 |
|
Jon Miller
|
|
people are responsible...
Jon Miller
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Dr Strangelove
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by chegitz guevara
More info, please. I don't think I follow you correctly. |
You mean about the Kleck survey? Back in the 1990s Dr. Kleck did a telephone based survery of thousands of respondants asking if they had used a gun to defend themselves. He calculated that there had been about 2 million "DGU" incidents / year at the time of the study. The study also mentioned that 25% of the respondants who had used guns to defend themselves had fired their weapons, and of these 60% claimed to have hit their target. That would result in about 300,000 wounded by "DGU" / year. Of course, medical statistics give no trace of this huge epidemic of gun wounds. Kleck explained the discrepancy between the results of his survey and statistics as being due to a vast conspiracy of crooked physicians treating the wounded criminals without properly reporting them.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Jon Miller
|
|
I think peopel think they hit someone far more often than they do
but also, people bullshit surveys all the time
JM
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Elok
|
 |
Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
1. Do you think people only abort out of shame?
2. What are "the real problems"? |
The most heavy arguments for abortion that I've heard, other than the quasi-eugenic (this kid is defective or from a bad background, kill it), are based on compassion for the mother's emotional plight, typically because the child was conceived through rape or incest. Or the condom breaks and the teenaged girl doesn't want her parents, etc. to judge her. Greater unconditional support is a better solution to that then just having it squished out, which allows us to more easily ignore the fact that the teenaged girl has jerks for parents, that rape and incest are too frequently allowed to stigmatize their victim or just brushed over, what-have-you.
Even outside of "shame," just about any circumstance for abortion other than the life of the mother, which is increasingly rare with current medical technology, is better answered by addressing the problem directly rather than silencing its manifestation, especially as that manifestation is or could have been a child. For example, greater societal care for the disabled is much more enlightened than exterminating the disabled before they are born. For the case of fatal birth defects, of course, the same arguments that support adult euthanasia might apply, but whether a child "has any chance at a happy life" should be the child's to decide. If its life sucks so bad, it can bash its brains out against a wall when it grows old enough, but it should at least have control over its own fate.
Generally I am just suspicious of the phrase "problem pregnancy." If bringing another human life into the world is a problem for somebody, we need to find out why and address those concerns. More contraception education, crisis pregnancy centers, you get the idea. It costs more, but it ultimately leads to a more stable and healthy society than the brushing-under-the-carpet we call abortion.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Spiffor
|
 |
CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:20
|
|
I'll tell you a little story.
My ex and I are two responsible young adults, and we dated for two years and a half while being students in a demanding exchange programme.
Before we even had sex (we were both virgins at the beginning of the relationship), we both agreed that a child was entirely out of the equation, at least until both of us for several years to come. The main reason, obviously, is because we were both students without a situation, and because a kid would have wrecked her studies (since I wasn't going to be pregnant, it would have affected me less).
We both wanted to avoid an abortion, which is why we used contraception, and successfully so. We had to use two morning-after pills during the whole relationship, but never had to abort. However, if she had been pregnant, we would have aborted, precisely because we definitely didn't want a child.
Please enlighten me: at what point was shame involved in our decision to abort if all else failed?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Lazarus and the Gimp
|
 |
Whale-raping abomination
Aug 2000
time: 05:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Elok
The most heavy arguments for abortion that I've heard, other than the quasi-eugenic (this kid is defective or from a bad background, kill it), are based on compassion for the mother's emotional plight, typically because the child was conceived through rape or incest. Or the condom breaks and the teenaged girl doesn't want her parents, etc. to judge her. Greater unconditional support is a better solution to that then just having it squished out, which allows us to more easily ignore the fact that the teenaged girl has jerks for parents, that rape and incest are too frequently allowed to stigmatize their victim or just brushed over, what-have-you.
Even outside of "shame," just about any circumstance for abortion other than the life of the mother, which is increasingly rare with current medical technology, is better answered by addressing the problem directly rather than silencing its manifestation, especially as that manifestation is or could have been a child. For example, greater societal care for the disabled is much more enlightened than exterminating the disabled before they are born. For the case of fatal birth defects, of course, the same arguments that support adult euthanasia might apply, but whether a child "has any chance at a happy life" should be the child's to decide. If its life sucks so bad, it can bash its brains out against a wall when it grows old enough, but it should at least have control over its own fate.
Generally I am just suspicious of the phrase "problem pregnancy." If bringing another human life into the world is a problem for somebody, we need to find out why and address those concerns. More contraception education, crisis pregnancy centers, you get the idea. It costs more, but it ultimately leads to a more stable and healthy society than the brushing-under-the-carpet we call abortion. |
Cool. Make the world a perfect place so that abortion becomes irrelevant and unnecessary. I like that idea.
How pragmatic do you think that is?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Elok
|
|
Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:20
|
|
Ngh. Laz, I said in my very first response that I didn't believe in perfect solutions. I'm only arguing for improving the situation as opposed to flushing the evidence of the problem and hoping it goes away. Unwanted pregnancies will pretty much always happen, we can only make them more bearable and treat mother and child as well as we can. It's called making the most of an ugly situation. Now please stop attacking points I'm not making.
Spiff: Okay, that's not shame, but merely shameful. Adoption exists, dude. Yes, carrying a child to term only to give it away is a pain in the rear and horribly unfair, but getting killed in utero because your parents can't afford you is even more unfair in my book. Lesser of two evils. If you can't accept even the miniscule failure rate of good contraception, you should be prepared to accept the consequences of the unlikely misfortune, nasty as they may be. Saying "I don't deserve my current situation, therefore I'm entitled to behave unethically to escape it" is a common rationalization but still disgusting. It's commonly used by Nigerians to excuse fraud.
BTW, I didn't mean to imply that shame is the only motive, I was just mentioning it as the most common reason given. It's a real tear-jerker, followed closely by its-life-will-suck-so-we'd-better-kill-it.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Elok
|
|
Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Spiffor
The difference between you and I is that I see nothing unethical with an early abortion. A later aboriton, when the embryo has more markings of a baby, I dislike (which is why I advocate a right to abortion on demand until the third month - after that, the only allowable abortion is medically motivated)
When the embryo is a tiny lump of flesh without even a nervous system, I see it as something that sees no more problem of being removed than an appendix. This is why I see it as something that should be taken out as soon as possible. |
Yeah, sorry, I got a little worked up there. I understand the basic logic you guys use to arrive at your conclusions and everything, I just thought you were about to launch into the "how dare you pick on the unfortunate you self-righteous penis-having demon from hell" shpiel, which always irritates me. I still need to watch my temper and stop preempting others though.
Anyway, the reason I reject that line of reasoning is that it A. assumes we have the right to judge another's humanity/worth and B. is based on the disturbing belief that our rights are in some way derived from our abilities. A tadpole looks nothing like a frog, but if one were to kill the tadpole of an endangered species of frog, at any stage of development, it would still be considered a violation of law. I don't see why that kind of consideration is given to beasts but not humans.
Also, note your last line about "something that should be taken out as soon as possible." Doesn't that whole image strike you as just a little silly? That a woman has to kill it, quick, before it becomes a person? I guess that also applies to the whole argument distinguishing a fetus from an infant that's been born. The chance of the child being born is great enough that people feel inclined to take positive action to prevent that outcome, yet not so great that they feel at all bad about disposing of it; it's just a "potential person." How does that work, logically? It sounds a lot like the oft-invoked distinction between omission of a beneficial action and committing a positive harmful action. Killing an infant and aborting a fetus have the same result, the same intention or goal, and essentially the same victim.
I suppose that line of logic might also be applied to birth control though, which I agree is ludicrous. However, for the sake of law the genetic distinction between a gamete and a zygote (halved chromosome count) might be invoked. That's why I have no problem with birth control. There's a very good reason to assume that a sperm cell isn't human, a reason based on a difference in its genetic makeup. Even Catholics don't think a sperm is human, they just believe it's wrong to prevent it from fusing with an egg and becoming one. On the other hand, the argument for first-trimester abortion is based, typically, on value judgments of what it means to be human, which aside from not being commonly agreed on sets a bad legal precedent.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Spiffor
|
|
CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Elok
Anyway, the reason I reject that line of reasoning is that it A. assumes we have the right to judge another's humanity/worth and B. is based on the disturbing belief that our rights are in some way derived from our abilities. |
We do it all the time when a person is dead, and I think it's a good thing. Why should it be different with an unborn person?
quote:
A tadpole looks nothing like a frog, but if one were to kill the tadpole of an endangered species of frog, at any stage of development, it would still be considered a violation of law. I don't see why that kind of consideration is given to beasts but not humans. |
For pragmatic reasons: if we want the endangered species to be viable (which is fashionable in today's day and age), the population shouldn't be culled by any means. This has nothing to do with the "sanctity of life" of the tadpole. If it wasn't an endangered tadpole, we wouldn't care one bit about it.
quote:
Also, note your last line about "something that should be taken out as soon as possible." Doesn't that whole image strike you as just a little silly? That a woman has to kill it, quick, before it becomes a person? I guess that also applies to the whole argument distinguishing a fetus from an infant that's been born. The chance of the child being born is great enough that people feel inclined to take positive action to prevent that outcome, yet not so great that they feel at all bad about disposing of it; it's just a "potential person." |
The two are not incompatible. An embryo is a lump of flesh that is nothing like a person yet. However, with modern medicine, it is nearly bound to become one, rather than dying in a miscarriage (modern medicine is good news). If, for various reasons, you can't sustain a person, it's much better to get rid of it before it becomes a person. It doesn't strike me as rocket science.
quote:
How does that work, logically? It sounds a lot like the oft-invoked distinction between omission of a beneficial action and committing a positive harmful action. Killing an infant and aborting a fetus have [1] the same result, [2] the same intention or goal, and [3] essentially the same victim. |
[1] Yes, which is why infanticide was fairly commonplace before the time of abortion.
[2] Pretty much, but not entirely. Infanticide doesn't let you hide the shame of being pregnant, which you seem to associate so much with the motives of abortion.
[3] Not at all. An infant is a breathing person, that has feelings and feels pain on its own (markings that can also be found in late fetuses). An embryo doesn't have nerves, which completely prevents such a thing.
quote:
On the other hand, the argument for first-trimester abortion is based, typically, on value judgments of what it means to be human, which aside from not being commonly agreed on sets a bad legal precedent. |
This is an age-old debate. Even you, with your anti-abortion arguments, are using a definition of "human" that doesn't make unanimity. There were societies where infants weren't considered humans until they were given a name. There are societies (like yours) where offspring doesn't have any righton its own until they're out of the womb. There are societies (like European ones) where fetuses are regarded earlier. You advocate to consider an offspring as a human being as soon as the first cell is formed (you should have yelled at me for having killed two babies, btw, since we used day-after pills twice).
I frankly consider your definition to be utter bollocks. A nerve-less organism doesn't attribute any value to itself, it doesn't even have a survival instinct. Unless we have solid practical reasons to do so (like keeping an endangered species viable), why would we care for the survival of an organism that doesn't care for its own?
To me, your line of thinking (you're not the only one) is exactly like the one of tree-huggers who say that trees have rights on their own.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Elok
|
|
Land of Ramen Dragons
Mar 2003
time: 00:20
|
|
We don't use that line of reasoning with the dead. We use the line of reasoning that they are DEAD. The embryo/fetus/zygote is still alive. You can't kill a dead man. Very basic difference. I have no idea what you're talking about.
The tadpole analogy is based on the premise that, as an endangered species, the beast has been judged worthy of protection under law, similar to humans. We don't care if the tadpole can at that point think or feel pain, you're not even allowed to crush their eggs. This is because we have decided the species has sufficient innate worth due to its rarity that it ought to be protected no matter what it looks like or how it acts. If we judge humans to be worth protecting, their abilities ought not to matter. We know damn well that fetus, embryo and infant are all the same thing at different forms of development. Genetically, they are identical, and unlike, say, a tumor or an appendix, their genetic profile is completely distinct from that of their host.
I'm trying to get around the sizable mental block you seem to have put up to exclude common sense here. The embryo can't feel pain, but that's a plainly temporary condition due to its lack of maturity. Give it a couple of weeks and it will be "human." If I shoot you full of painkillers and soporifics, you are not judged to have lost your personhood. You're still a member of your own species, the same as you were before but with fewer abilities. You will come out of it and come into your own, given time. It's simply how your biological system works. To pretend otherwise--"he's not human RIGHT NOW!"--would be asinine.
Your last paragraph seems to be a troll of some sort. Very well, let's countertroll. Kill the homosexuals; they have no desire to reproduce, and therefore are from a Darwinian perspective already dead, just wasting resources at no benefit to their species! Why should we defend an organism that has no urge to perpetuate its line of DNA?
|
|
| |
|
|
|
SpencerH
|
 |
Co-Ruler of my patch of land south of Birmingham Alabama
Feb 2002
time: 23:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Oerdin
Did the study control for age of the women since complications become more common with age? What about for women who had abortions due to medical issues which might be reoccuring? Did it break down between earlier or late term abortions?
Nope, it didn't do any of that so this study is much good. |
Clearly, you didnt read the paper. Yet here you are denouncing it!
I've read it (since I have access). While its not directly in my area of scientific expertise, from my perspective as a scientist with some interest in mechanisms of spontaneous abortions I have no disagreements with respect to its basic 'worth' as a medical article, the reputation of the journal, or the authors conclusions based upon their results.
Had I reviewed it, however, I would have asked some rather pointed questions about mechanisms.
Last edited by SpencerH on 19-05-2005 at 06:44
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Spiffor
|
|
CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by Elok
I'm trying to get around the sizable mental block you seem to have put up to exclude common sense here. The embryo can't feel pain, but that's a plainly temporary condition due to its lack of maturity. Give it a couple of weeks and it will be "human." |
Yes, and this is precisely why an unwanted pregnancy must be end before that time.
quote:
If I shoot you full of painkillers and soporifics, you are not judged to have lost your personhood. |
That's because I had it in the first place.
quote:
Your last paragraph seems to be a troll of some sort. Very well, let's countertroll. Kill the homosexuals; they have no desire to reproduce, and therefore are from a Darwinian perspective already dead, just wasting resources at no benefit to their species! Why should we defend an organism that has no urge to perpetuate its line of DNA? |
As far as I know, homosexuals have a survival instinct.
My last paragraph was trollish in its tone, but it is about a valid argument. An embryo is completely unable to give value to its own life, even in the most basic form, which is survival instinct. An embryo doesn't care to die, simply because it cannot care to die. When the embryo develops into a fetus with a nervous system, the survival instinct begins (a basic sense of self-worth).
The only worth the embryo has is the one you attribute to it (because of your religious beliefs or because of your personal ethics).
The sense of self-worth is not very common on the planet, if you look at the very big picture: only born animals (including humans) have it. Plants don't have it. Rocks don't have it. Water doesn't have it. Dead animals don't have it. Yet, there are people who believe that these things have an inherent value, that they have inherent rights. Today, these people look like raving lunatic ecologists (as opposed to environmentalists who want to protect nature because what humans derive from it, not for nature's own sake). But they can very well be mainstream in a future society, like they were mainstream in many pagan societies of the past.
To me, your attitude is similar to these people's. You attribute value (inherent rights, sanctity of life, or whatever) to something that cannot attribute value to itself, and that never did. Unlike a dead person, or a comatose or a sleeping one, the embryo never expressed any wish, it never expressed any feeling, it never expressed any personality, simply because it doesn't have the ability to have one. Just like a tree or a rock.
And just like a tree or a rock, there are people who speak in the embryo's name.
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Spiffor
|
|
CPA - Evil Clone brigade
Nov 2001
time: 06:20
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by JohnT
C'mon, Spiff. Surely you recognize that this is a definition borne of personal convenience and not fact? "It's OK to kill it, but not once past a certain level of development, then it magically becomes 'human'." Puh-leeze. |
1. It's not my line of reasoning.
My line of reasoning is that I don't like to create undue pain (which is why I attempted to avoid an abortion in the first place, because even the earliest of abortions are often a terrible experience for the woman). If the fetus can feel pain, can be afraid of dying, can resist being killed, I find it very untasteful to kill it for convenience reasons. If the embryo doesn't have such an ability, no matter what his genes look like, I have no problem killing it. Except in regard to the mother: it's not like anybody but the mother suffers from the abortion at that point.
2. There has always been a debate about when a child becomes "human", in the meaning of the rights it obtains. The anti-abortion people were happy to use modern science (the use of genetics, to show that the first cell was already a separate being, genetically speaking), but it only fueled their age-old opinion: that life begins at conception. This opinion is far from universal: some even quote the Bible to say that a baby comes to life only when it breathes for the first time.
On the other extreme, some people consider it as sin to waste your precious seed on masturbation. To them, when you jack off, you basically kill a baby. This opinion can seem insane today, but it wasn't uncommon a few decades ago.
The "life begins at creation" people use genetics to say that a zygote is a different person worthy of the right to live. They define a human as a specific genome, that is different from either parent's. That's a definition as good as any, but it's a rationalization of a position that they held before. A hypothetical definition could see a human as a being that has a separate personality from the parents, which is something you reach at least a few months after birth. Others (which sadly aren't hypothetical) would define a human as a non-cripple, or as a non-Jew.
None of these criteria (genetics, personality, stigma) are objectives, and neither are mine (nervous system). The anti-abortion crowd can lead you to think that their definition is the objective one, but it isn't.
For example, an anti-masturbation person would be horrified of the anti-abortionist's frequent position in favour of contraception: Remember that a spermatozoid is yearning to become a kid! How dare you support the genocide of billions of spermatozoids who could have grown into children?! It's not because spermatozoids don't have a separate genetic code that they don't have rights too! 
OK, this was trollish 
Let's use the same reasoning with the other "life begins at point X" arguments (bolded for clarity - I hope  ):
quote:
For example, an anti-abortionist person would be horrified of the pro-early-abortion frequent position in favour of early abortion: Remember that an embryo is yearning to become a kid! How dare you support the genocide of millions of embrioes who could have grown into children?! It's not because embrioes don't have a nervous system that they don't have rights too! |
quote:
For example, a pro-early-abortion person would be horrified of the pro-late-abortion frequent position in favour of late abortion: Remember that a fetus is yearning to become a kid! How dare you support the genocide of millions of fetuses who could have grown into children?! It's not because fetuses are still in the womb that they don't have rights too! |
quote:
For example, a pro-late-abortion person would be horrified of the pro-infanticide frequent position in favour of infanticide: Remember that an infant is yearning to become a kid! How dare you support the genocide of millions of babies who could have grown into full-fledged human beings?! It's not because infants don't have a name/personality/whatever the infanticidists fancy that they don't have rights too! |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:20.
Apolyton Time is 00:20. |
top of page
|
|
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
16-05-2005 01:08
|