Abortion and Morality

[palerider]

No its not faulty reasoning. You are assuming that as soon as an entity acquires a particular set of properties (life, human DNA, etc) that it acquires a corresponding moral property of "personhood" as well. Personhood is said to "supervene" on these physical properties.

And you are "assuming that they don't. If one is going to assume, then wouldn't the reasonable and logical course be to assume on the side of safety?

The task, then, is to discover just which set of physical properties entails this moral property. So far, nobody has been able to come up with a clear answer. There are problems with every proposal.[/quuote]

Problems yes, but actually killing human beings without consequence for any or no reason presents itself as a larger problem than any of the others. And as you say, since no one has come up with a clear moral answer, the facts demand that if we are to err, that we err on the side of safety for those being killed untl it is possible to establish beyond question that they have no moral value.

You try to analyze this problem by saying that "personhood" is like "game". Try to give me a precise set of attributes where anything that fits into this description is properly called "a game", while, at the same time, it does not end up including things that are not commonly thought of as games. You will certainly fail.

The game analogy was yours. I simply pointed out that games have rules and by our rules, if a human being is to be denied a right, law must be written and legislated that denies that right.

I do not think that this analysis works. The reason that we have no precise definition of "game" -- the reason that the term is vague -- is because we have no use for a precise definition. Giving a term a precise definition and promulgating that definition is a lot of work, which is only worthwhile if we can gain a corresponding benefit from the more precise communication this allows. Science does this, because science recognizes a substantial benefit from doing so. Mathematics does this as well. For "game", there are insufficient benefits to compensate for these costs.

Insufficient bennefit? Tell me general, how often do you believe a mind comes along that is capable of grasping a large picture and working out intricate diplomatic details to settle the large problems that we face in the world? How many minds do you believe could concieve the mechanism by which cold fusion might be achieved or a 300% increase in efficiency in our present solar technology, or superconduction at room temperature? Consider music, and art as well.

We know that such minds come from both sides of the tracks and all socioeconomic groups and we know beyond doubt that they are few and very far apart. If we are terminating roughly 1 in every 4 children concieved, how many potentially brilliant minds would you guess that we have tossed out into a dumpster behind some clinic?

Look around you general. Where are the minds that are so brilliant that they eclipse everyone around them?

No benefit from not killing every 4th child? Think again.

For "personhood," there is value in having a precise definition, but we cannot seem to find one that works.

We have one. It tosses a monkey wrench in your argument, however, so you prefer to disregard it. I understand your wish to do so, but we have what we have and as it stands, it isn't possible to justify abortion on demand.

As of yet you haven't rebutted any of the points I've made. I've already proved it. Thought it would seem to me, that the onus would be on your end to 'prove it'.

I have proved my point. Proved it so thoroughly that you needed to start another thread with the express purpose of getting away from my proof. My position is what it is and I argue it as I do. Philosphical wrangling is fine, but it is not rational to do it over human beings who are being killed while the wrangling continues. Stop the killing first, then wrangle till your heart's content. In the mean time, some brilliant minds might be saved.

 

[palerider]

An assertion without proof doesn't make a very convincing case either.

My position is straight forward mare.

1. Unborns are human beings. I have proved that with credible, peer reviewed science.

2. Human beings have a right to live. I have proved that via the US constitution.

3. All rights are secondary to the right to live. I have proved that via the founding documents of this nation.

I have proved my points mare and to date, no one has effectively rebutted them. Gibbering "catholic dogma!! catholic dogma!!" (spoken in the tone of Gomer Pyle shouting "citizens arest!! citizens arrest!! at Barney Fife) in lieu of actually arguing the points, doesn't constitute anyting on your part but a series of logical fallacies.

 

[ArmChair General]

And you are "assuming that they don't. If one is going to assume, then wouldn't the reasonable and logical course be to assume on the side of safety?

The task, then, is to discover just which set of physical properties entails this moral property. So far, nobody has been able to come up with a clear answer. There are problems with every proposal.[/quuote]

Problems yes, but actually killing human beings without consequence for any or no reason presents itself as a larger problem than any of the others. And as you say, since no one has come up with a clear moral answer, the facts demand that if we are to err, that we err on the side of safety for those being killed untl it is possible to establish beyond question that they have no moral value.



The game analogy was yours. I simply pointed out that games have rules and by our rules, if a human being is to be denied a right, law must be written and legislated that denies that right.



Insufficient bennefit? Tell me general, how often do you believe a mind comes along that is capable of grasping a large picture and working out intricate diplomatic details to settle the large problems that we face in the world? How many minds do you believe could concieve the mechanism by which cold fusion might be achieved or a 300% increase in efficiency in our present solar technology, or superconduction at room temperature? Consider music, and art as well.

We know that such minds come from both sides of the tracks and all socioeconomic groups and we know beyond doubt that they are few and very far apart. If we are terminating roughly 1 in every 4 children concieved, how many potentially brilliant minds would you guess that we have tossed out into a dumpster behind some clinic?

Look around you general. Where are the minds that are so brilliant that they eclipse everyone around them?

No benefit from not killing every 4th child? Think again.



We have one. It tosses a monkey wrench in your argument, however, so you prefer to disregard it. I understand your wish to do so, but we have what we have and as it stands, it isn't possible to justify abortion on demand.



I have proved my point. Proved it so thoroughly that you needed to start another thread with the express purpose of getting away from my proof. My position is what it is and I argue it as I do. Philosphical wrangling is fine, but it is not rational to do it over human beings who are being killed while the wrangling continues. Stop the killing first, then wrangle till your heart's content. In the mean time, some brilliant minds might be saved.

Palerider, i've already shown you just exactly how your reasoning and logic fails. If you do not want to listen that is fine. I am pretty much done with this debate with you. For you, the will precedes the intellect.

Thanks for your time.

 

[palerider]

Palerider, i've already shown you just exactly how your reasoning and logic fails. If you do not want to listen that is fine. I am pretty much done with this debate with you. For you, the will precedes the intellect.

Thanks for your time.

I believe that you believe that you have shown how my logic fails. It was you, however who had to leave the realm of logic and reason in order to make any argument stick.

You are welcome for my time. It was enjoyable talking to someone who doesn't call names in lieu of actual discussion and you can't imagine how nice it is to not hear "catholic dogma catholic dogma" as a response to every point.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

If the data are correct, I would call him right so long as no one is "throwing out" more powerful credible data that conflicts what he is trying to prove.

If his data is incorrect, or made up, then I would call him a fraud.

And it is interesting how you feel that you need to charactarize data that I have "presented" as having been "thrown out" as if "thrown out" data is inherently wrong and thus, you are relieved of the necessity to actually argue against said data.

Part of our disagreement comes from your poor reading comprehension skills. I never said that the information that you presented has been thrown out, quite the contrary. What you have thrown out is the information about all the ramifications of the legislation that you desire. You seem to have simply "thrown out" all the historical evidence (Romania comes to mind) and all of the interests and problems and competing interests involved in this complex, world-wide problem. You have continually kept your focus on "convenience killing" even to the point of denying a woman the right to keep her body from being used by a rapist and by arguing against birth control.

 

[dahermit]

eggs

Dear Mare,

Sometimes a friend feels they have to step in and offer unrequested advice.
There is no winning this argument with pale. He obviously likes this debate...just as obvious you do not(being a male, he has little invested in this argument, you being a female have a lot invested). He will never change his mind. It is like wrestling with a pig in the mud...you cannot win, the pig loves it and you will just get dirty.

I have finally seen his logic. A zygote is to human being/person as an egg is to chicken. Put a fertilized hen's egg in your left hand and a chicken in your right hand and you will observe that they are one and the same (he has unassailable, scientific, pope-reviewed...uh, I mean peer-reviewed evidence). For your own sake, give up on this argument and go crack a couple of chickens into the frying pan (gosh???!!...they don't look like chickens).
As long as you give him input, he will continue to post on this subject.

And by the way, I have raised many chickens...the difference between a chicken and a fertilized egg is that the chicken can fly.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

My position is straight forward mare.

1. Unborns are human beings. I have proved that with credible, peer reviewed science.

2. Human beings have a right to live. I have proved that via the US constitution.

3. All rights are secondary to the right to live. I have proved that via the founding documents of this nation.

I have proved my points mare and to date, no one has effectively rebutted them. Gibbering "catholic dogma!! catholic dogma!!" (spoken in the tone of Gomer Pyle shouting "citizens arest!! citizens arrest!! at Barney Fife) in lieu of actually arguing the points, doesn't constitute anyting on your part but a series of logical fallacies.

Congratulations, Pale, I think that is the most succinct statement of a fallacy I have ever seen. You haven't "proved" anything, you've simply drawn conclusions from the works of other people, that's all.

You've demonstrated no "right to live". The writers of the Constiution were men trying to set up a rational basis for government. Only white, male landowners were accorded full citizenship, slaves were given no rights, nor were the indigenous peoples. They talked about a right to live, they wrote about it, but they didn't grant it to everybody. In fact it was not within their power to grant it to everyone, all they could write down that they thought it was a good idea--and they didn't even do that, they granted rights to people like themselves. Subsequent court decisions have expanded the "right to life" but it was not in the original intent of the founders of this country.

One of the big things you've passed over is why this putative "right to life" extends only to human life. You have stated that only humans have an inalienable "right to life", okay, where does that right come from that it doesn't cover other kinds of life? Big hole in your argument here, Pale. This is another one of the things you have written that is very religiously based--unless you have some explanation for this "inalienable right to life" that humans have to the exclusion of all other lifeforms.

All rights are not secondary to the right to life just because that's the order in which the founding fathers wrote it. As I have noted, there is a right not to suffer that can supercede the right to life, we euthanize animals all the time to prevent needless suffering. Oregon has an assistied suicide law that allows a suffering terminal patient to end their pain with the help of a medical professional if they are unable to do it for themselves.

You have taken some articles, quotes, and statements and tried to make them into absolutes that bind all humanity (this is another religious act) when in fact--just like all religious tenets--these are just your interpretations of someone else's thoughts written down. Other people interpret them differently and there is no way to prove that you interpretation is more accurate than anyone else's.

It's more difficult for me to argue some of these points with you because I agree with you up to a point, but I think that you are such an extremist that I cannot support your program. Your total denial of anyone else's interests being considered in this discussion makes your position untenable for me. You would sacrifice every woman on the altar of fetal life, you would legally reduce women to incubators for any man who can impregnate them--willingly or by violence. You would ignore the lives of the babies after birth--it's not your problem is it? There are more babies in the world now than there are loving homes for and you would happily bring millions more into a world where they are not wanted--but you haven't adopted any of them yourself.

Your position seems to be that life begins at conception and ends at birth, just the Alzheimer's poster boy, Ronald Reagan. I don't mind if you continue to call me a liar, your perception of women is clearly exposed to everyone by your posts to me on this thread, by your callous disregard for women's lives and women's right to control their own bodies, and by your strident demands that everyone else accede to your view of how unwanted fetuses should be treated. Not only would you not allow a raped woman to have an abortion, but you would deny all women the right to birth control.

Theocracy according to Pale, I want no part of the Hell that your vision of the world would visit on women and babies. Why you are not capable of learning anything from Ceausescu in Romania remains a mystery to me, he advocated basically the same things you are and it was an unmitigated disaster. Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

I'm sorry for you, your zeal makes you monstrous when it could be tempered and used to good effect in the drive to solve this problem, but you alienate people with your rigidity, stridency, and your single-minded condemnation of everyone who disagrees with you. Too bad, I think your heart is in the right place but your brain... isn't.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Dear Mare,

Sometimes a friend feels they have to step in and offer unrequested advice.
There is no winning this argument with pale. He obviously likes this debate...just as obvious you do not(being a male, he has little invested in this argument, you being a female have a lot invested). He will never change his mind. It is like wrestling with a pig in the mud...you cannot win, the pig loves it and you will just get dirty.

I have finally seen his logic. A zygote is to human being/person as an egg is to chicken. Put a fertilized hen's egg in your left hand and a chicken in your right hand and you will observe that they are one and the same (he has unassailable, scientific, pope-reviewed...uh, I mean peer-reviewed evidence). For your own sake, give up on this argument and go crack a couple of chickens into the frying pan (gosh???!!...they don't look like chickens).
As long as you give him input, he will continue to post on this subject.

And by the way, I have raised many chickens...the difference between a chicken and a fertilized egg is that the chicken can fly.

Great simile!

Thanks for the advice, dahermit, I suspect you may be right, but I often go to extreme lengths to reach across the divide that separates me from others. It may well be pointless, it has been with my brothers, but I really do think--as I said in my last post--that Pale's heart is in the right place, he just hasn't worked out the kinks in his brain yet.

I won't be eating any chickens or eggs since I am a vegan vegetarian (I really do take the "right to life" seriously) even if I can't bring myself to force others to see it my way. Do you know what the difference is between "involvement" and "committment"? Think about ham and eggs, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.

Thanks again for the advice, I'll probably taper off with Pale and simply wait for him to be reincarnated as a woman and then see if he sings a different tune.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

Mare, what do you say to the women who are Pro-Life? Do they also have a "callous disregard for women's lives and women's right to control their own bodies"?

Remove yourself from the discussion and take the ad hominem attacks with you.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

Mare, what do you say to the women who are Pro-Life?

You know, I've never spoken to a Pro-life woman who was advocating what Pale wants. Nor have I ever met a Pro-life woman who would deny the morning-after pill to a woman who had been raped. The only women I have spoken to who were against birth control were just as Catholic as Pale.

Do they also have a "callous disregard for women's lives and women's right to control their own bodies"?

Some do, in the same way that some men do. There were black people who owned other black people as slaves, being black or being female doesn't preclude one from being insensitive or even monstrous.

Remove yourself from the discussion and take the ad hominem attacks with you.

There's nothing wrong with a good odd hominid attack, you're a Marine, you should know that. I don't take orders from you. If you don't like my posts, then don't read them. Even though I kind of feel like Pale is a twit in a snit, I hardly think he needs you to defend him.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

There's nothing wrong with a good odd hominid attack, you're a Marine, you should know that. I don't take orders from you. If you don't like my posts, then don't read them. Even though I kind of feel like Pale is a twit in a snit, I hardly think he needs you to defend him.

I'm not defending anybody. I was just trying to make some suggestions for a more meaningful debate.

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

I'm not defending anybody. I was just trying to make some suggestions for a more meaningful debate.

You asked some questions--which I answered fully--and then told me to "remove" myself from the discussion. You made no "suggestions" at all.

 

[USMC the Almighty]

You asked some questions--which I answered fully--and then told me to "remove" myself from the discussion. You made no "suggestions" at all.

I could see how you interpreted it as me instructing you to remove your emotional self from the debate, but I didn't intend for my tone to come across as such. Saying that palerider is Catholic or hates women is no argument for abortion.

All I was trying to say is that if you left emotion at the door and came across a little more levelheaded, then people (at least myself) would be more likely to consider your thoughts.

 

[TruthAboveAll]

You know, I've never spoken to a Pro-life woman who was advocating what Pale wants. Nor have I ever met a Pro-life woman who would deny the morning-after pill to a woman who had been raped. The only women I have spoken to who were against birth control were just as Catholic as Pale.

As a Pro-Life woman, I would like to say that I do agree with Pale's 3-point position. After trying to read through all these threads, keeping track of who is responding to whom and which issues exactly, I'm not sure that I advocate 'what Pale wants.'

I've a big problem with the 'morning-after' pill. It is an abortificant, and is in the same category as an actual abortion as far as I'm concerned. That said, I do believe that unless further and longer-term studies, or serious medical issues or fatalities occur, it is most likely part of life in the U.S.

The morning-after pill (MAP) is promoted as simply a "plan B" birth control method. But there are some issues about it, especially with it's status of OTC sales:

1) OTC purchasing will avail it to women who have not been screened by a physician for any contraindications.
2) Without a physicians involvement, it will complicate treatment of women who do experience problems.
3) There is a nefarious purpose potential. There are already cases where men used it on women to produce an abortion when the women had refused to terminate a pregnancy.
4) The responsibility of warning women of issues involving the pill will be placed on pharmacists and label packaging. Current prescription drugs already show a high rate of poor communication from pharmacists. Is an OTC item NOT going to suffer at least as badly?
5) There is an extensive list of medical conditions where women should absolutely NOT use MAP. It is a much higher dose of hormones than in regular oral contraceptives, and women with these conditions are either denied BC's, given BC's with much lower hormone balances, or counseled to utilize other methods. Included are diabetes, smoking, heart disease, high blood pressure, and more. Is anyone telling these women about this? No.
6) The World Health Organization has warned that failed use has a much higher chance of resulting in an ectopic pregnancy. This is a MAJOR, life-threatening risk.
7) The failure rate is also problematic. While advertising and women's group promotions, etc. claim a 10% failure rate, independent studies (as the one Washington state conducted using the pharmacists actually dispensing and following up independently with patients) show much higher failure rates, often over 50%.

And on regular BC - I have no problem with it. I have no more problem with a medicine that prevents ovulation as it's primary effect than I have on eye surgeons implanting lenses in the eyes of people who have had cataract surgery. Both are an alteration of normal physical processes to obtain a particular purpose.

Some do, in the same way that some men do. There were black people who owned other black people as slaves, being black or being female doesn't preclude one from being insensitive or even monstrous.

You keep using Catholicism in your diatribe. Many Catholics disagree with their church's position. They may be closeted about it, for fear of excommunication, but they disagree none the less. Many who feel as Pale does, or as my variation, have no connection with Catholicism. Being Catholic is no prerequisite to being Pro-Life.

Your comparison to slaves is ridiculous. And it's insulting to African Americans. So you apparently would delegate me into your insensitive or even monstrous category. I'll refuse to play the politically correct game and simply say thank you. I take that as an honor.

There's nothing wrong with a good odd hominid attack, you're a Marine, you should know that. I don't take orders from you. If you don't like my posts, then don't read them. Even though I kind of feel like Pale is a twit in a snit, I hardly think he needs you to defend him.

Actually in a debating situation, which these are meant to be, 'hominid attacks', which I assume you meant ad hominem are out of place. Ad hominem attacks are simply a personal attack in response to a stated position of another. It translates to "against the person".

To use you (since you used the phrase) and Pale (since your issue has been primarily with him) as an example: Pale states his position. You attack Pale personally. The supposed effect is that proves Pales position is incorrect. It does no such thing. The character, preferences or beliefs of Pale have no bearing whatsoever on whether his position is solid or not. As hard as I've tried, I see no substantive rebuttals from you. Cliches and emotional outbursts simply don't cut it.

So there is something wrong with ad hominem attacks. There is also something wrong with your reference directly to USMC's position as a Marine. And I don't take orders from YOU, so since this is a public forum, I can respond to your post if I like, whether it was directed at me or not. Defending Pale, USMC or anyone has nothing to do with it. And you can just go ahead and feel free to call names all you want. I'm not sure what you hope to accomplish with that, but go ahead and feel free to continue!

 

[Mare Tranquillity]

As a Pro-Life woman,

You would vote to outlaw all abortions, even in the case of rape?