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biospun
homo sapien



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First of all, our world murders children in more ways than abortion. our world murders children by sending them to war, by poisoning their minds with mindless television babysitting, by putting so much damn high fructose corn syrup in every available food item that the child has no chance at not being diagnosed with ADHD... second of all, some couples who chose to have abortions do so in a very resonsible manner. yes, birth control should have been used before conception if a child wasn't wanted, but some people just arent equipt to raise a child, even to carry a child. i know i wouldn't want my mother to have had me if she hadn't been strong enough to take care of me from the very point of conception- watching everything she put in her body, everything that went through her mind was about my well-being. some mothers aren't like that during the gestation period. i have friends who were adopted, and i'm so glad that they were born. and then there is the the issue of rape, health of the mother, etc..abortion is simply an issue that couldn't possibly be conclusively judged as right or wrong. there are just too many aspects to it.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



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> And for the Ron Paul supporters out there, letting the states decide the issue is the EXACT SAME THING as banning abortion.
Can you elaborate on this claim? Lets pretend that California decides to legalize abortion and Utah decides to ban abortion. How is this the exact same thing as banning abortion? Getting rid of Roe vs Wade simply returns the power of choice a little bit closer to home rather than forcing a position upon the entire country. The way it is now, if the people in Utah can get the federal government to ban all abortion, then the people in California have no choice in the matter.
I'm not claiming that you are wrong, but I certainly don't see how your statement is correct. What am I missing?
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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kriminalelement
"jesus wept."



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Re: Abortion [Re: Seuss]
#7999537 - 02/09/08 09:58 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
abortions used like birth control are worse.
No women would do this. Abortion is not fun, and it is not an afterthought. Most women DO use contraception, and those that don't are typically young and uneducated about their bodies. Even with contraception and BC, there is still a significant chance of getting pregnant. By the age of 50, 47% of women have had abortions. Our bodies are built to get pregnant. That's a number one biological purpose.
Abortion isn't an afterthought. It's a last resort.
And as for the idea that men should be able to veto an abortion, they have NO say in that because they aren't gestating the child. Sorry men, but if you're pro-life, make sure BEFORE you have sex and try to make the baby that the woman agrees not to have an abortion. If you feel strongly about it you should only be making babies/having sex with people that agree with how you feel about the issue. Don't stick your dick in a woman that you know is pro-choice just because you're desperate.
-------------------- While there is a lower class, I am in it While there is a criminal element, I am of it While there is a soul in prison, I am not free. Eugene V Debs
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biospun
homo sapien



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I agree fully with that, Krim
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



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Re: Abortion [Re: Seuss]
#7999637 - 02/09/08 10:42 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
Seuss said: > And for the Ron Paul supporters out there, letting the states decide the issue is the EXACT SAME THING as banning abortion.
Can you elaborate on this claim?
I'm not claiming that you are wrong, but I certainly don't see how your statement is correct. What am I missing?
Yeah, all I'm saying is that if the Federal Government were to drop its Roe v. Wade-based protection of a womans access to an abortion and leave such a decision to the states, there are at least 15 states that would ban abortions at their earliest possible moment.
That's what I mean. Anti-abortion proponents have only recently moved to their "Lets have the states decide" platform not out of some great love and respect for the Constitution, but because they realize they do not have the National Political Will to get something taken care of at a higher level. So they've set out to start banning abortions at the state level. A grass-roots approach, so to speak.
So thats why I say the two are the exact same. Drop protection on abortion in Washington today, and its illegal tomorrow in Mississippi. This is 100% guaranteed.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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d33p
Welcome to Violence

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Quote:
kriminalelement said:
Quote:
abortions used like birth control are worse.
No women would do this. Abortion is not fun, and it is not an afterthought. Most women DO use contraception, and those that don't are typically young and uneducated about their bodies. Even with contraception and BC, there is still a significant chance of getting pregnant. By the age of 50, 47% of women have had abortions. Our bodies are built to get pregnant. That's a number one biological purpose.
Abortion isn't an afterthought. It's a last resort.
And as for the idea that men should be able to veto an abortion, they have NO say in that because they aren't gestating the child. Sorry men, but if you're pro-life, make sure BEFORE you have sex and try to make the baby that the woman agrees not to have an abortion. If you feel strongly about it you should only be making babies/having sex with people that agree with how you feel about the issue. Don't stick your dick in a woman that you know is pro-choice just because you're desperate.
About 60% of women in the US having abortions(excluding cali since they never report data) have had one or more abortions previously. With 20% having had 2 previously and another 12% having had 3 or more previously. When over 1,000,000 abortions are being performed every year in the US, isn't that a bit much?
3 abortions? Really? You may like to think that there aren't idiotic women out there abusing abortion, but they are out there, in droves. I really don't know what if anthing should be done about, but fuck, at least acknowledge that it's happening and that it sucks.
Your 3rd paragraph is basically what I said, I agree. Also, you got a source for the 47% stat?
edit: was looking at old numbers, changed them to cdc's 2004
-------------------- I'm a nihilist. Lets be friends. bang bang
Edited by d33p (02/10/08 05:06 PM)
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



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Re: Abortion [Re: d33p]
#8000098 - 02/09/08 01:10 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Why are 1,000,000 abortions a bit much?
How are you the sole arbiter or what is right and proper in this country?
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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d33p
Welcome to Violence

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Quote:
Madtowntripper said: Why are 1,000,000 abortions a bit much?
How are you the sole arbiter or what is right and proper in this country?
You missed the point of what I said. It's not about total abortions.
How am I the sole arbiter? Ok ok, I admit, I am god. Now respect mah authoritah.
-------------------- I'm a nihilist. Lets be friends. bang bang
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



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Re: Abortion [Re: d33p]
#8000158 - 02/09/08 01:28 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
d33p said:
Quote:
Madtowntripper said: Why are 1,000,000 abortions a bit much?
How are you the sole arbiter or what is right and proper in this country?
You missed the point of what I said. It's not about total abortions.
Just referring to this quote.
Quote:
When over 1,000,000 abortions are being performed every year in the US, isn't that a bit much?
No, I don't think it is.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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d33p
Welcome to Violence

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Quote:
Madtowntripper said:
Quote:
d33p said:
Quote:
Madtowntripper said: Why are 1,000,000 abortions a bit much?
How are you the sole arbiter or what is right and proper in this country?
You missed the point of what I said. It's not about total abortions.
Just referring to this quote.
Quote:
When over 1,000,000 abortions are being performed every year in the US, isn't that a bit much?
No, I don't think it is.
I suggest you research this term.
p-a-r-a-g-r-a-p-h
-------------------- I'm a nihilist. Lets be friends. bang bang
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



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Re: Abortion [Re: d33p]
#8000177 - 02/09/08 01:33 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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I have no idea what your point is.
If I took what you said out of context, I'm at a loss to see how.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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d33p
Welcome to Violence

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Quote:
About 60% of women in the US(excluding cali since they never report data) have had one or more abortions previously. With 20% having had 2 previously and another 12% having had 3 or more previously. When over 1,000,000 abortions are being performed every year in the US, isn't that a bit much?
I thought it was clear my point was focused on multiple abortions. Try not latching onto a single clause out of an entire paragragh.
-------------------- I'm a nihilist. Lets be friends. bang bang
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Madtowntripper
Sun-Beams out of Cucumbers



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Re: Abortion [Re: d33p]
#8000282 - 02/09/08 02:01 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Le Derr.
You sir, are absolutely correct and I am fucking stupid.
I have no excuse. I wasn't even high until like, 10 minutes ago. And I've been drinking coffee all day.
-------------------- After one comes, through contact with it's administrators, no longer to cherish greatly the law as a remedy in abuses, then the bottle becomes a sovereign means of direct action. If you cannot throw it at least you can always drink out of it. - Ernest Hemingway If it is life that you feel you are missing I can tell you where to find it. In the law courts, in business, in government. There is nothing occurring in the streets. Nothing but a dumbshow composed of the helpless and the impotent. -Cormac MacCarthy He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. - Aeschylus
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero



Registered: 04/27/01
Posts: 23,480
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Quote:
Yeah, all I'm saying is that if the Federal Government were to drop its Roe v. Wade-based protection of a womans access to an abortion and leave such a decision to the states, there are at least 15 states that would ban abortions at their earliest possible moment.
Hmmm.. I still disagree, I think... but I respect your opinion. It is a bit of a double edged sword... illegal everywhere, legal everywhere, or a mixed bag.
Quote:
You sir, are absolutely correct and I am fucking stupid.
Hardly. Stupid people don't realize when they make a mistake.
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Abortion [Re: Seuss]
#8004899 - 02/10/08 02:29 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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the life begins at the moment of conception argument seems vulnerable to phenomena such as:
1. chimerism, where dizygotic twins fuse together. Did one twin kill the other? Whose soul (or wahtever is life, who's life if you don't like soul) survives. Did one soul die?
2. the ability to create many fetuses by spliting totipotent cells into several different masses. Want to create three babies? when that fertilized egg (alive, w/ sould or life) divides into three cells, split them apart. Now you have three lives, apparently, as they are all fertilized and genetically equipped to develope into three people.
Did you kill the original person? Did you put him in one cell? Where did the other lives come from? When did they come to be, as this question doesn't rest w/ teh "at fertilization" because at fertilization you have only one cell, w/ no means of knowing it will give rise to many people. And if god or whomever had forseen that you would interfere and make three beings from one, and so had endowed that cell mass with three souls/lives, then that leads to the realization that everything we do is predetermined anyways, an unsettling realization that can only lead to nihilism which would then place no value on morals anyways.
---
Mainly for the last reason, that totipotent cells can be split to create new viable beings, I cannot fathom life begins at conception.
At most, abortion is immoral after totipotency ceases, around two weeks I believe, but we can't be sure.
At moste, therefore, the law should restrict post-14 day abortions out of an abundance of caution, and I beilieve that it should probably be viewed as immoral in cases where the mother is not greatly inconvienianced by the pregnancy,to get an abortion after this point in time.
I really hesitate to legislate in this area, however; considering that an abortion is relativly easy to induce through mechanical or chemical means.
Edited by johnm214 (02/10/08 02:46 PM)
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Abortion [Re: johnm214]
#8004952 - 02/10/08 02:43 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Additionally, I find some value in Thompson's Minimally Decent Samaritan argument. Anyone interested in this subject should read it, I find it to raise good points. In general, I think it strongly argues that an unwanted pregnancy that is the product of rape or failed birth control, where the woman made a good faith effort to avoid pregnancy, is permissible to be terminated- as you owe no duty to this being using your body, unless birth is eminent. You have no right to kill the child, but you have the right to remove it from your body if its more than an inconvenience to you.
http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil160,Fall02/thomson.htm
Quote:
But now let me ask you to imagine this. You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist's circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. The director of the hospital now tells you, "Look, we're sorry the Society of Music Lovers did this to you--we would never have permitted it if we had known. But still, they did it, and the violinist is now plugged into you. To unplug you would be to kill him. But never mind, it's only for nine months. By then he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you." Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation? No doubt it would be very nice of you if you did, a great kindness. But do you have to accede to it? What if it were not nine months, but nine years? Or longer still? What if the director of the hospital says. "Tough luck. I agree. but now you've got to stay in bed, with the violinist plugged into you, for the rest of your life. Because remember this. All persons have a right to life, and violinists are persons. Granted you have a right to decide what happens in and to your body, but a person's right to life outweighs your right to decide what happens in and to your body. So you cannot ever be unplugged from him." I imagine you would regard this as outrageous, which suggests that something really is wrong with that plausible-sounding argument I mentioned a moment ago.
In this case, of course, you were kidnapped, you didn't volunteer for the operation that plugged the violinist into your kidneys. Can those who oppose abortion on the ground I mentioned make an exception for a pregnancy due to rape? Certainly. They can say that persons have a right to life only if they didn't come into existence because of rape; or they can say that all persons have a right to life, but that some have less of a right to life than others, in particular, that those who came into existence because of rape have less. But these statements have a rather unpleasant sound. Surely the question of whether you have a right to life at all, or how much of it you have, shouldn't turn on the question of whether or not you are a product of a rape. And in fact the people who oppose abortion on the ground I mentioned do not make this distinction, and hence do not make an exception in case of rape.
....
But it might be argued that there are other ways one can have acquired a right to the use of another person's body than by having been invited to use it by that person. Suppose a woman voluntarily indulges in intercourse, knowing of the chance it will issue in pregnancy, and then she does become pregnant; is she not in part responsible for the presence, in fact the very existence, of the unborn person inside? No doubt she did not invite it in. But doesn't her partial responsibility for its being there itself give it a right to the use of her body?
...
If the room is stuffy, and I therefore open a window to air it, and a burglar climbs in, it would be absurd to say, "Ah, now he can stay, she's given him a right to the use of her house--for she is partially responsible for his presence there, having voluntarily done what enabled him to get in, in full knowledge that there are such things as burglars, and that burglars burgle.'' It would be still more absurd to say this if I had had bars installed outside my windows, precisely to prevent burglars from getting in, and a burglar got in only because of a defect in the bars.
....
So my own view is that even though you ought to let the violinist use your kidneys for the one hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so--we should say that if you refuse, you are, like the boy who owns all the chocolates and will give none away, self-centered and callous, indecent in fact, but not unjust. And similarly, that even supposing a case in which a woman pregnant due to rape ought to allow the unborn person to use her body for the hour he needs, we should not conclude that he has a right to do so; we should say that she is self-centered, callous, indecent, but not unjust, if she refuses. The complaints are no less grave; they are just different. However, there is no need to insist on this point. If anyone does wish to deduce "he has a right" from "you ought," then all the same he must surely grant that there are cases in which it is not morally required of you that you allow that violinist to use your kidneys, and in which he does not have a right to use them, and in which you do not do him an injustice if you refuse. And so also for mother and unborn child. Except in such cases as the unborn person has a right to demand it--and we were leaving open the possibility that there may be such cases--nobody is morally required to make large sacrifices, of health, of all other interests and concerns, of all other duties and commitments, for nine years, or even for nine months, in order to keep another person alive.
And finally, legislation is often misguided. Even the partial birth abortion ban, a reasonable moral stance, was dumb. It was a small incidence anyways, and the law did not require women to give birth, it only required them not to give birth to live fetuses who are then killed before removal from her body/ vaginal canal. So they just kill the fetus before the removal now... lota good that did, yet you still here people trumpet this largely symbolic and worthless law.
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boomer q
Comrade General



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Re: Abortion [Re: johnm214]
#8008074 - 02/11/08 09:51 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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there are a few arguments made by "pro-life" people that just dont jive with me
first of all, just the language and terms which they apply to the debate are slanted, they say people are "pro-abortion." lets be serious, no one is pro abortion. if youve ever spoken to a girl or woman who has had an abortion, theyll tell you that it was one of the hardest decisions they ever had to make, and that it was one of the most emotionally scaring events in their life. people dont have abortions willy-nilly cause its easier than slipping on a condom, or because they enjoy it so much or something. and when people say women use abortion as a form of birth control..... no shit, thats the fuckin point of an abortion, but its not as if girls go around saying to each other that buying condoms is too much of a pain, so theyl just get an abortion later on... lets be serious, this happens VERY infrequently
another term i have a problem with is "pro-life". this is bullshit. you people arent pro-life, youre pro-birth. sure, its easy enough for someone whos never had anything to do with an unwanted pregnancy to say, yea, just put it up for adoption, no big deal. yea, its no big deal for a 14 year old girl to miss a year of school cause public schools dont like girls who "show" in regular classes. nobody on the "pro-life" side worries much about that life, the girl who is ostracized and ashamed and doesnt wanna have to look at her mistake in the mirror everyday for the next 9 months.
and how bout the life of the child after its born? oh yea, just leave it in front of a police station, thats no problem... there doesnt seem to be much attention from the "pro-life" movement to the conditions of state run facilities to house unwanted children. how much funding is pouring in from these conservative republican christians for head start programs, or social services, or health care for children born into poverty? not much. these "pro-life" people dont care about how the unwanted child gets fed, or sheltered, or who pays for health care or education...thats what pro-life SHOULD mean, doing something productive for the children who we KNOW already have life, not arguing for decades about where and when a life REALLY begins. theyll fight tooth and nail to make sure kids get born, but then these "christian conservatives" cant be bothered with health care funding, or more funding for schools, or social services, or welfare, because thats too "big government." they hate "big governments" that tax us to death so they can provide for the poorest of the unwanted.... does anyone else see a bit of a paradox here?
im just looking for a little consistency here, because the VAST majority of these morally superior christians have never adopted a child, because theyre too busy having their own. whens the last time you saw an upper middle class white woman adopt an unwanted black child born with a dependency to drugs? or born with HIV? ive never heard of it, but maybe some of you live in places morally superior to new jersey....
another thing that pisses me off about these people is their claim of the "sanctity of life." i just plain dont believe in this, for a few reasons. first of all, why just the sanctity of human life? no one complains about the sanctity of life in the amazon jungle being cut down and replaced with sugarcane plantations. it doest come up in reference to the thousands of species a year we wipe out of existence, does god love those beings less than he loves humans?
and those conservatives, they love their wars....so why is it ok for these evangelicals from the midwest and the bible belt to cheer an occupation of the middle east while at the same time lamenting the loss of all these microscopic clumps of cells? 650,000 iraqis are dead because we didnt like sadam as a dictator...what about the sanctity of those lives? a fetus has the right to life, but if it grows up and lives in iraq we wont think twice about dropping a 2000 lb bomb on his house if hes in the way of a "terrorist."
what about the sanctity of the lives of people we execute? so a bundle of cells so small that you cant see it has the right to life, but murderers dont? who decides when a person forfeits that right to life? oh, thats right, christian judges, because they have the moral authority to decide when someones life is no longer sacred, right? doesnt this seem a little conditional to you? your life is sacred unless you chose to break our rules, in which case we'll substitute our judgement for gods. its not just people we execute, what about the millions in our country in prison being treated like cattle?
the last point i wanted to make was about overpopulation. how sacred is life? is it so sacred that we'll sacrifice all the other life on our planet for it? should we really save every single fetus? how about in a few decades when the earths population is closer to 10 billion people? how bout if we survive another hundred years, should we save every fetus when there are 15 billion people in the world? how bout 20 billion? is it our doctrine as a race to reproduce and grow our population at all costs? what if when theres 20 billion people on earth theres global famine, and its determined that the earth we've been raping for its natural resources can only support 5 billion people? what happens to the sanctity of the lives of the 15 billion extra people? are their lives no longer sacred, no longer worth saving at all costs? or would you then be pragmatic and say oh, well in the case we should try to reduce our population to a level which can be sustained...at that point, who would be the 5 billion worth saving? well, if you ask a christian, im sure they would say that its the christians who should be saved, right? cause you guys have a monopoly on morality, and decided to save every single fetus on earth, and therefore deserve to live more than everyone else, right?
its bullshit, this pro-birth movement
-------------------- I got bags of funk and i sell em by the tons
Edited by boomer q (02/11/08 09:59 AM)
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Abortion [Re: boomer q]
#8008293 - 02/11/08 11:10 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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your mixing issues. That the same person may adopt stances appearing inconsistant doesn't mean both of them are incorrect. This is just an ad hominem and doesn't address the underlying argument.
Quote:
the last point i wanted to make was about overpopulation. how sacred is life?
The only way you can begin to address that is to consider it infinitly important in a moral sense.
I don't see how else you can address life in a utilitarian way without considering it infinitly important (mainly cuz this destroys simple additive utilitarian comparisons, so maybe calling it utilitarian isn't really accurate).
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boomer q
Comrade General



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Re: Abortion [Re: johnm214]
#8008420 - 02/11/08 11:35 AM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
johnm214 said: your mixing issues. That the same person may adopt stances appearing inconsistant doesn't mean both of them are incorrect. This is just an ad hominem and doesn't address the underlying argument.
Quote:
the last point i wanted to make was about overpopulation. how sacred is life?
The only way you can begin to address that is to consider it infinitly important in a moral sense.
I don't see how else you can address life in a utilitarian way without considering it infinitly important (mainly cuz this destroys simple additive utilitarian comparisons, so maybe calling it utilitarian isn't really accurate).
its true, i was rambling a bit, and i wasent really aiming to get to the root of the underlying arguent, i was just making a few points that always piss me off when having this argument
im not really sure what you mean though, when you say "The only way you can begin to address that is to consider it infinitly important in a moral sense." care to elaborate? im not trying to be argumentative, im just interested
-------------------- I got bags of funk and i sell em by the tons
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johnm214



Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 17,582
Loc: Americas
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Re: Abortion [Re: boomer q]
#8008575 - 02/11/08 12:09 PM (15 years, 11 months ago) |
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Well I mean if your addressing something in a utilitarian sense, you have to apply a value to it to evaluate it.
People often say utilitarianism doesn't work w/ human life cuz its imposible to derive a system that doesn't lead to absurd or seemingly immoral situations. I think by assesing a human an infitinite value, you remove the problem.
Its like the question of "is it okay to kill a child, take their organs, so that five children may live, and ten more may live better lives?" Well if you assign a discrete value to a life, say 10 (or even if each life is valued diffeerntly) you would come to the solution of yes, this is permissable, cuz that one life is not more important than 5, so the one must die.
But the problem is that it seems inherently immoral to kill one so that others may live, when that one has commited no wrong and not indebted themselves to the others. It is not their fault that the otehrs will die, so how is it their responsiblity to address it?
I think this situation is immoral, and it can be addressed by making a person's life infinitely valuable.
Then person one is worth ∞1
Person two three, et cet are worth ∞2; ∞3
so in this case, since as amatter of mathmatical proof, ∞1 is not greater than ∞2 + ∞3 + ∞4 you've avoided the problem. The mathmatical treatment doesn't compel the death of the one individual, in fact the comparison of a sum of infinite values to a single infinite value cannot be done.
So in a sense this saves us from the compulsion to conclude that the person 1 must die for the others, but it also destroys the utility of the quantitative system.... so it may not be accurate to still call it utilitarian.
But I'm also rambling, and none of this matters in the end unless you concede that a fetus has moral value, something most people aren't prepared to do, I'd suspect, that support abortion on a moral sense. And it also is worthless for determining when a moral person is formed.
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And you allude to a problem with utilitarianism... when an additional person will add an incrementally small burden to the others, is it justified to kill that person, even if they are a "moral person" in the sense that they have the same rights as anyone else?
Quote:
the last point i wanted to make was about overpopulation. how sacred is life? is it so sacred that we'll sacrifice all the other life on our planet for it? should we really save every single fetus? how about in a few decades when the earths population is closer to 10 billion people? how bout if we survive another hundred years, should we save every fetus when there are 15 billion people in the world? how bout 20 billion? is it our doctrine as a race to reproduce and grow our population at all costs? what if when theres 20 billion people on earth theres global famine, and its determined that the earth we've been raping for its natural resources can only support 5 billion people? what happens to the sanctity of the lives of the 15 billion extra people?
While you might say it is right to stop population increase as a general policy, can it really be said that that one person extra causes harm of a greater magnitude than their own life's value? Perhaps an extra million people would cause much harm, but would that one person cause such harm in the rest that he must die? I would think not.
But again, this presumes the aborted fetus is a person, and it only addresses the ethical problems, not the policy problems, and in my mind these are two different considerations.
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