Animal Rights and Abortion

[lightblue]

When I was doing research, during the animal handling training we got what basically amounted to anti-terrorism training.
How to spot letter bombs, how to open envelopes you thought might contain dirty needles/razor blades, how to check your car for explosives and what to do if you were being followed. All the adresses were hidden from the general public (unlike most other university staff), the animal house itself involved 2 keycards and one of those were you and the security guy have to turn a key at the same time. And this was only mice...

The Animal Liberation Front and its ilk are fairly despicable. I suppose anti-abortionists are similar in their tactics (in the US mainly), with harassment leading to a fringe group that would violence.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by East Street Trader
Not content with making threats to judges whose judgments they dislike they have taken to publishing the addresses of such judges' mothers.

[DaShi]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Animal Rights and Abortion

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


In this case, he's using one single data point to argue a whole issue, a very very bad case of hasty generalisation.

Logic terms.

He's trying to make a point. You could try addressing it. This is an internet forum, afterall.

[The Templar]

Originally posted by Giancarlo
You vegans are an illogical bunch of people.

I'm laughing at this as I eat a cold sausage pizza for breakfast. But I do have vegan friends who are quite logical in their beliefs about not harming and exploiting animals.

I eat meat. I like steak. I like pork. No psycho-commie like you is going to stop me from eating it. You are blowing things out of proportion. I am not listening to some psychological piece of work.

"Psycho-commie"?
This just confims my suspicion that you are a bot. Nobody talks like that.

[Rogan Josh]

Why should animals have rights anyway?

[Ben Kenobi]

a frozen embryo that is surplus and will not be used, and with prior approval of the parents, i.e. the standards imposed in Britian for harvesting embryonic stem cells, works quite nicely.

Suppose I also considered you from the same perspective. If your organs can save the lives of 6 people, why should we allow you to live, since the lives of the 6 are much more useful put together, than the life of one?

Secondly, what is needed to make someone surplus? With the total number of people on the planet, what is stopping someone from considering all of us surplus?

As a better analogy, if I am brain dead and being kept alive on a ventilator,

The problem with this analogy, is that if you are brain dead, no medical treatment will allow you to recover. You are not being artificially prevented from growing and developing, as found in a frozen embryo. A better analogy would be someone temporarily unconscious.

While you may argue whether the frozen blastulas (the stage if I remember correctly they freeze the developing egg) can give consent, the parents can, and since at that point the blastula cannot develop further - they are surplus and will never be implanted. It's loosely analagous to my being an organ donor, and legally in practically the same, at least in GB.

Let me ask you another question. Would a parent be allowed to put their 3 year old child up to donate organs, by giving their consent for the child to donate her organs? Why or why not?

They are surplus and will never be implanted.

Is it through any fault of their own, or are they being artificially prevented from doing so?

Remember one thing, Ben. Do you want the Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention, Mormons, or Muslims, writing our laws and codes of conduct,

And what does any of that has to do with the argument that an unborn child is a person from conception onwards? South Dakota recognises such personhood, not on religious grounds, but on secular.

Beware of tramping on the laws that protect me from your religious beliefs,

Again, you must show how this argument has anything to do with religious belief, and not the rejection of utilitarian ethics that reduce all men to their mere functions.

That's what they said in Germany in the 1930's.

No, what they did in Germany, was practice eugenics. And is this not what this is all about? Implanting those embryos that make the cut, while calling all the others 'surplus?' It is a dangerous game to begin, to require anyone to argue for his own life. Particularly, when one is unable to speak.

[Ben Kenobi]

I suppose anti-abortionists are similar in their tactics (in the US mainly), with harassment leading to a fringe group that would violence.

All prolife groups condemn violence done to abortion providers as unnecessary, and a violation of their rights.

So again, to tar peaceful protesters with the sins of those who bomb clinics, is like blaming Dr. King for the actions of the black panthers.

[Ben Kenobi]

Definition:
The size of the sample is too small to support the conclusion.

The sample of all unborn children? That's a rather large sample. The argument is not because of what we see in the one embryo, that all the others should live, but that we should not kill the one, because of what we know about all the other embryos.

[Ben Kenobi]

Laz:

No. Rather if one refuses to eat the chicken embryo, one should also refrain from killing an unborn child.

The inverse is not applicable, in that if one should kill a chicken, one should also be able to kill a person.

In this case, it's not hypocrisy, but rather stupidity

Spiffor:

Why, Spiffor? Clearly the person recognises the connection between the developing chicken embryo and the adult chicken. Why should we not also make the same connection between the developing human embryo, and the adult?

And FYI, there is no such thing in biology as a 'fertilized egg.' Sperm and egg cease to be at fertlization.

[East Street Trader]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi


All prolife groups condemn violence done to abortion providers as unnecessary, and a violation of their rights.

I am glad to hear that Ben.

But I am afraid my reaction to the fundamental merits of the pro-life position cannot help but be influenced a bit by my distaste for the antics of the fanatics.

If there is anything more that rational folk willing to debate the issue in acceptable ways can do to distance themselves from the fanatics it would be as well for that to be done.

A few instances of fanatics being turned in by pro life proponents as disgusted with them as the rest of us would be a help.

[Ben Kenobi]

A few instances of fanatics being turned in by pro life proponents as disgusted with them as the rest of us would be a help.

If any are found to be a member of our club, or to sympathise with their methods, they will be booted out. It would also be enough to show connections between them and the violent groups to do the same.

They cannot be criminally charged until they actually commit the act, rather than just sympathy, so there is no reason to turn them in.

I agree, that should you know one to be guilty, one ought to turn the fellow in, rather than harbouring him and providing him shelter.

If there is anything more that rational folk willing to debate the issue in acceptable ways can do to distance themselves from the fanatics it would be as well for that to be done.

I would think refusing to allow the person to participate with the club would be a sufficient deterrent, as well as a public condemnation by the prolife groups of these tactics.

The sad thing, is that even with these measures, there will still be a few people who act this way. No different then with the trials of Dr. King with those who wanted violent actions.

[East Street Trader]

Well, I see that more is done than I thought.

Which is good.

It is a pity when respectable and deeply held views are brought into disrepute by the actions of the unprincipled.

[OzzyKP]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Animal Rights and Abortion

Originally posted by DaShi


Logic terms.

He's trying to make a point. You could try addressing it. This is an internet forum, afterall.

I thought I made the point rather well. Maybe I'll use some more logic constructs for it. (or attempt it)
Given: Humans are animals.
Given: Person A feels killing animals is wrong.
Given: Person A feels chicken embryos are animals.
Therefore: Person A should consider human embryos are animals too, and feel killing them is wrong.

Unless of course person A has a special exception for chickens, which is highly doubtful. I am certain she would feel the same about cow embryos, dog embryos, fish embryos, etc. But why are human embryos not included in that?

[Spiffor]

Unless of course person A has a special exception for chickens, which is highly doubtful. I am certain she would feel the same about cow embryos, dog embryos, fish embryos, etc. But why are human embryos not included in that?

Cause she is stupid and cause her vegetarian commitment isn't backed with any thought?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
The sample of all unborn children? That's a rather large sample.

Ben, if you read carefully and think a bit beforehand, I was referring to the sample size that Ozzy used in trying to make his point. That is a sample of 1.

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
The argument is not because of what we see in the one embryo, that all the others should live, but that we should not kill the one, because of what we know about all the other embryos.

What on earth are you talking about? What do we know about all these other embryos other than they are lumps of cells?