Controversial topic - You have been warned

Avelorn

Avelorn

Sven Jonsson
This is one of the most interesting and most difficult topics today imo. It contains a number of philosophical, moral and existential problems which probably won\'t ever be resolved in a satisfactory way. In the end this is will not a medical issue at all because if we contemplate the fact that we might in the future grow babies outside the mothers womb.

Why is killings someone wrong? The person that is killed is dead and won\'t miss life. Maybe it\'s because we all have relatives and friends that will miss us sorely? An unborn baby doesn\'t know anyone and won\'t be missed. But how about those of us that won\'t be missed? Is it okay to kill people that has no friends, or has commited crimes that gives them the death penalty? Is that a lesser evil? Somehow the thought feels unfulfilling (I am agains capital punishment btw). You cant make the value of a human relative. So the issue for me is when do we become human? But when does day becomes night etc. A common philosophical problem and one that is very hard to find a solution to. If we decide it\'s when the doctors can save the child that limit will be pushed all the time. Survive on it\'s own? What newborn baby can survive on it\'s own without a parent?

In an egg and a sperm lay the potential of a human being. In the joined egg and sperm lay a potentiality but when does a potential human being change into an actual human being? Impossible to answer!

For me it\'s about choice. The choice to become or not become a parent.

Hm. but I\'ll get back to you when I have finished this work I am doing. :)
 
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Evil Dave

New member
Originally posted by GreenOne
Yes, of course, completely arbitrary, unlike the people that are about to decide of the fate of actual, living womens...
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No. The Supreme Court heard both sides of the argument and made a choice off of the evidence given. They even stated that they would review the matter again if new medical evidence came up. So no, not arbitrary at all.

Beside the verbal slights of hand, misinterpretations, term-abuse and name calling fiesta, I really don\'t see where this is proper conversation.
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I have noticed no name calling, no intentional misinterpretation at all.
If you seem to think this is an improper conversation, by all means, feel free to leave it.
 
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GreenOne

I paint my thumb.
Not necesarilly from your part Dave, tough calling my statement completley arbitrary with nothing to back it up, tough I\'ve been argumenting on this point in many posts on this thread, comes to me as arbitrary itself.
This behing said, I felt a lot of uncalled hostility coming from a number of post.
Disagreement should not create hostility.
 
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supervike

Super Moderator
Originally posted by vincegamer
Jim,
I think you are mistaken.
Being absurd is a scare tactic designed to take focus off the question at hand by redirecting it to something generally repulsive.
It may serve to highlight a different issue that the speaker finds more important (like questioning the underlying definition of \"child\" or \"life\") but doesn\'t prove anything.

Think of Justice Scalia\'s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas.
The SCOTUS found a Texas law that criminalized sexual acts between same-sex adults in the privacy of their homes to be unconstitutional.
Scalia responded by saying, well now bestiality must be permissible.
Sure, the question of whether or not we can use concepts of morality to make laws is significant, but bestiality and gay sex aren\'t the same thing, and by connecting them, Scalia has suggested that gays are animals.
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Well, you make a good argument my friend....I will have to ponder this for a while.:beer:
 
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Ritual

New member
Originally posted by supervike
Originally posted by vincegamer
Jim,
I think you are mistaken.
Being absurd is a scare tactic designed to take focus off the question at hand by redirecting it to something generally repulsive.
It may serve to highlight a different issue that the speaker finds more important (like questioning the underlying definition of \"child\" or \"life\") but doesn\'t prove anything.

Think of Justice Scalia\'s dissent in Lawrence v. Texas.
The SCOTUS found a Texas law that criminalized sexual acts between same-sex adults in the privacy of their homes to be unconstitutional.
Scalia responded by saying, well now bestiality must be permissible.
Sure, the question of whether or not we can use concepts of morality to make laws is significant, but bestiality and gay sex aren\'t the same thing, and by connecting them, Scalia has suggested that gays are animals.
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Well, you make a good argument my friend....I will have to ponder this for a while.:beer:
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Is this :beer: what you do when you ponder something? :innocent:
 
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Evil Dave

New member
Originally posted by GreenOne
Not necesarilly from your part Dave, tough calling my statement completley arbitrary with nothing to back it up, tough I\'ve been argumenting on this point in many posts on this thread, comes to me as arbitrary itself.
This behing said, I felt a lot of uncalled hostility coming from a number of post.
Disagreement should not create hostility.
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Simply put making a call of Pre-born/ new-born is making a black/white call.
While it works great legally, it does not really reflect life, which is myriad shades of grey.
From what I gather, not many are against abortion, they are merely against late term abortion, in which the fetus is almost completely formed, at a stage that if born prematurely could survive.
No one has said the mother must keep the child.
In fact, I\'d go as far as saying no one here would really mind if it was a legitimate physical danger to the mother\'s life. (which the opponent\'s of this had a chance to show to the Supreme Court.)
However, doctors have a way of defining \"Mental Hardship\" as a physical danger.
My job is a \"Mental Hardship\" but it is in no way life threatening, nor would I have the right to kill someone to alleviate it.
 
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GreenOne

I paint my thumb.
I suffered a lot of \'mental hardship\' in my life, and dislike the term being banalised, mental hardship can seriously threaten someone physical health.
The topic went and gone in all the spectrum of the abortion subject.
On the precise point of the law that\'s been passed, I am concerned that anything behing legislated risks of becoming abusive in the other direction. Of course this would go to another topic: \" What faith you have left in the judiciary system ? \" And I am not up for the reaction of the general public if I stated my opinion on that one.

So cheers to that, and cheers to anyone having of planning to have a baby, no one is actually threatening your right to have one.
 
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vincegamer

Active member
Originally posted by RitualIs this :beer: what you do when you ponder something? :innocent:
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Best way:D

ED,
It\'s really unfair of you to call GreenOne\'s distinction \"arbitrary\" but yours not - even if you use the SCOTUS decision.

There is nothing arbitrary about a fetus inside a womb and a child outside a womb. It may be arbitrary to use that point as determining anything, though of course it is used, and has been for hundreds of years so I\'m not sure that makes it arbitrary.
The \"trimester\" distinction is one that I feel is more subject to the label. After all, it\'s not as if 1/3 of the way from conception/implantation to birth some door instantly shuts. The SCOTUS has found that by \"third trimester\" in Roe v. Wade, the justices were using the best available science of the day and that term was a substitute for the concept of viability. Viability is defined as the stage at which a child can survive outside a womb. That has moved considerably earlier than the third trimester in the decades since Roe v. Wade (and far earlier than the pevious \"quickening\").
Is that the same for every baby? no, but is every child ready for the responsibility of driving at age 16? no. We make generalizations because individual determination is too difficult.

By the way, child is defined as one who has been born, whether at the expected time or prematurely.

As to your last point, it\'s not a question of late term abortion that was at issue, but the procedure \"partial birth\" abortion. It is not a matter of a viable fetus, but an inviable one partially emerging and then being crushed before birth is complete.
 
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Evil Dave

New member
Originally posted by GreenOne
I suffered a lot of \'mental hardship\' in my life, and dislike the term being banalised, mental hardship can seriously threaten someone physical health.
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Agreed.
As someone who was manic-depresive for the first 18 years of my life, due to a hereditary chemical imbalance, I too do not like it banalized. (english accent \"I got better\")
However, this is exactly what doctors are doing, when needing to come up with a medical reason to abort.
 
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Evil Dave

New member
Originally posted by vincegamer
Is there a verified example of this actually happening?
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Not that I can find right off hand, but given the thousands of abortions that happen each year, do you honestly believe that every one of the partial birth abortions are all due to physical problems?
 
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vincegamer

Active member
That paper implies that this procedure was developed by that doctor around 1992.
That doesn\'t indicate that thousands have been performed (in fact the implication is that very few have), nor does it suggest when such a procedure is indicated.

[edit] according to wikipedia, in 2000 around 2200 such abortions were performed, so you are correct that thousands have been performed per year.

As I understand it, the controversy is not over whether or not congress can ban such an act but whether or not the ban must require an exception for the health of the mother.

Past experience shows you may be correct in suggesting that doctors \"make up a medical reason to abort\" since the inventor of the procedure admits to having done at least one because the woman suffered from \"agorophobia.\"
 
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treide

New member
I am curious about what our anti-abortion camp thinks about in vitro fertilization (IVF)? The semantic discussion in this thread regarding the distinction between fetus vs child/baby is relevant to that issue. Those against the practice of abortion must also be against IVF, as unused fertilized embryos that would develop into a fetus if implanted in a womb are routinely discarded as part of IVF.

Let\'s apply the Slippery Slope to that line of thinking. Masturbation and menstruation should also be outlawed, as they waste prime resources that if combined could develop into healthy babies. (Where we would find room in prison for all the adolescent males committing this infraction is beyond me).

Let us take it even further. If we believe claims of cell biologists that cloning a human being is feasible, then we cannot destroy any human tissues, as any cell with a nucleus could be harvested to grow another human being. Tough luck for those who need a tumor resected. \"Sorry, we can\'t remove your lung tumor - we would be killing thousands of potential citizens.\" I know, ludicrous. But the Slippery Slope discussion above put me in the mood.

The point is that once medical science can keep a healthy embryo alive outside the womb, there will not be any need to ever abort a fetus - if the mother/parents don\'t want the child, it can be \"raised\" in the lab and then be available for adoption. Until that time, abortion should be available for those who desire it, and without excessive governmental interference.
 
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vincegamer

Active member
Originally posted by treide
Let\'s apply the Slippery Slope to that line of thinking. Masturbation and menstruation should also be outlawed, as they waste prime resources that if combined could develop into healthy babies. (Where we would find room in prison for all the adolescent males committing this infraction is beyond me).
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Have you seen episode 10 of Mr. Deity?
http://www.mrdeity.com/
\"it was like standing in front of the bellagio\"
 
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dauber22

New member
Originally posted by treide

Let\'s apply the Slippery Slope to that line of thinking. Masturbation and menstruation should also be outlawed, as they waste prime resources that if combined could develop into healthy babies. (Where we would find room in prison for all the adolescent males committing this infraction is beyond me).
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Having been brought up a pre-Ecumenical Council Catholic, I can tell you that masturbation was definitely considered a sin. The wasting of one\'s seed was a definite no-no. Also known as the sin of Onan or Onanism. Personally, having read the Biblical account, I always thought it was a serious misinterpretation, but that\'s a point for another discussion.

Not being in the \"Anti-Abortion Camp\" I can\'t directly answer your other points, but I will say that I know many conservative religious types ARE opposed to IVF for, in part, just the reason you mention. Same for embryonic stem cell research. Not sure they would argue the point about all human tissue, though, as they would mostly object to cloning as well I imagine.

As an aside, I\'m not sure there really is a unified \"Anti-Abortion Camp\" per se, any more than there is a unified \"Pro-Abortion Camp\". That\'s part of the common problem discussion these issues; everybody has to be divided into one camp or another and if they believe one thing they have to believe everything in that camp\'s philosophy. We don\'t allow any room for variation. For example: I am not anti-abortion, but I am opposed to partial birth abortions from what I understand of the procedure.

As another aside: If we have no right to dictate to a woman how her reproductive system is used, why is prostitution a crime ??? ;)

And again: Why in this state is it illegal to pierce a minor\'s ears without parental permission because it is classified as an invasive medical procedure, but it\'s illegal to insist that a minor get parental permission to have an abortion? Wouldn\'t that be considered an invasive medical procedure as well ??? Vince, I await your evisceration of my question :D
 
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dauber22

New member

... if the mother/parents don\'t want the child, it can be \"raised\" in the lab and then be available for adoption.
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Or sold off for \"spares\" :D

Or trained from birth to be soldiers, thus eliminating all need for a draft :D

Or used to make Solient Green! :D

THe possibilities are endless!!:yes:
 
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