A funny (conservative) take on abortion

[werepossum]

i like how people try to minimize a legitimate ethical issue by claiming it must based on morals. of course it's based on morals. it's based on morals from both sides! there are competing factors on each side, both weighty. that's why abortion is a question worthy of debate.

Very well said.

 

[Throckmorton]

again, you are using one out of a bushel of definitions for "life."

there is not a single scientific or medically agreed-upon definition of "life."

The point I always make is that conception is no guarantee of life. hell, it is only through modern medicine that mortality rates have gone from some 35% to an astonishing ~4% in our modern era.

That is insane.

This means you can't really separate the concept of "the miracle of life" from "life--only through human intervention."


However you want to look at it, the anti-abortion crowd is universally going to be looking at this from a religious/moral standpoint. Safety and public health be damned when I feel that my morality is greater than someone else's.

I'm not for "abortions as birth control," but nothing is going to stop that. They have been happening for centuries. Shit, people have been aborting babies for eons. Making such illegal threatens 2 lives (by your definition), rather than just one.

The 35% or 4% mortality after conception is a good point, BUT infant mortality is also nonzero. Before modern medicine it was also much higher. Does that mean infanticide should be legal?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

No.

While I don't support throwing women in prison for having an abortion, I do feel abortion should be opposed.

My objection is not a religious objection (the term "moral" is irrelevent, even arguments made supporting a right to abortion can be said to be based 'moral' grounds).

IMO, if we were sure that abortion was the taking of a life I believe most of us would oppose abortions. But we don't know the answer to the question of when that life starts (at least according to current arguments and court opinions), so my objection is if you don't know for sure don't do it.

If I was demolishing a building and didn't know for sure it was vacant I wouldn't blow it up.

Err on the side of caution if the consequence is the death of a human life.

Fern

"Life" is not the object of rights and duties under the United States Constitution. PERSONS are, and persons are human, born, and alive.

I always have to make this same distinction in every single abortion thread that pops up on this forum because all you goddamned sheep base your opinions on bumper-sticker slogans instead of actually thinking about the issue thoroughly and discussing it in the most rigorous terms.

If you want to argue that a fetus is a person, that's fine, and I have no problem extending personhood to any fetus at or beyond exo-uterine viability. The fact remains, however, that no person has an unqualified right to occupy the body of another person against that person's will. No person has the unqualified right to forcibly respirate and extract nutrients from another person's blood stream. No person has an unqualified right to forcibly inject another person with hormones and body waste. Each such instance represents a fundamental violation of a person's bodily integrity, and as such any person seeking to enjoy those rights needs to acquire an explicit waiver from the other party. These are well-established legal principles to which an abortion ban would run directly counter.

If a woman has the freedom to become pregnant of her own volition, then equally she has the freedom to become unpregnant of her own volition. As much as no one can force her to become pregnant against her will, no one can force her to remain pregnant against her will.

These are the facts. They are not going away, so you'd better get used to them.

 

[Throckmorton]

there is no pro-abortion crowd. there is a pro-choice crowd.

don't be daft.

again, it goes around the definition of life. The mother makes her own choice--the outsie crowd should not be making choices on "her behalf" that she is somehow not allowed to make. Seriously...for all of the conservatives that are very much anti-abortion, this forced choice that you advocate flies completely in the face of "legislation for your own good."

The pro choice crowd does not consider this a morality vs morality issue, it's simply a complex choice that someone should have the right to make on their own. Why you choose to equate this to murder, rape theft, is well...fucking naive.

The only way you can make it not a moral issue is if you assume that a fetus isn't a human life. Biologically, a fetus is a human life with its own body and its own DNA. That is undisputable.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The only way you can make it not a moral issue is if you assume that a fetus isn't a human life. Biologically, a fetus is a human life with its own body and its own DNA. That is undisputable.

So is a cancerous tumor. So is a HeLA cell culture. So is a renal biopsy.

 

[Throckmorton]

"Life" is not the object of rights and duties under the United States Constitution. PERSONS are, and persons are human, born, and alive.

I always have to make this same distinction in every single abortion thread that pops up on this forum because all you goddamned sheep base your opinions on bumper-sticker slogans instead of actually thinking about the issue thoroughly and discussing it in the most rigorous terms.

If you want to argue that a fetus is a person, that's fine, and I have no problem extending personhood to any fetus at or beyond exo-uterine viability. The fact remains, however, that no person has an unqualified right to occupy the body of another person against that person's will. No person has the unqualified right to forcibly respirate and extract nutrients from another person's blood stream. No person has an unqualified right to forcibly inject another person with hormones and body waste. Each such instance represents a fundamental violation of a person's bodily integrity, and as such any person seeking to enjoy those rights needs to acquire an explicit waiver from the other party. These are well-established legal principles to which an abortion ban would run directly counter.

If a woman has the freedom to become pregnant of her own volition, then equally she has the freedom to become unpregnant of her own volition. As much as no one can force her to become pregnant against her will, no one can force her to remain pregnant against her will.

These are the facts. They are not going away, so you'd better get used to them.

If the state can force parents to raise their kids, why can't it force a woman to carry a fetus?

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I always have to make this same distinction in every single abortion thread that pops up on this forum because all you goddamned sheep base your opinions on bumper-sticker slogans instead of actually thinking about the issue thoroughly and discussing it in the most rigorous terms.

There is a clear and reasonable argument to be made for why we should treat all human life as though it possesses person-hood.

If you can't see that you're as bumper-sticker blind as the next guy.

 

[thraashman]

If the state can force parents to raise their kids, why can't it force a woman to carry a fetus?

So you're also in support of the state forcing an abortion on a woman since the state can forcibly remove a child from a parent? Same argument!

 

[Throckmorton]

So is a cancerous tumor. So is a HeLA cell culture. So is a renal biopsy.

A cancerous tumor's DNA is mutated from the patient's own DNA. It's not a person.

I googled HeLA and as far as I can tell they're just cells that have been continuously grown from a cancer. Not a person any more than a blood sample.

Apparently a renal biopsy involves a cell sample?

A fetus has its own human DNA and its own physical human body, which doesn't apply to any of those things.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

If the state can force parents to raise their kids, why can't it force a woman to carry a fetus?

Is is the case that the state can force parents to raise their kids?

Think about that one for a minute.

 

[Throckmorton]

So you're also in support of the state forcing an abortion on a woman since the state can forcibly remove a child from a parent? Same argument!

Yes, if it's possible to place the fetus in an orphanage or with adopted parents.

 

[werepossum]

The only way you can make it not a moral issue is if you assume that a fetus isn't a human life. Biologically, a fetus is a human life with its own body and its own DNA. That is undisputable.

I'm surprised at you. Two quintessential American liberal/progressive mantras are that there is no such thing as a fetus, merely a mass of cells parasitic on a woman which can be suctioned out at her discretion, and that humans being the most destructive critter on the planet, no unborn human has the worth of the mangiest Rattus norvegicus - hell, even children are here on probation, as liberal support for Andrea Yates demonstrates. Yet you've overcome both, and now I find myself in the curious position of being to your left on an issue. (Although I recognize that a fetus is a genetically unique human individual and therefore deserving of societal protection, I still support abortion rights up to viability outside the womb, on libertarian grounds.)

I am impressed with your independence of the progressive dogma.

 

[Throckmorton]

Is is the case that the state can force parents to raise their kids?

Think about that one for a minute.

The state can imprison parents for not raising their kids properly.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

A cancerous tumor's DNA is mutated from the patient's own DNA. It's not a person.

You weren't talking about persons. You were talking about human life. A cancerous tumor is human and alive.

I googled HeLA and as far as I can tell they're just cells that have been continuously grown from a cancer. Not a person any more than a blood sample.

Is it human and alive?

Apparently a renal biopsy involves a cell sample?

Are human cells human and alive?

A fetus has its own human DNA and its own physical human body, which doesn't apply to any of those things.

Cool story, bro! :thumbsup: Now, why don't you take a stab at making a relevant point, hmm?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

The state can imprison parents for not raising their kids properly.

That doesn't answer the question.

Are there no legal means by which a parent can escape an obligation to support and care for a child?

Do I need to draw you a picture?

 

[Throckmorton]

That doesn't answer the question.

Are there no legal means by which a parent can escape an obligation to support and care for a child?

Do I need to draw you a picture?

Ah yes, adoption, which is also possible for a fetus if you can wait a few months.

 

[Throckmorton]

You weren't talking about persons. You were talking about human life. A cancerous tumor is human and alive.


Is it human and alive?


Are human cells human and alive?


Cool story, bro! :thumbsup: Now, why don't you take a stab at making a relevant point, hmm?

A cell or a collection of cells that was part of a human and has been separated is not the same as a human embryo that is the result of the natural reproductive process and is by all biological definitions a human

 

[thraashman]

A cell or a collection of cells that was part of a human and has been separated is not the same as a human embryo that is the result of the natural reproductive process and is by all biological definitions a human

By your biological definition for sure, but not by all.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Cool story, bro! :thumbsup: Now, why don't you take a stab at making a relevant point, hmm?

That is 100% related to your point that a fetus and a cancer cell are, in relation to being alive, equivalent.

You seem to be dismissing anything that may question your suppositions.

Are there no legal means by which a parent can escape an obligation to support and care for a child?

Then shouldn't our legal means be not for abortion, but for induced labor/c-section?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

That is 100% related to your point that a fetus and a cancer cell are, in relation to being alive, equivalent.

My point, somewhat indirectly made, admittedly, was that a claim that a fetus is "human life" and therefore enjoys the rights of persons is false, because if it were true, then cancerous tumors and HeLa cell cultures would also enjoy the rights of persons, being that they are also human life.

Attempting to deflect that point by stating that fetus has a body whereas tumors do not is indeed a red herring. Being human and alive (body or no body) does not make one a person.

You seem to be dismissing anything that may question your suppositions.

Red herrings are red herrings. I will dismiss them as such.

Then shouldn't our legal means be not for abortion, but for induced labor/c-section?

Can you force a woman to have a c-section against her will? You see, the point here is bodily integrity -- personal sovereignty, if you will. A woman gets to decide for herself what she does with her own body. If she doesn't want to be pregnant, she can become unpregnant as freely as she became pregnant in the first place.

Do you think it should be legal to force a woman to become pregnant against her will? Why would that be illegal?

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

A cell or a collection of cells that was part of a human and has been separated is not the same as a human embryo that is the result of the natural reproductive process and is by all biological definitions a human

They are all human life. The objects of rights and duties under the united states constitution are PERSONS, and "person" is not a biological designation and more than "husband" is.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Ah yes, adoption...

So when you said that the state can force you to raise a child, you made a false statement.

...which is also possible for a fetus if you can wait a few months.

Which a woman can freely choose to do at her own discretion. Denying her the right to terminate her pregnancy of her own free will turns her into an involuntary incubator. For someone who so loudly trumpets the dignity of being human you are disgustingly casual about dehumanizing women.

 

[Paratus]

There is a clear and reasonable argument to be made for why we should treat all human life as though it possesses person-hood.

If you can't see that you're as bumper-sticker blind as the next guy.

Well the problem with that is a fertilized egg or"baby" to you has around a %35 of not implating in the uterus or dying to you. I don't see if how, if you believe a fertilized egg is a person, that you can morally become pregnant/impregnate a woman.

The other extreme this view takes us to is the real life case of a 9 year old Brazillian girl (I think) who was rapped by her step-father.

When the doctors recommended abortion due to the high risks of injury or death to the child the church threatened to excommunicate any doctor who performed the abortion. The church followed through when the abortion was performed.

So by all means keep pushing for government enforced pregnancies, just be prepared to force your raped daughter to carrying that baby even if it kills her.

 

[Paratus]

So when you said that the state can force you to raise a child, you made a false statement.


Which a woman can freely choose to do at her own discretion. Denying her the right to terminate her pregnancy of her own free will turns her into an involuntary incubator. For someone who so loudly trumpets the dignity of being human you are disgustingly casual about dehumanizing women.

The real way to reduce abortions is change the prevaling view that sex is dirty and to be hidden. That women who have out of wed lock children be shunned and instead foster an environment where contraception and abstinence are used appropriately and adoption is real viable option. Abortion would remain legal and safe for the few instances required.

I mean for every woman using aborion as contra ception there's a teenage girl sneaking to Planned Parenthood so she won't be kicked out by her parents and ostracized by her church - assuming she just doesn't throw the baby in the dumpster.

I don't think many anti-abortionists would be willing to change their views on sex just to reduce abortions. I mean babies are a gift from God except when they are punishments for sex.

 

[Throckmorton]

They are all human life. The objects of rights and duties under the united states constitution are PERSONS, and "person" is not a biological designation and more than "husband" is.

A human life is different from "human life". A fetus is A human. Cells from a human are not a human.