Bush Declares National Sanctity of Life Day

[Ben Kenobi]

@Cyclotron, Jack

What is the purpose of Law? Should laws reflect the morality of the majority, or the morality of the few? Is law a democracy where people get to vote which laws they want and which laws they don't?

I feel this is the definition of the tyranny of a majority, where the majority can redefine the law as it sees fit.

Hitler changed the laws of Germany so that a persecuted minority, the Jews, no longer counted.
Today, rather than the Jews, we have altered personhood to exclude the unborn. For the benefit of the many, we sacrifice the few.

The same right that protects us from harm, from being killed is our right to life. I fear that by stripping the unborn child of a right to life, we strip away our own protection. By restoring the right to life of the unborn, we renew the respect deserved to all people.

Yes, some will not like the change. Some will even break the law. But many will follow the law, and be grateful. Do I encourage people to break the law when I acknowledge that some will? That's reality for you.

Jack,
the unborn child is hacked to pieces in any abortion.

If you won't accept that pregnancy due to rape is psychologically different from a normal pregnancy, then should I assume that you don't think rape is different from normal sex either?

Jack, all pregnancies have their own problems for the mother to deal with, even when wanted. It is a major life change for the mother. Your dichotomy of wanted/unwanted is false, as many happy pregnant women did not plan their pregnancies.

As for rape, I agree that this is worse, and that the mother needs more help to get through her pregnancy.

The sentience it HAS is what's relevant.

What about someone in a coma, Jack? Do I have a right to kill him because he is no longer as sentient as you or I?

Both parents consented to an activity which involved a small RISK of pregnancy, just as any woman who goes to a nightclub consents to a small RISK of attracting the attention of a rapist.

False analogy!
Risk of attracting a rapist does not equal risk of rape.
Unless you are saying that the woman is somehow responsible for her rape.

Abortion becomes harder to defend as the weeks pass: partly due to the increasing sentience of the fetus, and partly due to the increasingly valid argument that the woman has consented to the pregnancy by not having it done earlier.

Then where do you draw the line, Jack? At what point does abortion become wrong? How much sentience does one need to be a person?

Cyclotron:

Trespassing entails the presence on the property of the mother; the way it got there is irrelevant.

Not quite. It is irrelevant if you cross the line in a truck, or a car, or on your feet. However, it is not irrelevant if the child never crosses the line in the first place. How can one trespass in one's own home?

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by obiwan18
@Cyclotron, Jack

What is the purpose of Law? Should laws reflect the morality of the majority, or the morality of the few? Is law a democracy where people get to vote which laws they want and which laws they don't...

The purpose of the law doesn't really matter.

I am basing my claims off of our current legal precepts, and that doesn't even include Roe v. Wade. All my arguments are based off our currently accepted standards of property law and the right to life.

Your analogy to hitler is astounding to me, mostly because I have never said fetuses were anyting less than human. You asked me earlier to say whether they were human or not, and I told you they were. I am not treating them as sub-human; on the contrary I am examining their human rights as if they were an adult. That's why I brought up the violinist analogy; you can see just by that that I was equating their rights with that of an adult human. Your comparison between my arguments and the marginalization and brutalization of jews in Germany is untrue, unfair, and frankly a bit sick.

Not quite. It is irrelevant if you cross the line in a truck, or a car, or on your feet. However, it is not irrelevant if the child never crosses the line in the first place. How can one trespass in one's own home?

A home belongs to the owner. The body thus belongs to the mother. If somebody is in or using her body that she never consented to, that being is trespassing and the mother has a full right to remove it. I am saying that the presence, not the action of getting there, is what makes the child a trespasser.

[Ben Kenobi]

Cyclotron, I tried to show why I feel the law should be changed since both you and Jack had a number of problems with my earlier statement. I hope that I have made myself more clearer.

I did not want to compare your arguments with the Nazi ones, okay? I know your position is different, and I tried to explain mine better.

Cyclotron, only about 1-2 percent of all abortions performed are due to the rape of the mother. Would you agree to changing the law to ban all other abortions?

How would you deal with tandee's objection, where the woman would be subjected to a proof of rape, ie, she would have to prove she was raped in order to get an abortion. I think there are some serious evidentiary problems she hit upon.

[Jack the Bodiless]

Hitler changed the laws of Germany so that a persecuted minority, the Jews, no longer counted.
Today, rather than the Jews, we have altered personhood to exclude the unborn. For the benefit of the many, we sacrifice the few.

Hitler's denial of rights to the Jews was based upon racism. Whereas my denial of "personhood" to a young fetus is based upon the lack of a brain. It is objectively true that a newly-concieved fetus has no brain. It is not simply a matter of opinion.

Yes, some will not like the change. Some will even break the law. But many will follow the law, and be grateful. Do I encourage people to break the law when I acknowledge that some will? That's reality for you.

Again this bizarre doublethink. Rape victims compelled by law to bear the child of their rapists will NOT be "grateful"! You apparently have no idea what it must be like to be raped, or to be made pregnant by a rapist, and absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for rape victims.

Obviously, I have no direct experience either. But I know someone who WAS concieved by rape: he is pro-choice. In the case of conception due to rape, it's virtually inevitable that those forced to confront the reality of the situation will be pro-choice, even if their own choice was to keep the child.

Stop deluding yourself. Stop pretending that forcing women to undergo this torture is "encouragement", and that they will be "grateful" for it.

You need to face reality.

Jack,
the unborn child is hacked to pieces in any abortion.

Including the expulsion of a glob of undifferentiated cells?

Even if the glob of cells falls apart, I would not call this "hacked to pieces".

If you won't accept that pregnancy due to rape is psychologically different from a normal pregnancy, then should I assume that you don't think rape is different from normal sex either?

Jack, all pregnancies have their own problems for the mother to deal with, even when wanted. It is a major life change for the mother. Your dichotomy of wanted/unwanted is false, as many happy pregnant women did not plan their pregnancies.

As for rape, I agree that this is worse, and that the mother needs more help to get through her pregnancy.

You have little interest in HELPING her. You are determined to TORTURE her. Sure, you'd support counselling, but the central fact remains: the torture takes priority and will go ahead regardless of the victim's wishes, even if it pushes her to suicide.

The sentience it HAS is what's relevant.

What about someone in a coma, Jack? Do I have a right to kill him because he is no longer as sentient as you or I?

You are losing your focus again. We were discussing your objection to abortion because the fetus would feel pain.

I have no objection to killing a person in a coma which is based on the victim's ability to feel pain, when the comatose person is incapable of feeling pain. That would be absurd.

Both parents consented to an activity which involved a small RISK of pregnancy, just as any woman who goes to a nightclub consents to a small RISK of attracting the attention of a rapist.

False analogy!
Risk of attracting a rapist does not equal risk of rape.
Unless you are saying that the woman is somehow responsible for her rape.

Of course the risk of attracting a rapist increases the risk of rape!

The analogy holds. The woman decided to accept a small increase in risk, but YOU are the only one attempting to equate "acceptance of risk" with "full consent". But you're only doing it with contraceptive failure, not rape. That is hypocritical and inconsistent.

In both cases, my view is consistent: the woman DID NOT CONSENT to either rape or pregnancy. You wish to apply a double standard. You refuse to accept that a woman who takes a contraceptive is taking reasonable precautions against pregnancy and cannot be blamed if the precautions fail: yet you accept that rape victims shouldn't be blamed even if there was a course of action available to them that would have prevented the rape (like not going out).

Then where do you draw the line, Jack? At what point does abortion become wrong? How much sentience does one need to be a person?

It's a sliding scale. But I can be quite sure that personhood does not exist when the brain does not exist. That is why I favor early abortions and cannot comprehend the objections to the "morning-after" pill, which should be readily available everywhere.

How would you deal with tandee's objection, where the woman would be subjected to a proof of rape, ie, she would have to prove she was raped in order to get an abortion. I think there are some serious evidentiary problems she hit upon.

This is not a problem if she can simply get an abortion anyhow. The morning-after pill should be made available to any pregnant woman who needs it, no questions asked.

[Urban Ranger]

Wow, this is still raging on?

Originally posted by obiwan18
What is the purpose of Law? Should laws reflect the morality of the majority, or the morality of the few?

Law should have nothing to do with morality. Laws are there to protect certain contractual rights and obligations of its citizens, to define the role of the government, various organisations, and so forth. You cannot mingle law with morality, full stop.

Originally posted by obiwan18
Today, rather than the Jews, we have altered personhood to exclude the unborn. For the benefit of the many, we sacrifice the few.

How do you define personhoold? Waxing on about something is one thing, giving it solid content is quite another.

[Az]

Law should have nothing to do with morality. Laws are there to protect certain contractual rights and obligations of its citizens, to define the role of the government, various organisations, and so forth. You cannot mingle law with morality, full stop.

it depends on how you define morality.

[Urban Ranger]

What about a "code of conduct?"

[Az]

so how morality is disconnected from law?

you cannot murder.
you cannot rape.

etc. etc. etc.

[Ben Kenobi]

It is objectively true that a newly-concieved fetus has no brain.

True.

It's a sliding scale. But I can be quite sure that personhood does not exist when the brain does not exist.

Jack, you evaded my question. Please try harder. When does personhood begin?

Hitler's denial of rights to the Jews was based upon racism. Whereas my denial of "personhood" to a young fetus is based upon the lack of a brain.

Your argument is from form and function. Because the newly-conceived child lacks the same abilities or shape that you do, therefore they are not persons.

The extension is this:

If one bases personhood on how well one's brain functions, then why isn't Stephen Hawking more of a person than you are?

absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for rape victims.

Jack, read some of my earlier posts. Abortion will not help the rape victims overcome their rape. Some women feel the child is the only good thing to come from their rape. We should help the woman in whatever she needs to keep her child. All these I have said.

What do I mean by 'whatever she needs?'
I'm talking finding a place for her to stay, financial support, the whole nine yards. I may not have the resources personally, (being a student and all,) but I do know people who will help, and will refer the woman to them.

But I know someone who WAS concieved by rape: he is pro-choice.

Irrelevant to your point at hand. What about the mother who bore him? Why isn't she pro-choice?

Including the expulsion of a glob of undifferentiated cells?

At 8 weeks? No. I'll refer you to a website with pictures of unborn children at 8 weeks. If you disagree with these pictures, find a textbook on embryoscopy. They will show the same kinds of pictures.

http://www.standupgirl.com/inside/embryoscopy/index.html

I have no objection to killing a person in a coma which is based on the victim's ability to feel pain, when the comatose person is incapable of feeling pain. That would be absurd.

May I kill you when you are under anaestetia?

yet you accept that rape victims shouldn't be blamed even if there was a course of action available to them that would have prevented the rape (like not going out).

So a rape victim is guilty for her rape because she went out to a bar?

How do you define personhood?

Urban Ranger,
I define personhood as the inherent capacity to attain sentience. This occurs at conception, because an individual human person is formed with a genetic structure differing from the parents. Having a human genetic structure is what allows the zygote to develop and eventually attain sentience.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Azazel
so how morality is disconnected from law?

you cannot murder.
you cannot rape.

etc. etc. etc.

One aspect of the law is to protect individual citizens, so a person who violates the rights of another citizen will be punished. On the other hand, laws should not care about a person's conduct if he does not cause harm to another person or the society as a whole, while a code of conduct will regulate this area also. So, laws should not care if a person consumes alcohol, but a morality may forbid against it.

Now, if the laws is to uphold morality, in a society where abortion is deemed immoral it will be outlawed. However, if Law is detached from morality, abortion will remain legal as long as doing so does not harm anybody else.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by obiwan18
I define personhood as the inherent capacity to attain sentience. This occurs at conception, because an individual human person is formed with a genetic structure differing from the parents. Having a human genetic structure is what allows the zygote to develop and eventually attain sentience.

Then you will have to outlaw any acts that can damage body cells. They have a theoretical inherent ability to become other humans.

[Jack the Bodiless]

It's a sliding scale. But I can be quite sure that personhood does not exist when the brain does not exist.

Jack, you evaded my question. Please try harder. When does personhood begin?

How is this an evasion? There is no single moment when personhood begins. There is no precise answer to your question!

But it obviously hasn't begun when there is no brain yet. I can be quite sure about that.

Hitler's denial of rights to the Jews was based upon racism. Whereas my denial of "personhood" to a young fetus is based upon the lack of a brain.

Your argument is from form and function. Because the newly-conceived child lacks the same abilities or shape that you do, therefore they are not persons.

What has shape got to do with this?

An intelligent, purple, five-legged spheroid from Alpha Centauri is a PERSON from Alpha Centauri!

There is only one criterion that matters. SENTIENCE.

The extension is this:

If one bases personhood on how well one's brain functions, then why isn't Stephen Hawking more of a person than you are?

We are both sentient. Therefore we are both persons.

This is relevant how, exactly?

absolutely no sympathy whatsoever for rape victims.

Jack, read some of my earlier posts. Abortion will not help the rape victims overcome their rape. Some women feel the child is the only good thing to come from their rape. We should help the woman in whatever she needs to keep her child. All these I have said.

Abortion will help many women avoid something that is worse than rape itself. I still get the impression that you do not understand WHY rape is wrong, and why what you're proposing is WORSE than rape.

You will not HELP the woman in "whatever she needs" if what she NEEDS is an abortion.

But I know someone who WAS concieved by rape: he is pro-choice.

Irrelevant to your point at hand. What about the mother who bore him? Why isn't she pro-choice?

Whatever gave you the notion that she ISN'T pro-choice?

Millions of women who CHOOSE to proceed with unwanted pregnancies are pro-choice.

Including the expulsion of a glob of undifferentiated cells?

At 8 weeks? No. I'll refer you to a website with pictures of unborn children at 8 weeks. If you disagree with these pictures, find a textbook on embryoscopy. They will show the same kinds of pictures.

You wish to ban abortion at ANY stage, right? Including a glob of undifferentiated cells.

And I know very well how TINY a fetus is at 8 weeks. And how rudimentary the brain is at that stage.

I have no objection to killing a person in a coma which is based on the victim's ability to feel pain, when the comatose person is incapable of feeling pain. That would be absurd.

May I kill you when you are under anaestetia?

Again you are being deliberately obtuse. I have re-highlighted the relevant parts in bold. Now re-read what I said.

My objection to you killing me when I'm unconscious isn't based on my ability to feel pain.

yet you accept that rape victims shouldn't be blamed even if there was a course of action available to them that would have prevented the rape (like not going out).

So a rape victim is guilty for her rape because she went out to a bar?

Don't be such an idiot.

It is not ME who seeks to blame innocent women for their misfortunes.

It is YOU who are doing this. You are BLAMING women for something they DID NOT CONSENT TO and took all reasonable precautions to prevent.

What YOU are doing (in blaming women for contraceptive failure) is directly equivalent to saying that a rape victim is guilty for her rape because she went out to a bar.

[Jack the Bodiless]

I suggest you carry out a little exercise. Think of answers to the following question:

WHY IS RAPE WRONG?

Now look at those answers, and see if the same answers apply to:

1. Forcibly preventing rape victims from seeking abortion.

2. Forcing women to endure pregnancy in the event of contraceptive failure.

[Ben Kenobi]

How is this an evasion? There is no single moment when personhood begins. There is no precise answer to your question!

Jack, call me when you find a real answer to my question. This renders all of your previous points moot.
When does a child attain sentience? Why do you declare a standard that you cannot define?

You cannot determine whether abortion is right or wrong unless you first set a concrete definition of personhood.

Abortion in the case of rape is only justifiable once you establish a standard of personhood. IF the unborn child is a person, then it is a worse crime to kill the child than to carry the child to term. Lives in this case trump feelings.

But it obviously hasn't begun when there is no brain yet. I can be quite sure about that.

No brain yet. At what point may we kill the child? 1 day before she develops her brain to the standard of sentience you set? This is why my example is valid. Why are you just as much of a person as Stephen Hawking despite the fact that he has a much better currently functioning brain than you do? His brain likely has more neural connections, and is hence, more developed than yours.

As for your 'exercise'.

Rape is wrong because of the lack of consent. The woman has not consented to the assault on her person, which therefore is wrong. If the woman does consent, then the same act changes from an assault, to consensual sex.

Millions of women who CHOOSE to proceed with unwanted pregnancies are pro-choice.

Let's see. Pro-choicers have the option of abortion available to them. If pregnancy is such a torture as you claim, why don't these women have abortions? Why do they keep the child if the child is so much of a burden, that to kill, relieves the mother?

And how rudimentary the brain is at that stage.

When is the brain properly formed to accede to your standards?

What YOU are doing (in blaming women for contraceptive failure) is directly equivalent to saying that a rape victim is guilty for her rape because she went out to a bar.

The woman is NOT guilty for her rape. Where have I said she was?

'is directly equivalent'
NO. Consensual sex is not rape, last time I checked.

[Ben Kenobi]

Then you will have to outlaw any acts that can damage body cells. They have a theoretical inherent ability to become other humans.

Couple points, Urban Ranger.

I'm not entirely sure of your reference here.
Do you mean adult stem cells?

Adult stem cells cannot form another zygote, although they can theoretically become any other cell in the body.

Sorry for being somewhat obtuse.