Abortion Controversy

[Geneaux486]

Yeah, I got that. I'm saying that doesn't logically plug into your arguments relating to abortion.

[danielsangeo]

What I'm saying is that, if a sperm and egg were allowed to conjoin, then a zygote (human/baby) would result. The arguments against abortion state that, if allowed, a baby would result. I'm saying that arguments against abortion are the same as arguments against contraception....or arguments against "wasting sperm" (see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk).

 

I think all the arguments against abortion are equally silly. And then equating abortion to murder is just disgusting.

[Geneaux486]

I'm saying that arguments against abortion are the same as arguments against contraception....or arguments against "wasting sperm"

 

But what you consider the sperm and the egg seperately, or the zygote that hasn't implanted, are still irrelevant to what the implanted, developing embryo is. An argument for or against one has no bearing on the argument about the other. An embryo is still a developing human being. It's not two separate things that will combine to make one, it's already made, it's already growing. It's like you keep bringing up the sperm, the egg, and the zygote to avoid acknowleging that.

 

I think all the arguments against abortion are equally silly. And then equating abortion to murder is just disgusting.

 

A statement that diminishes the ethical and moral difficulties in deciding whether or not to get an abortion, or trying to decide if one believes we even have the right to carry out such a procedure. The issue is not as simple as your statement makes it out to be, and pretending that it is is what's disgusting.

[danielsangeo]

If the sperm and egg separately/zygote that hasn't implanted is irrelevant, then the embryo and fetus are irrelevant to the birthed baby. I don't avoid acknowledging it, but you are avoiding acknowledging that, WITHOUT THE SPERM AND OVUM, YOU WON'T HAVE EMBRYO/FETUS. The embryo and fetus aren't babies if the sperm/ova aren't embryos. They are all stages of human development but you want to separate the sperm/ova for some reason and you're using the "they're combined" as an excuse.

 

"It's already made" is irrelevant because it's not been born yet. I know that the embryo/fetus is growing and developing. Why do you suggest that I don't?

[Geneaux486]

The embryo and fetus aren't babies if the sperm/ova aren't embryos.

 

Terminology. The living being is a member of the same species at every stage. No one is arguing that the embryo is the exact same as a baby, but it is a human life at both stages nonetheless, and the question of whether or not we have the kill it is not so easily answered as you seem to think.

 

"It's already made" is irrelevant because it's not been born yet.

 

That doesn't even make it irrelevant. It exists, it's human, it's living, and it's growing. What part of that do you find silly?

[Michael Archer]

It does not take into account that there are some things we simply should not be able to own.

 

It does. Capitalism is a system of individualism and individual rights, so things that infringe on individual rights are not allowed.

 

It's implicit that there are things we should not be able to own i.e. we can't own things that which in their very existence violate individual rights. For example, you can't own nuclear weapons since the only purpose of that is mass destruction, which is a violation of individual rights. Also, you can't own human slaves; that violates rights.

 

Corporations, for instance, should not be able to patent the method for creating certain kinds of organisms, medicine, etc.

 

Corporations should not be allowed to patent discoveries, but inventions should be allowed. Why isn't it moral to patent medicine exactly?

 

It is to say we simply do not have the right to terminate a developing human being. The reason this logic is flawed is because it ignores the basic fact that there are two lives involved, not just one.

 

So what if there are two lives involved? What does that imply?

 

Are you saying that the woman does not get to decide how she lives her life? Arguing against abortion because "there are two lives involved" would be like arguing against the right to self-defense and self-defense laws because "there are two lives involved".

 

Again I say, we all have rights, we all have things we deserve to have in order to survive. In a world of limited resources, we cannot all get the things we need, which is why we must learn to share them (willingly, not forced, in terms of the way it should be). Rights can and do infringe on other rights.

 

"Deserve to have" implies a sense entitlement to fruits of another's labor, despite taking no part in producing them. I am not morally entitled to your money, nor are you entitled mine. If I was, I could morally take your money from you by force. The only difference between a back alley mugger and the taxman is that taxes are legal and are sanctioned by a majority vote. That's it. That does not make the taxman morally right.

 

You are not entitled to to someone else's property, nor do you have the right to use the government to seize that property for you.

 

Because we live in a world of limited resources, this is all the more reason you do not have the right to these resources. If things were limited, and you were robbed, you could say "Oh, no big deal; resources are unlimited and therefore have no value. There will be no shortage of resources, so it's not a bad thing that I was robbed."

 

It's easy to tell which rights are real and which ones are not, even if you don't accept the notion "rights can't violate rights." Just ask yourself this question: does nature grant this to me as a condition of my existence? If yes, then it's your right. Rights are conditions of existence. For example, because nature demands that you sustain your body with material goods as a condition for your existence, you must own property. In a society, if someone deprives you of your property, they're depriving you of life since you must own property to survive. That why there's a right to own property.

 

There is a popular notion of the "right to healthcare". The reason you don't have this right is that nature does not provide you with doctors as a condition of existence. And whaddya ya' know? It infringes on a real rights, such as the right to property.

 

The stage of development in the case of a human being is irrelevant in deciding whether or not we have a right to kill it when it otherwise would not die.

 

But it is relevant. By the same logic, masturbation is immoral, since a sperm cell is a stage in the life of a human being. Again, you're equating the potential with the actual. A fetus is different from a baby, so nature forces us to treat them differently the same way nature forces us to treat an acorn differently than an oak tree.

 

It involves sacrificing the developing human being to achieve whatever end is desired. Existence as a parasite is irrelevant, since it is a mandatory condition of every human being’s survival.

 

Liberty and the right to property are also mandatory conditions of survival and you're advocating using force to take away the rights of one in favor of another. It's arbitrary (and therefore irrational and shouldn't be entertained) to say that one set of rights are more important than another; but that's assuming the fetus has rights.

 

I'm saying the fetus does not have rights. Human beings use reason to survive in a social context, that's what rights define: freedom of action in a social context (it has to be social; if you're on a desert island, who's there to violate your rights?). Human beings need freedom of action to survive (rights); human beings cannot properly function in a society without a code of individual rights. If you don't believe me, look at any anarchist society; better yet, watch Black Hawk Down. It shows you what I mean and it's an awesome movie.

 

A fetus does not take any course of action, so it does not need freedom; ergo, no rights. All a fetus does to survive is wait and feed off the nutrients provided by the host. Human beings survive by trade, which needs freedom of action. Do you see the difference here?

 

We are only one form of life on this planet, and we need the other forms of life to do what they do just as much as they need us to use them responsibly...What makes us so special that we get to dictate what does and does not have rights?

 

The other forms of life survive by initiating force on each other; that's what makes human beings so special.

 

No one "dictates" what has rights and what doesn't; they're conditions of existence. You can complain all you want, but it's a fact that in order to survive, humans need to think, and they need to own property. What we call "rights" are basically what nature demands of an individual.

 

No no you’re thinking of your view of rights.

 

Ah, the old "I'm rubber, you're glue" argument. Clever.

 

Which you are content to ignore and replace.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

A viewpoint that I see heavily interwoven into egoism, at least as you describe it.

 

How so?

 

it is following the morality that you and I agree already exists, to keep people safe, and controlled by the will of the people

 

Government's powers only extend to what the people have. Basically, we're saying to the government, "We have the rights to freedom and property, and we also have the right to defend these things with retaliatory force, but we want to live in a civilized society where we're not shooting the first person we think took our wallet; we delegate these rights to you." Like you said before, the government only has power that the people give them. So even if the people willed it to execute an innocent man, it would not happen. "Will of the people" simply means "deriving their power from the consent of the people" as Thomas Jefferson put it i.e. government holds the powers that the people already have.

 

Because I do not have the right to forcibly take your money, I can not give permission to the government to do it for me. Just keep that in mind.

 

To say that only rational human beings have rights because rational beings say so is subjectivist.

 

Good thing I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is that rights are conditions of existence, whether you like it or not. You can hate the fact that you need to be free to think in order to survive, but that doesn't change the fact that you need to do that.

 

And when these types of situations arise it proves the necessity of a government who’s objective is to protect the well-being of the people from corporations

 

LOLWUT? The role of the government is to protect the well-being of people from people?

 

Are you somehow implying that corporations are not people and are not entitled to the same protection from the government?

 

who would take advantage of their desperate situations.

 

Creating jobs when there weren't any to begin with is hardly taking advantage.

 

I mean pay them insufficiently to survive in their environment

 

In that case, if a corporation doesn't pay what the market demands, they'll go out of business. The government has no part in the free market.

 

You continually defended a corporations right to do the things I mentioned earlier on.

 

I defended a corporation's right to liberty and property and the freedom from the initiation of force? I defended their right to decide what trades they'll engage in and on what terms?

 

Yeah, I'm such an evil person.

 

This is why your views are incomplete, they only cover extremes,

 

If by "extremes", you mean "absolutes" then yes; I'm not talking from a pragmatic point a view. I'm talking about how a society should be, not how it is.

 

I don't know how to fix the world, but I do know that the solution does not involve injecting more statism.

 

Kindness is selflessness. You don’t have to enjoy doing something for someone else in order for it to be kind.

 

Then why the hell would you do it? Sure, the person is happy, but what about you? Aren't your feelings important too?

 

Selflessness in the literal sense of the word, is bad.

 

An extreme view of altruism. Ethical egoism can be taken to similar extremes.

 

How so?

 

But that’s just it, in terms of the basic right to live, there’s not really a difference at all. Life is life, death is death.

 

Surely you're not implying all life has the same value e.g. the life of an ant has the same value as the life of a human.

 

Otherwise, I don't understand what you mean.

 

the only thing that changes as we grow is the means by which we obtain those things.

 

Yes, which is why as we grow, our conditions of existence and survival are different; for this reason there's a huge metaphysical difference between a baby and a fetus. That's why it's insanity to treat them alike.

 

The arguments against abortion state that, if allowed, a baby would result. I'm saying that arguments against abortion are the same as arguments against contraception....or arguments against "wasting sperm" (see: Monty Python).

 

YES! Thanks for bringing this up.

 

"You're a Catholic the moment dad came"

 

"Let the heathens spill theirs on the dusty ground; God shall make them pay for each sperm that can't be found"

 

"God loves those who treat their semen with more care."

 

Pretty much sums up the anti-abortionist movement.

[Geneaux486]

Corporations should not be allowed to patent discoveries, but inventions should be allowed.

Agreed.

 

Why isn't it moral to patent medicine exactly?

 

Because that involves limiting who can create it and charging for it.

 

So what if there are two lives involved? What does that imply?

 

Are you saying that the woman does not get to decide how she lives her life? Arguing against abortion because "there are two lives involved" would be like arguing against the right to self-defense and self-defense laws because "there are two lives involved".

 

No, they’re not alike. You’re not defending yourself if you kill something that cannot kill you, something that is not trying to kill you.

 

There is a popular notion of the "right to healthcare". The reason you don't have this right is that nature does not provide you with doctors as a condition of existence. And whaddya ya' know? It infringes on a real rights, such as the right to property.

 

This is a nice summation of why I think egoism (as I've come to understand it) is wrong. Everyone has the right to healthcare. This goes back to why corporations should not be able to patent medicine. If you can make medicine and deliberately withhold it from people, resulting in their deaths, that is morally wrong. This is a world of limited resources, as I said. It is irresponsible and damaging for us all to look out only for our own interests and hoard everything we have without sharing. We have a moral obligation to help each other out, because we are all in these situations together. The only way the egoist view of rights is not damaging to the world and its populace is if people choose to help others out of the goodness of their own hearts in at least some capacity. Egoism relies on this possibility, and ironically this forbids everyone from following it. I know egoism doesn’t actually say any of these things, I see the implications as inescapable. Egoism in the way you’ve presented it is quite ironic in that it ultimately does exactly the opposite of what it’s supposed to do and ignores the basic value of the individual human being, assigning them a right to live based on whether or not they’re capable of earning money for themselves. That is what seems morally wrong to me.

 

A fetus is different from a baby, so nature forces us to treat them differently the same way nature forces us to treat an acorn differently than an oak tree.

 

And again, this comparison is unsound because an acorn is a potential oak tree that has not been planted. A fetus is a growing human being that has already implanted. If you want to compare the acorn to something, it would have to be the zygote.

 

A fetus does not take any course of action, so it does not need freedom; ergo, no rights. All a fetus does to survive is wait and feed off the nutrients provided by the host. Human beings survive by trade, which needs freedom of action. Do you see the difference here?

 

I see that once again your definition of rights is not only inaccurate, but also incomplete. If you can use that definition of rights to justify saying that something that cannot “trade” does not have the right to live, then it’s time to rethink your definition of the word. Furthermore, if a fetus does not take any course of action, you cannot respond to it in “self-defense” because there’s no action to defend against.

 

No one "dictates" what has rights and what doesn't; they're conditions of existence.

 

You’ve spent this entire thread dictating what has them. That seems pretty subjectivist to me. Yes, saying that rational human beings need to be rational in order to survive and therefore are the only ones who have rights is you dictating what has rights and what doesn’t. Every living thing has moral rights. As I’ve said, they simply extend in different lengths depending on the capacity of each living thing.

 

but it's a fact that in order to survive, humans need to think, and they need to own property. What we call "rights" are basically what nature demands of an individual.

 

So by your definition, babies don’t have the right to live. They can’t think and they can’t own property. They survive because others care for them. And that is necessary for every stage of life. Humans survive by thinking, by claiming land and property, but they also have to survive by looking out for each other, helping each other out, doing things for others when they can’t do them themselves. We are all connected, regardless of what motives or benefits we perceive in being connected. Those are inescapable conditions of our survival, no matter how much you might not like to admit it.

 

Ah, the old "I'm rubber, you're glue" argument. Clever.

 

No, it’s the old “The point you just made applies greatly to the view of rights you’ve established in this thread” argument. And it’s not that clever, just the result of observation.

 

Care to elaborate?

 

That is a repetition of what I’ve been doing, but okay: Nature does not dictate that only humans have rights. To say that you have the right, for instance, to torture an animal for no reason is false. Yet according to your view of rights, the government has no right to prevent it, because that would be an initiation of force. Against a man torturing another living thing. Honestly I’m amazed I even have to explain why there’s something wrong with this line of reasoning. The view that only rational human beings have any rights at all is so contrary to the way the world is it’s almost funny. Your view of rights says that we actually do have a right to basically abuse the very things we depend on for our survival, or rather, none of those things have the right to be spared the abuse. You say the government shouldn’t dictate how corporations, for instance, should conduct themselves, yet corporations pollute on a regular basis, hurting everyone. Your view of rights requires an ability to prevent oneself from affecting the world around it that, quite frankly, humans do not possess.

 

How so?

 

Because you’ve spent this thread trying to say that rights only extend to rational human beings as if they are capable of sustaining themselves without the aid of other living things around them, as if they don’t impact the world around them, and as if they don’t consume finite resources from the world around them.

 

Because I do not have the right to forcibly take your money, I can not give permission to the government to do it for me. Just keep that in mind.

 

Sorry, but taxes are not morally wrong. As you said, the government is basically an extension of the people, for the people, and by the people. Ideally we establish it as a structure with the specific purpose not of profit, but of maintaining the safety and well being of the citizens who establish and work for it. Therefore it stands that we also need to fund such an organization via taxes that are established fairly and again, by the people. If one lives on American soil, then they pay taxes to the American government, and the benefits of doing so come back to the people who paid the taxes. Unless the government misuses the money in frighteningly stupid ways (which they do, but this is the fault of the individuals who set those policies, not a fault with the idea itself) If someone rented out a room in a building you owned, wouldn’t they owe you rent?

 

You can hate the fact that you need to be free to think in order to survive, but that doesn't change the fact that you need to do that.

 

And yet newborn babies survive without that ability, or any of the others you claim are necessary to survive. In fact, your version of what our basic survival needs are is only truly accurate if we make the conscious decision to only look out for ourselves and not help others. Again, I do not see how this is not a subjectivist view.

 

LOLWUT? The role of the government is to protect the well-being of people from people?

 

From people who use their money to exercise more power than they’re entitled to and screw over other people, you can’t forget that last part.

 

Are you somehow implying that corporations are not people and are not entitled to the same protection from the government?

 

Legally a corporation is a person, only without all those burdensome things like conscience and morality. They still pollute, they still mistreat overseas laborers, they still corrupt, yet many of them continue to thrive while doing so.

 

Creating jobs when there weren't any to begin with is hardly taking advantage.

 

Again, I’ve explained why this take on it is dead wrong like four other times, but this is an especially serious one so I’ll go ahead and repeat it. Creating jobs that underpay, place employees in substandard and unsafe conditions, force children to work long ours, and pay them squat for the work they put in is never morally right, even if there wasn’t a job there before, it is still not morally right. It is still taking advantage of a desperate situation.

 

In that case, if a corporation doesn't pay what the market demands, they'll go out of business.

 

Even if the corporation is paying them what the market demands (which is arguable), they’re still harming them, for the reasons I explained earlier. Hence why the system we have now is kinda broken.

 

I defended a corporation's right to liberty and property and the freedom from the initiation of force? I defended their right to decide what trades they'll engage in and on what terms?

 

You also defended their right to exploit the desperate enough to make it seem as though they’re doing them some kind of favor by paying them insufficiently in a terrible work environment. The egoist view does not dictate this as wrong, which is why I say it is flawed, because there is nothing morally right about the situation I described.

 

If by "extremes", you mean "absolutes" then yes

 

No, I mean extremes. Calling the type of situation I’ve described with overseas laborers “mutually beneficial” when it is only truly beneficial for the corporation is simply false. Is something more than nothing? Yes, but factor in the effects it has on these people working in these environments barely making enough to survive. That is not beneficial. A slightly less-crap situation is still a crap situation, and it is well within the corporations’ power to not underpay, to make sure that their workers are taken care of, but in the situations I’m describing they don’t, because they know they can get away with it. I can see no justification for saying this is morally right.

Then why the hell would you do it? Sure, the person is happy, but what about you? Aren't your feelings important too?

 

Yes, the individual is important, and so are the individuals around that individual. It is morally right to help others, and no less right if you’re taking a personal hit by doing so. We can’t all only do things that benefit ourselves in some way or another, self-sacrifice is necessary for survival. It’s like Aristotle’s view about the mean, the idea that true morality falls between extremes of excess and deficiency. In this case, the two extremes being total selfishness, always only looking out for our own interests, and selflessness to the extreme that we lose our individuality and merely see ourselves as sacrificial pawns. We cannot deny ourselves or our individual value, nor can we deny others or their individual value that goes beyond how they can benefit us.

 

Selflessness in the literal sense of the word, is bad.

 

In the literal sense of the word, no it is not. In the most extreme cases it is damaging to the individual, but that’s just what it is, the extreme.

 

Surely you're not implying all life has the same value e.g. the life of an ant has the same value as the life of a human.

 

Otherwise, I don't understand what you mean.

 

You’re right, I’m not implying that all life has the same value. I’m saying that all life has value. It isn’t all the same, but it is there, nonetheless. To say that we are the only form of life that has rights denies the basic value that all living things have, both to us and to the world itself.

 

for this reason there's a huge metaphysical difference between a baby and a fetus. That's why it's insanity to treat them alike.

 

I keep seeing this mentioned, that a baby and a fetus shouldn’t be considered alike. I never said they should. I said they were both stages of the living, developing human being, and that their most basic right to live was the same, in spite of the multitude of metaphysical differences. There is nothing insane about that idea.

 

So to round this out, I agree with you that it would be morally wrong for the government or the individual to force us to look out for each other, to share, and to help each other out (though I do believe that a government should protect life, which I think we also agree on, though not on the definition of “life” itself). Where we seem to disagree, however (and please correct me if I'm wrong about us disagreeing here), is that I also think it is morally right and necessary that we do look out for each other, share, and help, even on occasions where there is no direct benefit to us. And really, to say that an act of kindness or self-sacrifice will definitely have no benefit at any point in our lives requires a level of foresight that humans are not capable of.

Edited May 13, 2011 by Guest (see edit history)

[Axeldeath]

Soon these novel posts are going to be full pages.

[BTGBullseye]

Soon these novel posts are going to be full pages.

Indeed... I should use these arguments to make a paper for my English class next semester...

[ProHypster]

This is why philosophy rules.

 

While you two will keep arguing I already figured out long ago there will be no agreement in this argument as you simply have different moral views even if science will reveal anything about embryos.

 

I've observed different peoples have different moral views and you can't change that. There is no universal agreement among humans.

Especially if they come from different countries .

 

Alright, now let's see my predcition come true.

 

EDIT: Bt, damn it, where the hell do you lose your rep, it's getting harder for me to keep it in the positive

[Geneaux486]

This is why philosophy rules.

 

While you two will keep arguing I already figured out long ago there will be no agreement in this argument as you simply have different moral views even if science will reveal anything about embryos.

 

But we're both using scientific information about emryos to support our claims.

 

I've observed different peoples have different moral views and you can't change that. There is no universal agreement among humans.

 

The question is whether or not there is a universal morality, in spite of differing opinions. I believe there is.

 

EDIT: Bt, damn it, where the hell do you lose your rep, it's getting harder for me to keep it in the positive

 

I know, right? Someone's got a serious problem with him, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

[BTGBullseye]

EDIT: Bt, damn it, where the hell do you lose your rep, it's getting harder for me to keep it in the positive

I know, right? Someone's got a serious problem with him, and for the life of me I can't figure out why.

I have specifically asked for everyone to -rep me all the time... I want a counter-rep to Ross Scott... (that would be somewhere in the -120's)

[Axeldeath]

I replaced the 20 -rep I've given him a while a go XD

[BTGBullseye]

I replaced the 20 -rep I've given him a while a go XD

Take it back! You have no right to force me to carry around reputation points that I don't want!

 

 

[Axeldeath]

I replaced the 20 -rep I've given him a while a go XD

Take it back! You have no right to force me to carry around reputation points that I don't want!

 

 

 

This is an exampke of how easily the rep system can be manipulated.

[ProHypster]

I replaced the 20 -rep I've given him a while a go XD

Take it back! You have no right to force me to carry around reputation points that I don't want!

 

 

 

This is an exampke of how easily the rep system can be manipulated.

Yeah, I think we should only be able to add or take rep once. Then if we want we can take it back, but we should not be able to ad or subtract more than one.

[Axeldeath]

THERE!! DONE!!! I have successfully given BTG -100 rep, bow before me puny mortals. That's your birthday present from me BTG, don't expect another that time consuming for a few years. I swear, somebody was plus repping you constantly so I ended up clicking -rep about 120 times

[ProHypster]

I wonder if we can get a victim to have more positive rep then Ross Scott.

It's a risky thing for the victim involving imploding instantly or suffocating or dying from "ma lazoor" but it's worth it.

 

EDIT: haha lol... well I tried my best and contributed....1 - rep for BT.

[BTGBullseye]

THERE!! DONE!!! I have successfully given BTG -100 rep, bow before me puny mortals. That's your birthday present from me BTG, don't expect another that time consuming for a few years. I swear, somebody was plus repping you constantly so I ended up clicking -rep about 120 times

Thank you! Best present you could've given me... (unless you were going to give me $1000000)

 

EDIT: haha lol... well I tried my best and contributed....1 - rep for BT.

And thank you too.

[Alyxx Thorne]

What was this thread about again? XD