The thread where we make enemies out of friends, aka the abortion debate thread — Page 31

Bingowings said:

Person, personality, persona...it's what the whole family of words refers to. Blame the middle English speakers (it originally meant a mask or a role in a play).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=person&searchmode=none

The etymological root was synonymous with human, which means genetically human.  Persona and personality were derived from person, and therefore do not define that word.  Appealing to a word's history is not sufficient to define it, as mask and role in a play demonstrate.

Zygotes don't have a personality, they have no characteristics that define them from other microscopic lifeforms.

This doesn't happen until sometime in the toddler stage, usually around the time the baby is on solid food and can make very basic gestures indicating preference.

Just because something can't express desires sooner doesn't mean they aren't there.  Honestly, you speak like someone who knows.

http://lpp.psycho.univ-paris5.fr/pdf/1387.pdf

The above article discusses two things of relevance to this discussion: first, that newborns (as in within an hour of birth) prefer the rhythm of their own language above that of other languages; second, that they are learning language even before they are born, which is significant when considering their mental capacities.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/208/4448/1174.abstract

This shows a preference for mothers' voices over others' voices.

And this one here:

http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/en/resourcecentres/prematurebabies/athome/movementandreflexes/pages/newborn-senses.aspx

shows that they can distinguish between their mothers' faces within two hours of birth and someone else's.  Also they can distinguish smells and prefer the smell of their mothers' milk to another's.

We are all dying Ender.

Leaving an elderly or sick person to die without water or food is all about convenience, if it wasn't we would pay someone to check them constantly and keep them alive until they died, not just stop feeding them. That is an abortion of a person, they are being switched off because they are a burden to medical staff or relatives.

Ummm...we do that.  Again, as I am in the medical field and have watched a few people die at this point, I am speaking from greater experience than you.  Only in hopeless cases, only with individual's permission, or if not available, the family's permission after discussion, is it even legal to remove a feeding tube from someone.  See the Terri Schiavo case here in the US just to see the legal difficulties that can be involved.  We don't simply switch of feeding tubes when it becomes too costly.  Maybe it's done in public healthcare systems, but not here in the US.  It is literally illegal.  Never out of burden or cost.  Only out of futility and suffering.

If you are prepared to eat something as inquisitive and as intelligent as a toddler (when a baby becomes a person) but protect the rights of the Zygote (basically all the awareness of an item of plankton) you may well have to invert your thinking to be consistent.

 Why would I do that?  I don't even understand your meaning.  You are into defending the rights of mice, yet not of fetuses, then I think you are the one who is inconsistent.  Calling Frink consistent in being pro-choice and pro-McDonald's while you oppose one and support the other makes you and I equally inconsistent.

I don't recall ever reading about any pets you may have owned, but let's discuss a hypothetical scenario: you've had a wonderful black Labrador  for the past 10 years.  You love your lab.  You feed it, care for it, want what's best for it.  Let's say that one day it got loose and bit your neighbor.  The authorities come to your house and let you know that your pet will have to be put down.  But they offer an alternative: if you agree to give up your life in your Lab's place, your pet will live.  Would you give up your human life to save your pet?  Why or why not?  Afterwards, we'll see where the discussion goes.

I'm not Pro-McDonalds.  I don't know what they serve but it ain't meat.

If what McDonalds serves really isn't meat, I don't want to know what it really is.

HotRod said:

Warbler said:

Well, you do kinda have to admit that it is irresponsible to have consentual unprotected sex at a time in your life when you don't want kids.    I honestly don't understand why someone would take that kind of risk. 

 One day, when you start to have sex, you'll know why!!

 Nope.  Of course understand why someone wants to have sex.  But I do not understand why someone who doesn't want kids would take the risk of unprotected sex.  Now, maybe you meant to argue that sex with a condom is not as enjoyable as sex without it.   What abou the pill?  Is sex with a woman who is on the pill any less enjoyable than sex with woman who is not on the pill?  I ask the question in regards to a man who has had vasectomy and a woman who has had her tubes tied.

Bingowings said:

This doesn't happen until sometime in the toddler stage, usually around the time the baby is on solid food and can make very basic gestures indicating preference.

 And how would you decide what constitutes a preference and what a gesture indicating that is? My baby brother, ever since he was about two months old (at least), has preferred lying on his right side as opposed to his left, and would sometimes cry when lain on the wrong side. Why is that type of preference different than a toddler pushing away food he doesn't like, or complaining about it?

darth_ender said:You are into defending the rights of mice, yet not of fetuses, then I think you are the one who is inconsistent.  Calling Frink consistent in being pro-choice and pro-McDonald's while you oppose one and support the other makes you and I equally inconsistent.

 You make an excellant point here, Ender.

darth_ender said:

Bingowings said:little flags like 'person' and 'human rights' around. Where is the personhood of the more developed and aware animal? Where are the human rights for pigs?

 They are called human rights for a reason.

Save Peppa Pig!

darth_ender said:

Bingowings said:People who will defend the rights of a fetus while munching on a close cousin are a maze of contradictions.

 That is completely asinine.

Bingowings said:

thejediknighthusezni said:

      ^ So then, when you are sound asleep or passed out drunk, you're cool with having anyone who finds you inconvenient tear you to shreds instead of waiting whatever period of time is necessarry for you to awake and display these qualities of personhood?

         Dude, I sure wouldn't let the gang pushing the global warming fraud and Agenda 21 hear you say that! 

There is a difference between a sleeping person and an non-existent one and I never said I was 'cool' about abortion either.

In debates like these people (a fetus and a baby can't do this) wave silly little flags like 'person' and 'human rights' around. Where is the personhood of the more developed and aware animal? Where are the human rights for pigs?

People are aborted every day in hospitals. When the old are the uncommunicative are left without food or water to 'pass away" and yet the calls against these actions are tiny compared to the abortion issue because babies are cute and old and disabled people are probably even more inconvenient than an unwanted pregnancy.

People who will defend the rights of a fetus while munching on a close cousin are a maze of contradictions.

         Many differences. A two month old developing person has far more human potential than a passed-out 50 year-old.

         Our elite masters love this business of comparing and equating people with base animals. They love the suggetions of close relationship and spread that word.

        Why would the same jackals who have their fingers on civilization's kill-switch and The Button be so obsessed with with ensuring that people stop viewing each-other as special creations of God? Why relentlessly push the view that your neighbor is nothing but a brute animal?

         The tools of these enlightened ones need not worry. Their overlords will ALWAYS think that they are special. Why, they would cry themselves to sleep over the loss of any one of their goons, even after the culling and the betrayers of everyone they were supposed to care for are no longer indispensible. They'll order their foreign "peace-keeper" army to turn over all the better stuff to their pet non-vital lackeys. :)

That's asinine as well.

thejediknighthusezni said:

:)

      

 Improper use of smiley.  1 demerit.

        There's sort of a WATCHMEN theme going there. So it is kinda-proper. :P

I have a pet fungus...you know this.

I can't help it if Americans keep changing English words, I'm Scottish but the word means in English English a definable personality. Not a human.

You Mormonites believe in God and Angels and Jesus are these not people too or are they something else?

When aliens and AI arrive in a few years time you will find them not impressed with your narrow definition of 'person'.

I know you are capable of believing weird things (not an insult) from weird sources (also not an insult I use weird in a descriptive not a qualitative sense).

But if you are saying that a zygote has unexpressed desires that you wish to defend please extend that defense to the helpless plankton of the world at the mercy of those evil whales.

Yes I defend the rights of mice because they have a clear desire to not die or feel pain and express happiness when their goals are achieved. You are happy to eat more sophisticated creatures which makes you inconsistent or at least speciesist. If someone were to offer human meat for sale would you eat it if it came from someone with the mental capacity of a cow?

Warbler said:

If what McDonalds serves really isn't meat, I don't want to know what it really is.

This is bizarre.

If it isn't meat it would either be vegetable or fungus. Why would you not want to know how the food you eat is made?

Ignorance is bliss.

Also, I now want to try a mouseburger.

^isn't he a US Senator?

Segue into more UKIP shenanigans.

     ^He said he didn't endorse these views. He only posted them for consideration.

       Hmmmmm, I wonder what the going rate is for the purchase of a minor party hack? A little something that is infalmmatory and fits the lefty dominated media narrative? What carrots and sticks?

       Of course, it would all be justified. The champions of the same lefty crowd that slaughtered more than a hundred million directly, hundreds of milions more through cruel depravations, enslavement and cruel abuse of still hundreds of millions more, they do this kind of thing in the service of the latest gang of well-meaning "agrarian reformers".

Please could you attempt to type English.

If you have problems maybe one of your nurses would be kind enough to help.

HotRod said:

This is a load of bollox.  If you're out and find someone attractive. Have sex. It's fun. 

Sex is natural, sex is good. Not everybody does it. But everybody should. 

 Babies are a natural byproduct of sex.  Babies are good.  They're hard, but can also be fun.  Not everyone has them, but everybody should.

Bingo, a response is forthcoming.