talloulou said:
I can only tell you that we have a variety of methods of "birth control" but abortion isn't one of them.
FutureIncoming said:
it can indeed control the number of births that occur!
talloulou said:
Touche! Point won on a semantics level. In any event you know what I mean. There are ways "to keep from getting pregnant" giving women a great deal of control over "getting pregnant" abortion is not one of them. It merely terminates a pregnancy that is already in place which is quite different from preventing pregnancy from occuring in the first place.
I agree that the phrase "birth control" is often interpreted to mean "pregnancy prevention" or some equivalent thereof, and of course abortion cannot qualify for that role, but if the phrase "birth control" is interpreted literally, then abortion does qualify for that role. Anyway, please remember that I have never opposed the use of other forms of birth control. I even encourage them because the are often so much simpler and less messy and less expensive than abortion. But
much of my pro-choice stand on abortion is due to the simple fact that those other methods are imperfectly reliable, while abortion is very nearly perfectly reliable. Therefore abortion
needs to be allowed, as a backup plan for when those other methods fail. I'm aware that it's availability then becomes abuse-able by those too lazy (or have some other fault) to use other birth-control methods, but this also means: (A) they stimulate the economy by paying the higher price for abortion, and (B) they are helping to prevent their (specify fault here) genes from being spread into the gene pool. Fine by me!
talloulou said:
As previously said there is no reason to expect that the potential of a human who is 2 days old need be fulfilled while the unborn's is not.
Then you have been ignoring the very valid reason of parasitic behavior, which only ends at birth (if miscarriage or abortion doesn't happen first).
talloulou said:
I feel both should have the opportunity to live their lives without being killed by a fellow human.
Silly, I don't believe for a moment you would accept the idea of an abortion clinic for humans, run by immigrant extraterrestrial nonhumans. Indeed, I'd expect even some pro-choicers to be outraged by this implication that aliens might want to control human numbers....
Returning to more typical situations, your phrasing "I feel both should have the opportunity to live their lives" is simply another way to say that you prejudicially want certain potentials to be fulfilled. Furthermore, I can describe a kind of "ring around the argument" thing, thanks to past messages, in which I'm saying that there is no reason to insist that
any potential be fulfilled, while you're saying that there is no reason to prevent
certain potentials from being fulfilled. This has to stop, mostly because I have presented exactly such a reason (insisting that all pregnancies be carried to term will make the arrival of a Malthusian Catastrophe both more inevitable and sooner), and you have basically ignored it. But ignoring arguments in a Debate is not acceptable. (And that's not the only reason, either, since some pro-lifers tend to bring up an infanticide issue, when it is indicated that newborns cannot qualify for
generic personhood status. That is, forcing unwanted births to happen often leads to resentment and other family problems, including child-abuse-to-death.)
talloulou said:
My reasoning is that I believe all humans were created equally and should be treated as such regardless of age or geographic location.
Yet semantically, that assumption is totally false, about all humans being equal. Less literally, of course, I do know what you are talking about, but the notion still has a subtle flaw.
WHO SAYS THAT ALL HUMANS ARE EQUAL? Humans, of course! And humans can be mistaken....
HOW CAN SUCH A CLAIM BE MADE? That's a technical, not a rhetoric, question. The answer involves sufficient brainpower to understand and manipulate abstractions, at least.
HOW CAN THOSE WITH THE BRAINPOWER BE EQUAL TO THOSE THAT DON'T HAVE IT? We certainly use exactly such a non-equality to claim superiority over mere/ordinary animals! And that's how we can recognize the essence of the previously-hinted mistake. Why should we mentally-highly-capable humans claim superiority over mentally-incapable animals, and prepare ourselves to accept equality with mentally equal aliens -- yet also claim equality with measurably-mentally-incapable humans? I think the aliens would think we are nuts, inconsistent and irrational, to make such a claim, and therefore they'd also think they are superior to us, heh, heh.
talloulou said:
Again we {{humans}} are all animals.
TRUE. But if we were
only animals, then we would have to declare all other animals equal to us. Since we make no such declaration, and in fact declare superiority over other animals, then obviously we are employing some excuse to make that declaration. What is the excuse? I can prove to you that it is
NOT this: "Humans are superior to other animals just because they are humans." --because we could,
with equally valid logic say this: "Zebras are superior to other animals just because they are zebras." Well, we
don't say such a thing, because we are indeed using a different basis than "just because" for the claim of superiority. Q.E.D.
talloulou said:
Humans possibly the smartest {{on Earth}} though there is more than one biologists who argue we have good reason to believe whales are smarter.
I do not disagree with the possibility, although
recent data is beginning to suggest otherwise. Yes, I know that that link is about dolphins, but whales are close relatives and seldom exhibit more-complex behavior than dolphins. To be determined! Meanwhile,
if they are smarter than us, why is it so difficult for us to make that determination?
Would such a failing on our part cause us to be undeserving of the claims we make for ourselves? In which case any human becomes as killable as any other animal!
talloulou said:
I know that you will undoubtedly compare the unborn to a fly or some such insect but that doesn't change the fact that they are not bugs they are homosapiens like you or I and ...
Nor does their being homosapiens change the fact that they are not mentally equal to the vast majority of homosapiens; they are only mentally equal to ordinary animals.
talloulou said:
... as with any human child we can expect that they will grow into their intellectual capabilities.
INACCURATE. "Will" implies certainty --and they could die of disease first.
Therefore you are still trying to say that certain potentials must prejudicially be fulfilled, without yet explaining why.
talloulou said:
There is no reason to expect a mother to treat her developing child in the same manner she would treat flys on her garbage.
OBVIOUSLY, LAUGHABLY, FALSE. Else no abortions would ever have been sought throughout History. You can be very certain that reasons for abortion do indeed exist. Perhaps you meant "objective reason" instead of "subjective reason"?
But then you have to throw your own subjective prejudice out the window, don't you?
talloulou said:
If we can not hold mothers accountable for the well being of their offspring then we simply can't hold anyone accountable or responsible for anything really.
RIDICULOUS. BAD LOGIC. "Accountability" always involves associating reasons with actions. The culture then judges whether the reasons are adequate. Abortions are not done for no reason, and since they are legal, the current cultural assumption is that those reasons are adequate.
talloulou said:
Caring for ones young is what seperates us from insects that lay eggs or any other animal that leaves its young to fend for themselves. By nature we are created to care and nurture our young. To deny that responsibility is to deny our very nature.
MORE BAD LOGIC. Most women who have abortions also eventually-have or have-had pregnancies carried to term, thereby fulfilling their caring nature. And while kangaroos routinely care for their offspring, too, they also routinely, when conditions warrant, do "fetal resorption". Where did you get the idea that every single offspring MUST be cared for?
