Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "The US abortion battle explained in three minutes - BBC News" video.

I fully understand the difficulty in separating a potential human from an actual one. Every sperm is a potential human. A zygote (the moment a sperm fertilises an egg) is a potential human, but it is NOT a baby. It has no brain, no autonomy, no physical feeling, no thoughts. Despite that, I am filled with thoughts about the person it COULD become if allowed to come to term. The child it might be, the adult it might grow up to be. I 100% agree with anyone who argues against the murder of BABIES (at whatever point we decide taht they move from being a collection of cells to an autonomous human being) for the convenience of a mother too careless or stupid to prevent its formation. But where is your compassion the second it is born? How many of you give a darn about childhood poverty, or the 400,000 children in orphanages in the US, or women who have to carry the products of rape or incest? Or women whose health is threatened by carrying a baby to term, or the tens of thousands of women whose life will be threatened performing back alley abortions? How many of you care about the poverty that unwanted babies inflict on entire families? How many of you are doing this much handwringing about the 5 kids who have died at the border, or the hundred of thousands your government has killed in the middle east or Yemen? Frankly, your moralising is about as convincing as your Christianity, and your empathy suffers a bad case of tunnel vision.
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Because it's not that black and white. There is NOWHERE in America where it is or ever was legal to abort a child the day before birth simply because you didn't want it.
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hater gater Nope. Unexpected childbirth is an issue that occurs more frequently at the lower end of the socio-economic end of society. With wages decreasing in real terms, and unable to keep up with the cost of living, taking on the expense of marriage, and moving into your own home is not going to improve your lot. If you have a child, one of you is stuck raising that child OR you are saddled with child care expenses that can be more than half your monthly salary. As for simply closing your legs, that's not realistic or reasonable. Why should people have to forego one of life's great pleasures in order to meet your moral standard? That said, there's absolutely NO excuse for not using contraception, but bear in mind, a lot of these laws want to force women to carry even a rapist's child to term!
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@ToyotaVertexSoarer The trouble is, when your objection is "stopping an opportunity for life", then every time you have sex without using every sperm to fertilise an egg, you are doing the same, and before you know it, we're onto archaic notions against masturbation. I know it's hard to reconcile that "opportunity" but the potential for something to become something great is not a good enough reason, especially when that thing may destroy the lives of others.
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BLAIR M Schirmer Insofar as they can have sex without a condom against their will. But yes, I absolutely agree. If the consequences will last for a lifetime and cost you the next 18 years, you should get more of a say in the matter than where you put your penis for 5 minutes. Now women are also having to face life changing consequences. Of course, the ones who WANTED to have kids will not gain any empathy, and the ones that didn't were not the problem.,
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@faznaz7455 It is my experience taht the very people who are so stridently against abortion, are also the people who have no problem giving their preacher another lear jet, but do little to nothing (or worse still actively oppose) moves (such as the affordable care act or a humane immigration policy) that would help living people.
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@ToyotaVertexSoarer I completely agree, but at what stage does a foetus become a human being?
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A child will cost you $100,000 on average up to the age of 18. Even if you separate from the mother. I'd call that a pretty large effect.
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@GethHeratic So a person should receive a $100,000 fine and an 18 year sentence for becoming accidentally pregnant? And what if it wasn't their fault at all? Almost all parents make a financial calculation before deciding whether or not to have a child, so why should that calculation not be a factor after accidental pregnancy? The British government recently paid £5000 each for people accidentally killed by contaminated blood transfusions, insurers value life a little higher. Society places a value on human life routinely. Of course, once your child is born, it's priceless to you, and that's how it should be.
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@GethHeratic Dogs get abandoned or put down ALL the time!
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@GethHeratic I think having to carry the child for 9 months gives women a unique connection to the child, but then having to spend your whole life working to clothe and feed it does that too! :-)
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@aintnoslice3422 Reading? These people don't read. They listen to Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones.
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@ToyotaVertexSoarer Sex is not remotely sacred. If anything, it's two animals interacting at their most primitive. Any sacredness is a result of biases that you bring to it. But I do agree 100% about wearing a condom or using some other form of contraception or prevention. "no person, man or woman, has any right to be judge, jury, and executioner of another human life." I'm gonna guess from this that you are Christian. God or agents acting for him are responsible for the deaths of 2,038,344 people in the old testament. Everyone from children to entire populations of innocent people. He also approves of abortion, and child murder is practiced constantly in the OT. As for executing people, there are people on this planet that need eradicating for the good of everyone else. I would happily see Trump, McConnell, and Graham executed and would pull the switch myself if offered the chance. What about Hitler, Mengele, Amin, Hussein, Bin Laden - do you think that nobody has the right to stand in judgement over them? If so, I would suggested that you are placing high minded ideals about lives. Why should people like El Chapo, who brought about the most brutal murder and torture of many innocents including little children, get to languish in prison, sucking up resources that could be used to save the lives of thousands? I would execute any of them whistling as I did so without the slghtest moral qualm were it not for the slippery slope that legalising the death penalty opens up.
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@ToyotaVertexSoarer I only ever edit posts to correct for grammar, spelling or to refine an argument. I have certainly not deleted any in this thread. "Humans aren't animals" and you just made everything after this point meaningless. If you don't even comprehend or accept the most biologiical facts, we're not even operating from the same frame of reference. I am operating from the correct one and you are not. You don't get to redefine the meaning of words to suit your argument. You seem to think that sex between two people carries all of that extra stuff, and it's true that for a great many couples it does, but that is not a necessary component, nor is it omnipresent. Just ask all the millions of tinder fuck buddies. They meet, they have sex, they never meet again. The "energies" between two people has been researched every which way. People have been hooked up, measured, studied, recorded and analysed. I can understand that in SOME cases, sex can indeed be a beautiful sharing between two people although when you start to describe itin terms of "energies" rather than simply the heightened emotions of two people in close physical contact, I think you mysticise something that is not that mystical. I certainly agree that allowing one's hormones to blind one's logic is not a good thing, but then the Catholic church is a great example of what happens when you supress such fundmental urges. Somewhere in between a reasonable middle ground. You suggest that restraint is something only found in humans. You couldn't be more wrong. Animals that mate for lifew don't go around having sex with everything else, and in hierarchical animal groups such as lion or chimpanzees, the lower animals wouldn't DARE to try to mate with the alpha's females.. You talk about pregnancy prevention being the key, and again I agree, but not by denying such a pleasurable and fundamental act. Indeed, religious communities where abstinence is taught to teenagers, have higher levels sexually abnormal behaviour such as anal sex. Take an honest approach to sexual behaviour. Teach the kids about contraception then make it widely available. In Iceland for instance, condoms are available in sizes for 12 year olds. At first glance it is disturbing, until you recognise the fact that kids that age are inevitably HAVING sex so you may as well be prosaic about having to prevent pregancy. The reason I jump to religion is because it is respansible for a massive percentage of repressive and negative behaviour on this planet. To leave it out is like having a conversation about Flu without talking about how viruses work. I don't believe that I have the right to murder someone. When a foetus becomes a someone rather than mere cells, I think abortion should no long be a choice. Why do YOU think you have the right to condemn people to a life of misery simply because of beliefs habded down to you in a dusty old book?
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@ToyotaVertexSoarer Which valid points?
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@GethHeratic I agree Samuel. Abortion is a difficult issue. I very reluctantly think it SHOULD be legal for other reasons. I was simply pointing out that having a child has a massive effect upon the father's life as well.
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