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Please stop using the incorrect term, they aren't pro-life, they are pro-birth.

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werepossum said:
I don't think one can appreciate Heaven with experiencing Earth. Even Jesus had to experience life as a mortal man to appreciate the souls he was sent to save.
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Who cares about that. If there is a 100% guaranteed way of escaping any chance of burning in a lake of fire for eternity, giving that gift to an unborn child is a morally good thing. It minimizes human suffering. I have been told by countless Christians that one hour in hell is more unimaginably horrific than any pain or suffering on earth experienced over an entire lifetime. If Christians believe that, it makes no sense for them to be pro-life unless they also believe that the lives of those children are far more important than their immortal souls (which is in direct contradiction to the Bible). They should be ringing a bell with each abortion so that the Christians could celebrate another baby entering heaven.

I think underneath it all, Christians realize that their religion is bullshit and that there is no afterlife. That is the only explanation I can come up with for why they care about so much about this. If they truly believed in the afterlife, it would be immoral for them to oppose abortion.

For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
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“The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world.”
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PS. I can think of no legitimate moral argument against 1st trimester abortions. Third trimester abortions are a completely different animal of course....
 
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werepossum said:
But in order to carry out that mandate, the State needs must take away the freedom of every pregnant woman from the state of conception, for the fetus is at great risk from myriad factors from that point forward. That would provide the maximum practical protection for the children, but it is also completely incompatible with a free society since it completely removes the woman's freedom for the baby's benefit. Worse, it mandates that she dedicate her body to its nourishment. I can't imagine much worse than spending nine months nurturing the child of one's rapist, yet the baby is equally as innocent as any other.

Personally, I don't see any practical way to protect the life of a pre-viable baby while protecting the freedom of the mother. After the baby is viable outside of the womb, certainly the State has an interest in protecting it, and we at least pay lip service to that by restricting late term abortions. But before that point, protecting the baby means enslaving the mother. If the State must commit one evil to prevent another, sure it should err on the side of doing nothing. Better for the State to commit evil through inaction than to commit evil directly, I think.
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I was more referring to society, than State. However, if society (parents/family/woman) cannot or will not protect the child, then the State can step in as it does in other cases where the competency, for example, of a parent is in question over the protection of the child.

It is a difficult decision certainly and I do not see any practical way either to protect a child and provide the supposed freedom to a woman not to carry a child. Hence why I built the construct within which I can frame my viewpoint.

EDIT: rape or life of the mother are the two exceptions to the rule. Rape the woman had no choice and life of the mother must be preserved as a moral imperative to continuation of the species
 
bshole said:
Who cares about that. If there is a 100% guaranteed way of escaping any chance of burning in a lake of fire for eternity, giving that gift to an unborn child is a morally good thing. It minimizes human suffering. I have been told by countless Christians that one hour in hell is more unimaginably horrific than any pain or suffering on earth experienced over an entire lifetime. If Christians believe that, it makes no sense for them to be pro-life unless they also believe that the lives of those children are far more important than their immortal souls (which is in direct contradiction to the Bible). They should be ringing a bell with each abortion so that the Christians could celebrate another baby entering heaven.

I think underneath it all, Christians realize that their religion is bullshit and that there is no afterlife. That is the only explanation I can come up with for why they care about so much about this. If they truly believed in the afterlife, it would be immoral for them to oppose abortion.

PS. I can think of no legitimate moral argument against 1st trimester abortions. Third trimester abortions are a completely different animal of course....
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In general, Christians believe in original sin. So there's no reason to be certain that aborted babies automatically go to Heaven. And in one accepts the Jewish Orthodox view that an aborted baby has not yet received its soul, then abortion kills a human but is soul-neutral.
 
dphantom said:
I was more referring to society, than State. However, if society (parents/family/woman) cannot or will not protect the child, then the State can step in as it does in other cases where the competency, for example, of a parent is in question over the protection of the child.

It is a difficult decision certainly and I do not see any practical way either to protect a child and provide the supposed freedom to a woman not to carry a child. Hence why I built the construct within which I can frame my viewpoint.

EDIT: rape or life of the mother are the two exceptions to the rule. Rape the woman had no choice and life of the mother must be preserved as a moral imperative to continuation of the species
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You and I agree that it's a difficult decision, yet somehow the vast majority on both sides of the debate insist that it's not even morally debatable. Weird, eh?
 
Atreus21 said:
I don't see how that makes sense. The event of birth doesn't confer any status on the child that wasn't there 10 minutes before, or two days before, or a month before.
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I'm not aware of 8 month abortions being popular, much less common outside of extreme circumstances. I'm really not.

Obviously killing babies is wrong, much like killing humans. But this is why there are laws against murder. One must first be a human, however, to be murdered or to be killed. I understand that you and others see the process of gestation: an entirely complicated process whereby we see a ~10-15% chance (well, less actually), of a fertilized oocyte progressing into an implanted embryo, a fetus, and an actual baby as some sort of divine miracle (whereby a celestial being imparts some specific magic and selection on a mere percentage of human--only human--embryos as opposed to the vast majority of others), rather than the routinely observed, quantified, and documented processes of biology.

I get that. I get that you guys stick to an oddly irrational bronze age view of actual life processes...and that is cool. I just don't understand why such views should be considered more valid than actual scientific observation and definitions, and why we should legislate in favor of such antiquated and irrational views as opposed to rational facts of biology? Why? I really don't understand.
 
zinfamous said:
I'm not aware of 8 month abortions being popular, much less common outside of extreme circumstances. I'm really not.

Obviously killing babies is wrong, much like killing humans. But this is why there are laws against murder. One must first be a human, however, to be murdered or to be killed. I understand that you and others see the process of gestation: an entirely complicated process whereby we see a ~10-15% chance (well, less actually), of a fertilized oocyte progressing into an implanted embryo, a fetus, and an actual baby as some sort of divine miracle (whereby a celestial being imparts some specific magic and selection on a mere percentage of human--only human--embryos as opposed to the vast majority of others), rather than the routinely observed, quantified, and documented processes of biology.

I get that. I get that you guys stick to an oddly irrational bronze age view of actual life processes...and that is cool. I just don't understand why such views should be considered more valid than actual scientific observation and definitions, and why we should legislate in favor of such antiquated and irrational views as opposed to rational facts of biology? Why? I really don't understand.
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I think you have that backward. It's thanks to medical science that we now know that babies several months from birth already exhibit very human traits. In this case, science makes the conundrum more difficult, not less.
 
werepossum said:
In general, Christians believe in original sin. So there's no reason to be certain that aborted babies automatically go to Heaven. And in one accepts the Jewish Orthodox view that an aborted baby has not yet received its soul, then abortion kills a human but is soul-neutral.
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Some Christians are actually arguing that the God of the Bible is evil enough to send aborted fetuses to hell? That is a whole new level of twisted sadism...
 
werepossum said:
I think you have that backward. It's thanks to medical science that we now know that babies several months from birth already exhibit very human traits. In this case, science makes the conundrum more difficult, not less.
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Yes and many species of animals exhibit similarly human traits just as a human fetus might.

But it is also because of science and medicine that you will essentially have no consensus on the beginning of "life," which, as can best be understood, is the result of a certain process that begins at fertilization and has a very low probability of success. Hell, it wasn't until acquired human intervention, through centuries of knowledge, that this "miracle" process, only in the last 7 or so decades, achieved a success rate of infant and maternal mortality better than ~34%...that's completely insane, you know? (And this is simply the rate of success at birth--nevermind the perilous journey getting from individual gametes to fetus) But, science and medicine is why this is possible. Not thoughts and prayers.

But back to the embryos and what science tells us: I think you will receive conflicting definitions of "life" from cardiologists, neurologists, embryologists, microbiologists, etc. Which science is right?
 
zinfamous said:
Yes and many species of animals exhibit similarly human traits just as a human fetus might.

But it is also because of science and medicine that you will essentially have no consensus on the beginning of "life," which, as can best be understood, is the result of a certain process that begins at fertilization and has a very low probability of success. Hell, it wasn't until acquired human intervention, through centuries of knowledge, that this "miracle" process, only in the last 7 or so decades, achieved a success rate of infant and maternal mortality better than ~34%...that's completely insane, you know? (And this is simply the rate of success at birth--nevermind the perilous journey getting from individual gametes to fetus) But, science and medicine is why this is possible. Not thoughts and prayers.

But back to the embryos and what science tells us: I think you will receive conflicting definitions of "life" from cardiologists, neurologists, embryologists, microbiologists, etc. Which science is right?
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That was my point. Historically, it was simple - you had a breathing, crying baby or you didn't. Now nobody really knows at what point it becomes a conscious, thinking human being. Ergo, medical science made the conundrum more difficult rather than less.
 
werepossum said:
That was my point. Historically, it was simple - you had a breathing, crying baby or you didn't. Now nobody really knows at what point it becomes a conscious, thinking human being. Ergo, medical science made the conundrum more difficult rather than less.
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Well, that's what I get for reading only one of the two sentences that you wrote! 😛
 
werepossum said:
You and I agree that it's a difficult decision, yet somehow the vast majority on both sides of the debate insist that it's not even morally debatable. Weird, eh?
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Absolutely. Not only that, but in this issue relative to others people reach for explanations for one's beliefs rooted in religious doctrine, insist upon use of terms that paint the picture in their way, etc. And this seems to be the biggest (or close to) generator of single-issue voters. In my view, there has been very little movement in the legality of abortion over a long time, and prospects of that change don't look great to me either.

So why are we so passionate about it?

Well, personally, I think there is something to be said for the degree of moral uncertainty and relatability inherent in an honest look at abortion. We are not very comfortable with ambiguity, especially when the stakes are the very definition of life.

Personally, I'm pro-choice because I find it haughty to presume that I could define where life starts and ends, and then to secondarily enforce that presumption upon others.
 
There is a motive behind all this... money

Make abortion illegal, make contraception expensive & difficult to obtain & very soon you have a bumper crop of white infants who will be needing adoptive homes. Maternity homes for unwed mother will open again particularly in conservative states, adoption agencies will flourish basically selling these infants via their high fee structure.

It's all about the money...
 
Geekbabe said:
There is a motive behind all this... money

Make abortion illegal, make contraception expensive & difficult to obtain & very soon you have a bumper crop of white infants who will be needing adoptive homes. Maternity homes for unwed mother will open again particularly in conservative states, adoption agencies will flourish basically selling these infants via their high fee structure.

It's all about the money...
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Um, there's a ton of money being made in the abortion industry right now. Baby parts bring big dollars. (Sorry - I meant room rental fees bring big dollars.) Plus, I'm not sure how many white babies would be born, but I'm sure many non-white babies would also be born.
 
Atreus21 said:
What has any of this to do with the topic? Can we not just say that killing babies is wrong and save the debate over war and its casualties for a separate topic?
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Really? After all these posts and threads, you still can't bring yourself to acknowledge the hypocrisy of being pro-war but also somehow "pro-life"?

Of course killing babies is wrong, but babies are born. They have names, are assigned an eye color, get SS#s, get an official gender, you know... non-fetus stuff.

Cherry pick away Atreus, it's what you do, but please - do spare us your rot about being civilized. Civilized people weigh expected civilian losses (involving actual kids) against the post-conflict economic benefits quite often, yet we don't see you decrying that. For your crowd, it's usually quite the opposite. How civilized was the Mandalay mass shooting? Why aren't you trying to legislate away personal rights for repetitive mass death and wounding that no one can dispute there? Because personal rights are subjective to you, because you backward ass social authoritarians just have to punish women, hold them under that yoke of the Judeo Christian tradition.

Not entirely aimed at you, but I just love how the bible quotes and the pope don't necessarily speak for christians, but people like Lena fucking Dunham speak for all pro-choice people. Hilarious.
 
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interchange said:
Absolutely. Not only that, but in this issue relative to others people reach for explanations for one's beliefs rooted in religious doctrine, insist upon use of terms that paint the picture in their way, etc. And this seems to be the biggest (or close to) generator of single-issue voters. In my view, there has been very little movement in the legality of abortion over a long time, and prospects of that change don't look great to me either.

So why are we so passionate about it?

Well, personally, I think there is something to be said for the degree of moral uncertainty and relatability inherent in an honest look at abortion. We are not very comfortable with ambiguity, especially when the stakes are the very definition of life.

Personally, I'm pro-choice because I find it haughty to presume that I could define where life starts and ends, and then to secondarily enforce that presumption upon others.
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Well said. For me though, the issue isn't so much where life starts as the appropriate role of the State. Life as a unique human individual obviously starts at conception. Yet that really answers nothing, for if we were to place a fertilized and/or implanted egg as equal in value to a born human, then such would be entitled to the same level of State protection. Women who are sexually active would have to be virtual property of the State, since it isn't even possible to detect pregnancy right away and almost anything could potentially cause a fertilized egg to fail to develop.

Personally I prefer differentiating at viability outside the womb. Yet that's no easy answer either, since while viability may begin at four or five months, it's far from assured. Also, women often lie to get a late term abortion, because for most the decision is very difficult and may not be one they can comfortably fit into the first two trimesters. There simply are no easy answers for abortion, and a third trimester ban with exceptions, with the sure knowledge that some doctors' and mothers' consciences will allow infringing upon that, may be the best for which we can hope.
And personally, I too am fine with that ambiguity. Ambiguity may not be comfortable, but it should help keep us humble if we admit to it. As for why we are so passionate about it, well, it IS a matter of life and death, and part of the human condition is the urge to force our principles onto others. And sadly, being passionate about abortion (on either side) allows us to feel morally superior at no real cost to ourselves.
 
werepossum said:
Well said. For me though, the issue isn't so much where life starts as the appropriate role of the State. Life as a unique human individual obviously starts at conception. Yet that really answers nothing, for if we were to place a fertilized and/or implanted egg as equal in value to a born human, then such would be entitled to the same level of State protection. Women who are sexually active would have to be virtual property of the State, since it isn't even possible to detect pregnancy right away and almost anything could potentially cause a fertilized egg to fail to develop.

Personally I prefer differentiating at viability outside the womb. Yet that's no easy answer either, since while viability may begin at four or five months, it's far from assured. Also, women often lie to get a late term abortion, because for most the decision is very difficult and may not be one they can comfortably fit into the first two trimesters. There simply are no easy answers for abortion, and a third trimester ban with exceptions, with the sure knowledge that some doctors' and mothers' consciences will allow infringing upon that, may be the best for which we can hope.
And personally, I too am fine with that ambiguity. Ambiguity may not be comfortable, but it should help keep us humble if we admit to it. As for why we are so passionate about it, well, it IS a matter of life and death, and part of the human condition is the urge to force our principles onto others. And sadly, being passionate about abortion (on either side) allows us to feel morally superior at no real cost to ourselves.
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I wouldn't say that life obviously starts at conception, but I do think it's the only scientifically consistent and absolute place to draw that line. It's problematic in more ways than application to government, because using such definition to criminalize abortion would obligate you to criminalize IVF and non barrier methods of birth control.

But I like what you said last best of all. Owing to its controversy and mainstream support for radical positions, abortion is a perfect issue to use for the purposes of asserting moral superiority over others without fear.
 
Anyone see this article over at Ars? Ugh. 🙁

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...ed-us-brokers-make-killing-on-donated-bodies/

Speaking of making money from dead bodies, funny how this state of affairs doesn't seem to have generated much outcry. Harder to use in an election bid I suppose.

"Dead human bodies are critical to medical training, physicians and researchers say. And thousands of Americans are happy to donate their meat suits for the greater good after they're gone. But in the US, a body’s trip from a morgue to a medical school or lab can be gruesome, shady, and expensive. Some don’t make it at all. Instead, bits and pieces of donated loved ones—sometimes disassembled with chainsaws—end up decomposing in parking lots, forgotten in unplugged freezers, and tossed unceremoniously into incinerators.


And law enforcement can do nothing—there are few to no laws that regulate the grim industry of human body brokering. Grieving families, who are often misled and in the dark about the fate of their loved ones, can be left horrified."
 
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interchange said:
I wouldn't say that life obviously starts at conception, but I do think it's the only scientifically consistent and absolute place to draw that line. It's problematic in more ways than application to government, because using such definition to criminalize abortion would obligate you to criminalize IVF and non barrier methods of birth control.

But I like what you said last best of all. Owing to its controversy and mainstream support for radical positions, abortion is a perfect issue to use for the purposes of asserting moral superiority over others without fear.
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Yup. Without fear, without personal cost, and without any tiresome thinking. 😀
 
kage69 said:
Anyone see this article over at Ars? Ugh. 🙁

https://arstechnica.com/science/201...ed-us-brokers-make-killing-on-donated-bodies/

Speaking of making money from dead bodies, funny how this state of affairs doesn't seem to have generated much outcry. Harder to use in an election bid I suppose.
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Outrage without political advantage or personal aggrandizement is hardly worth the trouble.

For myself, this pretty much says it all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEhqzOeJnto
Please don't bury me down in that cold cold ground.
I'm gonna have them cut me up and pass me all around.
 
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