Abortion

[spurgistan]

And muythai, Chinese people do not throw girls off walls. A little sense would be great.

[OnlyAmbrose]

while an embryo is developing, at many stages it cannot develop or even remain alive outside of the womb

A newborn can't remain alive (let alone develop) without full dependence on a mother either.

that if an embryo could not conceivably continue to live without the benefit of the mother, then the mother should have the option to terminate what is more or less a part of her body.

A newborn cannot conceivably live without the benefit of the mother, should the woman have the right to terminate it?

In essence, I don't see dependence or lack thereof as an effective measure of humanity either.

edit- and I appreciate the props, and I'd like to turn them around back to GT and everyone else who hasn't mentioned an evil spaghetti monster

[daddy1gringo]

... while an embryo is developing, at many stages it cannot develop or even remain alive outside of the womb. I find it hard to postulate that at this point the embryo is an independently alive being, like you at 17 years old or (even) your sister. I would find it a lot easier to say that the embryo is more a part of the woman's body than an independently alive human. This may be a minority opinion or even (I doubt, but the possibility exists) scientifically verboten, but it seems to me (besides the fact that this is a women's rights issue in my mind, something we as men should have little to no say in) that if an embryo could not conceivably continue to live without the benefit of the mother, then the mother should have the option to terminate what is more or less a part of her body.

Likewise, respect for a civil post in what can be an un-civil issue. A number of the issues you bring up I dealt with in a previous post, so I'm going to re-post it here. Let me lead in with something I left out before.

The idea that abortion is a “men against women” thing is just not true. Many of the leaders of the pro-life movement are women. I read a pamphlet from "Feminists for life" that said that abortion was not in accord with the feminine nature, which is to produce and nurture life, but with the masculine which tends toward breaking and killing things. It further argued that readily available abortion is a product of the Playboy philosophy that women are toys and a pregnant woman is a broken toy, because it's not as much fun. Easy and non-stigmatized abortion only "liberates" irresponsible males who want to use women for their pleasure without the responsibility of nurturing life.

I know of many cases where the woman/girl wanted to keep her baby but was forced into an abortion by her selfish boyfriend, who frequently ends up leaving her for someone else shortly after anyway, or by her father who only cares what it will do to his reputation that his daughter got pregnant.

Now my original post:

The abortion issue is not about a woman’s right to choose. Women, and men, have the right to choose many things, but that doesn’t mean that society does not have the right and the responsibility to say that some choices are wrong.

I have a right to choose what I want to do for a living, but if what I want to do for a living is sell crack outside the local high school, or hit people on the head and take the money out of their wallets, society can, and must, say that I may not make these choices because they are wrong. Does a person have the right to do what they want because it concerns their personal reproductive system? I have a personal reproductive system too, but if what I choose to do with it is force it on someone who doesn’t want it, that’s called rape, and yes society can and must forbid it. In all these cases a right to choose is denied because the particular choice violates a more fundamental right of someone else. Society obviously cannot just leave it up to the one who would make the choice.

The whole question hinges on whether (I’ll try to use as neutral as possible a term) the entity being aborted is a human being with a right to life or not. If so, then obviously it is murder, and must be forbidden. If not, although an individual might choose not to abort based on a personal conviction about potentiality, no law could be made concerning that choice.

The problem lies with the fact that it seems ridiculous to draw a line anywhere saying “at this moment a human being, with a right to live, exists, and one nano-second before, it did not,” and both sides of the argument use this factor. Nevertheless we must draw just such a line somewhere. Otherwise you will have to take the argument to one extreme and say that it is murder to abstain from sex, or to the other and say it’s OK to kill your teenager because they didn’t turn out like you wanted. (Hmmmm, maybe,…nah)

We're not talking about when life starts, we're talking about when life becomes sentient life. Dogs are alive, so are cats, amoeba, and skin cells. What the real issue is when does consciousness arise, when does the animal become a person. The sperm and the egg are alive, so why not say that life starts even before the two meet. It's 100% accurate to say that, and its also irrefutable. However, it's inconvenient to your world-view.

If we're going to talk about the soul and not life, we have to talk about sentience. A cluster of 24 cells in a woman's uterus is no more sentient than a mold. A fetus, no larger than a quarter, is not sentient.

When does the sentience form? I don't know, but it's definitely not in the first 13 weeks.
Source: Conjecture based upon rate of fetal growth.

“Sentience” doesn’t work. You yourself say that you have to make a guess at when it starts based on conjecture.

The only clear, non-arbitrary place to make that line is at conception. That is when suddenly and observably, something exists that didn’t exist before. From conception everything that is inherent in the person is already determined. Hair color, fingerprints, congenital conditions, blood type, and let me focus on gender. How can the fetus be just part of the mother’s body if he is male? The DNA is all there, and that is what the legal system uses to identify a person, an individual. Identity.

One can say, “I believe life begins at X point”, but that “belief” is based on what? There exists no argument from physics or metaphysics, logic or medicine, that can so clearly define when a person becomes a person.

Once before, the US Supreme Court decided that certain members of the human race were not really members of the human race and therefore were not entitled to human rights. That was the Dredd Scott decision, and by it many African-Americans lost their right to liberty. What is being denied to a portion of the human race now is the even more fundamental right to life itself. All smokescreens about “rights to choose” aside, society has a mandate to recognize the humanity of the fetus from conception and legislate accordingly in order to protect that right.

In conclusion, I know of several doctors who became pro-life because of situations like the following. In the morning he performs a difficult in utero operation to save the life of an unborn child. In the afternoon he performs an abortion on a fetus of about the same age. The doctor is now faced with the question. “If I saved someone’s life this morning, how can I say I didn’t end someone’s life now, and if I didn’t just end someone’s life, then whose life did I save?”

[diddle]

can kangaroos have abortions

[luns101]

As a Christian, I believe that we are created in God's image and that human life is sacred. Although being a Christian or theist is not a prerequisite for being pro-life, it does seem to indicate the likelihood that someone will take that position.

Constitutionally, I can't see how the Supreme Court found this inferred "right to privacy" in order to justify abortion.

[diddle]

can kangaroos have abortions

what about amphibian creatures

[got tonkaed]

I think this post will adress all of your points, so I will go without quoting you as I have been, so bear with me and read through it.

Let me rephrase myself in this manner-

We both agree that to have laws on this matter, there must be a point at which we can draw the line.

Legally, drawing that line based on philosophy is just as ridiculous as drawing it based on religion.

Its not that i really disagree with your assertion, but to be fair, there will probably not be a system of rules that we can set that will be accepted by the large society as a whole. Had such been possible i think we would have already really have done so.

There is no fundamental difference between a newborn's cognitive capabilities and that of a child in the womb 8.5 months into pregnancy. Yet it is acceptable to kill one and not the other.

I've already gotten into why it is acceptable - because psychologically, it's easier on our consciences. But does that make the matter any different? Is aborting said infant any different from killing a baby right as it exits the womb?

Well again i do think that yes socially it is in fact different, because people are not always reasoning, so the social construct, which determines whether or not killing babies is wrong is really what we have to deal with. Society says that it is in fact different and thats the framework that we have to deal with. There is a very large difference between the amount of physical nurturing the mother does inside the womb vs what she does outside of the womb. I havent really gotten into the arguments about a womans body yet because they dont necesarily pertain to my way of thinking, but there certainly is a large part of the choice movement which makes claims regarding.

Quite bluntly, no. They are essentially the same thing.

And where do you draw the line between "potential human" and "human"?

You can't!

There is no set time when we can just pinpoint when something becomes part of the species. I am 17 years old. I'm developing. I'm not yet full-grown. Does that mean I'm still just a potential human? What about my 9 year old sister? Her level of cognition is probably still in Kohlberg's pre-conventional or conventional stage, while mine is well into the post-conventional. Does that make me more human than her?

Again yes i think you can draw the line betwen human and potential human, when something is alive and something is not yet alive. You would draw your line at conception, which i understand and i understand the beliefs that come from it, but i see a real difference between something already living and someone who will be living at someday. I feel for this discussion to continue, you must realize that yes i am able to sleep at night and make that distinction. I do not value life than can be on the same level as life that could be. I would rather work towards the embetterment of everything that is living vs the things that could live, and this i think reflects a difference in the frameworks that we bring to the issue.

The only COMPLETELY objective and secular startpoint that we can make is quite simple: when the sperm meets the egg. When a complete human cell is created with all the potential to look and think like everyone else here.

This is not a completely objective point. A complete human cell is not a complete human and to claim that the building blocks of humanbeings are = to the things which are created because of the cells is a distinction that is subjective in nature. You make the argument objectively yes, but it is not objective.

And to wrap this post up, I will address one of the more intriguing things you said.

A newborn has not had a life process. Why is it wrong to kill one of them?

In short it is wrong because society says that it is so.

Using society as a moral compass isn't something I intend to do anytime soon. That's a poor reason to be pro-choice, and here's why:

Ask yourself why it's socially acceptable. We've already answered that - because it's a hidden murder which is easier on the human psyche. Does that make it less wrong? Certainly not.

That's why society thinks it's ok. Because they can stomach it. That's a horrible reason to be in favor of legalized abortion.

I flip flop a fair amount between personal opinion and how i reflect how i think society works. But it is important to remember that i do not necesarily base my arguments on whether or not society thinks something is ok, i just consider when i discuss the necesity of an opposition viewpoint. I dont follow the pro-life argument, because subjectively i do not believe some of the claims that the pro-life argument, not necesarily your argument makes. I dont necesarily follow alot of hte property arguments that the choice argument makes, but i find that my position is much more fluid and has the potential to continue to modify than the opposite in many cases, simply because i allow a number of different criteria to influence how i currently feel about the issue. Im not saying that you dont do this, because clearly you do, but i feel like far too many people in the issue take a hardline line stance without really analysing a multidimensoal issue from a variety of different angles.

How society views the killing of a child in certain stages must necesarily affect how we view it, and i feel this is something we will continue to disagree on, and it is foundational to our debate.

[diddle]

can kangaroos have abortions

what about amphibian creatures

or a stone?

[OnlyAmbrose]

Diddle, kindly stop spamming.

Its not that i really disagree with your assertion, but to be fair, there will probably not be a system of rules that we can set that will be accepted by the large society as a whole. Had such been possible i think we would have already really have done so.

That's a statement which can be pretty universally applied to any issue in America.

Well again i do think that yes socially it is in fact different, because people are not always reasoning, so the social construct, which determines whether or not killing babies is wrong is really what we have to deal with.

I think you misunderstand my intentions in having a debate to begin with. I'm not out to commentate on the existing "social construct"- I'm out to present the facts in a way so as to change it.

Society says that it is in fact different and thats the framework that we have to deal with.

What society says and what is true are two very different things.

Listen, GT, if you're judging what is right based on what society thinks, then go to a polling website and check out the latest statistics, but if you want to debate based on facts and reason, we can discuss.

Until then we have little that we can talk about.

[unriggable]

Anybody read "welcome to the monkey house"?

[got tonkaed]

Ambrose...

I dont really have a problem with you trying to change the social construct, it is the only way that things would ever get changed, is by people trying to introduce new information and new insight in order to get things done, this is how things change.

However you and i disagree on the nature of an absolute truth as well, which leads you to be compelled to have different closing views perhaps on our discussion. I certainly dont think that every socially present value is "right" or that i agree with them. And on many things i am hopefully that the socially accepted norm will change, as you certainly hope with abortion. But as you must have guessed by now, abortion for me is simply not as vital an issue as it is to you, as for me the child being aborted does not have as much of a value to life as someone who is already alive.

You will spend more time and energy trying to preserve the sanctity of life in this fashion and i will spend more time trying to preserve it in other methods and endevaors. Although i disagree with you, i have enjoyed the discussion we have had if this is the end of the issue. I dont harbor any ill will toward you and you make a lot of really good points. But for me there just is not the other framework behind things which lead you to present the more objective arguments behind your position. They can be refuted by those who are more vested in choice than I, i am sure, but i am merely a novice in this discussion.

I am sure there will be other things that we will discuss in the future so i shall say so long till then i suppose.

[OnlyAmbrose]

Likewise. Good chat.

[unriggable]

You're both wrong. I represent the side that opposes abortion but supports killing babies post-birth.

[salvadevinemasse]

You're both wrong. I represent the side that opposes abortion but supports killing babies post-birth.

Eatbabies.com huh?

[diddle]

Diddle, kindly stop spamming.

no problemo capitano

[Iliad]

You're both wrong. I represent the side that opposes abortion but supports killing babies post-birth.

Eatbabies.com huh?

it's http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.com

[salvadevinemasse]

You're both wrong. I represent the side that opposes abortion but supports killing babies post-birth.

Eatbabies.com huh?

it's http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.com

Ah, thanks! I'll have to look it up!

[Iliad]

You're both wrong. I represent the side that opposes abortion but supports killing babies post-birth.

Eatbabies.com huh?

it's http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.com

Ah, thanks! I'll have to look it up!

Wow an old quote comes to mind:
"If you don't know who maddox is you are either 15 or new to the Internets. Or both"

[Jehan]

One of the pastors at my church survived through a failed abortion, her mother tried to abort her but it failed, probably because the methods of doing so are dodgy since its illegal here. As a result she's been a blessing to thousands of people, one of the best people you could meet. I tend to think those that support legal abortions, are almost suggesting she should be dead and the world would somehow be a better place. Thats my take on it and that is why i dont think it should be legal, like some have said before, give the baby up for adoption or something like that, at least give it a chance. Of course it isn't so black and white and rape and medical problems always clouds this up, i certainly have absolutely no idea what it would be like to be raped and be pregnant as a result, i wouldn't tell someone in that position what to do at all.

[salvadevinemasse]

You're both wrong. I represent the side that opposes abortion but supports killing babies post-birth.

Eatbabies.com huh?

it's http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.com

Ah, thanks! I'll have to look it up!

Wow an old quote comes to mind:
"If you don't know who maddox is you are either 15 or new to the Internets. Or both"

I'm not 15, can promise you that! I'm not new to the net either..heard of maddox but dont remember why

[vtmarik]

I'm not 15, can promise you that! I'm not new to the net either..heard of maddox but dont remember why

Because of me.

[Iliad]

I'm not 15, can promise you that! I'm not new to the net either..heard of maddox but dont remember why

Because of me.

weren't you the one who posted that quote?

[salvadevinemasse]

I'm not 15, can promise you that! I'm not new to the net either..heard of maddox but dont remember why

Because of me.

Yes Sexy Because of you! *kisses you*

[vtmarik]

I'm not 15, can promise you that! I'm not new to the net either..heard of maddox but dont remember why

Because of me.

weren't you the one who posted that quote?

What, the one near the beginning of the thread about not being pro-choice or pro-life but being pro-you-shutting-the-f*ck-up?

I think so.

[salvadevinemasse]

I'm not 15, can promise you that! I'm not new to the net either..heard of maddox but dont remember why

Because of me.

weren't you the one who posted that quote?

What, the one near the beginning of the thread about not being pro-choice or pro-life but being pro-you-shutting-the-f*ck-up?

I think so.

The Maddox thing sweety