Prenatal Rights

[Nulono]

I was just wondering: anyone else here a supporter of prenatal rights?

[piet11111]

no they are just cells.

are you by any chance opposed to abortion ?
if so why do you value the rights of a lump of cells more then the right to decide what happens to your body ?

[Invariance]

Definition of a loaded answer:

Do you support prenatal rights?

No (The unborn are the only class allowed to be oppressed and discriminated against by the State.)

[Nulono]

no they are just cells.

are you by any chance opposed to abortion ?
if so why do you value the rights of a lump of cells more then the right to decide what happens to your body ?

Umm... we're all just lumps of cells. Cells are the basic building blocks of life.
And having an abortion isn't "deciding what happens to your body".

This picture is grossly offensive, so I have removed it - Bobkindles

[GracchusBabeuf]

This is a rigged poll.

There needs to be just a "No" option.

(The unborn are the only class allowed to be oppressed and discriminated against by the State.)Meaningless "option".

[Lord Testicles]

Very Scientific diagram you have there.

I voted no, cells don't have rights.

[Nulono]

This is a rigged poll.

Do you think I didn't know that? The abortion poll had the options "pro-choice" and "anti-choice".

[BobKKKindle$]

I'm not having this in discrimination, it's moving to OI, which is where you're going to end up very soon. I'm not going to have the whole abortion debate because I've had it before with too many reactionaries, but the only thing that needs to be said that the issue of whether the fetus should be considered a person or not is fundamentally irrelevant, because, whatever your "yes" option may imply, it's quite obvious that not all persons are given equal moral or legal rights - if a someone commits a rape, or does anything else that involves a person's body being used without that person having given their consent, that person gains the automatic right to do anything necessary to regain exclusive control over their body, which, in the context of pregnancy, means abortion, because, by wanting to have an abortion, a woman is signaling that she no longer consents to the fetus using her body for its own survival.

[Nulono]

This is a bullshit argument and has been refuted a zillion times.


Imagine you are sailing your boat along at sea, minding your own business, when you hear a noise behind you. You turn around and find a bedraggled looking man climbing from out of the waves onto your craft.

"Thank God you happened by!" he says. "My ship sank, and I’ve been clinging to the mast for a day now. I had almost given up hope."

You nod solemnly at him, walk across the deck, pick him up, and throw him back in the ocean. "You see," you explain to an imagined audience of shocked onlookers, "he was trespassing. I came out here for some solitude, and the idea that now I’m compelled to accommodate him makes me into kind of a slave, doesn’t it?"

In most people's view and in most legal regimes, this justification is pathetic and you are guilty of murder. And I think that verdict is correct. (I realize some libertarians may disagree, and my argument may be unconvincing to them.) But what of your complaint that you are being enslaved by being forced to take this unwelcome passenger?

The fact that you cannot toss the man off your ship does not compel you to go anywhere you were not going before. If the interloper says he would really prefer to be let off in Boston rather than your destination of New York, you can tell him to bugger off. Most importantly, you are not compelled to keep the man aboard one moment longer than is necessary to get him to safety. At the first moment you reach a populated land, your responsibility for the man’s fate ends. Yes, you are inconvenienced, but that is all – and in a decent society, when you are in a unique position for being able to save someone’s life at the cost of a minor inconvenience to yourself, you are obliged to do so.

Solving the Abortion Conundrum (http://www.lewrockwell.com/callahan/callahan168.html)
by Gene Callahan
(source for quote)

Abortion and Thomson's Violinist: Unplugging a Bad Analogy (http://www.l4l.org/library/thomviol.html)
Comments on why the prenatal child has the right under individual liberty to be in the mother's womb
by Doris Gordon

If the Unborn Child is a Person Entitled to Rights, Abortion is Aggression (http://www.l4l.org/library/pers-agg.html)
by Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr.

Why Parental Obligation? (http://www.l4l.org/library/whyparob.html)
by John Walker

Children's Rights versus Murray Rothbard's The Ethics of Liberty (http://www.l4l.org/library/chilroth.html)
by John Walker

The "Right" of Abortion: A Dogma in Search of a Rationale (http://www.l4l.org/library/dogmarat.html)
by Edwin Vieira, Jr.

[Coggeh]

I was just wondering: anyone else here a supporter of prenatal rights?
I like the way you phrased the second answer :closedeyes:

On revleft we fully support the rights and choice of the woman first.

[Nulono]

OI, which is where you're going to end up very soon.

So disagreeing on one issue makes me a capitalist? Socialists can hold good-faith stances on either side of this issue.

[Lord Testicles]

So disagreeing on one issue makes me a capitalist? Socialists can hold good-faith stances on either side of this issue.

No, being anti-choice makes you a reactionary.

[BobKKKindle$]

The paragraph you posted was the most abysmal refutation of abortion rights I've ever encountered in my life. It should be clear to everyone with a basic level of common sense that your right to bodily autonomy, which includes the right to abort an unwanted pregnancy, as well as the right to use physical violence in order to resist rape, is not the same as your alleged right to determine who should be able to use your boat under any circumstances - and in fact to suggest that the latter right (which, for leftists, is not a right at all, because we dispute the notion that there is such a thing as an inviolable right to property in material goods such as boats) is in some way derived from the first or the same as the first is incredibly degrading to the concept of bodily autonomy. I've no doubt that the boat analogy is taken from a right-wing libertarian essay, because only right-wing libertarians would be simple enough to believe that the right to control who uses your boat is the same as the right to exercise control over your body, and resist attempts to violate your bodily autonomy. In fact, I find it amusing that all of the essays you posted (which no-one is going to read, by the way) are taken from a right-wing libertarian website!

[Nulono]

No, being anti-choice makes you a reactionary.You disagree with my right to choose to assault you. I guess that makes you anti-choice, and therefore reactionary.


The paragraph you posted was the most abysmal refutation of abortion rights I've ever encountered in my life. It should be clear to everyone with a basic level of common sense that your right to bodily autonomy, which includes the right to abort an unwanted pregnancy, as well as the right to use physical violence in order to resist rape, is not the same as your alleged right to determine who should be able to use your boat under any circumstances - and in fact to suggest that the latter right (which, for leftists, is not a right at all, because we dispute the notion that there is such a thing as an inviolable right to property in material goods such as boats) is in some way derived from the first is incredibly degrading to the concept of bodily autonomy.
I'm sorry, but without a right to life there is no right to bodily autonomy.


I like the way you phrased the second answer :closedeyes:

On revleft we fully support the rights and choice of the woman first.

Not very socialist is it to hold such an antiegalitarian view, is it?

[Dóchas]

well your restricted now so its all good :)

[Lord Testicles]

You disagree with my right to choose to assault you. I guess that makes you anti-choice, and therefore reactionary.

Don't be such a child, you are talking about assaulting me and I'm talking about womens right to have full control over their body.

[BobKKKindle$]

I'm sorry, but without a right to life there is no right to bodily autonomy.

That's a completely meaningless assertion. As I stated in my first post, it is clear that we do not apply the same moral and legal rights to all individuals under all circumstances, and instead we recognize that individuals can lose certain rights depending on the way they behave towards other individuals, and in particular whether their actions threaten the rights of other individuals. In the case of a pregnancy there is a clear relationship of dependency and use between the fetus and the woman, whereby the fetus is using a woman's body for its own survival and development, at considerable cost the woman in terms of her physical wellbeing, and ability to pursue a wide range of activities, and what that means is that a woman does have the automatic right to have an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of her reasons for doing so, because no organism, even person, has the right to use an individual's body unless that person has first given their consent, and continues to give consent for the duration of the process. This is why a rape victim has the right to use physical force to resist the rapist, even if their actions lead to the rapist suffering permanent damage. In fact, your position is so reactionary that you are adopting an even lower degree of respect for bodily autonomy than than the bourgeois legal system, becuase even bourgeois courts award lower punishments, or no punishment at all, if someone broke a law by acting in self-defence.

[Nulono]

Don't be such a child, you are talking about assaulting me and I'm talking about a womans right to have full control over their body.So may I rape you, then? After all, I must have the right to full control over my penis.

Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.


That's a completely meaningless assertion. As I stated in my first post, it is clear that we do not apply the same moral and legal rights to all individuals under all circumstances, and instead we recognize that individuals can lose certain rights depending on the way they behave towards other individuals, and in particular whether their actions threaten the rights of other individuals. In the case of a pregnancy there is a clear relationship of dependency and use between the fetus and the woman, whereby the fetus is using a woman's body for its own survival and development, at considerable cost the woman in terms of her physical wellbeing, and ability to pursue a wide range of activities, and what that means is that a woman does have the automatic right to have an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, regardless of her reasons for doing so, because no organism, even person, has the right to use an individual's body unless that person has first given their consent, and continues to give consent for the duration of the process. This is why a rape victim has the right to use physical force to resist the rapist, even if their actions lead to the rapist suffering permanent damage. In fact, your position is so reactionary that you are adopting an even lower degree of respect for bodily autonomy than than the bourgeois legal system, becuase even bourgeois courts award lower punishments, or no punishment at all, if someone broke a law by acting in self-defence.But this assumes some sort of conscious decision on the part of the fetus. The fetus did not ask to be dependent, and, in fact, was placed in such a position by the direct action of the parents. Self-defense does not apply unless the mother's life is in danger, in which case I would allow abortion as a last resort.

[Pogue]

But this assumes some sort of conscious decision on the part of the fetus. The fetus did not ask to be dependent, and, in fact, was placed in such a position by the direct action of the parents.


Thats the point. It can't make a 'conscious decision' because its not a human being that can think, experience, etc. Its just a bundle of cells.

[Dóchas]

Thats the point. It can't make a 'conscious decision' because its not a human being that can think, experience, etc. Its just a bundle of cells.

thats not completely ture we were shown a pro life video in religion and it said fetuses felt pain after i think it was nine week so they can experience some of the more primitive feelings

[Lord Testicles]

So may I rape you, then? After all, I must have the right to full control over my penis.

Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.

What? Seriously... ??? :blink: You cannot be that dense.

http://images.starcraftmazter.net/4chan/for_forums/obvious_troll.jpg

[Agnapostate]

If Nulono is who I suspect he is, he's argued this topic to death to the point of ignoring more relevant topics on other forums before.

Regardless, restricting him on the grounds of a single-issue disagreement that doesn't characterize his general political philosophy isn't especially just, IMO. I couldn't ignore Jaroslav Vanek's excellent insights into the superior efficiency of worker-owned enterprises and labor cooperatives on the grounds of his opposition to abortion rights.

[BobKKKindle$]

But this assumes some sort of conscious decision on the part of the fetus

This has no impact whatsoever on the right of every woman to abort an unwanted pregnancy. The right of each individual to use whatever means necessary to defend exclusive control of their body even if by doing so they cause the death of another person is not dependent on their bodily autonomy being violated by a conscious and willing agent - and by setting up this condition for the exercise of bodily autonomy you are creating a whole range of philosophical issues, because what it means to will something, and the extent to which we can be seen as genuinely free agents who purposefully enter into different activities and projects, is itself a matter of philosophical debate.

[brigadista]

the answer to this is the choice lies with the woman who becomes pregnant -her body -her choice - simple as

[Nulono]

Thats the point. It can't make a 'conscious decision' because its not a human being that can think, experience, etc. Its just a bundle of cells.
A neonate cannot make a conscious decision either; it reacts instinctively. Self-awareness isn't developed until 15 months after birth. This has led some ethicist such as Peter Singer to conclude that infants aren't people. Please tell me you don't support infanticide?

BTW, humanity is determined by biology, not mental capacity. If you're saying they aren't entities with rights, the word you're looking for is "person", a word that has been manipulated throughout history to exclude Native Americans, slaves, basically any class the State wanted to oppress.

[Nulono]

the answer to this is the choice lies with the woman who becomes pregnant -her body -her choice - simple as
I addressed this already. The control being sought is not over her body, but over her son or daughter's body (indeed, over his or her life). That is not freedom, there being no coherent notion of freedom for all which includes the freedom to coerce. (http://www.l4l.org/library/fulda.html)

[Decolonize The Left]

I addressed this already. The control being sought is not over her body, but over her son or daughter's body (indeed, over his or her life). That is not freedom, there being no coherent notion of freedom for all which includes the freedom to coerce. (http://www.l4l.org/library/fulda.html)

No - it isn't. In your claim you have posited that a fetus is a person, it isn't, and hence it makes no claims to rights of any sort.

- August

[Dóchas]

may i ask why nulono is still a member of the board? :confused:

[brigadista]

I addressed this already. The control being sought is not over her body, but over her son or daughter's body (indeed, over his or her life). That is not freedom, there being no coherent notion of freedom for all which includes the freedom to coerce. (http://www.l4l.org/library/fulda.html)


so what? it is the woman who having a the decison to HAVe to have the child have imposed upon her by any lack of choice not to who will have the 9 month pregancy-
the labour -
the years of caring for and
the worry of financially supporting the child -

therefore it is her choice- regardless

[Nulono]

No - it isn't. In your claim you have posited that a fetus is a person, it isn't, and hence it makes no claims to rights of any sort.

- AugustHence my point that the question of abortion hinges upon the question of prenatal rights.


may i ask why nulono is still a member of the board? :confused:
Because I'm still a communist; I just disagree on which classes need protection.

[Dóchas]

Because I'm still a communist; I just disagree on which classes need protection.


yet you have reactionary ideas

[Nulono]

so what? it is the woman who having a the decison to HAVe to have the child have imposed upon her by any lack of choice not to who will have the 9 month pregancy-
the labour -
the years of caring for and
the worry of financially supporting the child -

therefore it is her choice- regardless

Sorry, could you say that again and fix your grammar? I'm not a grammar Nazi, but I just can't decipher your message.

[Nulono]

yet you have reactionary ideas

Like what, believing in nonviolence and the equality of all human beings? That seems pretty liberal to me.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/10503727/Socialism-and-the-ProLife-Perspective

[TC]

It happens to be that fetuses are non-person entities that have no thoughts, person-level minds, self-awareness, expectation, self-identifiable interests, and consequently have no rights and should not be given moral consideration.

*HOWEVER!*

If we were to suspend our disbelief, ignore reality, and pretend that fetuses are persons with rights...then abortion would be permissible on self-defense grounds and the state would be required to fund it:

For a detailed articulation of this position see Eileen McDonaugh's "Breaking the Abortion Debate: From Choice to Consent":

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Law/ConstitutionalLaw/?view=usa&ci=9780195091427

Also see a discussion with McDonagh and others at the National Organization of Women's website:

http://www.now.org/issues/abortion/mcdonagh.html

And for people with a university affiliation who get get journal access, an excellent discussion between McDonagh and several other academics

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=38755

[Nulono]

As I said, this is a bullshit argument that has been refuted a bazillion jillion times, but I just want to point out that a fetus does NOT cause a pregnancy; the mother does. I don't have time to re-refute it; I'm looking for a socialist forum that doesn't have such a knee-jerk reaction to any hint of dissent.

[PCommie]

First off, it is quite small of anyone to say that she should be thrown out of RevLeft, or even Restricted, for a perfectly valid opinion.

Second, my opinion. I am half and half. The brain starts functioning at 6 weeks, right? That's what the billboards all say, anyway. Well, I say, abortion is fine up to 6 weeks. I mean, if you get raped, and you're too damn lazy to get tested for 6 fucking weeks, then it's your fault. Once the brain is functioning, the baby is a living human, regardless of how intelligent, and that's just murder. I'm sorry, I hate the right-wing, I hate the cappies, but it's just my opinion. If you can't be bothered to keep the damn thing until it can survive outside you, you don't care much about your fellow humans. Now, if the mother's in danger, by all means, abortion rights go.

I'll probably be restricted for this opinion, but hey, if we're afraid to show our opinions, that's a good way to allow a dictative state to start.

H&S forever,
-PC

[brigadista]

Sorry, could you say that again and fix your grammar? I'm not a grammar Nazi, but I just can't decipher your message.

to make it simple -
if a woman does not have the right to choose- the above are imposed upon her- it is therefore her choice alone.

i think your argument is pure sophistry
apologies as i am a crap typist as you can see

[Pogue]

I mean, if you get raped, and you're too damn lazy to get tested for 6 fucking weeks, then it's your fault.


What if you were too kinda, er, traumatised to really get round to it?

[Nulono]

to make it simple -
if a woman does not have the right to choose- the above are imposed upon her- it is therefore her choice alone.

i think your argument is pure sophistry
apologies as i am a crap typist as you can see
But if the child does not have the right to life, mutilation and death are imposed upon him or her. One person's comfort and/or convenience does not overrule another's right to not be poisoned, or be ripped limb form limb, or have his or her brains sucked out. Furthermore, the mother initiates the pregnancy through intercourse.

[Nulono]

What if you were too kinda, er, traumatised to really get round to it?

So what? That gives you the right to have your daughter's brains sucked out?

[Blackscare]

So what? That gives you the right to have your daughter's brains sucked out?

He was talking about someone else's stipulation that abortion should be allowed until the sixth week after rape, dumb-dumb. He wasn't talking to you.

Talk about knee-jerk reactions. :rolleyes:

[brigadista]

im not going to respond to this pro life nonsense-

[Nulono]

He was talking about someone else's stipulation that abortion should be allowed until the sixth week after rape. He wasn't talking to you.

Talk about knee-jerk reactions. :rolleyes:

He opposes it after the sixth week because that's when the rain develops, dumdum.

[Blackscare]

Also, how do you plan to enforce your anti-choice moralism in an anarchist society?

[Blackscare]

He opposes it after the sixth week because that's when the rain develops, dumdum.

No, someone else said that. They actually said that abortions after that point would be wrong. HLVS's argument was that the cutoff at 6 weeks is too strict because the women may still be in shock.

He doesn't oppose it after 6 weeks. That was his point.

Try to follow conversations better.

[Nulono]

Also, how do you plan to enforce your anti-choice moralism in an anarchist society?Ignoring the weighted terminology, I would enforce it the same way prohibitions against post-natal homicide would be enforced.


No, someone else said that. They actually said that abortions after that point would be wrong. HLVS's argument was that the cutoff at 6 weeks is too strict because the women may still be in shock.

He doesn't oppose it after 6 weeks. That was his point.

Try to follow conversations better.I was referring to the person who opposes it after then, and explaining how he opposes it due to the development of the brain, not because the mother should've been tested by then.

[Blackscare]

I was referring to the person who opposes it after then, and explaining how he opposes it due to the development of the brain, not because the mother should've been tested by then.

My point is that you were attacking the wrong person!

Why were you quoting HLVS if you were attacking someone else all along?

I think you're backpedaling so as not to look stupid.

[Pogue]

So what? That gives you the right to have your daughter's brains sucked out?

Get down from your crusader's steed and read what I wrote before launching into another one of your hysterics about how we all support murder or some other assorted shite.

[Nulono]

My point is that you were attacking the wrong person!

Why were you quoting HLVS if you were attacking someone else all along?

I think you're backpedaling so as not to look stupid.

I quoted him because of his misunderstanding of his objection to post-6 weeks abortion.

[Blackscare]

You're making no sense. :cursing:

[TC]

Hence my point that the question of abortion hinges upon the question of prenatal rights.

If fetuses were people with rights, then pregnant women would be free to use whatever force is required to prevent those 'people' from invading and altering their bodies, causing pain, suffering, and loss of physical function. In this case the minimum necessary force is lethal force since any attempt at less-than-lethal self defense (c-section, induced pregnancy) would require self-inflicted harm.

Unwanted pregnancy is a medical problem like an unwanted tumor if a fetus isn't a person, but if a fetus *is a person* with rightsthen that would make unwaned pregnancy, like unwanted sex (even by the sleepwalking, the retarded, the drunk, etc), an act of violence that could be legitimately met with violence sufficient to prevent the harm.

The fact that a hypothetical (non-existant) self-aware fetus-person would have no choice (or awareness) of its use of violence against its host's body, would not mean the host could not legitimately defend itself from it. If you're stranded on the north pole and your fellow explorer needs to eat your arm to survive, you are free to resist with lethal force even though the violence they attempt on yourself is less than lethal and necessary to their survival. If a sleepwalking or mentally defficient person attacks you, though unaware of their actions and the harm they inflict, or even able to control them, you can still defend yourself, again with lethal force if thats the minimum sufficient to prevent serious bodily injury. And that is what pregnancy and childbirth entail. If you consent to it, then just like consenting to a boxing match, there is no 'harm' becasue the potential victim does not conceptualize it as a harm; but if you don't consent to it, then an extreme act of violence. The difference between desired pregnancy and non-consensual unwanted pregnancy is the same as the difference between consentual sex and rape.

[Nulono]

I think we disagree on what constitutes self-defense or agression.

[Blackscare]

I think we disagree on what constitutes self-defense or agression.

What if I crawled up one of your cavities and made myself comfortable?







:p

[TC]

I think we disagree on what constitutes self-defense or agression.

So if an adult, (whether or not they were aware of it) were to inject chemicals into your body inducing radical hormonal, cardiovascular and digestive changes leaving you violently ill, followed by incapacitating bloating, weight gain so rapid that your dermis tears apart leaving you scarred for life, and that the effects of this chemical described above escelated over the course of the better part of a year, at which point the adult responsible tortured you for hours inducing a degree of agony never felt before or after, likely permenantly disfiguring your genitals and leaving you unable to enjoy sex for months, possibly leaving you incontinent for a short or extended period of time...would you not think that constitutes an assault which could be legitimately met with self defense should you choose to protect yourself?

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

I'm pro-choice. However, I think that the issue needs to be reconsidered. As of recently, I've been attempting to construct a strong pro-choice argument. The idea, there, is to create a "real" opponent to refute. A "brick-man" as opposed to a straw man. Of course, I haven't got there entirely. It's very possible there is no argument to make. I'll suggest my points, here. I'd am being Socratic, here. I am pro-choice, as mentioned. Moral "precedent" does not prove the precedent is legitimate. I also have some pro-choice ideas at the end.

Part 1: Fetuses and Moral Consideration

1. Moral precedent suggests that pain is sufficient for moral consideration.
2. Applying vegetarian ethics, we have the notion that discrimination without justifying reasons is illegitimate. Speciesism. The arbitrary listing of traits are not justifying reasons.
3. Pain "is" relevant to moral considerations in most moral schema. Democracy determines legislation with respect to issues of harm since, regardless of commitment to individualism, harm needs to be prevented. If a majority determines a harm is occurring, we can only claim "they are mistaken." We cannot claim they have no right to interfere to prevent harm unless we qualify this for specific cases.
3. If the fetus is outside the women, we have no justifying reasons, or have been shown none, for destroying it.
4. Pro-choice suggests, then, that the value a women attaches to a fetus, given the experiences it forces upon her, must be sufficient to justify pregnancy.
5. In some cases, inconvenience is sufficient to make pregnancy undesirable, and a women aborts the pregnancy.
6. Self-benefit is not sufficient to justify harm. More needs to be done to support the pro-choice argument.

As a vegetarian, this is what led me to pursuing this issue. I'm still pro-choice, by default, because I'm not necessarily against harming others. It's a fine line between considering others as relevant - enough relevant enough to "sometimes" consider harming yourself - and embracing Rand's terrible conception of morality. I don't think pro-choice falls under the "sometimes," for me at least.

Part 2: Inconvenience as Relevant? Why

1. Moral distinctions require justification. However, humans primarily consider individual rights with respect to two factors: firstly, the ability to contribute to their own interests, and, secondly, a natural inclination towards empathy.
2. Precedent states that individuals cannot harm others for personal gain unless, given majority opinion, the "contributions of X and empathy towards X" fail to justify abstaining from harm.
3. This reasoning suggests animals, despite having rights, are considered less important, both from natural empathy and usefulness, to deserve moral consideration. This is discriminatory, under many vegetarian conceptions, but discrimination is not "necessarily" undesirable.
4. Discrimination towards less capable humans, animals, etc, is considered unethical under a communist framework. Not all disadvantaged people incorporated into our society benefit our society.
5. We establish notions of "justice towards the weak" based on an understanding that, given random chance, we were born ourselves. Rawls' "original position." We are naturally inclined to treat people how, had our positions been reversed, we would like to be treated. We have empathy partially because of an understanding of are place in society being random.
6. To conceptualize this notion, we state that "had we been born X, we would want to be treated Y." As long as a being feels pain, we would want fair treatment if placed in such a situation.

We want to give consideration to the fetus "because" of a conception of ethics. This does not entail why pro-choice individuals "can" or "can't" escape the pro-life critics.

Part 2: Anti-Abortion Justification

1. If harm will come to two individuals, a cost-benefit analysis is done. The women is in the best position to make that analysis.
2. If I drive a car, my idiocy resulting in harm is my responsibility.
3. The court assumes individuals not-guilty by default. All pregnancies would have to be presumed accidental.
4. Society still punishes accidental crimes if the felons are at risk for repeating the offense.
5. Fetuses are typically aborted before the ability to feel pain. However, individuals who wait are being irresponsible if we assume the fetus has rights.
6. Given that the individual "could've" changed their mind, due to change in circumstance or unawareness prior, we allow them to utilize abortion.
7. However, allowing the pregnancy to continue has no benefits unless the intention is to accept responsibility. Once someone enters an agreement to care for a dependent, outside their body, they are held to that agreement unless society deems they have "justified reasons."
8. Not wanting to have a child in poverty, a given situation, X, et cetera, are all legitimate reasons for desiring abortion. However, once the fetus has pain, it gains moral consideration.
9. The inconvenience of a women cannot outweigh the risk to continuance of life, in a pain-feeling organism.

Responses:

1. Abortion rates are low after evidence suggests pain is present.
2. When the fetus feels pain, individuals wanting abortions will pursue them illegally.
3. The circumstances of the women may change after the fetus feels pain. The inability to anticipate this removes any "social contract" obligations on behalf of the women.
4. Individuals are not bound by exploitative contracts. If a contract you thought would benefit you turns out harmful, you can terminate the contract.
5. Society could significantly reward the continuation of pregnancies to influence the decision of the individual. This is preferable and more ethical than coercion. Likely more effective, too.
6. If society deems the benefit of harming X, the pregnant women, outweighs the loss of the fetus, society "could" enforce laws so long as the women was compensated legitimately (If I "have" to pollute near your town, because the new technology is just too beneficial, I must compensate you). If a fetus is "too" useful or important, perhaps a problem of low population, society might consider enforcements.
7. However, a rule causing self-harm to individuals as "necessary" entails a precedent that individuals can be harmed to protect pain-feeling organisms so long as it is the "only" method of preventing such harms. Well, this isn't too dangerous that I can see so far.
8. The population is incredibly high. Individuals who share the species of the fetus, as well as other species who may deserve similar moral consideration, exist in a state of suffering. "Forcing" the existence of a child at the expense of a mother is arguably unethical given social members who have established moral worth already.
9. If all members in society are cared for, or even if they aren't, prioritization does not necessarily alleviate responsibility to a fetus. There might still be reasons to intervene on its behalf.

Most importantly:

The women is the "only" individual who can accept the responsibility of a fetus. If society forces the preservation of life at the expense of those capable of caring for them, then, Western individuals have an ethical obligation to care for all impoverished children across the world. Everyone will cheer here, of course. However, this would necessitate legal "action" to justify such an implementation. The degree by which positive liberty can be pursued at the expense of individual choice is difficult to establish. If someone is being harmed, we say "stop." If someone is being harmed, but we can't stop the harm without harming another individual, we have to consider the fetus "more important" than the woman. There are no plans for the fetus, perhaps, serves as a legitimate distinction.

I think I've provided enough reasons to remain pro-choice, but I'm still not satisfied, as a vegetarian, with the strength of my pro-choice argument. I'll think about it some more and, hopefully, come up with something better.

[Nulono]

What if I crawled up one of your cavities and made myself comfortable?







:pDepends? Is there a high possibility that I will be killed? Did I put you there through a direct action on my part?

[TC]

So what? That gives you the right to have your daughter's brains sucked out?


If your 8 year old daughter comes at you with a knife demanding the use of your body and major organ systems, even for her own survival, there is not a state on earth, capitalist or socialist, which will not uphold your right to put a bullet through her brain if theres no other way to stop her.

Why should fetuses have more rights than 8 year old children? Parents don't owe their born children a drop of blood let alone a kidney let alone their entire bodies. Many voluntarily donate organs and blood as acts of love. It is the voluntary nature of these donations however that makes it an act of love: if it was witout their consent it would be an act of violence. Just like sex.

[TC]

I think I've provided enough reasons to remain pro-choice, but I'm still not satisfied, as a vegetarian, with the strength of my pro-choice argument. I'll think about it some more and, hopefully, come up with something better.

I would not eat a bear, but if a bear tried to eat me...

[Blackscare]

I would not eat a bear, but if a bear tried to eat me...

I'd eat it back.

[BobKKKindle$]

DAB, just to response to a few of the things you mentioned:


3. Pain "is" relevant to moral considerations in most moral schema. Democracy determines legislation with respect to issues of harm since, regardless of commitment to individualism, harm needs to be prevented.

It's true that many liberals do argue that the primary role of the government is the prevention of harm, but "harm" in this context refers to the violation of rights, and not just pain in general - it's perfectly fine is someone endures pain as long as they have consented to the experience in advance and maintain their consent for the duration of the experience, as someone might do if they decided to engage in contact sports, or certain kinds of sexual experience, or even a medical operation. If we think of harm as the unwarranted violation of rights then that obviously means that we need to have a prior theory of rights in order to determine what is acceptable and what is not, because there are differences of opinion on whether we have a right to do certain things, as well as the circumstances under which we can forfeit certain rights through our actions. If we do develop a "package" of rights then we also have to decide who those rights are applicable to, which generally involves debates on the characteristics and abilities that are integral to the concept of personhood.

[Nulono]

So if an adult, (whether or not they were aware of it) were to inject chemicals into your body inducing radical hormonal, cardiovascular and digestive changes leaving you violently ill, followed by incapacitating bloating, weight gain so rapid that your dermis tears apart leaving you scarred for life, and that the effects of this chemical described above escelated over the course of the better part of a year, at which point the adult responsible tortured you for hours inducing a degree of agony never felt before or after, likely permenantly disfiguring your genitals and leaving you unable to enjoy sex for months, possibly leaving you incontinent for a short or extended period of time...would you not think that constitutes an assault which could be legitimately met with self defense should you choose to protect yourself?It would not give me the right to kill him or her, no.


I'm pro-choice. However, I think that the issue needs to be reconsidered. As of recently, I've been attempting to construct a strong pro-choice argument. The idea, there, is to create a "real" opponent to refute. A "brick-man" as opposed to a straw man. Of course, I haven't got there entirely. It's very possible there is no argument to make. I'll suggest my points, here. I'd am being Socratic, here. I am pro-choice, as mentioned. Moral "precedent" does not prove the precedent is legitimate. I also have some pro-choice ideas at the end.Not excepting anything new.


Part 1: Fetuses and Moral Consideration

1. Moral precedent suggests that pain is sufficient for moral consideration.Um, no. I could murder you in a perfectly painless way.

2. Applying vegetarian ethics, we have the notion that discrimination without justifying reasons is illegitimate. Speciesism. The arbitrary listing of traits are not justifying reasons. Not sure what point you're making here.

3. Pain "is" relevant to moral considerations in most moral schema. Democracy determines legislation with respect to issues of harm since, regardless of commitment to individualism, harm needs to be prevented. If a majority determines a harm is occurring, we can only claim "they are mistaken." We cannot claim they have no right to interfere to prevent harm unless we qualify this for specific cases.And killing a child causes a great deal of harm.

3. If the fetus is outside the women, we have no justifying reasons, or have been shown none, for destroying it.Okay...

4. Pro-choice suggests, then, that the value a women attaches to a fetus, given the experiences it forces upon her, must be sufficient to justify pregnancy.What an incredibly capitalist notion. The worth of a person is not determined by any other person.

5. In some cases, inconvenience is sufficient to make pregnancy undesirable, and a women aborts the pregnancy.Yes, but that doesn't make it moral.

6. Self-benefit is not sufficient to justify harm. More needs to be done to support the pro-choice argument.Agreed.


As a vegetarian, this is what led me to pursuing this issue. I'm still pro-choice, by default, because I'm not necessarily against harming others. It's a fine line between considering others as relevant - enough relevant enough to "sometimes" consider harming yourself - and embracing Rand's terrible conception of morality. I don't think pro-choice falls under the "sometimes," for me at least.Harming others is wrong.


Part 2: Inconvenience as Relevant? Why

1. Moral distinctions require justification. However, humans primarily consider individual rights with respect to two factors: firstly, the ability to contribute to their own interests, and, secondly, a natural inclination towards empathy.Source?

2. Precedent states that individuals cannot harm others for personal gain unless, given majority opinion, the "contributions of X and empathy towards X" fail to justify abstaining from harm.Majority opinion can be wrong.

3. This reasoning suggests animals, despite having rights, are considered less important, both from natural empathy and usefulness, to deserve moral consideration. This is discriminatory, under many vegetarian conceptions, but discrimination is not "necessarily" undesirable.Under socialist ethics, discrimination is immoral.

4. Discrimination towards less capable humans, animals, etc, is considered unethical under a communist framework. Not all disadvantaged people incorporated into our society benefit our society.So disabled people are of less moral worth? How capitalist.

5. We establish notions of "justice towards the weak" based on an understanding that, given random chance, we were born ourselves. Rawls' "original position." We are naturally inclined to treat people how, had our positions been reversed, we would like to be treated. We have empathy partially because of an understanding of are place in society being random.The unborn are the weakest of society and deserve protection.

6. To conceptualize this notion, we state that "had we been born X, we would want to be treated Y." As long as a being feels pain, we would want fair treatment if placed in such a situation.As I stated before, moral atrocities can be committed painlessly. In addition, some people are born incapable of feeling pain (but I guess their disability makes them less human, right?).


We want to give consideration to the fetus "because" of a conception of ethics. This does not entail why pro-choice individuals "can" or "can't" escape the pro-life critics.Not sure what you're saying here.


Part 2: Anti-Abortion Justification

1. If harm will come to two individuals, a cost-benefit analysis is done. The women is in the best position to make that analysis.The woman is clearly NOT in the best position to make this judgement, as she is bound to decide in her favor. Furthermore, an action is not just simply because the perpetrator claims it is.

2. If I drive a car, my idiocy resulting in harm is my responsibility.Correct. If you have sex, the same applies.

3. The court assumes individuals not-guilty by default. All pregnancies would have to be presumed accidental.By default, until contrary evidence comes up. However, a pregnancy is never an accident, as sex requires an act of will. Even if it was an accident, punishing your son or daughter for your mistake is unjust.

4. Society still punishes accidental crimes if the felons are at risk for repeating the offense.That is not necessarily true, and society can be wrong.

5. Fetuses are typically aborted before the ability to feel pain. However, individuals who wait are being irresponsible if we assume the fetus has rights.The issue of when fetal pain occurs is an open debate not yet settled among the scientific community.

6. Given that the individual "could've" changed their mind, due to change in circumstance or unawareness prior, we allow them to utilize abortion.Changing your mind does not absolve you from moral duty. If I invite someone onto a plane, I can't say "Oops, I changed my mind" and throw them off. If I brought them onboard by accident, I cannot throw them off. I cannot even throw them off if they came aboard of their own free will without my knowledge or consent. I can only throw them off if their extra weight is throwing the plane into a nosedive, as that would be necessary to save my life.

7. However, allowing the pregnancy to continue has no benefits unless the intention is to accept responsibility. Once someone enters an agreement to care for a dependent, outside their body, they are held to that agreement unless society deems they have "justified reasons."The benifit is that the child doesn't have his/her brains sucked out!

8. Not wanting to have a child in poverty, a given situation, X, et cetera, are all legitimate reasons for desiring abortion. However, once the fetus has pain, it gains moral consideration.Because everyone knows people in poor families should be killed! How capitalist!

9. The inconvenience of a women cannot outweigh the risk to continuance of life, in a pain-feeling organism.As I have stated before, pain is irrelevant.


Responses:

1. Abortion rates are low after evidence suggests pain is present.Already adressed this.

2. When the fetus feels pain, individuals wanting abortions will pursue them illegally.Your point?

3. The circumstances of the women may change after the fetus feels pain. The inability to anticipate this removes any "social contract" obligations on behalf of the women.
4. Individuals are not bound by exploitative contracts. If a contract you thought would benefit you turns out harmful, you can terminate the contract.While any obligation obtained through contract is released, the universal moral contract of non-agression is still in place.

5. Society could significantly reward the continuation of pregnancies to influence the decision of the individual. This is preferable and more ethical than coercion. Likely more effective, too.This is true, and I never said I didn't support this.

6. If society deems the benefit of harming X, the pregnant women, outweighs the loss of the fetus, society "could" enforce laws so long as the women was compensated legitimately (If I "have" to pollute near your town, because the new technology is just too beneficial, I must compensate you). If a fetus is "too" useful or important, perhaps a problem of low population, society might consider enforcements.The inconvenience or harm of the mother is outweighed by the death of the child/

7. However, a rule causing self-harm to individuals as "necessary" entails a precedent that individuals can be harmed to protect pain-feeling organisms so long as it is the "only" method of preventing such harms. Well, this isn't too dangerous that I can see so far.Again, pain is irrelevant.

8. The population is incredibly high. Individuals who share the species of the fetus, as well as other species who may deserve similar moral consideration, exist in a state of suffering. "Forcing" the existence of a child at the expense of a mother is arguably unethical given social members who have established moral worth already.Something is not ethical simply because it fixes overpopulation. Could you immagine someone saing "The Holocaust is ethical because we're already too overpopulated!"?

9. If all members in society are cared for, or even if they aren't, prioritization does not necessarily alleviate responsibility to a fetus. There might still be reasons to intervene on its behalf.I think I agree?


Most importantly:

The women is the "only" individual who can accept the responsibility of a fetus. If society forces the preservation of life at the expense of those capable of caring for them, then, Western individuals have an ethical obligation to care for all impoverished children across the world. Everyone will cheer here, of course. However, this would necessitate legal "action" to justify such an implementation. The degree by which positive liberty can be pursued at the expense of individual choice is difficult to establish. If someone is being harmed, we say "stop." If someone is being harmed, but we can't stop the harm without harming another individual, we have to consider the fetus "more important" than the woman. There are no plans for the fetus, perhaps, serves as a legitimate distinction.There is no need to prioritize the fetus over the woman. One person's right to not be killed overrules another person's convenience.


I think I've provided enough reasons to remain pro-choice, but I'm still not satisfied, as a vegetarian, with the strength of my pro-choice argument. I'll think about it some more and, hopefully, come up with something better.
You're clearly rationalizing your emotions. If you're having such trouble defending your position, consider that you may be wrong.

[Agnapostate]

I'm not having this in discrimination, it's moving to OI, which is where you're going to end up very soon. I'm not going to have the whole abortion debate because I've had it before with too many reactionaries, but the only thing that needs to be said that the issue of whether the fetus should be considered a person or not is fundamentally irrelevant, because, whatever your "yes" option may imply, it's quite obvious that not all persons are given equal moral or legal rights - if a someone commits a rape, or does anything else that involves a person's body being used without that person having given their consent, that person gains the automatic right to do anything necessary to regain exclusive control over their body, which, in the context of pregnancy, means abortion, because, by wanting to have an abortion, a woman is signaling that she no longer consents to the fetus using her body for its own survival.

Yes, that's the popular position of Judith Jarvis Thomson. However, if we continue to affirm that the fetus is a person, we quickly encounter several problems. Firstly, a temporary sacrifice of some physical functions does indeed violate the rights of a pregnant woman; however, if we were to use Thomson's "violinist" example, it would not seem to be of comparable moral significance to the permanent death of a person. Instead of merely adopting a broadly deontologist framework of assigning vague "rights" without concern for their consequences, it would seem more prudent to adopt a consequentialist perspective wherein the utility of various "rights" is determined...and in a contest of two persons (the dependent person not having made a conscious decision to use the body of the host, as is the case with Thomson's violinist example), the "right" to life clearly provides more utility, and it would seem immoral for the pregnant woman to deny a "person" that right if she did not need to sacrifice anything of comparable moral significance.

This is also why your rape analogy is inequivalent; the utility gained by the rapist provides him with less happiness (as determined by measurements of intensity, duration, etc.), than the amount of suffering imposed on a rape victim, and the average rape thus causes a utility minimization. Hence, in my opinion, it's necessary to deny the personhood of the fetus.


A neonate cannot make a conscious decision either; it reacts instinctively. Self-awareness isn't developed until 15 months after birth. This has led some ethicist such as Peter Singer to conclude that infants aren't people. Please tell me you don't support infanticide?

Neither does Peter Singer or any consistent utilitarian support killing healthy, normal infants. As has been explained to you before, the difference lies in the extrinsic moral value of the infant as opposed to that of the nonviable fetus.


BTW, humanity is determined by biology, not mental capacity. If you're saying they aren't entities with rights, the word you're looking for is "person", a word that has been manipulated throughout history to exclude Native Americans, slaves, basically any class the State wanted to oppress.

A clear and frank distinction has been drawn between discrimination against such minority groups and discrimination against the human fetus, namely that there was no morally relevant distinction between those oppressed groups and those oppressors in terms of their capacities to suffer, whereas the same is not true with human fetuses.


I am half and half. The brain starts functioning at 6 weeks, right? That's what the billboards all say, anyway. Well, I say, abortion is fine up to 6 weeks. I mean, if you get raped, and you're too damn lazy to get tested for 6 fucking weeks, then it's your fault. Once the brain is functioning, the baby is a living human, regardless of how intelligent, and that's just murder. I'm sorry, I hate the right-wing, I hate the cappies, but it's just my opinion. If you can't be bothered to keep the damn thing until it can survive outside you, you don't care much about your fellow humans.

Even if the fetus is a "living human" (in that it's a member of the species homo sapiens), this does not necessarily weigh on its personhood. You'd have to address the fact that human fetuses are apparently considered a class worthy of personhood once "brain activity" (which is not equivalent to consciousness, incidentally), occurs, whilst various other animals with equivalent or greater levels of consciousness and capacity to feel pain than the fetus are considered nonpersons. As Jeremy Bentham put it:


The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny. The French have already discovered that the blackness of the skin is no reason why a human being should be abandoned without redress to the caprice of a tormentor. It may one day come to be recognized that the number of legs, the villosity of the skin, or the termination of the os sacrum are reasons equally insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the same fate. What else is it that should trace the insuperable line? Is it the faculty of reason, or perhaps the faculty of discourse? But a full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day or a week or even a month, old.

Hence, my own justification for abortion rights is utilitarian in nature, and thus centers around the fact that the fetus is not a person and the aforementioned Peter Singer's observation that "[a]s long as the abortion is carried out at less than 20 weeks of gestation – as almost all abortions are – the brain of the fetus has not developed to the point of making consciousness possible. In that respect, the fetus is less developed, and less aware of its circumstances, than the animals that we routinely kill and eat for dinner." In that regard, forbidding a pregnant woman from satisfying a preference to have an abortion would cause more suffering than otherwise, since a fetus lacks the capacity to form preferences (due to its lack of consciousness or self-awareness), and thus has no equivalent capacity to suffer.

[Nulono]

DAB, just to response to a few of the things you mentioned:



It's true that many liberals do argue that the primary role of the government is the prevention of harm, but "harm" in this context refers to the violation of rights, and not just pain in general - it's perfectly fine is someone endures pain as long as they have consented to the experience in advance and maintain their consent for the duration of the experience, as someone might do if they decided to engage in contact sports, or certain kinds of sexual experience, or even a medical operation. If we think of harm as the unwarranted violation of rights then that obviously means that we need to have a prior theory of rights in order to determine what is acceptable and what is not, because there are differences of opinion on whether we have a right to do certain things, as well as the circumstances under which we can forfeit certain rights through our actions. If we do develop a "package" of rights then we also have to decide who those rights are applicable to, which generally involves debates on the characteristics and abilities that are integral to the concept of personhood.This is what I've been trying to say.


If your 8 year old daughter comes at you with a knife demanding the use of your body and major organ systems, even for her own survival, there is not a state on earth, capitalist or socialist, which will not uphold your right to put a bullet through her brain if theres no other way to stop her.

Why should fetuses have more rights than 8 year old children? Parents don't owe their born children a drop of blood let alone a kidney let alone their entire bodies. Many voluntarily donate organs and blood as acts of love. It is the voluntary nature of these donations however that makes it an act of love: if it was witout their consent it would be an act of violence. Just like sex.
Agreed. If the mother wanted to transplant the embryo, or, after viability, induce labor, I would not object. All I'm saying is that the embryo or fetus has a negative right to life, meaning the mother has no right to kill the child.

[Nulono]

Neither does Peter Singer or any consistent utilitarian support killing healthy, normal infants. As has been explained to you before, the difference lies in the extrinsic moral value of the infant as opposed to that of the nonviable fetus.But you admit he considers infants non-persons?




A clear and frank distinction has been drawn between discrimination against such minority groups and discrimination against the human fetus, namely that there was no morally relevant distinction between those oppressed groups and those oppressors in terms of their capacities to suffer, whereas the same is not true with human fetuses. That would be like a sexist saying "the difference between racism and sexism is racism discriminated on a morally irrelevant basis". My point is that the capacity to suffer is as morally irrelevant as race, sex, and age.


Your whole argument is that moral worth is that the ability to reason/suffer somehow determines one's moral value. However, I could drug you such that you fulfill neither criterion. Would I then be justified in murdering you?

[Agnapostate]

But you admit he considers infants non-persons?

It's not even centered around *him* personally. It's centered around utilitarianism, though he has been a pioneer when it comes to utilitarian approaches to applied ethics. I've no qualms admitting that I don't consider an infant a person, but I've already specified that the distinction between a nonviable fetus and an infant lies in the extrinsic moral value of the latter.


That would be like a sexist saying "the difference between racism and sexism is racism discriminated on a morally irrelevant basis". My point is that the capacity to suffer is as morally irrelevant as race, sex, and age.

Is there a difference between violently assaulting a human and kicking a stone down the road? Or between violently assaulting a human, and stepping on an ant, for that matter?


Your whole argument is that moral worth is that the ability to reason/suffer somehow determines one's moral value. However, I could drug you such that you fulfill neither criterion. Would I then be justified in murdering you?

This is a similarly poor "argument," and one that I've already rebutted in the past, incidentally. Self-aware beings possess the capacity to form preferences and interests regarding the future, and accordingly, suffer from their denial or inhibition. Drugging and murdering a person (or killing a person in their sleep), would just as assuredly constitute a prevention of preference satisfaction as killing someone in a waking state would.

[Nulono]

It's not even centered around *him* personally. It's centered around utilitarianism, though he has been a pioneer when it comes to utilitarian approaches to applied ethics. I've no qualms admitting that I don't consider an infant a person, but I've already specified that the distinction between a nonviable fetus and an infant lies in the extrinsic moral value of the latter. Where does this "extrinsic moral value" come from?




Is there a difference between violently assaulting a human and kicking a stone down the road? Or between violently assaulting a human, and stepping on an ant, for that matter?Yes. Ants and rocks aren't human.




This is a similarly poor "argument," and one that I've already rebutted in the past, incidentally. Self-aware beings possess the capacity to form preferences and interests regarding the future, and accordingly, suffer from their denial or inhibition. Drugging and murdering a person (or killing a person in their sleep), would just as assuredly constitute a prevention of preference satisfaction as killing someone in a waking state would.Not sure what you're saying here, but you can't suffer from the denial or inhibition of your preferences or interests if you're DEAD!

[Nulono]

Regardless, I think we've established a socialist can hold a sincere, good-faith opposition to legalized abortion and still be a socialist.

[TC]

Agreed. If the mother wanted to transplant the embryo,


Thats technologically impossible.


or, after viability, induce labor, I would not object.

Inducing labor would defeat the point of an abortion since the entire motive is to avoid labor and avoid the harmful physical affects of allowing a fetus to reach 'viability'. Keeping a fetus alive to 'viability' is harmful to the person hosting it, inducing labor is even more harmful. Women have a right to avoid suffering physical injury from others and thats what you're proposing.


All I'm saying is that the embryo or fetus has a negative right to life, meaning the mother has no right to kill the child.

There is no intrinsic right to kill a fetus or other non-person organism, the point is that exercising one's right to bodily autonomy, freedom from injury, security in their person, entails at a minimum the ability to use violence to prevent invasions against those rights and a fetus would be doing such an injury were it a person. The right to kill the fetus is only incidental to the right to terminate a pregnancy because there is no way to terminate a pregnancy without either killing the fetus or enflicting the sort of physical injury that terminating the pregnancy sought to avoid.

[LOLseph Stalin]

Regardless, I think we've established a socialist can hold a sincere, good-faith opposition to legalized abortion and still be a socialist.

Alright. Mind telling me the reasons as to why you're against abortion?

[TC]

Alright. Mind telling me the reasons as to why you're against abortion?

Maybe we should speculate instead because i think its obvious that pro-lifers are engaging in acts of self deception and bad faith when they claim its for the sake of the 'fetus's rights.' If that were the case then they'd not allow for the exception for rape which almost all of them are (rapists' "babies" aren't people but loving patriarchal christian husband's are??)

some speculations

-(For pro-life males): They don't like the idea of a woman having control of *their* seed, they want to possess their partner or hypothetical partner's sexuality in the area of reproduction as much as they do in them not fucking other men. They believe they have property interests in an organ of someone elses body.

-(For pro-life females): They identify with their oppressors to win favor through compliance rather than resistance. Its easier being the house slave.

-(For capitalists): They fear that if women have effective control over their bodies (which condoms and b/c are not given high potential for human error) they will choose to have insufficient children to replenish the labor force.

-(For patriarchs and those with an interest in patriarchy like the church): They fear that if women have control over the number and timing of children they will choose to have them if at all, at times most convenient to them, thereby circumventing the reality that children in our society impose burdens that reduce a mother's ability to participate in public life at the same level as a father does. Without this burden, men lose leverage over their female partners, parents lose leverage over their adult children, the church loses leverage over its flock.

[synthesis]

But if the child does not have the right to lifeA fetus is not a child. It is a fetus. If you would have spoken of "fetal rights," it would have been a little less disingenuous on your part. I don't see how your argument could not be extended to "pre-natal rights" for the sperm in my balls.

(By the way, I don't agree with the way you've been treated here. Even if you are in fact a troll, and I'm not sure, I still agree with what you have to say about good-faith discussions among socialists.)

[synthesis]

Maybe we should speculate instead because i think its obvious that pro-lifers are engaging in acts of self deception and bad faith when they claim its for the sake of the 'fetus's rights.' If that were the case then they'd not allow for the exception for rape which almost all of them are (rapists' "babies" aren't people but loving patriarchal christian husband's are??)

some speculations

-(For pro-life males): They don't like the idea of a woman having control of *their* seed, they want to possess their partner or hypothetical partner's sexuality in the area of reproduction as much as they do in them not fucking other men. They believe they have property interests in an organ of someone elses body.

-(For pro-life females): They identify with their oppressors to win favor through compliance rather than resistance. Its easier being the house slave.

-(For capitalists): They fear that if women have effective control over their bodies (which condoms and b/c are not given high potential for human error) they will choose to have insufficient children to replenish the labor force.

-(For patriarchs and those with an interest in patriarchy like the church): They fear that if women have control over the number and timing of children they will choose to have them if at all, at times most convenient to them, thereby circumventing the reality that children in our society impose burdens that reduce a mother's ability to participate in public life at the same level as a father does. Without this burden, men lose leverage over their female partners, parents lose leverage over their adult children, the church loses leverage over its flock.

Right, because no one (except us) is capable of doing anything with good intentions. I forget that sometimes.

[Agnapostate]

Where does this "extrinsic moral value" come from?

Others will suffer if an infant dies inasmuch as they have an interest in it living. An infant can also be adopted by others, so killing it would constitute a utility minimization.


Yes. Ants and rocks aren't human.

That presupposes that members of the species homo sapiens are inherently superior to nonhuman animals at a similar or greater level of consciousness, etc., and you commit a petitio principii fallacy (begging the question), if you don't support that assertion with arguments. The species distinction seems irrelevant.


Not sure what you're saying here, but you can't suffer from the denial or inhibition of your preferences or interests if you're DEAD!

That is itself the form of suffering in question. Suffering is not limited to physical pain.

[TC]

Others will suffer if an infant dies inasmuch as they have an interest in it living. An infant can also be adopted by others, so killing it would constitute a utility minimization.

Are you sure about that?

Think of the carbon footprint,

the consumption an upper middle class westerner takes over the course of their lives is surely a net loss.

What if its a disabled infant that will contribute nothing materially to society while consuming tons of resources with expensive care and needs which could otherwise be directed towards healthy people? What if the care of one sick infant meant that hospital resources were diverted from saving the lives of several non-disabled adults

The utility calculus will probably often favor killing infants.

Of course I'm not a utilitarian so this isn't a problem for my ideological vantage point (marxism). I think infanticide is wrong not because of any utility calculus but several other reasons:

-A 9 months fetus and a baby are radically different in a major sense: a fetus has the capacity to threaten its host's health, adversely affect the condition of her body, and seriously injure her. A baby however is harmless. The fact that fetuses are dangerous and babies are not means that the justification for killing fetuses is not available with regard to babies.

-babies represent an immense concentration of capital produced through the labor of their mother (it takes a lot of socially necessary hours of work to produce an infant: the additional calories the mother consumes, the loss of her socially productive labor, the loss of her productivity and the countless hours she has to spend on additional physical self-maintance that would not be required were she not pregnant, the prenatal health care costs, the maternity ward expense given staff and resources needed for a relatively safe modern child birth,). The Marxian labor theory of value itself shows that babies are tremendously valuable products of someone's labor, and its wrong to alienate someone from the product of their prolonged, loving, committed work.

-Simply put, its a political decision. I do not want to live in a society that kills babies just like I don't want to live in a society that forces women to carry pregnancies to term against their will. Theres no god or neutral technical calculus of utility maximization to tell us what to do, we need to make our own values and choices and take responsibility for them.

Utilitarianism is nonsense: it tries to take a 'neutral' technocratic (in the common sense of the term) position rather than admitting that politics are politics and they involve imposing value judgments by force. Efficiency analysis needed for utiltiarianism is empirically impossible and theoretically flawed since it can never account for all of the externalities and third party effects of any given action and it has no coherent theory of value or utility.

[Agnapostate]

Are you sure about that?

Think of the carbon footprint,

the consumption an upper middle class westerner takes over the course of their lives is surely a net loss.

What if its a disabled infant that will contribute nothing materially to society while consuming tons of resources with expensive care and needs which could otherwise be directed towards healthy people? What if the care of one sick infant meant that hospital resources were diverted from saving the lives of several non-disabled adults

The utility calculus will probably often favor killing infants.

I'm dubious of any beneficial effects that could have on a rule-wide basis, if only because of the constrictions of bounded rationality more than anything else. How would it be precisely determined which infants cost which utility? At a later point, you mention the difficulties of utility calculus. I'd be inclined to believe that this would lend itself against attempting to calculate the utility value of killing individual infants if such would be applied on a rule level.


Of course I'm not a utilitarian so this isn't a problem for my ideological vantage point (marxism).

I'm generally not a fan of Marxism's social applications, to be honest. My interest in "Marxism" has centered around its critique of capitalism, not its own social or economic foundations.


I think infanticide is wrong not because of any utility calculus but several other reasons:

-A 9 months fetus and a baby are radically different in a major sense: a fetus has the capacity to threaten its host's health, adversely affect the condition of her body, and seriously injure her. A baby however is harmless. The fact that fetuses are dangerous and babies are not means that the justification for killing fetuses is not available with regard to babies.

The nature of a baby's dependency will require extensive care for it by a guardian or guardians, typically its mother and father. It could theoretically be argued that this constitutes a greater "imposition" than pregnancy with a fetus does, since it necessitates conscious guardianship through provision of food and other necessities, as well as financial expenditures.


-babies represent an immense concentration of capital produced through the labor of their mother (it takes a lot of socially necessary hours of work to produce an infant: the additional calories the mother consumes, the loss of her socially productive labor, the loss of her productivity and the countless hours she has to spend on additional physical self-maintance that would not be required were she not pregnant, the prenatal health care costs, the maternity ward expense given staff and resources needed for a relatively safe modern child birth,). The Marxian labor theory of value itself shows that babies are tremendously valuable products of someone's labor, and its wrong to alienate someone from the product of their prolonged, loving, committed work.

This objection is evidently not exclusive to infants, since all existing persons were necessarily born at some point. Moreover, what application would this have to an infant killed by its own mother? When a fetus is killed, its mother has evidently chosen to waive the labor value of her prior condition of pregnancy (and you took pains to emphasize the physical difficulty of that), so could a mother similarly waive her labor value in a case wherein she chose to kill her own infant?


-Simply put, its a political decision. I do not want to live in a society that kills babies just like I don't want to live in a society that forces women to carry pregnancies to term against their will. Theres no god or neutral technical calculus of utility maximization to tell us what to do, we need to make our own values and choices and take responsibility for them.

I'm not precisely sure what you intend to convey with this statement. It's my belief that we're generally predisposed towards the meta-ethical foundations of utilitarianism, and opposition to its applied effects primarily exist because of incomplete moral reasoning. But your comment here seems overly vague.


Utilitarianism is nonsense: it tries to take a 'neutral' technocratic (in the common sense of the term) position rather than admitting that politics are politics and they involve imposing value judgments by force. Efficiency analysis needed for utiltiarianism is empirically impossible and theoretically flawed since it can never account for all of the externalities and third party effects of any given action and it has no coherent theory of value or utility.

As you (apparently) mentioned, felicific calculus remains as a sufficient algorithm for making broad rule determinations. If you contest the value of the algorithm in making act determinations because of the aforementioned constrictions of bounded rationality, I honestly don't believe anyone's disputed that; the very nature of two-level utilitarianism relies on ethical analysis of acts necessarily being exceptional deviations from ethical analysis of rules, predetermined through the application of felicific calculus. Moreover, the "externalities" and "third party effects" are often separate consequences themselves suitable for ethical analysis.

[Nulono]

Others will suffer if an infant dies inasmuch as they have an interest in it living. An infant can also be adopted by others, so killing it would constitute a utility minimization.By that logic, abortion would be immoral post-implantation, or even pre-implantation once human embryo transplant is perfected.




That presupposes that members of the species homo sapiens are inherently superior to nonhuman animals at a similar or greater level of consciousness, etc., and you commit a petitio principii fallacy (begging the question), if you don't support that assertion with arguments. The species distinction seems irrelevant.You seemed to be using the fact that rocks and ants have no rights as support for your claim that pain matters.




That is itself the form of suffering in question. Suffering is not limited to physical pain.How exactly could one suffer if one does not experience?


Are you sure about that?

Think of the carbon footprint,

the consumption an upper middle class westerner takes over the course of their lives is surely a net loss.

What if its a disabled infant that will contribute nothing materially to society while consuming tons of resources with expensive care and needs which could otherwise be directed towards healthy people? What if the care of one sick infant meant that hospital resources were diverted from saving the lives of several non-disabled adults

The utility calculus will probably often favor killing infants.Would it not then also favor killing disabled adults?

-babies represent an immense concentration of capital produced through the labor of their mother (it takes a lot of socially necessary hours of work to produce an infant: the additional calories the mother consumes, the loss of her socially productive labor, the loss of her productivity and the countless hours she has to spend on additional physical self-maintance that would not be required were she not pregnant, the prenatal health care costs, the maternity ward expense given staff and resources needed for a relatively safe modern child birth,). The Marxian labor theory of value itself shows that babies are tremendously valuable products of someone's labor, and its wrong to alienate someone from the product of their prolonged, loving, committed work. Agna covered this quite well; of the mother is the one killing the infant, this does not apply.

[Revy]

I was just wondering: anyone else here a supporter of prenatal rights?

No, honestly, I don't.

Consider the fetus after three months. It has the consciousness level of a sea slug (prominent neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga said that in his book The Ethical Brain). Would you have any qualms about killing a sea slug if it had planted itself inside your body and was using your body's resources? Because it is human, it is somehow special, meaning, all conceived human life, including zygotes, clusters of cells must be treated as "people"! How ridiculous, how insulting.

[Sam_b]

I'm afraid I don't really have anything of much substance to add to this debate, seeing as comrades already have the base well and truly covered. I also find it quite hilarious that a so-called Anarcho-Communist, indeed an antitheist, would reiterate almost word-for-word the same spiel as the Christian right - and do so without a hint of irony. Surely this blatant disregard for a women's right to body autonomy is incompatable with Anarcho-Communism?

Personally I care more about the people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and so on being butchered in the name of imperialism than the termination of a clump of cells. Its not really surprising that the same people who call for ridiculous "rights of the fetus" also call for the reintroduction of the death penalty, more troops into Iraq and staunchly support Israel's ethnic cleansing; by and large.

[Nulono]

No, honestly, I don't.

Consider the fetus after three months. It has the consciousness level of a sea slug (prominent neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga said that in his book The Ethical Brain). Would you have any qualms about killing a sea slug if it had planted itself inside your body and was using your body's resources? Because it is human, it is somehow special, meaning, all conceived human life, including zygotes, clusters of cells must be treated as "people"! How ridiculous, how insulting.I personally find the view that I have inherent value just because I'm human quite uplifting.


I'm afraid I don't really have anything of much substance to add to this debate, seeing as comrades already have the base well and truly covered. I also find it quite hilarious that a so-called Anarcho-Communist, indeed an antitheist, would reiterate almost word-for-word the same spiel as the Christian right - and do so without a hint of irony.An antitheist isn't allowed to agree with anything the Christian right says? The Bible says "Thou shalt not bear false witness". Does that make perjury okay?


Surely this blatant disregard for a women's right to body autonomy is incompatable with Anarcho-Communism?Surely this blatant disregard for a child's right to life is incompatible with Anarcho-Communism?


Personally I care more about the people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and so on being butchered in the name of imperialism than the termination of a clump of cells. Its not really surprising that the same people who call for ridiculous "rights of the fetus" also call for the reintroduction of the death penalty, more troops into Iraq and staunchly support Israel's ethnic cleansing; by and large.When did I ever say I supported war and the death penalty? I find both abhorrent.

[synthesis]

Surely this blatant disregard for a child's right to life is incompatible with Anarcho-Communism?

Again, it is not a child, it is a fetus. You never answered my question: Should birth control, too, be illegal? Do my sperm have "pre-natal rights," as well? How about the morning after pill?

Your argument is not logically consistent. Again, unless you're completely full of shit, you're probably just "turned off" by the ugly aesthetics of abortion and needed to rationalize it to yourself from a "socialist" perspective. It's all vaguely similar to the environmentalist concept of "survival of the cutest (http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/endangered_species.shtml)"... born out of intentions that are both good and extremely shallow.

[Nulono]

Again, it is not a child, it is a fetus. You never answered my question: Should birth control, too, be illegal? Do my sperm have "pre-natal rights," as well? How about the morning after pill?"Child" has many definitions. You're thinking "an organism between birth and puberty". I'm using the definition "a son or daughter; an offspring". A spermatozoon has no rights as it is not a human being. The morning after pill, yes, is immoral.


Your argument is not logically consistent. Again, unless you're completely full of shit, you're probably just "turned off" by the ugly aesthetics of abortion and needed to rationalize it to yourself from a "socialist" perspective. It's all vaguely similar to the environmentalist concept of "survival of the cutest (http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/endangered_species.shtml)"... born out of intentions that are both good and extremely shallow.I would still oppose abortion even if it was neat and tidy. The killing of an innocent human being is immoral whether or not it is done in an esthetically pleasing way.

[synthesis]

So what do you define as a "human being" and what is your basis for this definition?

(It better be a pretty good basis if you want to justify the violation of bodily autonomy.)

[Sam_b]

Does that make perjury okay?

It depends. If a worker throws a brick on a cop on a demo and you are called into court as a witness, and you saw what happened; would you speak up and say the worker did it? I don't know about you but I would keep my mouth shut.

I mean, you're even inconsistent with your argument. How can a fetus be a 'child' if it is not born?

[Jazzratt]

The morning after pill, yes, is immoral.

What the fuck? What the fucking fuck is wrong with you? I mean, do you actually hate women or are you doing this all by accident?

[Bud Struggle]

What the fuck? What the fucking fuck is wrong with you? I mean, do you actually hate women or are you doing this all by accident?

You are making an ad hominum here. The OP's point is that the fetus is a human being with full rights from the moment of conception, you may agree or disagree, but it's just as valid a definition of what constitutes humanity as any other.

The abortion discussion has long ago left the world of science and entered the world of ethics. Now it's just a matter of what you or I think is ethical--and everything is open for opinion here.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The morning after pill, yes, is immoral.

:blink:

Is Revleft.com graced with the Pontiff's presence this morning?

[Invariance]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20060604/cartoon20060604.gif

[Nulono]

So what do you define as a "human being" and what is your basis for this definition?

(It better be a pretty good basis if you want to justify the violation of bodily autonomy.)A human being is any member of the human species.


It depends. If a worker throws a brick on a cop on a demo and you are called into court as a witness, and you saw what happened; would you speak up and say the worker did it? I don't know about you but I would keep my mouth shut.

I mean, you're even inconsistent with your argument. How can a fetus be a 'child' if it is not born?T1: My point was that Christians aren't wrong on everything.
2: There are different meanings of "child". You're thinking "between birth and puberty". I'm thinking "a son or daughter; an offspring".


You are making an ad hominum here. The OP's point is that the fetus is a human being with full rights from the moment of conception, you may agree or disagree, but it's just as valid a definition of what constitutes humanity as any other.

The abortion discussion has long ago left the world of science and entered the world of ethics. Now it's just a matter of what you or I think is ethical--and everything is open for opinion here.I agree with you mostly, but I just wanted to point out the comma splice.


http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/dayart/20060604/cartoon20060604.gifNo, she can get birth control; that specific worker in the pharmacy is just not forced to give her it against his beliefs. She is still allowed to have it.

[Jazzratt]

You are making an ad hominum here.

No. An ad hominem is would be attacking his argument based on who he is, I am making conclusions about who he is based on his argument.


The OP's point is that the fetus is a human being with full rights from the moment of conception,

Yes, but it's utter shit.


you may agree or disagree, but it's just as valid a definition of what constitutes humanity as any other.

Don't be stupid. You can't have a definition of what constitutes humanity that is just as valid as one that is mutually exclusive; definition just doesn't work like that.


The abortion discussion has long ago left the world of science and entered the world of ethics.

Nothing leaves the world of science. We are still improving abortion methods and they are still carried out by people qualified in medicine. Science is inseperable from abortion. Reactionary ethics, on the other hand, are not.


Now it's just a matter of what you or I think is ethical--and everything is open for opinion here.

You're not actually making a point though. Everyone knows it's an ethical question, everyone knows that some people will think differently about it. What I would like to see is yourself, Nulono and all the other disgusting misogynists defend your positions based on what they are rather than pretending they are about anything other than controlling women.

[TC]

A spermatozoon has no rights as it is not a human being. The morning after pill, yes, is immoral.

So...and at this point its just purely a matter of curiosity, do you:

1. actually believe that ovum are human beings while sperm are not?

2. have no clue what morning after pills are (higher doses of normal hormonal contraceptives) but think they're immoral impulsively.

3. have no idea how human reproduction actually works biologically and believe that conception, when it occurs, takes place during sexual intercourse?

4. weirdly believe that, although this has never been scientifically demonstrated, emergency contraceptives may prevent pregnancy by reducing implantation rates in addition to the primary mechanism of preventing ovulation, and this makes them an 'abortion' despite the fact that a. pregnancy has not occured, and were this scientifically implausible hypothesis to be true, it would be impossible to determine that conception occured b. ECP work the same way and have the same components just in larger doses as conventional birth control pills, so it is totally inconsistent to oppose one and not the other.

5. Just want to ensure that women aren't able to have sex 'without consequences' so as to coerce women into the role you find most suitable for them in society

[Nulono]

Claiming I'm against women is an ad hominem, a circumstantial ad hominem to be specific. Whether or not the unborn have rights does not hinge upon my feelings towards women (I'm a feminists, BTW.).


So...and at this point its just purely a matter of curiosity, do you:

1. actually believe that ovum are human beings while sperm are not?

2. have no clue what morning after pills are (higher doses of normal hormonal contraceptives) but think they're immoral impulsively.

3. have no idea how human reproduction actually works biologically and believe that conception, when it occurs, takes place during sexual intercourse?

4. weirdly believe that, although this has never been scientifically demonstrated, emergency contraceptives may prevent pregnancy by reducing implantation rates in addition to the primary mechanism of preventing ovulation, and this makes them an 'abortion' despite the fact that a. pregnancy has not occured, and were this scientifically implausible hypothesis to be true, it would be impossible to determine that conception occured b. ECP work the same way and have the same components just in larger doses as conventional birth control pills, so it is totally inconsistent to oppose one and not the other.

5. Just want to ensure that women aren't able to have sex 'without consequences' so as to coerce women into the role you find most suitable for them in society

If it can be shown that the morning after pill cannot hinder implantation, I'm all for it. Also, "conception", and thus pregnancy, and thus abortion, was redefined specifically so that said pill would not be considered abortifacient. I'm fine with women having consequence-free sex. I'm not fine with homicide.

[Nulono]

http://www.scribd.com/doc/10503727/Socialism-and-the-ProLife-Perspective

The Socialist Party, like many left-wing political parties in the United States, supports a woman’s choice to have an abortion. The party’s analysis of this issue is grounded in solid Marxist theory and represents the consensus of party members. However, some Socialists and other progressives disagree with this predominant position; we also base our beliefs on leftist ideology and a desire to promote and create a socialist society.

Unfortunately, the perspective of prolife Socialists is sometimes met with ridicule and contempt. The purpose of this essay is to dismantle the dominance and dogma of some pro-choice Socialists and to encourage discussion and diversity within our movement.

This essay represents only the opinion of its author and is not meant to characterize the beliefs of all pro-life Socialists. The information presented here is offered in the spirit of a friendly reminder to all comrades that we should accept and love one another despite our differences of opinion.

For more information about Socialism and the Pro-Life Perspective contact Jessica R. Dreistadt (267) 987-8907 [email protected]

A radical view and call to action
Summer 2006

As a Socialist woman, I stand in solidarity with all who are oppressed including people who are poor, people of color, people with disabilities, and the unborn.

Women and children are relegated to an inferior social status throughout the world. Capitalist societies, in particular, determine the worth of women and children based on their contribution or relation to economic production and growth. However, the worth of women and children cannot be measured by any man. Women and children are intrinsically valuable and deserve every opportunity and privilege available to men and women of means.

Abortion reinforces this imposed inequality. Pregnant women who do not have adequate social and economic support become alienated in our capitalist society. As Socialists, we must support all women in need by addressing the root causes of gender and economic inequality.

Women often choose to have abortions because they feel stuck in an undesirable situation. We must work to change the conditions that lead women to have abortions rather than encouraging the women themselves to change and adapt to their situations.

The pro-choice worldview reduces women and children to material objects whose value in the home and society is based, in large part, on male desire and convenience. When a woman chooses to end a life because of lack of male support, she and her child are victim to the patriarchy. Men who support a woman’s right to choose are also taking advantage of their ability to use women’s bodies and abuse their relationships.

A woman who has an abortion materializes and assumes ownership of her child to justify her right to end his or her life. Mainstream feminists, now free from male domination in many ways, put our children in an inferior social position - similar to the one women once held.

When a woman chooses to have an abortion, she is subjugating the needs of her child and society to her own individual desires while supporting the opportunistic, money-driven abortion industry. These are the hallmarks of a capitalist society.

Abortion negates women’s ability to create life, reducing the societal value of our unique physical abilities because they are considered ‘inferior’ to the physical capabilities of men. Manipulating nature and its resources is detrimental to environmental harmony and disrespectful to the essence of womanhood. Abortion disrupts the natural flow and process of life and rejuvenation.

Many Socialists are pacifists and as such we condemn unnecessary violence. The taking of a life or the possibility of human life, especially when it involves pain, dismembering, and mutilation of a baby and emotional turmoil of a mother, cannot be reconciled with a belief in nonviolence. Being pro-choice and pacifist are incompatible positions.

Abortion is sometimes defended because the fetus is of a different age, appearance, and physical capacity than a ‘normal’ human being outside the womb. When the value of human life, and its right to continue living, is based on these subjective qualities, the floodgates to discrimination and domination are opened.

Abortion is always a compromise. Women and children deserve, and must demand, real choices that unconditionally meet our needs.


ACCEPT NO COMPROMISES!!
The abortion controversy will only be resolved through the elimination of all forms of violence, sexism, discrimination, income inequality, abstinence-only programs, and corporate controlled healthcare (and everything else) along with support for safe homes and communities, equitable resource distribution, respect and opportunities for all, adequate childcare, comprehensive sex education programs, and easy access to birth control. A socialist society is the only solution.

[Sasha]

long idiot articel, blah blah bla against abortion blah blah blah non violence

i'm not even going to begin debating women rights (and i'm quite suprised other sane people do) but on the point of non-violence i recomend this book (http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4355288/HOW_NONVIOLENCE_PROTECTS_THE_STATE_-_Peter_Gelderloos),maybe if you get cured from your idiot pacifism (i presume your an pacifist on the premises of the articel you posted) you'll also loose some of your other daft ideas (hopefully your anti-choice stance but i hope at least the bonkers idea that you are an femminist :scared:)

[TC]

Claiming I'm against women is an ad hominem, a circumstantial ad hominem to be specific. Whether or not the unborn have rights does not hinge upon my feelings towards women

Actually its not an argument at all, its just an observation: you want to oppress women. I'm sure you have nice paternalist feelings towards women (and if a woman yourself enjoy basking in warm paternalist approval) but its your positions that make you a reactionary and class enemy, not your feelings.




You could claim to be the Queen of England as well but it wouldn't make it so. Feminism has a definition: you don't meet it.



[quote]If it can be shown that the morning after pill cannot hinder implantation, I'm all for it.
It can't be shown that *anything* doesn't hinder implantation. You can't prove a negative and you can't predict or determine conception before implantation. It might be that reading pro-life garbage while pretending to be a 'feminist' and a 'socialist' hinders implantation. Its impossible to determine.

However ECP is the same drug as normal birth control just at a higher dose: if ECPs reduces implantation then so do conventional BCPs.

For that matter so does breast feeding (it similarly prevents pregnancy through hormal alterations). Is breast feeding murder?

Know what the most *lethal* type of birth control is to pre-implantation blastocysts though: the "natural rythm" method the catholic church endorces:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/health/13rhyt.html?ex=1307851200&en=c595d269463e972e&ei=5090&partner=rssu

"natural family planning" supported by conservatives (cause it doesn't work very well and they want more christian babies) actually kills blastocysts whereas morning after pills prevent them from forming.

Its so obvious that saving the microscopic blastocysts (we are here now talking about literal 'clusters of cells' not fetuses), large proportions of which of which fail to implant anyways, is not the real agenda.

[Jazzratt]

Claiming I'm against women is an ad hominem, a circumstantial ad hominem to be specific. Whether or not the unborn have rights does not hinge upon my feelings towards women (I'm a feminists, BTW.)

I'm not entirely sure you know what a feminist is. Regardless, you're not one.

[STJ]

I am not.

[synthesis]

A human being is any member of the human species.Nice tautology. So what are your criteria for inclusion into the ranks of "the human species"? Again, I want you to be very, very specific here, and cite academic sources, because you want to use this definition to violate the autonomy of actual people.

Why is a fetus a human being? Saying that a fetus is "life" is irrelevant - that would proscribe the use of antibiotics! If you want to satisfy anyone here, you need to have good reasons for this.

The "unborn as minority" argument just doesn't cut it. It's not a tenable position. There are better reasons for socialists to look into the gray areas here. One is that poor women may feel traumatized after having an abortion, yet they are forced into it by their conditions. The answer is not proscribing abortion and thereby forcing them into the back alley, the answer is improving their conditions so they aren't forced into something they might not feel comfortable with.

[Revy]

I personally find the view that I have inherent value just because I'm human quite uplifting.


I don't. Saying a cluster of cells is a person just because it's human is irrational, unscientific, and just plain silly. Did you know pigs have the intelligence level of a 3 year old human child? Yet, the rights of organisms with sea slug-level consciousness are prioritized above them! How amazing.



Surely this blatant disregard for a child's right to life is incompatible with Anarcho-Communism?


I'd think prioritizing the rights of fetuses over women is quite incompatible with Anarcho-Communism!

[Nulono]

If I'm a sexist, so were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, and all the other feminist foremothers.
*lethal* type of birth control is to pre-implantation blastocysts though: the "natural rythm" method the catholic church endorces:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/13/health/13rhyt.html?ex=1307851200&en=c595d269463e972e&ei=5090&partner=rssu

"natural family planning" supported by conservatives (cause it doesn't work very well and they want more christian babies) actually kills blastocysts whereas morning after pills prevent them from forming.What made you think I agreed with Catholics on everything?


Its so obvious that saving the microscopic blastocysts (we are here now talking about literal 'clusters of cells' not fetuses), large proportions of which of which fail to implant anyways, is not the real agenda.Riiiight. Because you know my opinions better than I do.


Nice tautology. So what are your criteria for inclusion into the ranks of "the human species"? Again, I want you to be very, very specific here, and cite academic sources, because you want to use this definition to violate the autonomy of actual people.

Why is a fetus a human being? Saying that a fetus is "life" is irrelevant - that would proscribe the use of antibiotics! If you want to satisfy anyone here, you need to have good reasons for this.What are your criteria for inclusion into the ranks of "the human species"? I want you to be very, very specific here, and cite academic sources, because you want to use this definition to violate the autonomy of actual people.


The "unborn as minority" argument just doesn't cut it. It's not a tenable position. There are better reasons for socialists to look into the gray areas here. One is that poor women may feel traumatized after having an abortion, yet they are forced into it by their conditions. The answer is not proscribing abortion and thereby forcing them into the back alley, the answer is improving their conditions so they aren't forced into something they might not feel comfortable with.You think I don't support improving conditions? I'm as much into prevention as you are.


I don't. Saying a cluster of cells is a person just because it's human is irrational, unscientific, and just plain silly. Did you know pigs have the intelligence level of a 3 year old human child? Yet, the rights of organisms with sea slug-level consciousness are prioritized above them! How amazing.So a three-year-old has the same moral value as a pig? I find that offensive.




I'd think prioritizing the rights of fetuses over women is quite incompatible with Anarcho-Communism!The right to not be killed outweighs personal convenience.

[synthesis]

What are your criteria for inclusion into the ranks of "the human species"? I want you to be very, very specific here, and cite academic sources, because you want to use this definition to violate the autonomy of actual people.Sorry, buddy. You haven't provided any satisfactory evidence that a 3-week-old fetus is an "actual person." Try again, and maybe don't evade the question this time?


You think I don't support improving conditions? I'm as much into prevention as you are.Yeah, it really seems like you're "into" preventing these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-induced_abortion).

[Nulono]

Sorry, buddy. You haven't provided any satisfactory evidence that a 3-week-old fetus is an "actual person." Try again, and maybe don't evade the question this time?You haven't provided any satisfactory evidence that anyone is an "actual person".


Yeah, it really seems like you're "into" preventing these (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-induced_abortion).
Improve the economic structure at large and motherhood becomes easier.

[synthesis]

You haven't provided any satisfactory evidence that anyone is an "actual person".

I don't need to. Once again, you are evading the question.


Improve the economic structure at large and motherhood becomes easier.

If you make abortions illegal, you will force women into back alleys, and the fetus "dies" anyways. I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but the more I hear from you, the more it becomes apparent you're just a douche-bag.

[Nulono]

I don't need to. Once again, you are evading the question.I get it. I'm the only one who needs to support his claims, is that it?




If you make abortions illegal, you will force women into back alleys, and the fetus "dies" anyways. I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt here, but the more I hear from you, the more it becomes apparent you're just a douche-bag.Not if abortion can be made obsolete through social service. And the fetus dies, no doubt about it. Why is "'dies'" in quotes? A tumor can die.

[synthesis]

I get it. I'm the only one who needs to support his claims, is that it?

You are the one that made claims which you cannot support; don't start whining when you're pressed for explication.

[Jazzratt]

If I'm a sexist, so were Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Paul, and all the other feminist

Marx and Engels as well as a host of famous anarchists (notably Bakunin and Proudhon) had reactionary views that would be unnaceptable in modern leftists. This doesn't justify modern leftists being sexist anti-semites. Ideas evolve, clinging to aberrerant views within a movement doesn't justify shit.

[Nulono]

1: It's explanation.
2: I can support my claims; I'm just asking you to support yours.

[PCommie]

What if you were too kinda, er, traumatised to really get round to it?

That's a hell of a lot of trauma. In a case like that, I guess it would have to be permissible, but if there was no excuse, then there was no excuse. We have a duty to our fellow man, however undeveloped he or she may be.

You have to establish somewhere where it stops being an abortion an becomes murder. Since the development of a baby is so gradual, you would have to draw an arbitrary line in the lifetime to determine "age of humanity." Some people support partial-birth abortion (killing the baby as it is being born). Clearly that is murder. Therefor, we must draw the line somewhere in pregnancy, and brainwaves just seems like a good spot to me. If the brain is functioning, you are a person, with a personality, a functioning body, all severely underdeveloped, but still there.

Like I say, in actual circumstances, I fully support abortion rights. But just because someone's too fucky slow to make up their mind whether they want the kid or not, no, let them put it up for adoption. Rape, okay, but in the case of aborting a child that occured "consentually," you should have thought of it beforehand, and thus have no right to an abortion after the 6 weeks, I think.

Also, thanks all around for not restricting me (though I didn't read all the pages, I missed any threats. ;))

-PC

[Bud Struggle]

And don't forget the Soviet Union first permitted abortion then outlawed it in about 1936.

[Agnapostate]

Of course, Federica Montseny ensured that the Spanish Revolution did not suffer from such a stained legacy. :)

[Nulono]

That's a hell of a lot of trauma. In a case like that, I guess it would have to be permissible, but if there was no excuse, then there was no excuse. We have a duty to our fellow man, however undeveloped he or she may be.

You have to establish somewhere where it stops being an abortion an becomes murder. Since the development of a baby is so gradual, you would have to draw an arbitrary line in the lifetime to determine "age of humanity." Some people support partial-birth abortion (killing the baby as it is being born). Clearly that is murder. Therefor, we must draw the line somewhere in pregnancy, and brainwaves just seems like a good spot to me. If the brain is functioning, you are a person, with a personality, a functioning body, all severely underdeveloped, but still there.

Like I say, in actual circumstances, I fully support abortion rights. But just because someone's too fucky slow to make up their mind whether they want the kid or not, no, let them put it up for adoption. Rape, okay, but in the case of aborting a child that occured "consentually," you should have thought of it beforehand, and thus have no right to an abortion after the 6 weeks, I think.

Also, thanks all around for not restricting me (though I didn't read all the pages, I missed any threats. ;))

-PC

Seems like you don't actually care about the rights of the child; it's more about decision-making time.

[#FF0000]

Also, thanks all around for not restricting me (though I didn't read all the pages, I missed any threats. ;))

-PC

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, now.

[#FF0000]

By the way, Nulono, TC destroyed you back on page 3 and you never presented a counter argument.

[Nulono]

I did respond to TC. His premises (aggression can be committed involuntarily, minimum force is the force at which you do not get harmed in the process (even if the harm that would be inflicted upon you is way less than the harm inflicted by "minimum force"), the child initiates the pregnancy, etc.) were faulty.


Also, how do you plan to enforce your anti-choice moralism in an anarchist society?I don't think you know what moralists believe.

[RedAnarchist]

I did respond to TC. His premises (aggression can be committed involuntarily, minimum force is the force at which you do not get harmed in the process (even if the harm that would be inflicted upon you is way less than the harm inflicted by "minimum force"), the child initiates the pregnancy, etc.) were faulty.

Just for future reference, TC's a woman.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Wow, you're still here, eh? I thought it seemed a little quiet on those christian fundi forums... perhaps you should go back to your brothers in Christ and spout your anti-choice reaction there. Your user title says anti-theist, but your rant like a Catholic bishop. Take your chauvinism elsewhere, for fuck's sake.

You know this chap from somewhere else? Do spill the beans, old chum.

[Nulono]

Wow, you're still here, eh? I thought it seemed a little quiet on those christian fundi forums... perhaps you should go back to your brothers in Christ and spout your anti-choice reaction there. Your user title says anti-theist, but your rant like a Catholic bishop. Take your chauvinism elsewhere, for fuck's sake.I am not a Christian.
I am not a chauvinist.


Just for future reference, TC's a woman.Thanks. Neuter "he" can be awkward.

[hugsandmarxism]

You know this chap from somewhere else? Do spill the beans, old chum.

Yeah, he sang a song about how "Jesus loves the unborn foetusis" on the Who Wants to Be A Country Music Star? Auditions.


I am not a Christian.

With all of that baseless, moralistic soap-boxing of yours throughout this thread, you sure fooled me ;)


I am not a chauvinist.

I beg to differ. That was real cute, your rigged poll option: No (The unborn are the only class allowed to be oppressed and discriminated against by the State.)

Replace "unborn" with "pregnant mothers" and you have your reactionary, chauvinistic position. Honestly, I expect this shit from Christian fundis and other assorted morons, not from some self claimed "Anti-Theist Anarcho-Communist." Fuck you very much.

[Jazzratt]

I am not a Christian.

Neither are you able to comprehend what someone has written (unless it's to attack their grammar) - hugs said "Your user title says anti-theist, but your[sic] rant like a Catholic bishop." I think his comments about "brothers in Christ" can be understood in this way to be an exxagerated comparison between you and the fundementalist scum your arguments mirror.


I am not a chauvinist.

You want to limit women's rights because of your idiot morality, what the fuck else is that position?

[Decolonize The Left]

Fetuses do not have rights because they are not people, and rights are conferred to people. If they were people, they would be in the census wouldn't they? And in the population count?

- August

[Bud Struggle]

Fetuses do not have rights because they are not people, and rights are conferred to people. If they were people, they would be in the census wouldn't they? And in the population count?

- August

But then again if a pregnant woman is murdered the killer is charged with a double homicide--homicide form the Latin homo--man. So in that case it is a person.

[Decolonize The Left]

But then again if a pregnant woman is murdered the killer is charged with a double homicide--homicide form the Latin homo--man. So in that case it is a person.

A "man" is not necessarily a "person." "Man" is socially-constructed gender role, whereas "male" is a biological definition regarding sexual chromosomes.

- August

[Bud Struggle]

A "man" is not necessarily a "person." "Man" is socially-constructed gender role, whereas "male" is a biological definition regarding sexual chromosomes.

- August

The Latin "homo" was meant to represent humanity. The Latin word "vir" applied to the definition of man that you have above. But to the point--getting your killing recognized by the law is an acknowledgment of your "personhood" by the state.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

The Latin "homo" was meant to represent humanity. The Latin word "vir" applied to the definition of man that you have above. But to the point--getting your killing recognized by the law is an acknowledgment of your "personhood" by the state.

No it isn't. No more than a dog owner being prosecuted for killing their dog is.

[Bud Struggle]

No it isn't. No more than a dog owner being prosecuted for killing their dog is.

Well the point I was making was that August was correct in his point that in his example the state doesn't consider the fetus a human and I was right in my instance that the state does consider the fetus a human.

The state (the United States, I can't speak about any other country) calls the fetus human or not human at it's convienience. The state doesn't pick and answer because--there is no real answer, at least scientificly. By some some measurements the fetus is completely human, by others it isn't and it all depends on your philosophy which one you CHOOSE to go by. Nothing more.

So without a difinite scientific path to go by--maybe the most prudent way to go is--viability. If a baby (and it is a baby outside of the womb) could live outside the womb it should be allowed to live. And a baby, since it's human, should be afforded the best available in medical science.

(Personally, I'm against all abortion--but this seems to me to be a reasonable way to go till one side of the debate is conclusively proved right and the other wrong.)

[Nulono]

Replace "unborn" with "pregnant mothers" and you have your reactionary, chauvinistic position.I am not discriminating against women. I am saying that they have no right to kill an innocent human being. Neither does anybody else.



Fetuses do not have rights because they are not people, and rights are conferred to people. If they were people, they would be in the census wouldn't they? And in the population count?

- AugustSo did slaves use to be 60% of a person? Way to use the law to justify the law!


No it isn't. No more than a dog owner being prosecuted for killing their dog is.A dog owner prosecuted for killing their dog is not charged with homicide.


(Personally, I'm against all abortion--but this seems to me to be a reasonable way to go till one side of the debate is conclusively proved right and the other wrong.)What?

http://www.l4l.org/library/doubt-pp.html

The benefit of the doubt

Even with the best of intentions, resolving the questions of personhood and, therefore, whether abortion is homicide (the killing of one human being, person, by another) will not be easy. It is likely to take much time. What should lawmakers and judges do in the meantime?

When they are undecided on pivotal questions affecting two contending parties, and when they cannot avoid making a decision, tossing a coin will not do. The only reasonable course is a time-honored one: Weigh the possible injuries that would be imposed by a wrongful decision either way -- and then choose to avoid the worst possibility.

When a human being's life is on the block, a proper legal system gives the benefit of the doubt to life. This is why even advocates of capital punishment call for stringent proof. If individuals accused of felonies get the benefit of such doubt, why not the beings in the womb?

What possible wrongful injuries should be considered? For the pregnant woman, it is a partial and temporary loss of liberty; for her fetus, it is the total and permanent loss of life and therefore liberty as well.

The answer is obvious. The law should give the benefit of the doubt to life.

[Communist Theory]

Can we trash this shit post?
It's going to devolve into nothing more then trolling and flaming.

[Nulono]

Than, not then.

[Bud Struggle]

What?


Oh, I certainly agree that you should give the fetus the benefit of the doubt. But the interesting thing is that these folks STILL want to kill the fetus even if it's viable and is evacuated from the mother's womb on request (so the woman isn't being enslaved by the chavinistic Bourgeois Fundamentalist white man.)

I think this is where the pro-abortion argument falls apart. :)

[TC]

Oh, I certainly agree that you should give the fetus the benefit of the doubt. But the interesting thing is that these folks STILL want to kill the fetus even if it's viable and is evacuated from the mother's womb on request (so she isn't being enslaved by the chavinistic Bourgeois Fundamentalist white man.)

I think this is where the pro-abortion argument falls apart. :)

There is no way to "evacuate" a fetus large enough to be "viable" intact without inflicting serious injury on the woman carrying it and "evacuating" preterm fetuses (when its done voluntarily which is sometimes the case when someone wants a child but can't carry it to term, as opposed to an abortion substitute) just means having to deal with sick and either dieing or severely disabled underdeveloped neonates. Human reproduction. Large skull, narrow pelvis = evidence against intelligent design.

[Bud Struggle]

There is no way to "evacuate" a fetus large enough to be "viable" intact without inflicting serious injury on the woman carrying it. Human reproduction. Large skull, narrow pelvis = evidence against intelligent design.


But let's just say that science does find a way--not impossible because science does some amazing thing. Would you be in favor of taking the viable fetus out of the womb and keeping it alive if that option was available to the pregnant woman?

[edit] TC, I see you editied but you didn't answer my question.

[PCommie]

How is my idea reactionary? It's fair to both sides. Let me sum it up:

-Six weeks time for normal cases to decide.

-In extenuating circumstances, such as trauma from rape, or no access to a doctor/abortion clinic, extra time is given.

Just because my opinion differs from that of the Commie Club or moderators doesn't warrant restriction. It's not like I'm saying "You get raped, too bad," I leave wide provisions for choice in there. The line has to be drawn somewhere, brainwaves just seems like a logical place to me.

H&S forever,
-PC

[Nulono]

How is my idea reactionary? It's fair to both sides. Let me sum it up:

-Six weeks time for normal cases to decide.

-In extenuating circumstances, such as trauma from rape, or no access to a doctor/abortion clinic, extra time is given.

Just because my opinion differs from that of the Commie Club or moderators doesn't warrant restriction. It's not like I'm saying "You get raped, too bad," I leave wide provisions for choice in there. The line has to be drawn somewhere, brainwaves just seems like a logical place to me.

H&S forever,
-PC
Wow. Just, wow.

[hugsandmarxism]

Wow. Just, wow.

OH MY GENTLE JESUS HE FORGOT TO PUT A SEMICOLON IN BETWEEN TWO INDEPENDENT CLAUSES!!! THE BASTARD USED A COMMA INSTEAD!!!! :scared: :rolleyes:

Nulano, in addition to being a reactionary chauvinist who'd rather the state have control over a woman's uterus then have any woman DARE to do anything that would offend your personal convictions (as arbitrary and ridiculous as these convictions may be), you resort to the lamest grammar fascism EVEN ON THOSE WHO AGREE WITH YOU! Why don't you grow up? Why don't you reflect on the utter contradiction between your anti-choice patriarchal chauvinism and your purported "anti-theist anarcho-communist" political tendency? Or, you can continue to tickle your prick as you go over people's posts with a fine tooth comb searching for grammatical errors. That makes you a looser and a troll, as well as a reactionary hypocrite.

[Jazzratt]

Wow. Just, wow.

Either address the topic of thread or fuck off. You are adding absolutely nothing of value with this utter irrelevancy. We're discussing politics in a formal tone not writing a fucking book so no one here gives a flying toss that there are minor grammatical errors in their posts.

I just can't wait to see how much more fucking unbearable you get when you get beyond the chapter on commas in "eats(,) shoots and leaves".

I'll trash any further instances of this shit.

[superiority]

How is my idea reactionary? It's fair to both sides. Let me sum it up:

-Six weeks time for normal cases to decide.

-In extenuating circumstances, such as trauma from rape, or no access to a doctor/abortion clinic, extra time is given.

Just because my opinion differs from that of the Commie Club or moderators doesn't warrant restriction. It's not like I'm saying "You get raped, too bad," I leave wide provisions for choice in there. The line has to be drawn somewhere, brainwaves just seems like a logical place to me.

H&S forever,
-PC

Are you aware that your position is essentially the same as Nulono's, albeit with a few added caveats? "We shouldn't terminate pregnancies because fetuses are people with a right to life" vs. "We shouldn't terminate pregnancies because fetuses are people with a right to life, except some of the time when I guess they're not". Both positions start with the assumption that a woman's right to bodily autonomy is not worthy of consideration; the overriding concern is what "rights" the fetus possesses. This is their fundamental similarity, and it is why you were restricted*, and it is why I am skeptical of calls for "good faith discussion" with anti-choicers. RevLeft users run the gamut from anarchists to anti-revisionists, but anti-choice bigotry is less legitimate difference of opinion than it is plain ol' misogyny.


*I do not claim to speak for the CC, but I think I am fairly safe in assuming that this was more or less the reasoning.

[Chambered Word]

So may I rape you, then? After all, I must have the right to full control over my penis.

Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.

But this assumes some sort of conscious decision on the part of the fetus. The fetus did not ask to be dependent, and, in fact, was placed in such a position by the direct action of the parents. Self-defense does not apply unless the mother's life is in danger, in which case I would allow abortion as a last resort.

I am sorry, but your analogies are completely and utterly retarded. The foetus can not yet feel anything, it's just a lump of cells, not a massive lump of cells that has feelings. All so called 'pro-lifers' need to learn2science. Most of them are religious nuts who think we have 'souls' from the moment we're conceived. What a crock of shit.

Look at it this way. The baby doesn't really care whether it's aborted or born, since it can't feel anything. Yes, it will probably look back one day at this choice if it is born and want to be born, but if you abort it before it is born this choice isn't there and it doesn't really matter. You've also probably saved the mother - and the kid - alot of suffering. You haven't 'destroyed any souls' or any crap like that, religion is false.

Also, by raping someone you're infringing on that person's own rights. You don't have a 'right' to break someone else's basic rights, that is a crime.

Tl;dr back to the drawing board for your ideas.

[Chambered Word]

You haven't provided any satisfactory evidence that anyone is an "actual person".

No one is an actual person now?

I'm gonna go down the road, find a kid and impale him with a blunt stick because he makes funny noises when I do that to him. Then I'll bring out a gun and shoot people because it's kind of funny when they die and you know it really doesn't matter. And let the cops come and shoot me because I'm not an actual person: everyone knows that.

I'm sorry but just...I dunno, die?

[PCommie]

Alright, prove to me fetuses have no feeling, and I will accept what you say. But then, you must still surely agree, that once a fetus could live on its own, or be transferred into another woman (I forget the term for that), the original mother should not have the right to have it killed for no reason. That's like saying "I don't want this piece of cake, but I'd rather throw it out than give it to someone else."

Agreed?

H&S forever,
-PC

P.S. Nulono, lay the fuck off my grammar, like I give a damn.

[#FF0000]

PCommie, I'm going to quote exactly what TC said earlier. Hopefully it'll help change your mind, since it is a fucking shame to see you restricted.


If fetuses were people with rights, then pregnant women would be free to use whatever force is required to prevent those 'people' from invading and altering their bodies, causing pain, suffering, and loss of physical function. In this case the minimum necessary force is lethal force since any attempt at less-than-lethal self defense (c-section, induced pregnancy) would require self-inflicted harm.

Unwanted pregnancy is a medical problem like an unwanted tumor if a fetus isn't a person, but if a fetus *is a person* with rightsthen that would make unwaned pregnancy, like unwanted sex (even by the sleepwalking, the retarded, the drunk, etc), an act of violence that could be legitimately met with violence sufficient to prevent the harm.

The fact that a hypothetical (non-existant) self-aware fetus-person would have no choice (or awareness) of its use of violence against its host's body, would not mean the host could not legitimately defend itself from it. If you're stranded on the north pole and your fellow explorer needs to eat your arm to survive, you are free to resist with lethal force even though the violence they attempt on yourself is less than lethal and necessary to their survival. If a sleepwalking or mentally defficient person attacks you, though unaware of their actions and the harm they inflict, or even able to control them, you can still defend yourself, again with lethal force if thats the minimum sufficient to prevent serious bodily injury. And that is what pregnancy and childbirth entail. If you consent to it, then just like consenting to a boxing match, there is no 'harm' becasue the potential victim does not conceptualize it as a harm; but if you don't consent to it, then an extreme act of violence. The difference between desired pregnancy and non-consensual unwanted pregnancy is the same as the difference between consentual sex and rape.

Nulono, you might also want to take a look at this and actually address it, since you didn't throughout this entire thread.

[PCommie]

Rorshach, I agree completely with the quote you posted, however it primarily addresses instances of rape or where the mother would be harmed. My problem is not with these cases, the mother's life must obviously be put before the fetus's, I am talking about instances of, say, consentual sex, but then she deicdes she doesn't want the baby, an instance of her own fault for not figuring it out. Or wanting to kill the baby rather than transfer it to another woman or let it be put up for adoption. That's where my problem lies.

H&S forever,
-PC

[superiority]

Rorshach, I agree completely with the quote you posted

Clearly you don't, since TC was arguing for the pro-choice position. She was not "primarily address instance of rape", she was saying that [I]all pregnancy, if not consented to by the woman, constitutes violence on the part of the fetus. Note that this applies even if the woman has previously consented to the pregnancy, i.e. a woman has the right to change her mind at any stage of pregnancy.


I am talking about instances of, say, consentual sex, but then she deicdes she doesn't want the baby, an instance of her own fault for not figuring it out

I have to say, I am getting a definite vibe of "women shouldn't be able to have sex without consequences" from this.

[TC]

How is my idea reactionary? It's fair to both sides. Let me sum it up:

-Six weeks time for normal cases to decide.

How does 'six weeks from conception' turn into 'six weeks to decide'?

When conception occurs, archangels don't normally appear to inform you of the fact...its never immediately obvious and it can be unobvious for longer than six weeks.


The line has to be drawn somewhere, brainwaves just seems like a logical place to me.
Unless of course theres 1. trauma (surly any unwanted pregnancy is upsetting!) or 2. difficult to get to a doctor in time...in which case the brain waves are irrelevant?

How does that make any sense?

How about drawing the line in terms of the woman's rights instead of your fuzzy feelings towards the fetus: at birth.



Alright, prove to me fetuses have no feeling, and I will accept what you say.I don't think the issue is actually a relevant one, since 5 year old kids *definitely* have feelings yet they aren't entitled to use their parents bodies for their own survival except with consent, but if it were, then your 'prove a negative' standard would be ridiculous: can you prove that anything doesn't have feelings??


or be transferred into another woman (I forget the term for that)science fiction?

[Nulono]

Either address the topic of thread or fuck off. You are adding absolutely nothing of value with this utter irrelevancy. We're discussing politics in a formal tone not writing a fucking book so no one here gives a flying toss that there are minor grammatical errors in their posts.

I just can't wait to see how much more fucking unbearable you get when you get beyond the chapter on commas in "eats(,) shoots and leaves".

I'll trash any further instances of this shit.I've read the book, and the author clearly knows what a semicolon is for.


I am sorry, but your analogies are completely and utterly retarded. The foetus can not yet feel anything; it's just a lump of cells, not a massive lump of cells that has feelings. All so-called 'pro-lifers' need to learn2science. Most of them are religious nuts who think we have 'souls' from the moment we're conceived. What a crock of shit.

Look at it this way. The baby doesn't really care whether it's aborted or born, since it can't feel anything. Yes, it will probably look back one day at this choice if it is born and want to be born, but if you abort it before it is born this choice isn't there and it doesn't really matter. You've also probably saved the mother - and the kid - alot of suffering. You haven't 'destroyed any souls' or any crap like that; religion is false.

Also, by raping someone you're infringing on that person's own rights. You don't have a 'right' to break someone else's basic rights; that is a crime.

Tl;dr: back to the drawing board for your ideas.Infants don't care either. Neither do those sleeping or in a coma. And you don't have to believe in souls to oppose homicide.


No one is an actual person now?

I'm gonna go down the road, find a kid and impale him with a blunt stick because he makes funny noises when I do that to him. Then I'll bring out a gun and shoot people because it's kind of funny when they die and you know it really doesn't matter. And let the cops come and shoot me because I'm not an actual person: everyone knows that.

I'm sorry but just...I dunno, die?My point exactly. You said I need to prove the unborn are persons in order for them to be persons. I asked you to prove anyone is a person. You can't. Let's try this: prove you are a person.


Rorshach, I agree completely with the quote you posted, however it primarily addresses instances of rape or where the mother would be harmed. My problem is not with these cases, the mother's life must obviously be put before the fetus's, I am talking about instances of, say, consentual sex, but then she deicdes she doesn't want the baby, an instance of her own fault for not figuring it out. Or wanting to kill the baby rather than transfer it to another woman or let it be put up for adoption. That's where my problem lies.

H&S forever,
-PC


Clearly you don't, since TC was arguing for the pro-choice position. She was not "primarily address instance of rape"; she was saying that [I]all pregnancy, if not consented to by the woman, constitutes violence on the part of the fetus. Note that this applies even if the woman has previously consented to the pregnancy, i.e. a woman has the right to change her mind at any stage of pregnancy.Violence on the part of the fetus? LOL! The child doesn't cause the pregnancy; the mother does!


I have to say, I am getting a definite vibe of "women shouldn't be able to have sex without consequences" from this.No, he's saying if the mother consented to sex, she caused the pregnancy.


How does 'six weeks from conception' turn into 'six weeks to decide'?

When conception occurs, archangels don't normally appear to inform you of the fact...it's never immediately obvious and it can be unobvious for longer than six weeks.

Unless of course theres 1. trauma (surly any unwanted pregnancy is upsetting!) or 2. difficult to get to a doctor in time...in which case the brain waves are irrelevant?

How does that make any sense?I was confused by that too. PC, the child doesn't lose his or her rights just because the mother was traumatized.


How about drawing the line in terms of woman's rights instead of your fuzzy feelings towards the fetus: at birth.How about drawing the line in terms of the child's rights? If the child has the right to life, the mother has no right to kill him or her.


I don't think the issue is actually a relevant one, since 5 year old kids *definitely* have feelings yet they aren't entitled to use their parents bodies for their own survival except with consent, but if it were, then your 'prove a negative' standard would be ridiculous: can you prove that anything doesn't have feelings??You claimed the embryo has no rights because it has no feelings. He asked you to prove it.


science fiction?The term is "embryonic transplant". And, FYI, scifi becomes scifact very quickly.

[Old Man Diogenes]

You disagree with my right to choose to assault you. I guess that makes you anti-choice, and therefore reactionary.

Oh come on, you may have well replied with 'your mother's reactionary', at least come up with a decent rebuke.

[PCommie]

TC, your post was entertaining. Time to derail it.


I don't think the issue is actually a relevant one, since 5 year old kids *definitely* have feelings yet they aren't entitled to use their parents bodies for their own survival except with consent, but if it were, then your 'prove a negative' standard would be ridiculous: can you prove that anything doesn't have feelings??

Woah. So, parents have the right to say, "No, we don't think you can curl up with us, even though it's -150 degrees outside, we don't consent to it. You can die, comrade." That's a fucked up point of view.

Can I prove anything doesn't have feelings? Yes, a rock. If I throw it at a wall, it lays there, no signs of pain. It has no nervous system, no brain, it cannot feel pain.


I was confused by that too. PC, the child doesn't lose his or her rights just because the mother was traumatized.

Well, you know, to be fair, you do have to put the mother before the fetus in certain cases. However, there still reaches a point where it simply cannot be allowed, and no one here has yet given me a reason to change my opinion, which is just evidence why my restriciton is unfair.

Nulono, please, please, please, lay off the semicolons. I don't give a damn about them, I never have used them, I never knew how, and I probably never will, so just lay off me and everyone else, huh?

-PC

[Nulono]

TC, your post was entertaining. Time to derail it.



Woah. So, parents have the right to say, "No, we don't think you can curl up with us, even though it's -150 degrees outside, we don't consent to it. You can die, comrade." That's a fucked up point of view.

Can I prove anything doesn't have feelings? Yes, a rock. If I throw it at a wall, it lays there, no signs of pain. It has no nervous system, no brain, it cannot feel pain.



Well, you know, to be fair, you do have to put the mother before the fetus in certain cases. However, there still reaches a point where it simply cannot be allowed, and no one here has yet given me a reason to change my opinion, which is just evidence why my restriciton is unfair.

Nulono, please, please, please, lay off the semicolons. I don't give a damn about them, I never have used them, I never knew how, and I probably never will, so just lay off me and everyone else, huh?

-PC
NO signs of pain is not the same as no pain.

And a semicolon is used to join two independent clauses without a coördinating conjunction (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/04/).

[Module]

"No, we don't think you can curl up with us, even though it's -150 degrees outside, we don't consent to it. You can die, comrade."There are so many things wrong with this analogy it's beyond funny.
Pregnancy is not a little child curling up with it's mother. You may as well think of abortions as the stork dropping the baby from it's beak while it's flying through the air.
Here you go (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy).
By the way, I don't know about you but my parents have never called me 'comrade'. :laugh:


Can I prove anything doesn't have feelings? Yes, a rock. If I throw it at a wall, it lays there, no signs of pain. It has no nervous system, no brain, it cannot feel pain.So what?
Having feelings does not mean having "rights".
But even for a human being, let's say it's a psychopath who likes eating people's feet (but not killing them! :p), they're coming for me, I have a gun. Am I not allowed to use it? That's a fucked up point of view, isn't it?

And a semicolon is used to join two independent clauses without a coördinating conjunction (http://www.anonym.to/?http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/04/).The only people who give two shits about grammar are those people who can't demonstrate a great deal of intelligence in more obvious ways.
You shouldn't start a sentence with 'and'.

[PCommie]

There are so many things wrong with this analogy it's beyond funny.
Pregnancy is not a little child curling up with it's mother. You may as well think of abortions as the stork dropping the baby from it's beak while it's flying through the air.

If you had read my post, you would know that this is not an analogy to pregnancy, but a direct response to a statement made by TC. Also, the latter part of this statement it meaningless.


By the way, I don't know about you but my parents have never called me 'comrade'. :laugh:

Me neither, but being the fucked up person that I am, I'll probably call my kids that. ;)


So what?
Having feelings does not mean having "rights".
But even for a human being, let's say it's a psychopath who likes eating people's feet (but not killing them! :p), they're coming for me, I have a gun. Am I not allowed to use it? That's a fucked up point of view, isn't it?

Like Trotsky, you have managed to write an entire set of sentences which say absolutely nothing; at least, not in response to the quote you posted above them. However, if you'd like to re-write this statement so that it is at least somewhat comprehensible to standard human thought processes, I would be happy to respond to it with a meaningful statement.

-PC

[Module]

If you had read my post, you would know that this is not an analogy to pregnancy, but a direct response to a statement made by TC. Also, the latter part of this statement it meaningless. Oh, yeah, I see your point. But it's so far removed from the point of pregnancy that it's still totally irrelevant. The violation of a woman's rights through pregnancy and through a child 'curling up' with a woman is simply not a comparable scenario.
When you say 'it's -150 degrees outside' then you're saying that they're in a warm place that the mother isn't letting a child enter. Entering a physical space separate from the mother's person is not a violation of her rights.
If you're not saying that, then obviously the mother is going to be just as much at risk as the child is by the fact that they're exposed to -150 degree weather. But regardless, the mother doesn't have any obligation to 'curl up' with the child in that case, not that it would help in that scenario, anyway.

Edit: an even better comparison would be to 'Should people be forced into donating their kidneys?'. What do you think?


Like Trotsky, you have managed to write an entire set of sentences which say absolutely nothing; at least, not in response to the quote you posted above them. However, if you'd like to re-write this statement so that it is at least somewhat comprehensible to standard human thought processes, I would be happy to respond to it with a meaningful statement.

-PCNo, they say a lot. You're saying that the reason a fetus deserves consideration, 'rights', is because it has feelings, as opposed to a rock which doesn't because it has no feelings. I am saying that the fact a fetus can feel pain is irrelevant to the question of whether or not it should be able to use the body of a woman against her will (and irrelevant to the question of whether or not it has any 'rights').
I then compare it to a psychopath who wants to eat my feet and the only way I can fend them off is if I shoot them - they want to violate my rights, but if you apply the same view to them as you do to a fetus you would say I have to let the psychopath eat my feet, because the only way to stop them is to violate their right to life by shooting them.
Do you understand? Let's hope so because the excuse is not going to cut it the second time. If you feel like pissing about then I'm not going to bother.

[Nulono]

There are so many things wrong with this analogy it's beyond funny.
Pregnancy is not a little child curling up with it's mother. You may as well think of abortions as the stork dropping the baby from it's beak while it's flying through the air.
Here you go (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy).
By the way, I don't know about you but my parents have never called me 'comrade'. :laugh:
So what?
Having feelings does not mean having "rights".
But even for a human being, let's say it's a psychopath who likes eating people's feet (but not killing them! :p), they're coming for me, I have a gun. Am I not allowed to use it? That's a fucked up point of view, isn't it?
The only people who give two shits about grammar are those people who can't demonstrate a great deal of intelligence in more obvious ways.Okay...

You shouldn't start a sentence with 'and'.I guess you can't demonstrate a great deal of intelligence in more obvious ways.

BTW, let's get this straight for all your future analogies: the parents initiate the pregnancy, not the child.

[TC]

Violence on the part of the fetus? LOL! The child doesn't cause the pregnancy; the mother does!

How do you figure that exactly?

Pregnancy is a physiological state that a fetus induces in a woman's biochemistry: those changes don't start until the fetus attaches itself to the uterine wall and that happens randomly without the woman's intervention or deliberate action (blastocysts are often conceived but exit the woman's body harmlessly, its only when they attach that they cause pregnancy).

Theres no deliberate action on anyones part...unless you want to go back to the 'but the whore agreed to have sex!' line in which case you're stuck with the problem of arguing that fetuses that are the product of rape don't have the same rights as other fetuses.

When it comes to actual pregnancy and childbirth however, if that was done to you against your wishes, how could you experience it as anything other than a violation on the most intimate, personal, whole body level?

When anti-choicers imagine pregnancy and childbirth they imagine the pregnancies and childbirths of women who are happy to be voluntarily pregnant and joyful at having babies that they wanted to have. But this isn't the useful comparison because the result of denying a pregnant woman an abortion isn't a happy mother its a woman having things done to her body against her will, someone going through all the disabling, mutilating physical changes and excruciating pain not for her own personal fulfillment but because other people (whether you count the fetus as among them) are using her body for their purposes.

This is why the analogy between desired pregnancy, and unwanted pregnancy denied abortion, vs consensual sex, and rape, makes sense.


I was confused by that too. PC, the child doesn't lose his or her rights just because the mother was traumatized.
I agree the argument is analytically nonsensical. Yours is much more internally consistent, its just more hateful. Thats why people who aren't as hateful like PC Commie have to fool themselves with bad arguments instead of going for the maximally prejudical ones like yours.



How about drawing the line in terms of the child's rights?

Then, permitting your gross fantasy of not only fetuses but blastocysts (which is what you're talking about with regard to morning after pills) being "children", if you 'draw the line' for protecting the "childs" "right to life", shoudl children not be able to *demand* forced kidney donations from their parents with the backing of state violence to strap them down and cut them out if need be? Why limit it to their parents? Why not forced live organ donations for the general population?

In all seriousness: if you have a full set of two kidneys, two lungs, and an intact liver, someone is now dead who, you could have permitted to live.



You claimed the embryo has no rights because it has no feelings. He asked you to prove it.

Uh no I actually don't think that people with feelings have the right to use each others bodies against their will. Whether an embryo has feelings or not is immaterial to whether it has rights or not for me.

[Nulono]

How do you figure that exactly?

Pregnancy is a physiological state that a fetus induces in a woman's biochemistry; those changes don't start until the fetus attaches itself to the uterine wall and that happens randomly without the woman's intervention or deliberate action (blastocysts are often conceived but exit the woman's body harmlessly; it's only when they attach that they cause pregnancy).

Theres no deliberate action on anyone's part...unless you want to go back to the 'but the whore agreed to have sex!' line in which case you're stuck with the problem of arguing that fetuses that are the product of rape don't have the same rights as other fetuses.
You want to debate rape? Let's debate rape.

When it comes to actual pregnancy and childbirth however, if that was done to you against your wishes, how could you experience it as anything other than a violation on the most intimate, personal, whole body level?

When anti-choicers imagine pregnancy and childbirth they imagine the pregnancies and childbirths of women who are happy to be voluntarily pregnant and joyful at having babies that they wanted to have. But this isn't the useful comparison because the result of denying a pregnant woman an abortion isn't a happy mother its a woman having things done to her body against her will, someone going through all the disabling, mutilating physical changes and excruciating pain not for her own personal fulfillment but because other people (whether you count the fetus as among them) are using her body for their purposes.

This is why the analogy between desired pregnancy, and unwanted pregnancy denied abortion, vs consensual sex, and rape, makes sense.


I agree the argument is analytically nonsensical. Yours is much more internally consistent, its just more hateful. Thats why people who aren't as hateful like PC Commie have to fool themselves with bad arguments instead of going for the maximally prejudical ones like yours.



Then, permitting your gross fantasy of not only fetuses but blastocysts (which is what you're talking about with regard to morning after pills) being "children", if you 'draw the line' for protecting the "childs" "right to life", shoudl children not be able to *demand* forced kidney donations from their parents with the backing of state violence to strap them down and cut them out if need be? Why limit it to their parents? Why not forced live organ donations for the general population?

In all seriousness: if you have a full set of two kidneys, two lungs, and an intact liver, someone is now dead who, you could have permitted to live.



Uh no I actually don't think that people with feelings have the right to use each others bodies against their will. Whether an embryo has feelings or not is immaterial to whether it has rights or not for me.[/QUOTE]You're basically arguing that you can consent to pulling the trigger on a loaded gun that's pointed at person A's head and not consent to person A dieing.

If I throw baseballs because it feels good, I am responsible for the broken windows.

Also, you are discussing the positive right to life. A woman has no obligation to get pregnant.

Abortion is about the negative right to life. Once the child is conceived, the mother may not kill him or her.

[Module]

Okay...
I guess you can't demonstrate a great deal of intelligence in more obvious ways.It's called irony. But I suppose, case in point.


BTW, let's get this straight for all your future analogies: the parents initiate the pregnancy, not the child.Well, what do you mean by 'initiate?'
If, say, the parents don't know the pregnancy has occurred, why does it matter how it started? Why does it make it the woman's fault? What if it was beyond her control? Would you agree that 'initiate' implies being conscious of it? If they aren't, then I would say that the pregnancy was equally initiated by whatever other number of events which influenced the result, indefinitely.
(If you don't agree then we might as well place equal blame upon the fetus for it's own continual existence - that is assuming that a fetus is a person who can have social responsibility, which you accept, and I don't)

But of course whether or not the woman was conscious of the fact that she was going to get pregnant, when she withdraws her consent to have to fetus inside her body that becomes irrelevant. If you agree that it is the fetus coming into existence that is of primary importance then of course whether or not the woman is conscious of her own pregnancy is a negligible difference in the situation.
The causes of the pregnancy have no bearing upon the facts of pregnancy themselves. They don't influence a situation where a fetus is growing inside a woman's body who does not give consent to it being there. The only 'fault' you give to the situation is your own misogynistic personal prejudice, not what is objectively 'fair'.

Besides, in reference to the analogy, it's neither the mother or the child that is blamed for them being in -150 degree weather, is it? They're simply there. Sort of like pregnancy.
Also, you can't blame a psychopath for being psychopathic. S/he simply is. Sort of like pregnancy. Don't be hatin'

[PCommie]

You know, as a person, I oppose abortion, but as a communist, looking at it objectively, I guess there really isn't a viable way to oppose the right to abortion. Let's look at it this way:

-When a woman wants an abortion, she is now in conflict with the fetus, who "wants", for want of a better word, to live.

We must, therefore, decide who has the right to determine the outcome of this situation. How shall we compare them? They are both homo sapiens, humans, but which is a person? If you definie person as the intellectual status of a human being, consisting of personality, opinions, individual thought processes etc., then the fetus is not a person, nor will it ever be in the womb, because it has no sources from which to develop a personality.

However, after birth, the fetus's potential to become a person begins to grow; slowly, at first, but surely. Therefore, I conclude the follow:

-As much as one may hate it, the right to abortion must be conferred.

-I still, however, don't believe in partial-birth abortion. It is simply immoral.


So I suppose I am forced into agreement, because I cannot deny your logic.

However, regarding the -150 degrees analogy: I guess you couldn't force the parents to curl up with their child in that moment, but you fuck-as-sure could charge them with manslaughter or murder later.

H&S forever,
-PC

[Demogorgon]

As usual TC has done nothing but provide a strawman of the pro-choice debate that will make pro-lifers more sure in their opinions. If anyone wants to know what the child of a union of Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand would look like, they need only view her posts on abortion (or quite a few other subjects come to that).

Anyway, ignoring that unwanted intrusion of right-Libertarianism, looking at this from the perspective of rights isn't really going to get us anywhere because rights are a socially defined thing drawn from broader perceptions on morality and adapted in a way that can fit a legal system. Hence we can't just claim there is a right to x and hope that somehow clinches the argument.

You have to look at what you want to achieve. If you want to maximise the Birth rate above anything else then you should only allow abortion when the child would die anyway. If you want to subjugate women, then you should ban abortion completely. If you want to keep the population low, then you should force abortions on women and so forth.

I would hope nobody here wants any of the above and instead has different desires for society that lead to different views as to what abortion policy should be. Often two different views might lead to the same conclusion (someone may want to ban abortion for reasons other than subjugating women for instance, though they would still get that as an unintended side effect) and two quite close views can also lead to two different conclusions.

So with that in mind, what do we, as leftists want? Foremost an equal society I think. And whatever your opinions on abortion might be, if your priority is equality, then you really have to accept it. Allow me to explain. Perhaps the most fundamental aspect of the rise in gender equality in the twentieth century was the increased availability of birth control. It wasn't entirely down to that of course, there was the related matter of greater prosperity leading to less economic drive to have children anyway as well as physical strength becoming less important in most jobs, but it played an enormous part. Women have historically been relegated to the role of "producing babies" and raising them and also carrying out related tasks like home-making. This has effectively shut them out from pretty much everything else of significance and allowed for male dominated society. Taking control over reproduction so that children come at a time convenient to them (if such a time comes at all) has been liberating beyond words.

I speak of birth control in general here, of course. Abortion isn't the primary form of birth control after all, it is generally the second line of defence where contraception has failed or wasn't administered or whatever and also for those cases where a pregnancy might once have been desired, but circumstances have conspired so as to change that (and that happens an awful lot). Without abortion you won't have women fall away to the position they were in a hundred and fifty years ago, because there are other forms of birth control around, but it will cause a step backwards. In short, for there to be equality between the sexes, legal and readily available abortion is required.

I was going to add more, but it is late and I think I have gotten the most important points across. I did want to add something about privacy, but that can wait.

[PCommie]

Demogorgon, your argument is valid, but must be pared with my "who's rights are greater" logic, because the "equality" statement will bring about the "equality for the fetus" argument from anti-choicers.

Also, just wondering, is my restriction going to be lifted? I should mention, I didn't change my opinion just to get un-restricted, I'm not that kind of person. It was a genuine change, and I'm just wondering when I will be un-restricted.

H&S forever,
-PC

[superiority]

Demogorgon, your argument is valid, but must be pared with my "who's rights are greater" logic, because the "equality" statement will bring about the "equality for the fetus" argument from anti-choicers.

Eh. One could, I think, make a reasonable case for simply dismissing all of rights discourse as merely the trappings of liberalism, designed to conceal and consolidate power structures (that is to say, rights discourse allows one to say, "Now these people have equal rights," while prisons are full of black people and Congress is full of white people). Plus what Demogorgon said about rights simply not being useful for this discussion. So if we're abandoning the concept of rights, and instead use "equality" as our starting point, the facts seem to me to be more or less as follows:


Men are able to have sex without having to give birth.
A necessary condition of equality is therefore that women should be able to have sex without having to give birth.
To reject (2) is the same as saying, "Women should have to suffer undesirable effects of sex that men don't suffer".
To be in favour of negative effects for women where there are none for men is to be anti-woman.
(Therefore) Any state of affairs other than unrestricted access to abortion is anti-woman, and anti-equality.


As usual TC has done nothing but provide a strawman of the pro-choice debate that will make pro-lifers more sure in their opinions. If anyone wants to know what the child of a union of Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand would look like, they need only view her posts on abortion (or quite a few other subjects come to that).

TC's argument seems to me to be the same as the argument most would make against the idea of mandatory organ harvesting from the living. I don't think it's fair to conflate the concept of bodily autonomy with "self-ownership" (which I think is what you're doing, sorry if I've misread you).

[apathy maybe]

Depends? Is there a high possibility that I will be killed? Did I put you there through a direct action on my part?
Do you, or do you not, oppose all abortion, regardless of the cause of the pregnancy? I.e., do you oppose abortion resulting from rape, from contraceptives not working properly (e.g. condoms breaking), or from an surgical procedure (e.g. tubal ligation or vasectomy) not being carried out correctly?

If you oppose all abortion, what does it matter whether you had any part in that person entering into you and being a parasite in you?

Also, yes, there is a chance that you would be killed. Pregnancy often results in death for the mother.

Do you think you have the right to kill this person, who through no action of your own, has crawled into you and risks killing you?


-I still, however, don't believe in partial-birth abortion. It is simply immoral.


So I suppose I am forced into agreement, because I cannot deny your logic.

I still think that it is a bit bad for a person to abort 9 months into a pregnancy. I cannot say that the person cannot do that though.

Do you hold the opinion that a women has the right to abort at any time, regardless of whether you think it is right or wrong?

Because, that's about my position. You cannot escape the logic.

[Demogorgon]

TC's argument seems to me to be the same as the argument most would make against the idea of mandatory organ harvesting from the living. I don't think it's fair to conflate the concept of bodily autonomy with "self-ownership" (which I think is what you're doing, sorry if I've misread you).
Well it wouldn't be fair of me to say that, if I were saying it of someone who hasn't openly endorsed self-ownership in the past, but given she has and has used more or less word for word copies of Murray Rothbard to make her arguments (having the brass neck to call them leftist arguments to boot!), it is pretty fair to accuse her of it.

I'd rather not go into it too deeply as her intention is simply to shock with as outrageous arguments as possible rather than making productive contributions, so giving her more attention is not a good idea, so it is best to leave it there and simply say that accusing her of what I accuse her of is perfectly apt.

To bring it back to the actual discussion, you are being too narrow in the argument you made as to it being about sex and an equal ability to enjoy sex without repercussions. That is fair enough if it is an individuals particular priority, but it won't really work for anyone not "sex focused".

Allow me to explain. Gender oppression doesn't exist because each individual woman is being oppressed, but rather because women have been placed into a subservient position for reasons I have discussed. A society where women are looked upon as the source of children and therefore restricts reproductive control, will oppress even women who never have children and it will do so because of the lack of reproductive control. The reason is that if women as a group are supposed to be doing a particular role, any woman who for whatever reason is not fulfilling this role is going to meet heavy resistance.

Regardless of rules regarding birth control, there have always been women without children, but I defy anyone to tell me that those women were anymore free than anyone else of their gender. Simply having children does not oppress anyone, plenty of successful women have children, it is living in a society that does not give you control over if and when you have children that oppresses you. It oppresses you by confining you to a certain role and even if you resist this role, you will still be in trouble, more trouble even.

I should add as well that gender liberation is not binary. Women aren't either free or unfree, freedom exists on a spectrum. An open society with some but not complete reproductive freedom for women will have more gender equality than an otherwise patriarchal society that may allow abortion. There is more gender equality in Ireland than there is in Japan for instance, however for complete gender equality there must be complete reproductive freedom.

This is why the right-libertarianism focus on individualism is utterly inadequate here because while it can provide an argument for individual rights, it cannot focus on the effect on society as a whole of policy in this area. That is why we have people (who despite identifying on the left are obviously heavily influenced by a quite different ideology) telling us it is about the right to sexual freedom as if that were the only, or even the biggest, issue at stake.

[Nulono]

If you put someone in a situation, you are responsible for that. For example, you cannot invite someone on a plane, remove consent, and push them off.


Demogorgon, your argument is valid, but must be pared with my "who's rights are greater" logic, because the "equality" statement will bring about the "equality for the fetus" argument from anti-choicers.

Also, just wondering, is my restriction going to be lifted? I should mention, I didn't change my opinion just to get un-restricted, I'm not that kind of person. It was a genuine change, and I'm just wondering when I will be un-restricted.

H&S forever,
-PCIt's not "who's rights are greater", but "what rights are greater". One person's life supersedes another's convenience.


Eh. One could, I think, make a reasonable case for simply dismissing all of rights discourse as merely the trappings of liberalism, designed to conceal and consolidate power structures (that is to say, rights discourse allows one to say, "Now these people have equal rights," while prisons are full of black people and Congress is full of white people). Plus what Demogorgon said about rights simply not being useful for this discussion. So if we're abandoning the concept of rights, and instead use "equality" as our starting point, the facts seem to me to be more or less as follows:


Men are able to have sex without having to give birth.
A necessary condition of equality is therefore that women should be able to have sex without having to give birth.
To reject (2) is the same as saying, "Women should have to suffer undesirable effects of sex that men don't suffer".
To be in favour of negative effects for women where there are none for men is to be anti-woman.
(Therefore) Any state of affairs other than unrestricted access to abortion is anti-woman, and anti-equality.



TC's argument seems to me to be the same as the argument most would make against the idea of mandatory organ harvesting from the living. I don't think it's fair to conflate the concept of bodily autonomy with "self-ownership" (which I think is what you're doing, sorry if I've misread you).There's a difference between rights and abilities. Women have less pain than men when punched in the crotch. Short people feel less pain when you stab 6 feet above their heels. Not everyone is physically equal. Women have the right to have sex without consequences, but consequences sometimes come anyway. If the consequence is a human being, that human may not be killed.


Do you, or do you not, oppose all abortion, regardless of the cause of the pregnancy? I.e., do you oppose abortion resulting from rape, from contraceptives not working properly (e.g. condoms breaking), or from an surgical procedure (e.g. tubal ligation or vasectomy) not being carried out correctly?

If you oppose all abortion, what does it matter whether you had any part in that person entering into you and being a parasite in you?

Also, yes, there is a chance that you would be killed. Pregnancy often results in death for the mother.

Do you think you have the right to kill this person, who through no action of your own, has crawled into you and risks killing you?


I still think that it is a bit bad for a person to abort 9 months into a pregnancy. I cannot say that the person cannot do that though.

Do you hold the opinion that a women has the right to abort at any time, regardless of whether you think it is right or wrong?

Because, that's about my position. You cannot escape the logic.My point was that the fetus has no say in its existence, so he or she can in no way be blamed for the pregnancy.


Well it wouldn't be fair of me to say that, if I were saying it of someone who hasn't openly endorsed self-ownership in the past, but given she has and has used more or less word for word copies of Murray Rothbard to make her arguments (having the brass neck to call them leftist arguments to boot!), it is pretty fair to accuse her of it.

I'd rather not go into it too deeply as her intention is simply to shock with as outrageous arguments as possible rather than making productive contributions, so giving her more attention is not a good idea, so it is best to leave it there and simply say that accusing her of what I accuse her of is perfectly apt.

To bring it back to the actual discussion, you are being too narrow in the argument you made as to it being about sex and an equal ability to enjoy sex without repercussions. That is fair enough if it is an individuals particular priority, but it won't really work for anyone not "sex focused".

Allow me to explain. Gender oppression doesn't exist because each individual woman is being oppressed, but rather because women have been placed into a subservient position for reasons I have discussed. A society where women are looked upon as the source of children and therefore restricts reproductive control, will oppress even women who never have children and it will do so because of the lack of reproductive control. The reason is that if women as a group are supposed to be doing a particular role, any woman who for whatever reason is not fulfilling this role is going to meet heavy resistance.

Regardless of rules regarding birth control, there have always been women without children, but I defy anyone to tell me that those women were anymore free than anyone else of their gender. Simply having children does not oppress anyone, plenty of successful women have children, it is living in a society that does not give you control over if and when you have children that oppresses you. It oppresses you by confining you to a certain role and even if you resist this role, you will still be in trouble, more trouble even.

I should add as well that gender liberation is not binary. Women aren't either free or unfree, freedom exists on a spectrum. An open society with some but not complete reproductive freedom for women will have more gender equality than an otherwise patriarchal society that may allow abortion. There is more gender equality in Ireland than there is in Japan for instance, however for complete gender equality there must be complete reproductive freedom.

This is why the right-libertarianism focus on individualism is utterly inadequate here because while it can provide an argument for individual rights, it cannot focus on the effect on society as a whole of policy in this area. That is why we have people (who despite identifying on the left are obviously heavily influenced by a quite different ideology) telling us it is about the right to sexual freedom as if that were the only, or even the biggest, issue at stake.
Sexual freedom is not about the right to kill a child that results from sexual union. Having an abortion doesn't end motherhood; it just makes you the mother of a dead child.


You know, as a person, I oppose abortion, but as a communist, looking at it objectively, I guess there really isn't a viable way to oppose the right to abortion. Let's look at it this way:

-When a woman wants an abortion, she is now in conflict with the fetus, who "wants", for want of a better word, to live.

We must, therefore, decide who has the right to determine the outcome of this situation. How shall we compare them? They are both homo sapiens, humans, but which is a person? If you definie person as the intellectual status of a human being, consisting of personality, opinions, individual thought processes etc., then the fetus is not a person, nor will it ever be in the womb, because it has no sources from which to develop a personality.

However, after birth, the fetus's potential to become a person begins to grow; slowly, at first, but surely. Therefore, I conclude the follow:

-As much as one may hate it, the right to abortion must be conferred.

-I still, however, don't believe in partial-birth abortion. It is simply immoral.


So I suppose I am forced into agreement, because I cannot deny your logic.

However, regarding the -150 degrees analogy: I guess you couldn't force the parents to curl up with their child in that moment, but you fuck-as-sure could charge them with manslaughter or murder later.

H&S forever,
-PC
Let's say I want to rape you. I am now in conflict with the you, who doesn't want to be raped.

An infant does not have a personality either.

[hugsandmarxism]

If you put someone in a situation, you are responsible for that. For example, you cannot invite someone on a plane, remove consent, and push them off.

Uh-huh, yeah, because having (or being forced into) sex is totally like a stewardess inviting all those with Boarding Pass B into Coach. :rolleyes:

"Come on in little guy/gal, right this way! Come latch onto my uterine wall and hang around for 9 months."

Reality is a little different, Reverend.


It's not "who's rights are greater", but "what rights are greater". One person's life supersedes another's convenience.

But a fetus isn't a person. Person-hood requires personality.


There's a difference between rights and abilities. Women have less pain than men when punched in the crotch. Short people feel less pain when you stab 6 feet above their heels. Not everyone is physically equal. Women have the right to have sex without consequences, but consequences sometimes come anyway. If the consequence is a human being, that human may not be killed.

Wow. That was a useless line.


My point was that the fetus has no say in its existence, so he or she can in no way be blamed for the pregnancy.

You're right. But neither does this thing.

http://www.nosolorol.com/revista/chestburster.jpg


Sexual freedom is not about the right to kill a child that results from sexual union. Having an abortion doesn't end motherhood; it just makes you the mother of a dead child.

Thanks for the moralism, mister Falwell.


Let's say I want to rape you. I am now in conflict with the you, who doesn't want to be raped.

Your attempt at witty rebuttal is fail, since PCommie's assertion that a fetus is capable of "want" is a false one. If you or I were fetuses, we wouldn't give a shit what happened to us, since we wouldn't have the capacity to give a shit.


An infant does not have a personality either.

It depends on the stage of development the child is in. I'll try to find a link to the study that suggests personality emerges roughly withing the first year of life.

Until then, I'd like you to watch this. And reflect on just how silly your fetus-fetish is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk16Xz8IWNk

(hilarous video found by gonzeau)

[PCommie]

I meant want, like, if it were possible.

Infants have the potential for personalities. From the moment of birth, they are exposed to sounds, and when their eyes open, sights. A fetus has no such opportunity, so it can definitely be said that a fetus is not a person. An infant has the opportunity, so from their birth, they are at a different stage of personality development.

Hugs, what in the FLYING CHRISTIAN HELL is that BASTARDLY creature you posted? It makes me want to fucking shoot myself, shit of fucking satan.

Goddamn.

-PC

[hugsandmarxism]

I meant want, like, if it were possible.

We can make all sorts of assumptions about what non-sentient, thinking beings would "want" but anything can be derived from falsity, so thinking what a fetus might want is meaningless. It could be argued that since outside life involves pain, suffering, and misery and the womb comfort and security, that fetuses might not want to be born at all. See the trouble this conjecture gets us in?


Infants have the potential for personalities. From the moment of birth, they are exposed to sounds, and when their eyes open, sights. A fetus has no such opportunity, so it can definitely be said that a fetus is not a person. An infant has the opportunity, so from their birth, they are at a different stage of personality development.

Potential, certainly, but depriving an unborn, unthinking being of it's potential to be born and "killing a person" are too entirely different things, that anti-choice advocates often conflate.


Hugs, what in the FLYING CHRISTIAN HELL is that BASTARDLY creature you posted? It makes me want to fucking shoot myself, shit of fucking satan.

Goddamn.

That's the chest-bursting alien from the movie Alien. Basically, a guy goes walking around on another planet, a big spidery thing attaches itself to his face and lays eggs in his chest, the creature bursts out in a bloody display and kills the crew of the space ship that landed there. Good movie series, but the 4th installment was a piece of shit.

[PCommie]

We can make all sorts of assumptions about what non-sentient, thinking beings would "want" but anything can be derived from falsity, so thinking what a fetus might want is meaningless. It could be argued that since outside life involves pain, suffering, and misery and the womb comfort and security, that fetuses might not want to be born at all. See the trouble this conjecture gets us in?

I know, I agree.


Potential, certainly, but depriving an unborn, unthinking being of it's potential to be born and "killing a person" are too entirely different things, that anti-choice advocates often conflate.

That's what I said. I said the fetus has no potential because it cannot be exposed to the outside world, while the babies do, so we simply draw the line of abortion at birth (no partial-birth abortions!).


That's the chest-bursting alien from the movie Alien. Basically, a guy goes walking around on another planet, a big spidery thing attaches itself to his face and lays eggs in his chest, the creature bursts out in a bloody display and kills the crew of the space ship that landed there. Good movie series, but the 4th installment was a piece of shit.

Oh, shit, good. I thought it was real!

-PC

[Demogorgon]

Sexual freedom is not about the right to kill a child that results from sexual union. Having an abortion doesn't end motherhood; it just makes you the mother of a dead child.

Well that is going to be a matter of perspective and you can hold that position if you like, but it isn't relevant to my argument. I purposefully did not talk about sexual freedom, I talked about gender equality and how complete reproductive freedom is necessary to completely achieve it.

Whether what you say about abortion is the case or not, it pales into insignificance next to the fact that without abortion as one aspect of birth control, complete gender equality is not possible. That might sound harsh because you will think I am ignoring the individual cases of abortion, but I'm not, for the record I don't think you are correct anyway. We have always considered meaningful life to begin at birth. Even in societies where abortion was banned, it was considered a far lesser crime to murder for this reason, it is only in the latter part of the twentieth century that that particular position has raised its head.

Anyway, on the individual side of things, I think you are being cruel, because if you look at the reasons abortion actually happens, it in reality isn't an easy decision and claiming you can just barge in and tell individuals what to do in what an be a difficult time in their lives is not very nice to say the least.

But as I say, the issue for me is gender equality above all else (though you could throw in the fact that banning abortion does nothing but make abortion less safe anyway), unless and until you can offer an alternative means to allow for complete reproductive freedom (freely available contraception will take us considerable distance, but whether we like it or not, abortion is needed to take us over the finishing line) it will seem you are ignoring the particular issue.

Please note that I am not TC, I despise her right wing outlook (proof of which was given today by her leaving negative feedback for me saying it was a social issue regarding gender equality rather than one of libertarian individualism! :lol: ) and always have and attributing anything she has said to me isn't going to work, so you will have to address my arguments on their own merits. This isn't about whether the fetus is an aggressor or not (an absurd, and to be frank, surreal notion), but about the fact the class society has used the fact that biology means that without intervention women lack reproductive freedom to subjugate them. You don't have to like abortion, I certainly am not going to ask for that, we cannot control our gut response to things, but I am asking you to accept it as a necessary part of allowing women to take control of their own bodies in order that they can have full equality with men.

[RGacky3]

Hey, if I punch a pregnant chick in the stomache and kill the baby she wanted to have, thats fine right? Because I did'nt kill anything, just hurt her tummy. Is that right?

[RedAnarchist]

Hey, if I punch a pregnant chick in the stomache and kill the baby she wanted to have, thats fine right? Because I did'nt kill anything, just hurt her tummy. Is that right?

It's not fine, because you just attacked her for no reason. In some countries, don't they have laws against foetuscide?

[RGacky3]

It's not fine, because you just attacked her for no reason.

Of coarse its not fine, but according to people that are pro abortion, there should be no difference between that and punching anyone else in the stomache, or at least any other woman in the stomache. Also there should be no such thing as foetuscide.

[Demogorgon]

Hey, if I punch a pregnant chick in the stomache and kill the baby she wanted to have, thats fine right? Because I did'nt kill anything, just hurt her tummy. Is that right?
Only if that is your line of argument. Fact is though, it is an act of assault and has furthermore infringed on the woman's choice to have a baby.

It isn't murder though, it is aggravated assault. All the same, it is a very serious offence.

[RGacky3]

Fact is though, it is an act of assault and has furthermore infringed on the woman's choice to have a baby.

It isn't murder though, it is aggravated assault. All the same, it is a very serious offence.

A woman's choice to have a baby, considering its not a baby inside her, its pretty much the same as a mans choice to have a baby. Is'nt it?

Aggrivated assault is a serious offence, although very few people would put it on the same level as aggravated assault on a preagnanta woman, although if you are for abortion, there should be no difference whatsoever. If you don't see a difference then thats fine.

[Demogorgon]

A woman's choice to have a baby, considering its not a baby inside her, its pretty much the same as a mans choice to have a baby. Is'nt it?

Aggrivated assault is a serious offence, although very few people would put it on the same level as aggravated assault on a preagnanta woman, although if you are for abortion, there should be no difference whatsoever. If you don't see a difference then thats fine.
Well aggravated assault is assault with one or more aggravating factors. Causing miscarriage counts as a pretty serious aggravating factor in my mind.

You are talking to me here, not TC, I don't think forced abortion (which would be more or less what this is) is a trivial matter. I am arguing that women must have reproductive freedom, that is freedom to control when and if they have children. If a woman becomes pregnant and wishes to have the child, nobody has the right to stop her and committing an act of violence that infringes on this in an appallingly traumatic way is despicable.

Now it is true that I believe that an embryo or fetus cannot be considered to be in the same category as a living child, and I have a number of reasons for believing this, some of which I have given in this thread, others of which I have given in other threads, but the thing is, I am not asking for you to agree with me here. People are going to have different opinions here that will become very entrenched due to this being an emotive and divisive issue. Contrary to what some here might think, that isn't going to be changed with name calling and aggression. That will just further entrench divisions.

Rather what I am asking for is for abortion to be recognised as a necessary part of reproductive freedom and in turn that reproductive freedom be recognised as a vital part of gender equality. I'm not asking you to see abortion as an individual act as a good or even neutral thing, it isn't my place to dictate your views on such matters, though personally I think it is cruel to pass any kind of judgement on those who have abortions even notwithstanding other considerations. All I ask is that it be seen as necessary for gender equality.

[Nulono]

Fetuses actually remember and react to sounds in the womb.

[RedAnarchist]

A woman's choice to have a baby, considering its not a baby inside her, its pretty much the same as a mans choice to have a baby. Is'nt it?

How? If a woman wants to get pregannt, she and the male just have to stop using contraceptives and have unprotected sex until she gets pregnant.

[RedAnarchist]

Fetuses actually remember and react to sounds in the womb.

Do you have sources to back that claim up, because it sounds like crap to me?

[Demogorgon]

Do you have sources to back that claim up, because it sounds like crap to me?
Well close to Birth, the baby will respond to sound and other stimuli and there is evidence that playing music to them can have an effect, but I don't see how it is relevant to the argument regarding abortion. Even ignoring all the other issues discussed, few abortions happen that late on anyway.

[Glenn Beck]

A woman's choice to have a baby, considering its not a baby inside her, its pretty much the same as a mans choice to have a baby. Is'nt it?

Aggrivated assault is a serious offence, although very few people would put it on the same level as aggravated assault on a preagnanta woman, although if you are for abortion, there should be no difference whatsoever. If you don't see a difference then thats fine.

The difference is simple. You would be causing the woman significant emotional and physical distress by giving her an injury that could potentially abort her fetus. You are also violating her rights of reproductive freedom just as surely as you would be if you denied her an abortion by overriding her wish to have a child. There is also the social/emotional aspect where people tend to view violence against children, pregnant women, and more vulnerable people in general as far more egregious.

All of these things differentiate assaulting a pregnant woman from assaulting a non-pregnant woman and none of them require viewing womb-shrimp as people with rights.

[Nulono]

Womb-shrimp?

Okay, we have gone from "they have no personality" to "they are shrimp".

As far as the rarity of late-term abortions, it was claimed that an opposition to even partial-birth abortion was sexist.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Fetuses actually remember

Citation seriously fucking needed. Most people can't even remember their birth.


and react to sounds in the womb.

Reaction to stimulus is not the defining characteristic of personhood.


As far as the rarity of late-term abortions, it was claimed that an opposition to even partial-birth abortion was sexist.

There's no such thing as a "partial-birth abortion" - it is a fiction created by anti-choicers.

[PCommie]

There's no such thing as a "partial-birth abortion" - it is a fiction created by anti-choicers.

Then what do you call it? Killing a baby when it's halfway out is either partial birth abortion or murder. Take your goddamn pick, comrade.

The argument about punching in the stomach has been disproven as ridiculous, so I won't address it.

I point you to my last post containing the logic of why the rights of the woman must be put above that of the fetus; even if you hate and despise abortion, you must support the right, as a communist. If my logic, mingled with the others presented here, do not end the argument then the argument becomes based on your own personal preferences which is unacceptable.

-PC

[Nulono]

Citation seriously fucking needed. Most people can't even remember their birth.They are soothed by sounds that remind them of the womb.




Reaction to stimulus is not the defining characteristic of personhood.But it was claimed that a personality was, that a personality could not develop without exposure to outside stimuli, and that infants are persons because they are exposed to stimuli.




There's no such thing as a "partial-birth abortion" - it is a fiction created by anti-choicers.The child is rotated into a breech birth, then their brains are sucked out that when their heads are still in the vagina.


Then what do you call it? Killing a baby when it's halfway out is either partial birth abortion or murder. Take your goddamn pick, comrade. It can't be both?


The argument about punching in the stomach has been disproven as ridiculous, so I won't address it.Which argument?


I point you to my last post containing the logic of why the rights of the woman must be put above that of the fetus; even if you hate and despise abortion, you must support the right, as a communist. If my logic, mingled with the others presented here, do not end the argument then the argument becomes based on your own personal preferences which is unacceptable.No, your argument was that they have no personality, and, therefore, have no rights.


-PC~ Nulono

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Then what do you call it? Killing a baby when it's halfway out is either partial birth abortion or murder. Take your goddamn pick, comrade.

They don't "kill babies when it's halfway out". There is no such goddamn medical procedure. Clear?

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

They are soothed by sounds that remind them of the womb.

I'm soothed by the sounds of the ocean. That doesn't mean I remember when our evolutionary ancestors left the water.


But it was claimed that a personality was, that a personality could not develop without exposure to outside stimuli, and that infants are persons because they are exposed to stimuli.Let me make this simple for you - it takes more than reaction to stimuli to make a person. Otherwise a cockroach would count as a person too.


The child is rotated into a breech birth, then their brains are sucked out that when their heads are still in the vagina.Oh, for fuck's sake. You seriously think that's the way abortion works? This is exactly the sort of shit that anti-choicers lie their asses off about, and you take it all in like some faith-head sucking in their pastor's sermons.

[Nulono]

No, it is just one technique. It is also illegal now.

The response to signals was in response to this:

Infants have the potential for personalities. From the moment of birth, they are exposed to sounds, and when their eyes open, sights. A fetus has no such opportunity, so it can definitely be said that a fetus is not a person. An infant has the opportunity, so from their birth, they are at a different stage of personality development.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

No, it is just one technique. It is also illegal now.

So, they banned a non-existant medical procedure. Whoop-de-friggin' do. Seriously, are you naturally this dense, or do you practice?


The response to signals was in response to this:

What makes you think I give a shit? I didn't say that.

[Demogorgon]

"Partial Birth Abortion" is just one of those dishonest terms thrown about to add to obscure the issue amongst yet more emotivism. What is actually being refereed to is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intact_dilation_and_extraction

This is a charged enough subject as it is without willful dishonesty being added in.

[Bud Struggle]

"Partial Birth Abortion" is just one of those dishonest terms thrown about to add to obscure the issue amongst yet more emotivism. What is actually being refereed to is this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intact_dilation_and_extraction

This is a charged enough subject as it is without willful dishonesty being added in.

Wht can't this be done and keep the fetus/baby alive?

Who would it hurt?

[Demogorgon]

Wht can't this be done and keep the fetus/baby alive?

Who would it hurt?
While I accept it isn't the most pleasant subject in the world to read about after a hard day, you need to read the link. It isn't a birth and it isn't a method for extracting a live baby. The "partial birth" claim comes from the way the dead fetus is removed, but it isn't a birth in any normal sense-not even a stillbirth.

It cannot be used to extract a live baby, because it is not a birth.

[Glenn Beck]

If I was some hypothetical self aware fetus I'd rather be aborted through the rather quick and efficient Dilation and Extraction ('partial-birth') procedure than the currently acceptable late-term abortion procedure ever since the ban wherein the fetus is dismembered inside the womb with forceps and extracted in pieces. The attention given to the former procedure is because of its superficial similarities to childbirth which inspire the squeamishness that anti-choice arguments rest upon.

[Bud Struggle]

While I accept it isn't the most pleasant subject in the world to read about after a hard day, you need to read the link. It isn't a birth and it isn't a method for extracting a live baby. The "partial birth" claim comes from the way the dead fetus is removed, but it isn't a birth in any normal sense-not even a stillbirth.

It cannot be used to extract a live baby, because it is not a birth.

The thing is--it could be made a live birth in a heartbeat. You could just do a "birth" instead of an "abortion." Probably a lot less trama to the mother, too.

You Communists have to get off the "abortion agenda" band wagon and get to what is rational.

[Nulono]

ID&X is one of the procedures that fall under PBA. And the child is delivered up until the head, which is then "depressed" (crushed).

But, frankly, it is probably much less painful than the techniques that are now used in its place, and it is just as immoral. The ban was upheld because it in no way restricted abortion access.

[Glenn Beck]

But, frankly, it is probably much less painful than the techniques that are now used in its place, and it is just as immoral. The ban was upheld because it in no way restricted abortion access.

Are you also a vegan? Or just a total hypocrite? I'd imagine killing a pig which is a social animal capable of living independently with rather well-developed emotions and basic thought process would be far worse than killing a partly developed fetus capable at best of reflexive fear and pain.

[TC]

it could be made a live birth in a heartbeat. You could just do a "birth" instead of an "abortion." Probably a lot less trama to the mother, too.

I think part of whats missing from the abortion debate is that while anti-choicers are happy to go into maximally graphic, make-you-squeamish detail about how 'gross' the medical details of abortion can be, no one contrasts it with the reality of normal childbirth. It doesn't happen 'in a heart beat', its excruciatingly painful.

How can you even imagine that giving birth against your will wouldn't be profoundly traumatizing?


Who would it hurt?

The woman trying to get an abortion, that's who it would hurt!

Child birth hurts, a lot, often acutely for a long time, and chronically for long time after that. The fact that this is well known and yet the issue is systematically avoided just shows that pain in women is trivialized compared to pain in men.

[Jazzratt]

The woman trying to get an abortion, that's who it would hurt!

It should be obvious by now that she doesn't count as a person. She's simply a vehicle for carrying those precious foetuses.

Nulono:

ID&X is one of the procedures that fall under PBA. And the child is delivered up until the head, which is then "depressed" (crushed).

The point is that "PBA" is a term made up by your lot to make the whole thing seem more extreme. The fact of the matter is that, aside the ejection of the foetus from the host, it's got nothing to do with "birth" as any reasonably intelligent human being would understand it.

[Glenn Beck]

The woman trying to get an abortion, that's who it would hurt!

To expand on this. The whole point of the D&X procedure is to prevent the woman from having to pass through the fetus' head which is the most difficult and traumatic part of the birth. Furthermore this procedure is typically used at around 20 weeks, the idea that fully developed perfectly healthy and viable babies are being killed just to satisfy women's vanity/caprice and doctor's lust for death is just a purposely pushed misunderstanding. Abortions of viable fetuses for non-medical reasons are so exceedingly rare that to speak of them as if they tell us anything at all about abortion in general is extremely opportunistic and manipulative.

The reality is this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/USAbortionbyGestationalAgeChart2002.png

Your average fetus to be aborted looks far more like the little piece of flesh that NoXion posted than the cute giggling baby anti-abortionists want us to imagine. Note that this is in our society where imbecilic puritanism and medical neglect conspire to restrict access to not just abortion but sex-education and contraception.

If your average revlefter's fanatical baby-killing policies were applied the amount of late-term abortions that trouble you so would likely shrink to infinitesimal numbers because most women are not stupid and would rather go through the cheaper and much less complicated and uncomfortable procedure of an early abortion than a late one which is potentially even dangerous (though less so than childbirth!). Not that it matters but it's even conceivable (no pun) that the number of abortions would decline too as women everywhere are not only permitted but encouraged to take full control of their sexuality and fertility.

This is why anti-abortion arguments are held in such contempt on revleft, because beyond a superficial emotional appeal they have no real virtues to speak of.

[RGacky3]

I am arguing that women must have reproductive freedom, that is freedom to control when and if they have children. If a woman becomes pregnant and wishes to have the child, nobody has the right to stop her and committing an act of violence that infringes on this in an appallingly traumatic way is despicable.


The argument does'nt start at reproductive freedom, the argument starts at whether or not the fetus is a person. Because if it is, it also has rights. THATS where it starts.


complete gender equality is not possible. That might sound harsh because you will think I am ignoring the individual cases of abortion, but I'm not, for the record I don't think you are correct anyway. We have always considered meaningful life to begin at birth. Even in societies where abortion was banned, it was considered a far lesser crime to murder for this reason, it is only in the latter part of the twentieth century that that particular position has raised its head.

Anyway, on the individual side of things, I think you are being cruel, because if you look at the reasons abortion actually happens, it in reality isn't an easy decision and claiming you can just barge in and tell individuals what to do in what an be a difficult time in their lives is not very nice to say the least.

Again, reproductive equality is fine, but first the argument starts at if the fetus is a human or not, if it is not, then you are not killing anything in the womb.

I am not saying abortions happen for this reason or that reason, really thats irrelivent to whether or not abortions are right, the bottom line is, A fetus is a person. That makes natural sense, which is why stillbirth is such a traumatizing event for a woman, she's not sad because some parasitical cells in her died.

I don't see abortions as nessesary for gender equality, the same way I don't see males having the ability to bare children nessesary for gender equality.


You are also violating her rights of reproductive freedom just as surely as you would be if you denied her an abortion by overriding her wish to have a child. There is also the social/emotional aspect where people tend to view violence against children, pregnant women, and more vulnerable people in general as far more egregious.

But she does'nt have a child yet, its not a child, she could just get preagnant again if she wants, plus, what about a mans want to have a child? If its not a child its not a child at all.

The social stigma agains tattacking a pregnant woman is not that she's vunurable, its that she has a child in her.

You see, there are so many delemas in trying to figure out whether or not a fetus is a human, so how could you just skip that and say its about womans rights.

[Demogorgon]

The thing is--it could be made a live birth in a heartbeat. You could just do a "birth" instead of an "abortion." Probably a lot less trama to the mother, too.

You Communists have to get off the "abortion agenda" band wagon and get to what is rational.
You know perfectly well that I am not obsessed with the abortion issue the way some are, I try to be as rational as possible about it.

And rationality tells us that regardless of ones views on abortion in general, Intact dilation and extraction is not birth and can't be turned into birth. As I say, I know it isn't the nicest subject in the world, but if you read a neutral description of the procedure, this fact is quite clear.

As has been pointed out by others, late term abortion is fairly rare anyway and is generally carried out for medical reasons (and also when it transpires that having a child would have a disastrous impact on the mother's life) and has also been pointed out, the alternative form of late term abortion is probably more traumatic, it just looks less like what we would regard as birth.

As I say, this is such an incredibly charged issue with emotion flying around on both sides that sticking to the facts is vital if we are going to get anywhere at all.

[Demogorgon]

The argument does'nt start at reproductive freedom, the argument starts at whether or not the fetus is a person. Because if it is, it also has rights. THATS where it starts.

Well this may well be the crux of the issue, the difficulty in finding common ground. We want to come at it from different perspectives. The two points of view clash without any reasonable way of reconciling them.

Now obviously, people who don't fall at either extreme of the spectrum here are probably going to say that personhood begins at a given point in pregnancy, whether that be quickening, viability or whenever. And will say that before that point it is reproductive freedom that is most important and that afterwards it is personhood.

Now on one level that is fair enough, better to support some abortion rights than none, if there is no prospect of convincing them to support them fully, but it misses another key issue and that is of when two rights clash, who has the better right? Even if it were the case that there were a violation of the rights of the fetus, the rights of all women to be treated equally to men, must surely trump it (and as I have said earlier, this is a social issue, lack of reproductive freedom will prevent equality even for those women who never require birth control).

As it stands, I am not convinced that a fetus can be considered to have "rights" anyway. Rights have to be understood in terms of what will lead to the best society. Personally I believe that before the point of birth, it is better to award all rights to the mother. Of course I am not asking you to agree with me, only to agree to full gender equality and once you agree with that, you have to move to supporting full reproductive freedom.


I am not saying abortions happen for this reason or that reason, really thats irrelivent to whether or not abortions are right, the bottom line is, A fetus is a person. That makes natural sense, which is why stillbirth is such a traumatizing event for a woman, she's not sad because some parasitical cells in her died.Well as you well know I don't buy into surreal Murray Rothbard arguments about parasites. Parasites necessarily belong to another species after all.

But as for your point; the reason still births or miscarriages are often seen as a tragedy is because the woman wanted the child. They had emotional investment in having a baby and viewed the fetus or baby (take your pick) they were carrying as their baby. Of course it is terribly upsetting. I know. It happened twice to my Aunt and she was devastated. However for a woman who does not want a child, an abortion is emotionally a quite different affair.


I don't see abortions as nessesary for gender equality, the same way I don't see males having the ability to bare children nessesary for gender equality.
Well in some respects if you do not agree here, there is little point in arguing, the most profitable course of action may well simply be to wait for you to change your mind.

However for the record I will restate my position. Reproductive freedom is vital for gender equality because without it women are relegated to a social position where they are seen as primarily child bearers whether they like it or not. This will even harm women who never require birth control as any attempt to live on an equal basis to men will be met with hostility as they will be seen as breaking their social role.

[RGacky3]

Even if it were the case that there were a violation of the rights of the fetus, the rights of all women to be treated equally to men, must surely trump it (and as I have said earlier, this is a social issue, lack of reproductive freedom will prevent equality even for those women who never require birth control).


I consider the right to life being above the right to reproductive independance, also a man has no reproductive independance, he cannot choose if or when he'll have a child, its 100% up to the woman (with abortion rights). Also birth control is a viable option for both partners.


As it stands, I am not convinced that a fetus can be considered to have "rights" anyway. Rights have to be understood in terms of what will lead to the best society.

Society only exists as far as it depend on individuals, society exists FOR individuals not the other way around.


Well in some respects if you do not agree here, there is little point in arguing, the most profitable course of action may well simply be to wait for you to change your mind.

Your right, we are attacking the issue from 2 different perspectives. However I do appreciate you understanding (unlike some others) that its not an issue of "we are for women" and "That guy is against women, and for enslavement of women." Its a much more complex issue than that going back to the definition of life, which is why its very possible for a leftist to be against abortion and not contradict his principles of equality, freedom and human rights. Because its an issue of defining life first (from my standpoint) and an issue of reproductive freedom second.

Which is my argument on why leftists should'nt be restricted based on being prolife.

[Nulono]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Human_fetus_10_weeks_-_therapeutic_abortion.jpg/800px-Human_fetus_10_weeks_-_therapeutic_abortion.jpg
Yup, just a tiny piece of flesh.

[apathy maybe]

Nulono, two questions.

The first has already been asked, are you a vegetarian? If not, why not?

The second, you know that person who forced themselves into you? How about this scenario:
An evil wicked scientist drugs you, and then, while you are asleep, attaches the head of another person on to you, and arranges it all so that you are providing all the food, blood, oxygen etc. The head only has a brain, eyes, ears, nose and mouth. However, it can't breath or eat. The head is perfectly innocent of all wrong doing, and would much prefer to have been left on it's own body. Unfortunately the scientist destroyed the body, and then killed themselves.

The is no way to separate the head from you, without killing the person. Both you, and the head are free from all blame, and wrong doing. Both are innocent.

Is it wrong of you to arrange to have the head removed (thus killing it)?

(OK, that was more than two questions, so sue me.)

[Nulono]

If the fetus isn't a baby, miscarriages should be no more traumatic than just failing to get pregnant. And abortions frequently cause emotional trauma to the mother, much more than birth.

I am not a vegetarian. First of all, I do not eat humans. Second of all, the animals I eat are already dead.

KmK0bZl4ILM

Yes, it would be murder for me to remove the head.


It should be obvious by now that she doesn't count as a person. She's simply a vehicle for carrying those precious foetuses.

NO, she is a person. And a person has no right to kill another person.



Nulono:


The point is that "PBA" is a term made up by your lot to make the whole thing seem more extreme. The fact of the matter is that, aside the ejection of the foetus from the host, it's got nothing to do with "birth" as any reasonably intelligent human being would understand it.It can easily be turned into a live birth: just don't suck the brains out!

[apathy maybe]

OK, so at least you are only partly inconsistent.


I am not a vegetarian. First of all, I do not eat humans. Second of all, the animals I eat are already dead.
If you eat pig, or cow, or sheep or almost any other commonly eaten farm animal, you are eating an animal that, when alive, had more consciousness, intelligence, etc. than a 1 month old foetus.

Someone has to kill those animals, and even if you don't kill them yourself, you are directly responsible for them being killed.

Yet you consider something without even a brain (an early foetus) to be more important than a caring sensitive animal (such as a pig)?

But I didn't kill it! But you are condoning the killing, and benefiting from it.

[Nulono]

OK, so at least you are only partly inconsistent.


If you eat pig, or cow, or sheep or almost any other commonly eaten farm animal, you are eating an animal that, when alive, had more consciousness, intelligence, etc. than a 1 month old foetus.

Someone has to kill those animals, and even if you don't kill them yourself, you are directly responsible for them being killed.

Yet you consider something without even a brain (an early foetus) to be more important than a caring sensitive animal (such as a pig)?

But I didn't kill it! But you are condoning the killing, and benefiting from it.I am not inconsistent. I would be if I considered awareness important, but I don't.

So we're defining rights based on intelligence now?

An ape has more awareness and intelligence than an infant.

Do you oppose harvesting the organs of executed criminals?

[Glenn Beck]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/99/Human_fetus_10_weeks_-_therapeutic_abortion.jpg/800px-Human_fetus_10_weeks_-_therapeutic_abortion.jpg
Yup, just a tiny piece of flesh.

Rare is the opponent that will actually back up your point. Indeed, it is a tiny human shaped piece of flesh. Do you really think something with such a tiny brain, something so primitive, is a fully developed person with self-awareness and interests in living and whatnot? No, you think this picture is so damning because it shows a human shaped creature with a face and eyes. Do you think we are not aware that fetuses look like human beings? They are human fetuses after all.

No doubt there's nothing wrong with feeling strong emotions and passion about a topic you hold dear, the problem is that that's ALL you've got. It's cute and looks a little like a person. It's also fucking transparent and has a brain the size of a thumb-tack.


If the fetus isn't a baby, miscarriages should be no more traumatic than just failing to get pregnant.

Who the fuck are you to say that? Like you have some right to impose ultimatums based on your flawed logic on the rest of the world? Miscarriages are not inherently traumatic, whats traumatic is wanting a child, being excited about it, planning out names or whatever and then having it taken away from you. Indeed, for some people who are infertile but really want children repeated negative pregnancy tests are rather traumatic. Context matters, that is one of the things you systematically fail to understand.

As for abortions being perhaps more traumatic than birth, I can say with confidence that in terms of physical trauma it is not so. In terms of emotional trauma perhaps for some people. But for every person who goes to get an abortion while still sympathizing with pro-life ideas or who is harassed by their family about it and ends up feeling guilty or depressed there are probably several who feel little but relief. The reason you see abortions as dirty and emotionally traumatic compared to birth is partly your pro-life beliefs and partly the context. Abortions are not fun, it's a medical procedure that most women who have would likely prefer not to need because they would prefer not to have come out pregnant in the first place. It doesn't sound particularly fun. On the other hand when someone gives birth she is likely excited about it and much more likely to be receiving support and comfort about her decision from society. When someone has a baby oftentimes the whole family is expected to come visit the new mother and congratulate her, how often does that happen with abortions? So of course childbirth is a happier even than abortion. One celebrates the creation or growth of a new family while the other is not integrated into the social fabric at all and is a medical procedure so that a woman can continue to live her life the way she wants to without having to be subservient to biological processes she doesn't control.

[Glenn Beck]

I am not inconsistent. I would be if I considered awareness important, but I don't.

So we're defining rights based on intelligence now?

An ape has more awareness and intelligence than an infant.

Do you oppose harvesting the organs of executed criminals?

Ok, that brings us to the other possibility. Do you believe in souls? If the moral personhood of the fetus doesn't come from its agency and/or ability to suffer then where does it come from? Do you believe in ghost spirits? Or is it the fact that the fetus is genetically human? Why should we care?

And no, I don't support harvesting the organs of executed criminals primarily because I oppose capital punishment and don't want to see the justice system become even more of an appalling money-making farce than it already is. But I'm in favor of mandatory organ donation because the dead have no interest in keeping their parts.

[Nulono]

Rare is the opponent that will actually back up your point. Indeed, it is a tiny human shaped piece of flesh. Do you really think something with such a tiny brain, something so primitive, is a fully developed person with self-awareness and interests in living and whatnot? No, you think this picture is so damning because it shows a human shaped creature with a face and eyes. Do you think we are not aware that fetuses look like human beings? They are human fetuses after all.

No doubt there's nothing wrong with feeling strong emotions and passion about a topic you hold dear, the problem is that that's ALL you've got. It's cute and looks a little like a person. It's also fucking transparent and has a brain the size of a thumb-tack.No, I don't think something with such a tiny brain, something so primitive, is a fully developed person with self-awareness and interests in living and whatnot. That is entirely irrelevant. An infant has no self-awareness or self-interest.

I used the picture to show it's not just a piece of flesh.
At least not any more than you are.



Who the fuck are you to say that? Like you have some right to impose ultimatums based on your flawed logic on the rest of the world? Miscarriages are not inherently traumatic, whats traumatic is wanting a child, being excited about it, planning out names or whatever and then having it taken away from you. Indeed, for some people who are infertile but really want children repeated negative pregnancy tests are rather traumatic. Context matters, that is one of the things you systematically fail to understand.

As for abortions being perhaps more traumatic than birth, I can say with confidence that in terms of physical trauma it is not so. In terms of emotional trauma perhaps for some people. But for every person who goes to get an abortion while still sympathizing with pro-life ideas or who is harassed by their family about it and ends up feeling guilty or depressed there are probably several who feel little but relief. The reason you see abortions as dirty and emotionally traumatic compared to birth is partly your pro-life beliefs and partly the context. Abortions are not fun, it's a medical procedure that most women who have would likely prefer not to need because they would prefer not to have come out pregnant in the first place. It doesn't sound particularly fun. On the other hand when someone gives birth she is likely excited about it and much more likely to be receiving support and comfort about her decision from society. When someone has a baby oftentimes the whole family is expected to come visit the new mother and congratulate her, how often does that happen with abortions? So of course childbirth is a happier even than abortion. One celebrates the creation or growth of a new family while the other is not integrated into the social fabric at all and is a medical procedure so that a woman can continue to live her life the way she wants to without having to be subservient to biological processes she doesn't control.1: Many pro-choice women are traumatized by abortions, and feel cheated and lied to.
2: She is not subservient to a biological process; she simply has no right to kill her child. She is subservient to her moral obligation against homicide, if anything.


Ok, that brings us to the other possibility. Do you believe in souls? If the moral personhood of the fetus doesn't come from its agency and/or ability to suffer then where does it come from? Do you believe in ghost spirits? Or is it the fact that the fetus is genetically human? Why should we care?Why should we care if it's self-aware?

All humans have basic human rights.


And no, I don't support harvesting the organs of executed criminals primarily because I oppose capital punishment and don't want to see the justice system become even more of an appalling money-making farce than it already is. But I'm in favor of mandatory organ donation because the dead have no interest in keeping their parts.Well, dead fish CERTAINLY have no interest in not being eaten.

I personally am not a donor because I want the medics saving me, not looking for parts.

[Demogorgon]

Right, it is time to get back to this, I think.
I consider the right to life being above the right to reproductive independance, also a man has no reproductive independance, he cannot choose if or when he'll have a child, its 100% up to the woman (with abortion rights). Also birth control is a viable option for both partners.
One might generally put the right to live as the highest of all rights, that is true, but again you have to go back to the quality of that right. The rights of the unborn are presumably superseded by the rights of the born.

As for your argument concerning men, well in practice men are likely to be consulted anyway before an abortion, but that wasn't my point. Regardless of whether a man has a child or not, he is not going to find himself in the position of being in a society where he, by virtue of being a man, is going to be expected to be primarily a child-bearer and carer. For women however, unless they have children on their terms, that is going to be the social position they end up in and that is the reality without birth control.

Now, I am perfectly aware that you are not against birth control, but only one aspect of it. You are doubtless in favour of contraception, and that plays a much bigger part than abortion in terms of reproductive freedom anyway, so what you advocate would not lead to complete subjugation, but it would not fully achieve the gender equality either.


Society only exists as far as it depend on individuals, society exists FOR individuals not the other way around.

Yes, but you need to be extraordinarily careful here because when you start talking like this you then come to start arguing that individual rights trump social rights, forgetting that by hurting society you are hurting the individuals comprising society. This is the crucial flaw in libertarianism after all.

So whenever you find yourself arguing that the benefit of society is secondary to any individual right, take a step back. Libertarians claim that an individuals right to property trumps societies right for equality ignoring that that means many billions of individuals are hurt by inequality. Similarly extending the individual right to life to the unborn regardless of the social reality of what it does to gender equality will condemn several billion women to inequality, because as I say, it is not merely women who desire an abortion who are harmed by society seeking to regulate reproduction.


Your right, we are attacking the issue from 2 different perspectives. However I do appreciate you understanding (unlike some others) that its not an issue of "we are for women" and "That guy is against women, and for enslavement of women." Its a much more complex issue than that going back to the definition of life, which is why its very possible for a leftist to be against abortion and not contradict his principles of equality, freedom and human rights. Because its an issue of defining life first (from my standpoint) and an issue of reproductive freedom second.

Which is my argument on why leftists should'nt be restricted based on being prolife.
Well as you know, I am against restricting people on the basis of this topic, and I think it is the epitome of childish argument to try and frame the topic as if one's own perspective is the only valid line of enquiry. The notion that anyone opposed to abortion by definition is anti-woman is so stupid that it would not be worthy of discussion if people didn't actually say it.

That lack of abortion rights will harm women is my argument of course, but I cannot just presume that opponents of abortion also believe that and are out to restrict abortion for the purpose of harming women. Arguing that is just arguing for the purpose of trying to alienate your opponent, not trying to convince.

[RGacky3]

Yes, but you need to be extraordinarily careful here because when you start talking like this you then come to start arguing that individual rights trump social rights, forgetting that by hurting society you are hurting the individuals comprising society. This is the crucial flaw in libertarianism after all.

Valid rights are always those of the individual, the key word here is Valid. Libertarians hold on to non Valid rights, rights that ar enot valid for societies OR individuals. Putting societal rights above individual (as if it was a seperate entity, which imo it is'nt), can justify all sorts of things that the vast majority of people would'nt view as moral.


well in practice men are likely to be consulted anyway before an abortion

Really??? I don't know if thats true or not. Many times men, especially if they are not married, have no say either way, and must pay for the desicion of the women if she decides. If she has the child he must father it, or pay child support. If she does'nt he does'nt get to have his child with his DNA.


he is not going to find himself in the position of being in a society where he, by virtue of being a man, is going to be expected to be primarily a child-bearer and carer. For women however, unless they have children on their terms, that is going to be the social position they end up in and that is the reality without birth control.


Many times thats not the case. Sometimes it is. Sometimes its not. However there are also many social stigmas that are on men and not on women in societal terms when it comes to family.


Now, I am perfectly aware that you are not against birth control, but only one aspect of it. You are doubtless in favour of contraception, and that plays a much bigger part than abortion in terms of reproductive freedom anyway, so what you advocate would not lead to complete subjugation, but it would not fully achieve the gender equality either.


heres the difference, cumming does'nt result in a child, hav'nt sex does'nt nessesarily result in a child. An embreo, nessesarily results in a child, as sure as a child results in an adult. The difference is the difference between preventing creating a child, and killing a created child.


Well as you know, I am against restricting people on the basis of this topic, and I think it is the epitome of childish argument to try and frame the topic as if one's own perspective is the only valid line of enquiry. The notion that anyone opposed to abortion by definition is anti-woman is so stupid that it would not be worthy of discussion if people didn't actually say it.

That lack of abortion rights will harm women is my argument of course, but I cannot just presume that opponents of abortion also believe that and are out to restrict abortion for the purpose of harming women. Arguing that is just arguing for the purpose of trying to alienate your opponent, not trying to convince.

Again, I appreciate that. Maybe no one will convince each other, but at least its an honest, civil discussion.

[apathy maybe]

I am not inconsistent. I would be if I considered awareness important, but I don't.
You are inconsistent. You haven't explained what property makes a 2 week old foetus more important than a fully grown pig.


So we're defining rights based on intelligence now?
Sounds better than defining rights based on having human DNA. What about aliens? Do they get rights?


An ape has more awareness and intelligence than an infant.
I also think they should have rights too. As time passes I become more and more convinced that humans position as the dominant species on the planet is luck or "good" fortune rather than anything else.

The differences between humans and other animals is that we have managed to build tools that allow us to communicate, and record information. But, for a long time, humans couldn't do that.

So, other apes can't do that, but they can certainly be taught to talk (sign-language). Given time, I am sure that we could have a community of chimpanzees who could all talk with a constructed sign-language (with each other, and with humans), and even read basic words.

I don't see why animals intelligent enough to do that shouldn't be given rights (even if they haven't been trained, they have the potential, just like a four year old).


Do you oppose harvesting the organs of executed criminals?
As someone else mentioned, I oppose the state killing people.
The idea of "harvesting" organs from executed "criminals", leads to the possibility that more criminals are executed to increase the supply of organs. (A scenario apparently explored by Niven, a science fiction author, in the 1970's.)


No, I don't think something with such a tiny brain, something so primitive, is a fully developed person with self-awareness and interests in living and whatnot. That is entirely irrelevant. An infant has no self-awareness or self-interest.
An infant has a fuck load more self-awareness than a foetus. So does, for that matter, a pig. A fully grown pig has more self-awareness than an infant even. Yet I bet you have no problem with people eating pigs.


I used the picture to show it's not just a piece of flesh.
At least not any more than you are.
Where's the brain? Oh, not developed yet? (Did someone already mention this? Whoops...)



1: Many pro-choice women are traumatized by abortions, and feel cheated and lied to.
That's not an argument against all abortion. That an argument for proper education and counciling before abortion.

2: She is not subservient to a biological process; she simply has no right to kill her child. She is subservient to her moral obligation against homicide, if anything.
You have no right to call for the death of cows so that you may eat steak. You do it anyway. (Oh, and child != foetus.)


Why should we care if it's self-aware?
You said that you eat animals, even if they are self-aware. Yet you don't care if a foetus is self-aware or not?

That's fucked up.


All humans have basic human rights.
No, all people have those rights.


Well, dead fish CERTAINLY have no interest in not being eaten.When they are alive they certainly have an interest in not being killed for the purpose of being eaten latter though.

Dead foetuses don't have have any interest in not being eaten either. Neither do dead adults for that matter. Do you eat humans?


I personally am not a donor because I want the medics saving me, not looking for parts.
I hope you never get an organ donation then. I'm not an organ donor 'cause I'm lazy and haven't got around to putting my name on the list.

If you are worried about medics not wanting to save you (as if they are checking your wallet for an organ donor card before they operate...), are you perhaps also worried about the Illuminati?


Well as you know, I am against restricting people on the basis of this topic, and I think it is the epitome of childish argument to try and frame the topic as if one's own perspective is the only valid line of enquiry. The notion that anyone opposed to abortion by definition is anti-woman is so stupid that it would not be worthy of discussion if people didn't actually say it.
I've thought about this, a bit. I've no problem restricting people who oppose all abortion no matter what, as that is a fundamentally indefensible position (though one I used to hold). However, I do object to automatically restricting people who oppose abortion after the foetus gets to a certain age (has a brain normally).

[trivas7]

The differences between humans and other animals is that we have managed to build tools that allow us to communicate, and record information. But, for a long time, humans couldn't do that.

Um -- when was that? When was language absent from homo sapiens?

[apathy maybe]

Um -- when was that? When was language absent from homo sapiens?

When did I say it was? I didn't.

Tools to communicate and record information, mean such things as writing, paper, tele*, and the Internet.

Talking and language are not tools per se.

However, to answer your question, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language) suggests between 100.000 and 50.000 years ago. The question, though, is obviously difficult to really answer, due to the lack of fossils left by sound-waves.

[trivas7]

However, to answer your question, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language) suggests between 100.000 and 50.000 years ago.
OTC, the wikipedia article you refer to explicitly makes the opposite claim: "The use of language (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language) is one of the most conspicuous traits that distinguishes Homo sapiens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens) from other species."

[Nulono]

You are inconsistent. You haven't explained what property makes a 2 week old foetus more important than a fully grown pig.Um, human rights.



Sounds better than defining rights based on having human DNA. What about aliens? Do they get rights? We're making up aliens now? All species have a moral obligation to their own species. A lion killing a cub so he can rape the mom? Immoral.



I also think they should have rights too. As time passes I become more and more convinced that humans position as the dominant species on the planet is luck or "good" fortune rather than anything else.So a monkey has more rights than an infant?


The differences between humans and other animals is that we have managed to build tools that allow us to communicate, and record information. But, for a long time, humans couldn't do that.Not so sure about this.


So, other apes can't do that, but they can certainly be taught to talk (sign-language). Given time, I am sure that we could have a community of chimpanzees who could all talk with a constructed sign-language (with each other, and with humans), and even read basic words.

I don't see why animals intelligent enough to do that shouldn't be given rights (even if they haven't been trained, they have the potential, just like a four year old). So? Does this mean one-year-old has no rights? Human infants develop relatively slowly.



As someone else mentioned, I oppose the state killing people.
The idea of "harvesting" organs from executed "criminals", leads to the possibility that more criminals are executed to increase the supply of organs. (A scenario apparently explored by Niven, a science fiction author, in the 1970's.)But if someone's already dead, is there any problem with using the organs that would otherwise go to waste?



An infant has a fuck load more self-awareness than a foetus. So does, for that matter, a pig. A fully grown pig has more self-awareness than an infant even. Yet I bet you have no problem with people eating pigs. A new-born or a premature infant has no more self-awareness than a fetus.



Where's the brain? Oh, not developed yet? (Did someone already mention this? Whoops...)Depends on what counts as a brain. It's bigger than yours, I can assure.




That's not an argument against all abortion. That an argument for proper education and counciling before abortion.It was not intended as such; it was a direct response to the claim that abortion was only traumatic if you are against it beforehand.


You have no right to call for the death of cows so that you may eat steak. You do it anyway. (Oh, and child != foetus.)Great. Cows are more important than our own offspring. And I do not call for their death; I merely eat the corpses.



You said that you eat animals, even if they are self-aware. Yet you don't care if a foetus is self-aware or not?

That's fucked up.The animals I eat aren't self-aware. THEY'RE DEAD!
But


No, all people have those rights.person (n.)
A living human. Often used in combination: chairperson; spokesperson; salesperson.

Using "person" and "human" separately is a technique used for the purpose of discrimination. Look through history: slaves aren't people, the natives aren't people, Jews are subhuman, ad infinitum.


When they are alive they certainly have an interest in not being killed for the purpose of being eaten latter though.

Dead foetuses don't have have any interest in not being eaten either. Neither do dead adults for that matter. Do you eat humans? If there was human meat in front of me, I'd eat it.

But look at your own words: they have an interest, before death, not be killed. After death, they have no interest to not be eaten.

Infants have no interest to not be killed. Is infanticide okay? Some say yes.



I hope you never get an organ donation then. I'm not an organ donor 'cause I'm lazy and haven't got around to putting my name on the list.Non sequitur.


If you are worried about medics not wanting to save you (as if they are checking your wallet for an organ donor card before they operate...), are you perhaps also worried about the Illuminati? No. But it's pretty obvious that the two aren't comparable.



I've thought about this, a bit. I've no problem restricting people who oppose all abortion no matter what, as that is a fundamentally indefensible position (though one I used to hold). However, I do object to automatically restricting people who oppose abortion after the foetus gets to a certain age (has a brain normally).A separate human being is created at fertilization. This is a scientific fact.

If you used to hold it, it is clearly defensible.

Two comrades can both be socialists and disagree on who socialist ethics apply to.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

But look at your own words: they have an interest, before death, not be killed. After death, they have no interest to not be eaten.

How can you eat something without killing it? :laugh:

[apathy maybe]

Nulono, I have no interest any more in discussing this matter with you. You seem to think that a clump of cells with out a brain or nervous system is more important than an animal that is intelligent, can be taught to talk (in the case of chimpanzees), or indeed, any other animal.

Not only that, you engage in ad hominem attacks which contribute nothing to the argument.

I'll just look at two of the absurdities from your latest post before bowing out of this discussion.

"A new-born or a premature infant has no more self-awareness than a fetus."
I would suggest that a new-born baby is a fuck load more self-aware than something without a brain or nervous system, such as a three week old foetus.

"If there was human meat in front of me, I'd eat it."
So if I had a human farm, and killed of humans and then gave you the meat, you would have nothing wrong with that? They are dead after all, they have no interest in not being eaten. The fact that I am killing them for the sole purpose of giving the meat to you has no relation on anything.
You are like a bad Buddhist. I didn't kill the animal, therefore I get no bad karma from eating the animal which was killed for me by someone else. It may be technically true (if you are a Buddhist), but it is certainly against the principle of the thing.

Just because you didn't kill someone/thing directly, doesn't mean you can't cause their death.

[Nulono]

How can you eat something without killing it? :laugh:...I don't know about you, but I don't kill my own food.


Nulono, I have no interest any more in discussing this matter with you. You seem to think that a clump of cells with out a brain or nervous system is more important than an animal that is intelligent, can be taught to talk (in the case of chimpanzees), or indeed, any other animal. I really have no interest in discussing this with someone who values a monkey over our own offspring.


Not only that, you engage in ad hominem attacks which contribute nothing to the argument. I'm making ad hominems?


I'll just look at two of the absurdities from your latest post before bowing out of this discussion.

"A new-born or a premature infant has no more self-awareness than a fetus."
I would suggest that a new-born baby is a fuck load more self-aware than something without a brain or nervous system, such as a three week old foetus.Not everything with a brain is self-aware.
And "three-week-old fetus" is an oxymoron. The fetal stage begins at eight weeks. I think you mean "embryo".



"If there was human meat in front of me, I'd eat it."
So if I had a human farm, and killed of humans and then gave you the meat, you would have nothing wrong with that? They are dead after all, they have no interest in not being eaten. The fact that I am killing them for the sole purpose of giving the meat to you has no relation on anything.
You are like a bad Buddhist. I didn't kill the animal, therefore I get no bad karma from eating the animal which was killed for me by someone else. It may be technically true (if you are a Buddhist), but it is certainly against the principle of the thing.

Just because you didn't kill someone/thing directly, doesn't mean you can't cause their death.The killing of the humans on the human farm would be immoral, but not my consumption of the byproducts.

[hugsandmarxism]

The killing of the humans on the human farm would be immoral, but not my consumption of the byproducts.

http://stevemasonsmog.typepad.com/.a/6a00e3982071838833011279738ce528a4-320wi

Dr. Lecter would agree.

On a more serious note, Nulano, there really is no more point in talking with you. There is something very... dogmatic in your arguments, which (like the waves of religious people you claim to oppose) seeks to retard honest debate with moralistic drivel. You want to think that fetuses are people, you want them to have a "right to life" that trumps the mother's right to bodily autonomy, because you don't like the idea of women "killing babies." This is much like the theist, who wants to believe in a God (or Gods), wants to believe that when they die, their "souls" will live on, because they don't like the idea that one day, their life will end, they will no longer be conscious (an unfathomable reality indeed).

You claim to be an athiest and an anarcho-communist, but you rant like a reverend. You're a bad joke. You come here, to a forum of communists and anarchists, and all you have done is rant about abortion. What has your posting accomplished? Nothing. You haven't changed my mind, nor anyone else's. Nor will you, really. All you have been able to do was annoy those who might agree with you on, perhaps, every other matter. It's a shame, really.

[apathy maybe]

I was wrong, I just want to respond to these really ignorant comments:

.I really have no interest in discussing this with someone who values a monkey over our own offspring.
If you think that a chimpanzee is a monkey you are really ignorant. That's about the same as saying that a human is a monkey.


I'm making ad hominems?
You're the one who said that I didn't have much of a brain...


Not everything with a brain is self-aware.
And "three-week-old fetus" is an oxymoron. The fetal stage begins at eight weeks. I think you mean "embryo".Oh, my mistake, but seeing as you oppose the abortion of embryos my point stands.

A new born is more self-aware than an embryo.


The killing of the humans on the human farm would be immoral, but not my consumption of the byproducts.
What, even if you paid me to run the human farm and kill them?

You are one strange individual.

[Glenn Beck]

Um, human rights.
Don't exist in and of themselves but are a potentially useful abstraction. You need to justify why you think rights exist for humans and humans only just by virtue of being human. Contrary to your wishes this is not an inherent fact of reality that we can all observe but your own belief which you must use arguments to convince us is true.


We're making up aliens now? All species have a moral obligation to their own species. A lion killing a cub so he can rape the mom? Immoral.
Is a Mantis that kills and eats her mate after extracting his sperm a murderer? Again: you hold very strange and idiosyncratic views on morality that you seem to believe are self-evidently true even though no-one here seems to agree. In such a situation instead of whining and throwing a tantrum the appropriate thing to do is to make a logical argument.



But if someone's already dead, is there any problem with using the organs that would otherwise go to waste?
None at all. But some of us, as you seem to have difficulty comprehending, have a view of morality that is not entirely abstract and theoretical but bound up with the real world. We oppose using executed criminals for such purpose because of the likely consequences that would have on our already corrupt and barbaric judicial system.


It was not intended as such; it was a direct response to the claim that abortion was only traumatic if you are against it beforehand.
Such a claim was never made, what was claimed was that much of the emotional trauma associated with abortion is not inherent but socially conditioned, pro-life beliefs are one of many ways in which this can happen. I mentioned other factors such as social stigma and the lack of support from friends and relatives. There are certainly others including fear of the unknown, fear of doctors, and an unpleasant and insensitive clinical environment.


Great. Cows are more important than our own offspring. And I do not call for their death; I merely eat the corpses.

The animals I eat aren't self-aware. THEY'RE DEAD!
You did indeed call for their death! With the dollars you paid for that meat you are telling someone to keep on making meat because someone will buy it. Making meat involves killing animals. If you really don't have a problem with killing non-human animals then why not just say so instead of making up lame excuses?


person (n.)
A living human. Often used in combination: chairperson; spokesperson; salesperson.

Using "person" and "human" separately is a technique used for the purpose of discrimination. Look through history: slaves aren't people, the natives aren't people, Jews are subhuman, ad infinitum.
Melodramatic much? Ignoring your idiotic accusations that we support Nazism and slavery on a site where people expressing the most marginal sympathy with those or allied views are immediately banned it is nothing of the sort. That is one definition of person used in plain speech. We are having an ethical discussion and thus we discriminate between a human being and an ethical person or agent. As you can see in this definition from dictionary.com:
4. Philosophy. a self-conscious or rational being.


If there was human meat in front of me, I'd eat it.
Without even questioning where it came from?! I'm beginning to suspect you are badly mentally ill.


A separate human being is created at fertilization. This is a scientific fact.
Fertilization is the combination of two gametes to produce a new organism, in this case a human organism. This much is true and utterly trivial. What matters is whether this organism deserves ethical consideration. Most of us say no either because it is not a person as previously defined or because its rights are overridden by that of the host, or some combination of the two. You seem to hold the position that the fact that it is genetically human entitles it to not only special moral consideration but the full complement of moral rights that one would consider a fully developed human being to have. You need to justify this with an honest and logical argument. Something that so far seems to be more or less beyond your capacities. You merely assert your view that fetus = human and humans have rights always and everywhere without actually making an argument for it, and then get upset that we disagree. Are you truly oblivious as to why we are frustrated?


If you used to hold it, it is clearly defensible.
Many of us used to hold stupid views, I myself used to be a roman catholic and a political liberal. What does that prove? Nothing. I know I'm engaged in an exercise in futility but please stop making illogical and pointless statements for the sole purpose of agitating us.

[Chambered Word]

Alright, prove to me fetuses have no feeling, and I will accept what you say. But then, you must still surely agree, that once a fetus could live on its own, or be transferred into another woman (I forget the term for that), the original mother should not have the right to have it killed for no reason. That's like saying "I don't want this piece of cake, but I'd rather throw it out than give it to someone else."

Agreed?

H&S forever,
-PC

P.S. Nulono, lay the fuck off my grammar, like I give a damn.

Go and look at the scientific evidence on foetal development, that should prove it to you well enough.

Also a piece of cake provides someone with (a limit amount of) nutrients, it doesn't become a burden like an unwanted child does. Get some analogies that are actually logical.



Infants don't care either. Neither do those sleeping or in a coma. And you don't have to believe in souls to oppose homicide.

I believe in not infringing upon someone's rights because they have emotions. That is what makes them a PERSON.

This 'soul' shit has no evidence to back it up, it's just another archaic Christian idea. It's funny how the church didn't seem to believe that black people had any rights. Did they have less 'soul' than a foetus (which we now know through science doesn't develop emotions until a certain point).



My point exactly. You said I need to prove the unborn are persons in order for them to be persons. I asked you to prove anyone is a person. You can't. Let's try this: prove you are a person.


If you'd read what I said, I should have pretty much proved that anyone is a person. Above all humans (and alot of animals to a certain degree I would suppose) have emotions, this makes them stand out from any other object in the world. To cause harm to a completely innocent human deliberately is completely anti-moral, and one should be dehumanized for such an act.

Scientists have proved a long time ago that the unborn only develop emotions at certain point in evelopment. This is why you can't just pull out a fully developed foetus as it slides out of the mother's vagina and hack its head off. That is why there is a cut off age for abortion.

Very simply and basically put, to infringe on the basic human wishes and rights of a human being that is alive AND has emotions is to commit an immoral act. Science indicates that foetuses that can be legally aborted are not developed enough to have these emotions, and you will not be committing an immoral act by effectively euthanizing these unwanted foetuses, if the mother whose body it is inside wishes so. The mother has the right to decide whether it develops inside her body and under her care, not any theorist, not any undeveloped foetus, not any Reverend and certainly not any politician.

Plants are alive, but do they have emotions? No, science has proved that they don't have the capacity to. And in the face of this, I ask you all: would simply destroying life constitute murder?

[Jazzratt]

...I don't know about you, but I don't kill my own food.

How the fuck do you think the animals you eat go from alive to dead? You are getting people to kill them on your behalf.

[Nulono]

Is a Mantis that kills and eats her mate after extracting his sperm a murderer?Yes.



Such a claim was never made, what was claimed was that much of the emotional trauma associated with abortion is not inherent but socially conditioned, pro-life beliefs are one of many ways in which this can happen. I mentioned other factors such as social stigma and the lack of support from friends and relatives. There are certainly others including fear of the unknown, fear of doctors, and an unpleasant and insensitive clinical environment.The mother-child relationship is an evolutionary adaptation, and a woman will often feel bad if she kills her child.



You did indeed call for their death! With the dollars you paid for that meat you are telling someone to keep on making meat because someone will buy it. Making meat involves killing animals. If you really don't have a problem with killing non-human animals then why not just say so instead of making up lame excuses?I don't have a problem with killing non-humans, but that's something else.



Melodramatic much? Ignoring your idiotic accusations that we support Nazism and slavery on a site where people expressing the most marginal sympathy with those or allied views are immediately banned it is nothing of the sort. That is one definition of person used in plain speech. We are having an ethical discussion and thus we discriminate between a human being and an ethical person or agent. As you can see in this definition from dictionary.com:
4. Philosophy. a self-conscious or rational being.So do you side with those who say infants are not persons, like Peter Singer?



Fertilization is the combination of two gametes to produce a new organism, in this case a human organism. This much is true and utterly trivial. What matters is whether this organism deserves ethical consideration. Most of us say no either because it is not a person as previously defined or because its rights are overridden by that of the host, or some combination of the two. You seem to hold the position that the fact that it is genetically human entitles it to not only special moral consideration but the full complement of moral rights that one would consider a fully developed human being to have. You need to justify this with an honest and logical argument. Something that so far seems to be more or less beyond your capacities. You merely assert your view that fetus = human and humans have rights always and everywhere without actually making an argument for it, and then get upset that we disagree. Are you truly oblivious as to why we are frustrated?"Human organism" is the definition of "human being". All human beings have human rights.

Again, I'm not trying to convince you, only to see that, if one affirms prenatal personhood, socialism can lead to an anti-abortion view.


Many of us used to hold stupid views, I myself used to be a roman catholic and a political liberal. What does that prove? Nothing. I know I'm engaged in an exercise in futility but please stop making illogical and pointless statements for the sole purpose of agitating us.I'm not saying that that means it's right, only that it's defensible.


Also a piece of cake provides someone with (a limit amount of) nutrients, and it doesn't become a burden like an unwanted child does. Get some analogies that are actually logical.This way surprise you, but some people actually want children.



I believe in not infringing upon someone's rights because they have emotions. That is what makes them a PERSON.

This 'soul' shit has no evidence to back it up, it's just another archaic Christian idea. It's funny how the church didn't seem to believe that black people had any rights. Did they have less 'soul' than a foetus (which we now know through science doesn't develop emotions until a certain point).Did I ever say I believed in a soul? I don't. I believe in human rights.


If you'd read what I said, I should have pretty much proved that anyone is a person. Above all humans (and alot of animals to a certain degree I would suppose) have emotions, this makes them stand out from any other object in the world. To cause harm to a completely innocent human deliberately is completely anti-moral, and one should be dehumanized for such an act.You have done no such thing. You have, at most, stated that we have feelings. You have not proven we are persons.


Scientists have proved a long time ago that the unborn only develop emotions at certain point in evelopment. This is why you can't just pull out a fully developed foetus as it slides out of the mother's vagina and hack its head off. That is why there is a cut off age for abortion.

Very simply and basically put, to infringe on the basic human wishes and rights of a human being that is alive AND has emotions is to commit an immoral act. Science indicates that foetuses that can be legally aborted are not developed enough to have these emotions, and you will not be committing an immoral act by effectively euthanizing these unwanted foetuses, if the mother whose body it is inside wishes so. The mother has the right to decide whether it develops inside her body and under her care, not any theorist, not any undeveloped foetus, not any Reverend and certainly not any politician.Wait, what country do you live in? Here in America, we have abortion on demand until birth.

Also, by your logic, post-viability abortions are immoral.


Plants are alive, but do they have emotions? No, science has proved that they don't have the capacity to. And in the face of this, I ask you all: would simply destroying life constitute murder?Plants are not human, so it is not immoral if they are killed by humans. It would be immoral, however, if they were killed by another plant of the same species.

I could drug you to the point that you no longer have emotions. Would that make it okay to murder you?


How the fuck do you think the animals you eat go from alive to dead? You are getting people to kill them on your behalf.Others kill them. I merely dispose of the carcass in such a way that it does not go to waste.

[Jazzratt]

Others kill them. I merely dispose of the carcass in such a way that it does not go to waste.

If I eat a foetus in order to "dispose of the carcass is such a way that it does not go to waste" does that mean abortions are cool with you? If not why is it that killing animals (which are more developed than foetuses) is cool with you - so cool with you in fact that you would (indirectly) pay people to do it for you.

Would your meat eating suddenly become immoral if you killed the animals themselves? Do you ever think through any of your positions?

[Sean]

Oh that Jazzratt, always with the baby eating. Stop telling the cappies that, they already suspect us!

[Nulono]

If I eat a foetus in order to "dispose of the carcass is such a way that it does not go to waste" does that mean abortions are cool with you? If not why is it that killing animals (which are more developed than foetuses) is cool with you - so cool with you in fact that you would (indirectly) pay people to do it for you.

Would your meat eating suddenly become immoral if you killed the animals themselves? Do you ever think through any of your positions?
Oh that Jazzratt, always with the baby eating. Stop telling the cappies that, they already suspect us!The abortion would not become ethical, but the eating wouldn't be unethical.

But I hear humans taste like pork, and I don't really like pork that much.

Fetus bacon, maybe.

[PCommie]

For once I agree with Jazzratt. You've totally fucked yourself in one damn page.

I'm done with this thread, it's just not worth it.

-PC

[Jazzratt]

The abortion would not become ethical, but the eating wouldn't be unethical.

Your ethics, while internally consistent, are shit. What is ethically correct about demanding or allowing unethical acts in order to support your own activities. If I follow a serial killer around and steal money of hir victims am I exonerated from being complicit in hir crimes?

I don't even think killing animals or foetuses is unethical and I can still see how you're being illogical. You prick.

[Sendo]

If a fetus is a human imbued with sentience and a soul from Day One, then how on Earth would identical twins be possible? Can a soul split into two or do some fetuses simply start off with two souls?

[RedKnight]

So here's another one of these threads about the topic of abortion. I will say that once more. I recognise the validity of foetal viability. And feel that no fully developed foetus should be allowed to be destroyed. And believe it or not, "Roe vs. Wade" does not require that pregnant women be permitted to abort third trimester foetuses either. (http://womenshistory.about.com/od/abortionuslegal/p/roe_v_wade.htm) http://womenshistory.about.com/od/abortionuslegal/p/roe_v_wade.htm

[Sean]

Oh that Jazzratt, always with the baby eating. Stop telling the cappies that, they already suspect us!
Thank's,for,that.

[Nulono]

Your ethics, while internally consistent, are shit. What is ethically correct about demanding or allowing unethical acts in order to support your own activities. If I follow a serial killer around and steal money of hir victims am I exonerated from being complicit in hir crimes?

I don't even think killing animals or foetuses is unethical and I can still see how you're being illogical. You prick.You can't steal from someone who's dead.


If a fetus is a human imbued with sentience and a soul from Day One, then how on Earth would identical twins be possible? Can a soul split into two or do some fetuses simply start off with two souls?I don't believe in souls, but why couldn't a soul split in two?


So here's another one of these threads about the topic of abortion. I will say that once more. I recognise the validity of foetal viability. And feel that no fully developed foetus should be allowed to be destroyed. And believe it or not, "Roe vs. Wade" does not require that pregnant women be permitted to abort third trimester foetuses either. (http://womenshistory.about.com/od/abortionuslegal/p/roe_v_wade.htm) http://womenshistory.about.com/od/abortionuslegal/p/roe_v_wade.htmRoe v Wade allowed third-trimester abortions for "health". Doe v Bolton defined "health" so broadly as to effectively give abortion-on-demand until birth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doe_v._Bolton#Broad_definition_of_health)

[Jazzratt]

You can't steal from someone who's dead.

Semantics. Taking their stuff was simply a shorthand for benefiting from the acts of the serial killer.

It would be interesting to live in your head though; the amount of doublethink and the moral disconnects must make it a very interesting place.

[Nulono]

Okay. I get it now. You think I would be responsible for the murders even if I didn't commit them. It must be fun in that skull case.

[Jazzratt]

Okay. I get it now. You think I would be responsible for the murders even if I didn't commit them. It must be fun in that skull case.

If you benefit from something yuou consider to be a murder and wish to continue benefiting it follows that you are complicit in the murder. Complicity and responsibility are slightly different concepts and I'm taking a big gamble on you having the neurones to recall the differance, but here's hoping.

By being complicit in murders you are giving your moral support to them. It isn't that hard.

[Nulono]

The victims are already dead when I take their money. I can not be complicit in an action performed by someone else before I ever intervened.

[hugsandmarxism]

The victims are already dead when I take their money. I can not be complicit in an action performed by someone else before I ever intervened.

http://americanhistoryquotes.com/images/Henry_Kissinger_small.JPG

Kissinger would agree with you. Human beings wouldn't. (http://www.zpub.com/un/wanted-hkiss.html)

[Nulono]

tl;dr

[Sam_b]

tl;dr maybe because that link completely owned you?

[RedAnarchist]

tl;dr

Too long? It would barely fit on two pages of A4 paper. You can't just say that something is too long and dismiss it if it is relevant to the discussion, especially if it isn't even long.

[GracchusBabeuf]

I'm a pro-life, liberal atheist.http://nulono.blogspot.com :lol: Liberal!;)

[Nulono]

Summary?

Yes, liberal.

http://www.politicalcompass.org/facebook/pcgraphpng.php?ec=-6.25&soc=-7.08
http://www.gotoquiz.com/politics/grid/5x28.gif
http://www.moral-politics.com/Temp/Pol_312cf8a2168441b5b324e628cd0560cd.png
http://www.politopia.com/image.php?P1=4&E1=-7

[teenagebricks]

Political compasses can't be taken seriously, they assume everyone believes in the need for a state and to a lesser extent, capitalism. They're just not very accurate.

[GracchusBabeuf]

Summary?Yes, liberal.
Cool story bro.:rolleyes:

[Nulono]

Political compasses can't be taken seriously, they assume everyone believes in the need for a state and to a lesser extent, capitalism. They're just not very accurate.Moral Politics is actually quite good.

[Agnapostate]

By that logic, abortion would be immoral post-implantation, or even pre-implantation once human embryo transplant is perfected.

I never claimed otherwise. But the constrictions of current societal conditions would cause excessive restrictions on abortion to constitute utility minimizations if implemented in the present day.


You seemed to be using the fact that rocks and ants have no rights as support for your claim that pain matters.

I used the fact that rocks have no capacity to suffer and ants extremely little capacity to suffer as a justification for their moral inferiority to humans. However, I also noted that there are various nonhuman animals with a greater level of awareness and a greater capacity to suffer than human fetuses, and yet they are considered of lesser moral significance. Answering "they are human" is an instance of begging the question and thereby committing a logical fallacy.


How exactly could one suffer if one does not experience?

Because suffering is not limited to physical pain, which was not a doctrine of even classical utilitarianism. Since preference utilitarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_utilitarianism) places emphasis on preference satisfaction as being the "morally right" action, it is therefore further exempt from this criticism. Have you not considered the negative consequences of the utility minimization that would occur from inhibiting the satisfaction of a preference o a rational moral agent?

[RGacky3]

Moral Politics is actually quite good.

Its not moral politics, its pigonholing based on inncorrect assumptions, and wrong generalizations.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

I don't want to distract from this thread, but I just wanted to stroke my ego a little:

http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57535&page=10


Determined pro-aborts will say the stupidest things to hide themselves from reality.

"Stupid" in context of TOL means:

- Believing the Earth is more than 12,000 years old
- Scrutinizing the Bible as a historical text
- Acknowledging scientific fact when it comes to perception being independent of what our body does

Guilty as charged.
Powerful stuff. http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/images/smilies/paranoid.gif
Not all that powerful when compared to Planned Parenthood's expert line of vacuum cleaners.

[Nulono]

I never claimed otherwise. But the constrictions of current societal conditions would cause excessive restrictions on abortion to constitute utility minimizations if implemented in the present day.Oops. I meant pre-/post-viability.




I used the fact that rocks have no capacity to suffer and ants extremely little capacity to suffer as a justification for their moral inferiority to humans. However, I also noted that there are various nonhuman animals with a greater level of awareness and a greater capacity to suffer than human fetuses, and yet they are considered of lesser moral significance. Answering "they are human" is an instance of begging the question and thereby committing a logical fallacy. It is begging the question to cite non-humans that can suffer. It is not begging the question to point out that your arguments do not support your claim any more than mine.




Because suffering is not limited to physical pain, which was not a doctrine of even classical utilitarianism. Since preference utilitarianism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_utilitarianism) places emphasis on preference satisfaction as being the "morally right" action, it is therefore further exempt from this criticism. Have you not considered the negative consequences of the utility minimization that would occur from inhibiting the satisfaction of a preference o a rational moral agent?Even beyond physical pain, NOTHING AT ALL can be felt if you're dead.


I don't want to distract from this thread, but I just wanted to stroke my ego a little:

http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57535&page=10


I liked this quote:

Of course, since there is no definitive proof on when a fetus does feel (the range is anywhere from 20 weeks to as the child leaves the birth canal), it's all speculation.

This is the basis of behavioralism. You can't say if ANYONE else feels pain; you can only say how they react to stimuli.

[Agnapostate]

Oops. I meant pre-/post-viability.

So?


It is begging the question to cite non-humans that can suffer. It is not begging the question to point out that your arguments do not support your claim any more than mine.

Do you even know what "begging the question" is? You need to brush up on your logical fallacies. My *point* was that there are various nonhuman animals with a greater awareness of their surroundings and a greater capacity to feel pain than a human fetus, and you have been unable to offer a logically sound reason that killing a human fetus is a greater moral wrong than killing these nonhuman animals.


Even beyond physical pain, NOTHING AT ALL can be felt if you're dead.

Juna...let me try to explain this to you more slowly. The moral wrong lies in the inhibition of the preference satisfaction. We need not consider it an "active" form of suffering, such as becoming dehydrated during a long hike, but it constitutes a utility minimization nonetheless.

[Nulono]

So?Just clarifying.




Do you even know what "begging the question" is? You need to brush up on your logical fallacies. My *point* was that there are various nonhuman animals with a greater awareness of their surroundings and a greater capacity to feel pain than a human fetus, and you have been unable to offer a logically sound reason that killing a human fetus is a greater moral wrong than killing these nonhuman animals.You have been unable to offer a logically sound reason it is a lesser wrong.

Your argument presupposes suffering matters. Looking at it from an anthropocentric view (though that's a gross oversimplification), there is no contradiction in defending the rights of a fetus and not a monkey.


Juna...let me try to explain this to you more slowly. The moral wrong lies in the inhibition of the preference satisfaction. We need not consider it an "active" form of suffering, such as becoming dehydrated during a long hike, but it constitutes a utility minimization nonetheless.
Infants have no inhibitions and never have.