>
>>What crimes
>>should I be charged with?
>
>Hypothetically, no one would ever find your body, so this is
>immaterial. Moving on!

Avoidance.

>>You don't own children.
>
>This isn't entirely true in a legal sense. For example,
>you're certainly responsible for their actions after a fashion
>until they're legally adults.

Owning something, and being held responsible for the actions of said thing aren't equal. I own my car, but if someone steals it and runs someone over, that isn't my fault. Conversely, I definitely don't own the wild racoon in my yard, but you can bet there are places where I'm going to be help legally responsible for the medical bills of the asshold that got bit and got rabies.

>>You may own your dog, but you don't get to beat it and
>starve
>>it to death.
>
>No; however, you may legally have it put down for no greater
>reason than deciding you don't want it. This is in line with
>my analogy.

A dog isn't sentient. This is also wrong however. People would rather kill a living thing than accept responsibility for it.

>> You certainly don't get to do those things
>> legally) to children... so long as they've exited the womb.
>
>>Before that, you get to kill them indiscriminately? I don't
>>think so.
>
>If you're assuming they're children from the moment of
>conception, then I would generally agree with you. I don't
>assume that, however.

I am. I'll explain later.

>Your statement also assumes that abortions are totally free
>and legal up to the minute of birth, which you obviously know
>isn't true.

I am aware.

>>One last disturbing point. If I walk up to a pregnant woman
>>and punch her in the stomach, resulting in a miscarraige, I
>>don't get charged with battery... Manslaughter is probably
>>the minimum, and that's *assuming* I didn't do it for that
>>purpose. I wish I had PJ's ability to find case law,
>because
>>I'm betting this has happened somewhere, but I'll leave that
>>up to someone else. The point is that I *should* be charged
>>with something beyond battery, and anyone who thinks
>>differently isn't in favor of abortion, just like in the
>>previous situation...
>
>You're implying that this is a double standard, but you have
>to make some inconsistent assumptions for that to be the
>case.
>
>An obviously pregnant woman is most likely far enough along
>that an abortion wouldn't be legal unless not having it would
>kill the mother.

She doesn't have to be obviously pregnant. I might just be an unwilling father. Inconsistent assumptions aren't neccessary.

>>For what I understand, the number of people looking to adopt
>>is rather insanely high compared to those who are willing to
>>put their child up for adoption.... #### you don't even
>have
>>to raise the unwanted child, but you ####ed up, you made the
>>choice, now live with 9 months of consequences. It's the
>>least you can do.
>
>This is easy to say when you're a man. That doesn't
>inherently make it wrong, but it's easy to have an opinion
>about how to handle a situation you'll definitely never be
>in.

No. Just no.

As a man I have no say in whether the child is born or not.
As a man I have no say in whether the child is put up for adoption or not.
As a man I have a legal responsibility to care (pay money to the mother) for said child even given the above.
As a man I don't even have to be informed that a child was conceived.

Don't give the "situation". I'll trade the decision to keep or give away the child for zero say and fininacial responsibility anyday. I'm sure being pregnant sucks (I have three older sisters, so I've *heard*) but being uncomfortable isn't a reason to kill. Morning sickness is akin to PMS... ie no real change. You only become obviously pregnant for the last two months or so. So really, you aren't even giving up nine months... TWO MONTHS.

This argument is akin to saying to me, "It would be more convenient for me if you were dead because you are ahead of me in line at the DMV. If you were dead, I wouldn't have to wait as long."

>In my ideal world, very few abortions would occur, and all for
>good reasons. However, that doesn't mean I'm in favor
>of making laws to require that. I'm especially not in favor
>of making laws, in essence, based on your gut-feeling opinion
>of when a person's life begins.

Fact: Life begins.
Fact: Sentient cannot be proved with linguistic communication.

You get two choices, they aren't children till they talk/write/sign/whatever, or they are children the instant the cells start dividing. Anything inbetween is arbitrary and wrong.

>>Also, people who are so poor that their children are growing
>>up to be violent criminals aren't getting abortions. They
>>can't afford the abortion. Another child means more welfare.
>
>>Plus they obviously don't care. People who are getting
>>abortions are middle class people who just aren't willing to
>>accept the consequences of their actions.
>
>Right. All poor people are greedy parasites who view children
>as sources of income. I was silly to not see the truth of
>that.

I didn't see you providing sources for the statements of poorer people being the ones getting the majority of abortions. Or the statements showing that these people are getting the abortions because they couldn't/wouldn't take care of them. I can make assumptions about what is true also. Show me the study where the same demographic (*) that produces the highest number of violent criminals also has the most abortions. I think you'll find that what I'm saying is at least as viable as what you are saying.

People who are literally starving to death have children knowing that they are more likely than not destined to die. They still have them. If they were given the option of aborting, I think you'd be suprised how few would choose to do so.

(*) People making under 100,000 dollars a year get the majority of adoptions and produce the majority of violent criminals doesn't count. It's too big.