Charles Cure, I wasn't arguing from a legal perspective. But from observation, to fire gun you need better be sure someone's not going to be hurt. Otherwise, manslaughter or murder charges will be filed. Extending this example, the distinction between who's at the end of the gun becomes whether the fetus is a human being. If a prochoicer is only able to show that the fetus is a human being by risk of 4 %, the prolifers have won. The burden of proof clearly rests on the prochiocers not the prolifers. Who cares? A man in a coma doesn't have independent survivability. There you have groups of doctors supporting him. But with the fetus, only the mother directly supports. Jen, somewhat true. I wanted to clarify that any material definition of human life isn't quite right. These definition correspond to the spiritual definition only because we were generally created with human shape and form. (Yes, a fetus does look like a person but some special cases do exist. )
Just because the attributes I cited may have no foundation in biology (and the jury is still out on that) they can still be investigated by science. What of cognitive science, psychology and neurology? My position is that a zygote has the genetic code indicative of a human being and has the potential to become a human being but lacks ALL of the other attibutes of humanity. What we are really discussing here is what legal rights a human has and when those rights arise. You are making an arbitrary distinction when it comes to assigning legal status to a zygote as equivalent to a 21 year old human adult. This is absurd. So what is the difference? You are hanging your position on the idea of potentiality, but you reject potential when taking it one step further back along the chain of cause and effect. Are you suggesting that before fertilization that I am the sole owner and determinant of my egg but that once combined with a sperm cell I no longer have any right to determination for it? Poof, just like that?
actually, thats completely untrue. burdens of proof only come into play in the context of a legal argument. at this point, society as a whole can express its collective will by making laws that restrict or allow freedom of action. currently in the US abortion is legal, because it was the will of the public that a choice be available to them in the situation of an unwanted pregnancy. in order to reverse such a decision, the side opposing current legal doctrine must make an intelligent and convincing argument that proves fault in the law as it rests today. so since the prolife movement is set against what is currently accepted law, the burden of proof is on them to show the will of the majority to be fundamentally flawed. law is no more than an the establishment of majority accepted social norms and customs as a cultural and societal code of behavior. so when you can begin thinking in that context, maybe you will understand why the prolife stand hasnt taken hold in the way you would like it to. first of all, not all doctors as evidenced here: Doctors Split on Euthanasia Law tues 6/28/05 By Nick Triggle BBC News health reporter in Manchester Some representatives at the British Medical Association conference voiced support for a private member's bill which would legalise the right to die. However, some doctors called for the BMA to take a neutral stance, while others said supporting a change would be morally wrong. The conference will decide on its official position on Thursday. Calling for change, Dr Paddy Glackin, from Brent, said: "If you say we have no right to die, you are saying we have a duty to suffer. on top of that, i dont understand why you feel the need to compare two situations that are so dissimilar. a man in a coma is a fully developed living human being, with an entire life history, the ability to think...etc. a fetus is a potential human being and depending on its stage of development may or may not have any of these attributes at all. murdering a living man is not the same as discarding a crude formation of 30 cells.
People BEHAVE and support their arguments for abortion based on the belief that SEX MUST BE HAD. Indeed, few people would say they believe so, but they behave on this belief.
where do you have any evidence that this is the way people behave? its an assumption that you are making based on what you perceive to be the prevailing societal norm, but you really have no support for this claim except your own perception of it. not only that, but if this were the case, why would you be surprised? animals of all species have one prime directive, survival. a crucial part of a species surviving from generation to generation is reproductive success. it drives the urge to mate in all animals, and conversely the urge is so strong in us because survival is imperative. why would you think that humanity would be any different? the only serious difference that i see is that we can control our urges and do sometimes whereas animals do not. so in response to your original premise, not only do i not agree with you, but if i did i would say look question it all that you want but the only answer youre ever going to find is that it is in our nature to think along those lines because the urge to reproduce is driven by an inborn instinct.
You don't get it, do you? You are eventually advocating that every urge, every desire, every perceived need people have is to be acted upon. Carefully, maybe, but acted upon. As often as this urge, desire, need arises. As if there were no control over them possible. As if we are slaves to our instincts. And surely, modern consumer society agrees with you. A consumer doesn't ask "But do I really need a new car every other year?" or "Do I really need to have sex that often?" or "Do I really need 100 shades of hairdye?" and so on. A consumer never questions the validity of his or her desires. He follows them, tries to satisfy them, as if they were an absolute, an imperative that must be acted upon. He or she feels existentially threatened if the fulfillment of any of his or her desires is obstructed in any way.
you are backing yourself into a corner. you question these things dont you? have you never participated in consumer culture? do you grow your own food? did you build a bicycle from scratch and ride it everywhere? you too are a consumer by definition if you participate in consuming. what makes you think that you are so much smarter or more self aware than everyone else that you have questioned this and no one else does? you must have a massive fucking ego. plus i have to say that your examples once again depend on unsupported assumptions. i dont know a single person that buys a new car every five years let alone every other year, or anyone that thinks they need 100 shades of hair dye. you said this : a consumer never questions the validity of his or her desires. well you have, and i strongly doubt that you aren't a part of consumer culture in some way. what you are really saying here is basically this: i think about this stuff all the time, but i think everyone else is too goddamn stupid to have ever considered it the way that i do. well its great that you are so much smarter than the rest of us. my point in my earlier statement was that the reason people feel it is normal to indulge the sexual urge is because its a normal urge that every human has and is crucial to our survival as a species. i SAID that the only difference between us and animals was our ability to control our urges and deny them if we wish to. i wasnt advocating that you do whatever you want with no regard to the consequences just because you get the urge to. i was giving you evidence that people feel they must have sex because its part of our instincts as a higher order of animals. your misunderstanding seems to run about as deep as the ocean. people become warped by constantly working against their natural ugres. people need to act on them sometimes. we hope that they act on them with responsibility. beyond that, if you were to deny the urge to have sex too strongly humanity would die off. when reproductive success drops to below about 20% the species starts to decline. thats the answer to your question. thats why people feel they should have sex. i dont think anyone besides a rape victim feels like they HAVe to have sex even though they might not want to. no one holds a gun to your head and says hey you need to get sexually active or face being ostracized by our culture. and nobody uses the natural urge to reproduce as a justification for why we need to keep abortion legal. the crux of the abortion debate is how we define life and what constitutes it, and how the preservation of human life is allowed to work for or against a persons right to freedom to control their own bodies.
SNAKELORD. But no, we're not - and I'm not sure why you don't understand this because it's really quite basic. this is obviously a point we just disagree on because you have clearly failed to offer any evidence whatsoever that a fetus or child is made out of anything other than preexisting matter from the bodies of its parents. in which case by default we are talking about our own bodies, maybe you arent but thats because you dont want to see it that way. if you dont have another explanation for why its not about that, than who cares what you say about it. To all intents and purposes, that child is a 'parasite'. It dwells in the host, feeds off the host, and uses the host to further it's own development. A parasite, a mosquito, or a leech is not a part of your body - even if it decides to use your body to aid it's survival. In the case of parasites, they can and will be removed because of the harm they generally cause, and because as non-humans they don't have any rights whatsoever. let it be noted that you have just defined a child as a parasite and i did not. i explained how a fetus grows inside of its mother and why i think that connects the fetus to her body. i was not talking about a parasite of a different species and i did not say that under all circumstances the fetus brings harm to the "host" being the mother. therefore its only a parasite by your defenition and not mine. so dont put words in my mouth and then attempt to prove your assessment of the argument based on things i never said. So now we would have to establish whether a fetus is a human. The fact is that it is, in it's very early stages yes - where you wouldn't even recognise it, but a human nonetheless. another point of just plain old disagreement. its not a FACT that it is a human, its an opinion. just as it is my opinion that it is not a human. do not argue opinions as if they were facts. not only do i not see it the way you do, but mercifully, i dont have to see it that way. i think that at the earliest stages of development a cluster of cells is a potential human and because it is so different in every other crucial aspect of physical makeup and mental capacity it should not be accorded the same exact rights as a fully developed and born person. thats the position. im willing to accept that you dont think that, but i havent seen a bit of logical proof that refutes it. ive just seen a lot of speculation on what a zygote or fetus could become if allowed to and some fulminations of religious doctrine. this does not pass for logical proof of sentience as far as i am concerned. deal with it. And you dare ask me if I took biology lessons? I wont get down to the 18 rated details but in short the man put it there. Do you have any idea how hard it actually is to get pregnant? You wouldn't think so given the amount of pregnant women around - but it isn't easy. From gettingpregnant.co.uk "Ideally you need to have intercourse three days or less before ovulation, so sperm are waiting when the egg is released. Eggs only survive for a maximum of 24-hours - unless they're fertilised. As it's impossible to predict exactly when that precious window will be, take advantage of the fact that sperm can survive for up to four days, and have them already present." Basically what it comes down to is this: Every woman should go out and buy herself an ovulation predictor, (for a seriously cheap £9.99 at any good chemist). Then all she needs to do is avoid getting laid 4 or so days every month. Problem solved yes? No dead children yes? you took my statement out of context in order to refute it. brilliant. i said she didnt put the fetus in her body. i didnt say two people didnt have a hand in its creation. learn to fucking read for comprehension. i said the man donated the sperm to the equation and that gives him a partial claim to the body of the potential child growing in the womb of his partner. i further argued that this entitles him to be a part of the decision making process if abortion is on the table as an option. Would you honestly prefer all these unwanted children to be killed than just not conceived to begin with? Why argue for the right to abort instead of arguing for the law to force all women to have ovulation predictors? here again we get to the heart of your misunderstanding of my position. i have never, once, anywhere in this thread advocated abortion as the PREFERRED form of birth control. i said that i believed its legality was crucial to us in order to both control our population and preserve our freedom of choice as it relates to what to do with our own bodies. i argue for the right to abort because i see it as a freedom of choice issue and i do not accept as truth that a human is alive from the point of conception and therefore must be murdered in order for the pregnancy to be terminated. that being said i also do not sanction any kind of "forced" method of birth control. i do not advocate forcing people to do anything with their own bodies as long as what they do does not infringe on the rights of other people. And so I suggest the compromise: That abortion be made illegal and that women + men combined make the small effort to ensure unwanted pregnancies don't occur. I ask them for 4 days every month, you tell them to kill. im not asking anyone to kill. you should understand that by now. im actually not asking anyone to DO anything at all. i am expressing a line of reasoning that supports the legality of a choice to either engage in or not engage in a specific course of action. dont tell me what im saying because i already know. Of course I am aware of circumstances beyond our control, (rapes/condom splits). In the latter I would advise they take up the free morning after pill, and the former is a much longer story where not only must one understand the position from the mothers side, but that in actuality the child is completely innocent. It's a long debate, and one I shall avoid for now. i dont know what to say about that. my position remains the same. and im not sure if you know, but the morning after pill isnt free unless you qualify for it to be free, at least not in my state. It's nothing like a tumour. It will inhabit the body for 9 months and then it's done. It doesn't generally kill you, although you might suffer some discomfort and for that I'm sure the child will be truly sorry. not all tumors kill you, many are benign. why i said it was like a tumor is because a tumor can contain any type of tissue found in the human body, in fact they have removed tumors from people that contained fingernails and teeth. a fetus also exhibits characteristics like this at certain points but i dont think it is any more alive at that stage than the tumor is. I see.. So you did the duty of ejaculating while your missus did the duty of lying on her back and all of a sudden you have the decision over whether another being lives or dies? Please.. the man does the duty of donating part of the genetic material. the woman does a lot more than lie on her back (biology class). its not quite so simple. if the pregnant woman dies, the fetus dies. it lodges in her womb, she feeds it with her body. it is made out of her body and the (although small) body of her mate. so yes i do believe that constitutes their being in a position to make decisions about whether or not to bring it to term. please what? i made an intelligent argument that you chose to oversimplify and ignore. thats not my fault. The fetus is an inhabitant, not a part of. The fetus will use the host to ensure it's survival, and it is indeed that fight for survival that gives it the right to survive. We're not talking about candy bars here, but life.. human life. A being that will do whatever it can to ensure it does survive. At no stage in it's development does a fetus wish to die, stop feeding, growing, etc. It can certainly be considered somewhat along the lines of a parasite, but not a part of her. if i cant claim to know what a fetus desires and so do not have the right to "kill" it, how can you claim to know that it desires to live? because of its actions? actions not occuring through the work of any voluntary processes whatsoever? and once again you defined it as similar to a parasite, not me so i cant speak to that type of reasoning. But I did. For 9 months I used her to ensure my survival. I fed from her, took all the nutrients and other things that I needed to survive. I might not have been aware that I was using her, but the fact remains that I was. From the very moment of conception, the fight was to survive, not to be exterminated. That is simply undeniable. I used my mother to make that happen. It might be her egg, his sperm - but my life. i said you didnt borrow space from your mother, and in truth you didnt. she GAVE you the space, allowed you to inhabit it, and chose to feed herself so that you could be fed in turn. and you werent fighting to survive, because in truth if she was not trying to terminate the pregnancy, then there was no external threat of extermination. all you did as a fetus was involuntarily react to environmental stimuli. oversimplification on your part. Although I personally fail to see the value of that rather pedantic question, yes I did. But while my genes might have come from them, that doesn't mean I am a part of their body. I am still an individual human being regardless to who made it possible. From the moment of conception I fought to exist. That's all that needs to be said. if that was all that needed to be said, there would be no such thing as a national debate over abortion. You're wrong. I was an inhabitant of her body fighting for my own survival. While I agree she might not want me inhabiting her body, once there the removal and destruction of me is murder. i disagree. you know why by now... But it is. no it really isnt. Well that's silly. At just a few months that child will be sucking it's thumb, kicking, crying, moving around and acting upon external influences. Is that not classifiable as a distinctly separate physical being? Sure, it's still inside the woman - but then would you not class a bot fly eating away at the inside of a person as a distinctly separate physical being? Yes, it uses that person to aid it's survival, but to think that it cannot be classed as a distinctly separate physical being until after birth is idiotic. when you are born you physically seperate from your mother. a bot fly is not trapped inside of a dead person and made out of matter from that dead persons body and dependent on only that body as its one available food source. you cant seem to seperate the issue clearly. the existence of the bot fly isnt the result of a natural process of the dead body it feeds on. not to mention that the body itself is dead. how is that in any way like what occurs inside of a living person who is pregnant? the answer is that it is in no way like that. Yes, because it is currently legal. That is what we're currently debating about if you didn't notice. She does have the right, but she shouldn't. thats your opinion, and as such has no relevance to my statement except that i was describing what could legally be done and you have now told me that you dont think its right. so what? I didn't miss the point of it, you just missed the point of my response. Seriously, can we stop being silly? i never started being silly. Living: To be alive; exist Are you stating that the fetus is dead? Being: To exist; have life or reality Are you stating that they do not actually exist, have life, or are real? Sorry, you were saying about viability? total oversimplification again. you cant define being alive with the words "to be alive" which you basically just did. by the way there are plenty of things in this world, like rocks and dirt that exist and have reality but are not alive. come on, at least try to think it through. Again, neither is my grandmother or the mentally ill cripple up the road. I can assure you they still qualify as living beings - although maybe not by your definition. Yes, "viability as it relates to how we define a living being" does include a fetus. the mentally ill cripple is a person with a life and a fully developed (although possibly malformed or malfunctioning) human body this person has exhibited the ability to think and exhibits some evidence of self awareness. a person who is in a persistent vegetative state and is not self aware and cannot move at all, i believe to have a different status. a fetus that is not a human yet and is still inside of its mother and depends on the life of the mother to sustain its life, i do not consider to be independently alive. its that simple. its my opinion. you dont have to take it as anything but my opinion. I have children.. do you? no and i dont think that it matters either way unless you are trying to diminish a persons credibility because you dont think they cant understand the issue unless they have children. irrelevant. But It does involve some selfish little fetus. It fights from day 1 to survive regardless to your well-being. It takes all the nutrients from you, makes you feel like shit and puke in the morning, without any care whatsoever other than it's own survival. The fact that it clearly wants to survive, gives it the right to survive, or at very least makes the termination of that being murder. what you mean is without any care whatsoever. you know what i think about this. Nobody said raising a child isn't hard work, but it is largely irrelevant to the discussion. A fetus is a living being and as such the termination of that living being is murder of something that clearly wants to survive. Whether changing nappies and breast feeding is a major pain in the ass is of no consequence to anything. nope. disagree. because the survivability of the fetus depends on the action or inaction of another person, it is that persons right to decide whether they want to or are fit to take the action necessary to keep the child alive until it can survive on its own. its not the law that if you see a person dying in the street that you HAVE to run over and save them. this is much the same. the fetus will die if you give birth to it and do nothing for it. if it is born and dies because you didnt care for it, the law sees that as criminally neglegent homicide possibly. so if you know you are not capable of acting to keep the child alive does it not make more sense to prevent it from ever being brought into the world where it will be alive? again this whole argument here turns on my opinion of what constitutes life and what doesnt. so its an opinion based thing. you can disregard it if you want to. If they are unfit to do so then they should, in all fairness, get it adopted once it's born. The fact that a mother is unfit to properly care for and nurture a child after birth does not change the murder of that child before birth from being anything other than murder. i already discussed what i see as the problem with putting every potentially aborted child into the adoption pool. you can find it somewhere else in the thread. Population issues are entirely irrelevant to the termination of an unborn human indeed being murder. To fully debate this specific issue however, I could use some statistics regarding annual adoption rates/ annual death rates and so on. You mention 1/4 million kids every year, but fail to mention how many deaths there are per year. Please provide some data. i mentioned first off that approximately one and one quarter million thats actually 1,293,000 were aborted in 2004 according to the National Right to Life movement's website. i was saying that if you were to not abort those children and put all of them up for adoption, the chances of someone being adopted would decrease. when i started this thread i put out there a statement that i had read in a news article saying that if our current population explosion contiued at the rate it is going now, there would be an additional 3 billion people on earth by the end of the century. that statistic took into account annual birth and death rates and then used a formula to project them out to the end of the century. i did not make the argument that it was a perfect statistic, but im sure it is in some way close to what will happen in actuality. An argument that your taxes would rise is not an argument against abortion being murder, which it is. Much like you I do not want to pay more tax, but that is no call to order the slaughter of the unborn. no one has called for the slaughter of the unborn. you have projected that end onto my argument for the freedom to choose to terminate pregnancies. a bit melodramatic actually. But that is the discussion. Once we have worked out whether it is right to kill an unborn child, once we have established whether an unborn child has any say in the matter, and once we have established that an unborn child fights to survive and is classifiable as a living being, then we can move onto the questions of tax raises and the ability to afford nappies. so you are basically saying that the rights of the unborn trump the rights of the already living in every conceivable scenario. thats what youre getting at. when will you realize that survival in today's world is inextricably linked to financial liquidity. if you want health care (at least in my country) you have to pay for it, and pay a lot. if you want food you have to buy it. even if you want to grow your own food you need land and you have to buy that. the governmental system for supporting people who are too poor to do so themselves is pathetically inadequate. what i am saying is that if my becoming too impoverished to survive because i have to bring a child into the world isnt killing one person to save the life of another than what is it? the point i was making with the statement is that birth and survival depend on a large network of factors and cannot be simplified to an issue of black and white morality. you are saying that because the situation of death due to poverty isnt always certain, it isnt a valid example. thats interesting. So.. a fetus does not exist? It has not made it to the ranks of fully fledged 'person', but it is still a living being with the express goal and right to survive. You are merely arguing semantics. Ok, it can't walk, talk, or operate a computer, but it is still a living being using it's host to ensure its own survival. i dont agree. and it isnt semantics, its just a microcosm of the larger issue. Most certainly. You purposefully didn't include "paedophiles, rapists, and murderers" that I had included, but it's ok, I forgive you. Earlier you mentioned the money you would have to pay. I might aswell point out that you pay a lot to house and feed those criminals. I would rather spend my money on the deserving, wouldn't you? yeah but i wasnt debating the rights of criminals to publicly financed food and shelter, i was debating whether abortion should be a legal choice. the death penalty issue is a completely different one. i purposely excluded those elements from the discussion because you included them to confuse the issue. i dont enjoy paying taxes to support the dregs of society, who does? i just see it as another issue for another discussion. and i dont find it to be linked to any of the core issues of the abortion debate. i said when i started the thread that i thought legal abortion would be a crucial way in which humanity could control its population. i excluded the other ways i thought that we could control the population because i wanted to have a debate about abortion. why doesnt that make sense to you? So, (I don't believe I got an answer but if I did I apologise), are you for or against capital punishment? i said i didnt have a postition on it. i said that i understand the thinking behind it, but at the same time understand the arguments against it. i have not yet decided which one of them i think is right, and part of the reason for that is because i agree with both sides of the debate from time to time. is that a clear answer? I wasn't. I was stating that if population was such an issue, I would rather see rapists and paedophiles die than unborn children. heres what i wrote: you are suggesting publicly sanctioned murder of the elderly and prisoners (a large percentage of the ones you have described here probably being metally ill) because you would rather not have an unwanted pregnancy terminated before its ever become a person? heres how you responded:Most certainly. You purposefully didn't include "paedophiles, rapists, and murderers" that I had included, but it's ok, I forgive you. Earlier you mentioned the money you would have to pay. I might aswell point out that you pay a lot to house and feed those criminals. I would rather spend my money on the deserving, wouldn't you? explain to me how your response doesnt advocate publicly sanctioned murder of already living people. because it does. in fact, tellingly you said "most certainly. you contradict yourself. For someone who is making an argument saying abortion is ok, doesn't it seem really daft to then refuse to agree that we should murder people who sexually molest young children? no. i didnt refuse to agree, i asked you a question. and i stuck to the one issue which was abortion and if it should be a legal choice, you mixed it up with some other, different issues. Both have the express desire to live, but one is clearly more deserving. You of course make the assumption that a fetus cannot express a desire to live, when that is all it does. once again i disagree and i would like to know who exactly made you the arbiter of who is deserving of life and who isnt. i mean that seems to be your whole problem with abortion, that no one is fit to make the choice about who should live or die. im advocating a choice to terminate a pregnancy, which in my personal opinion is not the same as murder. nothing more. it may be helpful for you to remember that. Once again you missed mine. actually i think i got it more than you did. Alexander the Great, no matter how great he might have been, is completely irrelevant to anything. However, to answer the question: If you take life, then yes.. certainly before taking the life of an innocent "living being" that continually expresses it's desire to live. its not irrelevant, i used it as an example within the context of this argument. accept or refute it. Whether the next child would have invented coco-pops is of no consequence. You are still taking the life of an innocent "living being" that expresses a desire to live. All the side swipes you take do not defeat or argue against that very simple notion. you mean they do not, in your opinion represent a worthy argument to refute your opposing position. neither one is a fact. Heartless maybe, but I couldn't honestly care. However, You "missed my point". My statement was that if population was such a big issue, then it would be better to kill those that were already at the ends of their life or those that spent their lifetime raping young boys and girls than the life of an innocent "living being" that has the express desire to survive. I wasn't stating we should go and kill old people, but merely pointing out, (as you had brought up population issues), that if faced with such a crisis whereby there were no resources or space for anyone, that we can find "living beings" to kill other than unborn ones. i didnt miss the point, you are injecting this debate with peripheral issues. once again i did not advocate abortion in all instances or as a preffered method of population control, only as a crucial aspect of an overall plan for it. i wanted debate about that. you refuse to stick to just that. i have said many times in this thread that i think there are other equally crucial methods of population management that need to be taken into consideration as well. if you want to debate capital punishment and right to die laws, go start a thread about them. But you do. You might not consider abortion as 'murder' but it is, given that a fetus is a "living being" with the express desire to survive. thats your definition and your opinion. it has no validity, legal or otherwise beyond that. You did little more than tell me it would cost a lot in taxes, Alexander was cool, and that because it can't walk it has no right to it's own existence. Not much of an argument when you break it down. or alternatively, not much of an argument if you dont understand it at all and filter it through so narrow a scope that it becomes oversimplified beyond any recognition. Because all those used in your examples qualify as "living beings" right? So does a fetus. no, because they are defined that way in the law. according to the law in my country right now a fetus is not under all circumstances accorded the same rights as every other living person. i explained it in the context of the law, you deflected it and interjected factless opining. Then surely an unborn child, born child, child under 10, cripple, mentally ill person, and old aged person all fall under the same category? I am aware of what you can legally do at 18 or 21, but that is completely irrelevant to the argument, and a mere attempt on your part to avoid the issue. By your own standards of argument here, we can happily kill pensioners and cripples because they "do not have the apparatus necessary to decide whether or not that choice impacts them negatively". first of all i dont agree that pensioners and cripples lack self awareness or a fully formed brain and nervous system apparently you do. back to biology class again i guess. i was making a point about how the law draws distinctions between the abilities required to make important decisions and have certain rights depending on age. the theory behind this involves an analysis of the perception that people become ready to handle different aspects of life at certain points in their development as humans. i was pointing out that because of that, not all people have the same rights regardless of age under the law because they are not considered developmentally the same until they reach the age of majority or the age of 21. it was part of my reasoning for why under the law an unborn child is not the same as one who is born. because birth, like majority, is a crucial dividing line between two stages in human development. comprehend. Yes, and the fetus - that shows express desire to live, and is classifiable as a "living being", should have that choice. ok i understand your opinion about it. Look, you can fart around with poor young, my husband left me, women scenarios all you like. That does not in any way change the issue, or argue for your side. There is still no excuse to murder an innocent "living being" that has the express desire to survive. Ok, you're a poor trampy lady who cannot look after the child - get it adopted. It has no weight or bearing on abortion. blah blah blah. opinion that i dont agree with. sorry. no dice. have fun.
Roman: Did you miss my first post? I offered an argument for why abortion is no less tha murder. Upon what foundation do you assert that humanity is rooted in "rationality"? Are more rational people "more human" than less rational people? Off the top of my head: 1. It destroys personal responsibility (whoops, I'll just kill the baby I fucked around for!). 2. It fits the definition of murder. 3. It devalues human life. te jen: The jury is still out on a zygote being a human being? No. No biologist will tell you that an example of an organism at any stage of development is still that organism. These "other aspects of humanity" mean little to what makes something a human or not. Life is rooted in biology, humanity in genetics. These "other aspects" are often even lacking in adults. According to the principle of equality before the law, a 21 year old must share all rights with a zygote. There is nothing "absurd" about the foundation of fundemental rights to all humanity. I am arguing against a zygote being potential at all. A zygote is a fully realized human being, just as much as a 90 year old is. There is no stage before a zygote, it is the beginning stage of human development. It is not a human being as a sperm or egg. As to whether or not I am saying that beforehand you have sole rights over your eggs and then after fertilization you do not: Yes. It ceases to be yours once it is fertilized. Just as I have no right to strangle you, you have no right to murder the child.
james. There are also notions in our law of "excessive force". Unless truly life-threatening intent are displayed, one can, and often are, convicted of a crime. Whilst there may be some cases of extreme medical emergency when abortion would be permittable under the notion of "imminent danger to life", anything less than such would be impermissible, not to mention a doctor ought not be involved in any case. A doctor cannot opt to save one person's life for the life of another, and to engage in abortion even when the mother's life is in danger, is to sacrifice one life for the life of another, specifically as the child is doing nothing unlawful, which would allow one to interfere in the case of seeing a crime in processs. Which leads me to your next point... why ought a doctor not to be involved?a doctor does and must at times opt to save one persons life instead of another, if only on the basis of the priority in which he or she places seeing their patients. not only that, but what in the case of a mother whose baby has its umbilical cord wrapped around its neck and will suffocate unless the doctor performs a cesarean but the mother is too weak to live through the procedure? who makes the decision then. the doctor. dont tell me the doctor ought to be divorced from decisions of life or death it is impossible for that to be the case in a realistic setting. and by the way i dont know if youve read any legal cases, but what constitutes an "imminenet danger to life" both in medical and criminal situations is and probably always will be subject to a real wide range of interpretations. tell me, are you now the one who decides what that phrase means? There is no imminent death, only harsh situations. Charities, both secular and religious, abound within New York City (and most other arreas), not to mention that one can ask assistance from friends, family, and other such things. Moreover, it is excessive to use deadly force against the non-malicious intent of a child growing in one's womb. i was presenting a hypothetical scenario in which a womans life would be put in danger by her giving birth to a child. reality is not so simple, access to charities is not always readily available. whom receives money from a charity depends on their ability to demonstrate that their need is worthy, what if they cannot get to the place where they need to be in order to demonstrate that need. some people have no family, or for one reason or another feel they cannot turn to them in times of great stress. i submit that the thrust of my hypothetical situation was not to debate charity and its availability, but to present to you a situation, however unlikely you may think it is based on your perceptions of the lives of the working poor, where giving birth to a child threatens the life of a mother in a non-medical way. even if its improbable you must agree that it is at least possible. and your perception of that situation does not come into play, what matters is her perception of the situation, just as in any other situation where someone must make a decision to use force in self-defense. I shall address this on the foundation of your chief fallacy: The child is not part of the birth parents (mother or father). The entity is distinct, both genetically and bodily. You do know that a child in the womb is even protected from the mother's body, yes? To avoid blood being transfered betwixt the two entities? really, then why is there such a thing as a crack baby or an AIDS baby? because the child in fact is not fully protected from the the mothers body. why dont you go find out how exactly those things transpire and come back and tell me the body of a fetus is not connected to the mothers in a significant way. Again: Since nothing can be presciently determined by our means, we cannot say what will happen. Moreover, we can think of means where society can handle the influx of children, perhaps breed them for military service or bureaucracy. right, neither of us can say what may happen with any kind of provability. thats why in my opinion we must err on the side of choice and freedom for those who are alive and i do not think that a child is alive from the moment of conception. you are also proposing here that we breed people for specific uses? that sounds a little facist to me but hey whatever. The notion of a planet-wide city is, actually, not so far fetched. Considering recent efforts in Japan towards a mile-high biospheric building which can hold 150,000 people, as well as advances towards skyscraper farming, we could imagine an Earth population approaching several hundred billion with no trouble. Not to mention that if we were to more efficiently use third world resources, we'd have plenty of room for food, water, and other necessities. thats 150,000 people, not a trillion. yup. feel free to post to everyones responses.
i don't think that would be bad at all. then there would be no point in arguing since everything are opinions. i don't know if i want to. i can tell anything to you, but you don't have to believe anything i say. how do you know they're not alive? because they don't seem alive? i don't care about the laws.
In the US the words "burden of proof" can be used in informal non-legal conversation. To a degree, yes. The people's representatives make law. The decision wasn't decided based upon the public desire. If public majority were to decide, the US would never fully legalize abortion but would instead rely on each state's citizens to vote for pro-abortion representatives. Abortion was legalized in the US because the court found illegalization of abortion against the constitution. Well, euthanasia is separate from a coma. Someone in a coma, baring other complications, has a pretty good chance of commng out alive, I think. Well, you cannot conclusively prove a man in a comma will have the same abliity to think. Perhaps five years later he will wake up and lack this ability. The fetus five years or so after being born will probably also have this abliity and will probably have a greater chance of having this abliity. Life history, me being so forgetful, doesn't seem that important For all we could know, that man in comma could be a murder with life imprisonment. In any case, I hold my future to have greater importance than my past.
There is no need to 'show evidence that a fetus is made out of anything other than pre-existing matter from the bodies of it's parents'. It hardly dropped out of the sky. But that it required a womans egg and a mans sperm is not the issue here, nor was it part of the discussion between you and I. The statement made by you, (that I responded to), was that a child is part of the woman's body. I argued that the child is not 'part' of that body, but inhabitant of it. There is a clear difference. A foot is a 'part' of the body, headlice are not. They dwell on the body, using it for their own needs. A child dwells within the body and uses it to ensure it's own survival. Sure, the child originated from the act of sex between the man and woman, but your point was about viability, (as you proceed to explain): "i was discussing viability as it relates to how we define a living being." I have already shown that definition of "living being", includes a fetus. You also argued that it is only after birth that a child becomes a "distinctly separate physical being", but I have shown that to be wrong. It might be sitting inside the woman, using her to further it's existence, but it is undeniably a separate physical being. The fact that it took sperm and egg does not really contribute to the argument. Sure, it can be used as a "well, I put the work in so I can kill it" argument, but that very same argument would hold true for anyone with parents - whether he be 3 months old or 50 years old. But.. we weren't even talking about that. I have no need or desire to argue against the fact that a child requires the joining of sperm and egg. I think you've wandered from the frame of discussion. It's a discussion based upon personal ideals and opinions. It is not a request that you care. You do as you see fit to do, that is your right, and.. nor do I care. You argue that because it takes sperm and egg, that a child is part of you. But a 10 year old child, a 50 year old child of your still took sperm and egg. So, how do you establish when the child is no longer your property? Judging from your arguments, that comes with "viability as it relates to how we define a living being". I have already clearly shown that a fetus is by definition a "living being" - and thus is not your property, but a separate physical being - working to ensure it's own survival at any cost. I am aware of that, but thanks all the same. The connection between the fetus and the woman is something that the fetus uses to ensure it's own surival. The link is placed for that very reason, and the fetus does an exceptional job of taking all the nutrients etc that it needs from her - without consent and without her having a choice in the matter, (other than to kill the fetus). I know you weren't, I was. Much like the parasite of any species, a fetus uses it's host to feed from, to gain nutrients from, to ensure it's survival. It's very fight for survival - against the will of it's 'mother,' shows that it has the express right to life. The mother, or host, can fight to combat the parasite, (in this case get an abortion), but that is murder. To kill the being that fights for it's own survival is nothing but murder. Eh? I never put words in your mouth, I never attempted anything using anything you ever said. Let's get this straight shall we? If we go back to your last post we see this question: "if a child isnt a part of a womans body while its in the womb, then what is it?" You asked me to explain what a child is, if not a part of a woman's body. I did just as you asked, and you now try and accuse me of putting words in your mouth etc etc? Charles: "..then what is it"? Snake: To all intents and purposes, it is a parasite.. See? Understand? But wait a moment there Charles... The statement was made using your criteria. You said: "viability as it relates to how we define a living being".. I showed and explained how a fetus is classifiable as a "living being" by the definition of the words. As we can now define it as a "living being", we must classify what type of "living being" it is. I can tell you now that it isn't a giraffe. So, you were saying about it being an opinion that this specific "living being" is not human.. What species is it then? I didn't do anything of the sort. What I did do was discuss an issue with you, using your own criteria for definition, your own "opinions" as to what classifies life to non-life, and human to non-human. If you don't like it, change your opinions. To be honest with you, I had little else to work with. Your other arguments have generally been pretty worthless in the grand scheme of things. For instance, you argued that because a child will die if left alone in a field it seemingly has no right to life. As I, and others, have pointed out - this would surely also include the handicapped, the mentally ill and my, (becoming somewhat famous), grandmother. Aside from that you mentioned the poor woman who can't afford her rent and that because the child got a copy of his parents genes that he is now their express property. I must say out of these I consider the viability argument as being worth more of my time. As that is the case I have done just that and shown, (using your own criteria), that a fetus is an individual "living being". You don't have to do anything you want to. You can continue seeing it any way you'd like. That's the beauty of being an individual "living being". Of course not. And it doesn't have the exact same rights as a fully developed and born person. It can't have sex, vote or watch 18 rated movies. It can't drink alcohol, drive a car, or run for president. However, It cannot be denied it's express right to life. It's very goal is to survive, and nobody has the authority to deny it that right - regardless to whether it's a human or a monkey. The right to life is the first right of any living being - and we as humans must acknowledge that right. To end the life of something that wants to live and fights to live, is murder. End of case. Ok, it cannot be classified as "murder" if it's animal life, but we are not talking animal life, we are talking human life - unless you would now argue that this "living being" is not human, but perhaps gorilla or kangaroo. Well, the same is certainly true in reverse. You have made bold statements, of that there is no doubt - but have not yet shown anything to quantify those statements. You have spoken at length about poor women and helpless children left in the local park, but nothing that could be considered worthy of a case for legal abortion. However, I have argued your "viability" and "separate entity" statements adequately without yet having seen a return rebuttal to those arguments. Instead you now seem more focused on telling me that I speak opinion - which was surely clear from the onset? (and the same for everyone else in such debates). What we are left with is to go by those have shown that a fetus is a "living being" with the express right to life given it's undeniable fight to survive. We perhaps could pass up on those rights if it was a dog or an armadillo, but it isn't.. it is human. Not by me. Religious doctrine is entirely irrelevant to anything, and whether a fetus could be Einstein or Hitler is inconsequential. The very fact that it fights to survive, to live, and that it is definable as a "living being" shows beyond any doubt that it does indeed have the right to life. It seems you're arguing with me about other people's posts. What is it's relevance to me? I don't get what you're trying to say here.. You think I cannot get involved in a discussion without losing sleep? Would you like me to agree with everything everyone says just to save petty statements such as the one you have just made? Of course, given the placement of your statement, it seems you are asking me to deal with other people making posts you disagree with concerning religious doctrine, a child's future job role, and that it doesn't class as proof, logical or otherwise, of sentience. I would suggest you take it up with them, or indeed tell them to deal with whatever it is you want them to deal with, considering they were the ones that made those posts. Just a suggestion. What are you talking about? You asked a question - that I answered, and then - for the mere sake of interest, followed up with some pointers on how hard it is to actually get pregnant - and that a fair compromise would be to make abortion illegal and make having ovulation predictors and after morning pills a legal requirement. What exactly did I take out of context? You later go on to say that abortion is not the "preferred" method, (you even go so far as to state it in caps). My point in response to that is then to make abortion illegal, and opt for something that is preferable. Of course you go back to the "population control" argument, and yet a couple of posts later and I still await the statistics. As I stated earlier to you, I cannot properly debate this specific side of the issue without certain data. As you seemingly have access to it, I would be very grateful if you could provide it. This would include abortion rates/adoption rates/ and death rates. Thank you. No you didn't, you asked me "where the hell does it come from?" I answered. What more do you want? Pictures? I will return that statement to you, but without the "fucking". That's generally a sign that one is struggling to say something of value. To the "body" of the potential child... Right here you show that the "body" of the child, potential or otherwise, is different to that of the parents. The child is not a part of it's mothers 'body', it is it's own 'body', using the mothers body to ensure the survival of it's own body. Your whole argument here is that the mother and father own that individual 'body' because they provided a bit of sperm and an egg towards it. But then, a mother and father provided an egg and sperm to the life of their 10 year old son too, and their 50 year old son. Do they own them aswell? Right about now you would argue that it's different for a child inside the mother - but then I fail to see exactly what you're getting at. The child dwells temporarily inside it's mother, gets its nourishment from it's mother and so on. But then so does a 10 year old child. The parents provide it's food and a place to dwell until such time where it is big enough to go out on it's own. In both cases the child has the express desire to survive. You have no say over whether it has the right to or not. My daughter spent 9 months getting bigger in my wife's womb, and will spend the next 10 years getting bigger in my house. What's the difference? If so that would probably stem from the fact that you have spoken of little more than children stuck in a field unable to walk, and mothers who are on welfare. It is hard to judge exactly where your argument lies. A) I still await statistics concerning abortion/population/deaths and adoption. B) You have already stated yourself in the quote I just recently pasted, that a fetus/child is not your body, but it's own body. Sure, it inhabits your body for a few months, but it is not your body. C) I have never argued against a persons right to do as they please with their own body. As I mentioned to you in an earlier post, I wouldn't have anyone telling me I can or cannot get tattoos - or anything that is a part of your body. An individual "living being" that inhabits your body is not your body. It is it's own body, using yours. So you are stating that it is dead from the point of conception? You are stating that it isn't human but giraffe perhaps? Every human acknowledges that they are carrying a human. When pregnant they do not state "I am carrying a bunch of cells", but "I am carrying a child". Acknowledgement of what is inside of them is absolute from the moment of conception, the moment they are aware they are pregnant. They carry a child, a human child. We can argue semantics, and say that for a little while it doesn't resemble a human, but it is still human.
As for mechanically or chemically temporarily sterilizing both men and women at a young age, so as to prevent unwanted conception and enable them to engage in free sex: Many people would casually and frequently engage into sex, with few or no restraints, with many partners. The danger is that sexually transmitted infections would spread uncontrollably. Soon, a large part of the population, if not the majority, would be infected with one or several STI's; some people contracting them directly from sexual activity, some contracting it indirectly in other ways (parent to child, child to parent through familial intimacy, using public facilities, etc.). The scenario would be that a great part of the working population would constantly be on medication or on sick leave, thereby a great economical loss would ensue. Eventually, they couldn't afford the treatment anymore either. Moreover, because so many people would be temporarily or terminally ill, the number of those able to give suitable blood for medical purposes of blood transfusions, would drop drastically. Hospitals would have to perform less surgeries and blood transfusions because of the lack of substitute blood, so even more people would be ill. These are just some material consequences of free and careless sex. Is this to be opted for?
Regardless whether she uses contraceptives or not, a fertile woman who is about to have sex is facing the same decision: "What will I do if I conceive? Will I keep the child?" Contraceptives only lower the frequency of conception, but the decision remains the same. So the issue is not about potentiality vs. actuality, but about intention. It is, however, possible to put this decision off, sometimes for a long time or even forever. But it remains that the above is a decision every fertile woman faces before she engages into sex. It is this decision and the arguments needed for it, that should also be discussed when talking about abortion.
Likewise, it is also a choice that faces the male. "Will I impregnate her? If I do, what happens to the child?"
You have just described yourself perfectly ... A person who identifies himself or herself as a consumer is someone who thinks consuming is essential to who he or she is. Not all people define and understand themselves in terms of consuming, in terms of how their material needs and desires are met. Do people must have so much sex that over one million abortions take place each year in the US? I'm not denying the urge to have sex. But people usually don't have sex to procreate, do they? And this is the issue here, and why there are unwanted pregnancies. Why do they have sex if they don't want to have children? Sex per se isn't wrong or bad. Sex that leads to abortion or unwanted children is wrong. A woman faces the decision about whether she will have children or not, before she has sex. She might not make that decision though, and still have sex. It is clear, even BEFORE she will have sex, whether the sex she is about to have is wrong or not. The intentions about having children are potentially clear BEFORE sex. Contraceptives only lower the frequency of conception, but the situation is essentially the same with or without the contraceptives. In most cases, the contraceptives only help postponing the decision. Using contraceptives and not deciding whether you want children or not, is self-deceit. Self-deceit, of any kind, is harmful to a person's mental health.
It would be best to do nothing. Yes. Of course not, why would they? I doubt procreation is usually the point with sex. Because they are controlled by the sexual feelings. What about it? It's not like they can decide whether they care or not.
Did you miss my first post? I offered an argument for why abortion is no less tha murder. Hence, I cannot continue any further debate, since your argument is based solely upon that notion, however irrational and unscientific. Even within the first trimester, there is little more recognizable a human being as there is a mass of matter, biologically speaking. We share 96% of our DNA with our closest living relatives, hence your argument can only be based on 4% of DNA. Charities, both secular and religious, abound within New York City (and most other arreas), not to mention that one can ask assistance from friends, family, and other such things. Again, highly irrational sweeping statement not based on the realities of life. Once again I can only conclude your argument is bases entirely on emotion.
