Liberals: Personhood Starts With Paul Ryan’s Jizz

[dannubis]

So we should just allow people to decide for themselves if killing someone who is 5 is murder, or killing someone who is over 65...

There is a big difference between not drinking alcohol (or drinking alcohol) or restricting other freedoms of the sort and killing someone (which removes all future freedoms/etc). It shouldn't even be comparable (not that I consider 'restricting freedom' to be the obvious moral good to judge ethics based on).

Basically, I Think your position is monstrous.

JM

Monstrous, evil, ... yes, I understand now why it makes sense to discuss this with you...

[Jon Miller]

If we applied the same definition of 'person' before birth as after birth, then 3rd term abortions would be murder.

Many people are dependent, in many different ways, on another. At many points in their lives.

A newborn is just as dependent as a baby 2 weeks before birth.

And in the third trimester, the baby is perfectly viable.

Anyways....

The more important point is to Snoopy, because his opinions is just terrible.

There is a big difference between 'you live your life, I live mine' when it doesn't terribly effect the lives of others and doing so when it does.

We don't allow people to decide that ****ing 12 year-olds is OK or not.

We do allow people to decide if a 60 year-old with a 18 year-old is OK or not. (some would say yes, some would say no)

We don't allow people to decide that killing a 3 year-old is OK or not.

We do (or should) allow people to decide to die themselves if there is no medical hope/etc.

This difference is obvious. And obviously different then legalization drugs/alcohol/prostitution/etc.

JM

[Ben Kenobi]

Because setting aside the 'debate' part, the actual consequences are extremely wide reaching and pretty detrimental to womens rights. When it comes to things like pregnancy after rape, you are very much getting into 'women in chains' territory if you expect them to undergo the traumas and physical damages of unwanted pregnancy. When the anti-abortion stuff goes hand in hand with anti-contraception then it decomes a definite war on women.

How does sex-selection abortion 'empower' women? If you have to build up older women by killing girls, then it seems counterproductive to me if your overall cause is to improve the well-being of all women, not just some. Also - how many women actually 'choose' abortion because they want one? None that I've spoken to. All feel that it's the best choice of ****ty options. Maybe the solution shouldn't be giving women ****ty choices, but giving them better choices.

[Jon Miller]

I am not saying that MtG's position is obviously monsterous. Although the effects are.

Just that Snoopie's is (and I hope he changes, I generally think he is a good guy).

Now I think that abortion in the 3rd term is monsterous, yes, of course. Killing innocents on purpose always is.

JM
(And I would gladly ban all abortions which are not duet to medical necessity to save the ~100 per year that are killed with late term abortions.)

[Ben Kenobi]

For "pro-lifers" who disapprove of exceptions for rape and incest, the issue is that the state has the power to give superior rights to the non-sentient blastocyst/embryo/fetus, because it does not matter whether the woman in question (remember her?) ever consented to being impregnated.

The prolife argument in this case is simple. You punish the perpetrators, not the victim. How does aborting the child punish the rapist? It does nothing of the sort. How does it unrape the woman? Again, it does nothing of the sort. All it does is give you a dead baby. That's not a solution - that's compounding the hurt. You don't help people by encouraging them to hurt other people - you help people by giving them actual help. We don't punish the rapist with execution, so why are we punishing the child by killing her? The child is entirely innocent of what the father did to the mother.

There are typically two layers of hypocrisy - first, social conservatives who want to regulate the hell out of abortion typically are hands off regulating business and more public activities

That's because we believe that abortion ends the life of another person - and that one person's rights end where another person's rights begin. The issue isn't, how should we regulate people's lives", the issue is, "how do we protect the natural rights of the unborn", in the same way as we protect the natural rights of everyone else. Again - if you can take away the right to life of the unborn - it never stops there - you are attacking everyone's natural rights.

The second layer of hypocrisy is that the only regulation is typically abortion - oh, we must protect God's little love drop, but feel free to eat like ****, smoke, drink while pregnant, engage in medically unsound faith healing practices. After all, we're in the liberty business. So Pro-lifers typically don't give a **** about anything other than the abortion decision.

I presume I count as a prolifer? Now you know one.

The other thing you're conveniently forgetting is the recent history prior to Roe v Wade. Roe came only 6 years after Griswold. It used to be common that a married woman could not get a birth control prescription without her husband's permission. There's liberty for you. Also used to be common that single women would be denied birth control prescriptions by her doctor, or the pharmacy. Single women were supposed to be chaste and wait for the right fellow to come along and make proper wifeypoos of them, you know?

So you believe that there is a connection between abortion and contraception? That demand for one drives demand for the other?

[dannubis]

(And I would gladly ban all abortions which are not duet to medical necessity to save the ~100 per year that are killed with late term abortions.)

OK. Under this reasoning:
1. Ban all guns to save the victims of the occasional school shooting
2. Prepare for a police state because once every so often a **** face blows up a train or building.

[snoopy369]

Jon, you haven't remotely addressed my point. How is believing in rational political debate and decisionmaking monstrous? I mean, yes, it would mean Poly has to be shut down, sorry, but we do rather have to get along with each other in the real world. How do you decide points like this? Half the country thinks one thing, half thinks another, and the beliefs are binary (ie, not something we could just meet at the middle on). You have to have that discourse by starting by acknowledging the validity of the other side's argument, and then coming to a rational position where the least harm is done to either side. IMO, the least harm is done by permitting abortion to some point (the point at which the fetus is survivable externally seems like a reasonable point). Again - if you think that's murder, then don't have an abortion. That's 100% okay with everyone. But half the country thinks it isn't murder, and you can't just wish away those beliefs; and honestly, you've had ~40 years to convince them otherwise. Perhaps admit that they just don't agree with you? It's not just people being confused? But don't try to force the half of the country that disagrees with you to follow your ethical rules. It's exactly why this country was founded in the first place - so people could get away from governments trying to force them to follow their religious rules.

[Ben Kenobi]

In other words, you have an opinion with no particular underlying factual basis, other than it's your opinion, and you're either fundamentally intellectually incapable in failing to distinguish an actual born human being from a (potentially microscopic) non-sentient embryo that is biologically dependent on being hosted inside a woman's uterus, or you're fundamentally intellectually dishonest by grossly distorting the positions of others?

This isn't a difficult argument. IVF assumes that the child inside the womb is the same child outside of the womb. There is continuity of the person from fertilization onwards as we have already proven through IVF. Fertilization is the moment that this happens because sperm and egg combine to form a unique, distinct person different from both the mother and father. This same person grows and develops insider her mother's womb until the time comes when she has to come out and be born.

[Ben Kenobi]

Jon Miller

[MrFun]

The prolife argument in this case is simple. You punish the perpetrators, not the victim. How does aborting the child punish the rapist? It does nothing of the sort. How does it unrape the woman? Again, it does nothing of the sort. All it does is give you a dead baby. That's not a solution - that's compounding the hurt. You don't help people by encouraging them to hurt other people - you help people by giving them actual help. We don't punish the rapist with execution, so why are we punishing the child by killing her? The child is entirely innocent of what the father did to the mother.

This statement is all kinds of retarded.

The purpose of allowing women who are raped to get an abortion is not in the belief that it somehow punishes the rapist, nor any belief that it somehow unrapes a woman who was raped.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Good points.

However, for record, I was not saying that the reality is that poor new mothers are denied all government assistance. I'm just saying that it seems to be the hypocritical opinion/thought of many anti-choice people to stop valuing a person's life after that person is born.

I honestly don't think they don't value that life - they just have a somewhat utopian belief that everyone has fair opportunity (not fair outcome) and that a limited government, market driven economy (because the nice people will dominate) will provide better standard of living and opportunity. Both sides see it, according to their own world views, as doing what's best for people as a whole.

You're an example in this thread, playing the labeling game "anti-choice" just as the social conservative right likes to play the labeling game and use "pro-abortion." Neither one are self-identification, it's an attempt by both sides to spin and distort the other side's focus and point of view.

[MichaeltheGreat]

This isn't a difficult argument. IVF assumes that the child inside the womb is the same child outside of the womb. There is continuity of the person from fertilization onwards as we have already proven through IVF. Fertilization is the moment that this happens because sperm and egg combine to form a unique, distinct person different from both the mother and father. This same person grows and develops insider her mother's womb until the time comes when she has to come out and be born.

IVF assumes nothing. It's a medical procedure. The difference is that a child will, even if removed from its mother, be sustainable and capable of growth and development without biological dependence on specific host. An embryo can not do that. Nor can a fetilized egg in a test tube. The fact that it's genetically distinct is meaningless. It's either a big enough blob of cells that it can survive (in theory) on its own with some form of external help, or else it's a smaller blob of cells that is biologically dependent on the life functions of a specific host. You and I are big enough blobs of cells that we can make it on our own. So is a 25 week fetus. A zygote in a test tube is not.

[Ben Kenobi]

The purpose of allowing women who are raped to get an abortion is not in the belief that it somehow punishes the rapist, nor any belief that it somehow unrapes a woman who was raped.

So what is the purpose, Mr. Fun? A dead baby?

[MrFun]

You're an example in this thread, playing the labeling game "anti-choice" just as the social conservative right likes to play the labeling game and use "pro-abortion." Neither one are self-identification, it's an attempt by both sides to spin and distort the other side's focus and point of view.

I use the word "anti-choice" because people who oppose abortion co-opted the word, "pro-life" unfairly, as if implicating that pro-choice people are sadistic and place no value on human life. So since I can't think of another choice of words other than "anti-choice," I use that. Unless you have a suggested choice?

[MrFun]

So what is the purpose, Mr. Fun? A dead baby?

For women to have control over their own fate and body; for women to exercise their right to choose.