Agnapostate

Sarah Palin opposes abortion in essentially all circumstances. However, she is also an avid hunter. There is a logical inconsistency in this pair of positions. How is it that Palin opposes killing fetuses but supports killing nonhuman animals who have a greater level of self-awareness, rationality, and a greater capacity to feel pain than a fetus does?

Mentork

She is overly religious?

Agnapostate

That's the obvious reason.

Frolicking Dinosaurs

I understand Plain's stance and will try to explain it.

Palin holds the belief that human beings have a soul that resides within the body and therefore their life is sacred. She believes that the soul comes into play at the moment of conception and that taking the life of a fetus at any stage of development is therefore murder of a human being - a crime in pretty much all cultures.

Animals do not have souls according to this belief system and can be killed without such a penalty because nothing sacred resides within them.

Christianity and Judaism both see humans as separate from animals. In addition to the presence of a soul, there is also the matter of God having created man in His own image and having given man dominion over the animals according to the account in the Bible (Genesis 1).

__________________
The US is now out of cash & will see who its real friends are. Be afraid, be very afraid.

aps

I think what I find rather strange is her assertions that she choose to have Trig knowing he had Down Syndrome. What pro-life person CHOOSES? To a pro-lifer--you have to have the child no matter what.

Zyphlin

To my knowledge aps, Pro-lifers are not ROBOTS. They still do have the freedom of choice that is either inherent in humans, or given by god, or however you want to explain it. There is this thing called "changing ones mind", which occurs for many people when confronted by an extremely difficult circumstance. MANY people in life sacrifice their principles and morals when put into a bad position. A man may be anti-stealing for his whole life, but when he's bankrupt and living on the street and see's some food sitting on a window sill he likely comes to a point where he has to make a choice...his princples, or the easy route.

This is the same thing here. No one that is pro-life truly believes they are robots, unable to even fathom something else ever in any situation possible. Even when you look at the religious, they believe everyone is capable of sin. When confronted with something as potentially difficult as a Downs child, there are people that...despite their morals, convictions, or principles...would end up choosing the easier path.

She was confronted with an extremely difficult situation, and rather than take the easy route and forgo her principles she stuck to them. Maybe that seems foreign to you, maybe that seems inexplicable, maybe that's something you can't twist and turn to find yet another way to smear her, but to others they find it commendable.

__________________
Obama Wins. Time to reach for the new American Dream: "Strive for Mediocrity, avoid success, get free crap"

aps

I appreciated your answer up to the point of the last paragraph. How disappointing. I was expressing a genuine curiosity. I have a friend who is pro-life and in her 40s. She refused to undergo an amnio because she would accept whatever baby God gave to her. The fact that Palin underwent testing and commented on the fact that she chose to have Trig was confusing to me, particularly when it appears her stance is the same as my friends. Saying that I was trying to smear her is obnoxious.

shuamort

We had spaghetti and meatballs last night. The meatballs were made of pork and beef and some delicious spices and bread crumbs.

I'm also pro-choice.

It makes no sense why there would be any crossover between the two since the meatballs were not made of humans or "soylent green".

Zyphlin

My apologizes if the last sentence came off giving the wrong impression. I was not meaning that all those things were the reason, it was a way of saying there may be multiple possible reasons you may think it strange that she is both Pro-Life but CHOOSE to have the child, from it just seeming a foreign concept to wilfully spinning it to attack, but to many its not such a foreign concept. Wasn't meaning to say you WERE wilfully spinning it to attack, but stating it may very well be a possibility why you did it (I'm sorry, but your actions in the past few weeks at least made it a possiblity in my mind, but not a certainty, thus the "maybe" and the multiple options for why you may be confused by her choice).

I understand and respect your friends choice. I also understand and respect Palin's. Knowing about such in advance can help one prepare in case it is a situation where you have a special needs child (and I know you know this, becuase this exact same idea was stated to you in another thread a few weeks back when you used the same line). She does have a relative that ALSO has a special needs baby and maybe it was advised from them. Maybe she found out the greater possabilities for older women to have Downs babies and wavered for a moment, but in the end stuck with her principles. Maybe her husband urged her to get the check for some reason.

I respect your friends choice, but we are all not the exact same creature. We all do not act exactly the same. We are not robots. You can look at almost any other situation where someone has a strong principled stance against something and still find a situation where they would be stricken with the choice of sticking to their principles or taking the easy way out...theres no reason it should not apply here as well.

Tucker Case

Pretty simple: Evolution.

Animals are a natural food source. Human fetuses are not a natural food source. Eating animals promotes the survival of the species, eating human fetuses does not. So our nature is such that killing animals has been traditionally beneficial for mankind, but killing fetuses has not been beneficial for mankind.

Logically speaking, this means that, in an evolutionary sense for humans, non-human (in general)< human (in general).

There is no legitimate way for a human to come to the conclusion Non-Human (in general) = or > Human (in general) using evaluational biology, Logic, or reason.

But unless a clear symbiotic relationship exists, the animal (in general), is always below human (in general), regardless of the developmental stage of the general human, from the human perspective.

Now, it is true that one could argue that the individual human can be < or = an individual non-human, but then we have to contend with our natural instinct that informs us that this is not the case.

For example:

A human with a major genetic defect causing mental retardation that would be passed down form generation to generation is actually far more of a danger to the species as a whole (if he/she breeds) than a dog would be.

The scenario is that the individual Dog is attacking and trying to kill this particular human. You are given a weapon with which you can either be guaranteed to kill the dog or you can do nothing and allow the human to die. Time is of the essence, so you have no other options but to use the weapon that would kill the dog, or you can not use the weapon and essentially kill the human through inaction. Neither organism is a threat to you or will become a threat to you and you do not have any experience with either of them.

Mind you, the human has about even less self-awareness and rationality than the dog due to his/her disability. It has an equal capacity to feel pain though.


Now, don;t ask what you yourself would do in the hypothetical, ask what you think the majority of people would do if they were in the hypothetical. The species as a whole would generally pick the human over the dog. This implies something greater than pure logic guiding the choice.

My argument is that the majority would choose the human in instinctually and without logic, based on an ingrained evolutionary desire to protect that which is similar and thus promote th species overall survival rate as a whole.



So the answer to the question "How is it that Palin opposes killing fetuses but supports killing nonhuman animals who have a greater level of self-awareness, rationality, and a greater capacity to feel pain than a fetus does?" is actually "because she's supposed to feel that way".


Hell, I'm pro-choice and I'd much prefer to see a million dolphins slaughtered than see one single human fetus aborted. More to the point, if I could prevent all unwanted pregnancies now and forever, and eliminate the need for abortion to exist by killing off all of the world's dolphins, I would do it in a second.