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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:19
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There is no empirical evidence to define when human life begins. Some of you label it as such, but we who disagree with you find that just as absurd as you find religious people declaring their belief factual.
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No, I said that while science has difficulty in the answer. As a side note, there is a consistent method (indeed probably more but I came home 30 minutes ago after a threesome and a lot of weed) of empirical determination but that's irrelevant for this point. Existential philosophy (which I use) does not rely upon empirical claims, it is instead phenomenological and cerebral. Which is nice  .
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It is a matter of opinion, both sides.
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Bit like Nazi's and anti-Nazi's. Guess which one I call .
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I would have alot more respect for you guys if you would just drop the facade and say its murder, and you are okay with that. Just like ZE and his bigotry.
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I will not because abortion is not murder, by definition of murder as an act to forcibly and directly terminate the life of a [conscious being]. By my reasoning the qualification "conscious being" cannot be applied to an embryo. I use the common concept in medical ethics of lifeform, being and person here, where the termination of a lifeform is not murder, unless you consider stepping on an ant to be murder.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:19
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Simply because I come to a groups defense when a bigot begins calling names makes me a believer of that faith?
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Which would only be relevant if I had used an ad hominem against you.
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Both are deemed alive, and a very popular arguement from pro abortionists less versed than you is that the indepenace from the the mother of vehicle of support is when "human life" starts. If it can't survive alone, it is the mothers decision.
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There is a reason I never resort to popular arguments because the reason they are popular is that they tend to be more holy than a papal sieve. Mine is an implimentation (all positions that rely on the conscious status premise use this in different interpretations) of the idea that there is a difference, as said before, between lifeform, being and person. Lifeform would basically here just be human DNA, we can safely say that is a human from inception, just like a drop of blood or semen, or a couple of skin cells. Being is a tricky one. Some do not make a distinction between lifeform and being and thus abortion at any stage to them is murder. I do not concur. To me it is the perception of a lifeform as conscious by others using consistent, though subjective (case context) empirical means (hence my previous statement). Person is basically an extension of cogito ergo sum.
So you see, calling it "murder" relies on assumptions about murder, and further reasoning as a premise to the former assumptions! You cannot bander about emotive terms in some vain hope to be taken seriously through a combination of forceful language and testicular rhetoric.
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However is supporting your self is the rule, then we can expand from there. I mentioned recoveriong cases because a embryo left alone would become self sufficient eventually as well
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No, effectively it has the same value as a parasite, since it is consuming the womans resources. After a point is reached however, I think it becomes a case of the woman being responsible for it, but that requires it to be a being. Hence, I do not support abortions late in pregnancy.
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:19
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quote:
That is nice, so opnion it is.
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As opposed to? Do you consider opinion insufficient, or are you trying to play relativism in order to sidestep the debate? Well when it comes to relativism, you can't misuse it in a debate with me and get away, so I would ask you to defend your view, since this is a loaded context where a solution is possible, and thus a neutral debate becomes a crucible.
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So when does that conciousness start? What day? What hour? Hell what second? We are talkina about people making arbitrary judgements about when in a pregnancy it is okay to abort, and when not. Unless you define "human life" as birth, which is absurd, then you risk at any time maybe killing a concious being. Murder.
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So who said anything about arbitrary? Are you saying that the mere potential for consciousness is sufficient to be considered conscious? How, pray tell, does that work?
You rely on universalised terms but doubt of others in this debate is almost as important as empirical determination! 
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We do not apply such a mindless deadline for life to anything else (brain dead probobly, have to look into the laws for that) because you might **** it up.
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So first, opinion, and now you want to look at the law? Think I'll pass thankyou  . This is a debate about ethics, and unless you can provide a reasonable argument that law == ethics I'm not going to warm to the idea.
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GePap
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of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:19
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Originally posted by Elok
The question of when human life begins is too...existential to be scientifically answered. So an embryo is just a lump of cells; so? A full-grown person is just a bigger, more complex lump of cells. Is there a scientific way to determine the meaning of life or something?
It should be perfectly obvious that no person who believes abortion is murder can, in good conscience, sit back and allow it to continue, out of "respect for the moral beliefs of others." That's not open-mindedness, it's thinly disguised cowardice. If you think somebody is dying, you have a personal obligation to stop it. If you oppose that position, so be it, but this is not the kind of issue that can be "solved" by trying to kill one's own conscience for the sake of social cohesion. That's patently ridiculous.
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Perhaps a definiton will exist one day, but not today. But given the fact that no possible definition exists today, to ban the procedure by calling it murder is impossible- murder is a very specific act, the unlawful, malicious killing of another human being. There is such a thing as the lawful killing of a human being (justifiable homicide), and of course, if that act is not malicious, it is manslaughter, not murder.
So, even, EVEN, if we were to for some reason decide as a society (which we have not) that a fetus is a human being, that does not end the question of whether abortion should be legal or not, since only fools and hypocrites can believe that we actually live in a society that cares for all human life.
But I agree with Elok, that one of the ways to end abortions is to end the root causes- make it easier for a woman to raise a child, and rem,ove much of the stigma of getting pregnant under certain circumstances. And what was not mentioned- make powerful birth control available, and teach people how to use it.
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Dr Strangelove
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quote:
Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Obviously, I'm out of touch with social conservatives.
Most of those that I know earn less than their peers because they have chosen to live different lives, and to live outside of the cities. |
There used to be $10/hour factory jobs around here that someone not having a high school diploma could get, but most of those are gone.
There are many people in this area my age who were literally robbed of their futures by "conservatives". Back in the 1960s some counties in this area actually closed their public schools rather than integrate. One county in this area actually kept its schools closed for an entire decade. Kids in those areas who could not afford private schooling took jobs when they were old enough, but as unskilled jobs paying decent wages disappeared they found themselves at a serious disadvantage. I'm willing to bet that the majority of the people who grew up in those counties in that era are now unemployed. When you're 50, unemployed and only suited for manual labor your job prospects aren't very good, and a 50 year old having worked hard for 30 years often can't physically keep up with younger workers.
Sorry about the "pathetic" remark. These days are long and hard. I've often helped patients by directing them towards patient assistance programs offered by drug companies. These are programs giving away prescription medications. There is a great deal of paperwork involved usually. Now that we have a Medicare drug program many of these medications aren't available anymore. Unfortunately the Medicare program is largely a sham. Assistance kicks in only after a hefty deductible is met, and then only contributes 20% of the cost. An average patient gets $600/mo from SSI, but requires up to $ 300/mo. in medications. I'm really fed up with it all.
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Lung
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of my princess Anastasia!
Mar 1999
time: 15:19
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Talk about an issue dominated by raving lunatics on both sides.
Personally, i don't think the religious aspect of this debate holds any weight at all, but both extremes fail any scrutiny whatsoever. The question is, at what point does the rights of the foetus override the right of the mother?
Recent UN figures show a world human population of 1 trillion by 2300 if birth rates average 2.45 children per woman, so does the religious argument of all potential life having a right to be hold true and fair to humanity? Likewise, the "it's my body and i can do whatever i want with it" argument loses ground when you consider that a woman's involvement with her baby can continue after birth, and that a foetus beyond a certain age feels pain comparable to a newborn.
Even a cursory glance at the debate reveals that it's not an issue of if abortion should be illegal or not but when.
For chrissake, every horny thought is a potential human being and a popuation exceeding 1 trillion, so hysterical arguments that some holy book is interpreted so are irrelevant.
If you're going to debate the issue, you people, stick to the facts, not emotive rubbish.
Hi Mobius 
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Whaleboy
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Please make all cheques payable to Whaleboy
Jan 2003
time: 05:19
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quote:
Personally, i don't think the religious aspect of this debate holds any weight at all, but both extremes fail any scrutiny whatsoever. The question is, at what point does the rights of the foetus override the right of the mother?
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I don't think it's a case of raving lunatics. Forgive me for blowing my own trumpet but I am not so empassioned by this debate that I would go out of my way to refute opposing claims, I am simply saying what I think which is consistent with my own reasoning, as I would on any such issue. However, you raise an interesting question of when the rights of the foetus override the rights of the mother. That finds me a little awkward, since the point of "being" as I have it, implies an equilibrium of one being to another (existentially speaking). However, such is the nature of pregnancy, which is similar incidentally to that of prisoners in that they are conscious beings dependent entirely on another as might a parasite, that issues of responsibility come into play, so when the mother has a responsibility to keep the foetus alive, which by definition occurs at the point of being.
That leaves the anti-abortion arguments to attempt to show that being and lifeform are interchangeable, so we apply being status to an embryo at the point of inception. I have, as yet, seen no good argument for that.
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05-11-2004 06:47
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