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Abortion - The way it used to be

roguenuke said:
Do you think fertilization is arbitrary?
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You mean scientifically speaking, the beginning of an organism's lifespan?

No, there's nothing arbitrary whatsoever about knowing that the beginning of a Homo sapiens lifespan is when it actually, scientifically and objectively, occurs.


It is entirely arbitrary and nonsensical to say that said human being is only a person after they come out the magical personhood cave.
 
JayDubya said:
There is no reason to regard a Homo sapiens neonate as a person and a Homo sapiens fetus as not. A neonate is less sapient and sentient than animals we eat or keep as pets... a neonate is still a human being however, and gets recognized as a person with rights.

Given what is known of biological science at this point, there is no rational or substantive reason why personhood should begin at birth.
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That's what me and FutureIncoming think as well. Nothing really special about a newborn or a unborn human 8 months into pregnancy. In fact, most philosophers who are pro choice don't consider a human a person till a few years after
birth when they start gaining mental abilities normal animals don't have like theory of mind and introspection for example.
 
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JayDubya said:
You mean scientifically speaking, the beginning of an organism's lifespan?

No, there's nothing arbitrary whatsoever about knowing that the beginning of a Homo sapiens lifespan is when it actually, scientifically and objectively, occurs.

It is entirely arbitrary and nonsensical to say that said human being is only a person after they come out the magical personhood cave.
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Again, just as arbitrary as birth, as in not arbitrary at all. Those are specific points in an organism's development. Fertilization, implantation, birth, death. All very non-arbitrary points of life, and there are more. The reason birth is picked as the one point where we set up a birth certificate is due to the fact that this is where the growing child detaches from the mother to become independent in its growth. Before that point, anything the mother does or that happens to the mother can harm the child, affect the child physically. And things that happen to the fetus while it is developing can affect the mother physically as well. After birth, this is not really true. Actions can be taken to prevent these things from having any affect.

You are the one arguing some really weird strawman about lifespan. No one is denying that the life span doesn't include fertilization, only that this is irrelevant to where we decide to value the person as an independent life, because until then, the life is not independent at all. No one else can care for that child except for the mother growing that child before birth.
 
GEIxBattleRifle said:
That's what me and FutureIncoming think as well. Nothing really special about a newborn or a unborn human 8 months into pregnancy. In fact, most philosophers who are pro choice don't consider a human a person till a few years after
birth when they start gaining mental abilities normal animals don't have like theory of mind for example.
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You do realize that most state laws cut off abortions at viability or before, right? This means that 8 months is not the same as 5 months or less for a pregnancy/abortion. But there is a huge difference between a child at 8 months gestation and just after birth. One is inside and attached to the mother, the other is not. That is the difference. And it is a very important difference.
 
JayDubya said:
The government is charged with protecting the rights of those humans within its jurisdiction. Yes, the government needs to know when you've created a new human being.



So ****ty people who were actually considering killing their kids, then...



Their stupidity, malice, and incompetence is on them. When you suspect you're pregnant, you should go to a doctor for positive confirmation and if acquired you should start prenatal care. What is "retarded" is the selfish and destructive behavior you're describing.
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LOLOL "The World According to JD"

That post is nothing but opinion. Peope arent required to get a birth certificate...deal with it. There are many ways women can manage pregnancies responsibly without a Dr....deal with it.

And if women choose not to remain pregnant, today American women will always have safe options free of the law to have abortions, even if they have to (legally) use all the private funds that 'used to go' to abortion providers which would now be funneled to their travel and care to the destination of their choice....deal with it :mrgreen:

Women will never be treated as 2nd class citizens again in the US. We will not go backwards...not with the availability of information, networking, education, national support, funding, etc available today.
 
JayDubya said:
The government is charged with protecting the rights of those humans within its jurisdiction.
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Let's see a legal source for that, since it is clearly a legal reference.

I can already provide one that disputes it, but go ahead.
 
JayDubya said:
Birth is an entirely arbitrary point. Restrictive personhood is tyrannical and bigoted; there should be no living human being who is not a person.
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No it is not arbitrary. Before birth, the unborn has zero rights that it can exercise independently. Every 'imagined' right it could have is completely dependent on the mother.

That dependency, that inablity to be able to independently exercise any rights....is a clear indicator that the unborn is not equal to born people.

To allow a woman's rights to be superseded by the unborn, and the rights violations and govt intrusion into their lives required to protect imagined rights is what would be tyrannical and IS clearly bigotted. And your posts regarding women going abroad for abortions and attempts to prevent it clearly outline just how intrusive and tyrannical it would have to be. You've already provided the supporting evidence, lol.
 
JayDubya said:
No, to allow the protection of human beings, which is the purpose of government. It doesn't much matter who is attacking them, be it their mother or someone else, the attacker should be punished for such an act.

Birth is an entirely arbitrary point. Restrictive personhood is tyrannical and bigoted; there should be no living human being who is not a person.
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And you still haven't told us how to enforce your proposal. How exactly are we going to know whether a woman is pregnant or not? Some women do not get a period for a long time due to medical issues or weight loss or gain. Others continue to have a period throughout their pregnancy. So are you planning on setting up a program to test women periodically for pregnancy, similar to how the military does it? Are you going to force women between a certain age to register themselves to be tested? What about paying for these tests? Are the women responsible for paying for them just because you want to ensure the government knows about every pregnancy? What about false positives or negatives? What kind of investigation will occur exactly? Are you going to berate a grieving woman and family with questions about how she felt about the pregnancy? What about monitoring various actions of the mother during the pregnancy? Are you going to force women to basically being restricted in what they can or can't do during their pregnancy just to ensure that they aren't trying to abort their child? Is any talk or thought of abortion going to lead to charges to ensure that you catch every potential baby killer? Do we lose our rights to privacy, medical privacy, even thoughts or work or activities that we do simply because you want to protect an unborn child that has a 30% chance of being naturally aborted anyway?
 
roguenuke said:
You do realize that most state laws cut off abortions at viability or before, right?
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Yes I'm already aware of what the law says at the moment which doesn't change my stance in this debate at all. Since literally almost all abortions are done before the ''viability'' mark and since I'm pro choice, I'm fine with the law and don't directly seek to change it at the moment.

roguenuke said:
This means that 8 months is not the same as 5 months or less for a pregnancy/abortion.
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Obviously :roll:


roguenuke said:
But there is a huge difference between a child at 8 months gestation and just after birth.
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I agree there is a difference. Mental developmental wise, nope not much difference. I understand there is a difference between a entity eating away the insides of another person and a infant having some baby food.

roguenuke said:
One is inside and attached to the mother, the other is not. That is the difference. And it is a very important difference.
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Sorry I disagree location or degree of dependency shouldn't determine personhood at all.
 
prometeus said:
It is not merely "location" and "dependency" it is inside another person and using that person's organs, so why not?
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Exactly. The person containing that life also has rights.
 
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