The coming civil war over abortion

Sounds like you got lucky.

As do most people.

"Do as I say, not as I did/do."

That's the typical right wing attitude on everything.

 

Yeah except none of the laws, including the Alabama one, send the mothers to jail.

Next.

On a side note, killing a 5 month old fetus should be no different than killing a 5 month old infant.

 

Yet you don't say what you did do.

Interesting.

 

What about a day old fetus?

 

Except you're talking to someone who never had to experience getting someone pregnant accidentally.

What you call luck, I call making better decisions than most.

First of all, I wasn't out trying to get in as many panties as possible while doing it drunk and recklessly as possible.

I was taught the value of a relationship, unlike the men and women running around getting knocked up by a different person every year and an STD collection in my medical record that resembles the Encyclopedia Britannica.

 

The best I can make of your argument is that potential value does not mean current value. I'll certainly grant you that. The zygotes and eggs and spermicides and condoms are all singing about every sperm is sacred, and I get the ridiculousness of it all.

Yet I just can't get away from the fact that we have to come from somewhere, and that there is an a priori axiomatic value to a human life. I have to start from that, so then the problem does come down to what you wrote concerning contraceptives or maybe even forcing women into marriage strictly for reproductive purposes.

It seems that while you make a valid rebuttal against the argument from potential, wouldnt this also apply to infants, toddlers, and teenagers?

There has to be a line somewhere that says this is a valuable human life and this is a potentially valuable human life, so why not draw the line in that particular sand somewhere between fertilization and birth?

I'll figure it out, or probably not. I admit you got me stumped.

 

Here's my secret:

I behaved responsibly.

 

Ah. There is the question that is at the root of the abortion argument.

At what point does a human being have a right to life.

I'm not completely anti-abortion, FYI. Like most Americans, I believe there is a brief time period where it would be permissible.

The main problem I have is that the entire abortion industry is about a. money and b. an irresponsible lifestyle.

I'm tired of the lies and justifications used by the pro-abortion at any time crowd.

 

Condoms have a 2% failure rate when used correctly [1]. In the real world they put figures around 85% due to misapplication or slip off’s. Even ignoring those individuals, Do you believe the individuals involved in the 2% out of every 100 uses was not behaving responsibly?

Oh wait, many of the pro-birth crowd want children that have been raped by their father to carry to term — never mind. Each and every one of them are monsters.

 

Yet you still don't say what you did do.

Obviously, you don't want to.

 

How so?

Abstinence? Implant?

What the hell is "responsibly"?

The only sure fire way to be "responsible" in such matters is complete abstinence.

 

Is that so?

Huh.

Well if that don't beat all.

 

Haha .. was about to say something very similar!

I wanted four, and have three (lost one). And do you know I only shagged four times? Amaze-balls.

 

Where did he say that?

 

You should read the link I gave you - as this fellow is arguing for potential. I don't think it is a good argument but, it is the best I have been able to come up with from your side of the fence

I have not made an argument yet (other than with respect to "experts disagree" in relation to the early stages of pregnancy" .. I have focused simply on rebutting the potential argument.

The question is whether or not a person exists. If a person can be said to exist - I claim that person has rights - including the right to life. As such infants and teenagers have those rights. (I can give my justification for personhood for infants if you like but I think you already agree with this )

Where I disagree is with the claim that a zygote "defacto" qualifies as a person. By "defacto" I mean that this claim can be proven by any reasonable standard.

You responded with - what about the "Potential". I agree that the zygote has the potential to become a Person in the future. Where I disagree is that the rights of this hypothetical Person that might possibly exist in the future should be applied to the zygote - as if it was this Person in the present - as if this person that "might" exist - actually exists.

The journal article I gave you tries to argue that this hypothetical person should have rights - the same as a real person. As I inferred in the previous post - my mission is to find the best argument for the position I am against - and refute it.

Infants and Teenagers are Persons in the present. They are not "hypothetical people". They are real people that you can see and physically touch.

My problem with the author is that he sets up a bit of a strawman. He uses Singers definition of personhood - and then argues against it "as if" this is the only definition of personhood .. which it is not.

Singers definition of Personhood is as follows

To me this it should be self evident that this is a ridiculously narrow definition of personhood. It is on the basis of definitions like this that one can argue that right to life does not apply to infants because they do not have the above capacity and can be said not to be persons.

I think being a scientist as well as a philosopher gives me an edge (not that Singers definition of Personhood is widely accepted among Philosophers and bioethicists because it is not) - we can find definitions of "Homo Sapiens" in biology that clearly define an infant as a living human. The infant meets the criteria of having significant brain function - Neurological Perspective. The infant meets the criteria of the Ecological perspective having been born and no longer part of the woman's body.

There are a gazillion other good arguments for the personhood of the infant.

Once again keep in mind that the author in the article I cited is arguing from a moral and not a legal perspective.

My argument against both Singer - and the Author is the same. In addition it is both a moral and a legal argument.

"Experts Disagree" - with respect to the personhood of the zygote = there is no consensus. In fact the consensus with respect to the zygote is against Personhood.

In the case of the infant the overwhelming consensus is for personhood. It can then be reasonably stated that "Experts Agree"

While this may not be the greatest moral argument - it is a slam dunk as a legal argument.

 

The left has gone too far.

When you're talking about killing babies after they are born, or up until the moment of birth, you're a monster. Please don't tell me that people aren't promoting this, as I've heard it and read it too many times.

Abortion needs to be a rare event. When half of all women who get an abortion have had two or more, it's not rare.

 

I already gave you some examples.

It's about being responsible.

Don't have drunken sex with someone you never met bareback.

Start there and you'll fix the vast majority of abortions.

 

Yes, actually I have.

 

4 times in your life. That's it?

 

How many abortions are okay?

According to you, if done within a certain time, it's not even a problem.

How would you like to get people to act more "responsibly"?

And what if a "responsible" person gets unlucky anyway.

 

Implant? Condom? The Pill? Abstinence? The Rhythm Method? Hoping? Wishing?

 

It's pretty comical how you still don't get it.

I had responsible sex with responsible people in responsible relationships.

In those relationships where the two of us were not ready for a child, we used the most effective birth control COMBINATIONS instead of relying on just one method.

Then when we wanted to have children, we stopped using those methods, had our children, then began using those methods again.

Combinations of things like implants and condoms or spermicide actually work, believe it or not. Combine that with having sex on the days that she's not fertile and you've just guaranteed it's not going to happen. Or at least you've given yourself the same odds as an asteroid impact that day.

Why are you getting so flustered with the idea of taking responsibility to make sure you don't get someone pregnant/get pregnant.

We all know why most abortions happen: irresponsible people having irresponsible sex who don't want to deal with the consequences.

 

U.S. Abortion Rate Falls To Lowest Level Since Roe v. Wade
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...n-rate-falls-to-lowest-level-since-roe-v-wade
The abortion rate in the United States fell to its lowest level since the historic Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalized abortion nationwide, a new report finds.

The report by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports legalized abortion, puts the rate at 14.6 abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age (ages 15-44) in 2014. That's the lowest recorded rate since the Roe decision in 1973. The abortion rate has been declining for decades — down from a peak of 29.3 in 1980 and 1981.

 

I don't think any abortions are "ok". Each one is a travesty.

Yet I recognize the reality that even if everyone got an implant and used a condom there would still be a thousand or so pregnancies based on the average of 900,000 abortions per year.

I recognize that a tiny fraction of that would not be viable for a number of reasons.

Again, abortion should be rare. It is not.

When it's rare, come back and we'll talk about it again.

 

Nobody is advocating for killing babies after they are born, or up until the moment of birth (excepting emergency situations involving the life of the mother)