Solution to abortion and narcotics "freedom"

[red team]

Here's the rational solution to the abortion and narcotics consumption debate, so I'll decide to kill two birds with one stone. Don't worry though, there's enough material here to insult and offend everybody both liberals hypocrites and conservative moralists.

First for abortion, there are exceptional cases where I do support the right of the state to terminate the life a fetus up to a full term pregnancy unless the parent agrees to certain conditions that will incur financial costs to them. But, liberals being the way they are would love to have it both ways.

Take this scenario for instance. Some babies are known to be inherently crippled or retarded just from pre-pregnancy testing. There is then the dilema of whether or not bring into the world a damaged human being without asking the potential infant whether or not he/she wants to be born because it is impossible to ask them because of time to sentience or the damage itself to the physical brain that retards cognitive abilities.

For liberals (or libertarians), being the hypocrites that they are, this is no dilema since they believe in individual liberty to perform any action by said individual without regards to how this action may affect the welfare or liberty of others. I'm not a liberal since I believe the consequential social affects of individual actions is as important as the "freedom" to allow such individual "liberty" which in most cases where liberals use it is more of an indignant demand for promoting selfish interests rather than for the legal protection of individual dignity or lifestyle choices. Given that there are two lives in the balance the solution is entirely rational and moral. The parent can either have mandatory termination of the pregnancy or have a part of their income or wealth diverted for funding technical research into cures for these handicaps.

Now, compare this to liberal hypocrisy where there is the right of the individual to bring forth another individual regardless of whether or not the individual that is being borned suffers life long from their inherent disorders. That is they support the parent's rights to have a live human cuddle doll regardless of whether said cuddle doll is a sentient human being and not a pet. But, what happens to these handicapped people after they've reached adulthood and no longer cute or cuddly? :unsure: But, please tell me how many "freedom loving" liberals would choose to have their income diverted to fund medical research to cure genetic disorders? Don't worry, I also support having a pet dog or cat donated to these people after their handicapped fetuses are aborted if they don't pay up for research. :lol:

Next there's this crap about fetal alcohol babies or crack babies where the potential parents "accidentally" causes chemical damage to another potential human being. In this case, what's the difference between aggravated assault causing life-long handicaps and the parents doing this shit? In this case I support a three-prong solution. Fining the parents and sending them to rehab/prison. Mandatorily terminating the pregnancy and using the proceeds of the parental fines to sue the drug companies or for narcotics interdiction and education.

As for regular old abortions on technical grounds like brain wave presence which means a detectable potential for sentience, I support restrictions on abortions on the last trimester. You have to take responsibility for producing life at some point in time don't you? But, hey I'm also pragmatic as I can see that most other religious fanatics takes this position too, so I would base my decision to switch to "pro-life" when the religious fundies are gone from politics.

As for narcotics I support the freedom of people to experience their drug high (and damage their brains while they&#39;re at it), but just not when they&#39;re pregnant or driving or walking in public. For the druggies, they can have all the freedom they want under house arrest until they sober up. House arrest is not always a bad thing. It could be party house arrest :lol: Take Paris Hilton&#39;s house arrest for instance for drunk driving. So I guess she&#39;s not entirely useless. We can learn a thing or two about having a jolly good time while under house arrest from the hotel heiress skank-in-chief. <_<

Or they could go to a party prison and have their drug high there. It could be transformed into a party prison with laser shows, mirror balls, lamp-lighted floors and bubble machines. :lol:
Of course the liberals would complain about the violation of the intoxicated individual&#39;s freedom to plow into another person while drunk or high. <_<

[bombeverything]

What on earth are you on about?


First for abortion, there are exceptional cases where I do support the right of the state to terminate the life a fetus up to a full term pregnancy

Only in "exceptional cases" which are defined by who, you?


Take this scenario for instance. Some babies are known to be inherently crippled or retarded just from pre-pregnancy testing. There is then the dilema of whether or not bring into the world a damaged human being without asking the potential infant whether or not he/she wants to be born because it is impossible to ask them because of time to sentience or the damage itself to the physical brain that retards cognitive abilities.

This decision should be left to the mother, end of story. Also, at this stage it is still a fetus, not a "potential infant".


For liberals (or libertarians), being the hypocrites that they are, this is no dilema since they believe in individual liberty to perform any action by said individual without regards to how this action may affect the welfare or liberty of others. I&#39;m not a liberal since I believe the consequential social affects of individual actions is as important as the "freedom" to allow such individual "liberty" which in most cases where liberals use it is more of an indignant demand for promoting selfish interests rather than for the legal protection of individual dignity or lifestyle choices. Given that there are two lives in the balance the solution is entirely rational and moral.

What do you mean by "two lives in the balance"? Who are you referring to here?


Now, compare this to liberal hypocrisy where there is the right of the individual to bring forth another individual regardless of whether or not the individual that is being borned suffers life long from their inherent disorders. That is they support the parent&#39;s rights to have a live human cuddle doll regardless of whether said cuddle doll is a sentient human being and not a pet. But, what happens to these handicapped people after they&#39;ve reached adulthood and no longer cute or cuddly? :unsure: But, please tell me how many "freedom loving" liberals would choose to have their income diverted to fund medical research to cure genetic disorders? Don&#39;t worry, I also support having a pet dog or cat donated to these people after their handicapped fetuses are aborted if they don&#39;t pay up for research. :lol:

What? Whether or not a mother chooses to have a child or not has to be their choice, regardless of this. Does that make me a "liberal hypocrite"? If so, how? I don&#39;t understand your link to having ones income diverted. Elaboration please.


Next there&#39;s this crap about fetal alcohol babies or crack babies where the potential parents "accidentally" causes chemical damage to another potential human being. In this case, what&#39;s the difference between aggravated assault causing life-long handicaps and the parents doing this shit? In this case I support a three-prong solution. Fining the parents and sending them to rehab/prison. Mandatorily terminating the pregnancy and using the proceeds of the parental fines to sue the drug companies or for narcotics interdiction and education.

:D. Rehab/prison, which one? Who gets the money? The capitalist state? How about dealing with the structural causes of drug addiction in the first place? Policies like these never work. Are you suggesting that late term abortion is only "acceptable" in cases where the "baby" will be born with birth defects? If so, this stance is absolutely absurd. Your argument that late term abortion is only acceptable in certain situations is still fundamentally conservative.


As for narcotics I support the freedom of people to experience their drug high (and damage their brains while they&#39;re at it), but just not when they&#39;re pregnant or driving or walking in public. For the druggies, they can have all the freedom they want under house arrest until they sober up. House arrest is not always a bad thing. It could be party house arrest :lol: Take Paris Hilton&#39;s house arrest for instance for drunk driving. So I guess she&#39;s not entirely useless. We can learn a thing or two about having a jolly good time while under house arrest from the hotel heiress skank-in-chief.

If opposing this makes me a "liberal" than so be it. I am sure everyone would be treated just like Paris :rolleyes:. Your post is laughable.

[bombeverything]

At least you put it in the right forum.

[red team]

Only in "exceptional cases" which are defined by who, you?

Defined by the medical authorities. Let&#39;s put this another way. I believe in the golden rule of "do unto others as you would like them to do unto you".

Suppose a person with known mental retardation is going to be born from genetic testing before birth. A moral dilema isn&#39;t it? Well, for you it isn&#39;t because you believe another person owns the "right" to give life to somebody else.

So, let me ask you this. Would you agree to throw away all reading materials and have everything done for you including accompanying you everywhere you go because you might get lost or runned over in traffic, wiping your ass everytime you go to the washroom and wiping your mouth because you have uncontrollable drooling (you don&#39;t now, but let&#39;s pretend you&#39;re mentally retarded). Now, repeat this treatment everyday whether you agree to it or not forever until you die.....

Doesn&#39;t sound like much of a fun or fulfilling life does it?


This decision should be left to the mother, end of story. Also, at this stage it is still a fetus, not a "potential infant".

fetus = potential infant

unless you&#39;re a double-talking politician/lawyer who likes to manipulate terms.

The decision is to be left to the mother? So you do agree that another person owns another life so long as the life is feeding off her. Do you agree then that doctors hooking up critical condition patients to life-support machines owns them? So much for the Hippocratic Oath (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic_Oath) or anti-slavery laws.

For you, there&#39;s no such thing as wrongful birth (http://www.bioethicsanddisability.org/wrongfulbirth.html) so in the courts of your "revolutionary" land a child born with genetic deformities is not allowed to sue their parents.

I&#39;m more radical. Simply don&#39;t let a damaged human being be borned, unless you think bringing forth a life that suffers life long is the mother&#39;s right somehow. You&#39;re such as sadist and I mean that in a bad way.


What? Whether or not a mother chooses to have a child or not has to be their choice, regardless of this. Does that make me a "liberal hypocrite"? If so, how? I don&#39;t understand your link to having ones income diverted. Elaboration please.

Simple, because I&#39;m such a soft-hearted humanist, I agree to let the parents have the "freedom" to choose to bring about a long-suffering damaged human being providing that they&#39;re willing to pay for medical or bionics research into helping or curing genetic diseases like when the slightest sunlight burns a person painfully or when someone is born with a missing leg.

Are these parents willing to pay for medical or technical research for finding a cure or alternative for in-born disorders or are they willing to be selfish assholes who like to bring forth a tortured existence without contributing anything to the cure? I&#39;m stating this question irrelevant of the political system in power whether "free-market" Capitalist or bureaucratically runned "Communist".


biggrin.gif. Rehab/prison, which one? Who gets the money? The capitalist state? How about dealing with the structural causes of drug addiction in the first place? Policies like these never work. Are you suggesting that late term abortion is only "acceptable" in cases where the "baby" will be born with birth defects? If so, this stance is absolutely absurd. Your argument that late term abortion is only acceptable in certain situations is still fundamentally conservative.

I think you missed this quote I&#39;ve made:

"As for regular old abortions on technical grounds like brain wave presence which means a detectable potential for sentience, I support restrictions on abortions on the last trimester. You have to take responsibility for producing life at some point in time don&#39;t you? But, hey I&#39;m also pragmatic as I can see that most other religious fanatics takes this position too, so I would base my decision to switch to "pro-life" when the religious fundies are gone from politics."

As for rehab or prison? How, uncreative&#33; Why not have a hybrid combination of both. If you don&#39;t quit narcotizing yourself you don&#39;t get to be free. Or do you think crack or alcohol babies are worth preserving?


How about dealing with the structural causes of drug addiction in the first place?

I never said I didn&#39;t agree to this. So when&#39;s the revolution and new society? Tomorrow? :lol:

Besides, you think irresponsible jerks would magically disappear in happyland after the revolution?

The thing is, I&#39;m not an overly-emotional fanatic of either the right or left. If you let your emotions make your decisions for you then most of the time you&#39;ll be swallowing the bullshit of somebody else without even knowing. When some naive fool says "listen to your heart", I say "no thanks, I rather listen to my brain".

And now here&#39;s something for the simple folks so don&#39;t say that I&#39;m not helping you and people like you to wisen up and if you&#39;re a sociopath politician/lawyer you&#39;re plenty wise already at manipulating the sheeple for your own selfish agenda so you don&#39;t need my advice.

Whenever you here a political sound-bite or slogan that&#39;s psychologically engineered to sound noble and ideal repeat it in your mind with the same deep, grandiose political voice you see in those t.v. ads, but with all the long boring details you can imagine left in.

Here&#39;s what I get from the abortion debate from conservatives and liberals:

Conservative: "We protect the lives of all your offsprings from the time of conception because life is God&#39;s gift to humanity and life begins at birth. After your born you&#39;re on your own because you must take personal responsiblity for making us rich by working in our factories and mines for a pittance because we won&#39;t fund anything else like school that would enable you go beyond a life of a mere slave. But we have you&#39;re best interest at heart. Trust us because we&#39;re smarter than you since we can afford to go to the "elite" schools after all that work performed by your children&#39;s divinely protected lives makes us rich our children rich so we can afford private school tuition."

Liberal: "We have protected the rights and freedoms of individuals to choose whether or not they want to end or begin the lives that depend on them because we believe that dependency implies ownership rights over another potential human being. We too also have for generations and generations given the right to individuals to bring forth the gift of life for the unborn to experience the many joys of living as a mental retard or a physical cripple."

Doesn&#39;t give you that lofty, uplifting feeling of participating in a noble deed or mission does it? That&#39;s because I&#39;m not overly impressed by strong emotional appeals that usually means the messenger is trying to hide what he really means. But, that&#39;s different for easily led sheeple like you.

[bombeverything]

What your advocating is fundamentally a late term form of involuntary sterilization. Your argument is for a fundamentally a pro-life stance, applicable to everyone except the state. I don&#39;t see what is rational about this.

Your arguments echo fascist ideology.

[Publius]

I&#39;ve always wondered, in a pro-abortion society, is it, or would it be illegal to kill a fetus? As it is now, states have laws where people can be charged for killing a fetus if they harm a woman. Now this idea makes perfect sense from the pro-life standpoint: you&#39;ve taken a life, end of story. But what about the &#39;pro-choice&#39; standpoint? Would it be possible, in your ideal pro-abortion society, to charge someone with murdering your fetus, if you were say, a woman who was the victim of a drunk driver? Let&#39;s say you are fine, but you have a miscarriage. Can you then charge the drunk driver with murder? It seems to me that if you respect the &#39;choice&#39; of a woman to assign value to her fetus, you HAVE to charge that person with murder. Because the &#39;pro-choice&#39; position isn&#39;t saying "fetuses are worthless, period", because that&#39;s obviously as stupid and authoritarian as saying "fetuses are worth everything, period." You would, with no hyperbole needed, be as bad as the Christians if you took up that position. That being said, the logical consequence of this is that you are put in a situation where the value of the fetus is in some quantum-indeterminate state: it&#39;s a life if the mother CHOOSES it to be, and it&#39;s trash if the mother CHOOSES it to be, and since we&#39;re all such fucking good leftists who support a woman&#39;s right to choose, we can&#39;t rightfully tell her that it is or is not a life, can we?

But see, this brings up a lot of problems, as I see it. One, it makes the legal situation very difficult. What if the woman was indifferent about her fetus, didn&#39;t want it gone, but didn&#39;t really like having it. What do you to decide it&#39;s worth of the woman cannot (unconconcsious or in a coma or something), or simply CHOOSES not to? I mean, a woman can certainly CHOOSE to say nothing about the value of her fetus, can she not? Well then how would you proceed, legally, to decide if this was murder or not, if the fetus gets killed in say, a car wreck? Flip a coin? Does that readily sum up the absurdity of the situation?

It seems to me that it can be only way or the other: either the fetus is worth something, and so it should not be aborted, or the fetus is worthless, so fuck it. This entire idea of basing the decision on &#39;choice&#39; is ridiculous, not because I&#39;m sexist and think I can tell women what to do, but because of the simple fact that no matter how you slice it, a fetus either IS or IS NOT alive. Period. It has nothing to do with choice. You can&#39;t choose to have something not alive be alive, and you can&#39;t choose to have something that is alive be not alive. Those are not valid choices, and yet that&#39;s essentially what you&#39;re trying to do when make this about &#39;choice&#39;.

So stop with the pitiful act. It&#39;s not about choice, because it can&#39;t be. A woman can&#39;t choose if her fetus is a living thing or not, only doctors can. Only science can make that determination. Only our definition of &#39;alive&#39; can clear that up. So now we&#39;re an unenviable position, I think. We now have to decide whether fetuses are worth anything, or are worthless, and this, to me, is intractable problem. If fetuses are worth something, then aborting them is wrong, period. In cases of rape, inc est, genetic defect, etc., doesn&#39;t matter. A life&#39;s a life. I dislike this. On the other hand, if you simply declare, by fiat, that fetuses are worthless, that seems to take something very dear away from some people. What right, what justification would a women have for crying over a miscarriage, then? But I assure you, it would still happen. There would be an incongruity here. I mean, what would you tell her, "Suck it up?" "It was worthless anyway."? This is not a humanistic position. And then there&#39;s the matter of actually aborting a fetus, even up the last day, where it&#39;s eminently viable. Apparently, then, the factor over whether it&#39;s alive or dead is it&#39;s location, relative to about 6 inches in a woman&#39;s abdomen. I dislike this.

So what do we do? Just, broadly, I think that the only way to solve this intractable problem is to sidestep it somewhat, and look for the consequentialist viewpoint. Which of these ideas would work better? But then I have no idea how we would solve that one either. This is mostly just me talking about a few ideas I&#39;ve had, but I want to hear your opinion, because I really can&#39;t see the light on either side of the abortion debate. It&#39;s so clear to me that a fetus just after conception is not alive, while a fetus just prior to birth is, yet I have no idea why this is the case or how I could logically justify it. Must this debate always boil down to appeals to emotion?

I have another idea that I might trot out later.

EDIT NOTE: In addition to &#39;sh oes&#39;, I cannot say &#39;in cest&#39;. I don&#39;t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

[pusher robot]

Very insightful post by Publius. I agree for generally the same reasons that the issue is largely intractable and will necessarily rest on relatively arbitrary distinctions.

For that reason, I think the best practical solution is to devolve the decision-making to as low a level of community government as possible, typically municipal or county. That way, even if a woman doesn&#39;t have her preferred choice under a particular law, she at least has a choice of laws available to her.

[Jazzratt]

Thread reopened

[red team]

Alright, I&#39;m just joking.

It&#39;s the mother&#39;s right to choose to drink, smoke pot and have mentally damaged babies. For mom so love her kid she let&#39;s them suffer by exercising her right to get high or drunk. Now compare this to "for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son to die for our sins blah blah blah...."

Hey, by appealing to both all-powerful mom and all-powerful God I&#39;m hoping to apologise to both liberals and conservatives for insulting them on the abortion issue. So "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" conservatives and "dear leader, dear mom: I&#39;m just a defenseless baby spanked by the mean &#39;ole conservative bully/daddy" liberals, I&#39;m truly sorry

But, I&#39;m all pro-choice too. Mom has the right to "terminate" her kid 1 week to delivery too. Ignore that fully formed skull coming out. Just pretend you&#39;re putting that cuddly sick puppy to "sleep", awww&#33;

Mom: "That&#39;s alright, sonny." "Mommy has to exercise her right to choose having fun and being knocked up and not worry about having a baby". "Why did mommy choose all the way up to the eighth month to lose her little puppy? That&#39;s because I can&#39;t seem to make up my mind. I change it all the time like when I can&#39;t decide to either buy the red shoes or the blue shoes when I go shopping."

Mom also has the right to have deformed, drooling kids without having any responsibility for finding a cure with her money. Why not? It&#39;s her money, just like it&#39;s her kid.

Mom: "It ain&#39;t mah&#39; fault I gave birth to a droolin&#39; retard, so why do I need to spend a dime finding a cure? But, I know once she turns 21 she out of mah&#39; house. She needs learnin&#39; on how to be livin&#39; on her own."


Nothing really cuts through the bullshit of politics like the passing on of your genes even if it means those genes are malfunctional. Why, because they&#39;re your genes aren&#39;t they? The way libertarians are fanatical about their beliefs and the way Liberals are fanatical about theirs all comes down to this. Gaining the best advantage for yourself to pass on your genes to the next generation who are your gene holders.

Ever witness little league games and how parents go crazy, argue with the referee and even get abusive or violent with the other parent&#39;s kids. It&#39;s an interesting question to ask what are they really fighting about? It all comes down to fear of mortality and letting that little piece of yourself live on in your kids. The Liberals being the weaker party in the great evolution survival game just want the state to help them out a little bit.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 07:37 am
Would it be possible, in your ideal pro-abortion society, to charge someone with murdering your fetus, if you were say, a woman who was the victim of a drunk driver?
No. &#39;Course, you could charge someone with injuring a woman causing her to miscarry, of course. The difference is, is the crime against the woman or the fetus?

There&#39;s only one reason for this insistence on making it a crime against a fetus: to build acceptance for the idea that life begins at conception.

Hell, it wouldn&#39;t have occurred to anyone to call assault resulting in miscarriage "murder" in any past society, either. The idea&#39;s a pure invention of the modern pro-life movement.

Like the Catholic Church suddenly deciding that life begins at conception so they can be against modern abortion - it&#39;s not their historic position.

[Severian]

OK, restricted.