Legislating morality, Kerry-style

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Well, I'm one of them, so - more proof that abortion should be legal!

Anyway, my line of thinking is much like Harbourboy's - there is a period of time when a fetus is just a clump of cells. And to me, that is when abortion is OK. Of course, where that line is drawn is the problem; but from everything that I've read, it's between 2 and 3 months.

 

This talk has shifted to an abortion debate, not a debate of the fact / opinion that Kerry is a wishy-washy little toad. However, I WILL respond to Chandos' question, asking everyone to bear in mind that I consider Chandos a friend.

My remark about the hijacking of the American polity reflected conversations I have had with many Americans and Canadians. As soon as someone brings up a religious viewpoint, he is shouted down and told "separation of church and state, don't force your beliefs on us" as if the principle of separation of church and state means that all religious participation in the political forum is prohibited. Religious participation is not prohibited, religious domination is, and by attempting to shut out the voices of religious people, by default the "religion" of humanism dominates that of traditional religions, Christianity in particular.

 

Dapaara - Of course I consider you a friend as well, and will respond as one:

Look at dollar bill - does it say "In God we trust?"
Government functions, such as the opening of the Senate, are almost always started with a prayer led by the clergy.
The other "little toad," George Bush, when asked recently if he gets advice from his ex-president father, implied that he gets advice from God: "a higher authority."
It would appear that the forces and trappings - perhaps "uses" of religion - are very much apparent in American government, and those who relish its power.

However, there is a strong desire on the part of certain elements in government, those who are not too busy using religion as a propaganda tool, to prevent the appearence of a "national religion." This is in keeping with the principles of religious toleration and freedom. The rights of the minority are protected from the will of the majority. This is how it was intended to work.

[ July 28, 2004, 09:00: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

@GM (Me prepares to be intellectually bludgoned)

IMHO a fetus should not get protection or rights for what it could be but for what it is.

The potential for an impregnated egg to become a human should not give it the same rights that someone who is already a human is. Everything has the potential to become something importent through a freak accident or mutation.

I could potentially become the Messiah, but that won't let me come to class late (heretic of an english teacher) let alone do any other special Messiah only activity.

Basically a clump of organic material is a clump of organic material and therefore deserves all the rights and privileges granted unto clumps of organic material.

However, once the fetus becomes a baby by developing a brain it is entitled to all the protections granted to a human.

 

The fundemental problem with this debate is that neither side is willing to compromise. All pro-lifers want it that no single woman will ever, ever EVER, have an abortion, no matter what the circumstance. They insist that their moral clarity is more important than the mothers, and she isn't capable of making the "right" decision. End of discussion!

Pro-choicers are much the same. They feel than any woman should be able to have an abortion, no matter the circumstance, and nobody has a right to say a damn thing about it. Her body, her business. End of discussion!

Like all things in life, this is not a black and white issue. There is much grey area here. Until either side is willing to concede that, and be more open to an acceptable middle ground, this will be an issue that will NEVER get solved.

There are alternatives here. If either side cared half as much for finding a reasonable solution as they did being right, they would be open to suggestions. One such suggestion would be that we should take baby steps (if you'll pardon the pun). Let's start by determining a univesal scientific and medical definition of when exactly a fetus becomes a baby human. Conventional wisdom states that within the first trimester, it is indeed just a clump of cells. Let's say, for sake of arguement, that the scientific and medical communities concur. That would be something we all could potentially agree on with sufficient evidence to support it.

We could draft a law that states that all abortions must occur within the first trimester. 3 months is plenty of time to learn that you're pregnant and make the decision whether or not motherhood is right for you. The abortion will take a minimum of fuss and subject the mother to the least amount of danger. Beyond the 3 month mark, however, the mother has reached the point of no return and will be required by law to carry the child to term. Otherwise, she is indeed committing murder.

This is what, in grown-up world, we call a compromise. Pro-lifers save precious babies lives (which is the core pro-life arguement), and pro-choicers still have the reasonable right to choose (which is the core pro-choice arguement). Both give up a small amount, but essentially win the war. Until both sides realize that unconditional surrender by the enemy is not only impossible, but terribly unreasonable, this debate will never be settled. Emotion and hyperbole cannot dictate this arguement. Case in point:

Nothing...NOTHING...can change the fact that, unless you recently had a seance, you just totally pulled that out of your ass.

Comments like this don't help. We as a society need to solve a very unpleasant problem. If pro-lifers have their way, abortions WILL still occur, only illegally. Nothing will change that. Making them illegal will only shove the process underground. Whether by coat hanger or back-alley "doctor," abortions WILL still happen. Such a policy will obviously do more harm than good. The other side of the coin of course is that if pro-choicers have their way, the human baby will be come less a gift of life than an inconvenience to be cast aside. Abortion will steadily become a commonly accepted form of birth control, which obviously does more harm than good. So to quote the upcoming Aliens vs. Predator movie...whomover wins, we ALL lose.

Everyone in this debate needs to hop off their respective soapboxes and meet in the middle. Both sides are right, and, both sides are wrong. We owe it to our society, and future generations, to come up with a sensible solution. It is possible, you know. People who are certain that they're the only ones who are "embracing the path of rationality" are, ironically, precisely the ones who need to "stop the madness."

[ July 28, 2004, 19:24: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

Precisely why this debate is so pointless. What I like to refer to as a "head, meet brick wall" issue.

ps - thanks for the spelling correction. Said it a million times, never written it out.

 

D.R., it's not so much that it's pointless due to nobody wanting to reach a middle ground; it's more because there really isn't any middle ground.

As dmc said, pro-lifers feel that a fetus is human upon conception, and thus abortion is murder. Pro-choicers feel otherwise; there are differing opinions on at what point a fetus becomes human, but none of us feel that is at conception. My personal feelings (as I've stated previously) are pretty much in line with your proposal, but pro-lifers will never agree to it.

Edit: I've just realised that I haven't added anything to this discussion that wasn't basically cover by dmc.

 

So then it comes down to one side being reasonable (willing to reach a middle ground), and one side not (there is no middle ground!). Being pro-choice isn't the same as being pro-abortion. It isn't the abortion itself that is desired, but just having the option in case it's necessary. The CHOICE. And one side wants to make that choice for everyone else, no matter what. That's not how a modern society works, sorry. But try telling them that.

Like I said...pointless.

 

I don't think I'd go so far as to say that pro-lifers are being unreasonable. After all, if they truly believe that a fetus is human right from conception, then is it unreasonable for them to take the position that abortion is murder? I don't think so.

To me, the pointlessness comes from the fact that there will never be any consensus from pro-lifers that a one day old fetus (or one week, one month, whatever) is not human.

 

I don't think you're getting me Splunge. That unwillingness to see it any way other than theirs is what makes that position unreasonable (pro-choicers who spit on the "bible-thumpers" are just as guilty of this hard-headedness). I'm not saying that they have to be convinced that their belief is wrong. But they must acknowledge that those who don't see it that way aren't stricken with "irrational madness," as Grey so cutely puts it. If, even in the face of evidence to the contrary, they refuse to acknowledge that a fetus is not a human at conception, then the lack of progress in the debate rests entirely on their shoulders. So far, there isn't even a willingness to determine the objective truth. It's all "NO NO NO! It's evil!" Such a determination could either validate or condemn the "life begins at conception" proclamation. But no one is willing to even do that. They're right, everyone else is wrong - and there's no middle ground.

And so brick walls all over America shall continue to sport bloody head prints.

 

I actually have a permit to bring emotion and hyperbole to every arguement...everyone here should know to grab the salt shaker when they see me posting. Besides, everything I say get's pulled out of my ass, that's why I'm always right.

Is it any more of a rectal stretch to imagine the Founding Father's sadness than to utilize their statements on the personal freedom of white landed males somehow support abortion?

I do agree that this is a pointless topic, however...I think I'll find other threads to post in for now.

 

EDIT: Was not in response to the Hacken Slash...umm...thing...above me.

end edit...


Which is exactly why I would like a person whom strives to make abortion illegal comment on the punishment they would use to enforce their dictum. Women are not going to give up their right without being scared of some form of repercussion.

Will one pro-lifer please lay their power plain for us to debate...

 

Actually, DR, I am getting you (I think), but the key IMO is your comment here:

I may be out to lunch here (actually, technically I am, since this is my lunch hour), but AFAIK there is no evidence to the contrary at the moment; it's based more on a belief as to what constitutes a human being (such as human DNA). If, however, such evidence did exist, and pro-lifers refused to acknowledge it, then I would agree with you that they were being unreasonable.

 

I second LNTs request for an idea as to what the suggest punishment be for an (how do you put this?) "abortionist," "pro-deatherether," or whatever the radical new term all the kool kids are spinning.

Does the punishment apply only to women (I'm presupposing that it does)? Does the man who 'done the deed' factor in as a criminal in some way?

@GM,
Does your pastor ever run sermons about the evils of abortion?

Does he likewise have sermons about adopting children?

 

@ Splunge

Since " If, however, such evidence did exist, and pro-lifers refused to acknowledge it, then I would agree with you that they were being unreasonable." is pretty much what I said, I think we're misunderstanding each other and getting each other at the same time.

Let's just agree that we agree and shut up.

 

Yes, but there must also be a degree of consistency in the belief system itself. In this instance, they hold that life is sacred. That is the underlying principle upon which their argument rests. And since the fetus is life, it follows that it should be held as such also. We can all agree that the mother's life is sacred as well. So, in any other instance, except where the mother's life is threatened, we have a pretty cut-and-dry argument: no abortion.

Yet, things are not really so cut-and-dry. Many of the same who hold this belief system also support the war in Iraq and capital punishment. We are expected to take it for granted that it is OK to blow-up women and children in Iraq because war is about a system of "choices." We make the "choice" to defend ourselves and our country at the expense of the innocent in Iraq. Same with capital punishment. We make a choice for state execution putting aside the "life is sacred arguement." It's: "He did it, so we can do it too."

When I brought up this inconsistency earlier, this is what I got for a response:

A list of halfhearted religious doctrine -"Bible thumping." My friend, Grey, essentially brushed me off with saying - "the Bible and the Chruch says its OK." Of course, I was in no way offended, only a little disappointed that he refused to reveal any more of his own feelings or thoughts in the formulation of these apparent inconsistencies in his belief system. Of course, the oft used excuse is that "this is off-topic." But this is really just a copout. This debate is mostly engaged in pitting one belief system against another - a doctrine of absolutes, against another of practical choice.

Some of us find neither of these doctrines acceptable, I think that was DMC's point. Instead, there is a subtle middle-ground that we use in other areas, which deal with the "Life is sacred" question; difficult to transverse, yet, some sort of balance can be achieved. We use it in instances for war (except in Iraq, IMO) and we use it in instances of capital punishment.

That middle ground is known as "judgment." IF we were allowed, in this highly emotional national debate, to use our "best judgment" (and I believe humanity is possible of this) then we may just find some sort of resolution to this never ending debate.

[ July 28, 2004, 22:51: Message edited by: Chandos the Red ]

 

I want to shift this discussion away from the argument about whether or not the fetus is human, and off to the question of whether or when it's OK to kill that human. It is entirely reasonable to hold that in certain cases, a human may be legitimately killed. It is not reasonable to hold that the fetus is not human. It is, to use my "cute" phrase, irrational madness - or better, in LNT's description, "imagination".

There are two ways scientists have defined the start of human life: "preformationism" and "epigenesism". The former claims that the fetus is human from conception; the latter claims that its human identity, and very life, gradually comes into existence as the fetus matures. (I take these terms from Dr. Maienschein's new book, "Whose View of Life?", which is decidely pro-choice.) I quote from a review:

Which is to say, from the very outset, the fetus acts as more than just a "clump of cells" - it is an organism with uniquely human DNA. Contrast this with destroyed embryos to yield stem cells:

With that said, we can argue about whether or not human value begins at consciousness, or birth, or wantedness, or whatever; we can discuss whether the cost-benefits of abortion are such that, even at the price of death, it's worth it to the woman and society; we can even wonder whether any human has any value independent of the value society places upon it (e.g., whether or not someone wants it). But these are not scientific arguments. They require a mix of philosophy, imagination, creativity, and maybe even religion - and we're free to disagree on those.

But I'm not relying on religious arguments to call it irrational - yes, irrational - to believe the fetus is not human.

OK, now to McLachlan-fueled replies:

For your information, LNT, my full-time career is in African Studies. I have no problem with "black children". Unlike, it seems, the many white advocates who are more than happy to see black children aborted in outrageous numbers.

Judges take into account the premeditation and purpose behind any murderous act. But yes, illegal abortion should be punished with more than just a slap on the wrist or fine. What about all those kindly Southern belles who depended on slaves for their dignified way of life? Do we decide that it's OK for them to enslave people in order to preserve their admittedly lovely lifestyles?

Once again, the pro-choice side is appealing to emotion instead of reason - appealing to a kind of twisted chivalry that makes us emotionally favor the weakness of young women. What a perverse incentive for the age of modern feminism.

We have the scientific and medical definition already (see above). The "Conventional wisdom" is the convenient inheritance of Roe vs. Wade. The argument is when, or if, the fetus becomes human in the sense of its human rights - in genetic terms, it is undeniably human right from the get-go.

Exactly. That's why I'm trying to strip out the emotions from the argument and focus on the base scientific facts.

Well, "obviously"...unless you assume that the fetus is human, in which case a few illegal abortions is hardly important. Suppose murder were legal - suppose we could contact the local Thieves Guild any time we wanted to off our neighbor. Sure enough, murderers would be a lot safer. Suppose the local guild were shut down, and we had to go back to the old system of killing unloved ones by ourselves. Would would-be murderers get hurt or killed in greater numbers than in the smooth days of the Thieves Guild? You betcha. Does that justify legalizing assassination?

Um...no. Can we say that about slavery? Rape? Theft? Assassination? With some things, both sides cannot be right.

Chandos, I'll address your points later...

 

GM...

Are you going to adopt black children?

and..

What does more than a slap on the wrist mean?