government money at a problem will fix it. One wants to legislate the problem away, the other wants to pay it to go away.

When the argument is religious is nature, there is little chance of changing anyone's mind unless you get them to admit their religion is wrong on the issue. I don't have that kind of time.

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Do us all a favor and just kill yourself.

I strongly disagree that morality is more sustainable than socio-economic structure. Morality is shaped by socio-economic structure. Where did you think it came from? At least if you were a theist, you could indict God. Religions and moral standards change with a little bit of lag over time with institutions, technology, and economics. Even guilt is unfortunately just an internalization of shame which is a social sanction against a person. Moral development requires internalization of morality but the morality must come from somewhere.
You generally tend to suggest that institutions should move with the morality of the people, but would you say that if the morality of the people did indeed move toward a disconcern with life and ambivalence toward freedom. The challenge of morality in this day and age is that there is such a large socio-economic, political, idea, technology base that the choices are nearly endless. Law is required to put limits on these behaviors. By proposing laws that limit specific symptomatic behaviors, you require more and more authoritarian control in the form of surveillance, police, martial law, etc. to give the laws any teeth. It is unsustainable when we get down to all the things that are dangers to life, liberty, ideals, etc. but able to sneak into peoples' moral systems.
The only way to shape morality is to make immorality expensive but it is even more important to make morality profitable. When the only two choices you have are punitive, you will pick the cheapest. Having only negative reinforcement causes people to put in minimal effort (authoritarian parenting, cheap wage labor with no raises based on effort, the choice between keeping a kid and giving up all hopes for a future that enables the responsible rearing of a child [what's typically running through the head of a person in such a sh!tty situation] and giving up the child so that you might be able to support one later in life).
Why do we see rising corporate responsibility in some companies? Because the media glorifies such behavior while assaulting companies that are corrupt. That controls the revenues of the company. If companies were held by the same standards as women who have children out of wedlock, then the media should not bother ever reporting an instance of corporate responsibility not even in a small headline in the business section (frankly I think we'd see more corporate responsibility if the media did a better job of reporting it- again, note that a big problem with the "liberal" media is their strangely illiberal obsession with reporting as (*)(*)(*)(*)ed if you do-(*)(*)(*)(*)ed if you don't).
If we are to believe in morals based on reason, it only seems obvious that moral behavior should be the more rational choice. Otherwise you should accept shifts in morality that are anarchic, violent, and cruel.
For abortion, the decision to have the child is inherently more expensive. It can actually smash someone's dreams. By treating those who choose to have the kid only marginally better than those who choose abortion, society chooses to keep abortion more costly to the individual. By imposing sanctions on abortion, society only encourages more secrecy in getting rid of the child and also has to invest more in enforcement. The worse your options are, the more likely you are to choose actions outside of the law to avoid either. Abortion enforcement would be about as fruitful and inexpensive as that wonderful "war on drugs" we're all so proud of.
And Stekim's right. The trouble with liberals is that they toss money at problems, usually covering them up superficially to please the short-sighted masses, and don't make any more difference than the cons who continue to fight the symptoms of an active disease. If conservatives spent as much time trying to create private institutions that actually help to make real change as they did trying to justify the kinds of traditional idiocy that perpetuate crime and take us on a spiral to either police state status or anarchy, maybe the world would be a better place.
But wait. That would require morality (as well as independent wealth and a lot of excess time) since there is no profit to be gained. Funny how morality is most strongly imposed on those who can least afford it. You're supposed to start with low-risk investment and move toward high risk as you gain excess. We've got it set up backwards.

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

On a lighter note, Wow. The forum is now smart enough to see an ! as an i when placed with the right letters.

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

I dont believe you have any way of determining that. The empirical evidence is certainly far from conclusive. Lots of poor people are anti-abortion adn lots of rich people are pro-choice.

It does; it comes from empathy.

You are assuming that socio-economic structure dictates who you are empathetic towards. The evidence does not support that conclusion. See above.

(especially in a relatively chaotic society such as America, where the socio-economic boundries are fluid).

Such laws cannot be passed without majority consent. The majority determines moral standards for a given society.

Then why bother making Rape illegal? It's the same thing. We make stuff illegal because there is a risk a minority may not necessarily agree that it is wrong. So we provide additional incentives not to do it.

You cant tell me that the consequences of getting caught do not figure in to their descision not to do it. Enron was an example of the consequences.

Whose dreams do you refer to? The mother's or the child's?

The mother should be thinking about whether it is right or wrong to kill someone else. Not whether their death will make her life easier or harder.

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...and not presuming to tell them what they should or should not be thinking, I suspect that many of them consider questions of life and death, the relative difficulties in their future lives in rearing children, all that... and that this focus is perhaps sharpened all the more when they find they have become pregnant...(or so the one woman who ever became pregnant by me has told me, so its only secondhand this - sorry, no links...)

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Should we then leave it up to them if they want to terminate their 2 month old baby as well? If not, why?

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Each society makes these decisions in their own way - for example, in a democracy, lets assume, its the people who would decide, right?

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

I'll agree that a zygote is living, just like your liver is living. But I don't agree that it's an animal(human). It has the potential to be a human, but it is not a human, as it doesn't exhibit any of the traits that define us as humans (except maybe that it has DNA, but thats common to all life, not just humans). As far as having a consciousness, I disagree. To have consciousness, one must have a mind. And to have a mind, one must have a brain. And a zygote doesn't have a brain.

So I gather that you are against it because you believe it is life from conception, and ending any life isn't for man to decide. But I suspect that even if you were convinced that it wasn't really life from conception, that you would still be opposed. So I don't feel like we have gotten to the core of your beliefs on the matter, and I would like to hear them.[/quote]

To begin with, if it were proven to me that life did not begin at conception, I would be 100% pro-choice. However, I know that life does begin at conception. I'd love to think that it did not. That way, I wouldn't have to realize that 53 million babies (by conservative estimates) are killed every year. As for zygotes, they don't have brains, but neither do insects, and insects unquestionably have a consciousness. As long as something is genetically distinct, alive and part of the animal kingdom, it has a consciousness. As long as it is human, it is a person. I cannot escape that, and I cannot support killing any person (except in self-defense). It has nothing to do with religion. The Bible makes reference to life existing before birth (Jacob and Esau), but it does not state that life begins precisely at conception. Moreover, I'm not a Fundamentalist, so I don't take all of the Bible literally anyway, and I think that the Bible contains human error. I also don't care what idiots in the Jerry Falwell camp say. I was very secular up until a year ago, but I was still 100% pro-life because science plainly put before me the fact that life does begin at conception. I don't remember what happened when I was a newborn baby. That means that my consciousness now is fundamentally different from my consciousness then. In the same way, I am certain that a newborn baby and a zygote each have a fundamentally different consciousness. However, arguing that such a difference can justify killing anyone in any circumstances could easily be used to justify killing the mentally challenged or the mentally ill, for example. The level of consciousness doesn't matter. The existence of consciousness does. I've run the issue through my mind hundreds of times and I can come to no other conclusion. I've taken a lot of heat for my stance, primarily because many assume that I am a Fundamentalist fanatic of some sort. That couldn't be further from the truth. I just blasted right-wing sites for a lie about gay marriage in another thread, for example. There are no gray areas on this issue, though. Once we start claiming that we can kill someone because they have a different level of consciousness, because we don't think that their life has enough quality or because their existence causes pain through no fault of theirs, we can justify killing anyone based on our own subjective perceptions. It's a line we just cannot cross.

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"I am a Tory Anarchist. I should like every one to go about doing just as he pleased- short of altering any of the things to which I have grown accustomed." (Max Beerbohm)

The sad fact is that Roe vs. Wade prevents the people from deciding and leaves it in the courts hands.

If it is made illegal, then that means abortion is wrong. Correct?

So what? Every cell in my hand is life. Why dont they each get rights also? Your logic makes no sense.

Insects do have brains. No matter how small they might be. Zygotes do not have brains or even a nervous system.

Who told you that? You honestly believe that bacteria and trees have consciousness? huh?

Is every individual sperm also human? Every egg?

It does if you cant define it. So far you are either unwilling or unable to define it.

How did you come to that conclusion if not faith? Do you understand what "consciousness" means?

Please explain how a zygote could posess that without a brain.

I agree. Prove that it exists in a zygote.

There you go again...we dont care about your credentials on gay marriage. Whether you are for gay marriage or against it does not matter one bit when it comes to this issue.

Your resumes just take up space and serve no purpose. Stop trying to apologize for your position and just explain it.

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