Intrade: 70.5% chance Obama will win third debate

[Hauldren Collider]

I know they were against banning partial birth abortion which is beyond repulsive.

[MikeH]

Well that is a different thing - there are genuine medical occasions where that might well be required despite it's horrible nature.

[Asher]

Reading is fundamental, Asher.

Just because he said it doesn't make it true.

The US has private insurance, and the government is not to blame for the inefficiencies.

[snoopy369]

I don't mean 'fundamentalist' in the sense of 'holding an extreme viewpoint'. I mean 'fundamentalist' as in denying the potential validity of the other side's argument. (See Kenobi, Ben for the classic example...) Even of the only-in-some-cases Pro Choice crowd, it's common to see people ridicule statements like the one that predicated this discussion - which are 100% reasonable from the religious point of view. Not saying I or you need to agree with the statement - but it is entirely reasonable (if perhaps stated poorly), and something worth discussing rather than ridiculing. Other arguments, such as positing the Pro-Life view as 'anti-woman', are equally irritating; while it's certainly likely that _some_ pro-life folks are pro-life due to their misogynist tendencies, it's probably not most of them, and it's certainly not a valid argument against an otherwise reasonable argument.

And yes, there are a _lot_ of pro choicers who believe in a general right to abortion. Some of that is probably simply wanting to go as far away from the pro-life argument as possible (as an argumentative/political strategy) but some of it is simply the belief that the woman's right to choose exists throughout the pregnancy. At the end of the day it's weighing the relative value of the woman's control over her own body versus the life of the not-yet-born baby; particularly if you are not religious, the concept of 'life' is a really, really arbitrary concept, and it's very difficult to say where life begins from a scientific standpoint [what's the difference between an unfertilized egg and a fertilized one? Do you define 'life' as 'once it gets a full set of chromosomes'? Or 'once it can survive outside the womb'? Or somewhere in between?]

I'm fairly confident that until Lois McMaster Bujold's future comes true [External wombs, permitting any woman who has a baby but doesn't want to go through pregnancy to do so externally, even after internal fertilization] this argument will continue, because there is no true solution that will make everyone happy, even a little. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have reasonable discourse about it, from both sides.

[Asher]

Pro-abortion is shorthand for pro-abortion rights. It's far less annoying to me than "pro-choice" and "pro-life", as if anyone is really against those things in principle.

Errr. You are quite literally against choice if your position is to make the choice for people.

[MikeH]

BTW there is some talk about lowering the age limit for abortion in the UK from 24 weeks - this is the kind of information we are getting to inform us :

http://www.rcog.org.uk/what-we-do/campaigning-and-opinions/briefings-and-qas-/human-fertilisation-and-embryology-bill/brie-0

[Asher]

Medicaid is a major source of inefficiency, but pales in comparison to Medicare. However there are a number of other reasons why it is very inefficient. You could write whole books on it. For starters, the fact that when it is supplied by the workplace it is tax exempt, but not tax exempt when you get it yourself.

People have written many studies and reports on it, HC.

And the answer is it's not the government which makes the US system inefficient.

Read this report: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.22.4.27

You'll be very pleased to note that article is written by a physician and an economist and published in an Economics journal.

[snoopy369]

Errr. You are quite literally against choice if your position is to make the choice for people.

I'm anti-robbery, does that make me against choice? HC's point is entirely valid here- both terms pro-choice and pro-life are silly in their presumption the other side is anti-.

[kentonio]

No more than you should be allowed to abandon your 6-month-old on the street and leave him to fend for himself.

So now rape victims should not only be forced to carry an unwanted baby from their rapist for 9 months, but then spend the next 18 years raising it as well? Wow..

It would be nice if pro-abortion folks wouldn't hide behind canards like rape babies all the time, and instead actually address the issue.

Sure, what issue in particular would you like us to address?

I don't like the terms "pro-choice" and "pro-life" so I use "anti-abortion" and "pro-abortion."

Cool, in that case I think I prefer the terms 'pro-choice' and 'anti-choice'. Or maybe 'pro-women' and 'anti-women'. Yeah that could work.

[Asher]

I'm anti-robbery, does that make me against choice? HC's point is entirely valid here- both terms pro-choice and pro-life are silly in their presumption the other side is anti-.

No, it's an illogical argument.

It IS silly to claim people are anti-life for supporting a woman's right to choose.
It is NOT silly to claim people who do not support a woman's right to choose are anti-choice. This is a truism.

[Hauldren Collider]

So now rape victims should not only be forced to carry an unwanted baby from their rapist for 9 months, but then spend the next 18 years raising it as well? Wow..

We have an adoption system, kentonio. At present it would be insufficient, of course--hence why I support making it capable of handling more unwanted children.

Sure, what issue in particular would you like us to address?

The issue that has always been the central issue of abortion: is a fetus a moral person? That is the central question.

[MikeH]

People have written many studies and reports on it, HC.

And the answer is it's not the government which makes the US system inefficient.

Read this report: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.22.4.27

You'll be very pleased to note that article is written by a physician and an economist and published in an Economics journal.

Almost uniquely among
wealthy nations, the United States typically does not consider effectiveness relative
to its costs or to the costs of alternative treatments (Garber, 2004)

This is a key point. Not only that but the NHS got accused by people in the US of having Death Panels just for having procedures in place to put limits on treatments based on their efficiency. Which surely should be a key part of any health system.

[regexcellent]

So now rape victims should not only be forced to carry an unwanted baby from their rapist for 9 months, but then spend the next 18 years raising it as well? Wow..

We have this thing called "adoption" and the waiting lists are amazingly long. You can give a child up for adoption but not throw him out on the street.

Sure, what issue in particular would you like us to address?

The actual metaphysical question of whether a fetus is worthy of protection by the law, and has a right to life.

Cool, in that case I think I prefer the terms 'pro-choice' and 'anti-choice'. Or maybe 'pro-women' and 'anti-women'. Yeah that could work.

I don't use the term "pro-abortion" as some kind of spin thing but because the people I describe as "pro-abortion" are in favor of abortion being legal. Christ. It's not like calling them "anti-life" or whatever. "Pro-choice" is just a silly term because it's vague and obviously trying to mask the issue at hand. "Pro-life" is similar, and I'm not really pro-life because I don't mind the death penalty.

[Hauldren Collider]

Asher: It IS silly to disagree with my point of view. It is NOT silly to completely agree with it! YOUR OPINIONS ARE WRONG

[MikeH]

We have an adoption system, kentonio. At present it would be insufficient, of course--hence why I support making it capable of handling more unwanted children.


The issue that has always been the central issue of abortion: is a fetus a moral person? That is the central question.

I think that everyone will agree that at a certain age the foetus becomes a person, though that age will vary widely. The other important factor is that it is still only one of two people in the equation.