Abortion Controversy

[BTGBullseye]

You stated that if x leads to y, then x = y. Did you or did you not state this?

I did not.

 

So, you did not say the following:

 

Killing a living human child to get cells is not acceptable.

That in no way equates to what you are arguing.

[danielsangeo]

So, you did not say the following:

 

Killing a living human child to get cells is not acceptable.

That in no way equates to what you are arguing.

 

Except that you just called an embryo (you know, what we're talking about? Embryonic stem cell research?) a "child".

[BTGBullseye]

Except that you just called an embryo (you know, what we're talking about? Embryonic stem cell research?) a "child".

And?

[danielsangeo]

Except that you just called an embryo (you know, what we're talking about? Embryonic stem cell research?) a "child".

And?

 

And why did you call it a "child"?

[BTGBullseye]

And why did you call it a "child"?

Because it fits within the definition. "Child" and "embryo" are not mutually exclusive definitions.

[danielsangeo]

Biologically, a child (plural: children) is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty.

 

child: a young person especially between infancy and youth

 

child: a person between birth and full growth; a boy or girl

 

O.E. cild "child," from P.Gmc. *kiltham (source of Gothic kilþei "womb"), unrelated to other languages. Also in O.E. meaning "a youth of gentle birth"

 

Want more?

[Rover]

Just here to fan the flames a little.

 

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/article_5270b430-87e9-11e0-a9e5-001cc4c002e0.html

 

Lang told a Madison police officer at the Motel 6, 1754 Thierer Road, that he had a gun "to lay out abortionists because they are killing babies," according to a criminal complaint filed Thursday in U.S. District Court.

 

Lang said he planned on shooting the clinic's doctor "right in the head," according to the complaint. Asked if he planned to shoot just the doctor or nurses, too, Lang replied he wished he "could line them up all in a row, get a machine gun, and mow them all down," the complaint said.

 

Just another reason not to mix nuts and guns

[Bjossi]

Killing in the name of life is a little contradictory isn't it?

[Alyxx Thorne]

Killing in the name of life is a little contradictory isn't it?

So is fighting for peace.

[Rover]

Killing in the name of life is a little contradictory isn't it?

 

The term pro-life is a misnomer anyway. These people are merely anti-abortion.

You'll find that most people who identify themselves as pro-life are social conservatives who, in general, do not have any qualms with going to war or the death penalty.

[danielsangeo]

I'm just wondering how many pregnancies are aborted as a result of war.

[BrainBlow]

I'm just wondering how many pregnancies are aborted as a result of war.

Well, not many enough had the option, so you actually have thousands of descent from the Yugoslavia region who wouldn't be born was it not for some certain war crimes...

 

An embryo simply isn't a child. It is as much a child as the 200-600 million potential ones I have in my person at the moment.

[Michael Archer]

That avatar of yours sometimes makes me imagine Rainbow Dash saying what you’re saying, which is kinda awesome.

 

That's what I was going for.

 

I've always identified and liked Rainbow Dash the most; she's an egoist and she refuses to let anyone hold her back or tell her what to do. The only issue I've had with her was that she sided with the buffalo herd in that one episode when the settlers are clearly in the right, but I can excuse that simply because that episode was awful.

 

BUT THAT'S FOR ANOTHER TIME, PLACE AND THREAD

 

Because it’s limiting the distribution of beneficial and in many cases life-saving innovations. Withholding that is morally wrong.

 

That's fine.

 

But the question is: Do you think refusing to sell medicine to a certain person should be illegal and that a corporation should be physically compelled by the government and at a price set by the government to do so?

 

Furthermore, when I say everyone deserves healthcare, I mean in situations where the government would fund it when the people in question would otherwise die without it. I do not equate this with slavery at any stage.

 

How does the government fund it? The government doesn't produce anything; the only money it gets is what it can take from its citizens.

 

The government forces people to do work for them without any compensation. How is that not slavery?

 

On the moral side: By what right (again, morally, not legally) can you withhold life saving innovations from other people solely for profit?

 

Because you're talking to myself personally, I'm going to assume that you're speaking of a hypothetical situation where I actually invented some life saving medicine.

 

Because it's mine. It would've not existed without me. I brought it into this world, I can take it out. I don't care that you think that you're entitled to a millisecond of my life, or a joule of my effort.

 

Now, you can morally condemn me all you want, that's fine; you may even be right in a sense. But the part where I take issue is when you say that you have the moral right to tell the government to use the police to take my work out of my hands.

 

They take resources and give nothing back. By your definition of rights, babies do not have them. This is what I argue against.

 

Babies have rights, but because they're rational capacity is not up to the level of an adult, they have different rights e.g. a baby cannot own property.

 

I have never said that the basis of rights is defined by what you give back.

 

Yes they do. We survive by force as well, as a species, we always have.

 

Just because we can survive by force and we have, doesn't make it right.

 

Because human beings are part of the world, and dependent on countless other living organisms for survival, and have the potential to destroy them and by extension ourselves if they are mistreated.

 

So?

 

My view of rights is that man has the right to his own life and his labor. This and what you said are not mutually exclusive.

 

You said yourself that torturing an animal was disgusting and perverse, so really, you should have no trouble seeing why I believe they have moral rights.

 

Yes, I did say that.

 

But I also think that the Westboro Baptist Church is disgusting and perverse, but I don't go around saying that either should be outlawed.

 

If a hyena attacks you, you have the right to defend yourself by taking it out.

 

A fetus sucking nutrients and resources out of its host without its host consent could be seen as an attack.

 

By your reasoning, I should not be allowed to defend myself from the hyena. The hyena isn't doing anything wrong, it's doing an unavoidable part of its nature.

 

We can’t create oil or fossil fuels.

 

Sorry, I couldn't help but think of the that Red vs. Blue skit. Moving on:

 

An ideal government is made for the people, by the people, and therefore funded by the people, with the specific goal of protecting those who run and fund it with no goal of profit in mind. A corporation having any say in that would completely defeat the purpose. It’s adding in a middle man who’s interests conflict with what the government is ideally supposed to do. The government doesn’t so much have the right to tax us as it does an obligation, and we have an obligation to pay those taxes (as long as they’re reasonable and not misused). It’s our system, we run it, we fund it. Again, ideally, though this rarely works out so well in real life.

 

I agree with everything you said here, except a bit of the tax thing; I never said anything to the contrary.

 

You do have a moral obligation to pay the government to protect your freedoms; how else would you secure your freedoms like the right to your life?

 

Again, what I take issue with is the government using the police to forcibly take your money to pay for things you don't want to fund and are unnecessary for securing your freedoms (unnecessary is anything but the police, court, and military) If you wanted (keyword: wanted) to fund things like social security or public healthcare, you could donate to private charities.

 

So you do agree that rights differ depending on the stage of life we are in.

 

Of course.

 

If that’s the case I don’t understand why you have such a hard time seeing why I think other living things have rights in a similar fashion, limited to their capacity, but there nonetheless. I don’t expect you to agree, of course, but so far every time you’ve tried to paraphrase my views you’ve gotten it wrong.

 

Who decides what that capacity is?

 

No one "decides" what human rights are; they're requirements when dealing with other people e.g. nature requires that you own property to sustain your life. This is why you have the right to property.

 

Rights can only be violated through force. If we want to live in a civilized society, we can't be violating each others rights. A fetus does not have rights because its only requirement to feed off the resources provided by its hosts. And like you said, you have the right to defend your life if it's being threatened.

 

Property=life, so you also have the right to defend your property is threatened. You body is your property, so you have the right to defend that too.

 

One, they’re children, two, again, you’re talking about an ideal situation, which is not what’s happening in the real world. In the real world, these people are exploited, but have no other businesses in that area competing for their employment. There are many reasons why this could be.

 

I don't understand; so they have nowhere else to work, so it's exploitation to provide them with jobs?

 

Are you saying that the children are being physically forced to work? In that case, yes, that's bad and that should be illegal. What's the issue?

 

Your definition allows for the justification of taking advantage of people by way of exploitation, coercion, really just straight up manipulation. This is never morally acceptable.

 

So...we need someway to protect individuals from themselves because they can't see that they're being stupid?

 

Also, just because you see something as being exploitation, doesn't mean that the "victim" does.

 

We do not have the right to force others to renounce their own well-being for others.

 

Isn't that what forcing people to stay pregnant is?

 

We can’t look out for our own self-interests exclusively if we want to be happy.

 

Oh, I beg to differ. But hey, that's just me.

 

The fact that it is living means it will have rights on some level, the fact that it is a developing human being means it has the basic right to survive.

 

Can we at least agree that an amoeba, despite being just as much alive as you and me, has no rights?

 

"Rights" are freedom to action. Because you have the right to speak freely, would you demand that the government forces other people to give you a microphone and be forced to listen to you? All that the "Right to speak freely" means that it's immoral for someone else to not let you speak i.e. use force against you.

 

If a fetus has the right to survive, that means that no one can morally impede the actions it must take to survive. This does not mean that someone else is forced to make it survive, but this is what would entail if you outlawed abortion.

 

A fetus does not have rights (i.e. freedoms of action) because the only action is takes is parasitic and there is no right to live as a parasite. To sanction this action would be to use the police to force people to abandon their free-will and lose their property (their body) without their permission.

 

It’s an unavoidable and natural part of life.

 

An animal attacking you is an unavoidable and natural part of life, yet for some reason, you're still morally allowed to use your rational self-interest and defend yourself.

 

It means the government makes it illegal for a doctor to kill it.

 

So, I guess that means that the police would have to investigate any miscarriages that looked suspicious. It seems wrong for a police officer to coldly interrogate a grieving couple.

 

Would it still be legal for someone to abort their fetus themselves?

 

But that’s not what it means. It means that we acknowledge that there are two lives involved, and act accordingly. This existence, this dependence on another for survival does not go away at birth. In fact, it increases, because now the nutrition the baby requires is not transferred to it naturally, more effort must be taken to provide for it. You cannot just abandon your baby.

 

Yes, but you can not claim guardianship and give it up for adoption when it's born.

 

Forcing someone to remain pregnant against their will is morally equivalent to forcing someone to take care of a baby against their will.

 

_____________________________________________________

 

I really should come this forum more often; there's so much I need to respond to.

 

It's not the separation from mother that I'm opposed to, just the murder of an innocent human being.

 

"Murder" is the taking of a human being's life against their will using force. Abortion is not murder, since a fetus is a potential and not an actual human being.

 

For all intents and purposes, it is part of the woman..

 

Stem cell research isn't bad either, it's just that they keep aborting children to get the cells for most of the research. They can easily get stem cells of similar quality from the placenta/etc that comes during birth anyways, or even better ones from adult humans, all without killing anyone.

 

I have a hard time believing that corporations pay money to woman so that they will grow fetus' and then abort them.

 

Killing a living human child to get cells is not acceptable.

 

I dare you to look at that little piece of protoplasm two weeks into the pregnancy and call that a "living human child."

 

To equate that with an actual baby is ridiculous.

 

Every pro-abortionist is...

 

I'm not.

 

What I do advocate is that people have the rights to their lives and property and they get to decide how they use that to the best of their ability.

 

I do not think you have the right to tell them how to use their body.

 

__________________________________________

 

Killing in the name of life is a little contradictory isn't it?

 

Not really.

 

Killing someone who is threatening your life is killing someone, but is very pro-life.

 

The term pro-life is a misnomer anyway. These people are merely anti-abortion.

 

Fuck. I hate the label "pro-life" since it's applied to people blow up abortion clinics and murder other people in the name of "life".

 

To a lesser extent, I also hate the label "pro-choice."

 

_______________________________________________________

 

Geneaux and I are intellectuals of this thread, if post size has anything to do with that. The rest of you just have little squabbles among yourselves.

Edited May 31, 2011 by Guest (see edit history)

[danielsangeo]

The government forces people to do work for them without any compensation.

 

Whoa! Wait, what?!

[BrainBlow]

The government forces people to do work for them without any compensation.

 

Whoa! Wait, what?!

Seconded

[Doom Shepherd]

You'll find that most people who identify themselves as pro-life are social conservatives who, in general, do not have any qualms with going to war or the death penalty.

 

Well, from a certain point of view, being anti-abortion and pro-death-penalty requires less cognitive dissonance than being pro-abortion and anti-death-penalty.

 

It all depends on whether you prefer killin' 'em before or after they've done anything wrong.

[danielsangeo]

"Pro-abortion"?

[Geneaux486]

But the question is: Do you think refusing to sell medicine to a certain person should be illegal and that a corporation should be physically compelled by the government and at a price set by the government to do so?

 

No. However, I do think it is acceptable for a government to open up their own facilities that provide free healthcare to those that need it, run by people who choose to work there of their own free will.

 

How does the government fund it? The government doesn't produce anything; the only money it gets is what it can take from its citizens.

 

The government provides us with a multitude of services, including a postal system, law enforcement and protection, and education.

 

But the part where I take issue is when you say that you have the moral right to tell the government to use the police to take my work out of my hands.

 

I don’t have a moral right to do anything to you in retaliation, nor should the government have the legal right to take your invention from you. A corporation, however, is not a single person. The people who saw to such a restrictive patent are likely not the ones who put in the time to create the invention.

 

Just because we can survive by force and we have, doesn't make it right.

 

Agreed. It’s an unfortunate part of life and history.

 

My view of rights is that man has the right to his own life and his labor. This and what you said are not mutually exclusive.

 

And as far as inorganic property goes, we probably agree. Beyond that, a man has the right to the fruits and vegetables he grows as well. The animals he raises, however, I do not think he has the moral right to slaughter inhumanely when. I know you didn’t specify farmer, but that’s just the direction I wound up going in.

 

A fetus sucking nutrients and resources out of its host without its host consent could be seen as an attack.

 

By your reasoning, I should not be allowed to defend myself from the hyena. The hyena isn't doing anything wrong, it's doing an unavoidable part of its nature.

 

Fetus ain’t gonna maul its host. That aside, babies consume a lot to, time and energy. I do not see this as less of an attack than the resources it unwittingly has to consume in the previous stage of its life.

 

Again, what I take issue with is the government using the police to forcibly take your money to pay for things you don't want to fund and are unnecessary for securing your freedoms (unnecessary is anything but the police, court, and military) If you wanted (keyword: wanted) to fund things like social security or public healthcare, you could donate to private charities.

 

Guess that comes down to a difference in belief of what the ideal government should do. I think the ideal government should not just secure freedoms, but work towards the betterment of all who fund it. Some private charities do have a history of misusing donation money, which goes back to what I said earlier about the ideal government’s objective not being money.

 

A fetus does not have rights because its only requirement to feed off the resources provided by its hosts. And like you said, you have the right to defend your life if it's being threatened.

 

Property=life, so you also have the right to defend your property is threatened. You body is your property, so you have the right to defend that too.

 

If rights are about what’s required to sustain life, than naturally that would extend to the fetal stage as well, seeing as how we all must go through that stage, and surviving it is necessary to the continuation of our lives. I do not think it is possible to live on this Earth in a society where nobody has to give anything up ever.

 

I don't understand; so they have nowhere else to work, so it's exploitation to provide them with jobs?

 

It’s exploitation to provide them with less than the bare minimum in terms of working environment simply because they have nowhere else to go. I’ve said this several times already.

 

So...we need someway to protect individuals from themselves because they can't see that they're being stupid?

 

To protect individuals from being taken advantage of by companies who are providing them with next to nothing because they know they can get away with it. Any business is going to strive to produce valuable goods and services while minimizing cost. However, ethical guidelines exist there.

 

Also, just because you see something as being exploitation, doesn't mean that the "victim" does.

 

And not everyone will. Many do though. I’m sure there were slaves that didn’t think their situation was exploitation, or morally wrong, but it still was all the same.

 

Isn't that what forcing people to stay pregnant is?

 

It is not what not killing the developing human life is. I see that not as being forced to renounce one’s own well being for others because the process of pregnancy is an unavoidable stage in the continuity of the human race. It isn’t so black and white as “it’s a parasite, it’s okay to terminate it”. All human life has a basic value in common, at all stages. It’s not a simple matter, nor is there a simple solution, but I do not believe abortion is the right solution.

 

Oh, I beg to differ. But hey, that's just me.

 

To put it another way, most people require genuine human connection to be happy. Sacrifice is a part of that, genuinely caring for others. Obviously that won’t be true for everyone, but it is true for many.

 

an we at least agree that an amoeba, despite being just as much alive as you and me, has no rights?

 

Depends on its capacity. Can it feel pain? If so, then we have no right to torture it. If not, then we can’t very well inflict real pain on it.

 

A fetus does not have rights (i.e. freedoms of action) because the only action is takes is parasitic and there is no right to live as a parasite

 

But these parasitic actions lead to a fully functional human being with its own potential to contribute. Parasites do not do this. It’s a chance at life that I do not believe we have the right to deprive, nor do I believe we can condemn the fetal stage, as it is, like I said before, a necessary aspect of the continuity of our race.

 

Forcing someone to remain pregnant against their will is morally equivalent to forcing someone to take care of a baby against their will.

 

And yet someone is going to be forced to take care of the baby. Regardless of whether or not they want it, those who adopt the child won’t really have the choice to not take care of the baby. Infant human beings are not capable of taking care of themselves, they need to be protected from themselves and others, and they need to be nourished. We all needed that in the early stages of our lives, and as a species we always will.

 

The only issue I've had with her was that she sided with the buffalo herd in that one episode when the settlers are clearly in the right, but I can excuse that simply because that episode was awful.

 

Maybe I misunderstood the backstory, I thought the buffaloes had a more legitimate claim to the land that predated that of the settlers- *smacks self*

 

BUT THAT'S FOR ANOTHER TIME, PLACE AND THREAD

 

ABSOLUTELY CORRECT

[Scorpia]

Well personally I don't like the idea of a child being denied a chance of life (i mean it could've grown up to do great things.). I mean if you get pregnant but aren't financially stable or something to raise the kid then put the kid up for adoption.

if you got raped and couldn't bare to go through with having the bastard's DNA inside you then by all means do whatever needs to be done and begin your healing.

 

But strangely i am pro choice, i'll always strongly suggest adoption or any other alternative then abortion, but in the final hours of the day its your body and your choice do with it what you will.

[RueThePirate]

Whatever you want to do. It is your child. The child, or rather the fetus, has nothing to live for at this point in time. Most of it's brain has yet to develop, so it's completely up to the mother.