Doc Howl

Holy crap.

Ikari

Having sex doesn't necessitate pregnancy, but it is definitely a possible outcome.

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Ikari

It's all dependent on point of view. If you really do view the unborn child as human life with the right to life, then abortion is not the responsible thing to do as you have destroyed an innocent. There are circumstances in which women are forced to have sex, in which they didn't make the choice themselves. There are certainly extenuating circumstances, though I think for the most part what is being talked about is when the sex is consensual. Where both parties made the choice to engage in it. Pregnancy is definitely a possible consequence of sex. And you can take steps to dramatically decrease that probability, but the probability always exists. Should a child be punished via death for choices not made by it? I'm not sure the answer to that is yes. But I am of the personal opinion that if at all possible, we should avoid killing other humans.

prometeus

Hello everyone, I am the newbie. Let me start by saying that I am in favor of the availability of safe and legal abortions. While that is considered by most pro choice, I concede that it is not my choice that I am defending but rather that of pregnant women.
Having said that I'd like to point out some aspects in the quoted post that I think are in error.
No one has a right to life, it is not part of any law, nor of constitution. The right to life is nothing more than a feel good slogan in part due to the instinct of self preservation and in part to self righteousness.

I think that all who are serious about the issue of abortion, on either side of it, readily acknowledge that from the time of fertilization, what develops inside a pregnant woman is in fact alive and it is human. However, because humanity's evolution both physically and intellectually, we have a well developed language that accurately can describe most things and circumstances we come across, including human reproduction. It is intellectually dishonest call a developing fetus a child for the purposes of a debate. Just as we do not call our children, man or woman. Nor do we call teens senior citizens even if they do have several years seniority over an infant. Of course if one can only bring to a discussion hype and emotion totally devoid or reasoning or substance, then by all means it is understandable. That does raise the question tho, why come to a gun fight with a knife?
Along the lines of emotion and other hollow tactics is also the needed to mention "innocence" in a fetus. Well what else could it be? And if it can not be guilty why bother, other than in an attempt to bolster an otherwise empty argument? Or can guilt be assigned to a fetus who for instance brings health complications for the pregnant woman? If so what should the penalty be?

Ethereal

You cannot have it both ways. The abortion debate has legal and scientific implications. If your classification of the unborn as parasitical is not scientific then it has no legal or physiological relevance. What you're doing is akin to saying that society can legally treat a man like a bear because he is big and hairy.

It's easy to say this because it's true. Most of those effects are only permanant if a woman chooses not to adress them. They are easily mitigated and of little consequence to one's overall health.

Remember that we are speaking to the hypothetical situation that the unborn have a right to life, and none of these consequences are a legitimate reason to violate that right.

They possess them? How so? In order to possess intelligence or self awareness one must be capable of exercising them. Coma patients only have the potential to exercise them, and according to you there is no such thing as a potential person.

Says who? How does one quantify a moral responsibility? How do coma patients have a moral responsibility?

This makes absolutely no sense at all. Why does personhood require characterisitcs that are missing in the fetus, besides the obvious implications it has on your political agenda?

All those characterisitcs you gave me were completely circular. They made no sense. It doesn't suprise me that you're having trouble defending a viewpoint you couldn't articulate without the help of some pro-choice network. Do you have a personal definition of a person or do you simply allow the pro-choice movement to dictate that for you?

Once again, it doesn't matter what society thinks a fetus is if science can determine what it actually is. Personhood is not outside the scope of scientific application, therefore we have a moral obligation to analyse that viewpoint.

How many times are we going to have this conversation before you realize you are wrong? You have failed to prove that another right can supercede the right to life, therefore your entire point is irrelevant. The only instance where this is even partially true is Roe v Wade, and as I am currently contesting the validity of that law its implications have no bearing on our discussion.

Then what are you refering to?

Lastly, you did not answer my question...

So, you agree, that pro-choicers, unless they confer the status of personhood upon some primates, are not being consistent in their interpretation and application of the law?

There's that selectiveness again...

Ikari

It's also the intellectual development of humans which allows us to understand things such as "human" and "life" and "death". We are able to project our feelings onto others, to feel empathy, and to understand what it is to feel, to be alive, and to exist with others of our species. Rights do in fact exist, they are fundamental to what it is to be human. Because we know life and because we know death and our own fears of it, because of our empathy, we are able to understand such abstract thoughts as right to life. Do I have the right to rob the life of another? If such a right to life does not exist then why should it be considered wrong? Why is it considered immoral? Is it self preservation? If so, why would we claim others have it? Mere self preservation would be for ourselves, and we wouldn't claim any right to life as anyone else who isn't us can be destroyed without affecting the outcome of our own life. Is it self-righteousness? Holier than thou attitudes rarely produce results which extend equally across the breadth of mankind the same treatments. If you look at the crazier of the Christians you can see just that. That church in Kansas operates on self-righteousness, yet they do not extend the right to life to certain segments of the populas.

No, it is neither self-preservation nor self-righteousness which births our understanding of our rights; it is empathy. The ability to understand the feelings of others, to know that as we feel pain they feel pain, just as we experience life so do others in similar fashion. Our intellect allows us to grasp this concept and understand the implications of such. Right to life, liberty, and property are fundamentals to humans because we know the basics. To live, to live free, to live by our own work on our own land without fear of government or aristocratic takeover with no reason. To claim self-preservation or righteousness is just a way to define a problem to easily dismiss it. In such a case you don't have to even consider the words of others. Central to the claim is that the right to life does not exist, so now you must invent a reason as to why. Claiming it is self-preservation or righteousness makes it easier to simply dismiss the claim. But obviously it can not come from these sources. There is noting inherent to either of those things which would make one extend past themselves and project upon the populas. Rights exist, they are inherent to all humans, because our species evolved great intellect and the ability to grasp the abstract. Empathy is the source of our rights, not mere self-preservation nor righteousness.

If it is intellectually dishonest to call a fetus an unborn child, than it is equally intellectually dishonest to liken that life to a parasite.

1069

I like you.

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"I do love this idea that one can scream and scream and scream, with that utopia just one more scream away."
~ Scucca

prometeus

Feelings, empathy,emotion and so on, are truly great things we all should have more of it, but not to legislate. That is why we posses analytical thinking, to exclude those factors that can easily and unpredictably be changed in favor of that which is consistent.
And no, there are not such things a fundamental or natural or inalienable or universal, etc. rights. Rights are what society agrees to convey, recognize and enforce. There is nothing beyond that except wishful thinking. At times if that wishful thinking is considered to have a sound basis and to be of benefit to society, then it can become part of the rights that society adopts.

Self preservation instincts are not something we choose to have, it is inherent to all living entities. It is not something we recognize in others, nor do we recognize the right to life of others. We simply do not kill because there are laws against it and those laws are a matter of practicality not of a right to life.
It is the role of government to pass laws to maintain order and security in society. Killing at whim would preclude that security and order, and we would have to spend inordinate resources then to ensure our own safety. Hardly a practical way of living. Instead we as a society agreed to not kill each other at will and based that on the correct belief that most of us will see that benefit and abide by the rule. And we mostly do.

I was not trying to dismiss anything, merely to point out the error in the belief that rights are anything more than what I mentioned. You did not offer anything to the contrary other than an appeal to empathy.

I agree, a fetus is not a parasite. It does however exhibit parasitical behavior, that is, it acts in some way as a parasite. Similarities do not amount to identities.

prometeus

Parasitical is not a classification but a description and as such it is accurate. Describing something in a comparative way does not imply that the compared has to be or can be treated as the compared to. Important thing is accuracy and in that respect the parasitic description is very accurate and appropriate.

That is patently false. You simply do not know that.

Simply because DNA alone does not amount to what society recognizes as a parson, with or with out a political agenda.

Society does not collectively think, it does however recognize what a person is and a fetus is not one. Perhaps at some future time that will change along with all the implications that would mean.
Personhood is a human construct and not in the scope of "exact sciences."
Indeed science has brought a thorough knowledge of what a fetus is, but how is that relevant to the issue?

Can you prove the existence of a right to life? If it exists, what legal document is it part of?
R v. W is not a law it is a SCOTUS decision, it rendered some laws unconstitutional.

Ethereal

In what way!? In what way is it an accurate description? The unborn meet none of the requirements to be considered parasitical. Furthermore, there is no difference between classifying something as parasitical and describing it as such. It's the same thing and carries with it the same legal and scientific connotations.

If I described you as an idiot instead of classifying you as one what difference would it make?

That's exactly what Granny and 1069 are trying to do. She's using the unborn's supposed status as parasitical to rationalize their termination.

No, it's not. It's not even remotely close. Here is a comparable analogy to your parasite scenario...

Both the unborn and prokaryotes exhibit the properties of life, therefore, due to their commonality in this regard, the unborn are prokaryotic.

This is the logic you are using. Despite the irrelevance of the unborn's commonality to a parasite you still seek to classify/describe them as such.

stretch marks (worse in younger women)
loose skin
permanent weight gain or redistribution
abdominal and vaginal muscle weakness
pelvic floor disorder (occurring in as many as 35% of middle-aged former child-bearers and 50% of elderly former child-bearers, associated with urinary and rectal incontinence, discomfort and reduced quality of life)
changes to breasts
varicose veins
scarring from episiotomy or c-section
other permanent aesthetic changes to the body (all of these are downplayed by women, because the culture values youth and beauty)
increased proclivity for hemmorhoids
loss of dental and bone calcium (cavities and osteoporosis)

The only serious effect I see here is PFD and it is not part of a natural pregnancy as it only occurs in one of every three women.

The other side-effects are mainly aestetic and pose no risk to a woman's overall health.

But more importantly, we're assuming the unborn have the same rights as a person and I don't see any of these effects as being a rationale for their violation.

I never specified what my definition of a person is, nor do I care what society cares to recognize, only what science can establish as factual. Also, this does not adress the agenda-driven nature of Granny's definition.

It makes no sense to say that the definition of a person requires characteristics a fetus does not have unless said requirement helps your political agenda. My definition of a person does not require characterisitcs a fetus lacks, so what wrong with that? Oh, wait. I remember now. It doesn't mesh with your political agenda.

I'm simply repeating what Granny said. Also, it doesn't matter what society is willing to recognize, all that matters is what is factual. Society may choose not to recognize those facts but it doesn't change them.

How is personhood outside the realm of science? If one applies science to personhood a question and hypothetical answer are easily distinguishable. Observe...

How does one scientifically define personhood? Simply identify the characterisitcs that all persons share, and that cannot be attributed to organisms not of the human species. Science can accomplish this and as such we can have a scientific definition of a person.

So, what characterisitcs do all person share that no other organisms possess? A: A complete set of human DNA. B: Life. C. Development.

In combination these three characteristics include all persons and exclude all non-human species. I garuntee you if there were no question of abortion you wouldn't blink in accepting this definition, but since you're blinded by your political agenda you lack the ability to think critically and pragmatically.

You need to have your head examined.