A Conception's Right To Life

[Dawkinsrocks]

Just following your chickensample

To be honest I am chickenshausted of continually having to chickensplain chickensactly what should be obvious to everyone with the chickenseption, it would seem, of pale.

 

[Lagboltz]

Just following your chickensample

To be honest I am chickenshausted of continually having to chickensplain chickensactly what should be obvious to everyone with the chickenseption, it would seem, of pale.

ROTFL
I didn't think anyone could top my post, but I cede to yours.

 

[Dawkinsrocks]

Nah, you won.

You have originality on your side at the very least

 

[Mr.Dysfunctional]

Just following your chickensample

To be honest I am chickenshausted of continually having to chickensplain chickensactly what should be obvious to everyone with the chickenseption, it would seem, of pale.

Dawkins.. I honestly I have compassion for all human life.. with that being said, I think you are having a break thru..
Maybe the reason people have such a hard time understanding what in the hell you mean is because you yourself are unsure of what your talking about.. which then leads to your inablity to then translate those ideas into words.

SUGGESTION!!! (( worked wonders for me ))
Read..... just read.. stop posting .. and read.. then back check (( fact check )) material and sources... and LEARN about the subject at hand...
I swear , I honestly swear to you.. you will benifiet from it in HUGE amounts.
While you might not have been blessed with innate skills of critical thinking, THERE IS HOPE!!! you can still learn the skills thru these simple steps.

BEST OF LUCK!

 

[Dawkinsrocks]

I don't even have to read that to know it is bull****

 

[palerider]

Lagboltz, rather than go though your previous post item by item, if I may, I am going to copy and paste an argument to the whole sentience/personhood philosophical argument that I made on another board. The specific topic I was addressing was personhood but the argument is equally effective if the topic is sentience as you seem to be arguing that sentience is a requisite for personhood. Personhood being a requisite for one to enjoy the protections of the law.

It is possible via philosophical reasoning rationally answer the question of what is a person because we are persons and everyone around us are persons. It is possible to critically examinethe prsons we see every day and determine whether a suggested definition of person adequately describes us.

If you look critically at some of the definitions of person that are advanced by the pro choice side of the argument, it is obviousthat most can be set aside right away without discussion because they simply do not mesh with our own experience of what being a person is or they are simply not applicable to the question of what it is to be a person.

First, we don't "get to be" persons because we become autonomous, or independent, or sentient, or even viable. These characteristics can be dismissed out of hand as not being essential characteristics of personhood because we all know someone or of someone who lacks some or all of these characteristics to some degree or another. In fact, we all lack them to some degree or another. You may have to be viable to stay alive, for example but viability doesn't tell us anything at all about what it is that is staying alive and if you are going to argue philosopically, it is imperative that any prerequisite you care to demand must speak to the subject of the discussion.

Nearly all of the most popular definitions of personhood suggested by the pro choice side of the argument break down in principle and it must be clear to any critical thinker that it follows that they will also break down in practice.

If we try to draw a line and say "beyond this point we are persons" we find rather quickly that there is no bright line in which we can say after this line we have characteristics X, Y, and Z but before this line we didn't. Unless of course, you want to limit yourself to some very arbitrary and superfical physical characteristics at which time, you enter the realm of the biological sciences and you want to argue philosophy to avoid the superior scientific argument do you not?

In attempting to set a time in which we "aquire" personhood, the pro choice side immediately enters the realm of logical fallacy. You must "beg the question". You must first assume that this aquisition of personhood happens at a time far enough along in the pregnancy so that abortion becomes a rational action and then try to construct an argument that proves whichever time you have arbitrarily set. This is a terribly flawed form of reasoning in either the scientific or philosophical realms. The failure of the application of this rational tells us that we must first try and find the definition of personhood and then determine whether it is a thing that we aquire or not.

We often hear argument for brain or thinking (sentience). OK, lets go there. The potenital for reason and rational thought is a matter of kind. We either have it or we don't. Realization of reason and rational thought is always a matter of degree and we all realize it to different degrees and none of us reach the absolute limit of our potential. Agreed?

Working within that framework then, the work of being a "person" is not an issue of degree but of kind. Do you understand the difference between degree and kind? The sort of person you are is a matter of degree while what you are is a matter of kind. It is quite possible for you to be a better or worse person than someone else. You can be more or less ethical, or honest, but you simply can not be more of a person than someone else. To suggest so is nonsense.

The demand for some sort of actualization that the pro choice side argues for is based on the acknowledgement that the potenital for reason and rational thought is already there in each individual regardless of age. The pro choice side attempts to treat this as irrelavent, but if one is attempting to make a rational argument, then it simply must be acknowledged that we are all the same kind of entity as the unborn and that the adult is no more and no less than a grown up unborn. The pro choice side may argue that they are only asking that we all agree on some "reasonable" minimum qualification for personhood, but once again, in principle this demand breaks down.

The first sign of breakdown in principle is obvious on its face. The problem of having to name the degree of potential that must be achieved in order to be a person. Look about you among the various pro choicers. There simply is no agreement even among those on your side. The passion with which you hold your conviction is not a substitute for a rational explanation of why you may choose one point and another pro choicer may choose another. It also fails as reasonable substitute for a rational argument that higher and higher standards for personhood be met, even among post natals.

Then there are those who attempt to avoid the inevetable arguments by engaging the question of realizing potential as a sort of ticket to personhood. That is to say that they argue that we must reach a certain level in order to be considered a person, but once we are there, injury or illness that might bring us below that level will not "un-person" us. In this manner, they attempt to restrict the debate to those who are yet to be born. Again, to a critical thinker, this line of reasoning fails in that it attempts to change degree into kind but doesn't allow kind to be changed back to degree.

This line of thinking ignores what is required to be a person and focuses instead on what is required to "get to be" a person. This is a dead end because even if you conceed that more is required to get to be a person than is required to remain a person then we are necessarily brought back to what is to be required to remain a person after one has achieved personhood. Such arguments would fail to oppose infantacide in a great many cases and would fail to oppose killing of older, sick, or injured individuals in just as many cases.

The logic in introducing degree into the definition of person rather than kind is simply flawed. Our rights are founded on the kind of being that we are, not the degree to which we achieve our potential. The extent to which we are different from each other in degree is not the source of our rights. It is nothing more than evidence of differences in our ability to exercise our rights and we all know that there is no requirement to exercise a right in order to have it none the less.

If the philosophical concept of what is a person refers to anything at all, it refers to something that doesn't need to be proven over and over. The essence of the person is something that is inbred. It is not something that we aquire somewhere along the line. Things that are aquired can be lost and may or may not be regained again. The fact that you are a person and can not lose that personhood no matter what may befall you is evidence enough that it is not an aquisition that you can lose. It is simply what you are.

It simply isn't rational to argue that non persons change into persons. To make such an argument is to argue that we undergo a radical and essential change in our natures during the span of our lives.

The problem with that line of thinking is that if the change is inevetable from the time we are concieved if given time then the change is not a change in our essential nature. If we initiate the change from within ourselves then it must be in our nature from the beginning and any changes in characteristics like independence, or where we live, or the amount of physical, or mental, development we have achieved or how much mental capacity we have later in our lives is nothing more than a manifestation of what we were at the beginning of our life.

One other question. You are presenting a philosophical argument to justify allowing human beings to be killed. If you were in a court of law and your life were on the line, honestly, would you allow the prosecution to enter philosophical musings on rights, or the concept of guilt or innocence into evidence against you or would you reasonably and rationally demand that since it is your lifethat is on the line that the prosecution confine his arguments to cold hard proveable facts?

 

[Chip]

Hmm or it could be I just want them to be safe and have access to any heathcare they choose.

You error in your assumption that abortion for birth control is healthcare.

It's murderous butchery by definition, and, it is health damaging physiologically and neuropsychologically to the woman.

Whatever your motivations are for advocating abortion as birth control to your daughters, you would do well by them to reconsider.

As far as wanting to pick my daughters mate the fact is that I've got a wonderful grandson for my oldest daughters first marriage that I wouldn't trade for anything.

Good ...

Now be sure to tell him one day that had your daughter wanted to have an abortion instead of carrying him to term, that you would have supported it.

And ... also let him know that you would support aborting his sibling should your daughter want an abortion in the future.

You speak "boldly" in forum, Top Gun ...

... But would you be so "bold" in reality?!

My youngest hasn't had children yet but did suffer a miscarriage once so I know that's tough.

Yes ... and if she had deliberately terminated that person via abortion ... well, you don't know what tough is until you've seen a woman agonize post-abortion justified guilt ... or suppress-repress the guilt into her body, where it does major physical damage, not to mention causing her to commit psychological self-sabotage.

So, Top Gun, have your daughters ever committed abortion?

Have you advocated abortion to them?

Do you know a woman who has committed abortion?

Do you have any clue how damaging that was to them ... not to mention that the act is the murder of a person?!

Pro Choice isn't about me... it's about them.

Pro-abortion, for which the term "pro choice" is a the pro-abortion movements self-applied public spin term, is about everyone who advocates the murderous use of it.

It's about you, if you truly advocate murderous abortion.

For every sexual relations conception there is a man involved.

If he advocates abortion, advocates it in any way, and an abortion occurs other than to save the mother's life, the man is an accomplice to the sociological behavior of murder.

You may want to wipe the responsiblity on women, which you deceitfully do in your smokescreen "freedom of choice for women", but you can't hide, Top Gun.

A man who want to wipe the whole murderous abortion thing onto the woman in his life simply could care less about her heart.

I'm never going to be pregnate... nor will you

Absolutely irrelevant to the atrocious act of murderous abortion and the damage done to the woman who commits murderous abortion.

Dude... come on... you're embarrassing yourself...

Your projection is irrelevant.

it's very clear... it ain't never gonna happen

Considering that the trends are moving in the direction of respecting the reality of the scientifically proven-to-exist newly conceived person, you definition of "clear" is rather foggy.

Did you read Palerider's post where he listed those serving time for murdering newly conceived people?

Those examples alone should tell you that not only is it gonna happen, it's happening now.

If those people can be put away for murdering newly conceived people ...

... It won't be long before the man and the woman who commits murderous abortion of their offspring will also!

Women in the United States of America will always have choice.

Not to murder, they won't.

Just like some once said the South will always have slavery, so too is your statement here wrong.

For that matter they always have choice without Roe. They just throw themselves down a flight of steps, drink drain cleaner or go to an unsterile back alley abortion clinic.

I see you're versed in all the alternatives you'll teach your daughters once Roe falls.

Or ... you could just tell them the truth: that abortion for other than to save the mother's life is the sociological act of murder.

Better is to advise them to prevent conception by being 100 percent safe if they aren't going to want to give birth.

You can't force someone to carry a child to term.

That's right, no one can.

But, if they commit murderous abortion once doing so soon becomes illegal, we can force them to do time for their crime.

Facing this reality is really for the best, Top Gun.

Then you can be a good parent to your daughters and make sure they understand the consequences of murderous abortion to themselves.

All you can do is risk their life as well.

There is no risk to a pregnant woman's life ... if she doesn't attempt a back-alley abortion.

Those who attempt back-alley abortions are commiting murderous abortion while simultaneously self-sabotaging the risk of their own life as well.

That's just stupid.

When murderous abortion becomes illegal, the healthy thing to do is to plan on either not having sex if she's not prepared to give birth, or have sex and resign to the inevitability of giving birth should pregnancy occur.

The court saw this you should too.

You have no clue what "the court saw".

But, since the scientific presentation that at least one person, at least one unique invidividual human being, begins to live at the moment of conception, did not exist back in 1973 when Roe was decided, the court most certainly didn't see that scientific proof.

Had they been aware of that scientific reality, they might have decided differently.

You should see the reality of that.

A thereby overturning of Roe will be the future.

OK... I choose to be in the right and leave all women's health issues up to each individual woman.

Translation: "I, Top Gun, choose to shirk my responsibility as co-conceiver, letting the woman take all the guilt for committing murderous abortion."

'Tis sad.

No one has to have an abortion. I personally hope no one is in a position where they feel they must have an abortion...

Yes ... and I'd love to read just why you wouldn't want "anyone" to have an abortion.

Why, Top Gun?

but I'm not them

But you'd let them walk into murderer's hell ... or worse, you'd advise them too???

Of course you would -- you're a man, and the thought of being in a position to pay childsupport to a child you didn't want scares most men to the death of their newly conceived offspring.

So they attempt to abrogate their responsibilities ... hoping the woman will allow herself to be so controlled by him.

How terrible of him.

Turning 52 years old this month

One would think you'd show more wisdom for your middle-age, Top Gun.

Amazing how pro-abortion moral relativistic utilitarianism can dumb one down.

I have two wonderful daughters and a wife and a mother and a whole lot of other women in my family...

What about men, Top Gun?

Do you associate much with other men?!

Any of them ever tell you how dishonorable your pro-abortionist control of women is?!!!

You are presuming I chose their position for them... when it is they that informed me

Hmmm ... ... now I'm beginning to see the picture.

Henpecked codependency is a sad way for a man to go -- he'll voluntarily shed his honorable backbone ... just so a woman won't abandon him.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gc8p1_mBCyo

As usual, irrelevant.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Lagboltz, rather than go though your previous post item by item, if I may, I am going to copy and paste an argument to the whole sentience/personhood philosophical argument that I made on another board.

You are an interesting study in human attitude, Pale, but after reading your long post, what came to mind was the idea that: Baloney, no matter how thinly sliced is STILL baloney.

 

[Chip]

... ...

Have you read this? Are you planning on replying?

You really should just get out of "dodge".

 

[Lagboltz]

Lagboltz, rather than go though your previous post item by item, if I may, I am going to copy and paste an argument to the whole sentience/personhood philosophical argument that I made on another board.

First of all I appreciate you getting to the gist of your position in your post. I do want a serious discussion, and I gladly prefer to bypass the acrimonious bickering, challenges, and veiled insults we both have been guilty of.

We both are obviously passionate about our opposing positions, but we both stayed clear of defining why we feel as we do because it would lead to further complications of this thread and more bickering certainly from many others.

Right now I will briefly comment on your position and then press on with my position, and maybe later I could enter the transcendent theme of why I have this position.

I will use the term sentience rather than personhood, for no particular reason. In your post, you are going quite far in your definition of sentience to the extent that it covers capital punishment, late life dementia, etc. which go well beyond just abortion. I believe I understand your dual concept of sentience - the essence vs. the degree, and I understand the degree of difficulty in defining it in 50000 words or less as it would apply to the entire span of life.

However, rather than getting embroiled in that entire area, let me just focus on abortion and propose a simple alternate contrapositive scheme: "non-sentience ". Since a scientific or legal definition of sentience is problematic to some, it seems to be easier to proceed from the opposite direction. For example, we might define a non-sentient human as person with less than 10000 functioning neurons. This is equivalent to very low and simplest animal forms. It is a robust metric for an abortion clinic. It also gives some wiggle room so that the first month of pregnancy easily falls within this criteria, and the age of the embryo can be estimated from sonograms. A born baby or adult with so few neurons would not just be brain dead, but would be actually dead. I won't belabor how this can be applied to the discussion up to now, but I will step back a bit.

Given my stance on abortion, my motivation is to fix problem areas. If there is a problem in devising a moral/legal way to define sentience as it applies to abortion, lets be more creative and try harder to solve it.

Given your stance, your motivation would be to claim the problem can't be solved, so let's eliminate sentience from any type of criteria.

So this leaves us at an impasse.

I wanted to go into a little insight as to why I have the position that I do, but every sentence I put down, I immediately erase. Let me just say that I think the human race is coming closer to a point where a sort of a social triage will be the predominant problem and abortion is just one facet of that larger problem. There will be extremely grave moral questions that transcend abortion.

 

[Chip]

I wanted to go into a little insight as to why I have the position that I do, but every sentence I put down, I immediately erase.

Yes ... I'm sure it must be difficult for you, caught between an old rock and a new hard place as you are.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

First of all I appreciate you getting to the gist of your position in your post. I do want a serious discussion, and I gladly prefer to bypass the acrimonious bickering, challenges, and veiled insults we both have been guilty of.

We both are obviously passionate about our opposing positions, but we both stayed clear of defining why we feel as we do because it would lead to further complications of this thread and more bickering certainly from many others.

Right now I will briefly comment on your position and then press on with my position, and maybe later I could enter the transcendent theme of why I have this position.

I will use the term sentience rather than personhood, for no particular reason. In your post, you are going quite far in your definition of sentience to the extent that it covers capital punishment, late life dementia, etc. which go well beyond just abortion. I believe I understand your dual concept of sentience - the essence vs. the degree, and I understand the degree of difficulty in defining it in 50000 words or less as it would apply to the entire span of life.

However, rather than getting embroiled in that entire area, let me just focus on abortion and propose a simple alternate contrapositive scheme: "non-sentience ". Since a scientific or legal definition of sentience is problematic to some, it seems to be easier to proceed from the opposite direction. For example, we might define a non-sentient human as person with less than 10000 functioning neurons. This is equivalent to very low and simplest animal forms. It is a robust metric for an abortion clinic. It also gives some wiggle room so that the first month of pregnancy easily falls within this criteria, and the age of the embryo can be estimated from sonograms. A born baby or adult with so few neurons would not just be brain dead, but would be actually dead. I won't belabor how this can be applied to the discussion up to now, but I will step back a bit.

Given my stance on abortion, my motivation is to fix problem areas. If there is a problem in devising a moral/legal way to define sentience as it applies to abortion, lets be more creative and try harder to solve it.

Given your stance, your motivation would be to claim the problem can't be solved, so let's eliminate sentience from any type of criteria.

So this leaves us at an impasse.

I wanted to go into a little insight as to why I have the position that I do, but every sentence I put down, I immediately erase. Let me just say that I think the human race is coming closer to a point where a sort of a social triage will be the predominant problem and abortion is just one facet of that larger problem. There will be extremely grave moral questions that transcend abortion.

An interesting and thoughtful post despite Chip's sniping. I suspect that your idea about social triage is right on the money, sad to say.

 

[palerider]

You are an interesting study in human attitude, Pale, but after reading your long post, what came to mind was the idea that: Baloney, no matter how thinly sliced is STILL baloney.

No actual rebuttal huh? Not to worry. None was really expected. Especially not from you.

 

[palerider]

However, rather than getting embroiled in that entire area, let me just focus on abortion and propose a simple alternate contrapositive scheme: "non-sentience ". Since a scientific or legal definition of sentience is problematic to some, it seems to be easier to proceed from the opposite direction. For example, we might define a non-sentient human as person with less than 10000 functioning neurons. This is equivalent to very low and simplest animal forms. It is a robust metric for an abortion clinic. It also gives some wiggle room so that the first month of pregnancy easily falls within this criteria, and the age of the embryo can be estimated from sonograms. A born baby or adult with so few neurons would not just be brain dead, but would be actually dead. I won't belabor how this can be applied to the discussion up to now, but I will step back a bit.

Question. Would you accept an argument of this nature against you in a court of law if your life were in the balance? Would you allow such unprovable, unsubstantiated musings from a prosecution that wanted to see you executed?

Whether you realize it or not, this is an argument for human lives and eventually, it is going to be argued before the supreme court. Cases are winding their way through lower courts now that will force the court to cosider, not a woman's theoretcial right to terminate a potential human life, but what is actually being killed when an abortion is performed.

Personaly, I don't believe that you would accept such abstract, and etherical arguments against you in court if it were your life that was subject to forfiet, and if you were not able to understand that your life were in the balance, no rational and qualified legal council would allow such musings to be entered into evidence against his client.

If you can't offer up arguments of the sort that you would accept against yourself, if it were your own life on the line, then really lagboltz, you can't offer up an argument at all.

Given my stance on abortion, my motivation is to fix problem areas. If there is a problem in devising a moral/legal way to define sentience as it applies to abortion, lets be more creative and try harder to solve it.

I don't believe you have any desire to "fix" anything. If a murder is running rampant in your neighborhood killing victim after victim after victim, do you ask the police to examine the sociological and psychological reasons that this maniac is killing and to address to society the reasons and ask society to change its ways so this poor maniac doesn't feel the need to kill and kill and kill. Or do you demand that the police add additional patrols and do what ever is necessary to catch this guy and put an end to his killing spree?

This isn't an abstract problem subject to sociological examinations. Actual human beings are being killed every day in their thousands. My suspicion is that you, like all pro choicers fully realize that you aren't going to be killed so then it isn't really such a big deal. The same attitute can be attributed to those who perhaps didn't like slavery and would never own one of thier own, but since they were not black, there was really no danger to themselves so an attitute of complacent complicity suited them just fine. Ditto for those who weren't gypsys in russia who were being murdered in their millions, or jews in hitler's germany, or among any persecuted group you care to name throughout history.

Given your stance, your motivation would be to claim the problem can't be solved, so let's eliminate sentience from any type of criteria.

The problem is that human beings are being legally killed by the millions. The solution is to outlaw the killing. Once more, if it were your life on the line, would you accept philosophical musings on topics like the nature of guilt or innocence, or the nature of rights (since sentience isn't a philosophical concept that you need worry about being used against you) to be entered into the record as evidence against you?

I wanted to go into a little insight as to why I have the position that I do, but every sentence I put down, I immediately erase. .

Could it be that you are beginning to think your statements through to their logical conclusions and in doing so, find them wanting?

Let me just say that I think the human race is coming closer to a point where a sort of a social triage will be the predominant problem and abortion is just one facet of that larger problem. There will be extremely grave moral questions that transcend abortion.

One facet of a larger problem? Tell me, and I ask this in all seriousness and earnestness lagboltz, which problem in the US is so large that 40 million dead without legal review and counting is just a small facet in comparison? I really want to hear your answer to that question and I believe your entire argument hinges on the answer you give.

 

[palerider]

An interesting and thoughtful post despite Chip's sniping. I suspect that your idea about social triage is right on the money, sad to say.

Perhaps you would like to point out a problem in the US, or the world for that matter that is so large that 40 millon dead here, or over a billion dead throughout the world is just a small facet in comparison.

It is very easy to make blithe comments, even when you want to believe them. Rationally defending those comments is an entirely different thing.