That's what sucks. If a baby can live outside the womb--that's ALIVE. Kill that baby--you've killed a human being.
There should be a middle ground here.
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Just wondering about people being restricted for being anti-abortionists... what counts as being an anti-abortionist? Is being against late-term abortions (abortions after whenever it is that science says a fetus becomes sentient... about 8-12 weeks in I think?) in non-life-threatening situations anti-abortionist?
That's what sucks. If a baby can live outside the womb--that's ALIVE. Kill that baby--you've killed a human being.
There should be a middle ground here.
One word: Infanticide
When the fetus is in the womb, you just can't compare that to infanticide. Infanticide is defined as the intentional killing of an infant. There's no such thing as fetuscide.
Economic Left/Right: -9.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.15
"There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen." - Lenin
Smooooooth symantics there! You are missing my point. If it can survive on its own--no matter its location--it should be alowed to survive.
Right?
Ah so I see you support the killing of living people, but something that can't think, speak, or survive on its own- no we can't touch that!
Revleft really has no need for hypocritical right wingers to be in their midst.
[FONT="Georgia"]Kingston wuttup[/FONT]
I agree with Bud that there should be middle ground
We can't use "speak" or "survive on it's own" as a standard for whether to let something live or not, we're not about to start euthanising the deaf, dumb and blind or people incapacitated through illness or what have you. "Think", maybe- but according to the scientists who know this kind of thing, sentience doesn't happen at either the moment of conception or the moment of birth. It's somewhere between, and I'm of the opinion that that is where we should draw the line.
This would ideally coupled with much better sex education so that people can recognise the early signs of pregnancy easily and have plenty of time to make a decision, and so on.
Yeah I agree now that I've given it much more thought, but I didn't know how to articulate the difference between a fetus and a baby. Maybe one could take into account how a fetus lives INSIDE of another human being and could not survive without them, while a baby does not need to live inside of someone.I agree with Bud that there should be middle ground
We can't use "speak" or "survive on it's own" as a standard for whether to let something live or not, we're not about to start euthanising the deaf, dumb and blind or people incapacitated through illness or what have you. "Think", maybe- but according to the scientists who know this kind of thing, sentience doesn't happen at either the moment of conception or the moment of birth. It's somewhere between, and I'm of the opinion that that is where we should draw the line.
This would ideally coupled with much better sex education so that people can recognise the early signs of pregnancy easily and have plenty of time to make a decision, and so on.
[FONT="Georgia"]Kingston wuttup[/FONT]
It takes a couple of weeks I think.
America is just the country that shows how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be looked upon as the very scum of society. - Peter Kropotkin
I found an answer for myself. Sperm can survive for a maximum of 5 days, so it has to fertilize the egg before those 5 days are over.
Why does where you live determine your species?
If you'd really like to get technical:
Parasitism(as defined by wikipedia): Parasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between two different organisms where one organism, the parasite, takes favor from the host, sometimes for a prolonged time. In general, parasites are much smaller than their hosts.
A baby can survive on its own! It does not need to receive nutrients from a chord going into its stomach, nor does a live baby need to live in ambiotic fluid.
[FONT="Georgia"]Kingston wuttup[/FONT]
Of course we're not going to euthanise the deaf, dumb and blind - but you're not proposing an alternative standard by which one could judge whether something should be allowed to live or not, are you?I agree with Bud that there should be middle ground
We can't use "speak" or "survive on it's own" as a standard for whether to let something live or not, we're not about to start euthanising the deaf, dumb and blind or people incapacitated through illness or what have you. "Think", maybe- but according to the scientists who know this kind of thing, sentience doesn't happen at either the moment of conception or the moment of birth. It's somewhere between, and I'm of the opinion that that is where we should draw the line.
This would ideally coupled with much better sex education so that people can recognise the early signs of pregnancy easily and have plenty of time to make a decision, and so on.
Why is even something being of the human species the standard of whether or not something should be allowed to live? If, hypothetically, aliens came from outer space with the same level of intelligence and awareness as human beings, would you say they shouldn't be considered as our equals? How do you define a human being? Why is that a reason to protect it from death?
Why does it matter if a fetus is sentient? So are dogs and cats and sheep etc.
If instead you mean sapience, why does even that matter? The fetus is in a lightness cavity in the body of a human being. It has no thoughts or opinions or relationships or aspirations or interests, or any appreciation for life whatsoever. So why does it have any kind of a 'right' to it? The only argument for brain power is it's supposed potential for it. The protection of it's life (and the assertion of it's 'sapience') is meaningful only for the people doing the protecting, not the fetus.
But let's just say all of that's irrelevant. Does the fetus, assuming for a moment it's a 'person' who can appreciate any kind of 'social rights', even if their life depends on it, have any right to use the woman's body? No, of course it doesn't.
To use a comparison from an earlier thread, does somebody with kidney disease have the right to force somebody to have his/her kidney taken out for them to use? Of course not. Aren't we entitled to deny somebody the use of our bodies for their own benefit? Of course we are.
The issue of abortion should not be focused upon the fetus. For those who consider the fetus to be deserving of so-called 'human rights', it should be equally focused upon the woman having the abortion.
But people get so caught up with the "personhood" of the fetus that the woman is entirely forgotten (that is assuming that the woman was ever of concern to the pro-life argument) - what isn't up for debate is that the woman is a person, and she is the one for whom the decision of abortion is genuinely meaningful and relevant. There is not a 'middle ground', here. You either agree that a woman deserves control over what happens to her own body, especially when it comes to something as big a deal as a pregnancy (please don't be under the illusion it's just a harmless little bulge that suddenly appears and then one day a baby pops out), or you don't.
Christ, wall of text- I skimmed it, and it's full of nonsense, to be frank.
I will categorically state that I'm against alien-genocide, and I don't eat meat or condone the killing of animals where it's possible to avoid.
And as for abortions- like I said, there is a point when a thing becomes a living, self-aware, thing. That's the point where removal of something that isn't alive becomes killing something that is alive. This is something science can tell us, so I'm willing to put it in the hands of scientists, rather than get pushed to extremes by opposition from either ideological group.
You did'nt show that its not the same species, it has a human genetic code.
Here'a a good reason. It's best to protect everything "human" from death because we humans are such bad judges of what is actually human. We judge what is human based on our lifestyles and our timeline so that in 1830 Lily Belle Desrumeaux would have been equally blythe about Blacks not being "human as Communist Desrumeaux is today about a fetus. In 1880 Maude Desrumeaux would have been equally dismissive of Native Americans as humans as would Bertha Desrumeaux been about Jews being humans. And the list goes on.
All these people were products and their times and lifestyles--so what's to say we aren't the products or our times and lifestyles? Maybe a future generation well look back in horror at Communist Desrumeaux's pro-abortion stance as we look back at Lily Belle or Maude or Bertha.
We are just such poor judges and since we can't "know" the best we can do is err on the side of caution.
We've had this debate, what, ten thousand times by now? Nevertheless, I do want to make a few points:
Asking if a fetus is alive is asking the wrong question. Of course a fetus is alive. Just like a tree is alive. A fish is alive. A bacterium is alive. Your liver is alive. But we do not grant personhood to trees, fish, bacteria, or livers.
Now, if fetuses simply grew on their own (if humans laid eggs, for example), then there would be no problem with granting them personhood. It would still be questionable whether they should count as human persons, but hey, no harm in being extra cautious. Unfortunately, humans don't lay eggs, and fetuses don't grow on their own. They grow within human beings, and this causes severe discomfort to those human beings - as well as an episode of intense pain at the end of 9 months, which has been reliably described as the most painful thing a human can experience.
So the question is: Should you have an obligation to go through 9 months of increasingly severe discomfort and disability, ending with the most painful experience of your life, to ensure the survival of an entity that may or may not count as a person?
Having a functioning heart does not make one a person. All vertebrates have beating hearts, you know. If you eat meat, then you routinely feast upon the flesh of something that used to have a beating heart (and maybe even cute fuzzy fur).
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
- Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop
"Definition of a conservative: a person who believes that nothing should be done for the first time." - mikelepore
And some people don't (or didn't) grant personhood to Blacks, Jews or gays.
Everything human deserves our respect--and our caution--as human.
Bad analogy. Blacks, Native Americans and Jews do not live inside other people.
I'm all in favour of erring on the side of caution, but which is the side of caution here? Allowing abortion may indeed harm something that you claim should be considered a human being, but on the other hand, restricting abortion will definitely harm someone that we know for sure is a human being.
Including livers? Kidneys? The blood we take out for blood tests? Biologically, all these things are as human as you and me.
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
- Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop
"Definition of a conservative: a person who believes that nothing should be done for the first time." - mikelepore
Who cares where they live? If a fetus can live outside the womb shouldn't that baby be given a chance? True fact: I have people that live inside MY HOUSES. I own the house and they live there (for a small stipend.) Do I have a right to kill them?
Well if it will DEFINITLY KILL them maybe. But is a "life" wirth some discomfurture? Maybe it is.
That, of course wasn't my point.
We have sufficient information to conclude that a fetus feels pain at a certain point. That is sufficient to give it moral consideration. It's whether that moral consideration is significant enough to justify infringing on the bodily rights of another human being.
If babies drowning in puddles was a regular occurrence, we would have a moral obligation to help any child we saw drowning. If people were refusing to do this based on simple inconvenience, I would think we'd be justified in taking legal action against them, preferably to prevent the death of the children.
The main issue is to what degree is "bodily control" a human right. It certainly isn't our right to control the outside of our body. We can't kill anyone we want. Therefore, if one accepts that feeling pain is sufficient for moral legitimacy, one is in a sticky situation. The vegetarian arguments provided by individuals like Peter Singer are minimizing what criteria allow for moral consideration.
I think laws diminish the ability of individuals to feel satisfaction from acting ethically. Therefore, in the long run, it's better to be pro-choice. Aristotle thinks philosophy lets individuals act as they would under law without law. I think he is right. However, the benefit of this knowledge is diminished by the presence of law itself. An individual cannot truly know they would succeed individually at solving a problem if they received help at receiving that problem. Individualism is essential to personality identity, moral accomplishment, and being human.
That's the best argument I have. My intuition tells me to be pro-choice. I've yet to align my rationality completely with this view. However, the idea of forcing someone to remain pregnant, to me, seems so repugnant I can't begin to think about being pro-life. Furthermore, the death of someone unaware of their future, your actions, and sedated properly, isn't that bad. I'm not even sure preventing a human from enduring this reality is necessarily bad or good.
