Tao v. Wade

[manitou]

I'm assuming this topic will end up in the pit. Just a matter of how long.

 

Question: Assuming we're all straw dogs anyway, does the Dao care if a fetus is aborted? My feeling is No, it doesn't make any difference in the grand scheme of things. As to individual spiritual development, it may be a huge setback in some. I could be dead wrong.

 

Does this type of morality have to be part of the Te, or is this a separate type of morality, not imposed from the outside but from the inside?

[ChiDragon]

If we follow the concept of Wu Wei, let Nature take its course without interference, then, Tao does care about the abortion. It is because abortion is interfering with the course of Nature which is the natural development of the fetus.

[hydrogen]

From my reading, spontaneity is a result of tao practice. Can a person be spontanous with a predetermined answer to a loosely defined question?

 

If my wife aborted our fetus without telling me, I'd have a problem with it.

 

If a raped girl didn't want to carry the fetus of the rapist, then it's her choice. I don't even know why I should get involved.

 

Tao allows paradox and contradiction.

Edited April 3, 2013 by hydrogen

[ChiDragon]

Tao allows paradox and contradiction.

 

No, not really.....!!! This is only your thinking and understanding.

 

 

Wu Wei is very restrict about let Nature taken its course.

Edited April 3, 2013 by ChiDragon

[voidisyinyang]

I'm assuming this topic will end up in the pit. Just a matter of how long.

 

Question: Assuming we're all straw dogs anyway, does the Dao care if a fetus is aborted? My feeling is No, it doesn't make any difference in the grand scheme of things. As to individual spiritual development, it may be a huge setback in some. I could be dead wrong.

 

Does this type of morality have to be part of the Te, or is this a separate type of morality, not imposed from the outside but from the inside?

 

I think in Hinduism it's stated the soul enters the fetus at around 3 months.

 

So I think it's a matter of balance -- light is consciousness and the zero point energy is everywhere as being guided by light energy as consciousness.

 

So even a little blood clot that is pushed out of a female's vulva as an at home abortion and flushed down the toilet - sure that has some consequences but not as much as aborting an infant. Yet the original human culture -- the Bushmen - the females would sometimes practice infanticide - and that is the way to keep the overall population at a level that does not destroy ecology.

 

The big problem is one of logical type -- the logical type of the population as a whole and the logical type of individuals acting.

 

So the Bushmen think in terms of the group as a whole and so sometimes practice infanticide - the mother does so on her own - it's her choice.

 

But it's not a choice based on cruelty.

 

Unfortunately a lot of death now is based on cruelty -- but I don't think this is the case with abortion.

 

There were probably traditional herbs used in Taoism to induce abortions.

 

 

In China, doctors have been thinking about giving herbs to pregnant women for a very long time—the subject is mentioned in the Jin Gui Yao Lue (Prescriptions from the Golden Cabinet) written about 1,800 years ago. Preventing conception and inducing abortions with Chinese herbs has also been on the minds of Chinese women and Chinese doctors for at least that long (and more recently, men have considered herbal birth control, as a result of the discovery of gossypol).

 

http://www.itmonline.org/arts/pregherb.htm

 

details there.

Edited April 3, 2013 by pythagoreanfulllotus

[ChiDragon]

I believe that the OP is about Tao not about others.

[Taomeow]

There were probably traditional herbs used in Taoism to induce abortions.

I have the Barefoot Doctor's manual -- this was created some fifty years ago in order to train medical practitioners for remote areas of China that had a shortage of doctors and/or no easy way for local folks to get to the hospital. It is a mind-blowing resource of a monumental scale. They pretty much collected everything -- TCM, folk/traditional from all over the country, Western -- to prepare a "barefoot doctor" to deal with anything and everything that elsewhere (e.g. here) would require a hospital with dozens of specialized departments. It is a super pragmatic no-nonsense medical text, with no room for wishful thinking or anecdotal or theoretical fairy tales -- only what works was included.

 

So, this book has a few herbal formulas that are used for prevention of pregnancy, and some of them have to be taken only once (sic) and confer sterility for a year (sic!). There's other contraceptive formulas there too, ones that are to be taken on a regular basis -- accordingly, fertility returns as soon as the woman stops taking them, or shortly thereafter.

 

Interesting about Hinduism asserting that the soul enters the fetus at 3 months. It is exactly the same as in taoism if I remember correctly. Accordingly, no moral qualms whatsoever are involved in terminating a pregnancy before this deadline. It can be terminated after this too, in which case a special ritual to appease and placate the offended soul is prescribed. It is the same in traditional Japanese (both shinto and zen) handling of these things. This is not viewed as "murder" or even "sin" -- rather, it is thought of as a potential source of disharmony which needs to be addressed. If a soul that was going to inhabit a body and already started making a home for itself is prevented from doing so, you owe it, so to speak. Offerings are made, explanations are followed by apologies, in other words you communicate with that soul and do your best to make peace with it.

[Flolfolil]

Nature includes everything. To interfere with the course of nature would be for existence to not be. It can't be done. Everything is part of nature. No right, no wrong.

[z00se]

If we follow the concept of Wu Wei, let Nature take its course without interference, then, Tao does care about the abortion. It is because abortion is interfering with the course of Nature which is the natural development of the fetus.

Nature is taking it's course the whole time. If the mother doesn't want the baby it is nature also. Nature provides the tools. Nature is nasty. i have a chicken with a broken leg and all the other hens in the flock peck it's feathers out. I feel nature is nasty. That is the way of nature.

[z00se]

Nature includes everything. To interfere with the course of nature would be for existence to not be. It can't be done. Everything is part of nature. No right, no wrong.

Damn straight!

[manitou]

Nature includes everything. To interfere with the course of nature would be for existence to not be. It can't be done. Everything is part of nature. No right, no wrong.

 

 

I come down on this side too because of the straw dog metaphor. Personally, I think we manifest from the inside out and there is nothing 'out there' (other than man-made laws) that cares about it one way or the other. I think it's all between the soul that's doing the aborting and her inner self. I think we're all one huge 'soul' anyway just manifesting in zillions of different people all over the world.

 

I did abort a fetus nearly 50 years ago, an illegal one on my kitchen table with a doctor up from Mexico. At the time, I didn't pay much of an emotional price for it because I was a wild child. My emotions didn't come through on this until I dropped a baby plant and broke the clay pot about 10 years ago. Suddenly I was wracked with tears, on my knees, and crying uncontrollably. The emotions stayed piled up within me for 40 years. I knew at the moment I dropped the plant what the sadness was really about.

 

And yet the Tao has accepted me too and taken me under its wings. I know for a fact that if I had borne that child, I would have brought the child up the same way I was brought up; with a heavy handed leather belt. I knew no different. Today would be a whole different story, the child would have a truly loving mother.

 

I surely don't know the answer to this. It's just an awfully interesting question in this day and age. If the right-wingers get their way and make abortion illegal again, I just feel plenty bad for those young girls who will be spread out on a kitchen table. Because they will.

[hydrogen]

 

No, not really.....!!! This is only your thinking and understanding.

 

 

Wu Wei is very restrict about let Nature taken its course.

 

You're right as well in another level.

 

People like me tend to encourage diversification. To keep balance, people like you promote unification. We're just doing what we're "trained" to do.

 

Until I become a "real human", I don't know who is typing this.

[hydrogen]

I did abort a fetus nearly 50 years ago, an illegal one on my kitchen table with a doctor up from Mexico. At the time, I didn't pay much of an emotional price for it because I was a wild child. My emotions didn't come through on this until I dropped a baby plant and broke the clay pot about 10 years ago. Suddenly I was wracked with tears, on my knees, and crying uncontrollably. The emotions stayed piled up within me for 40 years. I knew at the moment I dropped the plant what the sadness was really about.

 

Thank you for sharing your personal life experience.

 

My ex wife did indeed have an abortion without telling me. She later revealed the information in anger during a nasty arguement.

 

The anger has been with me for many years. I hope I'll be able to forgive her in my heart because she did what was "right" to her at that moment. Ultimately I'd forgive myself for being ignorant.

 

Love conquers All.

[mYTHmAKER]

Religions judge.

wu wei - the dao acting appropriately in each situation.

No situation is exactly the same.

Therefore no judgement.

[Flolfolil]

And lets not forget that plenty of animals will kill and eat their offspring, among other things.

 

Here is a fun link - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide_%28zoology%29

Edited April 4, 2013 by Flolfolil

[ChiDragon]

Nature is taking it's course the whole time. If the mother doesn't want the baby it is nature also. Nature provides the tools. Nature is nasty. i have a chicken with a broken leg and all the other hens in the flock peck it's feathers out. I feel nature is nasty. That is the way of nature.

 

Yes, if you want to look at it in a non-Taoist way. The fetus was meant to be born be Nature. It is the mother's nature to interfere with Nature. Hence, the final result is still interfering with the course of Nature. However, it is not advisable to compare humans with animals.

[ChiForce]

Well, about the whole of karmic cycle of the soul? What is the karmic of cycle of the soul of a fetus which was conceived against the will of the mother???

[Taomeow]

It is unrealistic to view abortion as something "against nature" because nature aborts 9 out of 10 conceived fetuses in the current human species (as well as in unhealthy animal populations -- e.g. a herd of sheep with an accumulation of breeding disorders, or a herd of elephants during a drought) before the woman even knows she was pregnant. (Source: Encyclopedia Britannica). Nature finds 9 out of 10 pregnancies that occur unwanted on the physiological level and terminates them.

 

Who's to say that she doesn't leave a percentage of the remaining ones that make it physiologically to further scrutiny as to their feasibility on the psychological, emotional, social levels, i.e. by leaving room for free will in this matter? Humans are naturally psychological, emotional, social creatures with naturally operational free will, not just abstractly physiological ones. Decisions concerning maintaining or not maintaining a pregnancy are made by nature on all of these levels where our species is concerned, including the level of free will which is part of our nature. We are not pregnancy automatons from nature's POV, unlike some religious doctrines would have you believe.

 

Control of these matters by artificial power structures is what is unnatural. A woman's or a couple's personal control over their social situation vis a vis maintaining or not maintaining a pregnancy is natural. So any society that regulates these matters by the force of law, whether social or religious, is engaged in an unnatural activity. Be it Chinese one-child policy (the unnatural socially induced cause for billions of abortions) or Catholic prohibition (causing healthy women to opt for hysterectomy -- a surgeon once told me of all the made-up diagnoses they concoct in order to sterilize a socially controlled Catholic woman so as to put an end to a conflict between her physiological fertility and psychological infertility), it is an abomination.

[Flolfolil]

However, it is not advisable to compare humans with animals.

Do you care to offer any proof that humans are somehow better or separate from animals?

 

Because right now your argument is looking like "You're wrong, I am right"

[taijistudent]

I'm assuming this topic will end up in the pit. Just a matter of how long.

 

Question: Assuming we're all straw dogs anyway, does the Dao care if a fetus is aborted? My feeling is No, it doesn't make any difference in the grand scheme of things. As to individual spiritual development, it may be a huge setback in some. I could be dead wrong.

 

Does this type of morality have to be part of the Te, or is this a separate type of morality, not imposed from the outside but from the inside?

We are all part of the Dao. All actions affect in some manner. In which manner? It cannot be predicted, only observed.

Edited April 4, 2013 by taijistudent

[ChiDragon]

Do you care to offer any proof that humans are somehow better or separate from animals?

 

Because right now your argument is looking like "You're wrong, I am right"

 

Yes, humans has the intellectual option for abortion but animals do not. Another words, humans have a choice for abortion and animals have not.

[Taomeow]

You should watch wildlife documentaries more often.

 

Just the other day I was watching David Attenborough's Africa -- one episode, dedicated to a very rare and ancient bird (forget what it's called), dealt with a family of these birds who usually raise, with great difficulty due to the adversities of the harsh environment, just one chick, but produce two, the second one being an insurance in case something happens to the bigger, healthier one. When the bigger, healthier one starts pecking at the smaller one, establishing his dominant role, the parents stop giving food and water to the smaller one, aggression in the first-born being seen as a sign of his viability. The smaller one dies. This is abortion in the animal world. The single chick, as many as this particular bird species is equipped to raise healthy and strong, gets the most out of parental care and then out of life, the other one gets nothing. The alternative would be two underfed, thirsty, sickly chicks, perhaps both leading miserable hungry lives and maybe dying too early to have their own shot at reproduction. Eventually the species would be eliminated. It is an ancient one though, 44 million years old. Would that we figured out a way to hang around for this long without making hard choices...

[ChiDragon]

Well, that was after birth for animals. I would not consider that is the same as abortion comparable to the principle of humans. It would be considered to be murder if a fetus has been full developed and born. Anyway, what ever animals do is by the way of Nature and I don't think humans should be considered the same way.


PS....
This is only my way of thinking by following the Taoist principles.

[Flolfolil]

PS....

This is only my way of thinking by following the Taoist principles.

 

 

fixed

[ChiDragon]

Well, that was after birth for animals. I would not consider that is the same as abortion comparable to the principle of humans. It would be considered to be murder if a fetus has been full developed and born. Anyway, what ever animals do is by the way of Nature and I don't think humans should be considered the same way.

 

 

PS....

This is only my way of thinking by following the Taoist principles.

 

I am following the principles of Tao which made me to think this way.