.
Yes
No
Other
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Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.
Hello. There is a poll about religion here http://www.veganforum.com/forums/sho...=poll+agnostic, not quite in the form you put it but obviously answers the question I don't remember polls on the other two questions though there have certainly been discussions about politics. not sure about capital punishment.
Yes it was but then it changed tact a bit Muffy ..
Two of the forum ladies have stated, in diffferent wordings, that they have suffered as a result of having abortions and would not have had them if 'different' information had been available to them at the time.
We also have two of the forum chaps who have seen the effects on women who have aborted and come to certain 'realisations' after the event time after time after time.
The fact that pro-abortionist misinformation can create women victims is not the "usual" stuff.
All done in the best possible taste ...
Considering that you have expressed concern about women's voices being "silenced", CS, I'd have thought you would have also mentioned in your summary that at least one person in the thread had had an abortion and still felt that on balance it was the right thing to have done.
thankyou for the nice welcome, leedsveg.
it's lovely here.
i would agree that with most things (but especially really serious stuff like medical procedures) information and education is very important. unfortunately (to give just one example) some parents do not give their children much support and encouragement with things like sex-education and even refuse to give permission for sex-ed classes at school. so yes, i would agree that as much information be given to people so that they can make informed decisions about important things (like abortion) in their lives.
Hi mb and welcome to the forum
Very interesting to see how this could be expanded out to include the questions you ask but the original poll was focused on one specific question 'Can you be Vegan without also being pro-life?' The other questions prehaps deserve a poll in their own right ? It would be interesting to see how the results differed and what reasons members gave for their position .
I think the thread was full of the usual arguments for and against simply because they ARE the arugments for and against!
Any other arugments or different viewpoints would be more than appreciated !
If the thread weaved in and out of topic at times it may be because for some of us, abortion can never be discussed without it becoming an emotive issue. And I for one, stopped contributing to the topic for exactly this reason.
It may be that those of us who have experienced/ witnessed, the impact of abortion on some women have become over zealous in our desire to inform others of possible consequences post abortion. This is because we are aware how rarely anyone else (medical or otherwise) does so.
Slack Alice
thanks for the welcome, alice.
yeah, i stay away from the subject of abortion because it seems to me that whichever side you come down on it's the lesser of two evils as it were and whichever you pick you're left with something pretty unpleasant.
i was drawn to this thread, however, because of the implied assumption in the opening post that being a vegan could make you automatically pro-life. by the way - apologies to the person who started this topic off if that was not your intention; perhaps that's just the way i read it.
of course, we must all here be acutely aware of the (sometimes crass) stereotypes that people will come up with whenever vegans are discussed; you know the thing: "guardian-reading, murdoch-hating, lefty, radio four listening, daily mail-hating, sandal-wearing (must be birkenstocks!), glastonbury, hippy-types....(cont. pg. 94)
curiously i manage to tick all those boxes myself - i am so predictable - but enough of me!
so, when i saw, what i thought to be, yet another assumption about vegans (the pro-life thing) i thought "hang on a minute...!"
All done in the best possible taste ...
All done in the best possible taste ...
hello, cupid.
well, these thoughts are just off the top of my head and not exactly thought through, but:
religious people tend to be a pretty conservative bunch in my experience; years ago when i was 'just' a vegetarian i asked a (christian) friend of mine if she had any thoughts about going veggie herself. apart from there being no guidance for her on that subject in the ten commandments specifically or the bible in general, she believed that god had put the animals on the earth for the use of man, and that would include amongst other things, eating them. i have had similar chats with believers from time to time and come to the conclusion that they just don't seem interested in anything new or radical. i think the fact that there are so many instructions about how to kill animals (kosher and halal etc) plus guidance on which animals it's okay to eat seems to (in most religious peoples eyes) give them the green light to go ahead and do that, without questioning it or trying to think for themselves.
or something like that. (phew!)
the socialism thing or perhaps the lefty angle would be something like:
i see left leaning people as caring for the wider world, other people, concerned about how their behaviour is likely to impact on others. they seem to want to help people.
whereas, i get the feeling that right-leaning people don't think of these things first; though i wouldn't necessarily go as far as to call them greedy they do tend to say things like 'charity begins at home' which i think is a polite way of saying they do not care as much about unfortunate people of the world as they should. they seem to want to punish people; they favour corporal and capital punishment.
but if i have alienated some people here that is not my intention and i apologise if that has happened; i haven't based any of this on research or statistics, this is just the way i feel - the way i percieve things.
i'd love it if somebody could organize a few polls to find out where the members here stand on the dp/atheism/lefty things. (being a newbie i think it'd be a bit presumptious if i did it and anyway i'm not sure how.)
speaking as a left-leaning, death penalty opposing, atheist myself.
Maybe, but not in this thread, I don't think? If someone goes to the trouble of writing about their experience of abortion in a discussion like this, surely they are entitled to be listened to regardless of which side of the argument they are on? It seems a bit disrespectful just to ignore them.
I don't understand this point either. The 'right to choose' safeguards the emotional and physical welfare of some women and doesn't force abortion on anyone, or silence their voices.
I write as someone who doesn't regret having had an abortion when I became pregnant with an IUD in place, over 30 years ago. Although of course at times I have imagined the person who may have been, I don't feel sad.
Like cobweb, I witnessed another young woman undergoing a late-stage induced delivery abortion, which was a traumatic experience for all involved. I hope that better education, pregnancy detection and easier access to early termination has put an end to that kind of thing happening anymore.
once in a while you can get shown the light
in the strangest of places if you look at it right
I think the "silencing" comes from woman who feel they were "forced" into abortions. which is WRONG. No one should ever force someone to choose anything. That to me comes from an extremely abusive relationship. But I can't really see where anyone has been silenced on this forum, and this thread... I like to think we have a very caring community here.
If you don't want to have an abortion, you should not have one.
If you want to have one, then you shouldn't feel forced to feel guilty about it.
If you are on the fence about the ethics of abortion, but don't feel you are in the right state to have a child, then you should try to choose adoption.
There are many options out there. But i think there are a lot of grey areas as well. My heart goes out to those who either regret the decision to abort, or that feel they were forced or persuaded. There are many people that have been in the same boat, so don't feel you are alone. Either way it is a difficult decision, and no one should ever make you feel bad about it.
And just my two cents....If you don't feel comfortable posting on this forum regarding this, you shouldn't post it, but if you feel like you can post and discuss it, you should, because there are tons of people here that would love to help you get through it, or at least be a shoulder to cry on or a heart to vent to. You should never feel "silenced" on here. AND if someone does make you feel uncomfortable, then don't listen to them, there are more important people you can talk to. <3 I for one am always willing to listen as so many people on here have helped me through my own "demons", I would love to help others get through and or work through their's as well.
I'm not sure if I posted my opinion about abortion, but I like to think that i'm pro choice but also anti abortion, a contridictory I know, but I don't think I could do it, but I think that it should be a choice available. Though I don't think it should be considered just a procedure, I think there should be a program where you learn your other options, you talk to a therapist and then are able to descide. And then if you go through with it, there should be after care for your emotions as well..
PS sorry for my spelling errors, but i'm sure you get my idea...i hope.
"i'm rejecting my reflection, cause i hate the way it judges me."
A couple of my friends have said much the same as you about not feeling sad about early abortions they had, kokopelli. They feel they made the best decision in the circumstances.
However, I'm sure there are people who do feel sad about it, so the most useful thing for people who might have to make that decision would seem to be to listen to different experiences, not just one kind, and to get as much information as possible and weigh it up carefully. I haven't ever had an abortion, but I have made other difficult decisions, and as long as I had all the available facts, thought them over carefully and made the best decision I could at the time, I find I don't regret them afterwards. So any experiences that people want to share are very valuable, I think.
Obviously having these kinds of decisions made for you by someone else, or being rushed into them, is a completely different matter, as missbettie says, and very wrong IMO.
great post harpy.
"i'm rejecting my reflection, cause i hate the way it judges me."
I would ask for clarification as to what possible relevance that has to the very clear point being made.
I'm not going to though. I'm off to play Zombies with a pile of 13 year olds who think that I'm "Kewl" and "Pro".
Frankly it is equaly as constructive as arguing with people who want to kill whatever it is that they want to kill, be they pro-life (yes for this but not for that) meat eaters or pro-death (not for this but yes for that) vegans, and it's one hell of a lot more fun.
I actualy used to be proud to be vegan because I thought vegans were different to meat eaters. I cannot with any degree of honesty say that anymore.
All done in the best possible taste ...
I agree with CS here... It hurts me to read this discussion. I really think if you want to live a life of compassion, you need to think about why you support the things you support... why do you believe life is important? Should certain life forms be denied the right to life due to others appetites and situations in life? It's not all about US, sometimes we need to step outside of our narrow perceptions and situations...
You all may be totally confident in your murderous tendencies, but many women are so confused and they just need someone to care for them and understand their predicaments, that's when we need to step in and assist them, not just tell them it's their choice to eliminate the possibility of a life. This saddens me greatly... Like CS said I thought vegans would all understand this and not fall to the same corruption everyday folk live with.
You can all flame me, but I'd appreciate it more if you private messaged me or something, I'm willing to listen.
Appetites, aye ..
Might have said this before .. If not I'll say it now.
The sole reason, once all the BS is parsed (and, as when arguing against killing with meat eaters, it never ever is), for abortion on demand is so that peeps can indulge their sexual appetites as they wish and when unwanted consequences occur it is a human life they take.
Personally I cannot differentiate those who are prepared to kill so as they may eat as they wish from those who are prepared to kill so as they can bump-uglies as much and when they like.
It's not actualy the killing that turns my guts its the shared 'style' of argument employed by all those who wish to kill this or that I don't, in any way, like.
All done in the best possible taste ...
Try that exact same line of argument applied in the defence of the 'right to choose' meat eating Koko ..
If that is not a defence of meating (because it ignores that the actual choice is to kill animals) then it is no defence for killing humans too.The 'right to choose' safeguards the emotional and physical welfare of some men/women and doesn't force meat eating on anyone, or silence their voices.
All done in the best possible taste ...
CS, I often disagree with you, even though I'm not atall sorry you're here on the forum, but I have to say I agree with your sentiments today. For what its worth, I am OFTEN disappointed by 'vegans' as a group, it's not a nice feeling is it ?.
but Harpy, people do use that defence, don't they?. They claim to 'need' to eat meat for their own well-being.
Like Cobbers said, Harpy, they DO use that one ..
I'm not trying to be mean here but there is fundamentaly nothing that pro-abortion people use that meat eaters don't also use.
They use the financial one;
"I can't afford fresh produce/vegan stuff is too expensive for me .."
They use the life situation one ...
"I understand the issues but I'm just not ready to go veg*an yet .."
They use the 'ownership' one;
"Well if it's bred for the purpose theres nothing wrong with killing it ..."
They use the false reciprocal respect for views one;
"I respect peoples choice to be veg*an so they should respect my choice to eat meat .."
They use versions of the personhood/non personhood one based on which animals they self identify with sufficiently not to want to eat against those that are not actualy animals, per-se, but just forms of walking food;
"obviously you wouldn't eat a dog/dolphin/wahtever 'cos they are clever/cute/whatever but Cows and Codfish are stupid/ugly so ..."
They use the developmental stages one ...
"Fish can't feel pain / chickens are too dumb to care what happens to them / shellfish are more vegetable than animal .."
They use the 'exceptional circumstances justify exceptional acts as the norm' arguments ..
"Ah, but waht about the Eskimos/allergies to vegetables/person stranded on a desert Island where nothing grows but there is a totaly inexplicable rabbit population of exactly one .."
The reason that meat eater and pro-abortionist arguments are always going to be parsed down to being fundamentaly the exact and self same bollox is very simple ...
Meat eater and pro-abortionists are arguing for the exact and self same thing; That is to be able to indulge their appetetites, by they dietary or sexual, at the cost of others lives.
All done in the best possible taste ...
So... how do the perfect/"life is sacred" anti choice vegans justify eating plants? surely they should all be fruitarians?
The reason veganism is against harming animals is due to their sentience. Embryos are not capable of sentience because they have no brain or nervous systems (and this has nothing to do about me being pro-choice since if I got pregnant I am 99% sure that I would go ahead with it regardless of the inconvenience it caused to my life).
Granted, they have potential to become people and they are not any "tissue" in the body but their "sentience" is as advanced as that of plants/eggs/sperm. If you think that life is sacred, plants should be protected too, this has been pointed out several times in this thread but you seem to have selective reading and understanding...
Half of the time, like in the post above, your position is justified logically. But then, when the flaws in that logic are pointed out you give a 180 degree turn and go on to say that "abortion is an emotive subject and emotion should be considered when arguing" ...
I agree with both: abortion is an emotive subject and emotion must be considered BUT it also has to be argued logically. An embryo is not sentient, it does not matter how much you want it to be, it is not, it has no brain just like plants (and not like any other non human animal which do have brains). This does not mean that its life has no value, its life must be considered in the wider context and sometimes not living can lead to less harm and pain. I much rather not have been born that have lived all my childhood in an abusive environment or neglected or having made my mother feel that she could not be all she wanted because of me. I much rather not have been born that have ended up as a dairy cow/ a laying chicke/ a foie gras duck.
I doubt any meat eater would be happy to be treated like any of the animals that end up on their plates, I however, would not have minded to be treated like an aborted embryo at that stage of my development and I think most pro choice people feel that way too.
Yes, some meat-eaters do, but I mean we as vegans aren't likely to believe that meat-eating safeguards humans' emotional and physical welfare. Whereas some vegans do believe that in certain circumstances abortion does safeguard someone's emotional or physical welfare. That's one important difference between the two statements that CS was suggesting were equivalent.
Another important difference is that as manzana has just pointed out, meat-eating involves killing a sentient being whereas early abortions don't.
So, from my point of view, those two statements aren't equivalent at all.
I feel uneasy about the idea that just because an embryo may or may not be sentient this gives us the right to dispose of it.
Does that mean it's ok for vegans to eat eggs..........they are 'unfeeling' embryos aren't they?
Or could we perhaps abort a calf or pig foetus before it is 'sentient' (how can we even tell this) and eat it?
I like Sandra, she keeps making me giggle. Daft little lady - Frosty
Oh jeez ...
If I had £1.00 for everytime a meat eater had pulled that peice of nonsense on me I'd be a very rich man by now.
I'm not at all sure that I did say any such thing, but if I did say anything which even remotely resembles that ..Half of the time, like in the post above, your position is justified logically. But then, when the flaws in that logic are pointed out you give a 180 degree turn and go on to say that "abortion is an emotive subject and emotion should be considered when arguing" ...
Meat eating is an emotive subject also and emotion should also be considered when attempting to get emotional meat eaters to start to think logicaly too.
All done in the best possible taste ...
this thread makes me really disapointed at how we all talk to each other. Everyone has their own opinions, based on their own experiences. Thats how the world works..
"i'm rejecting my reflection, cause i hate the way it judges me."
HI Sandra,
My post was supposed to highlight that the embryo is not the only important matter in this decision: their mothers also are important.
The same applies to eggs or calves: their mothers also matter. If one of your cats was pregnant and her life was at risk, she (and not just her babies) should be considered in any decisions to abort.
I am also arguing that a grown fully sentient animal (human being or not) should potentially be given a higher value than an embryo that has not developed a brain/nervous system.
I hope this clarifies.
I agree there are certain circumstances where the life of the mother is at risk so this should be taken into consideration and a decision made regarding the best outcome but unfortunately the majority of abortions are not done under these circumstances.
The point I was making was that an embryo/foetus should not be treated as disposable.........whether it's animal or human animal. As a vegan I respect all life and tried to make the comparison that say a cow died of natural causes whilst pregnant............would it be ok to use the unborn foetus? As a vegan I would find that idea abhorrent, just as I find the idea of anyone once pregnant aborting an unborn embryo/foetus abhorrent.
N.B. As I said earlier there are exceptional circumstances where it may not be possible for the pregnancy to continue and I'm not talking about those, but about the majority of cases where the pregnancy is ended because the mother decides she doesn't want to be pregnant.
I like Sandra, she keeps making me giggle. Daft little lady - Frosty
I agree Sandra
The problem is that however many disclaimers are given about 'special circumstances' from the pro-life camp the discussion always spirals back to this aspect of the abortion debate.
The fact of the matter is that the majority of abortions are not a health choice but a lifestyle choice.
I do not have any figures that would back up that the majority of abortions are not done where the life of the mother is at risk. I consider however that harm can come in more forms than purely physical harm and I don't think anyone is in a position to judge how psychologically affected women can become due to having an unwanted pregnancy.
When I balance the pros and cons of having the choice or not, I see that having the option to choose is very likely to be the option that minimises harm, especially, if stricts controls on the timeline are implemented (embryo vs phoetus).
I don't really understand how the line can be drawn at conception (sperm joins egg) when we do not flick an eyelid when someone uses an IUD (which causes very early abortions by not allowing implantation of the fertilised egg, or when someone goes to a fertility clinic and decides to discard 5 out of 8 fertilised eggs. In my view, if the egg and the sperm are considered a human at the point of joining, then the legislation should change to iron out these inconsistencies.
If on the other hand, we agree that a sperm and and egg joined are NOT yet a human being, then, early terminations should not be vilified or viewed any differently than we view the use of an IUD or the discarding of fertilised eggs by fertility clinics.
I see that idea as abhorrent too (just like the idea of eating road kill) but I do not see it as unethical. If you are not causing harm I do not see anything wrong with it.
Can you be vegan without also flogging a dead horse?
by the way, I understand (and take on board) the point that Slack and Cupid are trying to do about protecting women from having abortions that they do NOT want to have... that is a truly AWFUL scenario and one that I hope gets rectified. It is not even a debate that women should have information on BOTH sides: continuing with the pregnancy or not. Pro choice, gives Equal value to both sides and does not favour abortion over continuation of pregnancy.
All done in the best possible taste ...
Speaking for myself yes, that is a truly awful scenario I would like to see rectified.
But...at present I am referring to lifestyle abortions where women have been given this information from both sides and abort anyway.
They do not have health issues either mental or physical, but are merely 'miffed' at being saddled with a 'parasite' when they have a thriving career or social life to pursue.
That one is the truly terrifying senario.
Thank you for that kind acknowledgement Manzana
We have another forum member who deserves greater recognition on that front, mind. It is up to him/her as to wehter, or not, they choose to reveal themself and elaborate on why so further.
Cupids personal agenda (must confer with Slack over this later ..) goes a bit further.
He would like to see a world where children are valued so highly that it would break anyones heart that an abortion would ever, as they sometimes are, be neccessary.
All done in the best possible taste ...
Unquestionably yes - for me, anyway. But not just as a matter of convenience. I have inherited a genetic condition that killed my father at 43 and his mother at 36. Fortunately, with advances in surgical skills and scanning techniques I should be able to enjoy a reasonable quality and length of life. Fortunately also (I was unaware of my condition at the time) none of my children have inherited the condition. Had I known I would have chosen not to have had children. Had I decided to take the risk then my wife and I had agreed that if a foetus proved to be positive for the condition then a termination was a must. Who would want to willingly inflict a potentially debilitating and terminal condition on an unborn child? I do not feel that that view in any way is at odds with life as a vegan.
"Nostalgia is not what it used to be"
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