Abortion (newer thread)

[Lady Jedi]

Just like menstruation and premature ejaculation.

Except that neither of those instances include another living being; simply things that if they had come together at the right time could have been a child. So, no. Menstruation is not the same as abortion. It's merely the cleansing of a body's preparation for the possibility of a child; it is not the killing of a child. Premature ejaculation: well, again there is simply the possibility of a child. However it is not the disposal of another being, merely the disposal of the possibility of a child. Sperm aren't children, and menstration blood isn't life.

And of course the baby will likely suffer and lead a life of misery, possibly getting pregnant at a young age themselves because their mother raised them the same way she was raised, and we're in a never-ending cycle. Hooray.

You have no way of knowing that that is how the child's life will turn out. That's just ignorance at work. My mom's birth father was a crazy idiot drunkard that beat her and her siblings on a regular basis. Guess what? She's one of the most loving people I have ever seen. Her mother was pregnant with her at age 17. My mom didn't get pregnant until she was in her twenties. A baby should at least get the chance to live, rather than having their life snuffed out before ever even getting a chance to see their mother's face. Rather than having every chance at living taken away because their life might not turn out perfect.

Are you denying personal responsibility? People are not bad, irresponsible, hateful, or anything else just because of the way they were raised. I know some that were raised under bad conditions, in fact, but they do not act the same as their parents because they choose not to. If you think people are not in control of what they do, I'd like to inform you that you are wrong.

Exactly! I've been in awful scenarios, and seen and heard some really terrible stuff, but that hasn't made me take that as the way to be. I just take those things as examples of what not to do. So a child born to a young mother, or a mother who had to put it up for adoption, doesn't mean that the baby will grow up and do the same thing. A child's choice is not the same as the choice of the parent unless they choose to make it so.

He disagrees with you only on one thing - what defines humanity.

And what he defines as humanity - or rather what isn't humanity - is how he is justifying abortion. I simply don't see how someone can say that a fetus or embryo is not human. It has a heartbeat, a soul; it has life. How can that possibly be defined as just 'a lump of cells'?

[ET Warrior]

I simply don't see how someone can say that a fetus or embryo is not human. It has a heartbeat, a soul; it has life. How can that possibly be defined as just 'a lump of cells'?

Because there is no concious self in an embryo.

 

And just as sperm cells and eggs will turn into people given the proper circumstances, so too will an embryo turn into a human given the proper conditions.

 

The fact is, every menstruation cycle that a woman goes through where she doesn't at least TRY to get pregnant, she is denying what could become a human being a chance at life. Is that wrong? Any one of those eggs could have been the next Einstein! They could have grown up to cure world hunger! Just because they only have half of the genetic material as we do can we deny those cells their right to life?

 

You betcha we can, because those cells have absolutely no sense of awareness, no idea of self, no conciousness at all. There is no sense of loss to the cell, it isn't aware that it's dying.

[Samuel Dravis]

Making abortion illegal won't make it go away... just a lot more dangerous. Abortions have existed as long as civilization has... perhaps longer. Ban them and the exact same amount will still happen... just in secret and with a lot more women dying.

I have some statistics on death rates for people who obtained illegal abortions. Here you go:

 

Year	Abortion-related Deaths[1]

1940  	1470
1950 	263
1965 	201

Why are there less deaths in 1950 on onwards? Because of antibiotics. Inflating the abortion related deaths as a serious cause to consider continuing their legality is nonsense. Even the doctors said they lied about the statistics:

 

"We spoke of 5,000-10,000 deaths a year.... I confess that I knew the figures were totally false."

 

Dr. Bernard Nathanson, (co-founder NARAL), testimony before the Supreme Court in 1972

 

Also, the year before abortions were legalized:

 

				Abortion-Related Deaths[2]
Year	Legal Abortions |	Legal	Illegal
		|
1972	?		|	24	41
1973 	615,831 	|	25 	21
1974 	763,476 	|	26 	7

So there was no significant benefit, health-wise, that came from legalizing abortions. Of course you're endorsing this because you care about the mother's safety. There's so much danger involved - we must think of only her, solely of her, not the 763,476 babies who died in 1974. As well, the doctors that do give abortions are not exactly the type you might want anyway:

 

"It's true that abortion providers are perceived as not very good doctors -- that they have no alternative so they do abortions, that they cannot earn a living any other way."

 

~ Dr. Richard Hausknecht, abortion doctor, in "Who Will Do Abortions Here?", New York Times Magazine, January 18, 1998

 

"Most physicians regard abortion as a stigmatized operation done by people who are otherwise incompetent and can't do anything else."

 

~ Dr. Warren Hern, abortion doctor, American Medical News, September 5, 1994

 

Just because I feel something is wrong doesn't mean everybody else is going to feel the same way. Is it my job to try to use the government to keep someone who doesn't share the same moral code as myself from committing what I may think is a sin?

So anything is acceptable according to you, as long as you don't do it yourself. You'd let people murder others, even though you think it's a sin. The only thing that matters is what they believe is the truth. If they thought they were doing good by killing innocents, well, good for them! We should encourage that behavior, yes?

 

No, I think you're wrong. Moral relativism is absolutely useless making objective value judgements, and it shows in your apathy. If it's wrong for you, why is it not wrong for other people under the same physical circumstances? Opinion? Then you accept that, if someone believes something is morally right, then it is right, regardless of any other consideration. For instance, would you stand by and do nothing if a robber violently mugged a woman right next to you, provided the robber thought he was doing the right thing - the right thing for himself? Keep in mind that the woman cannot defend herself, because that would be projecting her own subjective sense of right and wrong on the robber and that's just not acceptable behavior according to relativism.

 

If you answered yes, then any opinion of yours is irrelevant because you would be unable to render judgment on anything. If you did interfere in any way, however, you are not practicing what you preach, and you're just pretending to be morally relative; perhaps to feel or come across as more tolerant. You can't pick both, however; they're mutually exclusive.

 

And the problem with the death penalty is that it gives the government too much power. The power to end a living breathing person's life in something other than self-defense. Let's face it: as long as there is a death penalty, innocent people will be executed. The justice system is part of the government and therefore prone to failure.

For what it's worth, I agree that the death penalty should not be around. It's interesting, though, how you say that the power to kill a living person is too much power for the state, yet it's somehow acceptable to give it to the arbitrary use of a single person, the mother?

 

Not the same. New cells grow along the way that make the fetus into a baby. Cells that create a functioning brain, organs, skin, nervous system and everything else.

Last I heard, embroyonic stem cells are able to change into any type of cell. So they're the same cells. Is it human life?

 

"A moment after conception the genetic blueprint is complete. We have our blood type, our fingerprints, the sex is determined at the moment of conception. We know it is life. What kind of life is it? According to the laws of biogenesis, all life comes from preexisting life. Each species reproduces after its own kind. So human beings can only reproduce other human beings."

 

~ Kathy Ireland, appearing on Bill Maher's television show Politically Incorrect, 2/28/2000

 

In other words, all humans are human, whether embryonic, fetal, infantile, young, mature, old, or dying. Would you say all humans have a right to life, simply because they are human? I'm guessing if you oppose the death penalty for hardened murderers you probably do. Now, I wonder... should the law protect basic human rights? Interestingly enough, the founding fathers thought so, and put in the Constitution the words "...the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." What other use is the law, if it is not used to protect the lives of those who live under the state's dominion?

 

If you agree those statements are correct, you probably have a pro-life viewpoint already. If you agree and don't have said viewpoint, you should question what you believe.

 

A fetus has no awareness, no consciousness, no feeling, no independence, no thought, and no ability to survive outside the womb.

 

A baby has awareness, has consciousness, has feeling, has independence, has thought, and has the ability to survive outside the womb. All the things that define a human being.

I gather it is ok to murder someone you've just knocked out then, because he has no awareness, no conciousness, no feeling, no independence, no thought, no ability to survive unless you let him. Yeah. Why are those cases not treated the same?

 

I think thats progress....abortion is technically murder. It's the females problem for having sex irresponsibly. So the conquence is raising a baby.

It's both parties' problem.

 

The basic principle is that the state doesn't have the right to interfere with what is going on inside your body... relax that principle and you open yourself up to a whole heap of trouble...

Abortion is legal now because of the right to privacy, not because of some made-up restriction on interference with citizen's bodies (drug laws anyone?). This right to privacy is not specifically set forth in the Constitution, while the right to life is. Why is privacy treated as if it is more important, especially when the right to life is the very first right mentioned in that document, supreme over the others that follow, supreme because all the rest of the rights mean nothing unless that one is protected?

 

You betcha we can, because those cells have absolutely no sense of awareness, no idea of self, no conciousness at all. There is no sense of loss to the cell, it isn't aware that it's dying.

You sound like a Dr. Joseph Fletcher, who argues in his book Humanhood: "Humans without some minimum of intelligence or mental capacity are not persons, no matter how many of these organs are active, no matter how spontaneous their living processes are." If you agree with that, than you also agree with a nice list that includes infanticide, murder of people who are not intelligent enough or meet any other requirement that your arbitrarily decide, and unrequested euthanasia of, say, people with advanced Alzheimer's. Any eugenicist would love to have you on board, I'd say.

 

Because there is no concious self in an embryo.

Like I said above, someone you knocked out is not concious, has no concious self. Does that mean they lose their personhood just because they are in a temporary state of unconciousness? Is a person in a coma no longer a person just because they cannot interact, cannot think at the moment?

 

Abortion = great.

Why?

 

 

[align=center]Works Cited:[/align]

[1] Cates, W. Jr. Rochat, R.W., Grimes, D.A., and Tyler, C.W. Jr. 1978. "Legalized abortion: Effect on national trends of maternal and abortion-related mortality (1940 through 1976). Am. J. Obstet. Gynecol., 132: 211-214.

 

[2] Tietze, C. 1983. Induced Abortion: A World View. The Population Council, New York.

 

[3] The Alan Guttmacher Institute (http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html)

[ET Warrior]

Like I said above, someone you knocked out is not concious, has no concious self. Does that mean they lose their personhood just because they are in a temporary state of unconciousness?

Way to take that completely out of context and make a foolish statement. An unconcious man still has a concious self, because they still have the cognitive capacity for concious thought. An embryo doesn't have a brain atall, there is no capability for recognition of self, or concious thought.

[Samuel Dravis]

Way to take that completely out of context and make a foolish statement. An unconcious man still has a concious self, because they still have the cognitive capacity for concious thought. An embryo doesn't have a brain atall, there is no capability for recognition of self, or concious thought.

You wake up the unconcious man, he is able to think. You let the baby grow, it is able to think. How are those so different? The man cannot think, the baby cannot think; that's the definition of unconciousness. They are equal in their ability to interact and understand the world. I consider killing an unconcious man murder, and that murder is all the more heinous because there is no possibility of defense.

[Tinny]

I agree, especially by the 2nd and 3rd trimester I don't see how anyone can justify it (assuming there aren't any lethal health hazards to the mother). Considering some babies have survived abortions and have come out ok, I especially hate partial birth abortions. I'm not doing this just out of political bias, I hate capital punishment too. That's another matter though, just my 2 cents.

[edlib]

Well,.. I just spent the better part of an hour typing out a post, only to have the browser crash just as I hit the "Post" button.

I thought I copied all the text just in case, but it seems to have disappeared as well. Guess I should have pasted it to Notepad or something before I posted...

 

This wasn't the first time that has happened. I really should know better by now.

 

It's really too late to try to do it all again tonight.

 

Maybe in the morning, if I can remember all that I wrote and have enough time before work.

[TK-8252]

Samuel, your argument is a textbook example of a straw man.

 

You wake up the unconcious man, he is able to think. You let the baby grow, it is able to think. How are those so different?

 

Well, it takes about a second for a man to wake up. It takes oh, only about a few MONTHS for a fetus to turn into a baby. The wording of your post seems to imply that you are unable to distinguish between a baby and a fetus.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby

 

The man cannot think

 

No... he can think just fine.

 

the baby cannot think

 

A baby can think as well. A fetus, however, cannot. Thinking without a brain is pretty damn hard.

 

They are equal in their ability to interact and understand the world.

 

That would be incorrect. The man may have been unconcious because he got wasted at a party, or hit his head at a construction site. I have never seen a fetus at a party drinking, or working at a construction site.

 

It's interesting, though, how you say that the power to kill a living person is too much power for the state, yet it's somehow acceptable to give it to the arbitrary use of a single person, the mother?

 

Who said that's acceptable? Who ever said that?

 

Would you say all humans have a right to life, simply because they are human?

 

Nope... for example, the second that a human points a gun at a police officer, that human has lost their right to life. And I wouldn't say that a fetus has the right to life until it's capable of showing its humanity outside the womb, with or without support.

 

What other use is the law, if not used to protect the lives of those who live under the state's dominion?

 

A fetus does not live under the state's dominion.

 

This right to privacy is not specifically set forth in the constitution, while the right to life is. Why is privacy treated as if it is more important, especially when the right to life is the very first right mentioned in that document, supreme over the others that follow, supreme because all the rest of the rights mean nothing without it?

 

The idea of a "right to life" was originally thought up by John Locke, and it meant that the king's henchmen couldn't drag you into the street and behead you. They did that a lot back then...

 

You sound like this guy, a Dr. Fletcher: "Humans without some minimum of intelligence or mental capacity are not persons, no matter how many of these organs are active, no matter how spontaneous their living processes are." If you agree with that, than you also agree with a nice list that includes infanticide, murder of people who are not as intelligent as your arbitrarily decide, and unrequested euthanasia of, say, people with advanced Alzheimer's.

 

Nice straw man you set up there...

[Samuel Dravis]

The wording of your post seems to imply that you are unable to distinguish between a baby and a fetus.

Yes, I meant fetus instead of baby in that sentence, but you probably inferred that anyway. I find it interesting how you make a point about semantics though; as if it were an argument. For myself, I also found it interesting how you distinguished between 'fetus' and 'human' as if they were somehow seperate species (even RvW didn't do that). Point?

 

A baby can think as well. A fetus, however, cannot. Thinking without a brain is pretty damn hard.

Well, it takes about a second for a man to wake up. It takes oh, only about a few MONTHS for a fetus to turn into a baby.

If the man is in a coma for 9 months, shows signs of mental improvement during that time, then wakes up, is he not mentally equivalent to the fetus during that period? Or is he not human because of he does not have much activity going on during the first few months? Please describe to me the scientific way you decide when someone is not human based on their lack of brain activity.

 

No... he can think just fine.

He's obviously not doing much thinking, being unconcious and all. He's doing the exact same amount as our fetus; namely, none.

That would be incorrect. The man may have been unconcious because he got wasted at a party, or hit his head at a construction site. I have never seen a fetus at a party drinking, or working at a construction site.

At the time when the man is unconcious, they are equal in their ability to react to the world.

 

Who said that's acceptable? Who ever said that?

I believe the Supreme Court said it in Roe vs. Wade. Just because you do not choose to see the fetus as a living human, with all the rights that entails, does not make it other than it is. I am under no obligation to take your word that a fetus is not human as any kind of authority. Likewise, you don't have to listen to my arguments, but you'd better have some way of proving that you know exactly when a fetus becomes a baby, since you're the one that the burden of proof rests on. If you don't, then you are just avoiding thinking about the problem and giving me kneejerk responses to preserve your ideas, whether they are correct or not.

 

Nope... for example, the second that a human points a gun at a police officer, that human has lost their right to life.

So innocence is the deciding factor in giving a human the right to life. A fetus cannot possibly do anything with malice and therefore cannot be other than innocent. So a fetus has a right to life, provided it's human. Now, how do you know it isn't? See below.

 

And I wouldn't say that a fetus has the right to life until it's capable of showing its humanity outside the womb, with or without support.

Showing its 'humanity' - what do you mean by that? What sort of arbitrary limitations on human-ness are you deciding on here? Can you describe every requirement to me and show that there is no possibility of you being wrong? Because if you ever are, of course, you've just justified the murder of an innocent human being. Does that fall under 'acceptable risk'? You've stated you don't think it's an acceptable risk for the state to have the ability to execute anyone, even if their guilt is clearly proven, even with the protections of a jury. How does that add up here, with the fetus having no guilt whatsoever and you unable to determine the exact moment with confidence that a living human being obtains the natural rights that you and I now enjoy?

 

Also, would you support legislation that submits all abortions to significant peer review (similar to a jury) to minimize such risks? Why or why not, especially if your aim is, as you've stated, not to hurt babies? I can tell you right now that with my position on this issue, I can state categorically that not a single innocent human person will ever have the possibility of dying via abortion. Can you say the same about yours?

 

A fetus does not live under the state's dominion.

Everyone and everything on the soil of a soverign land is under the dominion of the government, by their choice, or in our case, their parent's choice. There are no exceptions.

 

The idea of a "right to life" was originally thought up by John Locke, and it meant that the king's henchmen couldn't drag you into the street and behead you. They did that a lot back then...

Thanks for the history lesson. I hope you don't think that murder is acceptable because no one has a right to life though.

 

Nice straw man you set up there...

He specifically said that the fetus was not human "Because there is no concious self in an embryo." The quote was directly related: "Humans without some minimum of intelligence or mental capacity are not persons, no matter how many of these organs are active, no matter how spontaneous their living processes are." ET did not say he cared if the cells were living, if the organs were functioning. The only thing he said that defined personal human life was conciousness. Define persons like that and you can decide that every single one of those options I listed is a viable option. If you think that's a straw man, you need to read the wiki article again.

[CapNColostomy]

That would be incorrect. The man may have been unconcious because he got wasted at a party, or hit his head at a construction site. I have never seen a fetus at a party drinking, or working at a construction site.

 

You're just not looking in the right places.

[ET Warrior]

If the man is in a coma for 9 months, shows signs of mental improvement during that time, then wakes up, is he not mentally equivalent to the fetus during that period?

No he isn't equivalent, because despite being in a coma, or being unconcious, a fully grown human always has brain activity. Once a fully grown human stops having any brain activity, they are declared brain-dead, and at that point I believe they should be allowed to die naturally. An unconcious man is still doing thinking, just not concious thinking. Why do you think we dream when we're asleep? Our brain can run just fine without us in direct control.

 

So yes, a person in the same cognitive capabilities of a fetus should be let to die, but that is another discussion for another time.

 

We are discussing the termination of a lifeform that has no brain. Nothing there that is capable of any cognitive functions. Yes, it will EVENTUALLY get there, and at that point I believe it is immoral to terminate it. But before that point all you are doing is getting rid of cells whose purpose was to eventually create a human being. Just like a womans menstruation cycle does every month.

 

"Humans without some minimum of intelligence or mental capacity are not persons, no matter how many of these organs are active, no matter how spontaneous their living processes are."

Sure, assuming you set the minimum value of mental capacity to zero, meaning a completely non-functioning brain. All that we are as people is defined by the memories and functions that occur in our brain. It doesn't matter if my heart keeps on beating, without a brain to run this body I would no longer exist.

 

I'm ignoring the straw-man arguments from now on, because I feel that my position has been adequately displayed, and I'm not going to defend it if it's taken out of context.

[Tinny]

I assume we all can agree that atleast by the third trimester when babies do have cognitive abilities we can say that abortion is wrong if it does not pose a lethal threat to its mother? The hard part I think is drawing the line to where people can agree that the unborn baby has sufficient cognitive abilities.

[Samuel Dravis]

No he isn't equivalent, because despite being in a coma, or being unconcious, a fully grown human always has brain activity. Once a fully grown human stops having any brain activity, they are declared brain-dead, and at that point I believe they should be allowed to die naturally. An unconcious man is still doing thinking, just not concious thinking. Why do you think we dream when we're asleep? Our brain can run just fine without us in direct control.

Brain activity can be stopped completely, that is, people can have a 'flat' EEG. These same people have lived through that. Having no thought in their brain does not constitute non-personhood, as clearly their concious self survives it, and you define personhood as the concious self. So now we understand each other: no measurable brain activity does not necessarily mean no person, just that you are unable to determine if they do have one at the time.

 

So yes, a person in the same cognitive capabilities of a fetus should be let to die, but that is another discussion for another time.

What happens when you know, barring rather unlikely circumstances, that the person will recover? Is it still ethical to kill them?

 

We are discussing the termination of a lifeform that has no brain. Nothing there that is capable of any cognitive functions. Yes, it will EVENTUALLY get there, and at that point I believe it is immoral to terminate it. But before that point all you are doing is getting rid of cells whose purpose was to eventually create a human being. Just like a womans menstruation cycle does every month.

Again, where do you decide that it has cognitive functions? A fetus does not just pop into having the ability to think; there is a natural progression of neurological activity that begins at conception and ends its growth only after a person is a fully mature adult, at which point it starts to decline. When it does decline, does that person become 'less' of a person to you?

 

Can you give me a concrete time, specifically, when any given fetus becomes a person?

 

All that we are as people is defined by the memories and functions that occur in our brain. It doesn't matter if my heart keeps on beating, without a brain to run this body I would no longer exist.

All of the necessary pieces are there. All of the cells are there, and alive, in the fetus. Unless you believe that there's some soul happily flying around somewhere, just waiting for a random time that a fetus needs a personality after it's grown up enough enough, there's no way you can state anyone is a 'person', because you just said that a healthy life is not a requirement for personhood. In fact, you said only the mind, the personality (the activity of the physical brain is irrelevent because of the point made above; that people are still people even if they have no brain activity at the moment) is important. So, if the personality is disconnected from the body in the way you apparently think, what is it then? How do you quantify when the body has a person in it and when it does not, especially when said personhood is intangible (given that it apparently exists for you outside of physical reality)?

 

Also, if you don't mind, I'd rather you not take this any further into the supernatural if you can help it; those arguments, by definition, can go nowhere.

 

I assume we all can agree that atleast by the third trimester when babies do have cognitive abilities we can say that abortion is wrong if it does not pose a lethal threat to its mother?

Every option should be taken to save both, and I mean every option. By that late time I don't think anyone disagrees with me when I say that they are both people and no one wants either to die.

 

I'm ignoring the straw-man arguments from now on, because I feel that my position has been adequately displayed, and I'm not going to defend it if it's taken out of context.

Taking something to its logical conclusion is not taking it out of context, nor does quoting someone else that says precisely what you said make my arguments strawmen. If you feel the argument you are making is not the one you're trying to get across, you might try rethinking what you're saying. As always, you're free to attack my arguments in the same way if you think you're up to it; I don't mind.

[Lady Jedi]

Clicky.

The South Dakota governor has signed the bill to ban abortion. Now it's down to the Supreme Court.

[TK-8252]

I assume we all can agree that atleast by the third trimester when babies do have cognitive abilities we can say that abortion is wrong if it does not pose a lethal threat to its mother? The hard part I think is drawing the line to where people can agree that the unborn baby has sufficient cognitive abilities.

 

Of course. I don't think anyone here approves of late-term abortion, or partial-birth abortion. The only circumstance where it would be acceptable is if the mother's life is in danger, or the baby will be born defective and will die shortly after birth anyway.

[ET Warrior]

Again, where do you decide that it has cognitive functions?

Can you give me a concrete time, specifically, when any given fetus becomes a person?

When there is a brain and a nervous system capable of performing some manner of cognitive function. I'm pretty sure that I've made that perfectly clear. I've reiterated it. You can bring in your artificial arguments about adults brain activity being stopped, but if a person goes more than a month with zero brain activity they are declared brain-dead. They aren't people anymore. They are a collection of organs that still function autonomously.

 

However, they're still more of a person than a fetus, because they still HAVE a brain that contains memories and parts of their person inside of it, even if they are incapable of accessing or using these memories. An early stage fetus doesn't have any of that. They are NOT comparable to an unconcious/coma induced/braindead grown person.

 

What happens when you know, barring rather unlikely circumstances, that the person will recover? Is it still ethical to kill them?

but that is another discussion for another time.

[ShadowTemplar]

@ Dravis: You're citing from a secondary source as if it were the primary source. That's bad scholarship. Please include the secondary source in your bibliography.

 

I believe that the fetus should be just as protected as the baby because the fetus is a baby at an earlier stage of life (just like a child is basically an adult at an earlier stage of development). I'm asking you to explain to me in some coherent terms why you believe they're different, and why you believe [only] one should be protected

 

Myelinated nerves.

 

A fetus has a heartbeat. That's got to count for something.

 

A pig has a heartbeat.

 

As for South Dakota, here is a nice article I just read. The second page had some quotes about how women feel after an abortion. Take it as you will....

 

The Mad Biologist has commented eloquently on this 'point' and others.

 

Personally, I dislike the use of the yuck-factor propaganda tactics that the anti-choice taliban enjoy so much. But I will use them in response to bull**** like the above quote.

 

It's the females problem for having sex irresponsibly. So the conquence is raising a baby. [My emphasis]

 

I think this speaks for itself.

 

 

And of course the baby will likely suffer and lead a life of misery, possibly getting pregnant at a young age themselves because their mother raised them the same way she was raised, and we're in a never-ending cycle. Hooray.

Are you denying personal responsibility? [...] If you think people are not in control of what they do, I'd like to inform you that you are wrong.

 

False dichotomy.

 

 

Just like menstruation and premature ejaculation.

Except that neither of those instances include another living being

 

I challenge you and all who argue like you to present a consistent definition of life that:

 

1. Includes foetuses (because otherwise your point would fall)
   
2. Includes all fully born humans that are not yet permanently deceased (alternatively, you may explain which fully born humans should not be considered alive, and why)
   
3. Includes as part of #2 comatose patients (alternatively, you may explain why a comatose patient should not be considered alive)
   
4. Excludes braindead patients (alternatively, you may explain why braindead patients should be considered living)
   
5. Excludes skin cells (alternatively, you may explain why skin cells should be considered living)
   
6. Excludes cancer tumors (alternatively, you may explain why cancer tumors should be considered living)
   
7. Excludes sperm and egg cells (because otherwise ET's argument would be valid)
   
8. Excludes viable stem cells (alternatively, you may explain why viable stem cells should not be considered living)
   

 

Such a definition is a necessary (but not sufficient) step towards making me take your 'point' seriously.

 

				Abortion-Related Deaths[2]
Year	Legal Abortions |	Legal	Illegal
		|
1972	?		|	24	41
1973 	615,831 	|	25 	21
1974 	763,476 	|	26 	7

 

So there was no significant benefit, health-wise, that came from legalizing abortions.

 

It is flat-out impossible to do proper statistical analysis based on such a truncated sample. But even a ballpark analysis shows that the numbers you quote don't support your point.

 

In '72 your numbers claim that 65 women died from abortions. In '74 your numbers claim that 33 women died from abortions. Assuming a conservative relative standard deviation of 1/sqrt(N), the numbers are still significantly (more than two standard deviations - on each figure) different.

 

Oh, and I've assumed here that the number of abortions is constant in time. That's obviously a very conservative assumption (unless you want to claim that there were at least as many abortions before it was decriminalised as after - which would defeat your entire line of reasoning).

 

So your numbers don't add up, pal. What else in your post is bogus?

[rccar328]

Of course. I don't think anyone here approves of late-term abortion, or partial-birth abortion. The only circumstance where it would be acceptable is if the mother's life is in danger, or the baby will be born defective and will die shortly after birth anyway.

But that's part of the problem - many laws restricting abortions that have been challenged over the years include provisions for abortions when the mother's life is threatened...but that's not enough for pro-abortionists. They want provisions for the health of the mother, which basically renders any legislation restricting abortion entirely meaningless - all a doctor has to do is say that the mother's 'mental health' would be threatened if she had the baby...which could really mean anything, and doesn't really take into account the long-term mental trauma that could occur should the mother have the abortion.

 

Also, studies are showing that abortions have negative effects on surviving siblings...and, according to the referenced article, may not be the best thing for victims of rape or incest, either.

 

Personally, I dislike the use of the yuck-factor propaganda tactics that the anti-choice taliban enjoy so much. But I will use them in response to bull**** like the above quote.

Or maybe pro-life people use the yuck-factor because abortion is a horrid, disgusting thing, and not as rosey and nice as you seem to think.

[ShadowTemplar]

Moral relativism is absolutely useless making objective value judgements, [emphasis mine][/Quote]

 

Woah, that's profound reasoning! [/stinging sarcasm]

 

And the problem with the death penalty is that it gives the government too much power. The power to end a living breathing person's life in something other than self-defense. Let's face it: as long as there is a death penalty, innocent people will be executed. The justice system is part of the government and therefore prone to failure.[/Quote]

For what it's worth, I agree that the death penalty should not be around. It's interesting, though, how you say that the power to kill a living person is too much power for the state, yet it's somehow acceptable to give it to the arbitrary use of a single person, the mother?[/Quote]

 

Because he quarrels with your definition of 'person'.

 

"A moment after conception the genetic blueprint is complete. We have our blood type, our fingerprints, the sex is determined at the moment of conception. We know it is life. What kind of life is it? According to the laws of biogenesis, all life comes from preexisting life. Each species reproduces after its own kind. So human beings can only reproduce other human beings. [my emphasis]"

 

~ Kathy Ireland, appearing on Bill Maher's television show Politically Incorrect, 2/28/2000[/Quote]

 

A bottle of beer says she's a creationut or IDiot. Why should we take a representative of the American Taliban seriously? More to the point, why did you take her seriously and where did you find that quote? It most certainly wasn't in any of the scholarly works you claim to be citing. I restate my request for you to provide us with the secondary source that you really cite, rather than a copy of its bibliography (that may or may not bear any resemblance to reality).

 

Oh, and she doesn't know the first thing about human reproductive biology, either. Fingerprints aren't genetically determined. She's nothing but a Reich-wing hack.

 

A fetus has no awareness, no consciousness, no feeling, no independence, no thought, and no ability to survive outside the womb.[/Quote]

I gather it is ok to murder someone you've just knocked out then, because he has no awareness, no conciousness, no feeling, no independence, no thought, no ability to survive unless you let him. Yeah. Why are those cases not treated the same?[/Quote]

 

Myelinated nerves.

 

I think thats progress....abortion is technically murder. It's the females problem for having sex irresponsibly. So the conquence is raising a baby.[/Quote]

It's both parties' problem.[/Quote]

 

Yeah, right. And pigs fly.

 

The basic principle is that the state doesn't have the right to interfere with what is going on inside your body... relax that principle and you open yourself up to a whole heap of trouble...[/Quote]

Abortion is legal now because of the right to privacy, not because of some made-up restriction on interference with citizen's bodies[/Quote]

 

Dodging the issue.

 

You betcha we can, because those cells have absolutely no sense of awareness, no idea of self, no conciousness at all. There is no sense of loss to the cell, it isn't aware that it's dying.[/Quote]

You sound like a Dr. Joseph Fletcher, who argues in his book Humanhood: "Humans without some minimum of intelligence or mental capacity are not persons, no matter how many of these organs are active, no matter how spontaneous their living processes are."[/Quote]

 

 

I paraphrase the late, lamented WinAce: Often, these pictures are the only reply worth posting.

 

Oh, and by the way, I wish to restate my request that you provide the rest of us with your full bibliography.

[Samuel Dravis]

When there is a brain and a nervous system capable of performing some manner of cognitive function. I'm pretty sure that I've made that perfectly clear. I've reiterated it. You can bring in your artificial arguments about adults brain activity being stopped, but if a person goes more than a month with zero brain activity they are declared brain-dead. They aren't people anymore. They are a collection of organs that still function autonomously.

My point was that your positions were contradictory. You aren't listening: you said that conciousness is the determining factor for personhood. Then you said that personhood is not the determining factor in conciousness. Then you, ah, 'explained' that there is nothing outside of the material realm that encompasses conciousness, contradicting your previous statements and essentially saying that no one is a person, and ergo, no one has any rights whatsoever. I disagree with you, and think most people would.

 

However, they're still more of a person than a fetus, because they still HAVE a brain that contains memories and parts of their person inside of it, even if they are incapable of accessing or using these memories. An early stage fetus doesn't have any of that. They are NOT comparable to an unconcious/coma induced/braindead grown person.

Ok. Mind explaining when you determine, scientifically, they have enough nuerons for you to consider them neurologically active? 1? 2? Forty million? You don't know enough to make that decision.

 

False dichotomy.

So people have a some sort of halfway ability to make their own independent decisions? What? Give some examples if you expect people to understand what you're trying to say. "No, you're wrong" is not a helpful reply.

 

Dodging the issue.

Explain. If you're going to reply, then at least do it by backing up your statements.

 

I've got class now so I won't be able to finish this, but I will respond to your other points later.

[ShadowTemplar]

You wake up the unconcious man, he is able to think. You let the baby grow, it is able to think. How are those so different?

 

Myelinated nerves.

 

I agree, especially by the 2nd and 3rd trimester I don't see how anyone can justify it (assuming there aren't any lethal health hazards to the mother).

 

Tjahbom, tjahbom... What Does 'Life of the Mother' Really Mean?

 

I am under no obligation to take your word that a fetus is not human as any kind of authority. Likewise, you don't have to listen to my arguments, but you'd better have some way of proving that you know exactly when a fetus becomes a baby, since you're the one that the burden of proof rests on.

 

Quite the contrary. In a previous post of mine, I made a little list of constraints that a definition of 'living human being' would have to obey in order to make sense. Until and unless you or anyone else provides a consistent definition obeying these constraints, the definition is purely political. And it is you who fail to acknowledge that defining it to be - say - sixth week of gestation is a legitimate political decision.

 

If you don't, then you are just avoiding thinking about the problem and giving me kneejerk responses to preserve your ideas, whether they are correct or not.

 

Says the guy who posts material verbatim and unattributed from anti-choice websites, and who forges his bibliography.

 

 

He specifically said that the fetus was not human "Because there is no concious self in an embryo." The quote was directly related: "Humans without some minimum of intelligence or mental capacity are not persons, no matter how many of these organs are active, no matter how spontaneous their living processes are."

 

"He specifically said that he believed in God and that 'all morality is derived from God'. The quote was directly related: "Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet."

[TK-8252]

Or maybe pro-life people use the yuck-factor because abortion is a horrid, disgusting thing, and not as rosey and nice as you seem to think.

 

So is war.

[ShadowTemplar]

Brain activity can be stopped completely, that is, people can have a 'flat' EEG [and still survive].

 

Not for a week.

 

So yes, a person in the same cognitive capabilities of a fetus should be let to die, but that is another discussion for another time.

What happens when you know, barring rather unlikely circumstances, that the person will recover? Is it still ethical to kill them?

 

A contrieved example that has yet to happen. But if we are to be consistent, then we should let those who pay for the treatment decide. If the government pays for the treatment, then it is a political decision, if the government doesn't want to pay for it, then it's none of its business.

 

A fetus does not just pop into having the ability to think; there is a natural progression of neurological activity that begins at conception

 

Maybe I should get into the habit of counting the mistakes and misrepresentations I catch you making. Is this the third or the fourth in this thread?

 

Myelination of the nerve fibres begins in the third month, with the first myelination occurring in the cranial nerves that arise from the midbrain and medulla oblongata. The ventricular system (which allows the flow of cerebrospinal fluid throughout the brain and spinal cord) is now largely complete.

 

Found here

 

And this tells you why myelination is important. In point of fact, the central nervous system in all animals of 'higher' order than amphibians is made up of myelinated nerves.

 

I tire of this exercise. I'll be back when you've adressed my most important points:

 

1. Why do you provide us only with a truncated biography, and not your full list?
   
2. Why do you cut and paste verbatim from fundie websites without providing reference or attribution?
   
3. Why do you not provide us with a consistent definition of 'living human' that obeys the criteria I outlined previously?
   
4. Why do you claim - untruthfully - that there was no significant public health benefit from legalising abortions, when in fact the very numbers you yourself provided indicate otherwise (even using very conservative assumptions)?
   

 

Oh, I'll make one final remark, since you explicitly asked me for an explanation:

 

ET stated that you have no right to impose your extremist 'moral' code on everyone else. Then you asked whether he thought it appropriate for him to impose his moral code of not mugging people in the streets on muggers. And I pointed out that it was a false dichotomy, since it does not follow that lack of an absolutist moral code means total lack of a moral code.

 

One of the most important facts of life is that ethics can never be completely consistent, since each decision is based on an individual judgement call. Some people choose to deposit their ethics with an absolutist moral code, but it would be a mistake to assume that that necessarily makes their ethics consistent.

 

I would even argue that that is an immoral choice to make, since it marks a refusal to make an independent judgement - in effect it deposits your critical thinking with whatever authority you choose to take your absolutist moral code from.

 

Now I'm off to bed.

 

Incidentially, the last three paragraphs were written at 2 AM, so they may not make a lot of sense...

[ET Warrior]

My point was that your positions were contradictory. You aren't listening: you said that conciousness is the determining factor for personhood. Then you said that personhood is not the determining factor in conciousness. Then you, ah, 'explained' that there is nothing outside of the material realm that encompasses conciousness, contradicting your previous statements and essentially saying that no one is a person, and ergo, no one has any rights whatsoever.

You have quite clearly missed the mark on what exactly my argument is. You are putting words in my mouth, and assuming things that I never stated. I didn't say being currently concious makes someone a person. I said having the cognitive capability of concious thought is what makes a person. I wasn't not a person last night while I was sleeping, but if you pulled my brain out of my head and kept the rest of my body alive on life-support I would be not a person. I have no idea where you are getting the idea that I at any point contraticted myself and deduced that nobody is a person.

[Samuel Dravis]

"He specifically said that he believed in God and that 'all morality is derived from God'. The quote was directly related: "Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet."

Your quote is not equivalent. Mine was basically a paraphrase of ET's words by someone else, but yours says

 

'He believes in god and that all morality is derived from god" == "Kill them all, god knows his own."

 

Those sentences are not even basically the same, they merely deal with related subjects. I guess I should have said that mine were equivalent in the first place to avoid you taking advantage of that to make an unrelated (to this specific discussion) jab at religion.

 

Woah, that's profound reasoning! [/stinging sarcasm]

It really is amazing how many people think they can make absolute judgments and still pretend to be morally relative. I showed that edlib was either not morally relative or that his opinions didn't matter because they had no value in relation to other people. He said that everyone's belief should be respected and all beliefs are of equal value and cannot be denied. I deny that statement, but according to him, my belief is valid. Funny thing is, my statement can't be both valid and invalid at the same time; it's either one or the other. Therefore edlib's proposition that everyone's beliefs are equal is absurd, and you should realize that.

 

A bottle of beer says she's a creationut or IDiot. Why should we take a representative of the American Taliban seriously?

If you are talking of this page, I do not agree with a single thing said on there, save one: "Those who control the access to the minds of children will set the agenda for the future of the nation and the future of the western world."

 

That's the truth, and I'm sure both you and I can agree on it.

 

Speaking of religion, may I remind you that I have never once brought up any sort of metaphysical explanation for my ideas in this thread? I replied to ET's apparent thought that there is a soul in people giving them personality, but I didn't start the discussion. So, let's keep religion out of this thread, whether you're bashing it or advocating it. It's irrelevant to this debate, and my position as well.

 

More to the point, why did you take her seriously and where did you find that quote?

Why should I not take her seriously? She is able to make her own decision as to what she believes, is she not? Or do you only think that persons who agree with you are entitled to judge what is correct?

 

Source. My original source misquoted her, it seems, and she turns out not to be a right wing hack. I'm sorry for that and I will check them more carefully in the future. My point made with it still stands, however -

 

True: "At the moment of conception, a life starts. And this life has its own unique set of DNA, which contains a blueprint for the whole genetic makeup. The sex is determined. We know there's a life because it's growing and changing."

 

True: "What kind of life is it? Each species reproduces after its own kind. So human beings can only reproduce other human beings."

 

A fetus is a human life, unlike what TK said, and that addresses this quote too:

 

Quite the contrary. In a previous post of mine, I made a little list of constraints that a definition of 'living human being' would have to obey in order to make sense. Until and unless you or anyone else provides a consistent definition obeying these constraints, the definition is purely political. And it is you who fail to acknowledge that defining it to be - say - sixth week of gestation is a legitimate political decision.

 

"At the moment of conception, a life starts. And this life has its own unique set of DNA, which contains a blueprint for the whole genetic makeup. The sex is determined. We know there's a life because it's growing and changing."

 

Yes, it's a life. It's human life. The Roe vs. Wade decision did not argue that it was not human life because that arguement is untenable. Rather, they decided what 'personhood' means, which is very different from declaring that something is not human life.

 

Why do you think that you do not need to define the time when cognitive ability starts, when that is the very basis of your judgment as to whether or not the fetus is enough of a person to be spared the axe? You must define it, and you must prove that you're justified in your definition, because the alternative is that you have a distinct possibility that you are killing a being, an innocent person, that has the right to life. If you're ok with that, fine. But you're not going to have a bunch of friends in that club, I assure you.

 

If you cannot define the start of said abilities so they are not so vague as to allow the murder of individuals (which is already illegal), the state has the obligation to outlaw abortions. The primary purpose of the state is to protect those under it, and unless you can give a concrete definition of exactly when life obtains personhood and justify it to the extent there is no doubt, abortions should be outlawed.

 

No, I don't have to prove that a fetus is a person. I just have to prove that you could be wrong. My position is very safe; I will never have supported infanticide, whether it is or not. Your position is not safe, and I do expect you to prove without doubt that there will be no harm to innocents because of your actions. I expect that out of you because you say you do not wish to impose your views on other people. I expect that out of you as human beings who care about the wellbeing of others around them. I expect that out of you because, without that action on your part, you prove you are a parasite on the human race, a destructive being who cares nothing for other's rights, even to the simple point of finding out what they are, and has no qualms about imposing your will on the unwilling.

 

A contrieved example that has yet to happen. But if we are to be consistent, then we should let those who pay for the treatment decide. If the government pays for the treatment, then it is a political decision, if the government doesn't want to pay for it, then it's none of its business.

You did not answer the question. Is it ethical to kill them? You can answer that, so do it.

 

Maybe I should get into the habit of counting the mistakes and misrepresentations I catch you making. Is this the third or the fourth in this thread?

So there are no neurons in the fetus at all? Absolutely no neurological activity whatsoever?

 

Yeah, right. And pigs fly.

Whether or not they are held accountable, they are accountable.

 

It most certainly wasn't in any of the scholarly works you claim to be citing.

I didn't cite her other than as was in my quote. All my citations are noted by a number in brackets, like so: [1].

 

You have quite clearly missed the mark on what exactly my argument is. You are putting words in my mouth, and assuming things that I never stated. I didn't say being currently concious makes someone a person. I said having the cognitive capability of concious thought is what makes a person. I wasn't not a person last night while I was sleeping, but if you pulled my brain out of my head and kept the rest of my body alive on life-support I would be not a person. I have no idea where you are getting the idea that I at any point contraticted myself and deduced that nobody is a person.

Because you said it.

 

"[When does a fetus become a person?] When there is a brain and a nervous system capable of performing some manner of cognitive function."

 

"We are discussing the termination of a lifeform that has no brain. Nothing there that is capable of any cognitive functions."

 

"All that we are as people is defined by the memories and functions that occur in our brain. It doesn't matter if my heart keeps on beating, without a brain to run this body I would no longer exist."

 

Defined by the memories and functions of the brain, eh? I then showed you that even a temporary flat EEG does not mean a person is not still a person, unless you hold your position: remember, you define the person as only the sum of their parts - if there's no function than there is no person, even if that state is temporary. I doubt many would agree with you on that given the same example.

 

Of course, right after that you said that they are still a person even if they do have a flat EEG temporarily, contradicting yourself and setting up the supposition that you may believe in souls or whatever because you removed the definition of personhood from the function of the brain.

 

1. Person = brain function

2. Person who has no brain function temporarily = not a person by your above definition

3.Then you say they those without brain function temporarily = person

4. Assuming you meant that they somehow retain personhood even if they are effectively braindead at the moment, and since that contradicts with your original definition, there must be some other way that the personhood is preserved, i.e, a soul, because that's the only thing that would answer your contradiction and not change the material situation. Then, of course, you deny the possibility of the soul, and therefore no one is a person because no one can be a person since there are no such things as souls. It's very easy to see where I got it from.

 

When there is a brain and a nervous system capable of performing some manner of cognitive function.

Cognition includes perception. Since you define personhood as cognitive functions, do you propose that every single fetus be extensively tested for pain or any other responses before they are aborted? Even the slightest response is a response, and that would make them people. Remember that science is not perfect as well, and we could be missing something anyway simply due to the level of our technology and understanding.

 

Again, can you tell me a specific time that a fetus begins to percieve anything? I've asked this quite a few times, but no one seems to be able to give me a clear, concrete answer; no time after fertilization that can be put into a clear law.

 

Also:

 

1. Since you claim that everything is explainable by physics, what physics do you mean? Our current physics? Obviously that's false, because science is not in the business of objective truth, it's in the business of what seems like the best truth at the time. Historically this is true, and it will continue to be the true. Theories have been disproven and will continue to be.

 

2. Since you can't use our current physics to explain everything, do you propose that there is some sort of 'perfect' physics that explains it? But that's a circular argument - all phenomena are explainable by physics because physics is what explains all phenomena. That doesn't sound like a very useful way to explain things to me.

 

I restate my request for you to provide us with the secondary source that you really cite, rather than a copy of its bibliography (that may or may not bear any resemblance to reality).

 

Oh, and by the way, I wish to restate my request that you provide the rest of us with your full bibliography.

Yes, yes, hold on. I will do it tomorrow, as well as answering the rest. It's late.