Issues other than abortion

[Vonsalza]

Vonsalza:

Sure. There’s always all kinds of crazy in the world.

Well, Singer is professor of the Bioethics Dept. at Princeton and he thinks that personhood should be bestowed several months after birth. His view is only marginally different from yours.

My question to him is “when and why”?

I can answer my “when and why?”. It’s the same intuitive response by most of the people in the developed world.

Birth is the best time to declare personhood. The possible bodily conflict with the mother is ended.

 

[Sbee0]

Sbee0:

And that’s the problem with using a philosophical concept of “personhood” as a marker to determine whether the unborn has the right to life like a born person. It can’t be done, at least not objectively.

I think you’re exactly right!

As such, we let the mother choose.

Thinking otherwise leads to such things our country is much better off without, such as the Three-Fifths clause in our Constitution. Technically, that too defined who a person was under our law as is being done now in this debate.

The main difference being that slaves were people who were capable of autonomy and self-determination. Not so for a fetus. So when it conflicts with the will of the mother, the mother gets to choose.

There is no way to objectively make this determination and therefore the best way to solve it is to say yes, even the unborn is a human person right from the very beginning, at conception.

No, because that literally enslaves women.

The best choice in the face of uncertainty is to let the woman choose because we know she’s a person.

Very true re slaves, however it aptly demonstrates that the personhood marker being used from the perspective of the ownership of certain legal rights in order to demonstrate a tangible benchmark like a scientist would - can be (and is) problematic.

I doubt many pro lifers have a “let them eat cake” attitude towards an abortion law. Overturn Roe and end abortion, too bad you’re on your own, etc. We know that a law by itself is not enough to stop abortion. With a law alone, desperate women will turn to non conventional and illegal means, history has proven that.

We need to cure the disease and not just the symptom - the disease being the fact many women in these circumstances don’t have the support that they desperately need either at home or in society. Society has let these women down. The Church is really doing a wonderful job here filling this gap. Perhaps with such support and love and care, they will have a different perspective than being “enslaved”.

 

[JimG]

Harriet McBryde Johnson, a severely disabled lawyer, once had an extended conversation with Dr. Singer, which she wrote about in the NY Times magazine. It starts out like this:

“He insists he doesn’t want to kill me. He simply thinks it would have been better, all things considered, to have given my parents the option of killing the baby I once was, and to let other parents kill similar babies as they come along and thereby avoid the suffering that comes with lives like mine and satisfy the reasonable preferences of parents for a different kind of child. It has nothing to do with me. I should not feel threatened.”

Here’s the link, for anyone interested:

Unspeakable Conversations - The New York Times

 

[Elf01]

Harriet McBryde Johnson, a severely disabled lawyer, once had an extended conversation with Dr. Singer, which she wrote about in the NY Times magazine. It starts out like this:

“He insists he doesn’t want to kill me. He simply thinks it would have been better, all things considered, to have given my parents the option of killing the baby I once was, and to let other parents kill similar babies as they come along and thereby avoid the suffering that comes with lives like mine and satisfy the reasonable preferences of parents for a different kind of child. It has nothing to do with me. I should not feel threatened.”

Here’s the link, for anyone interested:

My second reason for being pro life. I have a relative conceived through rape and another with s genetic abnormality. They had a high chance of being aborted. I know my relative with a genetic abnormality sees no difference between killing her before she was born and killing her now.

 

[Vonsalza]

Very true re slaves, however it aptly demonstrates that the personhood marker being used from the perspective of the ownership of certain legal rights in order to demonstrate a tangible benchmark like a scientist would - can be (and is) problematic.

I agree. It’s not without issue.

But since we both agree that women are people and that it’s wrong to reproductively enslave them, it would seem that “Ladies Choice” is the only acceptable default value.

We need to cure the disease and not just the symptom - the disease being the fact many women in these circumstances don’t have the support that they desperately need either at home or in society.

I fully agree. As such, my position is to let the ladies have the choice and our job is to make life as attractive an option as possible.

 

[Vonsalza]

Harriet McBryde Johnson, a severely disabled lawyer, once had an extended conversation with Dr. Singer, which she wrote about in the NY Times magazine…

Sure. And a few weeks ago I read an article about a guy suing his parents because he didn’t want to be born.

The point is that no one gets to speak for them. And since we know the woman has a voice, she gets to make any decisions related to the matter.

 

[Vonsalza]

My second reason for being pro life. I have a relative conceived through rape and another with s genetic abnormality. They had a high chance of being aborted. I know my relative with a genetic abnormality sees no difference between killing her before she was born and killing her now.

I’m glad your relatives’ moms made the choice for life. Really.

But I’m horrified at the idea of one being forced to undergo a pregnancy to deliver a product of rape that she desperately did not want.

I also don’t think anyone has the right to stop a woman who looks at the life of guaranteed hardship with a severely handicapped child and decides she doesn’t want that.

 

[Sbee0]

Elf01:

My second reason for being pro life. I have a relative conceived through rape and another with s genetic abnormality. They had a high chance of being aborted. I know my relative with a genetic abnormality sees no difference between killing her before she was born and killing her now.

I’m glad your relatives’ moms made the choice for life. Really.

But I’m horrified at the idea of one being forced to undergo a pregnancy to deliver a product of rape that she desperately did not want.

I also don’t think anyone has the right to stop a woman who looks at the life of guaranteed hardship with a severely handicapped child and decides she doesn’t want that.

Abortion will never erase or un-do a rape. And as for the latter…there’s adoption.

 

[Vonsalza]

Sbee0:

Abortion will never erase or un-do a rape. And as for the latter…there’s adoption.

Another genuine disconnect of the pro life movement; you somehow assume that pregnancy is this inconsequential thing that doesn’t damage and occasionally kill women…

 

[Elf01]

I also don’t think anyone has the right to stop a woman who looks at the life of guaranteed hardship with a severely handicapped child and decides she doesn’t want that.

She isn’t seriously handicapped, and (provided they survive the womb) not many people with her condition are. Most live a normal life and don’t need 24/7 care, but many women would have aborted her.

But I’m horrified at the idea of one being forced to undergo a pregnancy to deliver a product of rape that she desperately did not want.

That relative turned out to be an only child. She was raised as her maternal grandparents child and had a close bond with her biological mother. I don’t think either had any regrets.

 

[Vonsalza]

Thrice glad they had a choice, chose life and that it worked out for them.

 

[Sbee0]

Sbee0:

Abortion will never erase or un-do a rape. And as for the latter…there’s adoption.

Another genuine disconnect of the pro life movement; you somehow assume that pregnancy is this inconsequential thing that doesn’t damage and occasionally kill women…

Not at all. But I would argue (as I have before) that abortion certainly isn’t thr comfy and happy procedure that prochoice propaganda makes it out to be. It’s highly unlikely to me that a pregnant woman especially having complications from the pregnancy would be risk-free having an abortion.

As I said an abortion doesn’t and never will go back in time and make a rape not happen.

 

[Vonsalza]

On not necessarily talking about complications. My wife’s 3 pregnancies were flawless and she still has mild incontinence.

There is no consequence-free pregnancy

 

[JimG]

Apparently the argument is that a woman must always have the right to kill her unborn child. The child’s mother has the power of life or death, but the father does not. In the case of rape, the child of the perpetrator may be sentenced to death. If a child is disabled, the mother may choose to kill her.

I am saddened that our civilization has descended to such a level. It does not bode well for any of us.

 

[Vonsalza]

Yeah. Real shame that women get to control the comings and goings of their bodies…

Awful…

 

[JimG]

As well as the bodies of their children, and whether they live or die.

 

[VanitasVanitatum]

It is alive that’s for sure.

 

[Vonsalza]

No debate there.

Just like a finger, an ear lobe or an appendix, it is most certainly living tissue.

 

[Kei]

It is not a question. Humans give birth to humans, not dogs or eels or flies. Life starts at conception. These are basic facts.
On the final judgment day, whether you believe this or not, it is true: you will be judged. You will either be thrown into the pits of Hell created for the devil and his minions, or you can be in Heaven. All people have a right to life. Denying that right by trying to make some sort of gray area where there is none is familiar of the devil’s work, not Christ’s. You may not believe as Catholics or Christians do, but it doesn’t matter, for it is true regardless. This is not a judgment but a warning. I do not know you, but God does.

 

[Vonsalza]

It is not a question. Humans give birth to humans, not dogs or eels or flies. Life starts at conception. These are basic facts.

Hi Kei.

When life begins is irrelevant. That’s not the debate.

But because I like ideas, let me show you where I think you’re wrong here.

First, life doesn’t begin for anything at conception. The sperm and egg were alive before they met. As such, life began at abiogenesis, or creation - I guess depending on your beliefs.

Second, your unique DNA does not exist at conception. The dissolution of the germ cell membranes and collision of the chromosomes - producing your genetic material for the very first time - occurs at least 12 hours after sperm-meet-egg.

Now, back to the point

On the final judgment day, whether you believe this or not, it is true: you will be judged. You will either be thrown into the pits of Hell created for the devil and his minions, or you can be in Heaven.

Or nothing happens and you revert to the same state of non-existence that you “remember” prior to your birth.

Just suggesting that you may have a false dichotomy here…

All people have a right to life.

I’m not seeing anyone question that.

What is the question is when does your supposed right to life “trump”, or override a woman’s right to control her body?

As the outcome of pregnancy for the woman ranges between near-certain life-long physiological and anatomical damage all the way up to death, surely she has some sort of choice as to whether or not she wants to brave these chances???

This is not a judgment but a warning. I do not know you, but God does.

I’ll take it under consideration. Thanks.