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So are you against murder or not? You can't claim anything on a moral argument against murder being an absolute red line if you think the death sentence is justifiable. Either you say, murder is wrong 100% of the time, or you don't, or there's another reason and it isn't just that "murder is wrong".
This is really not a rational position. I am actually against the death penalty but more because I dont trust government to implement it vs thinking some people deserve it as punishment for crimes they have committed.
You are acting like killing an innocent person is the same as killing someone who is a murderer. Is that your positon? If I am okay with killing someone that shot a woman dead in the street then I must be ok with ending the life of a fetus?
You are acting like killing an innocent person is the same as killing someone who is a murderer. Is that your positon?
No, that was your response to my opinion about fiscal responsibility. You said those that believe abortion is murder are unlikely to be swayed by an argument based on fiscal responsibility. Where's the line with what is and isn't murder? Is it only God who can give or take life?
Personally, I'm completely indifferent on the matter (not my body, not my choice), just discussing the moral quandary.
Last edited by Winterbeard; 04-11-2022 at 02:04 PM..
BEST ARGUMENT against “Pro-Choice” and the “Right of Privacy” to kill unborn children:
“You can’t force a surgeon to perform a surgery, but once they’re in the middle of it, they can’t just stop and walk away, letting the person die. Likewise, you can’t force a daycare professional to show up at work, but once she’s there, she can’t just leave the children unattended because she doesn’t want to work anymore - it’s child abandonment. In both cases, your action has caused someone to be dependent upon you and you are responsible for that dependent. Pregnancy is no different. The child has a right to your body because you made that child dependent on you.”
- - - H.C. Douglas
= = =
Once your actions make a helpless life dependent upon you, you have no choice nor right to terminate it.
= = =
It’s ironic that the same people who protest wearing fur, killing seal pups, eating meat, and preaching peace, find nothing wrong with destroying the immature sentient life inside a woman’s womb.
= = =
I do not think it is a "woman’s right" to kill a fetus. It is a "privilege" protected by government.
Though we cannot poll the aborted fetuses on their opinions, I don't think their rights to life are being respected.
That's sad.
Life comes with consequences and responsibilities. My approach is science based. If you want a car, you need to pay for it. If you have a pet, you need to feed it. If two people want to make sweet love, they need to deal with the possibility if getting pregnant. The baby becomes a human life at cellular differentiation around day 7. Up to that point you can use contraception and RU486. After that you should not be able to kill the baby any more than you should be able to kill you five year old if you decide you don't want to take care of him.
Then shouldn't an embryo be treated as a human life, or person, at day 7?
Why are they not acknowledged as such, given a name, social security number, counted as a dependent, eligible for government and private services and programs, insurance coverage, given funerals and burials?
This may be the most eloquently written confession of extreme ignorance and pure evil as I have ever encountered. Congratulations. I actually had to re-read it a couple of times, because I couldn’t believe what I read the first time around.
Setting aside the extreme evil nature of “human baby eating” for a moment, let’s first examine this matter of placing such determinant value upon the ability to use language as your prerequisite for when life has value, and possesses the right to exist. There is so much wrong with this, it’s almost impossible to choose where to begin, but let’s just go with the fact that among the countless species of life on this planet, the vast majority actually do communicate with language, even if it is a language you personally don’t understand. One example might be the complex audible communication birds engage in, including several species that actually have demonstrated the ability to use human language as well as their own, which exceeds the ability (language wise) of even the most intelligent, adult humans.
The reason why I cited language as having anything to do with the worth of life is because I'd say that an organism requires language to think about the advanced concepts that can make us capable of being harmed by death in anything more than animalistic ways. I could be wrong about that. Also, I think you misinterpreted what I meant by "person." When I describe my definition of "personhood" I'm not talking about a concept I want laws based around. I'm merely talking about a category which I'd use to determine whether or not to personify an organism much.
We'd be best off veering away from that topic entirely, given how little significance my definition of "personhood" has on my actual views. The primary reason why I referenced my view of "personhood" in the first place was merely to emphasize that I don't think that humans are as unique as most people think they are.
If you'd like to see some of my arguments that have considerably more to do with how I think life forms should be treated, you should read more of my prior posts. Here's the best, most concise, yet most encompassing one I can think of, in terms of a post that describes how I think we should treat and think about fetuses, and babies: https://www.city-data.com/forum/63238177-post139.html
Aside from that though...birds do not have the capacity for language, so far as I know because they do not
have the ability to use a finite number of symbols to communicate an infinite number of potential meanings. They appear to have a limited number of things they can say with their words...or at least they can't immediately spring entire new concepts into being as words as effortlessly as humans can...but even if I'm wrong, all that means is that there are fewer differences between humans and nonhumans and the original purpose I had for stating my definition of personhood was to talk about how I don't see many differences between humans and nonhumans, except in terms of traits they eventually develop.
The point is that there being fewer differences between humans and nonhumans than I think there are should not impact my opinions on abortion. At most, it should impact my decisions regarding how we should treat nonhumans.
Also, using human language is not what I'm talking about, necessarily. Just understanding human language does not necessarily mean having the ability to use a finite number of concepts to create an infinite number of potential meanings yourself. If you can't use a finite number of concepts to create an infinite number of potential meanings...I don't understand how an organism could comprehend death, or fully comprehend the future, or comprehend any of these existential concerns that makes most human life so different from most animal life.
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Furthermore, science suggests that over all communication breaks down to 7% verbal (language), 38% vocal (grunts , groans, howls, growls, hisses, etc) and 55% visual (body language, posture, physical demonstrations). So language alone makes up only a tiny fraction of communication, even among humans. So, it’s absurd to assign such value to language alone, while ignoring the other 93%, but even more problematic given the majority of that remaining 7% that you fail to actually acknowledge as language.
Then there is a growing body of evidence which shows a prolific ability among most species of animals to communicate telepathically, not only among themselves, but also with certain humans who share that ability. While this has not reached the stage of mainstream acceptance at this point, those who delve into the evidence of this comprehensively, will be left with no other choice but to accept it as a matter of fact. There are a multitude of events in which human beings possessing the ability to communicate with animals have experienced two-way communication, leading to complex questions and answers, often of very detailed stories relating to past and current events.
See above
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When it comes to consciousness and language, it seems that the majority of humanity is totally clueless when it comes to recognizing not only the ability of most animals to communicate, but the extensive nature of their thoughts and emotions, which are every bit as complex as ours.
I would not be surprised at all if an organism can be conscious without having the ability to use language in any form. Even if they are conscious though, if they don't comprehend death, death itself can't harm them. I'd think you'd need language to really comprehend what death is, as well as have complex dreams for the future that really matter much to you if you miss out on them. Without that, I'd think, so long as it's painless, it's basically just falling into a deep sleep. That's also emphasizing that how I'd treat both fetuses and babies is best described through this link I referenced earlier, https://www.city-data.com/forum/63238177-post139.html
not through my definition of personhood...which I really only mentioned to explain how I don't see much difference between humans and nonhumans...which you, actually, seem to have shared my opinions about, if not viewed there being even less of a difference between humans and nonhumans than I do...so I figure you must either be quite the radical vegan or vegetarian, or just fine with abortion in at least many circumstances or your thought process confuses me.
Quote:
Now, let’s talk about the human babies you want to feature as an entree’ at your next backyard BBQ, apparently because they have yet to master language you recognize as such, and therefore have no inherent right to exist? Aside the absurdity of the proposition itself, you are wrong, as babies do use language … often referred to as “baby language”. You may not understand it, but an attentive and intuitive mother does. A baby will have a certain type of cry when they want to be held, as opposed to the “I’m hungry, feed me” cry, as well as a very distinct “EMERGENCY” cry, and mothers can tell one from the other. The baby also smiles when happy, laughs at things she finds funny, sobs with sorrow, and makes all sorts of verbalizations and audible expressions, all of which are forms of communication, using the only language the baby knows at that point in time. In fact, the very first thing a new born baby does as it takes its first breath of air outside the womb, is cry out, probably their way of saying ‘“where the hell am I”, in baby language. It’s also commonly understood that babies recognize the sound of their mother’s voice it became familiar with while inside the womb, thereby demonstrating the mental processes of memory and recognition taking place before birth.
But, based strictly on your criteria, when would these babies be safe from becoming the main ingredient in your satanic stew? At 1 year, when they manage to vocalize their first words? Or must they be able to recite Shakespeare before being taken off the diner menu?
Look, you really need a check up from the neck up, because the opinions expressed here with this nonsense about language determining the value of life, and choosing to eat human babies as an option under and contrived or hypothetical circumstances, is enough to make a psychiatrist lay down on his own couch.
I specifically stated that I would consider eating a baby over eating an adult dolphin...not that I'd eat a baby at my "backyard barbeque."
Baby language is not language, according to the descriptions of language I've been making, so far as I know...not that it matters a whole lot, because again, pretty much the only reason I mentioned my definition of personhood was to emphasize that I don't think there are inherent differences between humans and nonhumans. I'd just like to emphasize that point, which is why this is the third time I've mentioned that in this post.
Granted, I would consider it reasonable for you to have misinterpreted the original intended context of the post you were referring to...but now you know its true context. I hope that clears up some things. I do not want laws changed based on my definition of "personhood." I want laws changed based on different considerations than that...such as in that link I posted twice earlier. "Personhood" is a fairly crappy, nearly useless concept to discuss, in my opinion. I would not view dolphins as worthy of protection because I might consider them "people." I consider them worthy of protection due to their specific traits.
One reason why there would be the time limit on when the euthanization of babies would be illegal (keeping in mind that I've only argued that it should be legal when the baby is afflicted with some severe ailment, or when a strong argument could be made that euthanization would benefit the baby more than continued life) would be that at some point the child would gain some form of understanding of death that would enable them to be harmed by it...and I'm thinking that would have something to do with language.
BEST ARGUMENT against “Pro-Choice” and the “Right of Privacy” to kill unborn children:
“You can’t force a surgeon to perform a surgery, but once they’re in the middle of it, they can’t just stop and walk away, letting the person die. Likewise, you can’t force a daycare professional to show up at work, but once she’s there, she can’t just leave the children unattended because she doesn’t want to work anymore - it’s child abandonment. In both cases, your action has caused someone to be dependent upon you and you are responsible for that dependent. Pregnancy is no different. The child has a right to your body because you made that child dependent on you.”
- - - H.C. Douglas
= = =
Once your actions make a helpless life dependent upon you, you have no choice nor right to terminate it.
= = =
It’s ironic that the same people who protest wearing fur, killing seal pups, eating meat, and preaching peace, find nothing wrong with destroying the immature sentient life inside a woman’s womb.
= = =
I do not think it is a "woman’s right" to kill a fetus. It is a "privilege" protected by government.
Though we cannot poll the aborted fetuses on their opinions, I don't think their rights to life are being respected.
That's sad.
And just like almost all of our society does...you're not including a few important factors here.
#1. Organisms can benefit from death. You can't just depict abortion as being completely un-helpful to the aborted. That's not been established yet.
#2. We live in a society in which eating fast food is depicted as perfectly fine, while believing that individual rights and personal freedoms are extremely important. Given that fetuses experience the world exactly as animals do...I have no idea why pro-lifers are not all vegan communists, because the factory farm industry does way more harm to organisms with animalistic minds than abortion does.
I think that's difficult for people to understand because we've normalized the thinking that there's something intrinsically important about human life to the extent that we don't even question it anymore...despite, I'd argue, that mentality being firmly rooted in delusion.
Also, if you have an abortion anytime before pain can be experienced...there is no cost to that to the aborted. Therefore, restricting abortion can simultaneously be a government-condoned form of torture for the mother, as well as a means of harming the fetus, depending on just what sorts of controls we're talking about.
Most likely, you won't understand that...but I've gone over that enough times with other people that it's getting tiring. I'll just see if you have objections to those statements that you feel like mentioning and respond as needed. I apologize for not being more descriptive...but I have been typing an awful lot.
Feel free to explain to me how insane and nonsensical I am. I'll explain why that is untrue in my response.
You have not defined what 'clump of cells' is. Except that "it's not a baby."
Which is where your "logic" falls off the rails. There is no such thing as 'potential life.' It's an idiotic phrase used by pro abortioners to pretend babies are not babies. If a baby was potential life? The baby would not be growing or developing. The baby would remain in one state forever in the womb.
You cannot kill a life that does not exist. If there were no baby? There would be no need for abortion.
And I've answered your question re IVF. You don't like my answer, so you ask again. Move on and start another thread instead of derailing this one.
Sigh.
Nowhere did I use the phrase potential life.
I have had a miscarriage at around 11 weeks. You can romanticise foetal development if you like, that’s your prerogative, but I can tell you from lived experience that the material expelled was most certainly not a baby.
Now did we mourn the loss of that lost foetus’ potential to have become our child, and the promise and joy of that? Yes.
Did we mourn the loss of that exact material? Well no, not really, because that very undeveloped human had had no lived life, no sentient thought, no brain, and no connection to any kind of life as defined by living breathing people. We mourned the loss of the pregnancy, not the actual foetus. Some people may not see it that way, but my point here is that it’s very personal and you don’t get to dictate at what stage a woman considers her pregnancy to be a baby. That’s your opinion.
You can decide not to kill, or kill, your own baby when it’s in your own uterus- if you insist on framing it that way - if other women want to terminate an early stage pregnancy that they don’t consider a baby, then that’s their choice.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t sad. And I would meet you half way if you didn’t keep insisting early stage feotuses were “babies” that embryos were “babies”. I’ve had a baby and I can assure you the two are not comparable.
Once the foetus has reached the stage where it’s viable outside the womb, then I think it’s perfectly appropriate to have rigorous debate about and discussions on the baby. I am of the personal opinion that the woman and her doctor should decide what to do should an abortion be recommended after that, not the state, and most certainly not intractable pro life zealots.
Last edited by FinsterRufus; 04-11-2022 at 04:25 PM..
Reason: Added onto a sentence for clarity
I have had a miscarriage at around 11 weeks. You can romanticise foetal development if you like, that’s your prerogative, but I can tell you from lived experience that the material expelled was most certainly not a baby.
Now did we mourn the loss of that lost foetus’ potential to have become our child, and the promise and joy of that? Yes.
Did we mourn the loss of that exact material? Well no, not really, because that very undeveloped human had had no lived life, no sentient thought, no brain, and no connection to any kind of life as defined by living breathing people. We mourned the loss of the pregnancy, not the actual foetus. Some people may not see it that way, but my point here is that it’s very personal and you don’t get to dictate at what stage a woman considers her pregnancy to be a baby. That’s your opinion.
You can decide not to kill, or kill, your own baby when it’s in your own uterus- if you insist on framing it that way - if other women want to terminate an early stage pregnancy that they don’t consider a baby, then that’s their choice.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t sad. And I would meet you half way if you didn’t keep insisting early stage feotuses were “babies” that embryos were “babies”. I’ve had a baby and I can assure you the two are not comparable.
Once the foetus has reached the stage where it’s viable outside the womb, then I think it’s perfectly appropriate to have rigorous debate about and discussions on the baby. I am of the personal opinion that the woman and her doctor should decide what to do should an abortion be recommended after that, not the state, and most certainly not intractable pro life zealots.
I fully understand how people need to rationalize killing babies. I do.
If you lost something that did not exist, why were you sad? That makes no sense. It should have had no effect on you. Since it didn't exist, you would not have even known it was there.
But it was there. And it did exist. And it was lost. What are women pregnant with? Babies. Can't have one without the other. If you were pregnant, yes that was a baby, at whatever stage of development. Otherwise there was NOTHING to lose.
Why abortion? To ensure that the baby growing inside the woman is killed. Because someone is killed, it means that they existed.
That's the gaping hole in that argument.
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