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Quote: from medjai at 7:33 pm on July 4, 2008

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On the same token then can my girlfriend and I use abortion as birth control and then after like eight or nine abortions we'll just decide to have a real kid (then start aborting again).  

 The pill has disadvantages and if we just let her carry a child for about 6 or 7 months, and then abort, it gives us big windows of no need for birth control of any kind.

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You're intentionally killing the fetus though, that isn't really the same as possibly miscarrying.

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Exactly.  Those two are not the same things at all.

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~*~Elizabeth~*~
-To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world-

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why can't it when the end effect is the same? why is it ok to knowingly kill ninety percentof your babies for the sake of starting a family but not ok to kill ninety percent of your babies for other reasons like recreation

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I guess the difference between them is that one option is actually trying, while the second is knowingly giving a 0% chance. Well, thats the problem, anything >0 (Even if its 0.0001%), has an infinite ratio to well 0. Given the 0 percent and 0.1%, 0.1 has an infinite difference ratio, so thats why, ethically, its still equal to taking a life, one eliminates the chance of survival altogether, an infinite difference.

I don't really see the need to resort to abortion for 'recreational' purposes though. Don't we have better options? But well, staying on topic . . I guess thats that - 10% chance to survive for all, vs. 0% chance to survive for first 9.

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The key to victory is the element of surprise.
When that doesn't work, I guess I just gotta gun you down.

The chances of survival are therefore identical between the abortion woman who will have nine abortions and then one child and the woman who will have nine miscarriages and one child.

I am asking if the motive makes the means acceptable.

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

If you just kept having miscarriages, you're well-intentioned.

When we come to ethics, its pretty much illogical anyway, so ethically no, logically yes. Even if the ratio is absolute, its just the way others will look at it. Abortion has always been frowned upon as the taking of life, so theres that sterotypical view towards it. But in the event ONLY the very last child will survive, then yeah - its acceptable - but not everyone will look at it in that manner.

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The key to victory is the element of surprise.
When that doesn't work, I guess I just gotta gun you down.

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I am going under the presumption that the ten percent is absolute in both cases, 90% of the babies attempted by the woman that wants to be a mother will die and the tenth one will live. I am assuming she knows they will die, and is willingly attempting ten children so that she can have that tenth child.

The chances of survival are therefore identical between the abortion woman who will have nine abortions and then one child and the woman who will have nine miscarriages and one child.

I am asking if the motive makes the means acceptable.

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That's entirely different, though.

I mean, suppose that when I'm gambling, I only have a 10% chance of rolling a 7. That doesn't mean that I won't roll a 7 ten times in a row, just that the odds of me rolling a 7 are pretty low. It also doesn't mean that I can't roll a 7 on the first try, just that it's a 90% chance that I won't. That's basic statistics. A 90% chance that the baby will die does not mean that you have to have nine miscarriages to have one healthy baby; it just means that the odds aren't very good, and is an entirely different situation from having an abortion, where the odds go away completely.

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

The second trimester starts at week 28 and if you're going midway through that, the woman would be over 32 weeks pregnant by the point the risk becomes high. There would be no reason the baby couldn't be delivered anytime after 28 weeks and certainly after 32 or 33 weeks. Prematurity is a concern but a baby born after 32 weeks has an excellent chance of not only survival in general but survival without lasting problems related to their premature arrival.

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Holly.
Mama to Hunter Kai

When making a decision about potentially killing babies for your desire to have children, you should operate under the assumption that 90% will die, and not morally convince yourself that well maybe you'll get lucky. You have to have decided that it is worth killing nine babies to get your one, there is no way around this exceedingly rare, even if, lucky you, you get it on your second try, you still had to convince yourself thta it was worth it, that's why i operate under the assumption that only the tenth baby will be successful, it can only be morally justifiable if you can justify killing the nine knowingly.

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service

And, frankly, it's still different from abortion. If you willingly abort nine babies and then have the tenth, you've reduced your odds to zero on each of those babies. It's not a 10% chance out of all ten babies; it's a 10% chance per baby. Aborting nine babies out of ten is actually reducing your chances to 1% as part of the 10.

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Let yourself be enchanted,
You just might break through
To ever ever after

You're right tears in heaven, and, naturally, if a woman decides to abort a fetus, that's how nature intended it to be, since nature isn't exactly a conscious entity and regardless of if it's the attempting mother or the aborting woman, the outcome is the same, one died for an attempt and the other died for other reasons. I'm glad that you feel that it's okay for babies to die as long as it's because a woman wants to start a family.

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Who dares wins. - Special Air Service