Fair is fair . . . Georgia Democrats propose an anti-vasectomy bill

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

I'm saying that IF YOU THINK IT'S murder, which means you think it's ending a human life in an unacceptable and immoral way, then certain things follow.

Things that, oddly enough, don't appear to involve calling the police, making a citizen's arrest, killing in self-defence, etc.


Let's talk life sentences, or the death penalty. Appropriate sentencing for first-timester abortions?

[Hauldren Collider]

What the hell are you trying to argue, Laz? That because we don't punish abortion as murder, it shouldn't be considered that way?

[DaShi]

Good move. I've had him on ignore for almost 6 months

I've known for awhile. I don't believe that it's good to ignore anyone who challenges you. In your case, I've mainly tried to have you better defend your statements. I'll admit, I've been a lot insulting out of the ludicrousness or just plain ignorance of many of them. But overall, I've tried to challenge you to think more about your stance. Where do your assumptions come from? Can they be supported with logic or facts? Often many of yours seem to come from either your gut feeling or general misinformation that has trapped many.

For Elok, it's very unusual. He's clearly well-read, but it seems that he hasn't been challenged on his ideas. Too many of his responses are "This is how it is" ignoring what anyone else says around him. The last thread it was irritating because it didn't address my point at all. He kept repeating something he thought of as profound wisdom, while at the same time admitting that he didn't understand what my point was. His reaction was either to lecture me about something else or just get angry. Not once did he ask a question to clarify. Why would he? He believes he understands everything. It's like he's living in a dream and the rest of us are just figments of his imagination. Our opinions are not only wrong, but don't matter.

[giblets]

I think the whole argument--why should I have the kid, why should I support a kid if I didn't want to refrain from aborting it--is a symptom of our infatuation with individual rights being carried just a smidge too far. I mean, yeah, she's pregnant when she didn't want to be pregnant, and that's bad. But she's also undergoing a perfectly normal, routine function of human biology which has happened several trillion times already, so why are we flapping our hands and talking about it like it's a big cosmic injustice and the whole universe is out to screw her over?

Starving to death is a perfectly normal, routine function of human biology that has happened several trillion times already so why are we flapping our hands like that's some big cosmic injustice? Why are people so obsessed with being happy and having control over their destiny?

Her individual choice may be very intimate, but it has serious and far-reaching consequences, as evidenced by the widespread problem of sex-selective abortions, or the targeted elimination of Down's Syndrome. Even if you ignore the child's livelihood entirely, which is generally case, mom isn't the only one affected by her decision. It has enormous demographic repercussions on a long-term, aggregate scale.

Of course, you could say the same thing about whether or not to have sex in the first place, etc. But as it happens, almost nobody today decides, over the long term, to not have sex. Some of them are married/in long-term relationships, some are not; I don't know the ratio. I think it's fair to say that our culture tends to glorify no-strings attached sex--which, I'm sure, is fun. But sex is never really no-strings attached, unless you're gay or sterile and you're certain your partner has no VD (and that's assuming no emotional issues). Sex exists for the primary purpose of procreation. That purpose can be thwarted to a very large extent, but nothing can completely stop it. Abortion exists to seal up that little crack. And so we act like it's a BFD when the seal is denied and we can't completely escape responsibility for the choices we make (with the obvious exception of rape, etc., which is a more complex issue).

That, I submit to you, is carrying individuality a little too far. If you're not prepared to accept even the slightest risk of becoming a parent, you shouldn't be having sex, one way or another. And certainly the child should not be the one to suffer for your recklessness. Of course, I'm arguing this from a purely moral and theoretical standpoint. Public policy is likely to prove depressingly intransigent, the more so because people and groups like the RCC can't fathom the separation of church and state.

Oh lol. At least you're being honest that you oppose abortion because it might make people more free to do what they want.

[regexcellent]

DaShi, he has you on ignore because you never contribute anything useful or insightful, not because you say things he disagrees with.

[DaShi]

Then why doesn't he ignore you?

[Elok]

If you want me to put you on ignore too, Grib, you can just ask. No need to post false analogies and goofy ad hominems.

I hope you are not holding your breath.

No, if it changes at all it won't be short-term. But within my lifetime, it's entirely possible, though I wouldn't give you odds on it. The reverse is essentially what happened within my parents' lifetime, and we're paying for it now. Of course, there are a lot of other complications, having little or nothing to do with sexuality, which make it worse. For example, our asinine drug policy puts tons of parents behind bars for no particularly good reason.

[Elok]

DaShi, he has you on ignore because you never contribute anything useful or insightful, not because you say things he disagrees with.

To be fair, he can be fun for a round of nonsense jokes. He's not totally bad or anything. But he does tend to act childish in debate.

[giblets]

Wonderfully said and I don't have a quibble with this. I have recently been struggling as well with the concept that our post-enlightenment Western thought seems to value individuality a little too much and most of all in the US, where individuality is considered paramount. Though my struggles have been not all that much in the social sphere, but more economically speaking. We (I guess I speak for the US as that is what I know) are so quick to call individuality when it applies to capitalism, than even people starving matters not a whit if we are "free" to make money. Of course, this spills over into all sorts of different spheres.

The freedom to make money has helped create so much wealth that the end of starvation is finally conceivable, something that wasn't the case for most of human history. Of course there should be some limits on the freedom to make money but overall it's been a smashing success.

[giblets]

If you want me to put you on ignore too, Grib, you can just ask. No need to post false analogies and goofy ad hominems.

What ad hominem? I never said "this post is nonsense because it was written by a religious man about whether being pregnant against their will would be an excessive burden for women"

[DaShi]

You challenged his idea.

[Aeson]

The freedom to make money has helped create so much wealth that the end of starvation is finally conceivable, something that wasn't the case for most of human history.

Conceivable if we ignore that people just don't care enough to do it.

[Krill]

Of course that's unenforceable, just like you can't prevent all murders (outside a Tom Cruise movie). You can only punish the guilty. And, in this case, find ways to make the crime unnecessary. Increased contraceptive access is obviously a good place to start (and this, I think, is the #1 reason why the pro-life movement in the USA is getting nowhere). The real fix will have to be a cultural shift. Which will take a long time, if it happens at all.

So if you're a women who gets an abortion you go to jail. If you are the father...what happens?

Yeah, that's reasonable.

[Dinner]

There are lots and lots of women who are against abortion. If you take the notion that abortion is murder, then banning it seems completely reasonable. How hard is this to understand?

EVEN IF women were to wind up in a subservient position due to lack of access to abortion, which they wouldn't, banning it would still be a good idea, on the notion that it's murder. This is not hard to understand.

My problem with this is that you deal with emotions instead of facts and can't even seem to come up with a reasonable reason why a zygot is alive but the skin cells I wash off my body every day in the shower are not; you "feel" it's murder & you "feel" this or that but the law isn't made up of just feelings nor should it ever be. So, yes, your position is hard to understand when someone actually examines it especially your appeals to violence based upon your previous spurious emotional claims.

[Elok]

What ad hominem? I never said "this post is nonsense because it was written by a religious man about whether being pregnant against their will would be an excessive burden for women"

How about the part where you quoted a big block of text, declined to respond to any part of it in a meaningful way, and instead imputed to me a sinister desire to control other people, mwahahaha, etc.? I guess that could just be a really egregious strawman, instead of an ad hominem. Depends how you look at it, really. Or it could be a troll, or just the result of a very, very superficial and careless reading. The one thing it cannot be is a valid criticism, and I know you're capable of those. Really, if you're just going to give me stuff like "starvation is a normal biological function," why bother to reply at all?