[quote]malonetd wrote:
I’ve already stated that I’m completely for capital punishment. I wish the process could be hurried up and the felons could be put down sooner. But, again, this has nothing to with abortion.[/quote]
Due process. I’m all for killing rapists, murderers and pedophiles, but I’m not exactly willing to kill an innocent person.
[quote]malonetd wrote:
You know, I disagree with push about this, but I respect that has answered all my questions and responded rationally and respectfully. I appreciate that. A lot of other people on here do that too.
You, however, let others do the debating for you and you jump in just to add useless commentary. You rarely have any worthwhile insight or an original thought. You’re really not even worth addressing most the time.[/quote]
Oh so true.
But Push, by your logic all gun ownership should be outlawed because some gun owners will do bad things (insert heart-rending description here). It’s a similarly constructed slippery slope argument, and it doesn’t work.
[quote]EmilyQ wrote:
But Push, but your logic all gun ownership should be outlawed because some gun owners will do bad things (insert heart-rending description here). It’s a similarly constructed slippery slope argument, and it doesn’t work. [/quote]
I don’t see the analogy/comparison here. You lost me.
[quote]PRCalDude wrote:
It was a bioethics elective.
Like i said, enlighten me.
The fetus is a human being from the point of conception, having fulfilled the criteria for being biologically alive, and as a human being, it is a person. [/quote]
I have forgotten my book 
again.
Good answer though.
Please state the criteria for person.
[quote]pat wrote:
blazindave wrote:
pat wrote:
skor wrote:
blazindave wrote:
[…]While children must gain self awareness at that age, their personhood still exists at birth because they are able to independently interact with the world around them.
If i leave a newborn in a forest somewhere and you pass by and hear it’s cry, that “interaction” produces a history that a non existant being cannot create. Since the fetus is somewhat out of sight and out of mind (except for the mother, but she is more present), it does not have any person qualities.
That’s what i meant by contribute. When i get home ill open up my ethics book theres a fantastic description of personhood there.
As for the killing the baby one day before birth, my point was merely that people should be left to their own devices as long as it doesnt affect you or society as a whole.
Now a serious question (since you made me think of it), why would killing a baby one day before birth be immoral?
Well, if you have a woman who is close to term, a fetus is already viable in a sense that it doesn’t need mothers body to survive. And if you find this woman dead in the forest immediately after sudden death, you can cut out a baby and it will be alright.
Woman die during labor and babies survive. This shows, at least to me, that it’s not the moment babies head comes out of vagina that we shouldn’t kill it anymore. This point comes earlier.
To me, boundary points are very clear:
Aborting a clump of cells after conception is not a problem and nothing to cry about.
Aborting a baby a day before delivery is not qualitatively different from killing a newborn, unless it’s crucial for saving mothers health/life.
Two principles/questions try guide my thinking about the time inbetween.
Can a fetus survive outside of the womb and develop normally without significant impairments?
Is a fetus in it’s current state “live” or “dead” based on a legal definition of “dead” for a grown person.
Based on these
I have no problems with abortion up-to week 20 - not of those fetuses are viable and they have no brain activity;
I’m against abortion (unless mothers health is in danger) past weeks 27 as almost all of those fetuses are viable and have brain activity.
the time inbetween is a grey area.
You are a clump of cells…
You defined no clear line you went from a clump of cells to a day before birth…That isn’t a clear line that’s very broad and slippery line?
How do you know the fetus has no neurological activity unitl 20 weeks? Is it because some machine tells you so. What if a new more sensitive machine comes out and is able to decern neurological activity much sooner?
You would have to argue that the means by which we currently detect neurological activity is infallible.
Further, brains or neurological activity is only one property a person has. People are made of much more than that. You could conceivably keep a brain alive in a jar with machines, but it is no person, yet it has human neurological activity. The brain is an organ, people have lots of organs.
Additionally, a fetus can feel pain as early as 8 weeks. Do you know what pain is? A neurological response. A baby react to being stuck at 8 weeks, so if neurological activity is your measure, then 8 weeks is your time, not 20.
Why would brain/neurological activity matter?
Can someone honestly answer this without giving me a “oh you’re so terrible” bullshit spiel?
So the pregnancy is 4 months in. The mother has decided she can’t have the baby anymore for whatever reason.
Yet she can’t do it because the baby might feel pain. The damn thing isn’t even conscious, why would it matter if it felt a bit of pain before being fucking eliminated?
My point is that instead of trying to get on your soap box and being all “omg look at me im so moral”, you just let people decide their personal matters in their own fashion?
Logic is not your forte. It’s not a “look at me” issue at all…By your “logic” it is ok to kill all humans who can feel pain but are not conscious. You can’t know if the damn kid is conscious or not.
This is not a person matter this decision affects another person…You are deciding on whether or not to kill a human being…Believe me, you want to cut you arm off and stick it in your ass, I could careless, but I do care about killing people. Which is what abortion is, the killing of another person.[/quote]
But why would this affect you if it’s not someone you know?
If anyone has a right to decide if they can kill their child, it’s the mother.
You do know if the damn kid is conscious or not because you too, at one point where a fetus and then a baby.
I don’t remember anything before the age of 1-2. Not conscious does not necessarily mean UNconscious (in that literal sense). It’s basically someone who has never been conscious (as opposed to a coma victim, who was once).
Why do you care about killing people?
As for is it alright to kill people, i believe that comes from a Hobbesian idea actually. A religion built on a Hobbesian “Leviathan” ideology has shown us that we gain more by giving up some primal freedoms (predator versus prey) for security. We have then been “brainwashed” to believe this to be “right”.
As shakespeare said, and i was flamed for posting this,
“There is no right or wrong, only thinking it makes it so”.
Reading your posts pat, you seem to be someone who is so BLINDLY against abortion that reasoning with you would prove pointless.
"That is ridiculous suffering affects us all…It was early on in the thread, but the center piece of pro-choice advocates is Roe v. Wade. I have met Jane Roe, Norma Mcorvey. You will never meet a bigger anti-abortionist. She lived the life and has seen more abortions than most people on earth.
She is absolutely, beyond the shadow of a doubt 100% against it. She says it’s murder, because she has seen it and it ripped her soul apart. Look her up. If she of all people can recognize abortion as murder, anyone can. We can theorize, she lived it. "
Your first line proves nothing. How does it affect us?
I don’t give a shit what ONE person thinks. I know someone who has HAD abortionS. Not seen them, had them. She thinks its alright. So ill take your “seeing abortions” and raise you a “had abortions and is ok with it”.
Varqanir writes basically what i think, but just words it much much better.
" Regardless of my feelings about the “humanness” of the fetus she is choosing to abort, regardless of how sad I might be at the thought that one more baby might not be born, I refuse to deny her this right. "
[quote]pushharder wrote:
Varqanir wrote:
…At this time, in this country (emphasis mine), a woman has the right to decide, within a certain time frame, to end her pregnancy if she so chooses.
Regardless of my feelings about the “humanness” of the fetus she is choosing to abort, regardless of how sad I might be at the thought that one more baby might not be born, I refuse to deny her this right.
If you choose to call this “apathy,” that is your right. It’s a free country, after all.
So if you would have lived in 1858 and a runaway slave would have appeared at your Pennsylvania home on his way to freedom in Vermont, you would have honored the existing law at the time which required you to turn him into the authorities and subsequently be returned to his Mississippi master?
After all, at that time and in this country, a slavemaster had the right to decide to end his slave’s illegally obtained freedom if he so chose.
Regardless of you, the Pennsylvania blacksmith, and your feelings about the “humanmess” of the slave, regardless of how sad you might be at the thought that one more nigger might remain in chains, you would refuse the slaveowner his right?
[/quote]
This argument is pointless.
Apples and oranges. First off, in a different time, different mindset. You cannot compare how he thinks today (slavery is wrong - abortion is ok) and change the time frame (slavery is ok) to try and make him feel guilty and feel as if he is “wrong”.
“So you’d send that slave back to his master”.
Today, anyone would say no…back then everyone would have said yes.
Also, abortion is a choice that faces only the mother (maybe the father). No matter how much Varqanir tries, he will never be able to be directly involved in the abortion.
Because the child and the mother are one entity until birth. Which is my point from before. The fetus is not it’s own person until birth.
Whereas the slave is it’s own person and you can freely interact with him/her if you so choose. The slave has personhood.
The unborn baby does not.
Clear?
“At this time, in this country a woman has the right to decide” becomes “if you would have lived in 1858 … runaway slave … you would have honored the existing law at the time … turn him into the authorities and subsequently be returned to his Mississippi master?”
That’s a slippery slope argument, which: suggests that by making a move in a particular direction, we start down a “slippery slope”.
Having started down the metaphorical slope, it appears likely that we will continue in the same direction (the arguer usually sees the direction as a negative direction; hence the “sliding downwards” metaphor).
A similarly constructed argument would be to suggest that irresponsible gun ownership by anyone risks irresponsible gun ownership by everyone.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
blazindave wrote:
…the slave has personhood.
You don’t know your history. You CANNOT understand these comparisons when, again Dave, you are ignorant of history.
The unborn baby does not.
The slave did not either. And that non-personhood was decided by exactly the same method you employ. Someone(s) just decided it and that’s all there is to it. Truth and justice be damned.
Clear?
As mud.
[/quote]
Has personhood as opposed to is seen as less than human is not the same.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
EmilyQ wrote:
“At this time, in this country a woman has the right to decide” becomes “if you would have lived in 1858 … runaway slave … you would have honored the existing law at the time … turn him into the authorities and subsequently be returned to his Mississippi master?”
That’s a slippery slope argument, which: suggests that by making a move in a particular direction, we start down a “slippery slope”. Having started down the metaphorical slope, it appears likely that we will continue in the same direction (the arguer usually sees the direction as a negative direction; hence the “sliding downwards” metaphor).
A similarly constructed argument would be to suggest that irresponsible gun ownership by anyone risks irresponsible gun ownership by everyone.
No Em, it’s not. It’s a perfectly appropriate analogy that compares non-personhood in the 19th century with non-personhood in the 20th and 21st century. It deals with the fact that the law of the land is not necessarily morally right in either time period.
It deals with a citizen’s responsibility to look beyond the current legalities of an issue when forming a basis for one’s beliefs.
It has nothing to do with a slippery slope. The gun ownership deal still completely escapes me.
[/quote]
I would perhaps agree with you, if Vaqanir had made only the points covered in the most recent post. But his response has been more nuanced than that, in my opinion.
That being the case, picking “it’s legal” as the sum of his thoughts on the matter and offering an “it’s legal” analogy containing what we now all almost certainly agree is an abomination seems designed to highlight the slippery slope nature of his thinking.
However, it’s silly in the extreme for me to presume to speak for Vaqanir when he is well able to speak for himself.
But for me, the argument didn’t work. Phrased differently it might have.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
Not true…I’ve debated on the gay forum until hell froze over. I’ve also debated on many other topics including the 08’ Presidential race. That you have not paid attention is a mini tribute to your own ignorance.[/quote]
No, Thunderbolt debated until hell froze over. You (poorly) rehashed what he said and threw in some homophobic comments to boot.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
Not true…I’ve debated on the gay forum until hell froze over. I’ve also debated on many other topics including the 08’ Presidential race. That you have not paid attention is a mini tribute to your own ignorance.[/quote]
My ignorance? So you debated all by yourself in a couple other posts. Good for you. Sorry I missed them. I don’t have the time to police every thread like you apparently do.
Do better than what? All you did was piggyback on push’s post.
[quote]Mick28 wrote:
Emily you’re going to have to stop smoking whatever it is that you’re smoking. The bottom half of this is not my post. But…hey you were sort of paying attention…for a little while…at the start anyway.
[/quote]
Um, I know, Mick. I was quoting someone else. First, I said your post was silly. Then, I showed why.
After that I mocked you.
[quote]pushharder wrote:
malonetd wrote:
…You stated this much better than I did when I said, “I just don’t care about abortion”…
Yessssss, let’s hold our heads high, hold hands and sing as we celebrate our Pridefest of Apathy. About murder.
It’ll be tough to take you two seriously when it comes to other matters of debate and we find out “you care” about the matter at hand then.[/quote]
You’d have to convince me that it is murder first.