The greater evil: poverty or abortion

[AgnosTheist]

Again - you are generalizing. Poverty leads to misery and abortion - SOMEtimes.

Poverty leads to misery all the time. Poverty leads to high crime rate.

Abortion is largely a matter of convenience vs. inconvenience.

true. the poor longs for convenience.

There are those who CHOOSE to live in poverty.

that is extremely rare. even so, mother theresa did not worry about her next meal.

And, as I stated before - there is MUCH more corruption that is caused by wealth than poverty.

how many rich thieves are there compared to impoverished thieves? how many rich harlots are there compared to impoverished prostitutes?
how many rich abortioners are there compared to poor ones?

 

[ProdigalSun]

I think this post provides my definition of poverty (rather what poverty isn’t)

You are not in poverty if do not have to think about money about supplying your basic needs: utilities, clothing (not designer), housing (not a grandiose display of opulence, I suppose one can own an expensive house if it close to their job), transportation, access to knowledge, nutritious food and the ability to store and cook it, pharmaceuticals, health care, and adequate leisure time. That means to do not need to worry about paying their bills when providing their needs or being under stress to make their ends met. Sure, it might mean not spending money on vacations, but personally that makes me rather guilty considering there are people in absolute poverty in Africa and the money for the vacation can be given to a reputable charity.

Unfortunately, the world does not work that way, people who do make enough money do not save their money and indulge in luxuries. But some people struggle to make their ends met in the first world and they do live frugally.

I have to worry about all of that, So I must live in poverty but I’m truly grateful my mother did not murder me in her womb. I wonder what that little girl in africa would say if we asked her - would you rather be poor or dead?

 

[deb1]

That’s just money in disguise. You wouldn’t have considered it if you could have afforded a nanny. In the US, of course, very few people really can’t afford a child on any rational sort of calculation. But plenty think that cars or mortgages or career jobs are essentials.

I was a shockingly selfish person at twenty. I wish that I had just been afraid financial ruin but I really, really didn’t want to let go of my dreams to travel,become ultra famous etc. Yes, I was shallow and it embarrasses me now.

I had been brought up without money and knew that I could get government assistance because some of my friends did. Plus my grandmother was eager to help me thus I had free childcare.

I was frightened about being pregnant and the sperm donor abandoned me immediatly. That had a big part in my decision, combined with my selfishness.

Luckily, my exfiance-now husband- came forward and begged me not to get an abortion. I also had a girlfriend who had an abortion who begged me not to have one.

My son is 18 and about to enter culinary school.

 

[whatevergirl]

Poverty is in many cases, a choice.

Now, no one says, “Hmmm. Do I want to be rich or poor? Rich or poor? I guess I’ll choose to be poor.”

But people do choose to drop out of school (about 30% of all children who enter high school do not graduate.) People do choose to use drugs, have sex out of wedlock, commit crimes, and so on. All of those contribute to poverty.

And people do choose – for no better reason than their own convenience – to murder their unborn children. Poverty is not an excuse for abortion and we cannot blame abortion on a lack of social programs.

I think you might be only viewing this from an american standard. In many countries, kids don’t even have the opportunity to attend schools. The poverty ‘line’ in this country far exceeds the poverty limits of third world countries. There are no social programs in many countries…I sponsor a child from the Phillipines…the money we send her lasts her 1 month, while it would buy me a week’s worth of gas–barely. When I think of poverty, I don’t only think of the U.S. I am not saying you are only thinking along those lines,but your post seems to only address poverty in this country. Far more people do not choose poverty outside of the US…it chooses them.

I would agree with your seniments on the fact that there are instants where people make poor choices, and then poverty comes upon them…but, in the US, there are programs to help with even these cases.

 

[whatevergirl]

I was a shockingly selfish person at twenty. I wish that I had just been afraid financial ruin but I really, really didn’t want to let go of my dreams to travel,become ultra famous etc. Yes, I was shallow and it embarrasses me now.

I had been brought up without money and knew that I could get government assistance because some of my friends did. Plus my grandmother was eager to help me thus I had free childcare.

I was frightened about being pregnant and the sperm donor abandoned me immediatly. That had a big part in my decision, combined with my selfishness.

Luckily, my exfiance-now husband- came forward and begged me not to get an abortion. I also had a girlfriend who had an abortion who begged me not to have one.

My son is 18 and about to enter culinary school.

God bless you, deb. I pray more young women think like you did.

 

[elvisman]

Poverty leads to misery all the time. Poverty leads to high crime rate.

true. the poor longs for convenience.

that is extremely rare. even so, mother theresa did not worry about her next meal.

how many rich thieves are there compared to impoverished thieves? how many rich harlots are there compared to impoverished prostitutes?
how many rich abortioners are there compared to poor ones?

Either you’re shockingly ignorant or you’re just on this thread to push your usual annoying buttons.
For your sake, I choose to believe the latter.
I won’t waste any more valuable time attempting to justify your preposterous comments with my usual well-thought-out and educated answers.
Read your questions, then read your condescending signature line about God gaving given us reason - then USE some!
YIKES!

 

[vern_humphrey]

None of they physiological causes applies to her situation. Its rather obvious that this was Sociopsychological:
Life experiences
Job loss, poverty, financial difficulties, gambling addiction, eating disorders, long periods of unemployment, the loss of a spouse or other family member, rape, divorce or the end of a committed relationship, involuntary celibacy, inability to have proper sex or premature ejaculation or other traumatic events may trigger depression.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinical_depression#Sociopsychological

You examined her yourself, did you?

 

[Newbie2]

I think the former is a greater evil as those in poverty are deprived of freedom and an enriching environment to develop their abilities and enjoy life.

The poor cannot enjoy life?

Let me rephrase that then, Poverty leads to the death, corruption & misery of people. Agree?

poverty leads people to commit abortion.

Wealth doesn’t lead to corruption, misery and death?

Poverty ***can ***lead people to commit abortion, sure.

Poverty leads to misery all the time.

And abortion does not?

 

[Holly3278]

In my opinion, abortion is definitely the greater evil. Abortion should be banned!

 

[vern_humphrey]

Has anyone else noticed the apples-and-oranges nature of this debate?

Abortion is an evil act. Someone deliberately murders an unborn child.

Poverty is a state of being. A person may be poor through no fault of anyone else. Nor is a poor person, by virtue of his poverty, evil.

The answer, then, is that abortion is evil. Poverty is neurtral since it is not an act.

 

[KathleenElsie]

Poverty leads to misery all the time. Poverty leads to high crime rate.

Both my husbands family and mine were considered to be in poor.

We are not thieves, crooks or ever arrested.
We never had an abortion nor helped others to do so.
We did not kill ourselves.
We are not miserable.

We educated ourselves and our family members.
Our siblings did the same.

Poverty is not a sin. It is a life situation you can change. Being murdered (abortion) is final.

If one of our family should have been aborted so the others could have had more stuff which one?
The medical researcher
The teacher
The computer programer
The nurse
The pilot
The social worker

You see God created us but society would have murdered us for our own good since we lived hand to mouth as children.

 

[Linda_Marie]

In addition, this is trying to link poverty with having too many children - ie the reason people live in poverty is because they have too many children. If you didn’t have to spend all your money on buying food and clothes for your kids, you could be rich. Obviously then, having children causes poverty. Therefore to eliminate poverty, you must abort your children.

“Just think, then you can spend all of that money on yourself. You can have clothes and travel and cars and food and and and it will all make you very happy.”

Abortion is evil in and of itself.

Dead, you don’t even have the option of being poor, much less being rich.

It really gets my goat when people say they aborted a child for his sake to save him from poverty. The truth is, they abort for their own selfish reasons, either to ‘fulfil’ themselves or to pursue an education or just to avoid raising a child, but don’t say that they are doing it in the best interests of the one being aborted. That is just baloney. “I think you might have a bad life so I will kill you now to save you from it. I’m really being compassionate and altruistic by killing you now. It’s a mercy, honest.” Yeah, right.

 

[vern_humphrey]

Poverty does not “lead to crime.” However, under certain conditions, poverty is associated with crime.

For example, in our welfare society there are many people who opt for welfare as an economic strategy. With no jobs, this can lead to boredom and other problems, which can lead to drug addiction and related crimes.

But there are many societies of very poor people where crime is almost non-existant.

 

[mapleoak]

I think the former is a greater evil as those in poverty are deprived of freedom and an enriching environment to develop their abilities and enjoy life.

This points to a lack of understanding as to the very subjective nature of what you consider poverty. Your definition of poverty is that of not being able to keep up with the Jones’s. For one poverty does not equal lack of freedom. There are many who would and who have gladly given up ‘possesions’ in exchange for freedom. An enriching environment (especially if it hinges on being “provided” for as entitlement) is not the criteria by which true poverty is defined.
The type of ‘poverty’ you describe is that of which jealousy is bred upon. And jealousy happens to be one of the capital sins of which many other evils follow, including abortion.

 

[strngrnrth]

I doubt anyone is saying poverty is an act or that it makes a person evil to be poor. The question I heard was whether abortion or poverty is a more evil, that is, destructive and regrettable, fact of life. Obviously the poor are the victims of poverty, not its perpetrators.
As to American v. world definitions of poverty, I will be sick the next time I hear anyone say a child shouldn’t be brought into a family that can “only” provide adequate nutrition to let a child grow up to be strong enough to work and able to have children; adequate clothing to be able to go outdoors in any weather without becoming ill or appearing indecent; a bed of one’s own by puberty and a room of one’s own at some point before leaving home; a few hours a day to teach the child about reading and working and calculating and the great world we live in, starting somewhere, even if it is the grandparents or an older sibling who does most of the tutoring; enough heat in winter to prevent frostbite and other cold-related illnesses. I know many people of many ages who do not have these things, right here in America. If you have them, you are just working-class. And even actual poor kids are usually glad to be here. I can’t imagine a merely working-class child regretting being born because she is not more affluent. I grew up only sometimes having all these things at once and I am glad to be alive.
As to Third-World poverty, countries suffering from that kind of want tend to allow children to work. Tragic as it is to have to send the kids out to help the family, it makes the children an asset, not a liability. That is why abortion is rare in poor countries. It’s in countries like this one, where children are an expense only, that parenthood is seen as holding people back from their dreams.

 

[vern_humphrey]

I doubt anyone is saying poverty is an act or that it makes a person evil to be poor. The question I heard was whether abortion or poverty is a more evil, that is, destructive and regrettable, fact of life. Obviously the poor are the victims of poverty, not its perpetrators.

I recommend reading The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls.

Sometimes people are poor because of circumstances beyond their control, but sometimes people determine their own fates.

 

[CHRIS_DICKSON]

I feel that asking this question is wasting my time, and will only confirm the obvious.

What is the greater evil? Poverty or abortion?

I think the former is a greater evil as those in poverty are deprived of freedom and an enriching environment to develop their abilities and enjoy life.

“Tell me, I pray you, where does she dwell, my Lady Poverty? Where does she dine, and where does she lie down at noon, for I am faint with love for her?”

*Sacrum Commercium *- 9

 

[blueoval]

An early death is exactly what abortion is.

Outstanding reply! Poverty CAN be overcome. My mother grew up very impoverished in the '20s and '30s, but through sheer determination, worked right into a very comfy retirement. God bless her, she’s still teaching me things at 90 years of age!

 

[GandalfTheWhite]

Poverty isn’t evil. Poverty is a state of being. Abortion is murder. It kills the person’s relationship with God. That is EVIL.

 

[Herbert]

Perhaps it depends how you evaluate the question.

For instance, most would agree that poverty kills more people than abortion does each year: maternal mortality, infant mortality, disease, malnutrition, and many easily prevented deaths.

The evil of poverty is that the rich of the world essentially choose to allow these deaths - poverty is a choice, a choice made by those who have the power to alleviate it.

In many parts of the world poverty exists because people who have the power to prevent it do nothing. In a Catholic country such as the Philippines this is a serious indictment of those who purport to be followers of Christ.

Also, abortion happens at a higher rate amongst those in poverty, including in the USA.

Both are evil, but the choices of the rich to not address the injustice inherent in poverty must be acknowledged as much as the choice of a girl who chooses an abortion.