like that of the one that o sung wu mentioned. Having had a little to do with the prison system, I can also assure you that there are plenty who turn their lives around without “finding” a god (and, co-incidentally, the god that it is predominant one in one’s own culture, too, mind you). That some find a god is neither evidence for a god, and nor does it mean that society needs religion. All it means is that there is something in society that needs fixing, and that we need to find out what that is so that others don’t simply replace one dysfunction for another.

As for this abortion angle which this thread developed, well, that’s an easy one:

No-one has the right to use someone else’s body to support their own life. We wouldn’t force a mother to donate a kidney to her child if she was her child’s only hope of survival, so why does a foetus deserve more rights in that respect?

The usual anti-abortionist response to this is that the woman should have thought of this before she got pregnant. However, this is easily countered by pointing out that consent to sex is not consent to pregnancy.

Full stop. End of story.

Anti-abortionists simply don’t have a case.

AJ,

"Faith is belief without good reason. How on Earth could that possibly, in any way, be a positive thing?"
I think that you answered your own question.

I was not being anti-abortion and I'm a firm believer in retrospective abortion in certain cases.
I was asking if a foetus stabbed in the head when the head was in sight was a child or not; after all the child is still within the mother's body

What's your take on this?

AJ Philips,
You are right somthing in society does need changing.
"All it means is that there is something in society that needs fixing, and that we need to find out what that is so that others don’t simply replace one dysfunction for another."

Give them from Infancy strong personal and moral values that direct and protect them and their society for life. The problem is we have removed shame and guilt from offensive behaviour and praise defiance, greed and selfishness.

Josephus wrote: "Give them from Infancy strong personal and moral values that direct and protect them and their society for life. The problem is we have removed shame and guilt from offensive behaviour and praise defiance, greed and selfishness."

Dear Josephus,

Back to the ugly Abraham/Isaac story. Sometimes defiance is a virtue and should be praised. When commanded to commit an atrocity as was Abraham, "no" is the proper answer. One problem with much of religion is that it promotes obedience and submission where defiance is called for.

Possibly your idea of strong personal and moral values come from the mumbojumbo you believe in.

To me strong personal and moral values are exhibited by being kind and questioning authority.

Defiance may come from strong personal and moral values.

Dear David,

<<Defiance may come from strong personal and moral values>>

Yes, defiance of others, of authorities - not of one's own conscience, not of one's own inner being.

Had God been some external deity, omniscient, omnipotent and all that, but separate from oneself, then I would agree with you that Abraham should have said "No". However, I think it's safe to assume that we are in agreement that no such deity exists, right?

Did Abraham in fact knew God? Or was it just his imagination?

When Abraham is claimed to have heard God's voice, did it come from without or from within? (or did he even hear it at all?)
Unfortunately we'll probably never know, so we have no tools to judge him.