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I'm Pro-Life: Change My Mind

Chicken and egg?

Without humans, human society does not exist.
LOL Perfect! No objective view based on science would think that matters.

In science, in nature, it doesnt. Species come and go.
 
So Mother Teresa was a War Criminal?

You're funny.
No, very true. Mother theresa was no saint. Yet you ignore her actions based on a morality that profited only herself while making thousands suffer and die. An example of what happens when a person like theresa believes in a fixed universal morality.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/lif...t-a-saint-canadian-study-says/article9317551/

In a study to be published this month in Religieuses, a French-language journal of studies in religion and sciences, they suggest the nun's approach to caring for the sick was to glorify human suffering instead of relieving it.

Mother Teresa was lavish with her prayers, but penny-pinching with the wealth amassed by her foundation, .......But according to Larivée and colleagues, the Vatican turned a blind eye to Mother Teresa's "rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding … abortion, contraception and divorce.".......The study authors note that doctors visiting many of the 517 "homes for the dying" run by Mother Teresa observed unhygienic conditions and a shortage of actual care, food and painkillers. Lack of funds were no explanation, since Mother Teresa's order of the Missionaries of Charity had raised hundreds of millions in aid money. When the nun herself was in need of medical treatment, "she received it in a modern American hospital," they point out.
 
Again I believe we have been here before. Your understanding of the word "value" needs some work. While on the one hand the ideal of, " Neither life is preeminent and both are valuable," is a nice sentiment to cling to when things go well. It does not work that way in real life. A woman deciding to have an abortion has put her own right to live her life against an embryo having a right to life. Life can not be preeminent and valuable when one life decides over another.

When you say, "Neither life is preeminent and both are valuable." The hidden premise there is that the life a woman lives is no more valuable than potential life a fetus might live.

That premise is not hidden in any way. THAT is EXACTLY what I posted. The two lives' value are thought to be equal in the estimates of many of the folks on the Pro-Life side of the debate.

Contrary to this, those on the Pro-Choice side of the debate, as you imply in your post, completely dismiss any value that may be assigned regarding the life of the unborn.

By my estimate, any human who lives long enough continues to "get better" in various ways physically through about age 30 or so assuming no horrible stuff happening. Then the physical decline starts.

By the simple, myopically applied estimate of relative value measured exclusively on physical maturity, any person younger than age 30 could be reasonably "aborted" since they have not yet reached their physical apogee.

An individual's development also includes intellect and emotion and relationships, experience and on and on. Many qualities seem to continue to improve in many even when a guy can no longer "run the floor".

On the individual level only, and there are myriad levels from which this consideration is made, abortion is the exercise a more powerful entity unilaterally dictating an action over a less powerful entity.

Your statement, "Life can not be preeminent and valuable when one life decides over another" seems to argue against the pro-choice position. Was that your intention?

Pro-Choice proponents' support is foundationally based on the recognition that one life must be recognized as preeminent over another.
 
I have never seen a thread framed that way result in anything but its creator announcing that each participating poster has presented an insufficient argument, then acting like this mean the OP starting position must be correct.
It's an invitation to rationalize your position.
If the only way that's of any value to you is if you actually change someone's mind then I think you're in the wrong place.

We sometimes as people deal with something without even thinking about why. And if you have to rationalize your position maybe you'll find that your position is not something you really believe in but you just holding that position because that's what your mother taught you or something that happened to you and your past or whatever.

You're participation in it is more about you than the op.

If you you believe your vision is correct and you have rational reason to hold it then maybe you'll change someone else's mind.

I don't know why you wouldn't want to do that.
 
Chicken and egg - is fairly mechanical, with all due respect to poultry. Under normal circumstances, an egg will hatch out into a chick, which will know most of what it needs to know as instinct.

human society - creates humans, strange as that sounds. Without a matrix of roles & expectations, learned behaviors, a human baby wouldn't get very far on its own. & so we all owe a tremendous debt to the first families or tribes - or whatever unit it was that started the ascent of man. The plasticity of human cognition explains why it takes so long to prepare a baby for adulthood, plus there's a lot to learn by now.

So which came first? Humans or human society?

You are saying that a human baby must be prepared for adulthood. Without a society of some sort, how does this preparation occur?

Without the humans to exist within a human society, how could the society rise? Without the society to prep the babies for adulthood, how do the humans survive to create and maintain the society?

Humans can't exist outside of society and society cannot exist without the surviving humans within it. How can society exist if humans could not survive long enough to create it?

So which came first? The humans or the human society? Of course, the answer is obvious. As humans we instinctively create societies.

From our first actions and reactions, we value being valued and derive our self estimates from the treatment we receive from those around us. If there is more than one human anywhere, there is a society.

If there is no society, there is no humanity.
 
When you present a specific thought I'll be glad to attack it. Meanwhile brush your teeth and go back to contemplating your navel.

Probably a display of the root of the problem.
 
No, very true. Mother theresa was no saint. Yet you ignore her actions based on a morality that profited only herself while making thousands suffer and die. An example of what happens when a person like theresa believes in a fixed universal morality.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/lif...t-a-saint-canadian-study-says/article9317551/

Actually, quite literally, Mother Teresa is a Saint. Actually, according to the Catholic faith, all of the dead who reside in heaven are Saints, but there are some recognized by the Pope on Earth.

These folks recognized by the elites of the Catholic Church are in something akin to the Hall of Fame.

I don't know if other religions call the dead "saints" or just "the dead".

I find it interesting that we are told repeatedly that our American Health Care system is sub standard compared to almost anywhere else.

However, to illustrate the unfair advantages enjoyed by "The Rich" worldwide, when the best care in the world is sought, the search starts and ends in the US.
 
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So which came first? Humans or human society?

You are saying that a human baby must be prepared for adulthood. Without a society of some sort, how does this preparation occur?

Without the humans to exist within a human society, how could the society rise? Without the society to prep the babies for adulthood, how do the humans survive to create and maintain the society?

Humans can't exist outside of society and society cannot exist without the surviving humans within it. How can society exist if humans could not survive long enough to create it?

So which came first? The humans or the human society? Of course, the answer is obvious. As humans we instinctively create societies.

From our first actions and reactions, we value being valued and derive our self estimates from the treatment we receive from those around us. If there is more than one human anywhere, there is a society.

If there is no society, there is no humanity.

The direct answer is that primate society - troops, bands, etc. predate human society - perforce, because our primate cousins were here first. & a good thing, because primate behavior underlies a lot of human interactions.

For details on the theory, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_society - specially Sociobiological theories.
 
That premise is not hidden in any way. THAT is EXACTLY what I posted. The two lives' value are thought to be equal in the estimates of many of the folks on the Pro-Life side of the debate.

Contrary to this, those on the Pro-Choice side of the debate, as you imply in your post, completely dismiss any value that may be assigned regarding the life of the unborn.

By my estimate, any human who lives long enough continues to "get better" in various ways physically through about age 30 or so assuming no horrible stuff happening. Then the physical decline starts.

By the simple, myopically applied estimate of relative value measured exclusively on physical maturity, any person younger than age 30 could be reasonably "aborted" since they have not yet reached their physical apogee.

An individual's development also includes intellect and emotion and relationships, experience and on and on. Many qualities seem to continue to improve in many even when a guy can no longer "run the floor".

On the individual level only, and there are myriad levels from which this consideration is made, abortion is the exercise a more powerful entity unilaterally dictating an action over a less powerful entity.

Your statement, "Life can not be preeminent and valuable when one life decides over another" seems to argue against the pro-choice position. Was that your intention?

Pro-Choice proponents' support is foundationally based on the recognition that one life must be recognized as preeminent over another.

Your argument again is one for being alive rather than living a life. Yet you try to pretend these two are equal. They can be in hypothetical discussion. They are not in reality.

My words do not contradict the pro choice stance. When we take away all the lies the anti abortion crowd makes up about us then the simple truth of abortion is that a woman gets to decide what happens to her body is the right that has more value than a potential imaginary person has.
 
Actually, quite literally, Mother Teresa is a Saint. Actually, according to the Catholic faith, all of the dead who reside in heaven are Saints, but there are some recognized by the Pope on Earth.

These folks recognized by the elites of the Catholic Church are in something akin to the Hall of Fame.

I don't know if other religions call the dead "saints" or just "the dead".

I find it interesting that we are told repeatedly that our American Health Care system is sub standard compared to almost anywhere else.

However, to illustrate the unfair advantages enjoyed by "The Rich" worldwide, when the best care in the world is sought, the search starts and ends in the US.
Amusing what you think of theresa. That bitch is rotting in hell not a saint in heaven no matter what lies the vatican tells.
By the very beliefs and superstitions that the roman catholic church upholds theresa must be in hell because she was an atheist. Had anyone else said that, the priests would have advised them there would be no heaven for them.
https://time.com/4126238/mother-teresas-crisis-of-faith/
A new, innocuously titled book, Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light (Doubleday), consisting primarily of correspondence between Teresa and her confessors and superiors over a period of 66 years, provides the spiritual counterpoint to a life known mostly through its works. The letters, many of them preserved against her wishes (she had requested that they be destroyed but was overruled by her church), reveal that for the last nearly half-century of her life she felt no presence of God whatsoever–or, as the book’s compiler and editor, the Rev. Brian Kolodiejchuk, writes, “neither in her heart or in the eucharist.”

You are confusing a health care system which is substandard with actual medical expertise and technology which is first class.
 
The direct answer is that primate society - troops, bands, etc. predate human society - perforce, because our primate cousins were here first. & a good thing, because primate behavior underlies a lot of human interactions.

For details on the theory, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_society - specially Sociobiological theories.

So humans CANNOT EXIST without society?
 
Your argument again is one for being alive rather than living a life. Yet you try to pretend these two are equal. They can be in hypothetical discussion. They are not in reality.

My words do not contradict the pro choice stance. When we take away all the lies the anti abortion crowd makes up about us then the simple truth of abortion is that a woman gets to decide what happens to her body is the right that has more value than a potential imaginary person has.

You are presenting the legal argument and that is all well and good, but has nothing at all to do with whether or not an unborn human is a human being.

The legal definition is a thing that helps to promote expedient convenience in our society. It has absolutely nothing to do with biology or whether or not a human being is human in the womb or not.

I was recently told that during our development in the womb, we become specifically Human when the number of cells in our bodies exceed 512. Cells divide at that stage of development at the rate of about one division every 12 hours.

By that measure, we are specifically Human in the womb about 4 days after conception, usually before the mother is absolutely certain that she's pregnant.

Regardless of the legal rights claimed with those who have a voice to exert power over those who do not have a voice, ANOTHER fact of the matter is that the unborn are human and are alive.
 
Amusing what you think of theresa. That bitch is rotting in hell not a saint in heaven no matter what lies the vatican tells.
By the very beliefs and superstitions that the roman catholic church upholds theresa must be in hell because she was an atheist. Had anyone else said that, the priests would have advised them there would be no heaven for them.
https://time.com/4126238/mother-teresas-crisis-of-faith/


You are confusing a health care system which is substandard with actual medical expertise and technology which is first class.

I will need to keep in mind that you have knowledge of the afterlife and the disposition of souls of the departed.

Do you hold a title based on credentials or is your knowledge of the divine more of an avocation?

Jesus? Jesus Christ? Is that you?

Our health care system has produced an outcome that is recognized as the best health care system in the world.

That you seem prone to judge it based on parameters defined for you by propagandists with overriding political motivations is interesting.

When discussing the care afforded to Covid Victims, it was discussed on this board that the number of ICU Beds available per person in the US is better than in any country anywhere else in the world.

Same was true of almost anything else you might care to measure. On a per person count, we have the finest equipment in the greatest quantities to serve the greatest numbers delivering the best outcomes among all nations in the world.

Sounds like a pretty good system to me.
 
So humans CANNOT EXIST without society?
Human values are essentially formed in society. For instance, prisoners placed in isolation deteriorate mentally & psychologically fairly quickly. That's one indicator.

A person placed in an isolation tank for any extended period of time will begin to hallucinate in short order.

Children who grow up in the wild often miss developmental windows - they may not learn speech, nor the fine hand-eye motor control necessary for writing, for instance.
 
I will need to keep in mind that you have knowledge of the afterlife and the disposition of souls of the departed.

Do you hold a title based on credentials or is your knowledge of the divine more of an avocation?

Jesus? Jesus Christ? Is that you?

Our health care system has produced an outcome that is recognized as the best health care system in the world.

That you seem prone to judge it based on parameters defined for you by propagandists with overriding political motivations is interesting.

When discussing the care afforded to Covid Victims, it was discussed on this board that the number of ICU Beds available per person in the US is better than in any country anywhere else in the world.

Same was true of almost anything else you might care to measure. On a per person count, we have the finest equipment in the greatest quantities to serve the greatest numbers delivering the best outcomes among all nations in the world.

Sounds like a pretty good system to me.


Please cite your source. And remember that you most likely have one of the highest numbers of COVID cases per population than any other country.
 
You are presenting the legal argument and that is all well and good, but has nothing at all to do with whether or not an unborn human is a human being.

The legal definition is a thing that helps to promote expedient convenience in our society. It has absolutely nothing to do with biology or whether or not a human being is human in the womb or not.

I was recently told that during our development in the womb, we become specifically Human when the number of cells in our bodies exceed 512. Cells divide at that stage of development at the rate of about one division every 12 hours.

By that measure, we are specifically Human in the womb about 4 days after conception, usually before the mother is absolutely certain that she's pregnant.

Regardless of the legal rights claimed with those who have a voice to exert power over those who do not have a voice, ANOTHER fact of the matter is that the unborn are human and are alive.
Documents I jhave already given a link to showed you that being human is part of the legal status of the unborn .

How amusing, you have heard that up to a certain point the fetus is not specifically human. So what is it until then?

No one questions they are alive. As I said the weaknesss of your position is that you think a potential imaginary life is equal to an actual living woman. Or that she has no more worth than a something you now say comes from a non human source.
 
I will need to keep in mind that you have knowledge of the afterlife and the disposition of souls of the departed.

Do you hold a title based on credentials or is your knowledge of the divine more of an avocation?

Jesus? Jesus Christ? Is that you?

Our health care system has produced an outcome that is recognized as the best health care system in the world.

That you seem prone to judge it based on parameters defined for you by propagandists with overriding political motivations is interesting.

When discussing the care afforded to Covid Victims, it was discussed on this board that the number of ICU Beds available per person in the US is better than in any country anywhere else in the world.

Same was true of almost anything else you might care to measure. On a per person count, we have the finest equipment in the greatest quantities to serve the greatest numbers delivering the best outcomes among all nations in the world.

Sounds like a pretty good system to me.
No, what america has is the best medical expertise and equipment in the world. What they also have is one of the worst health care system in the world where a person can beggar his whole family for a cure.

Yes you have the beds and due to the stupidity of the american people and the failure of your government you also have all those beds filled to capacity. But your health system does not seve the greater number. They serve the wealthy and throw table scraps at the poor.

It would soun good to you but then you have made it clear that you do not understand how your health system actually works.

And no I am an atheist and an appeal to your imaginary friend is more an annoyance than anything else.
 
Human values are essentially formed in society. For instance, prisoners placed in isolation deteriorate mentally & psychologically fairly quickly. That's one indicator.

A person placed in an isolation tank for any extended period of time will begin to hallucinate in short order.

Children who grow up in the wild often miss developmental windows - they may not learn speech, nor the fine hand-eye motor control necessary for writing, for instance.

So, again, which came first? the Human or the Human society?

To me it seems like an complimentary evolution. Maybe the wrong word... Cooperative and concurrent?

As individuals, with our weak nails and tiny teeth, we're not particularly threatening. However, we RARELY act as individuals.

For my part, I don't know that I have EVER acted independently of all other humans.

Separating humans from society, to me, is separating humans from humanity.
 
So, again, which came first? the Human or the Human society?

...
Sure, here you go:

The direct answer is that primate society - troops, bands, etc. predate human society - perforce, because our primate cousins were here first. & a good thing, because primate behavior underlies a lot of human interactions.

For details on the theory, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_society - specially Sociobiological theories.
 
Please cite your source. And remember that you most likely have one of the highest numbers of COVID cases per population than any other country.

Our healthcare system pays hospitals a bonus to treat Covid patients.

In our country, people who were fatally injured in car accidents have been included as covid deaths.

On the good side of things, the US has, apparently, eradicated the flu and the common cold. Amazing that one virus kills another virus. At least politically.

In the UK, the doctors and hospitals there were adding multiple patients to individual respirators. I think in Italy as well. In the US, we didn't run out.

I have tracked things far more closely in Indiana since that's where I live. Here, we NEVER ran out of ICU beds or respirators.

Having the facilities and capabilities to count the cases and the honesty to do so accurately is a part of our system here.

In China, they recorded about 4300 deaths altogether through a month earlier this year. Laughably inaccurate.

International measurements using inconsistent standards and methods cannot be compared in any useful way. Propaganda can be based on it, though.
 
Documents I jhave already given a link to showed you that being human is part of the legal status of the unborn .

How amusing, you have heard that up to a certain point the fetus is not specifically human. So what is it until then?

No one questions they are alive. As I said the weaknesss of your position is that you think a potential imaginary life is equal to an actual living woman. Or that she has no more worth than a something you now say comes from a non human source.

Not non-human. Just not specifically human. No real source from this besides a conversation at a dinner party.

512 cells seemed like an interesting thing if for no other reason than it was so specific to the speaker and so arbitrary to me.

TO ME, the FACT that human DNA is in the original cell defines the entity as being human.

TO YOU, apparently, a woman of child bearing years is more human than a one celled human.

Is your point of reference the number of cells, or perhaps the number of years or some other credentialing?

If it's cells, then Shaq is more human than the woman and by your logic perfectly justified in killing her. If it's years, then my 99 year old father in law is more human.

Is it maturity? Intelligence? What is it? Whatever the measure may be, the woman requesting the abortion seems under equipped to be making the decision.

Unless her only qualification is that she will be the caretaker and she will be the one who is inconvenienced by the birth.

However, being more or less human seems to be a question that is not really defined objectively in the great majority of cases of allowing a person to elecdt abortion.
 
Documents I jhave already given a link to showed you that being human is part of the legal status of the unborn .

How amusing, you have heard that up to a certain point the fetus is not specifically human. So what is it until then?

No one questions they are alive. As I said the weaknesss of your position is that you think a potential imaginary life is equal to an actual living woman. Or that she has no more worth than a something you now say comes from a non human source.
When you really nail him with the tough questions, he retreats or just doesnt bother. All this bobbing and weaving is just resistance to admitting he recognizes that abortion is a necessity for women but resents, even tends towards misogyny in having to recognize that. So he's all judgy...and wants us to know it without admitting it.
 
Our healthcare system pays hospitals a bonus to treat Covid patients.

In our country, people who were fatally injured in car accidents have been included as covid deaths.

On the good side of things, the US has, apparently, eradicated the flu and the common cold. Amazing that one virus kills another virus. At least politically.

In the UK, the doctors and hospitals there were adding multiple patients to individual respirators. I think in Italy as well. In the US, we didn't run out.

I have tracked things far more closely in Indiana since that's where I live. Here, we NEVER ran out of ICU beds or respirators.

Having the facilities and capabilities to count the cases and the honesty to do so accurately is a part of our system here.

In China, they recorded about 4300 deaths altogether through a month earlier this year. Laughably inaccurate.

International measurements using inconsistent standards and methods cannot be compared in any useful way. Propaganda can be based on it, though.
I asked for you to cite a source. You have failed to do so.
 
Not non-human. Just not specifically human. No real source from this besides a conversation at a dinner party.

512 cells seemed like an interesting thing if for no other reason than it was so specific to the speaker and so arbitrary to me.

TO ME, the FACT that human DNA is in the original cell defines the entity as being human.

TO YOU, apparently, a woman of child bearing years is more human than a one celled human.

Is your point of reference the number of cells, or perhaps the number of years or some other credentialing?

If it's cells, then Shaq is more human than the woman and by your logic perfectly justified in killing her. If it's years, then my 99 year old father in law is more human.

Is it maturity? Intelligence? What is it? Whatever the measure may be, the woman requesting the abortion seems under equipped to be making the decision.

Unless her only qualification is that she will be the caretaker and she will be the one who is inconvenienced by the birth.

However, being more or less human seems to be a question that is not really defined objectively in the great majority of cases of allowing a person to elecdt abortion.
Being human is well defined. It is your example here of how to muddy the water is where any confusion is created. I have no doubt you were having dinner with a bunch of anti abortionists to be so misinformed.

Humans are human from conception. There is no time when it can be said it is not human or even just not specifically human.

Where you are mistaken is in thinking that a human is a human is an equal. It's not, it is a tautology.

However the same cannot be said for the concept of rights. In the case of whether to abort or not is an argument that the right of the woman and the right of the unborn are not equal.

As to your point of the woman is under equipped to decide. That raises the question of who is. And if we are to believe your scenario then the answer would have to be no one could possibly understand what is a human. So the only person it makes sense to give the decision to would be the person effected, ie. the pregnant woman.
 
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