Legislating morality, Kerry-style

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Well call me an irrational person then but to me a creature with human DNA and human cells is not "human". To me a human is a independent being which is aware of its existance, just when this happens with a fetus is not for me to decide. To discuss if the fetus is acutally a Homo Sapiens is a waste of time since it contains the human DNA you mentioned but in my books it doesen't make the fetus human and does not give it human rights. In fact I consider that to be ridicoulus, how can say a two week old clump of cell which doesen't have anything even near to a brain be having human rights?

Yup, have to agree with you there. Right now the pro-life side is wrong since neither the EU or USA have a law denying abortion. Things might change of course but I seriously doubt it. Denying abortion is pretty much as slavery robbing the rights for their own body from a group of people. In the case of abortion denyal though the group is quite large, in fact it's all the women.

 

Um...please name for me one single modern society where either slavery, rape, theft, or assassination are not currently illegal. In fact, please name for me one functioning modern society where any more than .05% of it's citizens think any of the preceding should be legal. Name for me one civilization on earth where more than .05% of its citizens would not agree that in each one of these cases, there is a clear, living, breathing, thinking, feeling victim involved.

Just like the comparison of homosexuality to beastiality and necrophelia a while back, this is pure strawman. While you feel it necessary to compare abortion to slavery, rape, theft, and assassination, most of the modern world does not. Not even close. And until you feel otherwise, you forfeit the right to call me, or anyone else who refuses to frame the world in such black and white terms, irrational. Sorry.

And thanks for proving my theory about the pro-life movement correct, by the way. No middle ground, no matter what. The pro-choicers can't possibly have a good reason for feeling the way they do, they're just wrong. Back-asswards chivalry, or whatever. Sorry, but that's not how a modern society works. I don't disagree with the idea that abortion is wrong, per se. I'm even open to it. What I am against is forcing that assertion on everyone who doesn't agree, and insisting that they're irrational. Thinking like that leads to things like crusades, and witch trials, and jihads. Which isn't to say that Grey or anyone else is in favor of such things. But I think you all get the drift.

Say tomorrow we elected a muslim president (Allah forbid). He declares that murder is illegal, and of course everyone agrees. But then he declares eating pork illegal, as he strongly believes that such a practice is morally reprehensible. In the American culture of bacon, hot dogs and Spam™, to me, that sounds silly. Especially since we're comparing eating bacon to murder. But Musliims feel as strongly about not eating pork as most pro-life Christians do about first-term abortions, even the morning-after pill. Who's more wrong: the moral power who denies it, or the bacon eater who doesn't hold that belief, but chomps anyway despite being told it's "wrong?" It really all boils down to our beliefs. Where do you draw the line between what the beliefs you hold dear, and the ones everyone should be made to follow?

Of course, bacon vs. murder probably isn't the greatest example. But just compare that to a moral ideal that one group holds sacred yet another group does not; possibly a majority group. Who gets to force who's morals on whom?

Since I can see where this is going, I hand the mike back to dmc and LNT, for now at least. (I feel like I'm in the Beastie Boys when I say it like that. Illin'.)

edit - to stay on topic - I like John Kerry's stance on this issue for the reason above. He personally is no big fan of abortion, but he realizes that his feelings are not everyones, and that it's not his place to force it on those who don't. I agree. He is not pro-abortion, he's pro-choice - and there's a huge difference. His stock rose a few points with me after making that distinction. But of course, most people just wrote that off as another flip-flop. I am Jack's total lack of surprise.

G'nite.

[ July 29, 2004, 03:12: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

I want to clarify why I have asked GM if he is going to adopt black children...

If you, GM, are going to enforce your will upon women and dictate that they must bring into this world individuals whom they themselves do not want, you had better be prepared to keep them. Do not say it is the responsibility of society to care for these children. It is the responsibility of the mother to care for these children. If she does not feel she is prepared for this responsibility, it is not an option to say society must pick up the slack as humanity has decided it is ultimately the role of the (or a) mother to raise the child.

If we could all raise unwanted children, I must say the human condition would be a better one. If women never cheated on their husbands...the world would be a better place. If all teenage girls used condoms...the world would be a better place. If older women did not get pregnant...the world would be a better place. If rape was a word none of us understood...the world would be a better place.

But Grey Magistrate, abortion is not the cause of these things...it is the result. Removing the option of abortion will not cause women to remain faithful, it will not cause teenagers to become responsible, it will not remove the risks of elder pregnancy. No matter how brutally we punish rapists, the brutality of rapists will never be fully curbed. It is not a perfect world. It is very far from perfect, it is reality.

That better place is not here Grey Magistrate. That place is called Heaven. That imagined place is one much better than the one in which we occupy. I can understand, in fact I am even somewhat envious, although I must admit I am also suspicious in my weaker moments, of your noble goal of bringing that noble fantasy to this place where reality is the only determinate of pain.

Every human can understand hate Grey Magistrate. The reason shows like CSI are so popular is not because people are worried they might be murdered, it is because people like to know at what point they will murder. Murder is born of hate and every person can understand that, both personally and conceptually.

Abortion is not murder because abortion is not born of hate. Abortion is actually an act of love, as perverse as that may initially sound. Women know they are doing something which deserves your disdain when they have an abortion. I have seen the tears and heard the story of a few women who has made this decision...this decision which you and me, Grey Magistrate, are lucky as men in that we will never be faced with...although we can at least perhaps relate to their situation in this discussion.

It is a decision of love in that they realize the future of the embryo is one of emotions and intellect. At this point, it has no conception of being a burden, no conception of being unwanted, no conception of being a mistake, and most importantly, it has no conception of being dealt only half a hand. The women whom I know that have had abortions realize, tearfully, that they have ended this process before it really hurt that possible person for the benefit of a deferred person whom they are more capable of properly nurturing.
They did it because of their love and sympathy for that future person. A person was prevented from ever experiencing pain so that another would know less while it was exposed to the harshness of reality.

Regardless of whether I am right or not, if nothing else, I am correct in saying women know the true hardships of love that I will never experience personally.

 

I could not agree more, DR. Kerry has decided to honor the responsibility of his office in representing the people of Massachusetts, not just the Pope's wishes. I admire him for that also.

 

Who knows? I'm not even married. (I'm not even dating, alas. I should've gone on that whitewater rafting trip with the blue-eyed alto!) I'm aiming for a dozen children, but it's not totally up to me - I probably should check with my wife first! But I find it curious that you introduce a racial element - implicitly acknowledging that there are, per capita, more black abortions than white. To which I repeat my earlier point: I find it even more curious that America's white establishment should be so keen to see unwanted black children removed. Or are you trying to imply that my pro-life beliefs are compromised by a closet racism? To which I again point out that my entire LIFE is dedicated to Africa.

I can be accused of many biases, but anti-African racism ain't one of them.

Jail time, definitely.

Exactly my point. The argument should not be whether the fetus is human, but whether it has human rights - and, if so, how far those rights extend, and how they are balanced against the mother and the rest of society. The problem is that we tend to suppose, in our fine modern world, that being human automatically means that we have human rights. So when we want to deny those rights to someone, we have to dehumanize them. Unnecessary!

We don't have to jump through hoops and say that something with human DNA, human cells, human appearance, and an inexorably human progression is somehow NOT human because it doesn't have "X factor" - consciousness, self-consciousness, a certain mental development, whatever. It's too easy to pick some arbitrary point that we're comfortable with and decide, "Before this point it isn't human, and anyone who disagrees is being uncompromising." That's a position that can't be compromised, because it isn't based on anything rational. It's only based on pragmatism - we have to justify something we're already doing (abortion) that has marvelously good effects (women's ambition, sexual freedom, etc.), so we redefine the terms.

Incidentally, this vaguely reminds me of when we wrestled with the idea of homosexual marriage...isn't it convenient to redefine terms to reflect how we want reality to look, rather than letting our definitions reflect reality?

It's not a strawman, and your denial of it shows an uncompromising refusal to confront facts.

Right now, in the Sudan, the gov't has authorized the local militia to enslave, rape, steal, and murder. The world calls it genocide; Sudan calls it an internal concern justifiable as a means to end an illegitimate rebellion. Sudan is not some backward country, although to our biased Western eyes it certainly may appear sub-Western. Clearly the Sudanese authorities and the militia think it completely legitimate behavior.

Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were gloriously modern societies. Too bad they used that very modernity to justify slavery (of lesser races or the proletariat), theft (communist redistribution), and mass murder (Jews and kulaks). Not only were these activities not illegal, but they were legal policy - widely supported, in fact.

It wasn't that long ago that the US endorsed slavery. We weren't modern then, true...but given the magical world of moral flexibility, who's to say that just as slavery was once reluctantly accepted but later abhorred, the same may be one day for abortion?

Let me 'splain.

Suppose we jump back to the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Suppose Douglas expresses support for limited slavery, and Lincoln calls Douglas "irrational". That charge would be rightly ridiculed. There were lots of excellent reasons to support slavery. They may have been wrong, but they were rationally supportable.

However, Douglas could not have gotten away with saying that blacks weren't human. He could claim they were sub-human; he could claim that the greater good called for them to be enslaved; he could say that it was for the slaves' own good that they were slaves, due to their lower level of mental development; and a host of other reasons. Given the information available to him at the time, it would have been completely rational (if wrong) to support slavery - and completely irrational to base that support on a belief that slaves weren't human.

My point is, there are LOTS of rational reasons to support abortion. Chandos has listed several, here and elsewhere. But to persist in basing a defense of abortion on the idea that the fetus isn't human completely flies in the face of all the information we have available. Not in a day of genetics and ultrasounds, when we know so much about the nature of life and its development.

That, my friend, is why I am so bewildered that so much weight is leaned upon this splintered cane. To repeat: there are rational reasons to defend abortion. (They require creativity and imagination, but they are still rational.) But it is irrational to pretend that the fetus isn't human.

Witch trials? Now who's making strawman arguments?

Many pro-choicers have excellent reasons for feeling (or, better yet, thinking) the way they do. Like I said, there are plenty of good philosophical and pragmatic reasons to support abortion. But that doesn't mean they aren't wrong - just as the distinguished slaveholders of Southern yore were wrong, despite their excellent reasons and results.

As for "forcing that assertion" - again, so much rests upon what is true. If abortion is morally justified, then outlawing abortion is "forcing that assertion" upon innocent women. If abortion is murder, then permitting abortion is "forcing that assertion" upon the fetus.

See why there's no middle ground? The middle ground the pro-choicers demand is merely a lessened version of their own position. What if the antebellum South had gotten exactly what it asked for - a "middle ground" that stopped slavery's spread to new states, forbid the importation of new slaves, and limited slavery to those states that needed it most? Yes, that was a middle ground - a middle ground in the pro-slavery camp.

People like Lincoln could justify that as the best of all possible evils. And of course I would be happier with an abortion regime that only permitted them in the first trimester. Politics is rarely about all-or-nothing deals (except with abortion, where even partial-birth restrictions are struck down). But that doesn't obscure the fact that it's still the "middle ground" of the pro-choice position.

First - per Islamic regulations, that would only apply to other Muslims. Alcohol and pork are banned for Muslim citizens, but Christians and Jews are permitted them. (My Christian Palestinian friend could drink anyone under the table!)

Second - unlike Islamic regulations, abortion applies to both the mother and the child. The difference is, we only ask the opinion of the mom.

Third - just because one person believes an incorrect absolute doesn't mean that all absolutes are wrong; just because one person wrongly forces a belief doesn't mean that it is always wrong to force one's beliefs; just because one absolute could cause problems tomorrow doesn't mean we can't try to fix the problems that another absolute is causing today.

But...but...but...in this case, the pro-choice camp has drawn the line, and made everyone else follow. Their beliefs - the claim that abortion-on-demand is morally legitimate - is what everyone is made to follow. No one asks the fetus' permission before the abortion, so the government is forcing the fetus to submit to social beliefs. As you write:

Maybe philosophically, but not practically. Pro-abortion sees abortion as a postive good; pro-choice sees the freedom to choose abortion as a positive good, with abortion itself as good, neutral, or evil. Both principles hold to a woman's right to abort 'til birth, compromised only for social peace - e.g., squelching choice for the second and third trimesters in exchange for guaranteeing it in the first. Fortunately, America's judiciary doesn't make such awkward compromises necessary - abortion is completely legal for any and all reasons, to anyone and everyone, at all stages of development.

If Kerry is so sensitive about not forcing his beliefs on people, then why in the world is he running for president?!? Don't we vote for him because we WANT him to enforce certain beliefs? Beliefs about Iraq, terrorism, racism, welfare, tax policy, deficit spending, and women's rights? Isn't that why he makes speeches and lays out policy positions, so we know exactly what he believes, and what he plans to do with his term?

Maybe we need to start over and lay out the basics:

- Our level of scientific knowledge makes it irrational to believe that the fetus is anything other than human; however, if we introduce philosophy and ideology we may redefine humanity to make this quality separate from physical form, and choose some other arbitrary quality to measure true humanity.

- There are many sophisticated reasons to support abortion, even granted that the fetus is human. These should be discussed openly, without fear. Abortion advocates should embrace this now, or risk getting left behind like slaveowners, that could only cling to a tattered pragmatism instead of creating vibrant ideologies to defend their practices.

- There is nothing wrong with the state forcing its beliefs on others - that's it's job. Problems are twofold: when it forces the wrong beliefs, and when it fails to enforce its duty.

- And THAT, to wrap this circle upon itself, is why I reacted so vehemently to Kerry's statements. At first he seemed to say that the fetus was human from conception, but he didn't believe in forcing his beliefs in others. Then he revealed that he only believed that the fetus was alive from conception, but didn't become fully human 'til later. (Presumably, two seconds after birth.) That's why I wrote (unsarcastically) that I hadn't given Kerry enough credit. The gradual personhood argument is sharper than no-enforcement-of-morality silliness.

Still irrational, but sharper.

 

Grey, allow me to put on my Jeffersonian cap (or Whig). Because he wishes to Represent them, instead of merely Governing them, Mr. Hamilton.

 

Grey, I find it astounding that you keep relating abortion to slavery. Is that the only way you can avoid the issue. Slavery and Abortion have NOTHING in common, and bringing that comparrison is a complete insult to anyone with a shred of intelligence.

Grey, you have your head in the clouds here. You're so fanatical on your own position this argument is pointless. Say you have a kid, does anyone come into your life and tell you to have an abortion? no. If the RCC and pro-lifer community hate abortion, nobody tells them to do it. We respect your rights to believe that way. If, as you argue, you make abortion illegal, you'll come into MY life and tell me I cant have an abortion. You are imposing your beliefs on me.

Edit: What I'm saying, and dragging this back to the topic, is that Kerry is supporting people's right to live by their belief system. If you are accepting of abortion, fine. If not, dont have one. Your argument is that people should live by your belief system, and be jailed if they dont agree.
End edit

Sounds like you are the oppresive hitler type here. Not I.

[ July 29, 2004, 10:30: Message edited by: Takara ]

 

MY uncompromising refusal to confront facts? Please. Let me write this in crayon for you.

FACT: When a man has sex with a dog, there is only one willing participant, and one victim.

FACT: When a man has sex with a child, there is only one willing participant, and one victim.

FACT: When a man has sex with a corpse, there is only one willing participant, and one victim (sort of).

FACT: When a man has sex with another man, there are TWO willing participants, and NO victims.

This is not a difficult concept. You're the one who can't confront facts without removing your bible goggles.

I'm done with this. No hard feelings Grey, but we both know this is going nowhere.

edit - I will say one last thing, that is probably the core of my entire support of the right to choose. I'm a man. I have no vagina. I have no uterus. I, no matter how drunk I get one night or whatver ill should befall me, shall NEVER become pregnant. I will never be faced with that excruciatingly difficult choice. I will never know what it's like to carry a child inside me. Because of this, I wouldn't dream of taking that choice away from a woman. It's not my place, nor is it anyones - but the woman in question. She may decide in herself that terminating the pregnancy is wrong, and anyone has a right to try and convince her which way to go on that decision. But NO ONE, not me, not Grey, not the f*cking pope - has the right to make that decision for her, OR the child. It is hers alone.

Makes you wonder why most pro-lifers are men, doesn't it?

[ July 29, 2004, 15:11: Message edited by: Death Rabbit ]

 

On topic, (its a wonder this is still going), its still all about men controlling women.

Kerry (the topic), is a man. GM, and others don't like that this man is not willing to enforce a ban on abortion, and enforce punishment on said women.

Man punishing woman. Man dictating control over womans body parts which man does not have.

There is no mention of a potential father of an aborted fetus recieving punishment. Its all about the woman.

Why?

If a fertalized egg, constitutes a human being... do the parts which make the egg also constitute a human being (sperm, eggs)? Is it also considered murder when copulation occurs without the intention of reproduction?

Should a man be punished for terminating a potential life through the use of a condum?

After all, the sperm does carry DNA, so by some people's rationale, its not just a clump of cells.

Right?

@ GM:

Do your pastors sermons ever talk about the evils of abortion?

Does he have sermons about adopting children?

It is a "he," right?

 

What a great thread! I think with this I've hit all the high points - religious fanatic, subconscious racist, woman-hater, and hitler-type. If I can just earn "wannabe rapist" then I win my game of invective bingo!

Take a deep breath, fellas.

Someone is going to be forcing something on someone, regardless. There ain't no way around that. Either the big, bad men are forcing women to bear children, or the big, bad women are forcing those children to die. Is it a sexist power play for men to disempower women by forbidding abortion? Well, maybe (though that would hardly explain why the majority of sex-selection abortions are of girls). But isn't it also a generational power play for twentysomething women to disempower younger humans by basing the kids' life and death purely on their own desires?

We're kidding ourselves if we think that on one side we have the vicious tyrants, and on the other the live-and-let-die crowd. At least those male tyrants let women vote. I don't recall anyone polling fetuses.

To quote my pal Death Rabbit:

FACT: When a woman aborts a kid, there is only one willing participant, and one victim. (Or two, if you count the would-be mom.)

This is not a difficult concept either. What I do find difficult is that we're in such denial over the basic facts of the matter.

Late-Night Thinker has it exactly right:

It takes a tremendous level of willful blindness to deny the fetus' humanity (in the face of all genetic and organic evidence) or the deathly nature of abortion (it does kill SOMETHING, after all). But that doesn't mean there are no good defenses of abortion. Here's one - that abortion, though it kills something human, is actually an act of love. It's loving for the mom, and it's ultimately loving for the aborted kid, who isn't born into a world of pain and suffering. Granted, this argument can also be used to defend infanticide, euthanasia, or any other form of mercy killing, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Infanticide has many of the same benefits as abortion - it frees women from an unwanted responsibility. What, would it be better that big, bad males tyrannically force women to keep their newborns alive?

Speaking of which, Late-Night Thinker, I was too curt in my earlier response to your question about the penalty for illegal abortions, and I apologize. What I should have said was that it ought to be set to about the same level as infanticide. And per ArtEChoke's point, if the father is an accomplice to the abortion, he merits the punishment of any accomplice to a killing.

Oh, and ArtEChoke:

Nope. See my previous post with the explanation of the difference between the organismal fetus and the mere cells that make up that organism. Sperm is no more its own person than an amputated limb is its own person - even if both sperm, and the lifeless limb, carry human DNA.

Also:

Ironically enough, the Bible is chock-full of references to adoption. It's a major theological concept. And yes, it gets mentioned in my pastor's sermons - much more than abortion.

'Course, I guess it requires those "Bible goggles" to suppose that adoption is a better example of God's love than abortion...

Your posts demonstrate a high level of intelligence, so prepare to be again insulted!

Slavery is comparable to abortion because:

- Both have salutary effects - slavery brought wealth, respectability, stability, and leisure to the antebellum South.

- Both are defended as necessary freedoms against government meddling (Yankees were free to forbid slavery in their own states, so long as they respected Southern freedom to own slaves).

- Both rely on significant social support and favorable legislation to persist (few Southerners were slaveholders, but Southern society and laws supported the practice).

- Both offer "compromises" that nibble at the edges while blocking any limits on the practice itself (banning slave importation and the spread of slavery to new territories so long as it was preserved in its heartland; trying to make abortion safe, legal, and rare, while shutting down even partial-birth abortion bans).

- Both are examples of critical moral issues of life and choice that seem terribly ambiguous at the time and embarrassingly simple in retrospect.

- Both are cases where the practitioners ask only that the law support the present reality, and label those who would change the law as "radical". (My Hamiltonian streak!)

- And both are cases where the target in question is undeniably human; the only question is what value should be placed on that human, balanced against the rights and needs of other (voting) humans.

I fail to see how making such a comparison is my way to "avoid the issue" - especially since everyone here has yet to successfully challenge my own points:

- that the fetus is undeniably human, from a genetic and organismal perspective, but may be subhuman from a spiritual perspective (if the pro-choicers want to bring in philosophy and imagination instead of pure science and rationality);

- that it doesn't destroy the case for abortion to admit the simple reality that the fetus is (scientifically) human;

- that there is force involved on some level against some unwilling party for both the pro-life and pro-choice positions, and so it is disingenuous to suggest that one side is exalting uninhibited freedom (when one party, the fetus, loses its freedom entirely) and the other worships tyranny (since they are protecting helpless innocents - a worthy purpose of government, methinks);

- and that the whole point of government is to use force against unwilling parties for some broad social purpose, and so there is nothing wrong per se with Kerry or any other veteran legislator endorsing the use of...horrors...the law to promote or restrict certain behaviors.

Anyway, that's my sexist, racist, would-be rapist, loveless, worthless, quite emotionless, Hitler-seeming, crayon-needing response.

But at least I'm not being irrational!

 

As it stands a fetus is a mass of cells. It can't think, it can't reason. It is not self-aware. Ending life before self-awareness is not immoral.

You keep claiming that a fetus undeniably human. Someone who doesn't believe in evolution (the keystone of all biological thought) is giving us a lesson in Biology. Boy, that's rich.

Guess what, Grey, the swine you had for breakfast this morning is far more sentient than any first-trimester human fetus. Both are animals, so why should the fetus be protected and not the pig? Hmmm? Why haven't you started a topic on animal rights?

Humans aren't anything special, we come from the same stock as all other animals you see. The only claim humans have over other animals is consciousness (even this criteron is debatable). A fetus does not show evidence of consciousness, therefore it does not deserve any more rights than any other non-conscious animal.

Inevitably you will argue for the "potential" for consciousness. Perhaps we shouldn't let a sperm cell go to waste because it has the potential for consciousness.

[ July 30, 2004, 09:12: Message edited by: Ankiseth_Vanir ]

 

I will apologize in advance and admit to not reading the whole thing, I just cheated and skipped to my chapter. There are only so many hours in the day.

a). no offense, I didn't ask, and don't care if adoption or anything else is mentioned in the Bible...

however...

b). if its seriously the case that your pastor speeks more about adoption, than shooting abortionists (whatever... tongue in cheek), then I am satisfied with that line of questioning. Good show.

I only hope that it actually has a true effect in the congregation and actually does lead to adoptions into good families. Seriously.

I'm not sure I buy the "rational" argument that a fertalized egg is any different than a seperate sperm and egg though. Actually, scratch that, I definately don't buy it.

Just one last question I'd like clarified:

What sex is your pastor?

Edit: I just read back through that last post...

Do you think before you write this stuff?

 

This debate has really hit a low point that surprises even me. I may not agree with Grey's use of absolutes, but to compare a gentleman like him to Hitler is absurd. I certainly can't agree with putting women in jail if the law is ever overturned by the Supreme Court. That would be a disaster for the criminal justice system and the cultural consquences of treating ordinary women as criminals are unthinkable. But this "debate" pretty much mirrors the national debate on this highly contentious issue. One can be sure that partisan pundits on both sides will continue to use this issue to divide the country.

 

Grey Magistrate doesn't believe in evolution? Please don't tell me I have spent considerable thought and emotional mulling trying to open his eyes a little bit just to find out he is willingly blind. You are a very bright guy GM and it would make me quite sad to hear you choose to ignore rational science for fantasy. By the way, I am a biology major.

 

I think I'm going to give up. If you are going to re-cycle the same old crap there is no point here. You seem to manage to say the same thing over and over while not even adressing my points.

I'll spell it out for you, if it was too hard to understand:

Under your system, abortion is illegal. You believe a lump of organic matter is human. So you make abortion illegal, since it is murder. That's fine for your beliefs, and you're all happy. Now, my wife gets preganant, through some unplanned means. We dont have room for a child. We believe, that it is just a lump of organic matter, and want to abort this piece of tissue. Because our beliefs dont suit yours, we could face imprisonment.

Now, the pro-choice side. Under our system, we believe in peoples right to choose. If some beleive it is just organic tissue, we allow abortion, no problem. Now, your wife gets pregnant through some unplanned means. Because of your views and beliefs, you insist on carrying the child to term. Do people arrest you for that? do you face jail? of course not. Because pro-choice allows for all beliefs.


Now, people have complained of the hitler analogy. I wont witdraw it, I'll play GM's game, and qualify an outrageous analogy. Hitler believed the Jews were evil. They didnt. Because he felt that his views were right, he persecuted, jailed and repressed the Jews.
You are certain of your beliefs, you believe abortion is evil. We dont. Because you feel your beliefs are right, you are prepared to jail and repress us. Sounding familiar yet?


Lastly, how do you, as a man, even begin to think you understand why some women have abortions? You like to portray it simply because they are too lazy to have a kid. Maybe if you actually met some of these women, you might change your mind, but that would mean talking to the "unclean, and unholy".
You dont even have the slightest clue why some women do, because abotion isnt an easy decision to take. Terminating a potential life (yes potential) is a decision that causes these women extreme distress. There may be some, for whom abortion is easy, but they are not the majority like you like to portray. What if I started to talk about pro-lifers as extremists who walk around murdering doctors. How does commitiing murder help the cause? My Word, Pro-lifers are all hypocrites! Just because some do, it doesnt mean all do does it? but then, grandstanding, and mass generalising makes it easier for you to be right.

[ July 30, 2004, 10:05: Message edited by: Takara ]

 

I've been long absent, but what goes on here can't be let go as it is. Forgive me if I won't browse through page 2 and will focus on page 3. I've already dealth with page 1 sufficiently IIRC. Now, ad rem.

Technically, you and I and everyone are masses of cells. Therefore, what you miss here is "only". However, not for everyone is foetus only a mass of cells. It's impossible to tell if there is a level of self-awareness at an early stage and when exactly the level grows. Self-awareness is nothing so measurable as weight or height.

Even absent a usual adult human level of self-awareness, it doesn't suddenly become licit and commendable for humans to kill other humans because the latter have less advanced cerebral and mental processes.

Oh please... He believes wrong, right? But since when is science about belief? OK, granted, lots of things that are advertised as sort of ultimate truth require about as much belief as a religious dogma (for examples please resort to the search button).

There's one more fallacy in there: that a field of science deals with a part of reality, doesn't yet mean whatever they say in the matter, no matter on what premisses, automatically gets parsed as a big boolean 1 value. Hope that's clear.

Abstaining from the fact that Major isn't yet Nobel, whatever sort of a degree in a field of science doesn't automatically validate all your reasoning when deriving conclusions from perceived reality.

Next, there are scientist, amongst whom doctors and professors of renown, who actually believe the foetus to be human. Does that mean they don't get it?

Further, while evolution of species is a fact that can be observed even in the simple processes of adapting to particular circumstances, no one in his sane mind believes in hard-core Darwinism right now.

Further still, even hard-core Darwinism doesn't preclude the foetus being human. There's no contradiction, direct or otherwise, between the two and they aren't mutually exclusive.

First of all, pig isn't human. Next, there's a difference between humans and animals and the life of the former bears more value. Plain and simple: would you rather save two pigs or one human? And that's two lives against one.

If you don't understand why humans should be protected more than animals, perhaps you would like to live for some time in a place where killing a man is nothing more unusual than terminating the life of an animal. Well, I wouldn't, if anyone asked me.

From what you say in this one, we can derive that contraception, abortion, euthanasia, genetic manipulations and whatever else is no big issue. Perhaps we should also exterminate the weaker units in the pack? Females should probably gather seed from various males to provide for "best" offspring and males should spread semen around, also making sure that their semen prevails over other males' semen by... killing the younglings of competing males. From time to time, the strongest of males would battle for leadership of the pack. What a wonderful world...

@Takara:

Fallacy: No one goes to prison for beliefs. I know it's nice to present your group of affiliation as martyrs for a cause who go to prison for what they believe, but that's not the case. There's no Nero, there's no Inquisition. People get proper sentences in proper courts after proper trials for what they do.

Next: If you believed something to be murder, would you not attempt to stop it? I couldn't sleep at night if I did.

There are no circumstances to justify the killing of a human in cold blood. Economical, social and whatever such circumstances come second at best. Convenience or lack thereof doesn't make it.

Getting pregnant through unplanned methods? Oh well, there are methods of planning if you really need them. Not like I advocate contraception, but it's surely better than downright killing a human being.

There is a great number of various kinds of trouble in which you can get yourself and still, the state doesn't give you any special exemptions or privileges to get out of them. Even less so should it give you the authority to kill other humans when convenient. Not like the actually has that authority.

Fallacy. One doesn't go to prison, in normal circumstances, for something that isn't wrong. Bearing a child to term cannot be construed as wrong. At least not any more than breathing. Contrary, it's the natural ways things happen in world, well, in nature. Therefore, the analogy is invalid.

It was not so simple as "evil". Hitler didn't "only" persecute, jail and repress the Jews. He actually had them shot, burned alive or otherwise exterminated after a time of imprisonment in unhuman circumstances (17% death ration in Nazi concentration camps).

If that's analogous to prohibiting a woman from killing a child she didn't want... Let's better leave at that and not comment further.

Fallacy. As stated above, no one gets imprisoned for beliefs. Next, it's not belief that makes something right or wrong. All laws reflect the particular society's perception of right and wrong. There will always be people who disagree with part of them, which doesn't normally make them exempt from the laws.

Going to prison for beliefs would be if I came to your house with a platoon of soldiers, put the receiving end of a rifle between your ribs and told you to repeat after me "abortion is evil" or get shot.

Also, there are people who regard regular homicide as permissible in a broader range of circumstances than the law does. Still, they'll go to prison for homicide or murder like anyone. Does it take a boodthirsty Hitler to put them there? If yes, then I want a bloodthirsty Hitler in power.

You're a man yourself as well, aren't you?

Reasons serve as mitigating circumstances allowing to reduce the punishment or even abstain from it altogether in some instances. However, in no event do they validate the act as morally right.

No, that's not right. However, all reasons starting with "circumstances" come down to convenience. Killing a human being for convenience is gravely immoral no matter how you look on it. Granted, you may believe it isn't a human being, but that was addressed above.

Stop. There's a difference between refusing to condone abortion and refusing to talk to women who have it and deeming them unclean and unholy, right? Stretching it this far is dishonest. Next, I don't see how talking extensively to people who have taken a human life for reasons of their own convenience or convenience could change GM's or mine or whoever else's views on the moral qualifications of killing a human being in cold blood.

Of course, talking a lot to woman who have had abortion may change the perception of their decision to take the life of their children, reducing the moral culpability, but the fact that they have consciously decided to take a human life for reasons of convenience and carried out the decision remains unchanged. So long as the decision was conscious and free, but I assume we aren't talking women who were forced into abortion.

You said above that no men has a clue, which would mean you don't have either. Next, why is the decision not easy to take? If it's so morally neutral as simply terminating the existence of an organic pulp, whence the burden?

As above, whence the distress? I see no reason for terminating the existence of an organic pulp less aware than a pig to cause so much distress, let alone extreme distress.

What are you going to say here? That the women are actually aware they are or might be taking a human life, perhaps, and it gives them a great deal of distress?

Let's not, however, make mothers victims of their children, aborted or not, OK? If you take a human life consciously for no reason other than convenience (economical, social or otherwise) there will always be people who sympathise with you, show you compassion etc, but the law will still make difference between the victim and the offender and apply it accordingly.

If human foetus is not human (ekhm, no contradiction here?), then it's only logical for the decision to be easy. Should be easier than killing a spideror a fly that bothers you.

How many real examples of that do you have?

False analogy. If there's a human life and you decide to terminate it and carry out the decision, you have taken human life. This is a fact. One can't have killed and have not killed the same person at the same time.

Therefore in this case there is no need to stretch it into a sweeping generalisation involving "all". Simply, who has terminated a human life has killed.

Ergo: this is not the same as concluding that everyone belonging to a group together with someone who has killed has killed. First of all, in the former case no one attributes someone else's action to a person. In the latter case that's what happens. Ergo: the analogy doesn't work.

Still, I can't divine the reason why you made that analogy. Are you suggesting that women for whom the decision to have a child aborted have actually killed and that those for whom the decision was difficult have not killed?

 

Chev, you did an excellent job of maligning and misinterpreting my post. I'll respond once you give a proper response.

For example:

This is possibly the most absurd comment I've read on this board, where the hell did you get this out my post? It doesn't even make sense.

 

Groan. Ok I'm done with this thread. Let it die.

@Chev, Chandos.

Takara was returning the same analogy back to GM, that he had recieved a page earlier. He was merely pointing out how easy it is to make a quick, "hard hitting" analogy that, "proves your point" that has nothing to do with your point.

If you disagree with someone, you can always liken them to Nazis, Hitler, whatver. What goes around comes around.

@Chev in particular:

As per my apology to GM, there's no way in hell I"m going to read that quote riddled mess. Just a comment from skimming it though:

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

Are you serious? Or are you just going for the, "win?" Ever heard of the "Abortionist Hit list?" If not, do a search on it, and uncover a bouquette of, "pro-life" goodness. I'm sure you'll enjoy what you find.

 

Agreed. I have NWN to play! But let me make just two points before signing off. Point #1:

Thanks, Ankiseth_Vanir, for making my point. By the standards of genetics and organic biology, the fetus is human. But if you introduce a separate standard - philosophical, religious, utilitarian, even aesthetic - then you can avoid the human label. In this case, you are arbitrarily deeming that "self-awareness" is the distinction (philosophical). And from there you are progressing that since the pig is more sentient than the fetus, it is therefore more valuable (utilitarian). And since we eat pigs, we can kill fetuses (greater to the lesser).

That is a legitimate argument. Let me repeat: Ankiseth_Vanir, you have made a completely legitimate argument for abortion. It's a lousy argument for why the fetus isn't human, because it's based on your own subjective standard rather than objective scientific measurement. But it's an excellent argument in favor of abortion, and a host of other useful practices.

Point #2:

This argument has been made several times in different ways: that because as a man I am unable to truly understand what a woman goes through, and therefore cannot truly know[/i], Planescape-style, and therefore should not think to block abortions.

A question: is reality objective or subjective?

If reality is subjective, then sure, it all comes down to what I personally think. In which case I can freely claim that I have won this argument, and you can freely claim that you've won this argument, and we're both right.

If reality is objective, then there's no rational reason why it shouldn't be possible for a non-participant to understand an activity.

I don't have to be a slave or a slaveholder to know about slavery; I don't need to be a criminal to know about crime; I don't need to be an Olympic athlete to appreciate the Olympics; I don't have to run for office to judge politicians; I don't need to be a novelist to take a course in literature; etc.

Who's better to judge an activity, the actor or the observer? Who can better judge how drunk someone is - the drinker, or the sober bartender? Who can better appreciate the flaws in a work - its creator, or the critic? Who can better understand the morality of a crime of passion - the passionate victimizer, or the coldhearted judge?

But again, that assumes that reality is real; that it can be understood rationally; that knowledge can be accumulated and transmitted across different people and generations; that truth is independent of its believers; and that, yes, even though I'm a man, I can know something about abortion.

But wait, as you wrote...

"Let it die?" Well, ain't that ironic.

 

I do not believe that Ankiseth Vanir even tried to tell you that the fetus is not human (as in a noun) and neither am I. I am trying to you that fetus is not human (as in an adjective). There is quite a big difference between the two. And why don't we check a bit what Ankiseth Vanir said in his last post before we make any judgment about his post as you clearly missed (or ignored) the point.

There we have it. Humans are nothing special, a fetus might be human (a noun) yet lack conciousness which makes it unhuman (adjective). Nobody cares what your biological definitions says about the fetus since we all know that the fetus contains human DNA etc etc. It simply is not important to most of us in this issue. If you consider it important then fine, but don't wonder if everybody else ignores your rant. The humanity (adjective) of the fetus is not something you can measure with pure biology you also need a psychological analysis of the brains and the current psychological understanding is that the fetus is not self-aware therefore it is not human (adjective).

EDIT: There is one thing I have never understood in the pro-life people. Why can't you just be satisfied that the person who had the abortion done goes to hell or something? Why do you have to enforce your oppinions on others? Can't you just follow your own path and let the others follow theirs? Oh well what does it matter, as long as women have their right to vote abortion ain't going to be denied in any state in the western world and I'm quite satisfied with that.