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I just know that Republican & Democratic voters,as living beings,aren't sentient.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 5, 8:43pm
Oh now you did it, what's Dan going to do while watching Youtube videos?
Meanwhile CIC is overloading the YouSheep video site.
What's important for the subject of abortion is when does the offspring become a person
That is subjective as well, and subject to contradictions. For example, there have been cases where drivers have been charged with homicide who crashed into a car resulting in the death of a fetus that could have been legally aborted.
Apparently one has to make an assumption about when life begins, or personhood, if you prefer. And assumptions can turn out to be right or wrong. So let's say there are two assumptions: 1.) Life begins at conception. 2.) Life begins at (fill-in-the-blank) months. Then work out the ramifications if 1. is right and if 1. is wrong. Do the same for 2. So what is the worst of the four possible outcomes?
The sperm is alive. Life therefore begins in your balls.
You are correct Strategist
It has been scientifically proven that sperm is alive and it responds and navigates through the uterus by chemical attraction. I think we should make sure that any abortion restrictions in law equally applies to any male who masturbates. That way we could maintain our ideological and spiritual consistency regarding our anti abortion position. I would not want to knowingly be a hypocrite.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 7:44am
For example, there have been cases where drivers have been charged with homicide who crashed into a car resulting in the death of a fetus that could have been legally aborted.
Also addressed in that classic thread.
A baby just before bith, is as alive as a baby just after birth.
Whether or not you call the offspring a baby is irrelevant. The sperm and egg before joining are both alive, but they are not persons. A brain-dead human body is alive, but there is no mind and thus no person.
Are the multitude of living cells of Henrietta Lacks a person? Would it be immoral to let those cells die? Would that be murder?
Living cells do not a person make. Human DNA -- whatever the criteria for that is -- does not a person make. A social security number does not a person make. Only a mind maketh a man. (Or woman, but I couldn't resist making it sound like Shakespeare.)
FuckTheMainstreamMedia
2015 Aug 6, 7:49am
If liberals had it their way, you could abort all the way up to 18 years of age.
I'm not entirely opposed to this..
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 7:56am
If liberals had it their way, you could abort all the way up to 18 years of age.
Only in the case of you.
Misrepresenting your opponent's position is a sign you believe your own position is undefendable.
FortWayne
2015 Aug 6, 9:58am
The sperm is alive. Life therefore begins in your balls.
Now there is a real conversation starter :)
Living cells do not a person make.
You have made your assumptions. You can even define what is human life and what is not, so that your conclusion fits with your assumptions. That is not unusual.
But others will make different assumptions - for example, that human life begins when a sperm joins an egg - and they will reach different conclusions - that abortion is murder.
Others will assume that as technology can keep a fetus alive at 5 months outside the womb, that human life begins at five months. Of course as technology allows the fetus to thrive ex vivo at three months, and two months, then the definition of when human life begins must change, and is therefore arbitrary.
So all I suggest is to examine what happens if your assumptions are indeed correct, and what happens if they are wrong.
FNWGMOBDVZXDNW
2015 Aug 6, 10:37am
There are some cases in which the mother gives birth without ever knowing she was pregnant. Hard to find a clear line, isn't it?
Agreed. I take a different approach than Dan, who argues that the solution is to define personhood. My approach requires figuring out why we think that killing other humans is wrong and applying those things to the fetus, so see if it is still applicable.
Even if we were to agree that aborting a fetus was wrong, it still might be called something other than murder. The reason for calling it murder is usually rhetorical, as it invokes a particular emotion. There is no word for inducing an abortion against the mothers wishes, and there are no laws on the books for this with a suitable punishment. People argue in the courtroom that this is murder, because that is the law that allows them to seek a suitable punishment. One of the primary reasons that killing is bad is because of the damage that it does to loved ones. That is why we react so strongly to the aborting against the wishes of the parents (mother in particular). I said 'One of,' and that implies that I know there are 'other reasons.'
I wouldn't presume to be able to solve the issue if I tried, and don't have the time or inclination to try. I'm simply pointing out that there are issues at work outside of the definition of personhood or trying to figure out when 'life' begins.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 11:06am
You have made your assumptions. You can even define what is human life and what is not, so that your conclusion fits with your assumptions. That is not unusual.
I make no assumptions, and nomenclature is irrelevant. Renaming a thing does not change its properties.
But others will make different assumptions - for example, that human life begins when a sperm joins an egg - and they will reach different conclusions - that abortion is murder.
Assumptions do not change reality. Neither does defining the word human to including or exclude a fertilized egg change reality. In fact, the act of a sperm joining an egg does not eliminate the problem of ambiguity because fertilization does not occur in an instant, the Plank time. Fertilization is an extremely long process taking over 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 instances. That's more instances than there have been nanoseconds since the Big Bang. Exactly when in the long process of fertilization does the sperm-egg system cease being a non-person and becomes a person? Any answer you give would be arbitrary and meaningless regardless of what nomenclature you use.
Furthermore, you could define murder as "drinking water" in which case we would all be murderers because everything we drink has water in it. If you define murder as such, there is no reason for me to believe that murder, by your definition, is immoral or should be illegal. Changing definitions does not change whether or not something is moral or whether or not something should be illegal.
The one and only thing regarding abortion that I or any other moral, rational person will accept as being illegal is "the intentional killing of a person against his or her will". Call that murder if you like as I do or call it bunny-hopping. It does not matter. It's the definition, not the word assigned to it that carries the moral and legal weight. The key part of the definition is the meaning of "person". I don't give two shits if a living creature is human -- whatever the fuck that means. The term human is meaningless and ambiguous. You can't draw a line between our human ancestors and our non-human ancestors and it would have no meaning even if you could. All that matters is personhood, not human-hood.
What makes a person is a mind. I don't care if that mind is contained by a hairless ape or a dolphin or an extra-terrestrial or a Turing machine. Sentience is what makes a person a person, nothing else. And if you think I'm wrong, prove it. Remove your brain, except for its stem, from your body and see if you are still you. This is something that can be verified experimentally very easily.
As for abortion, any mental model that divides the world into persons and non-persons with no ambiguity does not reflect reality. Like it or not, nature is fuzzy and nature has no obligation to fit into the narrow and rigged categories you create for it. Nature does not give a damn what you think, it will just continue doing what it does. You, I, and our entire species, our entire world is utterly insignificant. The affairs of man are naught to the universe. If our world were to suddenly cease to exist, the only effect on the universe would be a thin ever expanding and weakening bubble of electro-magnetic waves ignored by the rest of the universe.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 11:10am
Agreed. I take a different approach than Dan, who argues that the solution is to define personhood. My approach requires figuring out why we think that killing other humans is wrong and applying those things to the fetus, so see if it is still applicable.
The only reason why it's morally wrong to kill other "humans" or anything is because you are destroying a sentient being, even if it's not sentient enough to meet the arbitrary threshold for personhood. If this were not the case, the killing itself would not be immoral. That's why it's OK to kill a banana and eat it.
The problem with your approach is that there can be "bad" reasons for human behavior. For example, one of the reasons that killing other humans is considered unacceptable is that they are carrying copies of your genes, so you are hurting your tribe's genome by killing other tribe members. However, by this logic, it becomes moral to massacre other tribes because you're eliminating the competition and increasing the survival likelihood of your tribe's genes. Pretty much all of human history illustrates this point.
That's more instances than there have been nanoseconds since the Big Bang.
Sure, I know you believe this. And you can rationalize as well. In fact, you can refuse to even acknowledge you are making assumptions at all. And folks on the other sides of the issue can do the same. So I will perform the thought exercise for you:
1.) Life begins at conception. Let's make abortion illegal.
a.) If true, that life begins at conception, making abortion illegal prevents the murders of millions of humans.
b.) If false, and life does not begin at conception, making abortion illegal ruins the lives of millions, including women who die from back-room abortions, and millions of unwanted children are brought into the world.
2.) Life begins at 6 months. Let's keep abortion legal for six months and beyond.
a.) If true, than the lives of millions of women are not ruined, no one dies from a botched back-room abortion, and millions of unwanted kids are not brought into the world.
b.) If false, then millions of humans are killed.
For many, 2.b is the worst possible outcome.
For many, 1.b. is the worst possible outcome.
FNWGMOBDVZXDNW
2015 Aug 6, 1:53pm
The only reason why it's morally wrong to kill other "humans" or anything is because you are destroying a sentient being, even if it's not sentient enough to meet the arbitrary threshold for personhood. If this were not the case, the killing itself would not be immoral. That's why it's OK to kill a banana and eat it.
Plenty of animals are sentient (the ability to feel). This can't be the test for murder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentience
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 2:46pm
That's more instances than there have been nanoseconds since the Big Bang.
Sure, I know you believe this. And you can rationalize as well.
Whether or not "I" believe this is irrelevant. Reality does not change according to your beliefs. You can believe that George Washington rode a dinosaur to fight the Soviets in the French Revolution, but that doesn't make it so. The statement that you are trying to discredit is a cold, hard, indisputable fact. Who presented this fact and who believes it is irrelevant. It's still a fact.
You can disagree with my value judgements all you want. A value judgement is not right or wrong. I cannot prove that raping babies is evil; I just accept it as such. However, facts are indisputable. If you disagree with my facts, then you are simply wrong, twice so in fact. You are wrong about the fact being incorrect and you are wrong about it being "my fact". There are no "my facts" and "your facts". There is only "the facts".
So yes, you can disagree with my stance on abortion by having different value judgements. For example, you could consider murdering babies to be a good thing. I cannot disprove your value judgements even in principle. However, I can disprove factual statements that you use to justify your conclusions. If you state that you are against abortions because they cause earthquakes by angering god, I can call your argument bullshit. This is exactly how I disproved all of the arguments both for and against abortion in the classic thread I referenced.
Furthermore, it is not rationalization to state a fact. Rationalization is using false rational to justify a value judgement or a conclusion based on value judgements. I have done no such thing. Ironically, rationalization is exactly what you have been doing.
So I will perform the thought exercise for you:
1.) Life begins at conception. Let's make abortion illegal.
1. Your statement "life begins at conception" is meaningless without a definition of life.
2. The sperm and the egg are alive before conception.
3. Life is not the same thing as a person.
4. If you are arguing that abortion should be illegal because it ends life then so should hunting and farming be illegal. The entire human race would starve to death.
a.) If true, that life begins at conception, making abortion illegal prevents the murders of millions of humans.
5. The concepts of "life" and "human" are not synonymous any more than "human" and "person" are. Just because something is alive does not make it human. Just because something is human does not make it a person. You can define these terms any way you like, but then you lose all your power. Once you define a term, you have zero control over the implications of that definition. So you might want to put the effort required to honestly, precisely, and clearly define these terms. They effect the validity of your arguments, but not what the truth is.
6. In addition to defining "life" and "human" and "person", you also have to define "murder". I'm more than willing to accept whatever nomenclature you want to use for your arguments, no matter how ridiculous or unorthodox. However, once you define a term, there are NO ASSUMPTIONS about statements using that term. For example, you can define "murder" as "petting a puppy" in which case I would argue that murder is a good thing and should be legal. Redefining a term does not give you the power to change reality or value judgements. All it does is rephrase the expression of facts. The facts themselves DO NOT CHANGE as a result of changing nomenclature.
For example, the 14th Amendment guarantees equality under law, all law, including marriage law. Therefore, the state cannot legally treat same-sex unions different from opposite-sex unions regardless of whether or not these unions are called marriage. There is a practical reason for changing the legal definition of marriage to include same-sex unions because the only other legal alternative is to immediately repeal all laws that use the word marriage and then re-implement them one-by-one. Doing that would take decades and cause enormous hardships to both same-sex and opposite-sex couples including causing the widows of soldiers to not receive survival benefits for decades. But the end result must be the same whether you call same-sex unions marriages or stop using the word marriage all together in legislation.
Similarly, if you redefine murder or human, the statement murdering humans is bad is no longer an established agreement. By changing nomenclature you invalidate applying any material outside your specific nomenclature to support your arguments including, for example, the Bible and works of philosophers, crime statistics, etc. So the only reason to use your own nomenclature is if it can provide GREATER CLARITY, because your choice of words has ZERO IMPACT ON PERSUASION in a rational debate. Word trickery might work on the masses of dumb asses in the world, but not against a rational opponent.
b.) If false, and life does not begin at conception, making abortion illegal ruins the lives of millions, including women who die from back-room abortions, and millions of unwanted children are brought into the world.
Regardless of whether or not a fertilized egg meets your definitions of life, human, or person, making abortion illegal will ruin the lives of millions of women and cause women to die in back-room abortions. The negative consequences happen regardless of how justified your position is based on yours or any one else's value judgements.
2.) Life begins at 6 months. Let's keep abortion legal for six months and beyond.
A fertilized egg is clearly alive. The sperm and unfertilized eggs are also clearly alive. The zygote resulting from the fertilized egg is also clearly alive.
There are two problems with your approach to this subject matter. The first is that you assume there is a clear distinction between living and non-living things. This simply is not the case. Luckily for you this flaw is not important because it does not apply to the abortion argument. No one has ever, ever, LIKE EVER argued that the offspring isn't alive at any stage of development. What's important is when does the offspring become a person, not when does it become alive. Your muscle cells are alive, but they aren't a person.
The second, and critically important, problem with your thinking is that you assume there is a clear distinction between personhood and non-personhood, and there is no such dividing line. Personhood is an inherently fuzzy state of being. This is the uncomfortable truth that neither side of the argument wants to admit because doing so means that the legality of abortion has to be throttled, not made absolutely legal or illegal. I've already handled that problem and its solution in the classic thread. I will not repeat it here. Go to that thread if you want to debate the issue.
There are degrees of personhood and any just law regulation abortion must therefore reflect this inconvenient truth by establishing levels of illegality and punishment for abortion starting with absolutely legal and no punishment and going up to murder. Most so-called pro-choice people, the vast majority of Americans, understand and accept this even if they are too uncomfortable to openly state it.
For many, 2.b is the worst possible outcome.
People who want to ban all abortions performed at the mother's consent hypocritically ignore the multitudes of abortions forced on women by polluters through the mechanism of miscarriages. When corporations pollute the environment, it causes miscarriages which are functionally forced abortions against the mother's will. More offspring, or babies as you would call them, are aborted by polluters than by expecting mothers. Yet, the "pro-life" crowd has no problem letting corporations pollute. That is pure hypocrisy.
Plenty of animals are sentient (the ability to feel). This can't be the test for murder.
Which is exactly why I said
The only reason why it's morally wrong to kill other "humans" or anything is because you are destroying a sentient being, even if it's not sentient enough to meet the arbitrary threshold for personhood.
I clearly am not defining murder as the killing of any being with any degree of sentient. I explicitly defined murder as
"the intentional killing of a person against his or her will"
I have also acknowledge that the threshold for personhood is arbitrary.
The killing of a being with a mind becomes increasingly immoral as the mind being killed becomes more sentient at least up to a threshold representing a maximum value of sentience. This is obvious. It's wrong to kill a bird for shits and giggles. It's more wrong to kill a dog for shits and giggles. It's even more wrong to kill a human for shits and giggles. [Note: I'm talking about developed animals in all of these cases, not embryos.]
Any law seeking to ban such evils must acknowledge these gradients in order to be a just and well-written law.
ja
2015 Aug 6, 3:23pm
For example, you could consider murdering babies to be a good thing. I cannot disprove your value judgements even in principle.
Right. Infanticide is accepted in many cultures. And there are good social reasons for it.
A newborn baby has no more personhood than an adult monkey
Whether or not "I" believe this is irrelevant. Reality does not change according to your beliefs.
I know lots of people who believe their way of looking at things is "reality." I really don't need you to continue to justify your beliefs. I do believe you believe what you say you believe. Just as I believe folks who believe life begins at conception and abortion is murder believe this, and believe this is reality. You can continue to shout "I am right! I am right! and you can continue to state why. This is a normal approach. I really don't need you to argue for why you are right. I believe you believe you are right. And suggesting that you may be wrong, and also suggesting that the life begins at conception folks may be wrong, and that the result of being wrong has consequences, I believe also falls on deaf ears. But anyone can be wrong, it is folly to state otherwise.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 4:03pm
I know lots of people who believe their way of looking at things is "reality."
And they are wrong. Reality is objective and verifiable. It is a fact that the Earth is round. Your perception of its flatness is irrelevant. It is an opinion that chocolate ice cream tastes better than horse shit. It's not provable and therefore not a fact. Value judgements and facts are entirely different things.
I really don't need you to continue to justify your beliefs.
I am explaining my beliefs. I am not attempting to justify my value judgements, although I am freely and honestly disclosing what they are. As I stated, you can disagree with my value judgements all you want, but if you disagree with the facts I present, you are simply wrong. George Washington never rode on a dinosaur and no subjective perspective is going to change that. To argue that is simply insanity.
Just as I believe folks who believe life begins at conception and abortion is murder believe this
You are confusing two separate and incompatible colloquial definitions of belief. To hold a value is not a belief in the same way as to accept a fact. A fact is a truth, whereas a value judgement is an opinion. It is simply a failing of the English language that we use the same word, but entirely different meaning, to represent both. Surely you are smart enough to understand this. The statement "I believe raping babies is evil" is not analogous to "I believe the square root of two is an irrational number". The former is a value judgement, which like all opinions is neither correct nor incorrect. The later is a fact and is either absolutely correct or incorrect regardless of who you are and how you feel. Even children can understand this concept.
You can continue to shout "I am right! I am right! and you can continue to state why.
I have not done any such thing. You are making a Straw Man argument. My facts are correct and my reasoning are unflawed, but never have I stated that my value judgements are the truth or "right". I would never do such a thing because it's illogical. It would be like saying Coke tastes better than Pepsi and anyone who disagrees is wrong. I have repeated stated that by definition, opinions cannot be right or wrong and that value judgements are opinions. Either you have poor reading comprehension skills or your own personal biases are interfering with your listening skills.
Challenge: Point out one fact I stated in this thread that isn't true. If you can't do that, then stop bitching.
And suggesting that you may be wrong, and also suggesting that the life begins at conception folks may be wrong
Depending on what wacky ass definition you are using for "life", it may or may not begin at conception. But it is an indisputable fact that by the biological definition of life, life does not begin at conception. It begins four billion years before conception. The sperm and the egg are alive and are cells that have been growing and dividing for four billion years.
The second and more important flaw in your reasoning is that regardless of your definition of life, whether or not abortion should be legal has mother-fucking-nothing to do with whether or not life begins at conception. If you want, I'll even give you that premise, false as it may be. It's still not an argument in any way that abortion should be illegal because it's irrelevant to both questions of morality and questions of rights. As far as the law is concerned, what matters is when do RIGHTS begin. Simply being a living entity does not give you any rights even if your DNA is human. The cells of Henrietta Lacks are every bit living human cells, but they have absolutely no legal rights.
To illustrate how ridiculous your argument is, killing a sperm or an unfertilized egg would have to be considered legal murder by the very criteria you suggest. After all, the sperm was created way after the father was born and the egg was created well into the mother's fetal development.
The third flaw in your reasoning is that there isn't simply "before" and "after" fertilization. There is also "during" fertilization. Since we're talking principles here, it's perfectly reasonable to ask exactly when during the fertilization process the egg goes from being just an inanimate object to being a person. This third flaw shows how foolish it is to even attempt to avoid the issue that there are degrees of personhood. And it's a question you don't have the balls to even attempt to address because clearly there is no litmus test, even in principle, that one can make to put objects into distinct and disambiguous categories labeled "person" and "thing". That's a very uncomfortable truth, isn't it? Unless your philosophy addresses this truth, it's immature and laughable. And yes, that was a value judgement.
Strategist
2015 Aug 6, 5:10pm
When does human life begin?
I have no freakin idea. I do know, this question can only be answered by science and biology. Religion has no place in this debate.
The only reason why it's morally wrong to kill other "humans" or anything is because you are destroying a sentient being, even if it's not sentient enough to meet the arbitrary threshold for personhood. If this were not the case, the killing itself would not be immoral.
Does one only become "sentient" after they are pulled through a vagina?
My babies weren't all that sentient the first few months of their lives, but of course it would be a horrible evil crime to murder them, carve up their bodies and sell their organs like Planned Parenthood does. Same thing with elderly people or coma patients.
Our brains aren't fully developed until our early 20's. So where exactly is the cutoff?
Does one only become "sentient" after they are pulled through a vagina?
My babies weren't all that sentient the first few months of their lives, but of course it would be a horrible evil crime to murder them, carve up their bodies and sell their organs like Planned Parenthood does. Same thing with elderly people or coma patients.
Our brains aren't fully developed until our early 20's. So where exactly is the cutoff?
Heh. 90% of the people I've known aren't "sentient."
It's a tough question. All I know is that everyone I have ever known, read or heard about, seen or heard, everyone on this blog, and I, were all fetuses at one point. No person who ever walked on the planet was not a fetus. Even Democrats were once fetuses. There's no clear line. If there's no clear line, it's a mistake to arbitrarily kill off life which, just maybe, might be people.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 5:33pm
Does one only become "sentient" after they are pulled through a vagina?
Of course not, as you would know if you actually read my posts. The process of birthing is every bit as arbitrary as the process of fertilization. Hence, both all the pro-life and all the pro-choice arguments are invalid as shown on that classic thread. The dirty secret that neither side is willing to admit is that personhood doesn't happen in an instant. There are degrees of personhood and therefore there should be degrees of legality in abortion.
My babies weren't all that sentient the first few months of their lives
I would argue that they are certainly sentient enough. To compare the level of sentience of a newborn baby to a zygote without even the beginnings of a brain is ridiculous. We can therefore place a very safe lower limit on when abortions should absolutely be legal and considered moral. No brain, no neural connections means no mind and no person. No one has even attempted to refute this point.
I would also argue that if it is immoral to kill a newborn baby, then it is at least as immoral to kill ANY being with at least as much self-awareness including dolphins, whales, and non-human apes, and for the exact same reason. And if we make the former illegal, we should do the same for the later.
MisdemeanorRebel
2015 Aug 6, 5:36pm
It's a tough question. All I know is that everyone I have ever known, read or heard about, seen or heard, everyone on this blog, and I, were all fetuses at one point. No person who ever walked on the planet was not a fetus. Even Democrats were once fetuses. There's no clear line. If there's no clear line, it's a mistake to arbitrarily kill off life which, just maybe, might be people.
Why stop at fetuses? Every sperm is sacred.
I would argue that they are certainly sentient enough. To compare the level of sentience of a newborn baby to a zygote
We aren't talking about zygotes.
The Planned Parenthood videos have doctors talking about aborting 17 and 20 "weekers".
The doctor in the LA Planned Parenthood video says that their clinic ALONE aborts over 3,000 babies in the 2nd trimester and older each year and said some babies were even delivered before they could be aborted. So they could sell an intact "fetal cadaver".
We can therefore place a very safe lower limit on when abortions should absolutely be legal and considered moral.
So where is this limit? America has the most permissive abortion laws in the world 2nd only to China with their evil One Child Policy.
But every-time Republicans try to put some reasonable restrictions on abortions to be in line with Europe and the rest of the civilized world, the Democrats go ape-shit and screech that Republicans are waging war on women and are all about patriarchy.
Who are the extremists here?
There are Jews in the world there are Buddhists
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I've never been one of them
I'm a Roman Catholic
And have been since before I was born
And the one thing they say about Catholics is
They'll take you as soon as you're warm
You don't have to be a six-footer
You don't have to have a great brain
You don't have to have any clothes on you're
A Catholic the moment Dad came
Because every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate
Let the heathen spill theirs
On the dusty ground
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can't be found
Every sperm is wanted
Every sperm is good
Every sperm is needed
In your neighborhood
Hindu, Taoist, Mormon
Spill theirs just anywhere
But God loves those who treat their
Semen with more care
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is good
Every sperm is needed
In your neighborhood
Every sperm is useful
Every sperm is fine
God needs everybody's
Mine and mine and mine
Let the pagan spill theirs
Over mountain, hill, and plain
God shall strike them down for
Each sperm that's spilt in vain
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is good
Every sperm is needed
In your neighborhood
Every sperm is sacred
Every sperm is great
If a sperm is wasted
God gets quite irate
Strategist
2015 Aug 6, 6:52pm
Why stop at fetuses? Every sperm is sacred.
Each ejaculation spurts out 200+ million sperms, desperately seeking to survive, but end up in the toilet.
The greatest murderers in the history of mankind are teenage boys.
Why stop at fetuses? Every sperm is sacred.
Yeah, I saw that movie.
I guess because a fertilized egg has all the components for a human being. I guess that's a line between sperms and fetuses.
But you have never known a fetus, so why collapse the distinction? Perhaps you reject the distinction.
Everyone I have ever known is a fetus, grown up. Everyone I have ever known is an infant, grown up. I don't get your point.
Strategist
2015 Aug 6, 8:25pm
Everyone I have ever known is a fetus, grown up. Everyone I have ever known is an infant, grown up. I don't get your point.
That's like saying everyone I know was born.
I don't know anyone, who knows anyone, that was never born.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 9:37pm
The Planned Parenthood videos have doctors talking about aborting 17 and 20 "weekers".
Roe v. Wade makes it a federal right for a woman to have an abortion without restriction during the first trimester. The case also leaves it up to the state to handle restrictions, if any, on second trimesters. Are you saying that states rights should not apply to the issue of abortion? If so, then why should states rights apply to anything? Shouldn't all rights be guaranteed at the federal level unlike what republicans have always said? Should all laws with damn few exceptions be federal laws?
The second trimester is when the offspring ceases to be a mindless ball of cells and starts becoming a person, but the process of becoming a person takes months if not years depending on where you draw the arbitrary line.
The doctor in the LA Planned Parenthood video says that their clinic ALONE aborts over 3,000 babies in the 2nd trimester and older each year and said some babies were even delivered before they could be aborted. So they could sell an intact "fetal cadaver".
And we can debate the ethics of that, but only if everyone involved in the discussion is willing to admit that the "soul" is bullshit and no magic makes a fertilized egg a person. Once we stop talking about bullshit mythological beliefs from the Bronze Age, we can have an adult conversation on where to draw the line on abortions and why. As long as religion dominates moral and ethical debates, that conversation is impossible.
As a liberal, I have no problem with the banning of second trimester abortions if it can be demonstrated that an even somewhat functioning mind exists at that time. The question is really at which week to stop allowing abortions, and that question can only be answered with science, not religion. Every person who says something stupid like "life begins at conception" and takes that to mean that a fertilize egg is a person simply prevents us from drawing more precise lines regarding when abortions are allowed and when they are not.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 9:41pm
I guess because a fertilized egg has all the components for a human being. I guess that's a line between sperms and fetuses.
That is a stupid criteria. If you chop off the arm of a person, he does not cease being a person because he "lacks components for a human being". Nor does the severed arm, if kept alive, constitute a person because it has all the genetic information necessary to build a human. In contrast, a severed head kept alive and conscious in a jar most certainly is a person as it has a mind, which ultimately is all that matters. A human mind digitized and executed inside a computer is also a person for the same reason. It's not your limbs or your body parts that make you a person; it's your mind. The only body part that counts is the brain.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 9:41pm
Every sperm is wanted
Every sperm is good
Every sperm is needed
CIC disproves that conjecture.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 6, 9:52pm
and this guy below is still at it as an adult...
Well, your daughter only takes it up the ass.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 7, 12:27am
Your daughter thinks of my ass all the time. Like mother like daughter.
And we can debate the ethics of that, but only if everyone involved in the discussion is willing to admit that the "soul" is bullshit and no magic makes a fertilized egg a person. Once we stop talking about bullshit mythological beliefs from the Bronze Age, we can have an adult conversation on where to draw the line on abortions and why. As long as religion dominates moral and ethical debates, that conversation is impossible.
Deflecting again. Who is talking about religion or souls on this thread?
Thought that Libs were big into "SCIENCE"? Anyone can look at an 8 week fetus (let along a 20 week fetus) and realize its a growing human being.
Why do Libs go ape-shit at banning abortions at 20 weeks? Are they that scientifically ignorant? Are they so indoctrinated to think it is nothing but a "gob of goo" and don't want to face the horror and barbarity that they support?
FFS - we have tougher laws on animal cruelty than we do protecting babies a few weeks from being born. That is a sign of a very sick and ethically confused society.
I firmly believe that 100 years from now, we will look back at abortion supporters with the same horror and disdain and slave-holders. Lots of slave-holders used science to justify their inhumanity.
Dan8267
2015 Aug 7, 9:16am
Deflecting again. Who is talking about religion or souls on this thread?
It's hardly deflection when people say stupid things like "life begins at conception" as code for "there's a magical soul that is infused into cells at conception". You are deflecting from the issue. That abortion should be legal for the first trimester when there is no brain and should gradually become more illegal as the second trimester unfolds.
Thought that Libs were big into "SCIENCE"? Anyone can look at an 8 week fetus (let along a 20 week fetus) and realize its a growing human being.
A fertilized egg is a "growing human being". Who cares? As I've stated five million times, whether or not the egg or zygote meets your arbitrary, and yes it's arbitrary, definition of human being is irrelevant. What matters is whether or not it's a person. The non-sentient cells of Henrietta Lacks can be called a human being from any biological perspective, but they don't constitute a person. A brain-dead living human body can be considered a human being, but it's not a person. A chimpanzee is NOT a human being, yet it is a person.
And you're criteria is stupid. One does not judge personhood based on how a being looks. If a new born baby had a mutation and it looked nothing like a human being, but had a fully functional mind, would you say it was not a person?
Why do Libs go ape-shit at banning abortions at 20 weeks?
They don't. You just don't know what the fuck a liberal is and no matter how many times I explain it to you, you won't get it because reality contradicts your dogma.
I'm the most liberal person on PatNet, possibly on this planet. I do not object to restrictions on abortions at 20 weeks. Neither does Roe v. Wade.
Why don't you conservatives go ape-shit when coal power planets force abortions on women through miscarriages caused by pollution? Is the "free market" more important than the lives of babies to you? Of course, you won't have the balls to answer this question.
FFS - we have tougher laws on animal cruelty than we do protecting babies a few weeks from being born.
That's complete bullshit. Have you seen factory farms?
https://www.youtube.com/embed/JJ--faib7to
I firmly believe that 100 years from now, we will look back at abortion supporters with the same horror and disdain and slave-holders.
So you lump all "abortion supporters" in one group. People who believe in the use of the morning after pill are no different than those who want abortion at 8 months to be legal. You are a fucking retard.
It's hardly deflection when people say stupid things like "life begins at conception" as code for "there's a magical soul that is infused into cells at conception". You are deflecting from the issue. That abortion should be legal for the first trimester when there is no brain and should gradually become more illegal as the second trimester unfolds.
Life does begin at conception. It is just a matter if our society and laws thinks that "life" is worth human protections. Many pro-abortion supporters think that life only deserves protections if the mother "chooses". If a Mars rover found a single cell bacteria specimen, the headlines would be "life discovered on Mars".
A fertilized egg is a "growing human being". Who cares? As I've stated five million times, whether or not the egg or zygote meets your arbitrary, and yes it's arbitrary, definition of human being is irrelevant. What matters is whether or not it's a person.
Make up your mind. I assume you think it is a "growing human being" sometime after 12 weeks based on your comment above about banning abortions in the 2nd Trimester.
Dan8267 says
And you're criteria is stupid. One does not judge personhood based on how a being looks.
Most abortion supporters are so biologically ignorant to think it is nothing but a gob of goo or a tumor. But If they were actually educated on what they are destroying (a fully formed baby with limbs, brain, beating heart and organs), they may have 2nd thoughts.
Dan8267 says
They don't. You just don't know what the fuck a liberal is and no matter how many times I explain it to you, you won't get it because reality contradicts your dogma.
So fucking tired of your "you don't know what a liberal is" shtick.
The simple fact is that the vast majority of the Democrat party (which is filled with Liberals, Progressives or what ever you call yourselves these days) is 100% in lockstep with unrestricted abortion.
HydroCabron
2015 Aug 7, 10:13am
I firmly believe that 100 years from now, we will look back at abortion supporters with the same horror and disdain and slave-holders. Lots of slave-holders used science to justify their inhumanity.
This is a weird analogy, given that most modern conservatives admire slaveholders.
It's hardly deflection when people say stupid things like "life begins at conception" as code for "there's a magical soul that is infused into cells at conception"
Red herring. The two are not necessarily synonymous.
The non-sentient cells of Henrietta Lacks can be called a human being from any biological perspective, but they don't constitute a person.
Nonsense. In your world, perhaps this is true, but this may come as a shock - you are wrong. You are equating a cancer cell line with a human life. That is absurd however you look at it. Sometimes when analogies fail it is because the underlying position is flawed.
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1.) At conception
2.) When the fetus can survive outside the womb
3.) When the fetus can post on blogs