Lack of Logic in Abortion Debates (soldier, separation, constitution, anti-war)

[Tricky D]

Originally Posted by Greatday

I'm sorry but, any man, who has raised a child, alone, from the moment of that childs birth, has every right to speak!

If men became pregnant they would probably be less inclined to end life, since they have experienced how hard and painful delivering live is.
So unless men have been in labour and have delivered a baby into the world they have no right to speak.
Raising a child and delivering a baby are 2 very different things.

[expat007]

Originally Posted by Tricky D

Originally Posted by GreatdayIf men became pregnant they would probably be less inclined to end life, since they have experienced how hard and painful delivering live is.
So unless men have been in labour and have delivered a baby into the world they have no right to speak.
Raising a child and delivering a baby are 2 very different things.

are you kidding me !!! The nagging would drive a guy erhhm gay

child bearing is walk in the park !!

[Tricky D]

Originally Posted by expat007

are you kidding me !!! The nagging would drive a guy erhhm gay

I dare you to tell the Dutch Lucia Rijker* (aka Lady Tyson) that women boxers just can't fight.

* She met her only defeat in October 1994 at an exhibition Muay Thai kickboxing match against male opponent, World Champion Somchai Jaidee of New Zealand (a 2nd-round K.O.).

child bearing is walk in the park !!

Taking life is much easier than sparing and / or giving life.

[Amaznjohn]

Originally Posted by Tricky D

Originally Posted by Amaznjohn So is a (clipped) nail or hair, but they neither live now do they?

Once a baby is delivered by the mother killing it is murder.
Whether the umbilical cord is cut or not is irrelevant.

Your statements seem to be a bit inconsistent. Initially, you stated: "A pregnant woman's foetus is not sentient. They cannot live independently outside the body of their mother, so in this state terminating it's life would be considered an abortion."
And you stated that a baby isn't sentient until its approx. 2 months old, "A couple of months after its borne". Seeming to indicate that unless a baby is sentient, at about 2 months by your measurements, its considered an abortion. So, which is it? Is the criterian whether the baby is sentient or whether the baby has exited the birth canal? If the latter, must the entire body have exited before it's considered "delivered", allowing for partial birth abortions?

[saganista]

The thread title -- Lack of Logic in Abortion Debates -- continues to be more than adequately illustrated by the black-and-white, binary argument that the topic can be reduced to discrete levels and stages clearly separated in all cases by bright and definitive lines that can be used and relied upon in developing appropriate policy. This conceptualization of a pregnancy is unfortunately entirely divorced from the actual state of affairs wherein gestation occurs as a continuous process operating at a cellular level and eventually on thousands of different fronts at the same time. Insistence upon the existence of bright lines that are well known not in fact to exist is an example of illogic.

Another is the seemingly inevitable inclusion (as above) of the word "innocent". In religious terms, the word is a direct dogmatic denial of the "original sin" that we are all supposedly born into, and in realistic terms, the word implies a capacity that fetuses, even in the most absurd imaginations of them, simply do not have -- the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. No fetus can be either innocent or guilty of anything. Such attempts at framing the argument in this way demonstrate only another aspect of the significant degrees of detachment from reality that those proposing it argue from.

Presumably, it is generally accepted that a woman may not be either compelled by the state to bear children nor prevented by it from doing so. Presumably, it is generally accepted that there is a right to rely on something other than "the will of God" in coming to personal and private decisions in the matter of if and when to reproduce. To the extent that these presumptions are correct, decision-making powers with respect to reproduction rest with a woman as informed by those whom she may elect to include as qualified advisors, counselors, or stakeholders in that process. The rest of us are simply out of the picture. Under such a paradigm, it is the woman involved who has the undeniable right, and hence the responsibility, to accept or deny the event of an unwanted pregnancy according to the dictates of her own conscience, and to change her mind on the matter should she choose to do so, and all at her sole discretion.

Nevertheless, there are those who would, without grounds or foundation of any sort, appoint themsleves as intervenors -- persons who believe that their own unsupportable opinions on matters of human reproduction are so important that they should be given decision-making rights and powers superior to those of the woman involved. There are also five-year olds who will argue that their equally unsupportable opinions justify their being given decision-making rights and powers that are superior to those of their parents. There is a marked similarity between these two sets of arguments. Illogic is one of the characteristics that they share...

[Nomander]

Originally Posted by saganista

The thread title -- Lack of Logic in Abortion Debates -- continues to be more than adequately illustrated by the black-and-white, binary argument that the topic can be reduced to discrete levels and stages clearly separated in all cases by bright and definitive lines that can be used and relied upon in developing appropriate policy. This conceptualization of a pregnancy is unfortunately entirely divorced from the actual state of affairs wherein gestation occurs as a continuous process operating at a cellular level and eventually on thousands of different fronts at the same time. Insistence upon the existence of bright lines that are well known not in fact to exist is an example of illogic.

A very colorful way of making the "its just cells" argument and ignoring the points often brought up concerning this area of the issue. Again, very colorful but you didn't accomplish anything other than saying you are right and they are wrong.

Originally Posted by saganista

Another is the seemingly inevitable inclusion (as above) of the word "innocent". In religious terms, the word is a direct dogmatic denial of the "original sin" that we are all supposedly born into, and in realistic terms, the word implies a capacity that fetuses, even in the most absurd imaginations of them, simply do not have -- the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. No fetus can be either innocent or guilty of anything. Such attempts at framing the argument in this way demonstrate only another aspect of the significant degrees of detachment from reality that those proposing it argue from.

Picking over the root meaning of words to avoid dealing with the intended meaning often made does not object to the point, but rather attempts to evade it by focusing on the irrelevant. I would be more concerned with the context your opponent is using than nitpicking the words themselves. Again, logic doesn't care about the level of language used or how eloquently it is delivered, it only cares that the points being made are valid in supporting the conclusions they derive.

Originally Posted by saganista

Presumably, it is generally accepted that a woman may not be either compelled by the state to bear children nor prevented by it from doing so. Presumably, it is generally accepted that there is a right to rely on something other than "the will of God" in coming to personal and private decisions in the matter of if and when to reproduce. To the extent that these presumptions are correct, decision-making powers with respect to reproduction rest with a woman as informed by those whom she may elect to include as qualified advisors, counselors, or stakeholders in that process. The rest of us are simply out of the picture. Under such a paradigm, it is the woman involved who has the undeniable right, and hence the responsibility, to accept or deny the event of an unwanted pregnancy according to the dictates of her own conscience, and to change her mind on the matter should she choose to do so, and all at her sole discretion.

And yet, this position is contingent on your previous point. That it is "just cells" and therefore nothing more than yet another cell among many all of the womans body and not defined in any other manner than that. In order for this conclusion to be valid, the initial premise that this is based on has to be valid, yet the original premise has not been proven valid without using technicalities that ignore the context. One side is simply the right to manage ones own body, the other side is that it is a forfeiture of another's life. Obviously having to contend with the second option would completely invalidate this current point.

Originally Posted by saganista

Nevertheless, there are those who would, without grounds or foundation of any sort, appoint themsleves as intervenors -- persons who believe that their own unsupportable opinions on matters of human reproduction are so important that they should be given decision-making rights and powers superior to those of the woman involved. There are also five-year olds who will argue that their equally unsupportable opinions justify their being given decision-making rights and powers that are superior to those of their parents. There is a marked similarity between these two sets of arguments. Illogic is one of the characteristics that they share...

Saying it is so, does not make it so. You can be as colorful as you like, but the summary of your statement is simply "I am right, they are wrong" without any valid reasoning. Unfounded subjective positions don't become valid just because you use a higher level of delivery. In the end, it really is just BS in a pretty box.

[saganista]

Originally Posted by Amaznjohn

Is the criterian whether the baby is sentient or whether the baby has exited the birth canal? If the latter, must the entire body have exited before it's considered "delivered", allowing for partial birth abortions?

As you must be aware of, many societies in human history have found no problem at all in what we would today call infanticide. The majority of those societies suffered from being unable to tell prior to birth whether or not the rather haphazard process of gestation had gone materially off course. With current levels of technology, most devastating fetal anomalies can be detected in utero, and the process of abortion can come to substitute, humanely some might say, for that of infanticide.

As for so-called partial birth abortion (actually, intact D&X), it is a medical procedure originally designed to address the matter of certain late-term pregnancies that had become disastrously compromised. Under various circumstances, it is physically easier and safer for the patient than alternative methods, as well as being less expensive and posing a lower risk of adversely affecting future fertility. As the word "intact" would suggest, it also provides parents dealing with a failed pregnancy an entire corpus to hold and grieve over. Once having established a proficiency in this technique, some practitioners have expanded their use of it as an option in all late-term abortions.

Because it is widely misrepresented, it may be helpful to understand what an intact D&X actually is. In this procedure, the cervix is partially dilated using laminaria (sticks of seaweed that expand as they absorb moisture), and the fetus is then positioned so that it may be withdrawn feet-first through the cervix and into the birth canal until the head is all that remains within the uterus. A catheter is then inserted into the cranium, and all fluid is withdrawn via evacuation. This causes the unfused cranial plates to collapse, significantly reducing the diameter of the skull. The head is then withdrawn from the uterus, and the entire fetus is brought down the birth canal, around the pelvic ridge, and removed through the vagina.

[Tricky D]

Originally Posted by Amaznjohn

Your statements seem to be a bit inconsistent.

No its not.
A foetus has the potential to become sentient while a nail doesn't.
You need to be alive to be sentient (be aware of yourself and other things), but not everything that lives is sentient.
A brain dead individual on an iron lung machine is not sentient, but as long as he is connected to the lung machine he is considered alive.

In the future we will probably create AI computers that will be sentient, the question then is if an AI computer can be considered 'alive'.

[Amaznjohn]

Originally Posted by saganista

The thread title -- Lack of Logic in Abortion Debates -- continues to be more than adequately illustrated by the black-and-white, binary argument that the topic can be reduced to discrete levels and stages clearly separated in all cases by bright and definitive lines that can be used and relied upon in developing appropriate policy. This conceptualization of a pregnancy is unfortunately entirely divorced from the actual state of affairs wherein gestation occurs as a continuous process operating at a cellular level and eventually on thousands of different fronts at the same time. Insistence upon the existence of bright lines that are well known not in fact to exist is an example of illogic.

The current discussion not only relates to personal convictions but to legal definitions, which, for the benefit of the accused, must provide some delineation by removing the subjective opinion of judges and juries. If you or I were put in such a position as the accused I know that I would and I suspect that you would rather rely more upon a concrete, logical definition of the charges instead of placing our fates in the emotional and unpredictable subjective responses of our peers.

Another is the seemingly inevitable inclusion (as above) of the word "innocent". In religious terms, the word is a direct dogmatic denial of the "original sin" that we are all supposedly born into, and in realistic terms, the word implies a capacity that fetuses, even in the most absurd imaginations of them, simply do not have -- the capacity to distinguish right from wrong. No fetus can be either innocent or guilty of anything. Such attempts at framing the argument in this way demonstrate only another aspect of the significant degrees of detachment from reality that those proposing it argue from.

This would indeed be the case if one was to define innocent in the narrow sense of not being guilty of a crime. However a more learned definition would also include "free from guilt or sin especially through lack of knowledge of evil", or in this case ""blameless".

Presumably, it is generally accepted that a woman may not be either compelled by the state to bear children nor prevented by it from doing so. Presumably, it is generally accepted that there is a right to rely on something other than "the will of God" in coming to personal and private decisions in the matter of if and when to reproduce. To the extent that these presumptions are correct, decision-making powers with respect to reproduction rest with a woman as informed by those whom she may elect to include as qualified advisors, counselors, or stakeholders in that process. The rest of us are simply out of the picture. Under such a paradigm, it is the woman involved who has the undeniable right, and hence the responsibility, to accept or deny the event of an unwanted pregnancy according to the dictates of her own conscience, and to change her mind on the matter should she choose to do so, and all at her sole discretion.

This is not a matter of forced pregnancy or forced sterility but a question of when the child is no longer part of the woman's body and is then the beneficiary of legal protection by the State.

Nevertheless, there are those who would, without grounds or foundation of any sort, appoint themsleves as intervenors -- persons who believe that their own unsupportable opinions on matters of human reproduction are so important that they should be given decision-making rights and powers superior to those of the woman involved. There are also five-year olds who will argue that their equally unsupportable opinions justify their being given decision-making rights and powers that are superior to those of their parents. There is a marked similarity between these two sets of arguments. Illogic is one of the characteristics that they share...

These were the same type arguments put forth by the slaveholders in the early 19th century. Also, I imagine some of them would even suggest that unless one has experienced growing a crop without slave labor then one has no right to speak against slavery. Of course, this is a proposterous claim, as is the claim that men do not have the right to speak against abortion.
It seems that you are suggesting that no children's opinions should be considered when they conflict with the decision-making of the child's parents. I doubt that many child advocates would agree with your statement. Still, my opinions, which I haven't really expressed in this most recent discussion, are based on scientific facts and logical reasoning. Is my expecting honest answers to my questions an unreasonable request? I think not. Then the discussion can turn more toward factually supportive opinions and demonstrative facts.

[Amaznjohn]

Originally Posted by Tricky D

Originally Posted by Amaznjohn No its not.
A foetus has the potential to become sentient while a nail doesn't.
You need to be alive to be sentient (be aware of yourself and other things), but not everything that lives is sentient.
A brain dead individual on an iron lung machine is not sentient, but as long as he is connected to the lung machine he is considered alive.

In the future we will probably create AI computers that will be sentient, the question then is if an AI computer can be considered 'alive'.

Is it possible to forget about fingernails for this discussion?
You continue to avoid answering my questions, as I suspect, to prevent your postion being deemed cruel and lacking compassion.