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[W:560] Abortion 101

No, not by my argument, but by your sophistical spin on my argument. By your precious reasoning there is no difference between killing a man and giving him a haircut. Yours is a reductio ad absurdum of my argument. In short, you distort the point to dispute it.

Actually that is the reasoning your arguments. He, and others are only pointing that out to you, myself included. Now that may not be what you intended, but it is what you argued. You are the one pointing out that life is based upon DNA, which is very true. But life is not enough since destroy life regularly. A tumor has life and human DNA (assuming it came from a human).

Your example fails, BTW, since hair is already dead. At best that parallels dismembering a corpse.

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Fire is born, fire eats, breaths, recreates others in its image, and eventually...it dies.


How is it not alive?
 
No, not by my argument, but by your sophistical spin on my argument. By your precious reasoning there is no difference between killing a man and giving him a haircut. Yours is a reductio ad absurdum of my argument. In short, you distort the point to dispute it.

Not really. You started a moral argument using two terms, "human life" and "human being," as if they were interchangeable.

When asked to define "human life" you blithely responded anything with human DNA.

Arguing from the premise that anything with human DNA is also a "human being" is what I find ridiculous. Hence my breakdown of why that argument is both scientifically and morally false.

Perhaps it would be better for you to define what is a "human being," or perhaps more correctly when does something that contains human DNA and is "human life" actually become a "human being?"

I think my original response also dealt with your assumptions in that regard too. :coffeepap:
 
The OP calls our attention to the distinction between the moral and the legal question, and leaves off comment on the rationalization involved in the latter. Perhaps the people you refer to in your post are upset with the legal rationalization, yes?

No, people are upset about both. Those who are against abortion claim it's on moral grounds and they want to make it so on legal grounds too. Morality, imposing your beliefs on others.
 
You conflate the moral and the legal questions. And your analogy is far-fetched and politically partisan. The OP points to but steers clear of, politics.

No, it does not. You just don't have a counter argument and can't admit that I'm correct. The goal of all laws should be to reflect morality. If someone or something is injuring you, causing you pain, manipulating your body, trying to use you as a host you have every right to defend yourself from it. If killing that thing(whether it's a person or not) is the only way you can stop what's being done to you by that thing then you have moral grounds to do so and there's no reason you shouldn't have the legal grounds to do so as well.
 
Very true. That is why a human tumor, containing human DNA, is also human life. For that matter all parts of the body are also human life, except the outer layers of skin and hair. Those are dead. And that is why personhood is important.



Actually, it is already established that you do have such a right. You cannot be required to continue to have your body used in any manner that you do not wish. That is the entire basis of bodily autonomy. It is the exact same.principle that allows a person to withdraw permission during sex even in the middle of it.

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"Established"? What are you talking about. I was talking morality.

Your "human life" point fails to distinguish your wordplay from "a human life."
 
Not really. You started a moral argument using two terms, "human life" and "human being," as if they were interchangeable.

When asked to define "human life" you blithely responded anything with human DNA.

Arguing from the premise that anything with human DNA is also a "human being" is what I find ridiculous. Hence my breakdown of why that argument is both scientifically and morally false.

Perhaps it would be better for you to define what is a "human being," or perhaps more correctly when does something that contains human DNA and is "human life" actually become a "human being?"

I think my original response also dealt with your assumptions in that regard too. :coffeepap:
You misrepresent me. I did not say, blithely or otherwise, "anything with human DNA."
What you find "ridiculous" is the straw man you created for my actual argument.
 
No, it does not. You just don't have a counter argument and can't admit that I'm correct. The goal of all laws should be to reflect morality. If someone or something is injuring you, causing you pain, manipulating your body, trying to use you as a host you have every right to defend yourself from it. If killing that thing(whether it's a person or not) is the only way you can stop what's being done to you by that thing then you have moral grounds to do so and there's no reason you shouldn't have the legal grounds to do so as well.
You are posting as if my OP contradicts your legal rationalization. It does not.
 
The Argument

The taking of a human life for any reason other than self-defense is immoral.

Except where the pregnant woman's life is at risk, abortion is immoral.

But human beings have a right to be immoral.

Therefore women have a right to be immoral.

Therefore women have a right to abort pregnancies.


That's the issue settled morally.
Morally, one may be both pro-life and pro-choice.

The legal settlement of the issue is another matter.
The legal settlement of the issue is political.
The political question is how, as a society, to rationalize the taking of human life in abortion as a legal right.

Bolded is your personal opinion as morals are subjective it doesn't settle anything except for you
 
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Bolded is your personal opinion as morals are subjective it doesn't settle anything except for you
Bolded is your personal opinion as beliefs are subjective it doesn't settle anything except for you
 
Bolded is your personal opinion as beliefs are subjective it doesn't settle anything except for you


Glad you now admit your personal opinion on morals is subjective
 
No, people are upset about both. Those who are against abortion claim it's on moral grounds and they want to make it so on legal grounds too. Morality, imposing your beliefs on others.
The morality of the matter is given in the OP: Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. The controversy is all about the legal rationalization.
 
The morality of the matter is given in the OP: Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. The controversy is all about the legal rationalization.

That's your morality but being subjective it doesn't settle anything
I think your biggest problem here Angel is that you dont want to discuss philosophy you want to preach your personal beliefs that in your arrogance, consider to be objective facts.
 
I disagree.

The health of the woman is a very moral reason for abortion.

Any pregnancy can take a turn at a moments notice and put the woman’s health and even her life at risk, at a point where an abortion once the symptoms are there will be too late to prevent a death of the woman or lifelong major irreparable disability.

That’s why no woman should be forced to take the risk if she wants an early elective abortion it should be her choice not to risk the pregnancy. Some women can sence there is something wrong ahead of time.


Life threatening complications aren't rare up to 8 percent of all pregnancies affected by pre- eclampsia or one of it's variants including HELLP syndrome.


We never know when a pregnancy might take a turn and become life threatening to someone we love.

Another 1 to 2.5 percent of pregnancies are ectopic pregnancies which are also life threatening.

So about 1 out 10 pregnancies can be life threatening just from 2 of the many types of life threatening complications.... eclampsia variants and ectopic pregnancies.

My daughter had HELLP syndrome with her pregnancy and she was very close to death when they performed the emergency
C section.

She went to the ER a few weeks before her due date because she was getting a horrible pain in her back just below her ribs which was caused because her liver was being damaged from the HELLP syndrome.
Usually there is pain the upper right part of the abdomen but her pain was in the back because her liver was swelling and shutting down.
They were worried her liver might fail.


Her OB/GYN was shocked when her test results came back showing she had HELLP syndrome. She had just seen him a couple days before and everything with the pregnancy appeared fine then.

My daughter was one the up to 8 percent of women in the US who every year developes 'preeclampsia, eclampsia, or a related condition such as HELLP syndrome." Thankfully she was not one of the roughly 300 US women who do die from the syndrome every year but she was one of the roughly 75,000 women every year who are counted as near misses.

From the following article:



Beyond Downton Abbey: Preeclampsia Maternal Deaths Continue Today

A little more about HELLP Syndrome:



HELLP Syndrome: Preeclampsia Foundation

Now many women like myself and my daughter continue our pregnancies because we choose to become parents.

But I cannot morally support a law or a country that did not allow elective abortions (before viability ) and thus forced women to continue a pregnancy that may very well put her long term health or life at risk.

On the other side of the coin I could not morally support a law or a country that would force a women to have an abortion against her will
even if her unborn were so malformed that if it did survive birth it would cost taxpayers millions of dollars in medical care.

Each woman should have the legal option to choose whether or not she wishes to continue her pregnancy.
This is your legal rationalization based on the moral intuition expressed in the OP. There is no disagreement between your post and the OP.
 
Stop flaming and get thee to the Philosophy forum if you want to discuss philosophy.

I am not flaming I am pointing out the glaring flaw in your OP.
Dont like me doing that then dont make OPs with glaring flaws in them
 
The morality of the matter is given in the OP: Pro-Life and Pro-Choice. The controversy is all about the legal rationalization.

Let's face it, it's really only an issue for the right and I'm not even sure it's really an issue or is it just another of the things the right says they care about to make the dems look bad.
 
I don't understand what you're asking here. But your rationalization is a rationalization is a rationalization despite your wish to call it something else.

Let's see you spell out my 'rationalization.' To do so, it would mean that I didnt believe it was right and was making excuses. I am not...so let's see you spell out what YOU consider rationalization?
 
You conflate the moral and the legal questions. And your analogy is far-fetched and politically partisan. The OP points to, but steers clear of, politics.

I have pointed out that the questions are wholly connected...as you cannot take a moral stance on protecting the life of either unborn or born without there being serious moral questions about the impacts on the other. And that moral stance cannot be acted on without law. When the law is enforced, there are impacts on born or unborn that must be considered as well...and are those impacts moral?
 
Let's see you spell out my 'rationalization.' To do so, it would mean that I didnt believe it was right and was making excuses. I am not...so let's see you spell out what YOU consider rationalization?
That's not the meaning I intended.

Primary Meanings of rationalize
1.
v
think rationally; employ logic or reason

2.
v
remove irrational quantities from
rationalize - Dictionary Definition : Vocabulary.com


To make something rational or more rational.
rationalize - Wiktionary
 
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