Kansas Doctor Shot

[Flyndaran]

There's a difference between legalizing something and getting rid of laws.

There's a difference between legalizing something and getting rid of the law against it? That's some darn fine hair splitting.

[BroomJockey]

There's a difference between legalizing something and getting rid of the law against it? That's some darn fine hair splitting.

Not really. It's the difference between a proscriptive and prescriptive set of rules. Do we, as a society, want to tell people what they can do, legally, or what they cannot do. In other words, are we going with "What is not explicitly forbidden is implicitly permitted," or "What is not explicitly permitted is implicitly forbidden." Often, prescriptive rules need flexibility built-in through proscription, such as the self-defence argument against a murder charge. Murder is not allowed (prescriptive), unless you're saving yourself or another (proscriptive).

Further, if you legalize something, you are explicitly saying "This is fine. This is an action that is either morally neutral or morally positive in this society." Simply being not illegal means that society doesn't have enough of an opinion on the action to say anything as a legally binding group, and it's much easier to make illegal something that there's no law permitting, so if society swings one way temporarily, or a group manages to gain power, it's easier to push an agenda of making something illegal.

[AdminAssistant]

The reason that I said that is that pro-lifers feel that making abortions illegal will stop abortion. It won't. As I said, desperate women in desperate situations will do what they need to. What making abortion illegal will do is keep women from having a safe medical procedure that in many cases is performed due to risks to her health and safety.

[BlaqueKatt]

Also, I assume you're doing your part to adopt children given up by women who didn't have an abortion, but couldn't support their child, right? Foster care, etc.? Because if you don't want the foetuses aborted, you're going to do your part to ensure they have a quality of life above the poverty line?

Or there is what I do-push for better access to birth control to prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place. I don't want fetuses aborted, but I'd rather prevent them being created in the first place.

I see abortion as akin to putting a band-aid on a knife wound, it may stop the bleeding but you haven't really dealt with the problem, you're treating the symptom and not the disease-which is lack of education and lack of access to birth control, plan b and the like.

[AFPheonix]

Which is definitely a good and noble thing, something that most everyone can agree with.

However, there are times where abortion is appropriate. I can think of several women that I know who were really wanting babies, actually managed to conceive, and then discovered that the developing fetus had a malformed neural tube, which leads to such fun things as anencephaly.
I feel that it should be available, no questions asked until the baby is at a viable age to live outside the woman. At that point, it should be available in the event that the baby or the woman is at risk.

[Flyndaran]

All very good points.
Most of us pro-choicers want to minimize abortions, but hopefully never allow anyone to look down on those choosing to have them regardless of the reasons, right?

[Slytovhand]

Translation of Hippocratic Oath (the 'original' one - if it ever existed):

Modern translation of the English:[4]

“ I swear by Apollo Physician and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia and all the gods, and goddesses, making them my witnesses, that I will fulfil according to my ability and judgment this oath and this covenant:
To hold him who has taught me this art as equal to my parents and to live my life in partnership with him, and if he is in need of money to give him a share of mine, and to regard his offspring as equal to my brothers in male lineage and to teach them this art–if they desire to learn it–without fee and covenant; to give a share of precepts and oral instruction and all the other learning to my sons and to the sons of him who has instructed me and to pupils who have signed the covenant and have taken the oath according to medical law, but to no one else.

I will apply dietic measures for the benefit of the sick according to my ability and judgment; I will keep them from harm and injustice.

I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy. In purity and holiness I will guard my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.

Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons, be they free or slaves.

What I may see or hear in the course of treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.

If I fulfil this oath and do not violate it, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come; if I transgress it and swear falsely, may the opposite of all this be my lot.

So, sort of makes it ironic... can't be a Christian to be a doctor, then!

Also, you'll note the "I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone"... goodbye operations from your GP!

I prefer to work on the theory that doctors, and nurses, and fireys and police and ambos, all get into that line of work with the intent of helping people - to make other people's lives better (or even, continued). No difference here... for that matter, I'm more inclined to think such medicos are even more altruistic!

Laws? What's the possible negative effect of not having such a law? What's the negative affect of having the law? Which is the better for a functioning and safe society?

(nitpick: "There's never been a law passed that hasn't been broken," - it's illegal to set of a thermo-nuclear device in the city boundaries of California... )