To kill or not to kill

[prometeus]

A child comes into being at conception.

You game of semantics still fails to have any real meaning.

 

[Chuz Life]

You game of semantics still fails to have any real meaning.

You game?

That's funny.

And it's not semantics,... it's a biological fact.

Conception is when a child (new human organism) comes into existence,... parturition is just a change of location.

Learn it, embrace it, love it, teach it to others.

 

[Orion]

Actually, most pro-lifers don't give a rats ass on what constitutes personhood. To most pro-lifers, a fetus is a de facto human being. However, because a right is yet to be recognized does not deny it's existence.

I don't think anyone really denies that even a zygote is a human life form, given its DNA structure... but then again, the skin cells on my arm are also human life forms, and I dispose of them at will by scratching an annoying itch.

The only thing the pro-life sect has to go on is personhood, but even that is upheld with flimsy logic and inconsistency. As I've already demonstrated, personhood doesn't really matter since we routinely dispose of born persons in our society for equally as morally arbitrary reasons.

A sizable portion of abortions are performed at clinics which are subsidized. Regardless, humanity is weighed by how much it costs you?

Well I personally am pro-life... as in, if a woman were pregnant with my fetus, I would not wish her to abort it. But I acknowledge that she may not share my opinion. Likewise, I do not expect other men to share my views, and many do not. A lot of men enjoy sex and do not want children, so would want their partner to get an abortion if faced with that.

I err on the side of pro-choice because it functions the best in a pluralistic system where rights and individual liberties are paramount. Since your morals are you own, and you cannot possibly account for every single circumstance where an abortion may or may not be sought, and I think it is arrogant to presume you can decide for everyone. Your mind is but a small world contained within your head just as mine is, and you think you are some how elevated enough to say what is best in all cases. That level of hubris is religious in its proportions.

Absurd. Primarily due to the presence of said "interloper" being a direct result of the "landlords" actions.

Oh right... the whole "the woman should suffer the consequences for being a whore" thing. Sorry but that's not the way nature or the world operates. You don't get to decide what people do with their sexuality or what it means to them; nor do you get to decide what they do and don't do with the consequences. Mind your own business and stop acting like you're above it all just because you want to have blue balls until you get married, which, by the way, doesn't guarantee anything.

Most pro-lifers truly don't support any abortion but tend to compromise in order to greatly reduce them in hope of ending it entirely some day. Since your morals are purely fiscal, I find it ludicrous that you judge others for theirs.

They're not purely fiscal, that is merely your wrongful assumption.

So you're willing to compromise on the sanctity of life? Understood.

well, damn, guess the cat's out of the bag.....

Yeah, it is. You give the radicals an inch, and they take a mile.

Well. since abortion is not a natural phenomena, opposing it is not draconian.

Abortion is perfectly natural. When faced with stress, malnutrition, or genetic abnormalities, pregnancies will abort on their own. A large percentage of first-time pregnancies miscarry for this very reason.

If you're suggesting that choosing to abort is unnatural, I also disagree. It's no more unnatural than walking into the wilderness and using wild plants as medicine. The "unnatural" argument is pretty banal and stupid. If a woman can abort through her own means, then it falls into the scope of normal behavior, especially given that abortion has been happening since the dawn of time by their very choice. You can find the most remote tribes in the world and they know all about finding abortifacients and how to use them.

God gave humans an intelligent brain, and some of us know how to use it. With our brain we know how to abort when a pregnancy is undesirable, and do so at our choosing. It is healthy for the human order for planned pregnancies to have the best chance at survival. I have no wish to see a society filled even more with costly, unwanted, degenerate children, just because of your feel-good attitude toward life that you want shoved down everyone else's throat.

Further, there are limits to sovereignty, specifically where it infringes on the rights of another being.

Only in your dreams does this relate to fetal rights. No legal body in your country acknowledges that abortion infringes on the rights of the fetus. Try again.

In a sense, I agree with this reasoning but could spend days pointing out to you why and how you are misusing this philosophical argument. Suffice it to say that there are inherent values that though the conscience may be unaware of exist nonetheless.

This paragraph lacks any substance or argument that I can actually address, so I will be ignoring it.

This entire statement is absurd. Comparing human life to livestock is a common straw man, do something new.

It's hardly a straw man when talking about innocent life. Livestock have done nothing wrong but we kill them in the millions each year. Hell, civilians in Afghanistan have done nothing wrong, other than being born and living in a country whose government is at war, and they get killed daily by bombings. I have to pay tax dollars for that too even though I don't support it. So yeah... the status of human life really makes no sense in our world, the more I think about it.

There are so many examples that exist which counteract your view that innocence should guarantee the right to life.

What you fail to realize is that separating human life from all other life only provides further complications to your cause. So not only do human fetuses deserve rights by virtue of their existence - despite the fact that pregnancies have been discarded for millennia - but only "innocent" life deserves rights as it applies to human beings? What?

Have fun getting that translated into a law that makes any sense, and then convincing the public you aren't insane.

There are a lot of things a lot of people do and have always done that are illegal, Abortion is but one of them. This doesn't legitimize the behavior.

The behavior doesn't require legitimization. It doesn't require your approval. The behavior exists, and until very recently in history it was a private matter. Why don't you mind your own business? If you don't want an abortion, then DON'T GET ONE. How hard is that to understand? Stop infringing on the rights of others with your pseudo-scientific morality and views on personhood. The school of rationality does not care what you think.

The pro-life will only win this battle one of two ways:
1) Strategic placement of supporters in positions of power.
2) Populism.

Other than that you have no hope. The school of rationality is NOT listening to you, which is why women enjoy civil rights and bodily sovereignty in the western world. It's not going to change unless the apocalypse comes and religion re-takes control of government.

The only place you have a real say on this is in your own life, and because I am pro-choice, I support your choice to believe in whatever you want as it relates to abortion, and exercise those beliefs. But I do not support you infringing on the freedom of others to choose, especially given how irrational your beliefs are.

 

[molten_dragon]

We know that an abortion kills a child.

You believe that, that's a big difference.

And those who deny it are simply in denial. It's a biological fact.

This is a blatant lie. It's not a fact, it's your opinion.

Our laws define a 'person' as a human being,...

No they don't. If they did, this issue would be much simpler and there would be far less argument.

and a child in the fetal stage of their life meets that criteria.

There are two things wrong with this (partial) sentence.

1. a child cannot be in the 'fetal' stage of their life, because a human organism does not enter the 'child' stage of their life until after the 'fetal' stage of their life is over.

2. In order to meet the criteria discussed above, you are working under the assumption that 'human being' means nothing more than 'member of species homo sapien'. Since there are several definitions of 'human being', you'll need to prove that this is the only relevant one.

We even have laws protecting them in some circumstances. ("Born alive infant protection act" and "unborn victims of violence act")

Neither of these laws is relevant to the issue of whether abortion should be legal.

Pretending that your side of the argument is the only valid one makes you seem incredibly naive Chuz.

 

[Chuz Life]

You believe that, that's a big difference.

This is a blatant lie. It's not a fact, it's your opinion.

No they don't. If they did, this issue would be much simpler and there would be far less argument.

There are two things wrong with this (partial) sentence.

1. a child cannot be in the 'fetal' stage of their life, because a human organism does not enter the 'child' stage of their life until after the 'fetal' stage of their life is over.

2. In order to meet the criteria discussed above, you are working under the assumption that 'human being' means nothing more than 'member of species homo sapien'. Since there are several definitions of 'human being', you'll need to prove that this is the only relevant one.

Neither of these laws is relevant to the issue of whether abortion should be legal.

Pretending that your side of the argument is the only valid one makes you seem incredibly naive Chuz.

What can I say?

You are incorrect.

I may not be able to convince you that you are incorrect,... but I do believe that others will see it the way I do,... once they are made aware of the facts, definitions etc.

You have already been shown most of those facts,... but you hold steadfast to your ignorance of those facts, regardless.

That's your choice.

 

[rudygetsplenty]

Are you aware that the Chinese consider a child a year old at birth? What makes your assumption of when life commences (at birth) valid?

If not birth, is there any logical point to assume commencement other than conception? If not, and if you therefore choose conception as the start point of life by default, does it not follow that the harvesting of embryos, a common practice among fertility (and research) clinics is immoral? Also, considering their practice of forced abortions, isn't China an odd place to point your moral compass?

 

[Orion]

Are you aware that the Chinese consider a child a year old at birth? What makes your assumption of when life commences (at birth) valid?

Yes I am. Are you aware that China has one of the highest abortion rates in the world because of the one child policy?

If they didn't implement that in the 80's, their society would have collapsed by now. Good thing they weren't a bunch of pro-lifers.

 

[Chuz Life]

Yes I am. Are you aware that China has one of the highest abortion rates in the world because of the one child policy?

If they didn't implement that in the 80's, their society would have collapsed by now. Good thing they weren't a bunch of pro-lifers.

Good thing for who?

Was it a 'good thing' for the children aborted or for the parents who where forced to abort children against their will?

 

[Hoplite]

I'll take the pro-life movement seriously when they start concerted efforts to protect the lives of children already living rather than breaking their backs for a maybe.

 

[Bodi]

The U.S. Constitution states:

"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

It is pretty clear that the wording of the law does not consider unborn fetuses to be persons by any stretch of the imagination.

Terminology is debatable... bolding born does not make an argument. To be born is to give birth, and giving birth can be defined as coming into existence or origin the beginning of something. Well, the origin of the human life is at conception, not the day a mother goes into labour.

 

[Bodi]

I'll take the pro-life movement seriously when they start concerted efforts to protect the lives of children already living rather than breaking their backs for a maybe.

All you have done is given a logically fallicious viewpoint... many people that are pro-life help in many other ways.

 

[Bodi]

Yes I am. Are you aware that China has one of the highest abortion rates in the world because of the one child policy?

If they didn't implement that in the 80's, their society would have collapsed by now. Good thing they weren't a bunch of pro-lifers.

Who cares if China collapses or not, they would just be a second India or an Africa if they did... that is not much of an argument. Let's kill human life forms so that a country doesn't potentially "collapse". nice logic... :roll:

 

[crebigsol]

...
If they didn't implement that in the 80's, their society would have collapsed by now. Good thing they weren't a bunch of pro-lifers.

Oooh, no,no,no...you can have only said: "Good thing they were a bunch of pro-choice who hold absolute power."

 

[digsbe]

Is it? Do you know what an organism is?

Yes I do, are you denying that a zef is not an organism?

Really? Please share with us which peer reviewed scientific paper or text defines what a person is. By the way, genetics is also a science.

Humans are people, tell me what gray philosophy has been accepted to define person? Empirical evidence would suggest and proves that a zef is a person.

Ah, so now you wish to convey personhood to DNA. Why only human?

Because human life is sacred. Animal life is not equal with human life.

Correct, but why only the human species?

As I said, because human life is sacred, animal life is not. Humans and animals are not equal.

So, if your beliefs are not any less valid as anyone else's, why do you believe that others should be forced to conform to yours and not you to their beliefs?

For the obvious reason that I believe my beliefs are the right ones. Isn't that the case with everyone with pretty much any belief?

Yes that was a weak argument on your part.

And that is a self proclaimed statement with no substance to back up the claim. That is a very weak argument on your part.

You are misinterpreting what those laws are how they apply and what they mean to this debate.

How? After all the law is called the"Unborn Victims of Violence Act." It is double murder to kill a pregnant woman as well, and rightfully so.

 

[Orion]

Terminology is debatable... bolding born does not make an argument. To be born is to give birth, and giving birth can be defined as coming into existence or origin the beginning of something. Well, the origin of the human life is at conception, not the day a mother goes into labour.

Well I don't see the government issuing citizenship to fetuses, do you?

We tend to acknowledge fetuses as people once they are born and separated from the mother. Basically, when the umbilicus is cut and we give the infant a name. I see no reason to allot the same rights to it before that point.

Who cares if China collapses or not, they would just be a second India or an Africa if they did... that is not much of an argument. Let's kill human life forms so that a country doesn't potentially "collapse". nice logic...

Who cares? I think China does.

Thanks to their population control measures, they are now the world's #2 economy and they are developing at a rate way, way faster than India. As I said before, abortion allows for a healthier human society, and you have not provided evidence to the contrary.

"Nice logic". :roll:

 

[MaggieD]

Well I don't see the government issuing citizenship to fetuses, do you?

We tend to acknowledge fetuses as people once they are born and separated from the mother. Basically, when the umbilicus is cut and we give the infant a name. I see no reason to allot the same rights to it before that point.

Technically, the government doesn't "issue citizenship" to any person born in the United States. They just are citizens. Further, the government does acknowledge a fetus as a person.

A Charleston man has been charged with murder after he allegedly hit his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach, killing the unborn baby, according to police. Man Charged With Hitting Girlfriend in Stomach, Killing Unborn Baby - WOWK-TV - WOWKTV.com
An Oregon woman was charged with murdering a 21-year-old expectant mother and her unborn baby after faking her own pregnancy.
Oregon Woman Jailed in Pregnancy Hoax Murder of Expectant Mom, Unborn Baby - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com

I could post more, but I know you get the idea.

 

[Orion]

Technically, the government doesn't "issue citizenship" to any person born in the United States. They just are citizens. Further, the government does acknowledge a fetus as a person.

You know what I meant. This is just quibbling over minutiae.

A Charleston man has been charged with murder after he allegedly hit his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach, killing the unborn baby, according to police. Man Charged With Hitting Girlfriend in Stomach, Killing Unborn Baby - WOWK-TV - WOWKTV.com
An Oregon woman was charged with murdering a 21-year-old expectant mother and her unborn baby after faking her own pregnancy.
Oregon Woman Jailed in Pregnancy Hoax Murder of Expectant Mom, Unborn Baby - Local News | News Articles | National News | US News - FOXNews.com

I could post more, but I know you get the idea.

The issue of double homicide when a pregnant woman has been murdered was addressed earlier in this thread, and has nothing to do with a woman voluntarily seeking an abortion according to her rights to bodily sovereignty.

 

[molten_dragon]

What can I say?

You are incorrect.

I may not be able to convince you that you are incorrect,... but I do believe that others will see it the way I do,... once they are made aware of the facts, definitions etc.

You have already been shown most of those facts,... but you hold steadfast to your ignorance of those facts, regardless.

That's your choice.

Still holding strong to your deluded belief that your opinions are facts I see.

 

[mac]

I did not know that. Is that some folk custom or legal standard?

both.............

 

[mac]

So why not pursue the methods tha have proven to achieve those goals and abandon those that have NOT.

Pray tell, which are these?

But it is, evidenced by the fact that most fertilized egg either do not implant or are ejected very early. Now, considering that any number of these natural abortions could be prevented by some medical intervention and that many hold those life to be so sacred why aren't there ANY efforts made to limit the death of all THOSE INNOCENT LIVES? are they any less human or innocent?

Do we need to post another definition?

That is impossible. Sovereignty can not have a bearing on anyone else but the single individual... You are confusing sovereignty with free will.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. You might look that one up too.

 

[mac]

I don't think anyone really denies that even a zygote is a human life form, given its DNA structure... but then again, the skin cells on my arm are also human life forms, and I dispose of them at will by scratching an annoying itch.

Equating a ZEF to a skin cell or a sperm cell, or a blood cell is only half the truth. These are products of one's body while the ZEF is it's own human life.

The only thing the pro-life sect has to go on is personhood, but even that is upheld with flimsy logic and inconsistency. As I've already demonstrated, personhood doesn't really matter since we routinely dispose of born persons in our society for equally as morally arbitrary reasons.

The attempt to designate the starting point of personhood at a later time than conception serves only one purpose and that is to justify abortion.

Well I personally am pro-life... as in, if a woman were pregnant with my fetus, I would not wish her to abort it. But I acknowledge that she may not share my opinion. Likewise, I do not expect other men to share my views, and many do not. A lot of men enjoy sex and do not want children, so would want their partner to get an abortion if faced with that.

I err on the side of pro-choice because it functions the best in a pluralistic system where rights and individual liberties are paramount. Since your morals are you own, and you cannot possibly account for every single circumstance where an abortion may or may not be sought, and I think it is arrogant to presume you can decide for everyone. Your mind is but a small world contained within your head just as mine is, and you think you are some how elevated enough to say what is best in all cases. That level of hubris is religious in its proportions.

No one person has a the right to infringe on another's rights.

Oh right... the whole "the woman should suffer the consequences for being a whore" thing. Sorry but that's not the way nature or the world operates. You don't get to decide what people do with their sexuality or what it means to them; nor do you get to decide what they do and don't do with the consequences. Mind your own business and stop acting like you're above it all just because you want to have blue balls until you get married, which, by the way, doesn't guarantee anything.

This is a rather childish view. Functioning members of society are required to act responsible in many scenarios. Sex and pregnancy should be no different.

So you're willing to compromise on the sanctity of life? Understood.

Am I? No.

Yeah, it is. You give the radicals an inch, and they take a mile.

Who is and who is not "the radicals" is purely subjective.

Abortion is perfectly natural. When faced with stress, malnutrition, or genetic abnormalities, pregnancies will abort on their own. A large percentage of first-time pregnancies miscarry for this very reason.

You are confusing abortion with miscarriage.

If you're suggesting that choosing to abort is unnatural, I also disagree. It's no more unnatural than walking into the wilderness and using wild plants as medicine. The "unnatural" argument is pretty banal and stupid. If a woman can abort through her own means, then it falls into the scope of normal behavior, especially given that abortion has been happening since the dawn of time by their very choice. You can find the most remote tribes in the world and they know all about finding abortifacients and how to use them.

If it were natural, you'd simply be able to wish it so. Or have some other controllable bodily function which causes it. This is not the case and therefore calling it unnatural is absolutely correct.

God gave humans an intelligent brain, and some of us know how to use it. With our brain we know how to abort when a pregnancy is undesirable, and do so at our choosing. It is healthy for the human order for planned pregnancies to have the best chance at survival. I have no wish to see a society filled even more with costly, unwanted, degenerate children, just because of your feel-good attitude toward life that you want shoved down everyone else's throat.

Seriously, this is your argument?

Only in your dreams does this relate to fetal rights. No legal body in your country acknowledges that abortion infringes on the rights of the fetus. Try again.

In my country, the people rule.

It's hardly a straw man when talking about innocent life. Livestock have done nothing wrong but we kill them in the millions each year. Hell, civilians in Afghanistan have done nothing wrong, other than being born and living in a country whose government is at war, and they get killed daily by bombings. I have to pay tax dollars for that too even though I don't support it. So yeah... the status of human life really makes no sense in our world, the more I think about it.

We eat, that's natural. Enough with the livestock. Civilian casualties in war is not the same thing as abortion, however horrific. They are only linked in a way that elevating the value of human life universally may someday end violent warfare in our species.

What you fail to realize is that separating human life from all other life only provides further complications to your cause. So not only do human fetuses deserve rights by virtue of their existence - despite the fact that pregnancies have been discarded for millennia - but only "innocent" life deserves rights as it applies to human beings? What?

Comparing human life to livestock doesn't represent this point, and no it's not only innocent life that deserves protecting. This is your own concoction and not related at all to anything I've said.

Have fun getting that translated into a law that makes any sense, and then convincing the public you aren't insane.

Well it's a good thing that your view of my opinions is far from accurate, otherwise I would agree with you.

The behavior doesn't require legitimization. It doesn't require your approval. The behavior exists, and until very recently in history it was a private matter. Why don't you mind your own business? If you don't want an abortion, then DON'T GET ONE. How hard is that to understand? Stop infringing on the rights of others with your pseudo-scientific morality and views on personhood. The school of rationality does not care what you think.

Another childish statement. All behaviors which affect society and humanity require their approval.

Other than that you have no hope. The school of rationality is NOT listening to you, which is why women enjoy civil rights and bodily sovereignty in the western world. It's not going to change unless the apocalypse comes and religion re-takes control of government.

The school of rationality? get over yourself.

The only place you have a real say on this is in your own life, and because I am pro-choice, I support your choice to believe in whatever you want as it relates to abortion, and exercise those beliefs. But I do not support you infringing on the freedom of others to choose, especially given how irrational your beliefs are.

Are you familiar with the American government? "For the people, by the people" This statement is not only absurd, it contradicts what you said just a few lines up. what is irrational is that one human has the right to trump any other human's right to life, how long it's been going on doesn't legitimize that.

 

[mac]

You know what I meant. This is just quibbling over minutiae.

Misunderstanding the law is not minutiae.

The issue of double homicide when a pregnant woman has been murdered was addressed earlier in this thread, and has nothing to do with a woman voluntarily seeking an abortion according to her rights to bodily sovereignty.

What you're saying here is that bodily sovereignty trumps life. If it's double homicide when someone else kills the baby along with the mother, it should be considered homicide if the mother kills it.

 

[Chuz Life]

Still holding strong to your deluded belief that your opinions are facts I see.

We can go over them again (for as many times as necessary) if you like.

 

[Chuz Life]

I'll take the pro-life movement seriously when they start concerted efforts to protect the lives of children already living rather than breaking their backs for a maybe.

Just an FYI,...

We don't care if you (an individual with an agenda to keep elective abortion legal) take us seriously or not.

 

[Aunt Spiker]

All arguments about abortion can be funneled to one topic: What life form is allowed to be stopped by intelligence when such life form is associated with the existence of a human being? Or, crudely, can human beings kill within the human society for a purpose?

In my opinion, human beings have been killing within human society ever since there is human history, at any stage of a life form, by accident or by purpose. Why the killing at a certain stage is more protected or more condemned nowadays? Frankly, either concept of pro-choice or pro-life is formulated under one principle: interest. So, the best guideline to allow or disallow abortion is to judge what ultimate social effect the abortion will bring in. It is absolutely stupid for Uncle Sam to provide asylum for some Chinese on the reason of escaping governmental forced abortion. That is the matter of their "bedroom", why matter? On the other hand, in a poor land like Africa, disallowing abortion would only encourage poverty to be multiplied. Unless some "rich" ones from the outside world is going to pick up the life long responsibility of caring, trapping those lives that have escaped the abortion to extend their suffering in another form, such as yearly famine, incurable disease, massacre caused by over population, is extremely inhuman; this anti-humanitarian is resulted by a humanitarian motivation: pro-life.

People can kill to protect their families and selves, it's called self defense.
We're permitted to kill in battle and warfare - it's called 'duty' or even 'heroism'

But we can't decide to commit suicide - even if it's Dr-assisted and for things beyond the scope of 'my life sucks, I'm sad'

So why is it that people don't consider abortion in the "protection of the family" - as in "we can't afford to have more children" and "I can't psychologically go through another pregnancy."

???