The thread where we make enemies out of friends, aka the abortion debate thread — Page 13

CP3S said:

Warbler said:

walkingdork said:

So you believe that it's murder....but murder that is suddenly okay if rape is involved? How in your mind does rape/incest trump the rights that unborn babies apparently have?

it doesn't.  I don't what to say about rape/incest.   I've never been able to decide that.   Kill an innocent unborn child(that I believe has the same rights as you or I),  or force a raped women against her will to carry the child of the rapist in for 9 months and go through labor.    and then who knows what regarding custody.     a horrible situation.   I really don't have an answer here. 

Dork totally has you on this one, I'm afraid. If you say abortion is the murder of an innocent unborn baby, and you justify abortion in the instance of rape, then essentially, what you are saying by your own standards is that it is okay to murder an innocent unborn human baby if its conception was caused by rape.

no, its not ok.   But I also don't think it is ok to force a raped women to carry a constant reminder of the rape inside her body for nine months.   I just don't have an answer for that situation.

CP3S said:

Two wrongs don't make a right. You have three entities involved, the rapist, the victim, and the unborn child who was not responsible for any of this and is completely innocent. His hands are completely clean.

The hands of the victim are also clean. 

CP3S said:

If you really think that an unborn child has rights, then why should those rights be revoked in the instance of a rape this child had no blame in?

you have a point, but again maybe it is just too much to ask a raped women to carry a fetus for 9 months, that is related by blood to the rapist. 

I realize the inconsistency of my stance, I just don't have answer for that situation. 

CP3S said:

You don't have an answer to that, as you already admitted. I do though: It is a matter of convenience. Exactly the same as it is for pro-choicers. Only the line is drawn differently, but clearly, neither of us think the life of that unborn baby is really equal to that of a true person, or that he should have the same rights as the rest of us. I think the pro-choice side, at least, is more honest about it. Our sides matter of convenience is drawn at, "I really don't want to be pregnant right now because [insert one of any number of reasons here]." While yours is drawn at "Oh my god, rape is such a horrific thing! Can you imagine having to carry a reminder of that horrible crime inside you for 9 months, then having to give birth to it followed by suffering the turmoil of either raising the child of your rapist, or giving it up for adoption, then regardless of the choice made, still suffering the permanent alterations made to your body by pregnancy as well as all the psychological trauma suffered throughout?"

It is convenient to allow the murder of that child. To force a woman through all that is beyond cruel, it is almost more horrible and unjust than the rape itself was. So, we make allowances for the sake of convenience. We can make this allowance because, no matter how hard we try to convince ourselves and others, we know it isn't a real kid being mowed down. It isn't the same as picking a baby up out of a bassinet and poisoning it or snapping its neck.

I agree that forcing a raped women to carry the baby inside her for nine months is beyond cruel, horrible and unjust.   I do not agree that the fetus isn't a real kid.   

CP3S said:

The vast majority of pro-life people realize this, and are compassionate enough that they are not willing to extend their desire to force morality and dictate what someone can and can't do with their own bodies to the degree of forcing a rape victim to carry her child to term. Or, to force a mother to risk her life for the sake of her unborn baby. 

there you go again,  saying that we(the pro-life people) are trying to dictate what a woman can and can't do with her own body.   Don't know why I need to keep saying this but to the pro-life people, it is not just her body that is at stake, the life of the child is also at play her. 

CP3S said:

Pro-choice extents that compassion further to include the teenage mother whose future and potential is going to be extremely limited by having a baby, or to the child who is going to be born into a poverty level household already filled with plenty of kids who will never contribute to society and suffer lives filled with crime and violence; and to every situation in between.

you again forget that there is always the option of the putting the unwanted child up for adoption.    The teenage mother need not have her future limited for more than 9 months.   If the parents can't afford to raise the child or have too many already, they too can put the child up for adoption.  Also, I'd be willing to bet you that I find a whole lot of people that live a life of poverty, that prefer living that life than having no life at all.  Do more than 50% of the people that live a life of poverty, commit suicide?   Also, you conservatives always tell me that in America, it always possible to work your way out of poverty and get rich,   why would you deny the baby that possibility? 

Mrebo said:

CP3S, if your point is a philosophical one about the inconsistency of calling it murder but allowing exceptions, you're right. But if there's one thing I've learned, Warbler doesn't care about philosophical distinctions. No offense, Warbler, I think you'd agree the philosophical side of things doesn't hold much relevance to your thinking. You care what happens in practice.

maybe philosophical points would mean more to me if I understood them.  Most of the time, when you make philosophical points,  I just don't get them.  

CP3S said:

 

If everyone would just mind their own business on matters like this, life would be so much more enjoyable.

that's right, lets mind are own business . . . and pay no attention to that doctor murdering a child behind that curtain.

CP3S said:

What prevents many from giving up is the continued belief that the fetus is a human life (and factually, it is). I think you give a good review of the thinking of both sides, but the compassion of the pro-choice side runs in a single direction, where certain conveniences can only be justified by ignoring that the fetus has any moral value. Otherwise it's like Biden's statement: "Life begins at conception...and I just refuse to impose that on others."

I actually really dislike pro-choice people who don't seem willing to admit that it is a human life, or would rather not admit or acknowledge it, despite the reality that medicine and science tells us it is. That whole line of thinking rubs me the wrong way. I really do think a lot of ignorance surrounds this issue, perhaps on both sides, but more pertinent to the pro-choice side. What you hold inside you is a future person, and very much its own entity with 100% unique DNA, snuffing that out should not be something taken lightly.

so you believe that the fetus is human life, yet you are willing to allow women to decide to kill them?

walkingdork said:

Warbler said:

walkingdork said:

But if the pregnant mother of my potential child was in mortal danger I'd want to have an abortion...and I would not consider it murder.

of course the life of the mother has to be considered.   Even if I believe that the fetus is human life with the same rights as you or I,  the mother has just as much right to live. 

But a mother dying because of complications is more natural than abortion wouldn't you agree? So you would "murder" an unborn child to save a woman from a tragic but natural death?

perhaps the mother dying of complications is more natural.  But if those complications are something we can fix and save her life and we don't and she died, can it not be said that we are responsible for her death.  Lets say someone is at your house, or you are at there house,  there is only the two you there.  If the that person collapses and is having a heart attack and you just sit there and do nothing, you don't perform first aid, you don't call 911, you just sit there and watch him die.  Are you not responsible for that person's death.   Can it not be argued that by doing nothing, you murdered him?   

The way I see it when a pregnant mother is dying and the only way to save her is to kill the child, either way we are going to have to commit murder.  Either we murder the mother by standing by and doing nothing while we could have saved her, or we have murder the child via abortion.   

walkingdork said:

 

And don't give me the "but a child cannot live without its mother" response

why would I give you that response when there many people alive today whose mothers died during childbirth?   

walkingdork said:

They find acceptable people to adopt and care for that child.

did you forget about the father?  It is possible that father would still want to have the child and raise it by himself.  

Bingowings said:

More horror to zap your will to live.

Which is why I do believe that it is the mother's choice when her life is at risk.  This woman's life was at risk.  She should have had the choice.  And you'll notice that the child died too, meaning that in this case, as is usually the case when allowing the mother to live, you are choosing between the loss of one life and the loss of two.  Obviously you will save the one if you can.

Yeah but in this case the hospital staff were reading life from the unborn fetus and hadn't correctly accessed the risk to the mother.

They thought the child might live and the mother wouldn't die.

In the end they both died, the mother in pain.

Warbler said:

CP3S said:

 

If everyone would just mind their own business on matters like this, life would be so much more enjoyable.

that's right, lets mind are own business . . . and pay no attention to that doctor murdering a child behind that curtain.

The definition of "murder" is technically an unlawful killing. Abortion is legal, this is not murder.

What does it hurt you, living in New Jersey, if some woman in California decides to terminate her pregnancy? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%.

I imagine you'll probably compare it to murder again, saying something along the lines of, "What does it hurt you, living in wherever you live, if a woman in California is raped and murdered by some thug? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%. "Then you'd probably write something like "Fixed!" under it.

Allowing things like murder and rape to go without punishment or consequences would create anarchy. Obviously, I don't want to have to worry about being picked off by someone every time I step out my door because he might think my car is nice or that the girl I am with is pretty and he wants them for himself. Nobody does. It'd make life miserable and society would crumble.

Again, what does some aborted fetus that you never even knew existed do to harm you or society or anyone else in this country other than the two people who conceived it? Again, nada. All those abortion that took place this very day, this week, and the past month, they had nothing to do with you and they didn't harm you. They don't effect your life in anyway.

It is a little sad a potential person was snuffed out, they could have gone onto be someone awesome, so it goes. But if you are going to use that argument, I suppose you could take it just a modicum farther and say that it is truly a shame about all those potential pregnancies that would go on to produce potential people if it weren't for condoms and other forms of birth control.

It is all about morality and forcing that morality on others. You think abortion is wrong, and therefore you don't want anybody to be able to do it... Well, that is unless it is done in away that you approve of, of course, such as in the instances of rape. It is totally the wrongful murder of an innocent baby, unless his daddy was a rapist, then it's cool if you want to kill the little tike. 

 

so you believe that the fetus is human life, yet you are willing to allow women to decide to kill them?

Yup.

CP3S said:

snuffing that out should not be something taken lightly.

CP3S said:

Warbler said:

CP3S said:

 

If everyone would just mind their own business on matters like this, life would be so much more enjoyable.

that's right, lets mind are own business . . . and pay no attention to that doctor murdering a child behind that curtain.

The definition of "murder" is technically an unlawful killing. Abortion is legal, this is not murder.

so 6 million jews were not murdered in Germany?   I am pretty sure the Holocaust was legal in Germany at the time.   Just because murder is legal, doesn't mean it isn't murder.  

CP3S said:

What does it hurt you, living in New Jersey, if some woman in California decides to terminate her pregnancy? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%.

I imagine you'll probably compare it to murder again, saying something along the lines of, "What does it hurt you, living in wherever you live, if a woman in California is raped and murdered by some thug? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%. "

right, and yet you think the murder of that woman should be outlawed but murder of the baby not.   

CP3S said:

Then you'd probably write something like "Fixed!" under it.

?

CP3S said:

Allowing things like murder and rape to go without punishment or consequences would create anarchy.

it would also be morally wrong and would allow people to violate peoples' right to live and not be raped

CP3S said:

Obviously, I don't want to have to worry about being picked off by someone every time I step out my door because he might think my car is nice or that the girl I am with is pretty and he wants them for himself. Nobody does. It'd make life miserable and society would crumble.

so let me get this straight, you only care about someone being murdered, about that person's right to live being violated, when it affects you?   I find selfish. 

CP3S said:

Again, what does some aborted fetus that you never even knew existed do to harm you or society or anyone else in this country other than the two people who conceived it? Again, nada. All those abortion that took place this very day, this week, and the past month, they had nothing to do with you and they didn't harm you. They don't effect your life in anyway.

they don't,  but I care anyway.   I care about human life.  I care about the right of a human to live.    Just like I care about all the death happening over in the middle east and other places.   I can't believe you'd actually try to argue that I shouldn't care about human life being snuffed out, as long as it doesn't effect me.   

Have you forgotten that the right to live was called an inalienable right by the Declaration of Independence?    According to that document, the right to live comes not from any law, but from nature. 

CP3S said:

It is a little sad a potential person was snuffed out, they could have gone onto be someone awesome, so it goes. But if you are going to use that argument, I suppose you could take it just a modicum farther and say that it is truly a shame about all those potential pregnancies that would go on to produce potential people if it weren't for condoms and other forms of birth control.

there is a big difference from preventing a human life from being created, and killing that human life once it has been created.   Otherwise, I'd have to say it was a shame about all those potential pregnancies that didn't happen because the couple decided not to have sex that night. 

CP3S said:

It is all about morality and forcing that morality on others.

did you ever stop and think that maybe you are forcing your morality on the unborn child? 

CP3S said:

You think abortion is wrong, and therefore you don't want anybody to be able to do it...

yes,  just like I don't want anyone to murder 6 million jews, even if it is legal in the country where it would happen.  

CP3S said:

Well, that is unless it is done in away that you approve of, of course, such as in the instances of rape. It is totally the wrongful murder of an innocent baby, unless his daddy was a rapist, then it's cool if you want to kill the little tike. 

I never said it was ok.   I've said repeatedly that I just don't have an answer here.  

CP3S said:

 

so you believe that the fetus is human life, yet you are willing to allow women to decide to kill them?

Yup.

that's nuts.

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

snuffing that out should not be something taken lightly.

yet it is, every day. 

They need their protein just like you do.

Warbler addressed many of the same issues in the same way I would have, but I'll have my go at it as well.

CP3S said:

Warbler said:

CP3S said:

 

If everyone would just mind their own business on matters like this, life would be so much more enjoyable.

that's right, lets mind are own business . . . and pay no attention to that doctor murdering a child behind that curtain.

The definition of "murder" is technically an unlawful killing. Abortion is legal, this is not murder.

Exactly as Warbler said: just because it is permitted by law does not make it right.  I still don't define it as murder because I believe ignorantly killing someone to be different from doing so knowingly.  That does not make it less wrong to me, but rather makes the killer less culpable.

What does it hurt you, living in New Jersey, if some woman in California decides to terminate her pregnancy? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%.

If someone were to kill you, living in Tennessee (is that right?), what would it affect me, living in AZ?  I'd wonder why you never came around the site, but I wouldn't shed a single tear for your passing.  I wouldn't even know.

Allowing things like murder and rape to go without punishment or consequences would create anarchy. Obviously, I don't want to have to worry about being picked off by someone every time I step out my door because he might think my car is nice or that the girl I am with is pretty and he wants them for himself. Nobody does. It'd make life miserable and society would crumble.

If anarchy is the only motive for preserving life, then lets take things to an opposite extreme, as you chose to do so later in your quote.  According to atheistic thought, humans are merely an anomalous byproduct of billions of years of this universe's existence and infinite cycles of previous universes.  What do we care if we snuff ourselves out?  We have proven to be nothing more than a destructive force of nature.  Ultimately our universe will end anyway.  What does it matter if we all kill each other sooner or later?

And rape was not such a strange thing in past centuries.  The women of conquered peoples were raped all the time.  Women were often in danger of being raped even by their own peoples, and if they were, it was not a crime against the woman but rather against her man.  And yet ancient cultures who ascribed to these views and laws were not in a state of anarchy.

My point to this is that even these things that we see as awful by our modern lenses were not always seen as such or may not always be seen as such.  All morals are either purely subjective (if you believe that humans are the ultimate intelligence) or dependent on a higher being.

Again, what does some aborted fetus that you never even knew existed do to harm you or society or anyone else in this country other than the two people who conceived it? Again, nada. All those abortion that took place this very day, this week, and the past month, they had nothing to do with you and they didn't harm you. They don't effect your life in anyway.

According to WikiAnswers, 150,000 people died today.  Not one of them affected my life in any way.  Clearly it does me no harm.  Sure, maybe they hurt others, but is a person's life's value measured by how many others are hurt by his/her death?  Then Kim Jong-Il was a far more valuable person than you or I.  Then the poor old man who died in his home a few years back and was not even discovered for over a year was no better than a bunch of unformed cells with human DNA.

Or.....

The value of human life is not dependent on how much that life affects me.

It is a little sad a potential person was snuffed out, they could have gone onto be someone awesome, so it goes. But if you are going to use that argument, I suppose you could take it just a modicum farther and say that it is truly a shame about all those potential pregnancies that would go on to produce potential people if it weren't for condoms and other forms of birth control.

Well, I'm glad it's a little sad.  But there is clearly a great deal of difference between an unfertilized ovum or a million sperm dying in a condom.  An embryo is genetically human.  It is self-replicating.  It is human life.  It will continue to develop.  On its present course it will continue to develop into a an adult, continuing to contribute to the human gene pool, become a member of society, and live a full individual life.  It has not yet gained sentience, but then, neither has a month-old child.  It has not yet accrued memories, but then, do memories grant human rights?  Many have lost memories or are long-term comas and cannot produce new memories?  Are their lives forfeit?

It is all about morality and forcing that morality on others. You think abortion is wrong, and therefore you don't want anybody to be able to do it... Well, that is unless it is done in away that you approve of, of course, such as in the instances of rape. It is totally the wrongful murder of an innocent baby, unless his daddy was a rapist, then it's cool if you want to kill the little tike. 

As I've argued in the politics thread and I repeat here, any law we hold, any societal norm, heck, even your statement that we should not impose our morals on others is, in fact, a real or attempted imposition of someone's morals on others, including those who may not agree.  Take many Muslims in the Middle East who in fact feel morally obligated to 'share' their moral view with the rest of the world.  And just look at any law.  With perhaps rare exceptions, most of those laws were put in place because a sizable portion of society determined that something was immoral, and because others who either did not find it immoral or else did not think that moral applied to them, a law was created to make illegal the violation of that societal moral.  Forgery is morally wrong, so we created a law to protect others, even though some people don't see it as wrong or personally applicable.  Identity theft is wrong.  Killing is wrong.  This is why we set up these laws.

Half of our society think abortion should only be legal in some circumstances and another 5th in no circumstances.  Yet the minority (one third) has in fact imposed their view that we must accept all abortions if the pregnant mother sees fit instead of protecting a defenseless life.

Whichever way we choose to go, pro-life or pro-choice, someone is imposing their morality on someone else.  The societal morals that we are potentially infringing upon are either "consciously and prematurely ending a human life" or "imposing your moral viewpoint on someone else."  All societies have determined one to be wrong in most cases.  All societies have determined the other to be necessary every time they formulate new laws.  Guess which side I joined with.

 

so you believe that the fetus is human life, yet you are willing to allow women to decide to kill them?

Yup.

Hey!  I'm pro-choice too.  I believe everyone has the right to choose to have sex, which is inherently and inseparably tied to reproduction.  Thus, they have made the choice to take a risk at getting pregnant.  They made a choice that affected their body.  But I don't believe they have to choice to destroy another body, even if that body is forming inside their own.

CP3S said:

snuffing that out should not be something taken lightly.

Sadly, under a pro-choice banner, it usually is.

Just like many argued that slavery was in fact not immoral because slaves were not full-fledged humans in their eyes (obviously the Secession thread is springing up in my thought processes), and just because the Northerners were not affected by the abuse of slaves in the South, and just because slave owners felt that they had the right to choose to do whatever they wished with the sub-human lives over which they had control, that did not make the fight of the abolitionists, many of whom had probably never even seen a black person in all their life, from fighting for the rights of a people who were powerless to do anything about their plight on their own.

Even if an abortion affects no one else, it does in fact affect one person at a minimum.  Sadly, that someone will never live to an age where he/she can complain about it, and because you never hear that complaint, "it doesn't affect [anyone]."  Like an abolitionist, I will fight for the rights of the powerless, silent victims that I've never met.

Bingowings said:

Yeah but in this case the hospital staff were reading life from the unborn fetus and hadn't correctly accessed the risk to the mother.

They thought the child might live and the mother wouldn't die.

In the end they both died, the mother in pain.

That's not how I understand it, thought I could be wrong.  The hospital staff were required to keep the child alive if the fetus's heart is still beating, regardless of risk to the mother.  The policy is that the mother and child have an equal right to life.  Because they failed to take into account the health of the mother, both died.

Warbler said:

so 6 million jews were not murdered in Germany?   I am pretty sure the Holocaust was legal in Germany at the time.   Just because murder is legal, doesn't mean it isn't murder.  

Well, technically no, I suppose. "Executed" among other words, would be more accurate.

CP3S said:

What does it hurt you, living in New Jersey, if some woman in California decides to terminate her pregnancy? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%.

I imagine you'll probably compare it to murder again, saying something along the lines of, "What does it hurt you, living in wherever you live, if a woman in California is raped and murdered by some thug? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%. "

right, and yet you think the murder of that woman should be outlawed but murder of the baby not.   

Already covered in the very post you are quoting from.

CP3S said:

Then you'd probably write something like "Fixed!" under it.

?

You know how you take quotes from other people, make changes to them, then exclaim "Fixed!"? Lot's of people here do it, you know what I am talking about.

CP3S said:

Allowing things like murder and rape to go without punishment or consequences would create anarchy.

it would also be morally wrong and would allow people to violate peoples' right to live and not be raped

Yeah, pretty much what I was saying.

CP3S said:

Obviously, I don't want to have to worry about being picked off by someone every time I step out my door because he might think my car is nice or that the girl I am with is pretty and he wants them for himself. Nobody does. It'd make life miserable and society would crumble.

so let me get this straight, you only care about someone being murdered, about that person's right to live being violated, when it affects you?   I find selfish. 

Nope, you don't have it straight at all. And I completely covered all that in the very post you're quoting from.

CP3S said:

Again, what does some aborted fetus that you never even knew existed do to harm you or society or anyone else in this country other than the two people who conceived it? Again, nada. All those abortion that took place this very day, this week, and the past month, they had nothing to do with you and they didn't harm you. They don't effect your life in anyway.

they don't,  but I care anyway.   I care about human life.  I care about the right of a human to live.    Just like I care about all the death happening over in the middle east and other places.   I can't believe you'd actually try to argue that I shouldn't care about human life being snuffed out, as long as it doesn't effect me.   

I'm not arguing that at all.

But when it comes to abortion, something deemed legal and socially acceptable by the supreme court and the powers that be, I think it is silly to get your panties all tangled up simply because your neighbors are doing something you personally find morally wrong.

This moralistic thinking is also what leads to racism and homophobia. According to the Bible homosexuality is wrong, right? So would you be quite bothered if your male next door neighbor spent his weekend lovingly sodomizing another dude? I don't think you would, because you feel gay people should be treated the same as anyone else and what they do as consenting adults in their lives doesn't affect us.

The bottom line is, it isn't your body that has this parasitic early stage of human life growing inside of you. In fact, it is something you will never have to experience, or fear the potential of experiencing when you are not ready for it. It doesn't affect you, and it is only your personal morals (thus not shared by everyone, not even everyone in your own country) that are condemning it.

Have you forgotten that the right to live was called an inalienable right by the Declaration of Independence?    According to that document, the right to live comes not from any law, but from nature. 

Show me where that applies to potential people? Should we extend it to sperm cells, as potential potentials? Someone mentioned their dog was more of a person than an unborn fetus was, I don't think I could go that far not really being much of a pet person, but nobody argued with him on it so perhaps it wasn't seen as that outrageous of a comment. A lot of people swear their pet is a "person". Since their sensibilities are inclined to think of pets as people, should they then fight for the inalienable rights of dogs and cats?

I think you are kind of stretching by claiming the Declaration of Independence's "unalienable right to life" pertains to abortion. I think we can both agree that is not what was in mind when it was written, and if you take it to mean that, you suddenly find yourself in all sorts of sticky dilemmas. So now we are alienating the unborn baby's right to life because his father is a rapist or because his mother's life is in danger? That doesn't fit the definition of "inalienable". Now we are back to a convenience thing (and I probably just reoffended Frink), sometimes we see fit to grant the right to life to our unborn, and sometimes we feel justified in alienating that right.

I think I have already well demonstrated that even you, Warbler, don't hold a fetus at the same value as a small child.

CP3S said:

It is all about morality and forcing that morality on others.

did you ever stop and think that maybe you are forcing your morality on the unborn child? 

I'm not forcing any morality on anyone. If you don't feel right about abortion, then I strongly encourage you not to get an abortion. The unborn child, I suppose has to be at the mercy of those who conceived him.

CP3S said:

You think abortion is wrong, and therefore you don't want anybody to be able to do it...

yes,  just like I don't want anyone to murder 6 million jews, even if it is legal in the country where it would happen.  

I truly hope you see that there is a very massive difference between those two things you are comparing.

CP3S said:

 

so you believe that the fetus is human life, yet you are willing to allow women to decide to kill them?

Yup.

that's nuts.

I know, right!

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

snuffing that out should not be something taken lightly.

yet it is, every day. 

Do you think that many people are so flippant about it? Maybe they are. In that case educating would be a good idea. Of course, it is hard for people to want to listen when they see people trying to take their rights away.

I think part of the reason so many people have such a stunted view on abortion has a lot to do with a knee jerk reaction to those who are so vehemently against it. When someone has a good point to make, but they go about making that point in the wrong kind of way, it is hard to want to have even the slightest acceptance of their views. The Westboro Baptists for example, a lot of people fundamentally agree with their anti-war stance, but still feel like puking every time they hear about what these idiots do to make their points.

I think if there wasn't such a strong, forceful, religiously centered opposition to abortion, more people would be willing to look at it objectively and draw tighter boundaries. Instead, it is a right that is perceived as being under attack. 

darth_ender said:

If someone were to kill you, living in Tennessee (is that right?), what would it affect me, living in AZ?  I'd wonder why you never came around the site, but I wouldn't shed a single tear for your passing.  I wouldn't even know.

Haha, it is funny you did that. It is exactly what I anticipated happening, but I figured Warb would be the one to do it.

Ender, I feel like you are taking many of the things I said in quite the wrong way. I have to debate you and Warbler on quite different levels, you both come at things from extremely different angles. As Mrebo (I think) pointed out, Warb doesn't give much thought to philosophicals, while you're all about them. You and I think a lot more alike, we both deal in philosophy and practicality defined by philosophy. I started to reply to your post, but it just felt monotonous. I kind of converted philosophical thoughts down to as practical as I could get them, then you up-rezed them back to a philosophical. Feels like a third gen VHS recording, there is a lot of noise and garbage that doesn't need to be there. We could be having a much deeper discussion about this than the one that would ensue if I spent the time replying to your post. Got to get to bed, but I'll look into some replies over the weekend.

I'm not a rapist, and my wife was not in danger.  But if you think we acted out of convenience, you can kindly fuck off.

@CP3S...No worries.  Frankly, I enjoy debating you as long as we haven't gotten on each other's nerves too much.  You argue well, and it takes a lot of thought to try to rebut your ideas :)  But I do feel that the philosophy and practicality of this situation is so intertwined that to separate them would oversimplify a supremely important issue.  Human life is at stake, so I consider all the moral implications.

If I may take you on a personal anecdotal tangent, I remember years ago when I was still in high school (putting it between '96 and 2000--I can't remember when exactly), I was speaking with my older brother on this very topic, but from a much more simplistic angle.  He told me, "You know darth (that's my real name, of course ;), I have a professor that told me, 'You don't really know how right something is until you've tried argued for the opposite point of view.'"  I have taken that to heart and as my morals, sensibilities, and debating skills have grown, I've really done that with virtually all my moral views.  This is why I grew up in a home with a very conservative home and in a dogmatic church, yet I have developed a moral compass I'm very proud to call my own, with moderately conservative views, but often leaning liberal on a number of topics.  Virtually everything taken to one extreme or the other is dangerous and does not consider all variables.  I try to give a listening ear to different viewpoints and I try to be open to when I am wrong, even here.  I have considered all my views and argued with myself from an opposite perspective, and interestingly I discovered that while I have moderated nearly all my views, I simply find it unacceptable to do so with abortion.

You never know something is right, even after all that deliberating.

You can hope it's right, you can feel it's right, you can believe it's right but you can't know it's right.

Ultimately it boils down to what you do.

If you are so against abortion don't have one, don't cause one to be personally necessary.

It's easy for me because fate has equipped me with the man option.

But I notice you don't get anywhere near as many people pushing the pro-vasectomy/sterilisation angle than you do the anti-abortion angle.

I'm calling sour grapes.

Most of the people complaining like mad are just bitter they can get laid enough to potentially ruin someone else's life.

Couldn't you say the same for every moral conviction.  But we must impose or morals on others at times.  That's what laws are.

"If you are so against slavery, don't buy a slave."

You see, it's not so simple as that either.

As for vasectomies and such, I am perfectly happy to allow someone to choose any method to avoid pregnancy rather than terminating the actual life that has since been created.  I am completely for the father being required to take far more responsibility with regards to the child after birth.  I am okay with more options being provided for mothers and the adoption process becoming more streamlined.

And I'm married and get laid plenty.  If we get pregnant now, it would economically be very difficult for us.  But neither of us would consider our lives ruined, and certainly wouldn't consider ruining the child's life an option to ease our lot.

No, laws are laws not morals.

We go along with them because the sanity/popularity ratio of those laws is balanced enough to keep society stable.

Not because it is morally right.

It's ethics not morals.

We do these things because if we went too far liberally the uptight would be outraged enough to destabilise society and/or people will be so victimised and lacking redress that society would be equally distablised.

Laws have only a tangental relationship to morality, huge chunks of the legal framework of the world are moral outrages to the majority of sane people.

So much so they spend much of their time bending the rules and flirting with danger to get by.

If laws were about morals the majority impulse would be law.

I shudder to think what that would be like.

You find me a law that is not rooted in a moral/ethical belief, and I'll consider buying into your point.

I still don't understand your distinction between ethics and morals.  The two terms are often used interchangeably, and the only distinction I've heard is when it comes to an establishment, such as the workplace, with a defined code of conduct which in itself is based upon some moral intent, such as the Hippocratic oath for doctors, an ethical code of conduct that doctors swear to which may at times may disagree with their personal convictions, but nevertheless guides their behavior when wearing their professional hat.

Look, even the laws that provide protection for minority-held beliefs stem from the moral concept that a majority should not impose its moral viewpoint on a minority.

Find me a law thats based on a universal moral precept.

Just one.

Wrong and right, good and evil are plastic concepts and often impossible to rationally discuss.

"We can allow" and "We can't allow" however is are more easy to rationalise.

Legally we allow things some people deem evil and not just mildly so because it's in the best interest of society.

When law makers talk good and evil they have either lost the plot or don't really care about what they are doing.

What is functional to society and what is not functional to society is really what they should be talking about.

They sound like the same thing but they are less emotionally charged.

And to you and Warb's delight you can still yap about them until the universe freezes over but you will have a better chance of coming up with something of practical use than talking about morality.

Where did I ever say anything about a universally-held moral precept?  I believe I have stated several times in this thread and in the politics thread that morals are what a society determines, either based on a belief that a Divine Being has deemed them as such, or because of the idea that it is "functional to society" or "not functional to society."  The concept of "Thou shalt not kill" has become a universal law in all nations, with exceptions that differ based on the various societies' understandings.  Nevertheless, it is based on a moral.  But if we truly believe that life should be preserved as often as possible, then we should not limit that belief simply because of another person's "right to choose."  Every other exception is based on a much more extreme and rare set of circumstances.

What is functional to society is clearly too loose a rule to devise a legal system.  A society could conceivably function with almost no laws at all, though drastically changing to such a society would be destabilizing.  But because of morals that much (not necessarily all) of that society holds, we devise laws to protect them.  Societies we see today as terribly immoral were once quite stable.  But as we see certain other things as right, we choose to reject their systems and devise our own based on our own principles.  A majority of my society feels that abortion is wrong in some or all cases.  But in the name of "not imposing morality on others," a minority gets to kill literally millions of children every year.

And ultimately what is the reasoning? in literally over 90% of the cases, it is a reason easily bundled under the heading "INCONVENIENCE."

CP3S said:

Warbler said:

so 6 million jews were not murdered in Germany?   I am pretty sure the Holocaust was legal in Germany at the time.   Just because murder is legal, doesn't mean it isn't murder.  

Well, technically no, I suppose. "Executed" among other words, would be more accurate.

that is just crazy and offensive.   They were MURDERED.     I don't know how you can argue that murder is only murder, when it is against the law.

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

What does it hurt you, living in New Jersey, if some woman in California decides to terminate her pregnancy? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%.

I imagine you'll probably compare it to murder again, saying something along the lines of, "What does it hurt you, living in wherever you live, if a woman in California is raped and murdered by some thug? The answer: not at all whatsoever. You are entirely unaffected, 100%. "

right, and yet you think the murder of that woman should be outlawed but murder of the baby not.   

Already covered in the very post you are quoting from.

I must have missed where you covered it. 

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

Then you'd probably write something like "Fixed!" under it.

?

You know how you take quotes from other people, make changes to them, then exclaim "Fixed!"? Lot's of people here do it, you know what I am talking about.

I suppose I do,  but just what part of your post were you expecting me to "fix"? 

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

Allowing things like murder and rape to go without punishment or consequences would create anarchy.

it would also be morally wrong and would allow people to violate peoples' right to live and not be raped

Yeah, pretty much what I was saying.

I don't think it was.   You made it sound like we should only care about these things, rape and murder, when it effects us.  

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

Obviously, I don't want to have to worry about being picked off by someone every time I step out my door because he might think my car is nice or that the girl I am with is pretty and he wants them for himself. Nobody does. It'd make life miserable and society would crumble.

so let me get this straight, you only care about someone being murdered, about that person's right to live being violated, when it affects you?   I find selfish. 

Nope, you don't have it straight at all. And I completely covered all that in the very post you're quoting from.

no, I don't think you did.

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

Again, what does some aborted fetus that you never even knew existed do to harm you or society or anyone else in this country other than the two people who conceived it? Again, nada. All those abortion that took place this very day, this week, and the past month, they had nothing to do with you and they didn't harm you. They don't effect your life in anyway.

they don't,  but I care anyway.   I care about human life.  I care about the right of a human to live.    Just like I care about all the death happening over in the middle east and other places.   I can't believe you'd actually try to argue that I shouldn't care about human life being snuffed out, as long as it doesn't effect me.   

I'm not arguing that at all.

sure sounded like it.

CP3S said:

But when it comes to abortion, something deemed legal and socially acceptable by the supreme court and the powers that be, I think it is silly to get your panties all tangled up simply because your neighbors are doing something you personally find morally wrong.

so it is silly to "get your panties all tangled up", when you see people committing murder, simply because the murder is deemed legal and socially acceptable?

So all the abolitionists were silly to be so upset about slavery, because slavery was deemed legal and socially acceptable?

Throughout history,  there are many instances of horrible, evil things done, that at the time were deemed legal and socially acceptable.   Yet, I don't think was silly to think that those things were evil and that they should be stopped.  

by the way, I am pissed that you belittle my stances on abortion as being, silly. 

CP3S said:

This moralistic thinking is also what leads to racism and homophobia. According to the Bible homosexuality is wrong, right? So would you be quite bothered if your male next door neighbor spent his weekend lovingly sodomizing another dude? I don't think you would, because you feel gay people should be treated the same as anyone else and what they do as consenting adults in their lives doesn't affect us.

it is more than just that their lives don;t affect us, allowing them to live there lives the way they want, doesn't violate anyone's rights.   I can not say the same for abortion, I believe it violates the right to life of the unborn child.   

CP3S said:

The bottom line is, it isn't your body that has this parasitic early stage of human life growing inside of you. In fact, it is something you will never have to experience, or fear the potential of experiencing when you are not ready for it. It doesn't affect you, and it is only your personal morals (thus not shared by everyone, not even everyone in your own country) that are condemning it.

true, it doesn't affect me, but it does affect the unborn child.   Forcing black people to sit in the back of the bus would not affect me, but I am against that too.  I see nothing wrong with fighting for the rights of others, in the case, it is the rights of the unborn child that I fight for.

CP3S said:

Have you forgotten that the right to live was called an inalienable right by the Declaration of Independence?    According to that document, the right to live comes not from any law, but from nature. 

Show me where that applies to potential people?

1. show me where it doesn't

2. is the unborn child just a potential person?  Just exactly when does it become a person?  

CP3S said:

Should we extend it to sperm cells, as potential potentials?

no, because sperm cell alone is not a human life,  human life is the combination of the sperm and the egg cell. 

CP3S said:

Someone mentioned their dog was more of a person than an unborn fetus was,

now THAT is silly. 

CP3S said:

 Since their sensibilities are inclined to think of pets as people, should they then fight for the inalienable rights of dogs and cats?

1. I doubt many of them truly actually  think there pets are people. 

2. They can try to fight for it, but I doubt they'd succeed.  

3. We call them human rights for a reason.  

CP3S said:

I think you are kind of stretching by claiming the Declaration of Independence's "unalienable right to life" pertains to abortion.

am I?   I am pretty sure that many of the founding fathers would be pro-life.

CP3S said:

I think we can both agree that is not what was in mind when it was written,

nor were uzies, and m16s and semi automatic handguns in mind when the 2nd amendment was written.  Yet, you believe the amendment covers those things.

CP3S said:

and if you take it to mean that, you suddenly find yourself in all sorts of sticky dilemmas.

how so?

CP3S said:

So now we are alienating the unborn baby's right to life because his father is a rapist or because his mother's life is in danger? That doesn't fit the definition of "inalienable".

As I've said before, I don't have an answer for you on the situation of pregnancy via rape.   As for the situation of the mother's life being in danger, please remember that the mother also has the inalienable right to life. 

CP3S said:

Now we are back to a convenience thing (and I probably just reoffended Frink),

yeah, why'd you do that?

CP3S said:

sometimes we see fit to grant the right to life to our unborn, and sometimes we feel justified in alienating that right.

maybe its just a question of what is worse, killing the child or forcing a raped women to carry a constant reminder of the rape, and something that gets many of its characteristics from the rapist,  for nine months.

CP3S said:

I think I have already well demonstrated that even you, Warbler, don't hold a fetus at the same value as a small child.

maybe, maybe not.   But I still think the unborn child is life, and is of great value and shouldn't be snuffed out without extremely compelling reason, like the life of the mother being in danger and maybe putting a woman through something that could possibly be considered worse than being dead.

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

It is all about morality and forcing that morality on others.

did you ever stop and think that maybe you are forcing your morality on the unborn child? 

I'm not forcing any morality on anyone. If you don't feel right about abortion, then I strongly encourage you not to get an abortion.

and if you don't feeling right about 6 million Jews being murdered,  don't murder 6 million Jews?

CP3S said:

The unborn child, I suppose has to be at the mercy of those who conceived him.

sometimes, parents can be very uncaring.   I think we owe the unborn, better than that.  

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

You think abortion is wrong, and therefore you don't want anybody to be able to do it...

yes,  just like I don't want anyone to murder 6 million jews, even if it is legal in the country where it would happen.  

I truly hope you see that there is a very massive difference between those two things you are comparing.

of course they are different.   But both are still murder in my mind.

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

 

so you believe that the fetus is human life, yet you are willing to allow women to decide to kill them?

Yup.

that's nuts.

I know, right!

*sigh*

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

CP3S said:

snuffing that out should not be something taken lightly.

yet it is, every day. 

Do you think that many people are so flippant about it?

yes, unfortunately.   Remember you are talking about people who had unprotected sex, at a time in their life when they did not want a child.   They already made one irresponsible decision, is it so much a stretch that they'd make another?  

CP3S said:

Maybe they are. In that case educating would be a good idea.

I suppose it would.

CP3S said:

Of course, it is hard for people to want to listen when they see people trying to take their rights away.

just as it is hard for people to sit by do nothing while they see people committing murder, legal as it may be.   

CP3S said:

I think part of the reason so many people have such a stunted view on abortion has a lot to do with a knee jerk reaction to those who are so vehemently against it. When someone has a good point to make, but they go about making that point in the wrong kind of way, it is hard to want to have even the slightest acceptance of their views.

yes, I admit many on the pro-life side are a-holes, insensitive jerks, and nutcases.   It is a problem. 

CP3S said:

 The Westboro Baptists for example, a lot of people fundamentally agree with their anti-war stance, but still feel like puking every time they hear about what these idiots do to make their points.

I didn't think they had an anti-war stance as much as they had an anti-gay stance.  

CP3S said:

I think if there wasn't such a strong, forceful, religiously centered opposition to abortion, more people would be willing to look at it objectively and draw tighter boundaries.

perhaps.

CP3S said:

Instead, it is a right that is perceived as being under attack. 

well, I am so sorry that the right to commit murder is under attack. 

darth_ender said:

Where did I ever say anything about a universally-held moral precept?  I believe I have stated several times in this thread and in the politics thread that morals are what a society determines, either based on a belief that a Divine Being has deemed them as such, or because of the idea that it is "functional to society" or "not functional to society."  The concept of "Thou shalt not kill" has become a universal law in all nations, with exceptions that differ based on the various societies' understandings.  Nevertheless, it is based on a moral.  But if we truly believe that life should be preserved as often as possible, then we should not limit that belief simply because of another person's "right to choose."  Every other exception is based on a much more extreme and rare set of circumstances.

What is functional to society is clearly too loose a rule to devise a legal system.  A society could conceivably function with almost no laws at all, though drastically changing to such a society would be destabilizing.  But because of morals that much (not necessarily all) of that society holds, we devise laws to protect them.  Societies we see today as terribly immoral were once quite stable.  But as we see certain other things as right, we choose to reject their systems and devise our own based on our own principles.  A majority of my society feels that abortion is wrong in some or all cases.  But in the name of "not imposing morality on others," a minority gets to kill literally millions of children every year.

And ultimately what is the reasoning? in literally over 90% of the cases, it is a reason easily bundled under the heading "INCONVENIENCE."

If you are claiming that laws are morals they have to be based on universal precepts or they wouldn't get through the selection process, someone would throw them out or throw the people throwing them in out (probably from a high window).

As for a society functioning without almost no laws...er... how?

A society is defined by rules, no rules no club to join.

What societies do we see as immoral and formally stable, show your workings?

Functionally it would be insane to make abortion illegal.

You would have a black market for them which would be as safe as the black market for hard drugs and dangerous sex.

You would have a boom in the parent-less child share of the population which would have to be paid for and you would have to relax the standards for adoption to reduce the burden on the state.

The state make lousy parents and the extra abandoned children will be proportionally less functional than the people that made them and children cost money, meaning that even with extra children born to stable family units there will be less free capital in society to pay for improvements to the general standard of living.

People don't stop having sex when you legislate around the act.

Thousands of years of laws about homosexuality proves this.

Your moral concern boils down to the same sort of focus of empathy that I have walking past McDonalds.

I can't prove my feelings of empathy with animals, I can't stop Warb gleefully killing mice. I can't prevent a massive multi-billion dollar meat industry from chewing up the world's resources for the sake of consumerism.

You can't prove a fetus is a human being with a soul.

But you can see that forcing society to face the full consequences of unprotected sex of some of it's members when we are an industrialised technological society is not going to be an easy sell, right?

Bingowings said:

darth_ender said:

Where did I ever say anything about a universally-held moral precept?  I believe I have stated several times in this thread and in the politics thread that morals are what a society determines, either based on a belief that a Divine Being has deemed them as such, or because of the idea that it is "functional to society" or "not functional to society."  The concept of "Thou shalt not kill" has become a universal law in all nations, with exceptions that differ based on the various societies' understandings.  Nevertheless, it is based on a moral.  But if we truly believe that life should be preserved as often as possible, then we should not limit that belief simply because of another person's "right to choose."  Every other exception is based on a much more extreme and rare set of circumstances.

What is functional to society is clearly too loose a rule to devise a legal system.  A society could conceivably function with almost no laws at all, though drastically changing to such a society would be destabilizing.  But because of morals that much (not necessarily all) of that society holds, we devise laws to protect them.  Societies we see today as terribly immoral were once quite stable.  But as we see certain other things as right, we choose to reject their systems and devise our own based on our own principles.  A majority of my society feels that abortion is wrong in some or all cases.  But in the name of "not imposing morality on others," a minority gets to kill literally millions of children every year.

And ultimately what is the reasoning? in literally over 90% of the cases, it is a reason easily bundled under the heading "INCONVENIENCE."

If you are claiming that laws are morals they have to be based on universal precepts or they wouldn't get through the selection process, someone would throw them out or throw the people throwing them in out (probably from a high window).

Once you drop the word "universal" from both this and your last quote, you may actually begin to understand what I'm talking about.  I'm not saying anything, not a single solitary thing about any sort of universal moral determining our laws.  I am saying that our laws are based on a general consensus of a particular society, meaning that in that society there are those who disagree, and other societies define their morals differently.  Our laws are based upon our society's general consensus.

As for a society functioning without almost no laws...er... how?

Anarchists believe that self-rule is the only law we need.  Many societies have had few laws in place.  I wish I could find you a specific example, but at the moment I can't, but in any case there is a sort of tribal government in Africa where the only law is judgment on an individual basis, with no firm laws in place.  The more complex the society, the more complex the needed law system.  But many societies have functioned without law in the past.

A society is defined by rules, no rules no club to join.

What societies do we see as immoral and formally stable, show your workings?

Immoral according to our standards, first off.  Let's see.  Well, the British Empire and the United States of America, for starters, with their involvement in the slave trade (I bring those up because of our citizenship in each, not to excuse the many other guilty nations).  Ancient empires such as China, Rome, Ottoman, Inca, Aztec, where they would conquer peoples, kill all the men, rape the women.  In some cases they would sacrifice them and eat their flesh.  Each felt they had the right to rule over as much land and as many people as possible.  European feudalism has thrived at the great expense of lower classes of people.  The caste system of India, deeply intertwined with their religion prevailed for years and years, and though now officially abolished, it remains present in the minds of many.  Many modern Islamic societies involve the oppression of women, the execution of heretics and homosexuals, the suppression of free information.  All these societies have demonstrating stability in spite of their disagreement with us on morality.

Functionally it would be insane to make abortion illegal.

You would have a black market for them which would be as safe as the black market for hard drugs and dangerous sex.

So because people are prone to do something wrong, we should simply legalize it in all cases?  I still am opposed to illegal drug use, no matter how difficult the fight.  Regardless of the extent of illegal immigration, I oppose it.  Even if there is a massive black market for illegal weapons, I still support legislation against it.  Even if abortions still go forward, they would be reduced, the guilty more responsible for their choices, and the nation as a whole would be fighting to preserve life.  The fight for right is always hard, but that doesn't make it not worth fighting in my mind.

You would have a boom in the parent-less child share of the population which would have to be paid for and you would have to relax the standards for adoption to reduce the burden on the state.

Adoption is a ridiculously expensive and difficult process, as my older sister can attest (I'm really full of familial references in this topic).  The standards might not need to be relaxed, but I'm confident the process can be greatly streamlined and the cost lowered.  There are literally hundreds of thousands of families in this country alone, eager to adopt, but struggling to obtain a child.

The state make lousy parents and the extra abandoned children will be proportionally less functional than the people that made them and children cost money, meaning that even with extra children born to stable family units there will be less free capital in society to pay for improvements to the general standard of living.

People don't stop having sex when you legislate around the act.

Somehow people forget the benefit of education at reducing pregnancies.  If we more effectively educated people about how to avoid pregnancy, this might not be such a problem.  Furthermore, if people were held to a greater level of responsibility (the future mothers and fathers), they might make wiser decisions when it came to sex.  As you kindly demonstrated yesterday, stricter abortion laws than I'm advocating exist in Ireland.  Yet Ireland has been voted the best or among the best countries throughout the past several years.  How strange!  Their economy has clearly not been shattered by their strict abortion laws.

Thousands of years of laws about homosexuality proves this.

Your moral concern boils down to the same sort of focus of empathy that I have walking past McDonalds.

I can't prove my feelings of empathy with animals, I can't stop Warb gleefully killing mice. I can't prevent a massive multi-billion dollar meat industry from chewing up the world's resources for the sake of consumerism.

If you feel something is morally right, I encourage you to advocate for it.  Many, many people stand up for ethical treatment of animals.  They have successfully lobbied for the passage of several laws regarding their treatment, and ultimately would like to see more, I'm sure.  However, society as a whole has not adopted their level of morality, and thus McDonald's still slaughters cows and chickens for the enjoyment of millions.  But if you managed to convince the majority of the country (yours or mine) that such should not be the case, I say in all seriousness, "More power to you."  You have the right to impose that moral on those who disagree, as long as most of society does agree.

You can't prove a fetus is a human being with a soul.

But you can see that forcing society to face the full consequences of unprotected sex of some of it's members when we are an industrialised technological society is not going to be an easy sell, right?

A tough sell?  Obviously.  Is my fight pointless?  I am convinced it is not.

Bottom line: morals are not universal.  They are generally held and thus imposed in law in various societies.  I have every right to advocate for the rights of over 1,000,000 American children per year (not to mention the other 40,000,000 children elsewhere in the world).  

Great.  Juuuust great.  Now I'm resorting to block quoting with you.  Arg! ;)