I'd like to see a sperm cell, or even a fertilized egg regulate it's own temperature (why do I get the feeling someone's going to screw me on this one....).
I'd like to see a reptile regulate its own temperature. How's that?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I'd like to see a reptile regulate its own temperature. How's that?
They do it all the time. Whereas humans have sweat cells that do work to cool the body by producing sweat to evaporate, reptiles have leg cells that move the animal into the shade.
He's trying to show you that the BIG THING that you're missing is that you're killing a human. And you're ignoring it.
No, I'm just totally incapable of seeing how it is a human being.
If you understand that the debate hinges around whether it is a human or not, then why do you keep switching the topic to women's rights? "I know that abortion is murdering an innocent person, but it's just SOOO inconvenient."
Because women's rights is an equally big factor in this debate, in my eyes.
I'd like to see a reptile regulate its own temperature. How's that?
While reptiles cannot lower their own body temperature, they certainly are able to raise it with simple metabolism. Besides, they found ways to do the first: sit in a shadow.
A pro-lifer would say that mandating that the mother "suck it up" prevents a person from being killed.
Just a hypothetical case, but what if a woman had a serious case of pre-eclampsia? What would you do? Let both of them die or commit something which you consider a murder?
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
I'd like to see a reptile regulate its own temperature. How's that?
BAM!
Really, the argument about where life begins is entirely separate from the abortion debate.
Now, I've only read the first page and last page of this thread, so I don't know if this argument has been brought up, but judging by those two, I'm going to guess that it hasn't.
Suppose you wake up one day and you find that you are in a hospital with some tubes sticking out of you and going into an unconscious stranger. Some doctors approach you and tell you that this stranger is me, and I am in dire need of a kidney transplant, but that one will not be available for nine months. However, they can use your kidneys to keep me alive for that time period, and though it will be a tremendous financial and physical burden on you, you are ethically bound to do it, because I have a right to life.
Do you see the problem here? Yes, I have a right to life, or, as it should be called, a "right to not be killed." However, this does not confer on you, or anyone else a responsibility to keep me alive.
Granted, this analogy works much better in the context of pregnancies that result from rape, but it can be extended (albeit less strongly) to all pregnancies.
I see your point to a degree. However, I don't have a 'barbaric' view. The barbaric view would be to beat it to death post birth, and stone the mother for having demonspawn. Crippled children throughout time have sent their mother's into hiding because society shuns them for not having a normal child. My arguement is that an advanced society is not one that accepts the mentally crippled as equal, but one that can prevent the birth before hand with no damaging effects to the mother. It's realistically better for society to allow the strongest children to be the ones born.Beyond that, I doubt that any mother wants a severly crippled child, and to say that they could be raised to a level of acceptance is wrong. Therefore, keeping that child from life would not be stepping outside the woman's right to control her body and, in essence, her life.
The fetus is crippled in the womb. The crippling continues during the course of the child's life. the desease is in existance before the child's life is. She isn't aborting because the baby may be a murderer of a rapist, she is aborting because it is crippled. Also, in my post I said that I believe it is wrong to abort based on something akin to a cancer risk, however, it is the woman's right to.
It's also wrong to say that a child with down syndrome will be anything other than another child with down syndrome (as an example). You seem to be forgeting that the condition itself prevents the understanding of their own condition, and keeps them from ever being frustrated at their condition. It isn't a life of constant agony for the child, but it is for the parent.
Also, respect and compassion should not just be given out for free. Respect expecially needs to be earned to have any meaning whatsoever. Compassion is shearly at the individual's digretion. Your arguement is not unlike the justification that a down syndrome child shouldn't got o jail for murder because it didn't know better.
How is refusing to destroy the fetus equivalent to refusing to save the fetus?
Because the reasons behind destroying the fetus. I didn't make it clear enough in my post, but I'm arguing that a mother has the right to both a surgery to save the fetus and a surgery to destroy it. I view both equivolent under the law. A person can choose to not have an abortion or choose not to have surgery on the child to save it's potential for life. My personal choice that my wife and I have agreed on is that we will not abort unless there is major disability (mental), and we will have a srgery to save the child, but I warned her that if it came down to it I would choose to save her and not the child. She said that that is the right decision unless it's much more likely the child will live through it. I agreed to that. I know where I stand, and I don't care where anyone else stands. I just know that they have the right to the same decisions as both an individual and the future parents.
Now, I've only read the first page and last page of this thread, so I don't know if this argument has been brought up, but judging by those two, I'm going to guess that it hasn't.
Suppose you wake up one day and you find that you are in a hospital with some tubes sticking out of you and going into an unconscious stranger. Some doctors approach you and tell you that this stranger is me, and I am in dire need of a kidney transplant, but that one will not be available for nine months. However, they can use your kidneys to keep me alive for that time period, and though it will be a tremendous financial and physical burden on you, you are ethically bound to do it, because I have a right to life.
Do you see the problem here? Yes, I have a right to life, or, as it should be called, a "right to not be killed." However, this does not confer on you, or anyone else a responsibility to keep me alive.
Granted, this analogy works much better in the context of pregnancies that result from rape, but it can be extended (albeit less strongly) to all pregnancies.
I present a piece by Judith Jarvis Thomson. I'd like to see some good counters to the arguments she makes in this, specifically the metaphor of the violinist and the robber analogy.
Ok, just read the Phillapa Foot rebuttal:
From the Wikipedia article:
" Foot discredits the suggested mirror-situation between the violinist and abortion by applying and weighing negative and positive rights. First, Foot derives the moral difference between killing and letting die:
…There are rights to noninterference, which form one class of rights; and there are also rights to goods or services, which are different. And corresponding to these two types of rights are, on the one hand, the duty not to interfere, called a ‘negative duty’, and on the other the duty to provide the goods or services, called a ‘positive duty’.[3] The rights to noninterference constitute ‘negative rights’ and the rights to goods or services constitute ‘positive rights’.
Important to note is Foot’s claim that, “Typically, it takes more to justify an interference than to justify the withholding of goods or services…”[4]. In other words, ceteris paribus, a negative right holds greater moral weight than a positive right, and so it is harder to morally justify overriding a negative right than a positive right. Foot builds on this by specifying, “So if, in any circumstances, the right to noninterference is the only right that exists, or if it is the only right special circumstances have not overridden, then it may not be permissible to initiate a fatal sequence, but it may be permissible to withhold aid”[5]. Notably, Foot classifies initiating a fatal sequence as a morally objectionable act, while legitimizing the morality of not aiding.
This holds substantial implications for Thomson’s violinist experiment. Whereas Thomson requests the reader to draw a moral parallel between unhooking oneself from the violinist and a woman aborting her fetus, Foot seeks a deeper explanation of why this should be the case. But, in Foot’s opinion, under her framework, things are not as Thomson would like. Foot notes, “According to my thesis, the two cases must be treated quite differently because one involves the initiation of a fatal sequence and the other the refusal to save a life”[6].
The distinction arises from the rights due to the violinist and fetus, and the duty one holds not to violate them. In the case of Thomson’s experiment, the violinist holds only a positive right to be saved: he requires the service of being hooked up to another’s body. Now, as the argument will go, if you find yourself hooked up to the dying violinist, you have an obligation to not ‘kill him’ by separating yourself from him. However, it is important not to allocate rights to which the violinist is not entitled. You, the person to whom he is attached, did not bring about the sequence of his death, and so cannot be burdened with, say, the negative duty ‘not to kill the violinist’ – since, ultimately, it is the ailment that is killing the violinist. Consequently, the only right to which the violinist has a claim is a positive right. And, Foot explains, “…although charity or duties of care could have dictated that the help be given, it seems perfectly reasonable to treat this as a case in which such presumptions are overridden by other rights—those belonging to the person whose body would be used.”[7] Thus, in this case one may unhook from the violinist, since his positive right does not hold enough weight to justify disregarding another’s right to his or her own body.
Foot gives an account of the other case, abortion:
The case of abortion is of course completely different. The fetus is not in jeopardy because it is in its mother’s womb; it is merely dependent on her in the way children are dependent on their parents for food. An abortion, therefore, originates the sequence which ends in the death of the fetus, and the destruction comes about “through the agency” of the mother who seeks the abortion.[8] Abortion is uniquely different from the violinist case, since the fetus holds a negative right not to be killed (since it holds a full right to life, as granted to it by Thomson). The mother, by having an abortion administered, directly initiates the event which takes the fetus’s life, completely violating its negative right. For this reason, in any normal circumstances a mother cannot morally legitimize having an abortion."
In cases other than rape, Thomson's "argument" is completely fallacious.
In cases other than rape, Thomson's "argument" is completely fallacious.
However, in cases of rape, it does apply. Should women who've been raped be allowed to abort?
EDIT:
Quote from Thomson »
Let us call the view that abortion is impermissible even to save the mother's life "the extreme view." I want to suggest first that it does not issue from the argument I mentioned earlier without the addition of some fairly powerful premises. Suppose a woman has become pregnant, and now learns that she has a cardiac condition such that she will die if she carries the baby to term. What may be done for her?
And what about that case? Who's right to live is more important?
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Philosophy, from metaethics to metaphysics, is "just semantics." Semantics guide how we communicate and discriminate. They shape our very thoughts and decisions. They're important.
If it really bothers you, I may try to find something else of comparable length.
I would invite you to find a better one. By "better," I don't mean "longer" -- I mean, better encapsulates our functional notion of personhood and its implications. In other words, I shouldn't be able to respond with "So X isn't a person?" or "So X is a person?" and have such a question sound absurd. The possibility of a tiny group of cells constituting a person is the only "absurdity" I surrender.
It doesn't help that I automatically attach some mental capabilities to the word 'person', and therefore am inclined to think of fetuses as not persons.
Doing such a thing is called colloquialization -- you're so used to talking about and dealing with people with developed mental faculties that you forget that such faculties aren't essential to the term "person."
Yes
___
In this case, abortion could be allowed also. But I am not going to choose which life is more important.
By that first yes, you're basically saying that baby born because of a rape are worth less than someone born because of two people having love with each other's consent.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
They do it all the time. Whereas humans have sweat cells that do work to cool the body by producing sweat to evaporate, reptiles have leg cells that move the animal into the shade.
While reptiles cannot lower their own body temperature, they certainly are able to raise it with simple metabolism. Besides, they found ways to do the first: sit in a shadow.
See above.
Concerning eggs, I'll grant that they're incapable of locomotion. However, they're hardly the only sessile candidate for life in existence.
Suppose you wake up one day and you find that you are in a hospital with some tubes sticking out of you and going into an unconscious stranger. Some doctors approach you and tell you that this stranger is me, and I am in dire need of a kidney transplant, but that one will not be available for nine months. However, they can use your kidneys to keep me alive for that time period, and though it will be a tremendous financial and physical burden on you, you are ethically bound to do it, because I have a right to life.
Do you see the problem here? Yes, I have a right to life, or, as it should be called, a "right to not be killed." However, this does not confer on you, or anyone else a responsibility to keep me alive.
Granted, this analogy works much better in the context of pregnancies that result from rape, but it can be extended (albeit less strongly) to all pregnancies.
Self-defense is, in my mind, the best possible justification for abortion procedures. But I don't really think the extension works, because if the sex was consensual, pregnancy was a known risk that was accepted at the time of consent.
I see your point to a degree. However, I don't have a 'barbaric' view. The barbaric view would be to beat it to death post birth, and stone the mother for having demonspawn. Crippled children throughout time have sent their mother's into hiding because society shuns them for not having a normal child. My arguement is that an advanced society is not one that accepts the mentally crippled as equal, but one that can prevent the birth before hand with no damaging effects to the mother. It's realistically better for society to allow the strongest children to be the ones born.
You can play up the atrocities of the past all you want, but the fact remains that you're advocating eugenics, judging people as "desirable" or "undesirable" based on their genes. Not all atrocities that we today call "barbaric" occurred in the distant past, or in third-world countries.
Besides, birth is not a zero-sum game. Aborting a fetus with a disorder does not magically create another one without, nor does allowing it to be born take away the opportunity for another. And if you're really worried about Darwinism, you can rest assured that the birth rates among the mentally retarded are very, very low.
Beyond that, I doubt that any mother wants a severly crippled child, and to say that they could be raised to a level of acceptance is wrong. Therefore, keeping that child from life would not be stepping outside the woman's right to control her body and, in essence, her life.
Why don't you try talking to actual parents of severely crippleddisabled children? Your ignorance is showing.
The fetus is crippled in the womb. The crippling continues during the course of the child's life. the desease is in existance before the child's life is. She isn't aborting because the baby may be a murderer of a rapist, she is aborting because it is crippled. Also, in my post I said that I believe it is wrong to abort based on something akin to a cancer risk, however, it is the woman's right to.
Just as it is her right to abort a female, black, or Jewish fetus. That doesn't make this choice any less an expression of bigotry.
It's also wrong to say that a child with down syndrome will be anything other than another child with down syndrome (as an example). You seem to be forgeting that the condition itself prevents the understanding of their own condition, and keeps them from ever being frustrated at their condition. It isn't a life of constant agony for the child, but it is for the parent.
Okay, seriously? Stop talking about that which you know so little about. If ever one of your unborn children is diagnosed with a mental disorder, I strongly advise you to do some actual research, including talking to the aforementioned parents of children with that disorder, before making any decisions. Because if you really think that raising a kid with Down syndrome is going to be a life of constant agony, you might do something you'd regret if you were more informed.
Also, respect and compassion should not just be given out for free. Respect expecially needs to be earned to have any meaning whatsoever. Compassion is shearly at the individual's digretion. Your arguement is not unlike the justification that a down syndrome child shouldn't got o jail for murder because it didn't know better.
What? How? Also, as a matter of fact, people lacking mental capacity (which may or may not include people with Down syndrome) don't go to jail, so you seem to be agreeing with me.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Why not? That is exactly the question this entire debate is about.
I am not debating, I'm telling you. Without hope, what's life for? Without faith, there is no hope. Without God, there is not life. I am sure of this. You want proof? Look in the Bible. The proof in there has been confirmed over the ages to be truthful. Jesus Christ, born of a virgin woman, Mary, came to this Earth to save us. He came not to condemn us, but to save us. Romans 10: 9 and 10 (your path to salvation)
I'm an atheist. You can't expect me to respect the word of god, since we live in a secular state: laws are based on secular principles, not religious dogma. Even if I was forced to respect the word of god because of the law, then I would be doing so because of the law, not because of god. And I would be thoroughly pissed at living in a state that based its laws solely on dogma.
Dogma? Try facts.
And truly: if god is omnipotent, why does he need his followers to force everyone else to obey his rules? Either he convinces them himself, or he just punishes them after death.
The difference between us and angels is that we have the choice. We can choose to believe, or not to believe. If we didn't, then as you said, God would just "convince them Himself" and you wouldn't have created this forum because you would know that life started way before conception (God knew you before you were conceived). In the Garden of Eden, there was one "rule." Because us humans are prone to sin, Adam broke that rule. The Ten Commandments were sent by God to lay down more rules to live by. But He doesn't slap us over the head when we break a rule. It pains Him to see us do bad things (like being pro-abortion), but he never turns his back on us, regardless of how many times we ignore him. He wants us to come to Him no matter what we've done. He welcomes us and just wants fellowship with us. Much like a parent who's child has run away from home, He desires us to return home and welcomes us home. No matter what you've done, you can have salvation. But you must ask for it. It is given freely, but you must accept it. If you need direction to some scriptures, please ask.
AnSelf-defense is, in my mind, the best possible justification for abortion procedures. But I don't really think the extension works, because if the sex was consensual, pregnancy was a known risk that was accepted at the time of consent.
Quote from Thomson »
If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, "Ah, now he can stay, she's given him a right to the use of her house--for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.'' It would be still more absurd to say this if I had had bars installed outside my windows, precisely to prevent burglars from getting in, and a burglar got in only because of a defect in the bars. It remains equally absurd if we imagine it is not a burglar who climbs in, but an innocent person who blunders or falls in.
Again, suppose it were like this: people-seeds drift about in the air like pollen, and if you open your windows, one may drift in and take root in your carpets or upholstery. You don't want children, so you fix up your windows with fine mesh screens, the very best you can buy. As can happen, however, and on very, very rare occasions does happen, one of the screens is defective, and a seed drifts in and takes root. Does the person-plant who now develops have a right to the use of your house? Surely not--despite the fact that you voluntarily opened your windows, you knowingly kept carpets and upholstered furniture, and you knew that screens were sometimes defective. Someone may argue that you are responsible for its rooting, that it does have a right to your house, because after all you could have lived out your life with bare floors and furniture, or with sealed windows and doors. But this won't do--for by the same token anyone can avoid a pregnancy due to rape by having a hysterectomy, or anyway by never leaving home without a (reliable!) army.
And that Foote response doesn't address this point either.
Yeah, to bad they won't use it to maintain a (more or less) stable body temperature.
pregnancy was a known risk that was accepted at the time of consent.
What if they were using anti conception that malfunctioned? Should they be allowed to abort? They weren't thinking of any risks at the time.
Just as it is her right to abort a female, black, or Jewish fetus. That doesn't make this choice any less an expression of bigotry.
Except that being cripple, as opposed to those things, does impair you in your live, though being cripple isn't really the best example here.
Dogma? Try facts.
If those things are facts, why isn't our society based on it?
I am not debating, I'm telling you. Without hope, what's life for? Without faith, there is no hope. Without God, there is not life. I am sure of this. You want proof? Look in the Bible. The proof in there has been confirmed over the ages to be truthful. Jesus Christ, born of a virgin woman, Mary, came to this Earth to save us. He came not to condemn us, but to save us. Romans 10: 9 and 10 (your path to salvation)
Please, though I would love this discussion once more, not here. Make a separate thread for it, or post in an already existing one. I'd love to discuss this with you over there.
EDIT: Am I the only one that doesn't see my sig in this post?
I am not debating, I'm telling you. Without hope, what's life for? Without faith, there is no hope. Without God, there is not life. I am sure of this. You want proof? Look in the Bible. The proof in there has been confirmed over the ages to be truthful. Jesus Christ, born of a virgin woman, Mary, came to this Earth to save us. He came not to condemn us, but to save us. Romans 10: 9 and 10 (your path to salvation)
Please stop this. While pro-choicers often beg the question of personhood in their arguments, begging the question of Christianity is much more presumptuous. As a Christian, I'm telling you that your references to the Bible here are logically fallacious. This is not a forum where the validity of Christianity is a given.
If those things are facts, why isn't our society based on it?
People are blinded. Even though truth is staring us in the face, we still have the option to look away. I choose to read the Bible which as I said has been proven over the ages to be true.
People are blinded. Even though truth is staring us in the face, we still have the option to look away. I choose to read the Bible which as I said has been proven over the ages to be true.
I'd love to see you validate this claims. Please open a topic about this once. However, let's try to stay on topic from now on (yes, it was my error as well, I know).
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
LOOL that must be the worst of the worst in this whole thread.
The bible never proved anything. It just said stuff. Well, the people who wrote it said stuff. Based on really nothing but fairytales.
Think for yourself before you dig back into your Book of false answers.
Like a friend of mine once said:
"Assumption is the mother of all ****-ups."
However, the vallicity of the bible is not the subject of this topic.
When a choice has to be made, that is based on the life of a person, or a group of persons, those people have to be able to make their choice.
By eliminating abortion at all, nobody will have any choice.
The sole right that you (@jokul) may read the bible is because you have the right to do so. I don't like it, because it makes you just a follower with no free will. But you still have that right, as do I have the right to skip sunday church sessions. So too must people have the right to choose an abortion or not.
Do not evade the censor. And going off-topic just to belittle someone's faith is unacceptable. Warning.
My biggest beef with abortion is that it is so one sided and arbitrarily unfair.
A women has the right to choose whether she has a child.
A father has no right to choose whether women a has a child.
The government will make the father pay the mother of the said child money regardless if he wanted it or not.
There is no right to privacy if the government actively interfers in the area.
You can not have it both ways.
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Don't you see that the whole aim of Moderators is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make infractions literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten.
My biggest beef with abortion is that it is so one sided and arbitrarily unfair.
A women has the right to choose whether she has a child.
A father has no right to choose whether women a has a child.
The government will make the father pay the mother of the said child money regardless if he wanted it or not.
There is no right to privacy if the government actively interfers in the area.
You can not have it both ways.
I think this is because of the way our society used to be divided, and apparently still is on some points. The woman was to take care of the children. The father was there for the income.
On a second note: how the hell would the father have the right to choose what happens inside of the mother's body? If he really wants kids that badly, he could either try to adopt or take part in some experimental treatment. There have been successful cases of men bearing a child, as far as I know.
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We have laboured long to build a heaven, only to find it populated with horrors.
Please stop this. While pro-choicers often beg the question of personhood in their arguments, begging the question of Christianity is much more presumptuous. As a Christian, I'm telling you that your references to the Bible here are logically fallacious. This is not a forum where the validity of Christianity is a given.
That's good advice. Please listen to it.
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The Golden Rule of forums: If you're going to be rude, be right. If you might be wrong, be polite.
The sole right that you (@jokul) may read the bible is because you have the right to do so. I don't like it, because it makes you just a follower with no free will. But you still have that right, as do I have the right to skip sunday church sessions. So too must people have the right to choose an abortion or not.
Just because some rights are given doesn't mean everything is a right.
By that first yes, you're basically saying that baby born because of a rape are worth less than someone born because of two people having love with each other's consent.
The baby has the same worth. But in one, the risks are acknowledged by both parties (or however many), the other it isn't or only in one.
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[thread=52196][Alliance of Rogue Deckers!][/thread][My Cube List]
I'd like to see a reptile regulate its own temperature. How's that?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I think it's certainly the preferred definition. It encapsulates very well the discriminatory scope of personhood.
You need to realize that you're not making a cogent argument, because what you're arguing begs an unresolved question.
A pro-lifer would say that mandating that the mother "suck it up" prevents a person from being killed.
They do it all the time. Whereas humans have sweat cells that do work to cool the body by producing sweat to evaporate, reptiles have leg cells that move the animal into the shade.
No, I'm just totally incapable of seeing how it is a human being.
Because women's rights is an equally big factor in this debate, in my eyes.
While reptiles cannot lower their own body temperature, they certainly are able to raise it with simple metabolism. Besides, they found ways to do the first: sit in a shadow.
Just a hypothetical case, but what if a woman had a serious case of pre-eclampsia? What would you do? Let both of them die or commit something which you consider a murder?
BAM!
Really, the argument about where life begins is entirely separate from the abortion debate.
Now, I've only read the first page and last page of this thread, so I don't know if this argument has been brought up, but judging by those two, I'm going to guess that it hasn't.
Suppose you wake up one day and you find that you are in a hospital with some tubes sticking out of you and going into an unconscious stranger. Some doctors approach you and tell you that this stranger is me, and I am in dire need of a kidney transplant, but that one will not be available for nine months. However, they can use your kidneys to keep me alive for that time period, and though it will be a tremendous financial and physical burden on you, you are ethically bound to do it, because I have a right to life.
Do you see the problem here? Yes, I have a right to life, or, as it should be called, a "right to not be killed." However, this does not confer on you, or anyone else a responsibility to keep me alive.
Granted, this analogy works much better in the context of pregnancies that result from rape, but it can be extended (albeit less strongly) to all pregnancies.
I see your point to a degree. However, I don't have a 'barbaric' view. The barbaric view would be to beat it to death post birth, and stone the mother for having demonspawn. Crippled children throughout time have sent their mother's into hiding because society shuns them for not having a normal child. My arguement is that an advanced society is not one that accepts the mentally crippled as equal, but one that can prevent the birth before hand with no damaging effects to the mother. It's realistically better for society to allow the strongest children to be the ones born.Beyond that, I doubt that any mother wants a severly crippled child, and to say that they could be raised to a level of acceptance is wrong. Therefore, keeping that child from life would not be stepping outside the woman's right to control her body and, in essence, her life.
The fetus is crippled in the womb. The crippling continues during the course of the child's life. the desease is in existance before the child's life is. She isn't aborting because the baby may be a murderer of a rapist, she is aborting because it is crippled. Also, in my post I said that I believe it is wrong to abort based on something akin to a cancer risk, however, it is the woman's right to.
It's also wrong to say that a child with down syndrome will be anything other than another child with down syndrome (as an example). You seem to be forgeting that the condition itself prevents the understanding of their own condition, and keeps them from ever being frustrated at their condition. It isn't a life of constant agony for the child, but it is for the parent.
Also, respect and compassion should not just be given out for free. Respect expecially needs to be earned to have any meaning whatsoever. Compassion is shearly at the individual's digretion. Your arguement is not unlike the justification that a down syndrome child shouldn't got o jail for murder because it didn't know better.
Because the reasons behind destroying the fetus. I didn't make it clear enough in my post, but I'm arguing that a mother has the right to both a surgery to save the fetus and a surgery to destroy it. I view both equivolent under the law. A person can choose to not have an abortion or choose not to have surgery on the child to save it's potential for life. My personal choice that my wife and I have agreed on is that we will not abort unless there is major disability (mental), and we will have a srgery to save the child, but I warned her that if it came down to it I would choose to save her and not the child. She said that that is the right decision unless it's much more likely the child will live through it. I agreed to that. I know where I stand, and I don't care where anyone else stands. I just know that they have the right to the same decisions as both an individual and the future parents.
Actually that argument is the main one in the article I just linked to at the bottom of the last page but no one has responded to it yet. I'm waiting patiently.
See, that's why I didn't link it. People ignore links
Ok, just read the Phillapa Foot rebuttal:
From the Wikipedia article:
" Foot discredits the suggested mirror-situation between the violinist and abortion by applying and weighing negative and positive rights. First, Foot derives the moral difference between killing and letting die:
…There are rights to noninterference, which form one class of rights; and there are also rights to goods or services, which are different. And corresponding to these two types of rights are, on the one hand, the duty not to interfere, called a ‘negative duty’, and on the other the duty to provide the goods or services, called a ‘positive duty’.[3] The rights to noninterference constitute ‘negative rights’ and the rights to goods or services constitute ‘positive rights’.
Important to note is Foot’s claim that, “Typically, it takes more to justify an interference than to justify the withholding of goods or services…”[4]. In other words, ceteris paribus, a negative right holds greater moral weight than a positive right, and so it is harder to morally justify overriding a negative right than a positive right. Foot builds on this by specifying, “So if, in any circumstances, the right to noninterference is the only right that exists, or if it is the only right special circumstances have not overridden, then it may not be permissible to initiate a fatal sequence, but it may be permissible to withhold aid”[5]. Notably, Foot classifies initiating a fatal sequence as a morally objectionable act, while legitimizing the morality of not aiding.
This holds substantial implications for Thomson’s violinist experiment. Whereas Thomson requests the reader to draw a moral parallel between unhooking oneself from the violinist and a woman aborting her fetus, Foot seeks a deeper explanation of why this should be the case. But, in Foot’s opinion, under her framework, things are not as Thomson would like. Foot notes, “According to my thesis, the two cases must be treated quite differently because one involves the initiation of a fatal sequence and the other the refusal to save a life”[6].
The distinction arises from the rights due to the violinist and fetus, and the duty one holds not to violate them. In the case of Thomson’s experiment, the violinist holds only a positive right to be saved: he requires the service of being hooked up to another’s body. Now, as the argument will go, if you find yourself hooked up to the dying violinist, you have an obligation to not ‘kill him’ by separating yourself from him. However, it is important not to allocate rights to which the violinist is not entitled. You, the person to whom he is attached, did not bring about the sequence of his death, and so cannot be burdened with, say, the negative duty ‘not to kill the violinist’ – since, ultimately, it is the ailment that is killing the violinist. Consequently, the only right to which the violinist has a claim is a positive right. And, Foot explains, “…although charity or duties of care could have dictated that the help be given, it seems perfectly reasonable to treat this as a case in which such presumptions are overridden by other rights—those belonging to the person whose body would be used.”[7] Thus, in this case one may unhook from the violinist, since his positive right does not hold enough weight to justify disregarding another’s right to his or her own body.
Foot gives an account of the other case, abortion:
The case of abortion is of course completely different. The fetus is not in jeopardy because it is in its mother’s womb; it is merely dependent on her in the way children are dependent on their parents for food. An abortion, therefore, originates the sequence which ends in the death of the fetus, and the destruction comes about “through the agency” of the mother who seeks the abortion.[8] Abortion is uniquely different from the violinist case, since the fetus holds a negative right not to be killed (since it holds a full right to life, as granted to it by Thomson). The mother, by having an abortion administered, directly initiates the event which takes the fetus’s life, completely violating its negative right. For this reason, in any normal circumstances a mother cannot morally legitimize having an abortion."
In cases other than rape, Thomson's "argument" is completely fallacious.
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EDIT:
And what about that case? Who's right to live is more important?
Yes
In this case, abortion could be allowed also. But I am not going to choose which life is more important.
Philosophy, from metaethics to metaphysics, is "just semantics." Semantics guide how we communicate and discriminate. They shape our very thoughts and decisions. They're important.
I would invite you to find a better one. By "better," I don't mean "longer" -- I mean, better encapsulates our functional notion of personhood and its implications. In other words, I shouldn't be able to respond with "So X isn't a person?" or "So X is a person?" and have such a question sound absurd. The possibility of a tiny group of cells constituting a person is the only "absurdity" I surrender.
Doing such a thing is called colloquialization -- you're so used to talking about and dealing with people with developed mental faculties that you forget that such faculties aren't essential to the term "person."
By that first yes, you're basically saying that baby born because of a rape are worth less than someone born because of two people having love with each other's consent.
And sperm have tails!
See above.
Concerning eggs, I'll grant that they're incapable of locomotion. However, they're hardly the only sessile candidate for life in existence.
Self-defense is, in my mind, the best possible justification for abortion procedures. But I don't really think the extension works, because if the sex was consensual, pregnancy was a known risk that was accepted at the time of consent.
You can play up the atrocities of the past all you want, but the fact remains that you're advocating eugenics, judging people as "desirable" or "undesirable" based on their genes. Not all atrocities that we today call "barbaric" occurred in the distant past, or in third-world countries.
Besides, birth is not a zero-sum game. Aborting a fetus with a disorder does not magically create another one without, nor does allowing it to be born take away the opportunity for another. And if you're really worried about Darwinism, you can rest assured that the birth rates among the mentally retarded are very, very low.
Why don't you try talking to actual parents of severely
crippleddisabled children? Your ignorance is showing.Just as it is her right to abort a female, black, or Jewish fetus. That doesn't make this choice any less an expression of bigotry.
Okay, seriously? Stop talking about that which you know so little about. If ever one of your unborn children is diagnosed with a mental disorder, I strongly advise you to do some actual research, including talking to the aforementioned parents of children with that disorder, before making any decisions. Because if you really think that raising a kid with Down syndrome is going to be a life of constant agony, you might do something you'd regret if you were more informed.
What? How? Also, as a matter of fact, people lacking mental capacity (which may or may not include people with Down syndrome) don't go to jail, so you seem to be agreeing with me.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I am not debating, I'm telling you. Without hope, what's life for? Without faith, there is no hope. Without God, there is not life. I am sure of this. You want proof? Look in the Bible. The proof in there has been confirmed over the ages to be truthful. Jesus Christ, born of a virgin woman, Mary, came to this Earth to save us. He came not to condemn us, but to save us. Romans 10: 9 and 10 (your path to salvation)
Dogma? Try facts.
The difference between us and angels is that we have the choice. We can choose to believe, or not to believe. If we didn't, then as you said, God would just "convince them Himself" and you wouldn't have created this forum because you would know that life started way before conception (God knew you before you were conceived). In the Garden of Eden, there was one "rule." Because us humans are prone to sin, Adam broke that rule. The Ten Commandments were sent by God to lay down more rules to live by. But He doesn't slap us over the head when we break a rule. It pains Him to see us do bad things (like being pro-abortion), but he never turns his back on us, regardless of how many times we ignore him. He wants us to come to Him no matter what we've done. He welcomes us and just wants fellowship with us. Much like a parent who's child has run away from home, He desires us to return home and welcomes us home. No matter what you've done, you can have salvation. But you must ask for it. It is given freely, but you must accept it. If you need direction to some scriptures, please ask.
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And that Foote response doesn't address this point either.
What if they were using anti conception that malfunctioned? Should they be allowed to abort? They weren't thinking of any risks at the time.
Except that being cripple, as opposed to those things, does impair you in your live, though being cripple isn't really the best example here.
If those things are facts, why isn't our society based on it?
Please, though I would love this discussion once more, not here. Make a separate thread for it, or post in an already existing one. I'd love to discuss this with you over there.
EDIT: Am I the only one that doesn't see my sig in this post?
Please stop this. While pro-choicers often beg the question of personhood in their arguments, begging the question of Christianity is much more presumptuous. As a Christian, I'm telling you that your references to the Bible here are logically fallacious. This is not a forum where the validity of Christianity is a given.
People are blinded. Even though truth is staring us in the face, we still have the option to look away. I choose to read the Bible which as I said has been proven over the ages to be true.
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I have some EDH cards and rare Magic basic lands (APAC, EURO, ARENA, etc) so message me if you're looking.
Number of members banned after I posted a BTR: 7
Looking for honest buyers, sellers, and traders.
I'd love to see you validate this claims. Please open a topic about this once. However, let's try to stay on topic from now on (yes, it was my error as well, I know).
LOOL that must be the worst of the worst in this whole thread.
The bible never proved anything. It just said stuff. Well, the people who wrote it said stuff. Based on really nothing but fairytales.
Think for yourself before you dig back into your Book of false answers.
Like a friend of mine once said:
"Assumption is the mother of all ****-ups."
However, the vallicity of the bible is not the subject of this topic.
When a choice has to be made, that is based on the life of a person, or a group of persons, those people have to be able to make their choice.
By eliminating abortion at all, nobody will have any choice.
The sole right that you (@jokul) may read the bible is because you have the right to do so. I don't like it, because it makes you just a follower with no free will. But you still have that right, as do I have the right to skip sunday church sessions. So too must people have the right to choose an abortion or not.
Do not evade the censor. And going off-topic just to belittle someone's faith is unacceptable. Warning.
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A women has the right to choose whether she has a child.
A father has no right to choose whether women a has a child.
The government will make the father pay the mother of the said child money regardless if he wanted it or not.
There is no right to privacy if the government actively interfers in the area.
You can not have it both ways.
I think this is because of the way our society used to be divided, and apparently still is on some points. The woman was to take care of the children. The father was there for the income.
On a second note: how the hell would the father have the right to choose what happens inside of the mother's body? If he really wants kids that badly, he could either try to adopt or take part in some experimental treatment. There have been successful cases of men bearing a child, as far as I know.
That's good advice. Please listen to it.
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She knows why.
Just because some rights are given doesn't mean everything is a right.
The baby has the same worth. But in one, the risks are acknowledged by both parties (or however many), the other it isn't or only in one.