What is the magic quota number of support? Far more than 51% of Americans oppose abortion in all situations except rape, incest, and birth defects.
What is the magic quota number of support? Far more than 51% of Americans oppose abortion in all situations except rape, incest, and birth defects.
No, I can make many non-religious arguments against all of these things. For instance, why should you be able to kill yourself after I and the rest of society invested so much in your upbringing? Don't we have a right to a return on that investment?
No, I didn't use religion for the basis of any single argument in this thread, nor even in this forum. Anyone with a middle school education can see the difference between correcting someone's statements regarding the Catholic Church's teachings and actually using religion as a reason. Unfortunately, you're so clever you probably just skipped middle school altogether. :roll:
The fetus is most decidedly human. The fact that you would argue against this demonstrates that you haven't read anything on abortion outside of this forum. 'Human' is a taxonomic term and is used to define a species. Clearly, one cannot deny that any unborn zygote, embryo, or fetus is inherently human at any stage of development. The characteristic of being human is attributable to the DNA makeup of the tissue. Therefore, calling an unborn zygote, embryo, or fetus human is beyond reproach. If it weren't human at any stage of development, it could never become human.
Now, I will address your two personal attacks. First, I am not trying to legislate religion, nor morality. I am trying to legislate ethics - things that are right and wrong based on the universal principles of logic, completely independent of my religion. Second, Catholics are not fundamentalists. We do not believe that the Bible is to be taken literally. You are showing your own ignorance and hatred in just another attempt to divert everyone's attention from your own complete lack of ability to argue anything relevant to the abortion debate. You, with all your vaunted 'wisdom' and 'knowledge' obviously don't know a damn thing about this debate. Instead, you keep throwing out logical fallacy after fallacy in an attempt to make yourself sound smart. Well, let me clue you in: it's not working. You want to compare me to bin Laden? Feel free to do so. In doing so, you demonstrate nothing more than your own ignorance and your inability to wage an argument.
Sheik Yerbouti
Lifer
- Feb 16, 2005
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proof of this? links? I say links, because I am sure some of the 'christian' links you'd provide would also recommend that gays be burned at the stake.
So you're saying the Church should teach roughly the following: "Don't have sex, but when you do, make sure to wear a condom"? That sounds like pretty sound logic to me. That's like me handing my teenage son a box of condoms right after I tell him I'll castrate him if I ever catch him having sex. It's a failure on ethical grounds based on logical consistency alone.
dullard
Elite Member
- May 21, 2001
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Who cares if it is an ethical failure (which I don't agree with since pregnancy protection is still important information for married couples)? It'll lead to lower teen pregnancy, lower STDs, lower abortions, etc. These are all goals of the church. Sometimes, you can give a little on one area to achieve massive gains in other important areas.
I say the church should say this:
[1]Don't have sex until marriage.
[2]When you do have sex in marriage, there are the things you need to know to prevent complications...
All the time, they realize that teaching #2 also helps those who sin in #1.
The Church's purpose isn't to set social standards for floozies, it's to represent the gold standard of behavior. You say people will have sex no matter what, and I'm not going to disagree. However, if people are going to disregard the Church in this regard, why then is the Church culpable for them not using contraception? If they're having sex anyway, they're obviously not listening to the Church in the first place and might as well use contraception. Maybe I can get my point across better with another example. The Church also teaches that I'm supposed to go to Mass on Sundays. Let's say it also teaches that you're not supposed to drive on Sundays. If I'm skipping Mass and get in a car accident, is that the Church's fault? If I had been doing what the Church recommended, I wouldn't have gotten into a car accident. Maybe not a good example, but maybe it illustrates my point a little better, I dunno.
edit: I guess the bottom line is that the Church's job is to tell people what's right and wrong. If they deviate from that in one regard, then it's not the Church's responsibility to facilitate that or mitigate responsibility of that deviation. They can't undermine their primary purpose to make people feel good about themselves, or their authority is lost.
I have something to add.
From what I've heard, the main pro-abortion arguments are
1. The woman has the right to do with her body as she wishes.
2. If the feus does not show any cortial activity, how can it be human?
My answer
1. The fetus is NOT part of the woman's body. She gives it food and air, and it grows on its own, without sharing any genetic information or blood.
2. Oh, smart one guys. So we define humanity by its stage of development? Of course, the counter argument is "well, if it cannot be sustained by any other means other than the mother, it connot be human." My answer: science changes, so if tomorrow we can keep first trimester fetuses alive, does humanity's definition change? Did we "evolve?" See, this is stupid.
From what I've heard, the main pro-abortion arguments are
1. The woman has the right to do with her body as she wishes.
2. If the feus does not show any cortial activity, how can it be human?
My answer
1. The fetus is NOT part of the woman's body. She gives it food and air, and it grows on its own, without sharing any genetic information or blood.
2. Oh, smart one guys. So we define humanity by its stage of development? Of course, the counter argument is "well, if it cannot be sustained by any other means other than the mother, it connot be human." My answer: science changes, so if tomorrow we can keep first trimester fetuses alive, does humanity's definition change? Did we "evolve?" See, this is stupid.
GroundedSailor
Platinum Member
- Feb 18, 2001
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Your analogy falls flat because you are not comparing apples to apples.
You are comparing a fetus to human life.
Human life has been born and is capable of surviving without support. A fetus does not fit that description till it is born.
please go away.
if you were serious i think you could do it without photos. i don't like looking at pictures of knee surgery either, but i still think it's ok.
No, that is a small percentage. It is not nothing, but get real. It is very small. Oh, and I disagree with the birth defects part, because "defects" is somewhat of a relative term. It could be used to justify many things.
The photos were used, I'm assuming, to grab people's attention, and to prove that many abortions are of fetuses that do look human, moreso than the pro-abortionists' lie of "just a bunch of dead cells." Whatever stage of develpoment they were in, they looked more human than anything else.
No one has addressed my points yet. But don't try, you will probably fail. Think of some new arguments.
Your arguments have been addressed several times. Life is defined by metabolic activity, but consciousness and "personhood" are defined by cortical activity. Sans cortical activity the fetus is a human, but not a person. Similarly to how a family can choose to end the life of a brain-dead relative, the mother can choose to end the life of a brain-undeveloped fetus.
/thread
You can't simply declare a definition of a person as definitive without allowing for argument. You have no idea how ridiculous a proposition this is, since you're obviously oblivious to the decades of debate on this very subject. How sad that someone so ignorant should be so haughty.
Exactly. And about personhood, that is your OPINION. Mine is that any human is a person. Oh, so now we DO have room for argument. BTW, you need to now come up with something else to prove that a fetus is not a human. And again, Humanity canNOT be defined by its stage of development. That is a relative standard, therefore not a standard at all. My arguments have never been addressed, in my memory. So you address them.
OrByte
Diamond Member
- Jul 21, 2000
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This issue should stop being about science and more about rights. Science cannot produce enough evidence to support either side of the argument. This issue is about rights and morality and unfortunately when it comes to the moral superior you have no say NO SAY over what someone else's sense of morality should constitute, and that includes whether someone else has the moral compass or not to go through with an abortion. The moral superior in this country would like to fight tooth and nail for aborted babies but the hypocrisy is just too blinding. What are these pro-life people doing about poor kids starving? whole nations on the brink of death due to disease and/or malnurishment? what about kids that are born addicted to drugs? Population control? The list goes on and on...
You cannot govern morality people, everyone has their own religion, faith, morals, and so forth and only when those morals encroach upon other individuals is when you can hold people accountable. And the fact is, science cannot prove that fetuses have individual rights. Now an argument can be made against late term abortions but everybody just goes into full assault mode when the term abortion comes out and its pathetic because the lines have been drawn in the sand and nothing will ever be done about solving this issue.
As for the "Rights" side of the issue, women have rights to their bodies. Why is that hard to understand? there shouldn't be any argument over this issue this is a womans body. And as such she can choose as she pleases, the moral majority cannot encroach upon a womans rights to assert its moral compass, she has her own.
I do not like abortion, and I could never do it. But that is my individual position. If someone doesn't like abortion, then don't have one.
But late term abortions is something different. At some point a fetus can live outside a womb, why cant the argument target that in particular? People have to just blindly lob assaults because of the terms "Pro-life" and "Pro-choice." Those terms are outdated. We should be focusing on late term abortions and options for women with late term pregnancy's that for whatever reason, keeping the baby is not a viable solution. I concede that there are sooo many intricacies involved with this targeted issue within the abortion debate. But we, as a society, will never solve anything by arguing over Roe V Wade..lets move forward for chrissakes.
as for the link in the OP. I call SHENS!!
You cannot govern morality people, everyone has their own religion, faith, morals, and so forth and only when those morals encroach upon other individuals is when you can hold people accountable. And the fact is, science cannot prove that fetuses have individual rights. Now an argument can be made against late term abortions but everybody just goes into full assault mode when the term abortion comes out and its pathetic because the lines have been drawn in the sand and nothing will ever be done about solving this issue.
As for the "Rights" side of the issue, women have rights to their bodies. Why is that hard to understand? there shouldn't be any argument over this issue this is a womans body. And as such she can choose as she pleases, the moral majority cannot encroach upon a womans rights to assert its moral compass, she has her own.
I do not like abortion, and I could never do it. But that is my individual position. If someone doesn't like abortion, then don't have one.
But late term abortions is something different. At some point a fetus can live outside a womb, why cant the argument target that in particular? People have to just blindly lob assaults because of the terms "Pro-life" and "Pro-choice." Those terms are outdated. We should be focusing on late term abortions and options for women with late term pregnancy's that for whatever reason, keeping the baby is not a viable solution. I concede that there are sooo many intricacies involved with this targeted issue within the abortion debate. But we, as a society, will never solve anything by arguing over Roe V Wade..lets move forward for chrissakes.
as for the link in the OP. I call SHENS!!
It's not my opinion, it is an accepted fact among the medical professionals of the world. Cognition is a function of cortical activity. Absence of the latter is absence of the former.
Haha, a fetus is not a part of a woman's body? Ummm, yeah. So my arm isn't part of my body? Uh yeah, go back to biology and learn some facts. Without the woman's body, it would NOT survive, it is connected physically and emotionally to the woman. It is part of her body.
What's is matter? Courts shouldn't decide something that important huh? What about the 2000 presidential election? Don't be a flip-flopper!
They did NOT overthrow the will of the people, they overthrew the will of you and the stuck up, upperclass, snobby, people that are stuck on their religious view points with an agenda to push their beliefs on others.Did you take the time to read my post? Nope. The reason that the issue of late term abortions holds no final say is because again, my post said that as science changes, the humanity of fetuses will change, if abortion stands. Also, I somewhat agree with you on morality, but you forget the obvious fact that YES, the gov. does regulate, to a point, morality. Killing is wrong, but should it be right for people whose religions say so? There are some moral rules that are law, and many people, such as you, try to promote the idea that what is right for someone may not be right for another. Again, this is wrong as it pertains to morality and the gov.
dullard
Elite Member
- May 21, 2001
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Note: I was married in the Catholic church. I went through all the tests, the classes, the priest discussions, etc.
I also would disagree that all people will have sex no matter what. All, no. Some, yes. In fact, for most the answer is yes they will have sex. That is a sad state, but it is beyond the goal of this discussion.
The church is indirectly culpable, since they currently attempt to prevent their members from understanding and using contraception. Lets try this example. Two companies hire pizza delivery drivers:
Company (A) tells their drivers not to speed, not to drink and drive, etc. Company (A) then INSISTS that all drivers have seat belts, airbags, and alcohol detection car starters. Heck, lets go so far as to say company (A) provides equipment so that the car won't operate without the seat belt latched, or it won't operate without the airbags on, it won't operate with a drunk driver, and there are speed governors in the vehicles. Some drivers will get in accidents, some of those accidents will be their own fault. Some of those will be speed or alcohol related. But in most cases, the drivers have some form of protection and the company did all it reasonably could to protect their drivers.
Company (B) tells their drivers not to speed, not to drink and drive, etc. Then company (B) sends the drivers off on thier own at their own risk. Some drivers will get in accidents, some of those accidents will be their own fault. Some of those will be speed or alcohol related. None of the drivers have advanced protection equipment (alcohol detectors, cars that don't run without seatbelts, etc).
Company (B) did the minimum needed. Company (A) went much further. Thus, indirectly, company (B) leads to more dangerous situations. Is it solely company (B)'s fault? Of course not. But they could do so much more. Installing a speed governor DOES NOT promote speeding behavior.
The Catholic church can teach their members to use contraception when married. The Catholic church can help provide contraception methods to their members. If a teenager could go to his/her priest for a condom, that is one last chance that the priest has to convince the teenager not to have sex. As it is, that teenager avoids the priest at all costs (and thus loses the final opportunity to be convinced not to have sex). The Catholic church can provide education on STDs, various forms of sex, etc. The Catholic church could give their engaged couple classes/tests/priest sessions to people who are dating but not yet engaged. The Catholic church could provide safe havens for those who did get pregant. But they don't.
Thus this lack of action and lack of education causes those who sin to sin in much worse ways. Those who have sex out of wedlock don't have condoms in their dressor. So they have sex without condoms instead. If the church had accepted condom usage, maybe there may have been a condom around. Result: one less abortion for these sinners.
Originally posted by: m316foley
Haha, a fetus is not a part of a woman's body? Ummm, yeah. So my arm isn't part of my body? Uh yeah, go back to biology and learn some facts. Without the woman's body, it would NOT survive, it is connected physically and emotionally to the woman. It is part of her body.
What's is matter? Courts shouldn't decide something that important huh? What about the 2000 presidential election? Don't be a flip-flopper!
You. The fetus does not share blood or DNA with the mother like your arm does with you. No one is saying that your arm is a person. But to use your analogy, me cutting off your arm is something that willl send me to jail. Should a fetus be less protected? LOL. Stupid remark. The fetus is not part of the woman.
EDIT: I still am reding new and exciting things in your post. Emotionally? Um, well, to be realistic, NO. Everyone knows that if the fetus shows no cortial activity, and if, like you guys think, it has no soul until that time, it cannot have emotions. By this logic, it is more of the woman's body toward the end of the pregnancy, when it is less dependant.
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