Sasquatch, I don’t recall arguing that I want ownership of anything… perhaps you could discuss some of the issues I was talking about, or provide a bit more information about whatever the heck you are talking about.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
orion wrote:
ZEB wrote:
orion wrote:
You are dragging religion into this, I am merely pointing that out.
No, YOU are draggin religion into this and I am pointing that out!
Then I?ll ask you again:
When does a fertilized egg become an unborn baby? When does it start to have the right to be born?
Now answer that question without using ideas of a religious nature.
You are dragging religion into this, I am merely pointing that out.
Cut and paste…
At the point of conception. When do you think it occurs?
Currently it’s legal to kill this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Fetus.png
And that’s simply wrong!
[/quote]
let?s get to this from the other side:
Is there a point after the fertilization of a human egg that you would think abortion is not that big a deal?
Where is this point and why do you think it is important?
I think you cross the line if you abort pregnancies even though the embryo might have survived without the mother…
[quote]orion wrote:
ZEB wrote:
orion wrote:
ZEB wrote:
orion wrote:
You are dragging religion into this, I am merely pointing that out.
No, YOU are draggin religion into this and I am pointing that out!
Then I?ll ask you again:
When does a fertilized egg become an unborn baby? When does it start to have the right to be born?
Now answer that question without using ideas of a religious nature.
You are dragging religion into this, I am merely pointing that out.
Cut and paste…
At the point of conception. When do you think it occurs?
Currently it’s legal to kill this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ef/Fetus.png
And that’s simply wrong!
let?s get to this from the other side:
Is there a point after the fertilization of a human egg that you would think abortion is not that big a deal?[/quote]
No.
[quote]Where is this point and why do you think it is important?
I think you cross the line if you abort pregnancies even though the embryo might have survived without the mother…
[/quote]
[quote]vroom wrote:
In this situation, for those that aren’t accepting the religious interpretation, it is certainly not a worthless exercise.
Some objective criteria must be used to determine when the mass of cells reaches a critical stage where it should be recognized as a human and granted rights.[/quote]
But you miss the point - even if you rely on science exclusively, a woman gets to decide regardless of what science says. Ask a woman who just got pregnant - and wanted to be pregnant - what she has inside her. Will she respond that she has a shapeless lump of cells?
Nope, and she gets the power to decide - and what informs that opinion?
Why is this a problem? It is arbitrary - which is exactly what you claim to not like about a values approach. In an abortion regime, you only use ‘science’ when it is convenient to your ends - i.e., when you don’t want the pregnancy. If you want it, the scientific determination is irrelevant - so it depends on the what the preference of the mother is.
No, they don’t - not categorically. The values can be based on nothing that has to do with the development. Just see the example above - a wannabe mom gets pregnant and couldn’t be happier she has a baby in her womb, regardless of the age of the child or the physical development.
What wannabe mom says “well, I have a mass of cells and developing tissue in my belly to which I have no personal emotional attachment, but as soon as modern science declares it to be a ‘baby’, I am gonna start thinking of names and become emotionally invested in my child”?
Whatever line we draw for when an abortion is ok is going to be a values judgment. Any time you say something is or is not a ‘baby’, that isn’t a scientific deduction - it is a value judgment. Which is fine - reasonable people disagree as to where that line is - but pretending that science will wind up fixing the line absent a value judgment is false. The ‘worthless exercise’ mentioned earlier was divorcing any talk of abortion with religious/moral factors - can’t be done, no matter how advanced the science is.
Thunder,
Let me get this straight. You have a problem with the fact that people decide to be pregnant and keep their children – because you feel their decision is not based on science?
I’m not missing the point at all. You really don’t have one.
I’ve never said the decision should be based on science, I’ve said that the determination on whether or not the unborn would have rights would depend on science, in order for us to determine when it actually had developed the attributes of humanity that we find important.
At this point, it makes sense to confer rights and protect them under law.
When you figure out what I’m talking about and can make a sensible post on the topic, feel free.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
That is a very good argument. And it was used by the South to rationalize slavery. I bet you wouldn’t have liked it much if you lived then.
“What difference is it to you if I own a slave? It’s no ones business” they screamed!
I would have said the same thing I do now about abortion: It’s everyones business!
[/quote]
You can not, unless you are losing your mental faculties, argue that having an abortion is like those who contributed to slavery. I would never go through with an abortion of a child I helped create because of the moral implications.
I feel if I went through the act, the consequences of that act are also my responsibility. I am not foolish enough to believe that there aren’t circumstances where a woman would be absolutely justified in terminating a pregnancy before there was an actual formed BABY present.
Your argument is so weak it is laughable. It also clearly shows just how much clouded cognition I am dealing with.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
orion wrote:
Is there a point after the fertilization of a human egg that you would think abortion is not that big a deal?
No.
[/quote]
Unfortunately, that is just your opinion and nothing more. It is based in no scientific fact. Fertilization alone does not mean a baby will come to term. A zygote is not a fetus. A zygote is not a baby.
In your efforts to force the country to believe the same as you believe (as if you desire to remove choice from religious assignment), perhaps one day you will realize that it is not necessary to control the actions and thoughts of others. That is all you are doing if the only thing you base your political policies on is your opinion based on religion alone. Everyone isn’t Christian.
Everyone will never be Christian. Everyone doesn’t need to be Christian.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Thunder,
Let me get this straight. You have a problem with the fact that people decide to be pregnant and keep their children – because you feel their decision is not based on science?[/quote]
What? Who said anything about having a problem with it? I said that science cannot independently inform that decision.
I see - we go from having a civil discussion on the topic to this. More on this later.
And I am saying that the threshold at which we decide that the unborn have the rights cannot be based on science. Can science help? Surely - and I never said otherwise. But science can never say “as of 12:01am on a given date during the gestation period, the mass of cells shows the attributes of a person and thus deserves human rights.” Impossible. If there is going to be a line, it will be based - that is based on value judgments.
And, Orion asked for a determination completely void of religious/moral value judgments - I said it can’t be done. That is what I originally responded to.
If you think I am not getting something, explain it further.
We were having a civil discussion till you started pouting. Abortion is a sketchy topic - and I have been pleasantly surprised at how calm and rational the debate has been up to this point. I realize you are trying your best to screw that up with your usual empty conceits, but try and resist that urge and keep the discourse reasonable.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
And I am saying that the threshold at which we decide that the unborn have the rights cannot be based on science. Can science help? Surely - and I never said otherwise. But science can never say “as of 12:01am on a given date during the gestation period, the mass of cells shows the attributes of a person and thus deserves human rights.” Impossible. If there is going to be a line, it will be based - that is based on value judgments.
[/quote]
This isn’t entirely true. Very few scientists would call a ZYGOTE a baby. There are no neural processes ocurring. A couple that wishes to have a baby is hoping every single cell division will result in a perfectly formed baby.
Your claim above was as if because a woman says, “I am having a baby” as soon as she finds out she is pregnant that this alone is where the line should be drawn. Why not allow science to determine the point of consciousness and factor that into the decision? Why is anyone considering fertilization alone as a “baby”? It is a potential baby, but it isn’t one yet.
For those interested, this is the point at which sheep have been cloned. I would be very interested in how this is thought to be the case of the mass is “one baby” yet each cell can potentially split off and end in its own development pattern.
Further, if this is about a value judgement, why only consider the “values” of those who believe as you do to be correct?
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
And I am saying that the threshold at which we decide that the unborn have the rights cannot be based on science. Can science help? Surely - and I never said otherwise. But science can never say “as of 12:01am on a given date during the gestation period, the mass of cells shows the attributes of a person and thus deserves human rights.” Impossible. If there is going to be a line, it will be based - that is based on value judgments.[/quote]
This is your opinion. Depending on the reasons we choose for confering rights, it is very possible for science to offer us the ability to know when these rights occur, due to our reasons.
For example, it is very easy to imagine science informing us that certain types of cells are present in certain types of quantities. We may not look and measure continously, but that isn’t necessary.
However, now that I see what you are trying to say, I don’t believe I’ve argued that value judgments won’t be made. I am however suggesting that there are reasonable value judgments available other than religious ones.
Religious ones are troubling, because we are all free to have different religious beliefs. Basing laws on certain religions generally represents a problem. I’ve been offering what may be a reasonable alternative in this thread.
Oh boo hoo. I thought you were being an ass, I responded in kind.
Maybe science can help. During the gestation period the nervous system and brain begin to develop. If you can determine when the nervous system becomes functional (higer order fucntions like basic conciousness), then you can abort the fetus before that and avoid all this:
God CREATED IT’S SOUL!!! EVIL CHID ABORTIONIST, YOU MURDERER!!! I HOPE YOU ROT IN… and so forth.
You can’t be murdering a “human being” if it’s just a mass of cells with as much brain function as a tape worm even if it does look human.
DAMNIT!! The prof beat me to it. Blasted forum lag!!!
From the AP today…seems topical to the discussion.
Men want ‘say’ in unplanned pregnancy
Activists seek right to decline financial responsibility for kids
Wednesday, March 8, 2006; Posted: 7:41 p.m. EST (00:41 GMT)
Matt Dubay contends his ex-girlfriend assured him she was unable to get pregnant.
(AP) – Contending that women have more options than they do in the event of an unintended pregnancy, men’s rights activists are mounting a long shot legal campaign aimed at giving them the chance to opt out of financial responsibility for raising a child.
The National Center for Men has prepared a lawsuit – nicknamed Roe v. Wade for Men – to be filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Michigan on behalf of a 25-year-old computer programmer ordered to pay child support for his ex-girlfriend’s daughter.
The suit addresses the issue of male reproductive rights, contending that lack of such rights violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.
The gist of the argument: If a pregnant woman can choose among abortion, adoption or raising a child, a man involved in an unintended pregnancy should have the choice of declining the financial responsibilities of fatherhood. The activists involved hope to spark discussion even if they lose.
“There’s such a spectrum of choice that women have – it’s her body, her pregnancy and she has the ultimate right to make decisions,” said Mel Feit, director of the men’s center. “I’m trying to find a way for a man also to have some say over decisions that affect his life profoundly.”
Feit’s organization has been trying since the early 1990s to pursue such a lawsuit, and finally found a suitable plaintiff in Matt Dubay of Saginaw, Michigan.
Dubay says he has been ordered to pay $500 a month in child support for a girl born last year to his ex-girlfriend. He contends that the woman knew he didn’t want to have a child with her and assured him repeatedly that – because of a physical condition – she could not get pregnant.
Dubay is braced for the lawsuit to fail.
“What I expect to hear [from the court] is that the way things are is not really fair, but that’s the way it is,” he said in a telephone interview. “Just to create awareness would be enough, to at least get a debate started.”
State courts have ruled in the past that any inequity experienced by men like Dubay is outweighed by society’s interest in ensuring that children get financial support from two parents. Melanie Jacobs, a Michigan State University law professor, said the federal court might rule similarly in Dubay’s case.
“The courts are trying to say it may not be so fair that this gentleman has to support a child he didn’t want, but it’s less fair to say society has to pay the support,” she said.
Feit, however, says a fatherhood opt-out wouldn’t necessarily impose higher costs on society or the mother. A woman who balked at abortion but felt she couldn’t afford to raise a child could put the baby up for adoption, he said.
‘This is so politically incorrect’
Jennifer Brown of the women’s rights advocacy group Legal Momentum objected to the men’s center comparing Dubay’s lawsuit to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling establishing a woman’s right to have an abortion.
“Roe is based on an extreme intrusion by the government – literally to force a woman to continue a pregnancy she doesn’t want,” Brown said. “There’s nothing equivalent for men. They have the same ability as women to use contraception, to get sterilized.”
Feit counters that the suit’s reference to abortion rights is apt.
“Roe says a woman can choose to have intimacy and still have control over subsequent consequences,” he said. “No one has ever asked a federal court if that means men should have some similar say.”
“The problem is this is so politically incorrect,” Feit added. “The public is still dealing with the pre-Roe ethic when it comes to men, that if a man fathers a child, he should accept responsibility.”
Feit doesn’t advocate an unlimited fatherhood opt-out; he proposes a brief period in which a man, after learning of an unintended pregnancy, could decline parental responsibilities if the relationship was one in which neither partner had desired a child.
“If the woman changes her mind and wants the child, she should be responsible,” Feit said. “If she can’t take care of the child, adoption is a good alternative.”
The president of the National Organization for Women, Kim Gandy, acknowledged that disputes over unintended pregnancies can be complex and bitter.
“None of these are easy questions,” said Gandy, a former prosecutor. “But most courts say it’s not about what he did or didn’t do or what she did or didn’t do. It’s about the rights of the child.”
[quote]gojira wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
I don’t agree with this analogy.
I will always believe that women have the right to choose their fate. And a government run by mostly old white males should not have a say in what a woman can do regarding pregnancy. Especially in cases of rape or incest.
This world isn’t black and white like the right wants to think.
Thank you.[/quote]
I think that to a certain extent this is a load of shit. I will assume (as many of the other posts do) that rape is excluded from the argument but what makes the decision about the childs life any more the womans decision than the mans.
I understand that the woman has a much larger role physically with the unborn child and carries a much larger responsiblity for the unborn child but the decision over the life of that child is no more hers than it is her male partners (assuming that there is one).
Should a man just stand back and say that since his child is not in his body he has no say on the decision as to whether that child lives or dies?
Yes I have taken it further than the argument about old white males making the legislation, but it shits me off big time when abortion is talked about as the womans choice only.
Rant over. Thanks for listening.
Edit The post by Hedo just appeared above mine and I wanted to make sure that my post is now not seen as supporting the fucked up concepts in the ‘Roe V Wade’ argument.
I have only read a small amount of Roe v Wade, but I think that it presents a valid point for involuntary sterilisation as any man that supports that major arguments of the case should not have any chance of contributing to an unplanned pregnancy.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
This isn’t entirely true. Very few scientists would call a ZYGOTE a baby. There are no neural processes ocurring. A couple that wishes to have a baby is hoping every single cell division will result in a perfectly formed baby.
Your claim above was as if because a woman says, “I am having a baby” as soon as she finds out she is pregnant that this alone is where the line should be drawn. [/quote]
Actually, no, Professor X, I didn’t say that is where the line should be drawn. I said that in an abortion regime, whether or not a child is a ‘baby’ is determined by the mother - if it is a baby in her mind, he carries it to term; if it is not a baby in her mind, she terminates the pregnancy.
And actually, you have it completely backward - I am arguing that a woman should not indepedently be able to draw the line at her whim - that is the very definition of an abortion regime: the woman decides solely as to the definition of whether the unborn is protected or not. But that was not point in that particular example.
I never said science shouldn’t factor into the decision. But I think it is unrealistic to think that ‘science’ can pinpoint ‘conciousness’ to any degree we need to draw a line and extend protection of the law. So, while science can be factor, it isn’t sufficient.
As to why people who think fertilization is enough to qualify the unborn as a baby, I am not necessarily in that camp - but I suggest that it has to do with their value judgments, probably informed by their morality/religion. I know many that say it this way: no line can ever be drawn with any precision, so the only real option is to err on one side or the other, so they err on the side of treating a fertilization as worth of being called a baby. A very plausible argument.
Who is doing this? Is someone’s voice not being heard in this very public debate about abortion?
[quote]vroom wrote:
Sasquatch, I don’t recall arguing that I want ownership of anything… perhaps you could discuss some of the issues I was talking about, or provide a bit more information about whatever the heck you are talking about.[/quote]
It’s simple vroom,
I claim that the woman(and man)needs to take responsibility for their actions.
You do not see it this way. So if you want to pick out individual words of a post that included both yours and harris’ responses then claim you don’t get the gist that is your thing.
And your continual responses to all that you don’t have to see things from their perspective is pretty ridiculous and redundant seeing as that holds true for any of us who differ in opinion. Thunder has peiced together quite a nice bit of info and you shrug it off and insult him.
I think it’s quite vital to consider that most law is not based on science, but human values which, in fact, have some basis in the dreaded religion you so consistantly bash. Are values are established from everything we have experienced. Your argument that you want absolute scientific proof is clearly a red hering.
[quote]vroom wrote:
This is your opinion.[/quote]
Of course it is. What else would it be in a discussion on abortion?
Science does not and never has defined our rights. Rights are determined politically.
You say [quote]the reasons we choose for conferring rights[/quote] - exactly right, Vroom: we choose the reasons and parameters defining the rights first. And, in your own language, science is dependent on whatever we come up as rights to then plug into their determinations of the development of an unborn child.
You are explaining my argument for me. We have to determine the rights first, and that will be a moral choice.
Yes, and I never said science could not be useful in this regard.
There are all kinds of value judgments - some people advocate availability of abortion on strict utilitarian grounds.
Tons of public policy issues trump your ability to theoretically practice your religion, else nearly every law would be in danger of someone claiming an exemption to its coverage on religious grounds.
Prohibiting abortion is not imposing a religion on someone.
You have offered an alternative to be sure, but there are secular reasons to prohibit abortion as well. Let’s put it to a democratic test - and let the best idea win.
I don’t know anything I wrote could have possibly been construed as being an ass, but I did forget that I was dealing with your hypersensitivity and your propensity to bruise very easily. Moving along.
[quote]sasquatch wrote:
It’s simple vroom,
I claim that the woman(and man)needs to take responsibility for their actions.
You do not see it this way. So if you want to pick out individual words of a post that included both yours and harris’ responses then claim you don’t get the gist that is your thing.[/quote]
Sasquatch,
Your last post didn’t make sense to me. Excuse me for asking you to clarify what you meant. If it isn’t obvious, we think differently about things. I don’t think it is necessary to assume I’m only pretending to need more details when I ask you for more details.
Wow, you see, we really do interpret things very differently than each other. If you don’t know why I’m saying what I am, that is fine, but it is neither ridiculous nor redundant given the nature of the discussion.
Perahps it may not apply to you, but you are not the sole person I am conversing with.
The fact that I went off in the wrong direction based on what thunder had said, I have already acknowledged. Maybe you could cut me some slack for once.
Now, with respect to Thunder’s viewpoint, I think I’ll try to discuss that with Thunder instead of yourself.
[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Science does not and never has defined our rights. Rights are determined politically.
[/quote]
Thunder, we may not actually be disagreeing about much.
However, definitions are often based on science, and definitions are necessary when knowing what and how a law is to be applied.
We all know what the rights of the living are. They are defined in our constitutions and our laws, built up over centuries.
The rights have already been determined, now we are arguing over the definition of a person and when those rights confer.
That is why I say that science has a large role in determining this (simply because choosing which religious interpretation to use will be very problematic).
This is a grey area in and of itself. It is very obvious to most involved that religious people are very active in trying to get laws that represent their viewpoints.
Calling a zygote a baby and then equating early abortions to the killing of a baby, is a great public relations ploy used to support that goal. However, I will grant you it is very hard to directly tie laws to religion in most cases.
Ahahaha. And of course, your cry of innocence is shrouded in insults. That’s nice. I can honestly appreciate the artistry of that.
However, such a tack isn’t conducive to maintaining a quality conversation.
[quote]helga wrote:
(entire post)
[/quote]
Well said. Good post.