A fair point. I’m happy to work with you to come up with a definition that includes such individuals, but still doesn’t apply to, say, single-celled organisms.
I disagree. What is the death penalty other than a retroactive abortion?
As a Christian myself, I can tell you I am just as perplexed by your support for the death penalty as you are by my support for a woman’s right to choose.
And as for the word being–again, it is being used here to draw a false equivalence across the human lifespan, in order to argue that ethical implications that are obvious post-birth must be applied ante-birth. That is a rhetorical strategy, not an argument.
Let us take your position to its logical extreme: Would you argue that the moral and ethical ramifications of terminating a pregnancy 5 minutes after fertilization (or implantation, if you prefer) are identical to the moral and ethical ramifications of (forgive me the graphic, macabre example I am about to use) killing a two-year-old child? Can you honestly say you feel the same level of revulsion and outrage for those two events–that they are equivalent in your mind?
How so? If you guys want to argue that human beings are such from the moment of conception forward, why is the act of birth so important vis a vis being able to terminate beinghood? In other words, you argue that the act of being born has no bearing on whether someone is a human being. OK, but if we run with that idea, then there’s no meaningful distinction between terminating the life cycle before birth and terminating it afterwards.
Your deliberate ignorance is amusing. We’ve been over how the death penalty is a punishment for crime. We’ve also been over in your own words that unborn babies/POC’s cannot commit crime.
What species is a POC?
Is a POC alive?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell saw no difference between a fetus in the placenta, which he was legally allowed to drill into the skull of and remove the brain, and a child that traveled through the birth canal into the world. He cut their spinal cords with scissors.
What in the law makes the trip down the birth canal magical?
Before the trip: a mass of cells with no life, identity or rights. Extinguish at will without reprecussion.
After the trip: a human, the murder of which will get you life in prison.
In the Old Testament I can see where God ordained the death penalty for various transgressions. Since Jesus stated he came as a fulfillment (rather than a replacement) of the law, allowed himself to be executed by the state (granted with deeper implication than merely symbolic) and Paul states in various passages to obey the governmental authorities (which derived their standing from God) - I can accept the death penalty. I see no such directives in the Bible regarding a self choice of terminating a conception.
I will not be a stickler concerning contraception, masturbation, oral sex, etc even as I am aware the Bible directs against the ‘spilling of seed onto the ground’. In some areas I confess to pleading for mercy, while deserving judgement.
Not being able to claim the biological intricacies to even a fraction of you, I must draw on these working in the field. It is logical to my mind, that the 2 components of the zygote (while living) must join together to form an absolute starting point of a new (and chromosomally complete) person. https://www.princeton.edu/~prolife/articles/embryoquotes2.html
That said, I can’t feel the same physical revulsion between the 5 minute zygote or the 2 year old. But the scenario seems like, why can you pour pesticide on fireant bed without a thought, but spraying same on birds in a nest seems barbaric.
Given advances in medicine, I am surprised there isn’t more revulsion at the result of the aborted fetus at a typical 6-8 weeks after fertilization - organs formed with some working, heartbeat, limbs forming. My logical reasoning tells me this is a human, irrespective of religious inclination.
We aren’t claiming that. Science claims that. If you want to discuss when we get a soul, we can do that, but it doesn’t have much to do with biological human life.
The death penalty is the right of society to end the life of a human being as punishment for a wrong committed. It is absolutely nothing like abortion which is the end of a human life without any wrong being committed at the discretion of another. Whatever you agree or disagree with, they are 2 entirely different moral questions and if anything the comparison goes much more appropriately the other way. If you are against taking the life from a person guilty of a heinous crime after due process, how on earth can you support the taking of life from a human entirely blameless and innocent without any voice or due process?
But again, as you’ve previously admitted, you don’t believe in inalienably human rights, so everyone here talking to you needs to realize that.
FTR, the sin in the “seed on the ground” was the man’s refusal to father a child he was honor bound to. He was disobeying his specially God ordained responsibility to father a child in a very specific circumstance.
Jesus seemed to reject following the OT in this regard:
“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also."
Then of course there is the case of the adulteress who was to be stoned to death for her crime:
"And as they continued to ask him, Jesus stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.”
Thank you for your candor. My point is not to try and convince you that a zygote is nothing more than a cell that could be cast off as thoughtlessly as a skin cell. (And neither do I believe that myself.) Rather, I’m simply trying to point out that the life cycle is a continuum, and that all points along that continuum are not equal. And in my mind, interrupting the life cycle at the zygote stage does not involve the moral and ethical implications that are incurred by interrupting it at 28 weeks (much less 28 months).
What keeps me from being a full-fledged pro-lifer is the fact that pregnancy involves two lives–the POC and the woman. And it is out of respect for her life that I would not presume to force her to carry to term an unwanted pregnancy.
The fact that the life cycle begins at conception does not imply a moral equivalence between interrupting a developing life at any and all points along the cycle, which is the point of the rhetorical gambit of using the same blanket term to characterize every stage of development.
I disagree that they are “entirely different moral questions.” And I am far from alone in this.
There are lots of reasons to oppose the death penalty that have nothing to do with the morality of taking a life. My purpose in bringing the death penalty into the discussion was simply to point out that it is logically indefensible to claim to be ‘pro life’ and ‘pro death penalty.’
Semantics don’t matter, in fact are irrelevent when talking about life or death. Life must win or we all lose. If it becomes semantics, then change the definition a little bit and blacks aren’t human, Jews aren’t human, etc. In fact, semantics was used for that purpose explicitly as you are using it now.
I could go on… The fact that the life inside a woman is a human life is not disputable under any circumstance, by any means. Anything else is a lie. There is no contrary evidence to this, zero, nada, none. Again, one of the most clear cut issues on the face of the Earth. There is no doubt that the life taken in an abortion is a human life, that’s not disputed by anyone.
Seriously, did you not know? I will not take anything but solid contrary evidence. If you don’t have evidence, I don’t want to hear it.
All you doing is choosing which life to value, when abortion often destroys both. Other than a few sociopaths, abortions cause life time problems for most women. I choose the case that both lives matter equally as both as humans. Abortion kills a human, that’s an indisputable fact. A mother is always a mother the second they have that life in them.
The fact that Jane Roe, of namesake of this thread, did a complete 180 on the issue, the God-mother of abortion saw it for what is was and changed should affect many to re-think it themselves. She didn’t change because someone smoothed talked her, she changed because she saw it for what it was and couldn’t deny it anymore.
I suspect your resistance to pro-life is more a psychological affect, as is often with most people. You don’t want to be associated with those people, and wierdo Christian right-ers. Because if you say your pro-life, people make all kinds of assumptions about you.
I don’t care what they think. I am not going to stand on the wrong side of something because of what someone might think.
I’ll ask you the same question I asked @treco:
Let us take your position to its logical extreme: Would you argue that the moral and ethical ramifications of terminating a pregnancy 5 minutes after fertilization (or implantation, if you prefer) are identical to the moral and ethical ramifications of (forgive me the graphic, macabre example I am about to use) killing a two-year-old child? Can you honestly say you would feel the same level of revulsion and outrage for those two events–that they are truly equivalent in your mind?
I am saying that both lives have value, and that up to a certain point in the pregnancy, the rights and wishes of the mother outweigh the ‘rights’ of the POC.
Let me ask you a hypothetical question. It is admittedly silly, but try and answer it seriously.
Suppose you went to sleep one night, and when you awoke, you were astonished and horrified to discover that another person had been surgically attached to you, so that they shared your blood supply. This was done without your consent (obviously). The reason it was done is that the attached individual has a medical condition such that they need something found in your blood to live. They will die if the attachment to you is severed. In order for them to survive, they need to be attached to you for 9 months.
Question: Do you have the right to say ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t agree to this, and want to sever this connection’? Or does the fact that this individual’s life is completely dependent upon yours usurp your right to self-determination? Likewise, how would you feel if you were not given a say in the matter–if the authorities said ‘Sorry bro, I know you didn’t ask for this, but now that it’s happened, you can’t do anything about it. You have to give up the next 9 months of your life in order that this person can live’?
I doubt very much if this is true, but I suppose it depends upon what you mean by “problems.”
Most of the ‘Christian righters’ are not ‘pro life.’ Like you, they hold the irreducibly contradictory position of being anti-abortion but pro-death penalty.
EyeDentist, will you please provide a source for your claim?
The problem with your life cycle continuum, human life ALWAYS begins at the same position, never anywhere else. All human life in history, present and future begins at the single cell stage. That is something else you seem caught up on; a baby, an infant, a toddler, etc. are all STAGES.
Please quote for me the number of abortions resulting from rape/incest. If I provide the statistics you will say my sources are biased.
And for the win, give me your hypothetical question. Seriously, please ask me. Would you like me to pose it as a challenge? Fine. My challenge to you is simply this; Ask me your hypothetical.
But you admit that some are in fact babies being killed. Out of morbid curiosity, as someone who denies inalienable human rights, exactly how many of the 51.9 million actually being murdered babies would it take to bother you?
You are comparing an innocent child who has done nothing wrong to a murderer?. A sweet innocent baby to a hardened killer? The person who is about to get the death penalty at least had a choice in the matter. That person knew that he had a better than average chance of receiving the death penalty when he committed that horrible crime. What did the little baby do to deserve to have it’s head ripped off?
No comparison absolutely none. You are going to lose this argument badly. Let it go now…
Nobody ever changes their minds on abortion and it’s clear the feminists screaming “anti choice” at anyone bringing it up is damn politically effective. So really this argument is moot.
Every human life has limitless potential and it’s a waste of epic proportions. All of our instincts as humans to procreate, provide an nurture for the next generation… wasted.
There’s one more kid
that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love,
never get to be cool.
The number of ‘babies’ aborted is very, very low. But for me the issue is not how many that is important so much as the issue of why. Of the (very few) late-term abortions performed, the overwhelming majority are done so because the mother’s life is in danger, or because the delivery of a non-viable fetus would put her at unnecessary risk.
I know of no states that allow late-stage abortion-on-demand for non-medical reasons. If there are such states, I would be interested to know how many physicians in them are willing to provide this service.
If one wants to claim the moral stance of pro life, they can’t have it both ways. If a POC is a fully-formed human being whose life cycle cannot be interrupted for any reason, so to with the life cycle of the “hardened killer.”
Now, if you say ‘I’m not pro-life, rather, I’m anti-abortion,’ the contradiction dissolves, along with my objection. There is nothing inherently contradictory about being anti-abortion and pro-death penalty.
There is nothing contradictory. You can believe in the taking of life for a heinous crime in all cases. A fetus has committed no heinous crime and therefore can’t be killed. You aren’t even thinking through your own claims at this point.
And again, the reverse is far more powerful. If you believe that an innocent human life can be ended without a crime or due process at the whim of another, you are a raging hypocrite if you are against the death penalty.
