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Yes, the picked and chosen ones. Specifically, I want the law to protect the right of women to decide whether the fetal cell clusters that result from pregnancy are wanted or not, and to act to maintain them, if they want, with the goal of allowing time and transformation to take place. And a future new person to develop. Or to get rid of them if they do not want to bring future new life into the world.
I also want to protect the right of couples to have abortion available up to full term if profound deformities are discovered and they don’t want to be saddled with that kind of existence.
Why would you want a bunch of men making decisions on what a woman can and cannot do?
Why would you want a bunch of men making decisions on what a woman can and cannot do?
I would want both men and women protecting their freedoms from the irrational dogmas of those who would be tyrants. If we let them. Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
"Scientists have long known that life begins at fertilization. At that very moment sperm and egg join, a new human being is formed with unique DNA separate from the mother and father. That DNA contains all the information necessary to govern the baby’s growth and development for the rest of her life.
In 1981, medical experts testified before a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee to this fact.
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth from Harvard University Medical School stated, "It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive...It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." "
So you visited one of the many religious “what to say to pro-choice people when they say a fetus is not a person” response lists. And you cherry picked a favorite quote from an ancient anti-choice professor who made an assertion in 1981.
Congratulations. Her arguments are just assertions. Religious anti-choice scientists exist. We know that. Come up with your own arguments.
Science does not determine when a fetus becomes a person. Science says things like life begins at conception. Well, duh. When the heck else could it begin? We know that. Science says a fetus is a human being. Oh, so glad to hear such profundity. I thought a fetus was a Venusian being.
“Person” is a legal concept, not a scientific one. So science will never answer the question of when to assign personhood to fetal cells. So, all civilized countries act rationally and allow abortions with varying gestational limits. It is perfectly ok to kill fetal cell masses if you don’t want a potential human person to emerge after time and transformation.
That is the law pretty much across every good and decent society, with most of the exceptions being in the countries ruled by theocratic tyranny. And although a Tennessee or Louisiana or Alabama wants to take us back to that level, we are not going to allow it.
Should we go to all the hospitals and switch of all life support machines, that are keeping unconscious people alive? Again, it seems as though you're trying to convince yourself, more than anyone else. Theres nothing 'mystical' about what I'm saying. While we're on the subject of logic, which is something you obviously have a problem understanding, answer this question: Is morality subjective or objective?
I'm not sure what the person you've been responding to will say to this. You've been talking to a person who I've had far for agreements with than disagreements. I have had a couple, mostly minor, disagreements with them though here and there.
I'm going to respond to this comment anyway.
In my view, you are halfway correct when you say being conscious is irrelevant. Being conscious is, indeed, irrelevant. Having a history of consciousness built up is extremely relevant though.
Obviously, when we go to sleep if there's a chance we're going to be killed we're going to try to put off going to sleep as long as possible.
If we're incapable of experiencing consciousness before we got sleep, however, dying will not be able to harm is in many of the ways it is capable of harming people who do have consciousness. It might cause us some primal forms of physical discomfort. There can be no existential concerns over it. We'll have built up no relationships to lose...etc.
So...while currently being conscious is certainly irrelevant, having had the ability to have consciousness and thought about death and build up relationships is extremely important. That form of consciousness is what makes murder, murder. It's the only reason why murdering humans is illegal.
Regarding the question of whether or not morality is objective or subjective...I'd personally describe it as objective in that I believe the most true ethical codes would be ones which maximize pleasure and minimize suffering for all life, and I don't see any other sensible way of looking at things.
However, there are ton of intelligent people who'll disagree with me. In their defense, I'll also add onto that statement that I don't think it matters much whether or not morality is objective or subjective. Regardless of that, the suffering I feel, feels the same as suffering other feeling life forms will feel (in the sense of it being unpleasant) so unless we're hypocrites, we'll want to prevent others from experiencing harm for the same reason you and I wish to experience harm.
"For those identifying historical figures with racist roots who should be removed from public view because of their evil histories, Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, must join that list."
None of those quotes seem particularly startling to me...including her quote:
In a letter to Clarence Gable in 1939, Sanger wrote: "We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members" (Margaret Sanger commenting on the 'Negro Project' in a letter to Gamble, Dec. 10, 1939).
That quote is worthless without the full context. It could imply racism, or merely fears of being perceived as racist. All we definitely know is it seems like it could have been phrased more tactfully...but then, this was 1939.
Regarding the eugenics strategies involving fewer people people with mental illnesses and ailments procreating...whether that's right or wrong depends merely on where you want the power to lie. Do you want the power to lie with the state, or with the parents? There are pros and cons to each way of doing things.
Right now, I would definitely say that those sorts of rights best belong to the parents...because it's a lovely thing to maintain our freedoms over our children and ourselves, and because most conditions people are born with involve some mixture of pros and cons. Even painful conditions can be teachers. I've heard of parents with kids with aspergers talk about how nice their kids are.
I could easily imagine a benign society that says it's illegal to give birth to a kid with aspergers though...especially in societies with limited resources, because if we legally allow giving birth to a kid with aspergers, we're saying that it's okay to bring a child into this world who may well outlive their parents, who may need care from someone.
The society that Sanger lived in had fewer safety nets than ours' does. That's one thing to take into consideration.
But...if some society in the future legally provides some kind of tax benefits to people with genetic disorders or mental problems who sterilize themselves, I think we should consider just leaving them alone and letting them do their thing, and us do ours...because there are pros and cons to each strategy.
Here, such a strategy would likely result in enough resentment to create pointless chaos in society. That's not necessarily the case in every culture though.
That said...I still don't know everything about Sanger.
I will emphasize, though, that while I'd personally disagree with this quote of Sanger's...I don't think it's unreasonable at all. I'd have far more concerns about mentalities that label it "entirely barbaric" than about mentalities of people who agree with her:
In a 1957 interview with Mike Wallace, Sanger revealed: "I think the greatest sin in the world is bringing children into the world - that have disease from their parents, that have no chance in the world to be a human being practically. Delinquents, prisoners, all sorts of things just marked when they're born. That to me is the greatest sin - that people can - can commit."
What's especially relevant in that quote is how we define "disease." There are physical ailments...then there is stuff like low I.Q.'s and minds working unusually that may be more likely to be a mixture of pros and cons than entirely negative.
Last edited by Clintone; 05-24-2021 at 04:32 AM..
Reason: re-thought about this response
I would go to full term for this exception. If at any time, it is discovered that the fetus is profoundly deformed, the right to abort should be guaranteed.
I would agree...although I don't know everything about this yet. I'm not sot sure how extremely late term abortions work, exactly. I'm not sure how safe such things are for the mother...but I probably agree.
"Scientists have long known that life begins at fertilization. At that very moment sperm and egg join, a new human being is formed with unique DNA separate from the mother and father. That DNA contains all the information necessary to govern the baby’s growth and development for the rest of her life.
In 1981, medical experts testified before a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee to this fact.
Professor Micheline Matthews-Roth from Harvard University Medical School stated, "It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive...It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception." "
Which is irrelevant because nothing in that statement involves ethics, or the discussion of ethics. All that's saying is "I'm going to arbitrarily decide X is what a human is. Maybe next week we'll determine that toasters are humans. The week after that, squirrels are humans...and other organisms with obvious capacity for pain, unlike the recently fertilized eggs we're calling now...for no reason because we want to be as confusing as possible."
Yeah...in the scientific sense the minute our sperm and eggs meet, that's a human. That recently formed zygote, however, has absolutely none of the traits that are the reason we consider human lives (or animal lives) as having worth though. In a more practical sense...it's therefore not human.
You need to do more research into her eugenics projects.
quite possibly..regarding Sanger. I don't know everything about her, just that she was opposed to abortion and loved birth control, and a few other things.
I've heard accusations about her wanting to destroy the black race. However...I question that, because I've heard some sources phrase things less like it was her goal to eliminate the black race, and more like what she wanted for black people was the same lack of unplanned pregnancies in poverty that she wanted for every other group.
Martin Luther King liked her, for example: In 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. made clear that he agreed that Sanger’s life’s work was anything but inhumane. In 1966, when King received Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Award in Human Rights, he praised her contributions to the black community. “There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger’s early efforts,” he said. “…Margaret Sanger had to commit what was then called a crime in order to enrich humanity, and today we honor her courage and vision.” https://time.com/4081760/margaret-sa...tory-eugenics/
I think I probably like her...at minimum, in some ways.
Last edited by Clintone; 05-24-2021 at 04:46 AM..
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