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Okay, let me get this straight. You're saying that even if it were somehow proven that a fetus was a person, abortion would still be okay because all that matters is whether the mother thinks it's right or not?It's important to pro-life people. It's what their entire opinion rests upon. To pro-choice people, it doesn't come down to universal rules, but rather what the mother thinks it is.
One group's brand of morality vs. another. I am pro-choice because it encompasses both.
Okay, let me get this straight. You're saying that even if it were somehow proven that a fetus was a person, abortion would still be okay because all that matters is whether the mother thinks it's right or not?
That really doesn't work. You apply that reasoning to anything else, and you can't have any laws whatsoever. Can a serial killer do his thang 'cause he doesn't think it's wrong? Can a Southern hick chain up a black dude and whip him to death if he doesn't think it's wrong? Do you think just about every law in existence ought to be abandoned in order to accommodate their "morality"?
Have fun trying keep a morally relativistic society alive, brother. There's a reason why you and I have never heard of one.
You're calling me morally relativistic. Yes, that's exacty what it is. It's all moral relativism. You're taking an inherently irrational system (abortion) and trying to apply rational rules like "personhood" to it. You can't. The bolded part will never happen in any universal or objective sense, which is why the rest of your argument is easily debunked. Personhood, even for autonomous, adult human beings, is subject to change and is to subjective according to what period of history you look at.
A serial killer murders human born individuals. There is no such thing as a serial killer who kills fetuses. The murder argument is emotional and illogical, and I won't cater to it anymore
If abortion were to become illegal, it would not be because society has arrived at an objective truth about fetuses and personhood, anymore than our own human rights are objective and inalienable; all it would mean is that a particular brand of morality got its way, and that usually happens through mob rule. :shrug:
But by all means, keep taking the moral high ground by telling yourself that you have arrived at some kind of objective truth which is somehow applicable to the rest of us. What you don't understand is that you are not in control here. Whether or not abortion is illegal, women will have abortions if they want them. The only thing the law does is incentivize unsafe procedures in lieu of modern medical technology, and to increase the burden on the penal system. It has no long-term benefit to society.
A serial killer murders human born individuals. There is no such thing as a serial killer who kills fetuses. The murder argument is emotional and illogical, and I won't cater to it anymore
If abortion were to become illegal, it would not be because society has arrived at an objective truth about fetuses and personhood, anymore than our own human rights are objective and inalienable; all it would mean is that a particular brand of morality got its way, and that usually happens through mob rule. :shrug:
But by all means, keep taking the moral high ground by telling yourself that you have arrived at some kind of objective truth which is somehow applicable to the rest of us. What you don't understand is that you are not in control here. Whether or not abortion is illegal, women will have abortions if they want them. The only thing the law does is incentivize unsafe procedures in lieu of modern medical technology, and to increase the burden on the penal system. It has no long-term benefit to society.
I understand moderate pro-lifers even less than I do pro-choicers, funnily enough. We criminalize the killing of people, except for capital punishment. While the circumstances leading to a murder alter the punishment of the action, that doesn't change the fact that it's still a crime. Assuming a fetus is a person, why should it be any different with it? Why legalize abortion in cases of incest, rape, and when the mother's life is endangered by the baby?
This last part highlights the danger legalized abortion poses. There are many lives that definitely provide no long-term benefit to society, are you going to say it is ok to kill all of them?
One of the points often brought up in abortion debates is over whether or not fetuses are (or should be) legally recognized persons with rights. However, it was recently brought to my attention that some people don't see this as important at all. I'm curious how many other share this view, so I thought I'd try to find out.
Do you believe the question of whether or not a fetus is a person in the legal sense is important to the abortion debate? Why or why not?
The difference is that those lives (assuming they're born people) aren't leeching off of someone else's body and risking that person's health to stay alive.
"Personhood" is nothing more than another in a long line of indefinable, relativist, appeals to emotionalism. It means squat.
Not directly, but they are an unnecessary burden on society from a purely rational point of view. Why keep people alive when they will be of no use to society and only serve as a drag on society depleting resources that could be directed to those who can be of use to society? Overpopulation is a serious threat to every person's health.
Consider this argument:
You begin to equivocate about personhood and you end up with positions like this that eventually render our entire system of law moot. Ultimately you have a nihilistic view of society that is later subsumed by a statist mentality that views the benefit of society as outweighing all other factors.
I am not emotional about it or illogical. I consider it murder because I consider every individual human life, even one that is poorly developed, to be as worthy of protection under the law as my own.
Like I said in the other thread look at how often the pro-choice side intersects with the assisted suicide and euthanasia crowd.
When someone declares a certain level of human life acceptable to kill it opens up the flood gates by making the developmental state of life a factor.
Eugenics has always been a rationally compelling idea and the practice of killing off the feeble and diseased makes good sense from all practical perspectives. You subject the right to life to qualitative evaluations and you end up with mass democide.
This last part highlights the danger legalized abortion poses.
There are many lives that definitely provide no long-term benefit to society, are you going to say it is ok to kill all of them?
Hell, why should it even matter if a woman wants the child or not? It is better that certain unborn children are killed so that we might decrease the surplus population.
If one takes the position that there is no rational basis for morality and therefore it should not be a factor then it is an embrace of nihilism. "Nothing is true, everything is permitted" would become the law of the land.
The fact that a zygote could randomly miscarry is utterly irrelevant to the debate. Any one of a trillion natural disasters could happen and people would die. Does that mean murder is okay?I don't.
If a zygote has personhood then a skin cell on my arm has personhood. They are at the same level of development. You offer nothing that makes me believe that some cells in the womb (which could easily miscarry) deserve personhood, only your say so.
Point to where he said they were the same thing. If you can't tell the difference between "pro-choicers tend to be pro-euthanasia" and "abortion = euthanasia", then there really is no hope for you in this debate.Euthanasia and abortion are hardly the same thing. If you can't tell the difference then there really is no hope for you in this debate.
Irrelevant. The same argument can be made against murder laws.As I mentioned previously and in other threads, the level of development is not as relevant as the subjective importance that the woman places on her fetus. It is the difference between being a woman with an unwanted life growing in her, and a mother. The woman decides the importance of her pregnancy, not you.
You're completely ignoring the fact that the dangerousness of illegal abortion and fact that it's illegal will deter plenty of people from it. Not everyone who aborts under the current system would abort under that one.Abortion in an illegal setting is far more dangerous, given the threat it poses to the woman in addition to the fetus which will be aborted regardless. Planned parenthood has the greatest benefit to society and abortion is a tool in that.
Something wrong, eh? Are you imperfect? Clearly, because you thought Demon said abortion was euthanasia. You're better off dead. shoots you in the faceNo not really... but that is quite another debate, isn't iat. Which people - those that are born, mind you - are worthy or survival and which aren't? Well, luckily we have constitutions to protect those people. But fetuses need not apply, because birth is the first criteria of personhood under law, and it should remain that way. Fetuses die every day for many, many reasons. I think it's a solid eugenics argument that if a fetus spontaneously aborts, it is better off dead. It probably had something wrong with it in the first place.
More ridiculousness. This same argument can be made for laws against murder, rape, and slavery.Nature makes no distinctions about personhood. If you are weak, you die. If you are strong, you live. Women aborting has been a natural process for all time, in practically all epochs of human history, even the most conservative ones. They always have and always will abort if they want to. It is nature which transcends this trivial debate.
And yet more ridiculousness. If it's all about quality, how about I go and kill every other person on the planet? Imagine...the standard of living...drools :roll:It's not really about quantity, but quality.
It doesn't matter what other people think. Why don't you stick to challenging the reasoning of...oh, I dunno...the people you're actually debating against.That's a tad bit of a strawman there. I am not applying the same rules for irrationality across the board. Some things have rationales that we can all for the most part agree on. Arbitrary labels like "personhood" placed on fetuses is not one of those things. Even the pro-life sect cannot agree on the sanctity of life. Some of you are for abortion in the case of rape or incest. So it seems that some of you even have a cozy little view on eugenics and morality that transcends "personhood".
Slippery slope fallacy. There's no proof that one would (or should) flow from the other.
If a zygote has personhood then a skin cell on my arm has personhood. They are at the same level of development. You offer nothing that makes me believe that some cells in the womb (which could easily miscarry) deserve personhood, only your say so.
Euthanasia and abortion are hardly the same thing. If you can't tell the difference then there really is no hope for you in this debate.
As I mentioned previously and in other threads, the level of development is not as relevant as the subjective importance that the woman places on her fetus. It is the difference between being a woman with an unwanted life growing in her, and a mother. The woman decides the importance of her pregnancy, not you.
This is well beyond the scope of the abortion debate. Eugenics has little to do with what we're talking about, since genetically healthy pregnant women abort their fetuses all the time. There is no selection bias in abortion, though I do believe that on a societal level abortion has benefits. If all women who conceive are forced into remaining pregnant, they will either abort through unsafe means or they will be unprepared mothers, both of which are a danger to the integrity of society. I am not willing to sacrifice that integrity for your hysteria over "personhood", especially given how non-compelling the arguments of pro-life people are.
Abortion in an illegal setting is far more dangerous, given the threat it poses to the woman in addition to the fetus which will be aborted regardless. Planned parenthood has the greatest benefit to society and abortion is a tool in that.
No not really... but that is quite another debate, isn't it. Which people - those that are born, mind you - are worthy or survival and which aren't? Well, luckily we have constitutions to protect those people.
But fetuses need not apply, because birth is the first criteria of personhood under law, and it should remain that way. Fetuses die every day for many, many reasons. I think it's a solid eugenics argument that if a fetus spontaneously aborts, it is better off dead. It probably had something wrong with it in the first place.
Nature makes no distinctions about personhood. If you are weak, you die. If you are strong, you live. Women aborting has been a natural process for all time, in practically all epochs of human history, even the most conservative ones. They always have and always will abort if they want to. It is nature which transcends this trivial debate.
It's not really about quantity, but quality.
That's a tad bit of a strawman there. I am not applying the same rules for irrationality across the board. Some things have rationales that we can all for the most part agree on.
Arbitrary labels like "personhood" placed on fetuses is not one of those things. Even the pro-life sect cannot agree on the sanctity of life. Some of you are for abortion in the case of rape or incest. So it seems that some of you even have a cozy little view on eugenics and morality that transcends "personhood".
The only way your morality can ever become law is through popular vote, manipulation of people's emotions, and selective infiltration into seats of government power. You will never win this debate on reason because that is the one thing you lack and it's why the courts sided against you in Roe v Wade.
The difference is that those lives (assuming they're born people) aren't leeching off of someone else's body and risking that person's health to stay alive.
It really annoys me when people only respond by naming fallacies they claim the other person is using as if that makes their argument more compelling. What I am describing is the way I have seen this line of logic develop. I haven't found a poll on the issue, but I imagine if there was you would see far more people who are pro-choice also support assisted suicide and euthanasia than in the general community.
Untrue. Anyone who is dependent upon another is leeching off of that person's body. This would include young children, old folks in nursing homes, people in comas, etc...
The same could be said about 'human rights'. Both mean things because we give them meaning.The Uncola said:"Personhood" is nothing more than another in a long line of indefinable, relativist, appeals to emotionalism. It means squat.
Who suffers more from any proposed resolution to that situation?
The woman having the abortion. Consciousness is a pre-condition to suffering.
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