Abortion: Official discussion v.4

You still didn't answer the question. I support the right to choose how best to live life. I don't support abortion so much as the choice for abortion. So, if you're going to say, "Look at what you support," I think the best idea would be to evaluate your own opinions, because apparently--from that huge dodge you just posted--you haven't thought them through. I have and I'm perfectly content to give people the right to choose their own path.

 

You're kidding, right? Do you honestly think that I haven't thought about the consequences of the social policy? Hasn't it been blisteringly obvious (a) that what I have proposed is *significantly* more complex than the ridiculously black/white analysis you offer, and (b) that I'm not going to have an epiphany and willfully make myself fail to see gray issues in black and white? Tell me, what experience or education do I lack that prevents me from seeing a complex world through simplistic and naive eyes? Do you honestly think that there is some aspect of this issue - theological, philosophical, medical, or legal - that *wouldn't* have been covered by my twelve years of undergraduate and graduate education at Jesuit and Spiritan colleges and affiliated hospitals? I'd really suggest that you think about what you just said; really think about it, instead of your usual superficial piffle, and ask yourself the question: which position is more likely to be held with specialized education - superficial simplification or nuanced appreciation of the complexity of the issue?

And Esp, I'll address your post later, as I am guerilla-posting at the moment.

 

The *headdesk* quality of this argument never ceases to amaze.

First of all, to point out the obvious, if anyone wants to kill me before I was born, they're going to have to invent a time machine.

Second, you couldn't kill "me" before I was born, anyway, because "I" didn't exist then. The fetus that eventually became a baby that eventually became me was not me, any more than every sperm cell my father ejaculated was me, or the plant and animal matter that I ate which was converted into my body mass was me. We're talking about necessary precursors to me, not me.

This is a question on the level of "What would happen if you went back in time and killed your own grandfather before your father was born?" If my mom had not wanted to carry her pregnancy to term, I wouldn't have ever existed. You might as well ask about the babies I might have fathered with that girl I made eye contact with on the sidewalk, had I gone up to her and asked her out and it eventually led to reproduction.

 

Sometimes we need to protect people from themselves when they aren't thinking straight.

If you make this argument for abortion, you can make it for anything.....

Marrying the wrong person, being in the wrong job, having too much money, hell, practicing the wrong religion? Let's let the government make these decisions, all that has to happen is they decide you aren't thinking straight and you need "protection from yourself".

History is full of societies that practiced this....I do believe they can be lumped together under the heading "fascism".

Peace,

V-03

 

Lord_Vivec, what, in specific, is your definition on what a person is?

 

My own opinion on the "pro-life", "pro-choice" argument is that there's no definitive, black and white answer to the question.

At six months, a fetus has brainwaves, and a heartbeat. That would make said fetus a person. Therefore, abortion beyond six months is the termination of a human life.

However...

Prior to six months, the fetus is not a person. It has the potential to be a person. So, technically speaking, that's not a human life any more than a sperm is. In which case, all forms of birth control would be murder, and it would be attempted murder to have intercourse when not trying to conceive.

Abortion prior to six months, I think, has the potential to reduce the overall level of responsibility in our youth. Everyone, really, but the youth in particular, IMO. Not just when it comes to sex, but life in general.

In either case, there's not a whole lot we can do to justify a law against abortion prior to six months.

But the point is that it's not wrong in all cases, neither is it right in all cases.

If a sixteen year-old girl is raped by her father, should she have to have the baby?

If a spoiled, irresponsible rich-kid runs around sleeping with everyone she meets, should she be able to ignore responsibility by getting one abortion after another?

It's a very difficult question to answer, and I don't think it's a "black and white" situation at all.

 

i've been gone for a while, so excuse me...

If my mother and father decided not to have kids, i wouldn't be here. yup, it is that simple. what choice did/would i have? absolutely heehaw. becase if they decided against children, i wouldn't have even been around to know better. what your trying to do is beat a situation to death with morals.

moraly, abortion is flexable, at times its the right thing to do, at times its a selfish thing to do, at times its the wrong thing to do. but if someone doesn't want the strain of parenting though situations as low income/poverty, ill health, risk of life then i'm all for them to abort. is someone wishes to abort simply because they feel its not right, then thats fine with me, obviously they don't feel they can cope with a child and bringing the pregnancy to term could even be classed as irrisponsable. if some woman wants to abort because she sleeps around and doesnt use protection, thats fine with me. abortion can have adverse effects on the body, and if said person uses abortion as a means of contreception she may well do more damage to her body than she may want and when she wants children, she may not be able to bear.

taking away a persons choice regardless of their personal opinion/situation is totaly wrong. just because you believe its wrong, doesn't make it wrong. because that abortion thing you dislike could end up saving the mothers life. and to go back on what i've said at the beginning, the feotus in question, will not care either way wheter it stays or goes as its not even aware its even here.

cheers

 

I applaud Andreas_Lamont's post for pointing out what Vivec was doing. Three cheers, for Andreas. Okay, that may be going a tad too far.

 

That was....awesome.

Bravo!

 

Tell that to the people whom designed a governmental system ruled by the will of the transitory majority.

Congratulations, you have successfully undermined your entire argument with this idiotic platitude.

Unless you can provide me empirically quantifiable proof as to the moral value of an abortion, or any other issue, you are left only with your personal ideological conclusions from which to make a basis of right or wrong.

Now you have issued a statement of moral value, ?taking away personal choice is wrong,? without providing empirical proof. I could as easily retort that, ?If it is within my natural power to deny you a choice, that is my right by virtue of that power,? and have it hold the same value as your personal statement.

In short, as long as you destroy a developing life before it can complain against your actions, you are in the moral right.

 

The United States is not ruled by a majority.

//points at the Senate, Electoral College

Remember the 2000 election much?

 

the feotus in question, will not care either way wheter it stays or goes as its not even aware its even here.

Right, and so would a sufficiently mentally retarded individual. So why don't we kill them too. So as long as someone doesn't "care," its morally right to kill him/her.

Tell me one thing, in your opinion, what makes killing an human being morally wrong, while killing an unborn human morally right? I mean, you are coming with your morals from some place. You aren't just making it up, are you?

moraly, abortion is flexable, at times its the right thing to do, at times its a selfish thing to do, at times its the wrong thing to do.

Tell me, where the hell do you athiests get your "morality" from? On what authority do you have the right to talk about morals? You athiests aren't the slightest bit religious, yet you wish to talk about morals. Why?

 

Morality isn't the sole domain of the religious types of the world Vivec


Just because we don't have a "2000" year old book to tell us what is right and wrong doesn't mean we're not in a position to realise/know/hazard a decent guess at what is right and wrong.


Your bible doesn't automatically give you a set of morals that are higher and/or better than any us non religious types use purely becuase they were given to you by whatever "god" you believe in.


BTW, I don't believe in your god, ergo you have no higher authority for your morals compared to mine as far as I'm concerned.

 

That is where you are wrong. Morality is a doctrine or system of morals. That system has to stem from somewhere. Unless you're saying that you're making it up, which changes everything. Even if you hazard a guess at right and wrong, how can you know you are correct? What are you basing your morals on? Are you making them up?

I do have a higher moral authority because for one, I don't promote death, but that aside, I am religious. What are you? Religion tells me what is right and wrong. What tells you?

 

You need your faith to tell you not to kill someone? Hmm....I think you may need to rethink your life.

 

Yes, and so are you, whether you acknowledge it or not.

None of us can ever "know we are correct," because there really is no correct or incorrect. For me, it just makes sense to do what makes people generally healthy and happy, and allows them as much personal freedom as possible to explore and define themselves.

 

Morality and religion are not the same thing. I'm not the slightest bit religious, but I don't believe in lying, stealing, killing, other things... not because they're laws, but because I wouldn't want somebody else doing that to me. It's called the Golden Rule. Would I want to be born into a situation where no one took care of me, cared about me, could provide for me in any way? You bet I wouldn't. I'm not going to bring a child into the world under those conditions.

 

Morality does not require a religious base. I'm an agnostic, so I don't base my moral sense on any belief set. Concerning ethics, I'm Aristotelian, so I look at the development of virtue; I also base my ethical judgments on a casuist approach (case-based reasoning), rather than appeals to something supernatural. For the record, Vivec, appeals to religion as a basis for morality is referred to as "supernatural metaethical absolutism" - a particular *kind* of absolutism (which, as a metaethical position, simply argues that objective right and wrong exist, but do not fiat any *particular* moral judgment); there are *many* kinds of absolutist positions (and some which conflict about particular judgments).

Simply put, you start with metaethical absolutism vs. relativism(/emotivism) = is it possible to know objectively the moral status of an action. You then move to moral methodologies (utilitarianism and other consequentialist theories, deontology and other a priori stances, natural law theories like Christianity, Islam, etc., virtue ethics, care ethics, narrative ethics, etc.), and then *finally* to specific moral judgments (like whether abortion is right or wrong). Suggesting that someone does not have a moral basis or is unable to hold a moral position because of a lack of religious faith is simply wrong. This will become clearer if you take an introductory philosophy course in college.

 

I didn't forget about this - I've been out of town for the past week.

You are simply fiating what you argued earlier. My point was that science tells us when a question is coherent (i.e., when it makes sense to ask a question, or when a question becomes meaningful). Science also tells us when there are qualitative differences between organisms/entities, which is meaningful in this question. If you were to take your position to it's logical conclusion, there ought to be no moral difference between an undifferentiated cluster of human cells versus a multicellular, fully formed eukaryote - after all, it also engages in the same metabolic processes we engage in (growth, reproduction, etc.). If you argue against this, then you are tacitly admitting that there is a meaningful distinction at some point between simply multicellular life and differentiated life.

You are conflating these issues inappropriately; there is a difference between matters of public policy being established by elected officials versus scientific knowledge being established by elected of

 

First of all, I'm an atheist.
Second, how can you know that your morals are correct and that someone in that past didn't make them up? Do you follow every single rule in the Bible, or do you decide which ones are more or less important to follow?
Third, from an atheistic standpoint, morals can exist still, it just requires a few basic axioms and the system can then be developed. For example, my own morality is based very much on the ideas that people should be able to make decisions as they see fit that don't hurt others directly, but that save harm, individual freedoms should be upheld fully. At least, thats my morality as it applies to government policy. There's still plenty that I think should be legal, that I consider would be personally wrong choices but would not push upon others: casual sex, abortion, alcohol, smoking, marijuana, etc. What I consider to be generally a wrong decision and what I consider should be allowed are seperated by quite some span.

 

I haven't earned my JD yet, but I had a great Constitutional Law professor that did have his JD that could explain it much better than I can. It doesn't even take a JD to read through Lochner v. New York and Roe v. Wade and realize what a huge judicial overreach it was. Sooner or later pro-choicers will come to realize that Roe is just bad law and if they went through the legislature all us pro-lifers would finally shut up like they did in Europe..

I want to comment on the section that I boldfaced.

There has been a consistent implication on the part of the anti-choice crowd that an overturning of Roe would suddenly lead to a nationwide anti-abortion rampage, ending with a constitutional amendment or the very least, a total federal ban.

This blatantly ignores the facts, both on how many people support the basic right to choose and which issues matter when to what voters.

Awhile back, Newsweek conducted a fascinating poll that asked voters who identified themselves as pro-choice (for elective abortion, not just rape-incest, as one poll did and tried to claim an anti-choice majority) where abortion rights ranked on their list of important aspects in a presidential or senate candidate. For the most part, it was fourth or fifth, behind things like defense, the economy, health care, and guns.

Then the poll asked where abortion rights would fall if they felt Roe was about to go.

Suddenly, for over 90% of the voters, it jumped to #1.

Most public polls on the subject have shown support for Roe at around 65%, especially for first-trimester or earlier abortions. Not the world's largest majority, but significantly more than who voted for Clinton or Bush during the last 15 or so years .

So what does this tell me? That the masses have taken Roe for granted. Not only that, but they have come to believe that the threat to abortion rights isn't real, or won't go anywhere, which comes from the idea that things move forward, not backward. This may be my opinion only, but I think that "going through the legislature" might not produce the results the pro-life camp wants. If Roe were overturned, I think that there would be a significant backlash, especially once investigations and prosecutions began. The idea of having their bodies and bedrooms policed will frighten most americans, and I think a lot of otherwise complacent people would mobilize.

I can't predict the future, but I think that abortion rights would come out stronger for it. Not right away, not easily, but eventually.

Peace,

V-03

 

Will you people get over it already?
Bush Won with an Electoral Majority, twice, and earned a larger percentage of the popular vote than the preceding President, Clinton, in both his initial and reelection runs respectively.

This nation does work on a majoratarian basis, but the people are not directly sovereign. Go complain to you original History Teachers, this is a Republic, the people are sovereign through the States and Congress, not direct vote.

If the majority decides something is wrong, it becomes illegal and is defined as morally wrong.

That?s the way it works.

 

A statewide recount of all Florida votes was not undertaken until after the Supreme Court decision. However, when such a recount was done afterwards, here were the results depending on how you decide to address the question of which votes counted as properly marked:

Standard as set by each county Canvassing Board during their survey: Gore wins by 171
Fully punched chads and limited marks on optical ballots: Gore wins by 115
Any dimples or optical mark: Gore wins by 107
One corner of chad detached or optical mark: Gore wins by 60

By no standard did Bush actually win more votes in Florida than Gore. The Gore campaign was stupid for not immediately calling for a statewide recount, but their stupidity in pressing their case doesn't make Bush's case any more legitimate. If I get accused of a crime I didn't commit, and my defense lawyer screws up and I get convicted, his incompetence doesn't change the fact that I never actually committed the crime. Similarly, the fact that Gore's team was completely incompetent for focusing on county-by-county targeted recounts doesn't change the fact that Gore won more votes in Florida in 2000 than Bush did, and that Bush's first term was illegitimate.

 

You forget one simple thing, though.

The Constitution does not require that the electoral votes for a state go to the winner of the general election. In fact, it doesn't require a general election at all. It only says that the electors are chosen by the legislatures of each state.

Therefore, to determine whether Bush's first term was legitimate or not, the only question from a constitutional standpoint is were the electors sent to vote for the Electoral college the ones selected by the Florida legislature. By that standard, the ones sent were fully legitimate, and so was Bush's first term.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Pft..bringing the Constitution into this...of all the nerve....