Leo40 said:Why do you think this is interesting?
1984 said:Not surprisingly, under 'Food', milk, cereals and sugar are far ahead in production over fish or vegetables. And, oddly under 'Deaths', abortion ticks off each second at 37 million+ and overall Deaths are at 53 Million+. Abortion isn't counted in the total 53 million+ Deaths figure either, so what are they trying to imply?
anart said:1984 said:Not surprisingly, under 'Food', milk, cereals and sugar are far ahead in production over fish or vegetables. And, oddly under 'Deaths', abortion ticks off each second at 37 million+ and overall Deaths are at 53 Million+. Abortion isn't counted in the total 53 million+ Deaths figure either, so what are they trying to imply?
Good question. Why even include abortion? They don't include miscarriages. Methinks there is quite the agenda with this 'world clock'...
Brewer said:Abortions occur after the pregnancy is confirmed and does involve killing a human being. They probably don't include the abortions in the death clock because, I suppose, legally and technically, you're not alive until you're born. Abortions are, however, a statistic that can be measured so why not put them in?
anart said:Brewer said:Abortions occur after the pregnancy is confirmed and does involve killing a human being. They probably don't include the abortions in the death clock because, I suppose, legally and technically, you're not alive until you're born. Abortions are, however, a statistic that can be measured so why not put them in?
Interesting. I've always considered an abortion to be a procedure that terminates a pregnancy and, thus, terminates the growth of a fetus - not killing a human being. I suppose my personal definition is certainly the source of many arguments. My state recently put on the ballot an initiative to define a fetus as a human being in order to make abortion equal to murder, punishable by law, so it's an interesting distinction. Thankfully, that ballot initiative was voted down by wide majority.
Brewer said:Abortions occur after the pregnancy is confirmed and does involve killing a human being.
If a soul is a conscious entity wouldn't it know about abortions and so plan ahead by not entering a body that is likely to be aborted? Unless it just happens to need that particular lesson. Plus, a soul is immortal, so I don't see why it matters if something has a soul or not since you can't harm the soul anyway, you're just killing the body. Given that we don't know what a soul is and what does or doesn't have one, I don't think it makes any sense at all to use that as any sort of yardstick for what we can kill and when. I think a better criteria is just the level of consciousness of the thing itself weighed against the context (like consequences to the mother if no abortion is done).Seamas said:Its also my understanding that this is the root of the abortion debate: is a fetus a human being? Does a fetus have a soul? If you kill a fetus, are you violating its free will and destroying its right to life? If I recall correctly from a discussion we had in a college Anthropology class, some cultures believe that the act of naming is what gives a child a soul, and they don't give their children names for some time after they are born in part because of high infant mortality rates, but also because of traditions of infanticide. Someone who is "Pro life" may believe that a fetus is imbued with a soul at the very moment of conception. Someone else may consider an infant a human being, but not a fetus.
SAO said:If a soul is a conscious entity wouldn't it know about abortions and so plan ahead by not entering a body that is likely to be aborted? Unless it just happens to need that particular lesson. Plus, a soul is immortal, so I don't see why it matters if something has a soul or not since you can't harm the soul anyway, you're just killing the body. Given that we don't know what a soul is and what does or doesn't have one, I don't think it makes any sense at all to use that as any sort of yardstick for what we can kill and when. I think a better criteria is just the level of consciousness of the thing itself weighed against the context (like consequences to the mother if no abortion is done).Seamas said:Its also my understanding that this is the root of the abortion debate: is a fetus a human being? Does a fetus have a soul? If you kill a fetus, are you violating its free will and destroying its right to life? If I recall correctly from a discussion we had in a college Anthropology class, some cultures believe that the act of naming is what gives a child a soul, and they don't give their children names for some time after they are born in part because of high infant mortality rates, but also because of traditions of infanticide. Someone who is "Pro life" may believe that a fetus is imbued with a soul at the very moment of conception. Someone else may consider an infant a human being, but not a fetus.
1984 said:Brewer said:Abortions occur after the pregnancy is confirmed and does involve killing a human being.
If this could be considered factual, why not just include the number of abortions in with the total number of deaths. Why separate the numbers at all?
FireShadow said:1984 said:Brewer said:Abortions occur after the pregnancy is confirmed and does involve killing a human being.
If this could be considered factual, why not just include the number of abortions in with the total number of deaths. Why separate the numbers at all?
My first thought was that they separated those statistics because so many disagree as to whether an abortion is a "death" of a person or not. But, perhaps there is an agenda. I don't know.