Saddleback point: At what point is a life a life?

[shira]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: Colt45
If you don't want an abortion, don't have one... simple enough, yeah?

If you don't want to murder anyone, don't murder anyone. Simple enough, yeah?

Great theory, unless it happens that someone else does want to murder someone. Then you need to develop a theory of why murder is right or wrong to legislate who will get their way. Moral relativism FTL.

Well, gee, let's see if we can come up with a distinction between murder and abortion. How about:

Virtually 100% of the population agrees that actively taking the life of an actual living, breathing, out-of-the-womb person (except under special circumstances such as self-defense, state-sanctioned capital punishment, or certain quality-of-life situations) is and should continue to be a punishable, criminal act. And the U.S. Constitution, with its continual references to "people" (as opposed to "human life") lends support to the notion that a "person" is an entity with inherent rights.

Less than half (I'm being generous here - it's probably a LOT less than half) of the population views abortion as the equivalent of a criminal act, and the Constitution gives no support to the notion that a fetus is a person.

Thus, this little analogy of PsychoWiz. . ., er, CycloWizard's is the typical black-and-white assertion by someone on the right who cannot deal with ambiguity, nuance, shades-of-gray. If a baby with its head just emerging from the birth canal is a person - worthy of protection - then by golly a just-fertilized egg is a person, too.

It's plenty clear to me that a zygote isn't a person. And it's plenty clear to me that an eight-month-old fetus IS a person. Human life is a necessary but not sufficient condition for personhood. Is this really so difficult to understand?

So instead of yammering and hammering this stale, blanket "abortion is murder" stuff, why not deal with reality and instead participate in the far more meaningful debate on when - along the continuum from conception to birth - does a fetus become a person, worthy of protection? If we can all reach a consensus on that question, the issue of abortion and how to deal with it will be a whole lot easier.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: Colt45
If you don't want an abortion, don't have one... simple enough, yeah?

Don't create the child you mean?

Nobody creates a child. A child is something that happens if it happens when you have sex. Creativity of the kind you imply requires volition.

 

[Darwin333]

Originally posted by: GroundedSailor


Abortion is not the same as murder.

Murder is the killing of a legally defined human being.

A fetus is not a legally defined human being. Only becomes one after birth.

Big difference.

Tell that to the people that have been convicted of murdering an unborn child.

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Life begins when the fetus can survive outside the womb and be a normal, healthy baby.

So science and medicine determine when human life begins? That magical moment is much sooner in the pregnancy now than it was 100 years ago so does human life actually begin earlier now than it did 100 years ago?

Another question, not aimed at anyone specifically, if the mother can opt out of her parental responsibilities with no input from the father then why can the father not do the same? Of course he couldn't force her to have an abortion but shouldn't he be able to sign away his rights and responsibilities just like the mother can?

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: TechAZ

Originally posted by: bdude

Originally posted by: TechAZ

Originally posted by: WHAMPOM
Pro-life is the anti-abortion cop out, becuase they are not for prenatal care, child care, health care, education, or any other benefit for the mother and child. Just punish a woman by bearing an unwanted child.

I'm not "anti-abortion", but your comments on this issue are pretty damn stupid. Who is not for prenatal care, child care, health care, education, etc etc?

You almost make it seem like abortion is a morally acceptable form of birth control.

A good 40-50% of this country.

BS

I think they go by the label republicans.

 

[smack Down]

Originally posted by: brandonb
My response:

Life starts at conception. The DNA has mixed and the cells start to reproduce with its own unique charactistics found in that DNA. Life has started there, every definition of life is there. The only thing is that this life is dependant on is a host. A parasite is still life, even if its sucking the blood of a host. Taking a parasite away from the host will mean it dies, but doesn't that mean it was originally alive? Or does that mean the parasite was never alive to begin with?

Life starts at conception. Not before, not after. Just because that life was dependant on the blood of the host the first 9 months, and dependant on the host by other means for 18 years after, doesn't mean its not life by any means that I'm aware of.

But I suppose in liberal pro evolution animal kingdom saving nonsense, its not life until its 18 and paying taxes for the poor povery sticken people of this world.

Now if the question is, when does that life get rights to live, that is largely subjective. Most will think a tick is not worth living if its sucking the blood of a host. They stomp on it, ignite it with a flame thrower, whatever. But morally speaking. The mother is not infected by a random creature walking on this planet. The mother has made a choice to get "infected by this parasite" (known as a fetus), so I think she needs to take responsibility for it.

Its not a tick, its a human being. A mother has a choice with birth control, etc to prevent conception and this from happening. Apparently she doesn't care if she got pregnant, so I think its murder if she goes and kills her baby in some form.

An analogy would be: You decided to babysit for your friend for a day. The mother was out grocery shopping got into a car accident and died. The baby is now yours (provided no other family could be found)... Is it ok for you to kill the baby because you never wanted it to begin with? Or do you have a moral responsibility to take care of it even if you wanted it or not?

Are laws are there because of morality. Do not kill is a moral law. Do not steal is a moral law. Even though the situation is the same in the last paragraph as getting pregnant with a kid you don't want, one would be murder, the other isn't.

The fact that the cells are alive is not the issue. A cow is alive and most people have no problem killing a cow. How is a human embryo different then a cow?

 

[LumbergTech]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: Colt45
If you don't want an abortion, don't have one... simple enough, yeah?

Don't create the child you mean?

Nobody creates a child. A child is something that happens if it happens when you have sex. Creativity of the kind you imply requires volition.

you create a child by how you treat and raise them and the work you put into them

you can also create a monster

 

[Brigandier]

Just my two cents on Obama's "above my pay grade" response, I think he was referring ot the point of consciousness, which is a hotly debated point and is above the pay-grade of a majority of people.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: Brigandier
Just my two cents on Obama's "above my pay grade" response, I think he was referring ot the point of consciousness, which is a hotly debated point and is above the pay-grade of a majority of people.

Yeah, I thought he was talking about G-d.

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: LumbergTech

Originally posted by: Moonbeam

Originally posted by: Jaskalas

Originally posted by: Colt45
If you don't want an abortion, don't have one... simple enough, yeah?

Don't create the child you mean?

Nobody creates a child. A child is something that happens if it happens when you have sex. Creativity of the kind you imply requires volition.

you create a child by how you treat and raise them and the work you put into them

you can also create a monster

A child has a rigid definition. Monster does not. Try to be more clear.

 

[BoberFett]

I just wish men had the same right to choose as women do. A woman's right to choose starts at conception and ends at birth apparently. A man's right to choose ends at conception. After that it's 18 years of slavery.

Edit: I would also like to add, that if it's just a fetus and not a human with rights, then can't a man just punch his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach so she miscarries and get off with a simple assault charge? Yet that will get you murder charges in most places. Why the double standard?

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: shira

Originally posted by: KIRBYEE
Let's be clear about what Obama did, once in 2003 and twice before that. He effectively voted for infanticide. He voted to allow doctors to deny medically appropriate treatment or, worse yet, actively kill a completely delivered living baby.

It's always convenient to put words into the mouths of those we oppose. So this, "He effectively voted for infanticide" is almost certainly subject to debate. I'm guessing that Obama had a pretty good reason for opposing the bill - it might have been linked together with another, unpalatable measure or included an unacceptable provision.

For example, suppose a bill that banned the killing of already-delivered babies also included a provision that legalized child prostitution. Would you vote for such a bill? I thought not.

If you could provide us with text of the bills, we might be able to figure out what the problem was.

Passed 98-0 in the Senate . . . highly controversial, I'd say

The U.S. Senate voted 98-0 in favor of a law virtually identical to this one (with the only exception being a clause that makes it explicit that this law doesn't change any legal status of pre-born fetuses). Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) gave a floor speech explaining why no pro-choice Democrat should worry about such a bill undermining or conflicting with the Supreme Court's guarantee of abortion rights. Hillary Clinton was among the 98 Senators who voted yes. No senators voted no. Yet Barack Obama refused several times to sign on to what a unanimous U.S. Senate was willing to pass.

. . .

"The legislation was written to ban abortion, plain and simple," she said. "Sen. Obama saw the legislation, when he was there, for what it was."

On the narrower issue of "born alive" infants, Sutherland said, Planned Parenthood of Illinois worked last year with the anti-abortion group, the Illinois Federation of Right to Life, to pass legislation that protects infants that survive abortion procedures.


This will not fly, however. The only difference between the federal law and the state law is the extra clause in the federal law declaring that the law does not affect any legal status of unborn fetuses.

. . .

The second reason this defense of Obama won't work is because the Illinois state legislature considered an amended bill that does have the clause from the federal version. Obama killed the amended bill in committee. Unless there's some independent justification for this, I don't see how he could consistently have voted for the federal law that passed the Senate unanimously and garnered a floor speech from Senator Boxer about how no pro-choicer should vote against it.

 

[Throckmorton]

Originally posted by: brandonb
My response:

Life starts at conception. The DNA has mixed and the cells start to reproduce with its own unique charactistics found in that DNA. Life has started there, every definition of life is there. The only thing is that this life is dependant on is a host. A parasite is still life, even if its sucking the blood of a host. Taking a parasite away from the host will mean it dies, but doesn't that mean it was originally alive? Or does that mean the parasite was never alive to begin with?

Life starts at conception. Not before, not after. Just because that life was dependant on the blood of the host the first 9 months, and dependant on the host by other means for 18 years after, doesn't mean its not life by any means that I'm aware of.

But I suppose in liberal pro evolution animal kingdom saving nonsense, its not life until its 18 and paying taxes for the poor povery sticken people of this world.

Now if the question is, when does that life get rights to live, that is largely subjective. Most will think a tick is not worth living if its sucking the blood of a host. They stomp on it, ignite it with a flame thrower, whatever. But morally speaking. The mother is not infected by a random creature walking on this planet. The mother has made a choice to get "infected by this parasite" (known as a fetus), so I think she needs to take responsibility for it.

Its not a tick, its a human being. A mother has a choice with birth control, etc to prevent conception and this from happening. Apparently she doesn't care if she got pregnant, so I think its murder if she goes and kills her baby in some form.

An analogy would be: You decided to babysit for your friend for a day. The mother was out grocery shopping got into a car accident and died. The baby is now yours (provided no other family could be found)... Is it ok for you to kill the baby because you never wanted it to begin with? Or do you have a moral responsibility to take care of it even if you wanted it or not?

Are laws are there because of morality. Do not kill is a moral law. Do not steal is a moral law. Even though the situation is the same in the last paragraph as getting pregnant with a kid you don't want, one would be murder, the other isn't.

Liberal pro evolution animal kingdom saving nonsense? What the hell are you talking about? First you act like you believe in DNA and naturalistic reproduction and use it to argue that life begins at conception, then you pretend evolution doesn't exist? You can't have it both ways.

I don't understand what religion has to do with this. You either believe that human rights start at conception when biological human life begins, or at birth when independent human life begins. Ironically, Christianity seems to recognize birth as the start of life- Ever heard of a fetus being christened?


I don't think birth can really be used to define anything. I think technically consciousness doesn't begin until quite a while after birth. But it's a convenient legal definition.

 

[Perknose]

Originally posted by: BoberFett
Edit: I would also like to add, that if it's just a fetus and not a human with rights, then can't a man just punch his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach so she miscarries and get off with a simple assault charge? Yet that will get you murder charges in most places. Why the double standard?

Getting a murder charge has just come about in the last couple of years as part and parcel of the concerted political effort to eventually outlaw abortion in America by establishing "personhood" rights for the fetus, at conception.


Edit: Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004.

Prior to enactment of the federal law, the "child in utero" was, as a general rule, not recognized as a victim of federal crimes of violence. Thus, in a federal crime that injured a pregnant woman and killed the "child in utero," no homicide was recognized, in most cases.[4]

The Unborn Victims of Violence Act was strongly opposed by most pro-choice organizations, on grounds that the U.S. Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision said that the human fetus is not a "person" under the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and that if the fetus were a Fourteenth Amendment "person," then he or she would have a constitutional right to life.

While laws saying the same have preceeded this federal act in many states, and while constitutional scholars do differ as to whether this act, or any fetal homicide laws actually do invalidate Roe v. Wade, one of the prinicple underlying intents of many supporting this act has been and remains the overthrow of Roe.

 

[BoberFett]

Good to know, thanks for the info.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: brandonb
My response:

Life starts at conception. The DNA has mixed and the cells start to reproduce with its own unique charactistics found in that DNA. Life has started there, every definition of life is there.

An analogy would be: You decided to babysit for your friend for a day. The mother was out grocery shopping got into a car accident and died. The baby is now yours (provided no other family could be found)... Is it ok for you to kill the baby because you never wanted it to begin with?

What are you 10?

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: GroundedSailor
Abortion is not the same as murder.

Murder is the killing of a legally defined human being.

A fetus is not a legally defined human being. Only becomes one after birth.

Big difference.

A fetus is a human being. A fetus is not currently defined as a person in the United States. And I never said that abortion was murder - I made an analogy. Learn to read, kthx.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: shira
Well, gee, let's see if we can come up with a distinction between murder and abortion.

Before demonstrating what a condescending douchenozzle you are, maybe you should teach yourself to read. Please show me where I said abortion is murder.

 

[db]

Originally posted by: KIRBYEE
Why is abortion such a big deal to some people?

B/c it's a way to get people to vote for Republicans, and against their
own economic self-interest. And it works.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: GroundedSailor
Abortion is not the same as murder.

Murder is the killing of a legally defined human being.

A fetus is not a legally defined human being. Only becomes one after birth.

Big difference.

A fetus is a human being. A fetus is not currently defined as a person in the United States. And I never said that abortion was murder - I made an analogy. Learn to read, kthx.

Well you know what they say about argument by analogy... Besides, it's not like you just made a totally benign analogy, you obviously chose your words very carefully to suggest a comparison.

In any case, I think your first sentence is open to debate, and is in fact at the core of the scientific discussion on this issue. Despite what Conky said (and by the way, his return has filled a much needed hole in P&N posting), it is NOT a settled issue among scientists.

There are certainly legal questions as well, but clearly people are trying to interpret science through a philosophical/religious lens to declare it settled science when it's anything but.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: db

Originally posted by: KIRBYEE
Why is abortion such a big deal to some people?

B/c it's a way to get people to vote for Republicans.

Well that's why it's a big deal for Republican politicians, but why does that strategy you mentioned even work? It's one of the biggest single issue, uh, issues in modern politics, despite having been settled law for several decades and despite the fact that for all the screaming social conservatives do over this, NOTHING has changed.

 

[db]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: db

Originally posted by: KIRBYEE
Why is abortion such a big deal to some people?

B/c it's a way to get people to vote for Republicans.

why does that strategy you mentioned even work?

It takes attention away from the issues that directly affect you every day, and therefor causes you to vote opposite of the way you would have voted. A brilliant strategy.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
Well you know what they say about argument by analogy... Besides, it's not like you just made a totally benign analogy, you obviously chose your words very carefully to suggest a comparison.

No, I chose the classical philosophical obviation of the fallacy of moral relativism.

In any case, I think your first sentence is open to debate, and is in fact at the core of the scientific discussion on this issue. Despite what Conky said (and by the way, his return has filled a much needed hole in P&N posting), it is NOT a settled issue among scientists.

There are certainly legal questions as well, but clearly people are trying to interpret science through a philosophical/religious lens to declare it settled science when it's anything but.

No, a zygote is definitely a human being. There is no question about that. It has distinct DNA which is human. You can argue all you want that it is not a person, which is a legal issue, but whether it is a human is beyond any doubt.

 

[RightIsWrong]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

No, a zygote is definitely a human being. There is no question about that. It has distinct DNA which is human. You can argue all you want that it is not a person, which is a legal issue, but whether it is a human is beyond any doubt.

Are the skin cells left on your sheets at night a human being?

You are trying to argue that because the DNA is human that the entire structure is human also. The above question is made in a way that might sound condescending, but it is also a very valid question. The DNA of a human skin cell is going to return a human DNA chain. Does that make the cell(s) human or just of human descent?

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
Are the skin cells left on your sheets at night a human being?

You are trying to argue that because the DNA is human that the entire structure is human also. The above question is made in a way that might sound condescending, but it is also a very valid question. The DNA of a human skin cell is going to return a human DNA chain. Does that make the cell(s) human or just of human descent?

Why do you insist on maintaining your ignorance? This has been discussed numerous times before, yet you throw out the same arguments every time. The skin cells are human. "Human" is a taxonomic term designating a species. Thus, what is or is not human is defined genetically beyond any doubt.

 

[NeoV]

Conky was gone? Did anyone notice, or care?

Obama's answer was perfectly legit, as was McCain's, despite your rather weak efforts to slant Obama as some kind of idiot, which he is far from.

Obama has made it clear that he is against abortion from an ethical standpoint - but not in favor of telling women they can't have them if they so desire. Despite the blabbering of the right - this is pretty much the majority opinion on abortion of Democrats.

Is a gay marriage thread next Conky?
Gays in the military?
How about Obama's take on the teletubbies?