legislating morality

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meltzerboy said:
Based on your argument, I hope you’re also against guns, because there are plenty of “wackos” who find ways of getting hold of these instruments of death and harming people. And you should also be against the sale of alcohol: kids and adults get drunk, get behind the wheel, and kill others as well as themselves. Not premeditated murder, rather vehicular homicide, but maiming and killing nonetheless. Are you against the sale of guns and alcohol as well? You see where I’m going: outlawing abortion completely, as outlawing the purchase of guns and alcohol, penalizes those who act responsibly. I’m not at all sure we want to have laws that ban certain things based on their potential or real misuse. That would mean the abusers and criminals are in effect controlling our legal system and limiting our rights as law-abiding citizens.
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I am all for outlawing guns! 🙂

Your friend
Sufjon
 
GaryTaylor said:
I agree. How about the its my body debate?
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A phony argument. There are other laws regarding what you cannot do with your body: You cannot sell it; you cannot take illegal drugs; you cannot be drunk in public, e.g.
 
Sufjon said:
I am all for outlawing guns! 🙂

Your friend
Sufjon
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As a liberal and progressive, I should be too, and I do believe that fewer guns in the hands of the public are better, just as I believe that abortions should be rare and not a form of birth control. Most police officers–especially those who work in urban environments–support this view regarding guns. Still, I also realize that in certain circumstances–such as for hunting for sport (which is forbidden according to Judaic Law, by the way) or in the case of those business owners who work in high-crime neighborhoods–there may be some justification, which can be determined on a case-by-case basis. And in certain parts of the US, it is part of the cultural heritage to carry guns. Admittedly, the latter reason is perhaps the weakest, and yet…Alcohol is another issue; there was once a prohibition in the US, but social norms against the ban were too strong. The whole issue concerning illegal and prescription drugs is really subject for another thread. My point, however, is that one might want to think long and hard about the consequences of enacting a COMPLETE BAN on guns, alcohol, or abortions.
 
meltzerboy said:
The whole point of some of us (the LDS poster, Sufjon, and others) is that our religions do not define abortion as murder under all circumstances. This is a religious freedom issue as much as an issue of morality.
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It’s a science issue about whether it is a human being. I don’t know how you would classify a living thing with human dna and a developing human body, but to me, it’s a human, and whether you believe it has a soul attached or not does not matter because there is a clear definition of murder, and it doesn’t involve whether or not a human has a soul.
 
Sufjon said:
The question has everything to do with that Steve. You are saying to take away the choice. YOU have the choice to watch your child die once he’s alive on his or her own. We are talking about taking that choice away from pregnant women. The law won’t let you die for your 6 year old. You can pledge to do it all day, but you know the law won;t let you by medical procedure kill yourself to save your child. It just will not allow it. I’m sure you know that. Sure, you can jump out in front of a car to save her, but the law will not let a hospital kill you to save her even if you yourself only had a minute left to live anyway. That is the law in the US. Tell me why then should a hospital be allowed to aid and abet a woman in killing herself to save an unborn child? Even more so, why should a hospital be forced to kill her? Let’s not avoid the issue. This is exactly what is being suggested in the case where a woman’s life is seriously threatened. This is why letting religion play a role in public policy is dangerous. I’ve seen that denied on this very website, but history is history. I consider myself a religious person, but I know there are zealots and zealots are often dangerous. This is why religion should be strictly an ornamental agency in regards to secular affairs. They should be allowed to blab all day, but never make public policy or legal decisions. That’s why they have websites like this one. So folks like us can blab at each other, rather than make decisions for other people to live by.

Your friend
Sufjon
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Let me be very blunt. No, a woman should not have the choice to kill her unborn baby. It is a human life which should be afforded all the protections that other human life is given. Why should a mother have a choice to kill her unborn child? If she is in a position of saving her life or saving her child’s life she should have the choice, as grim as that choice may be. No one is asking the hospital to kill the mother. They should do all they can to save both. But if that choice arises, the mother should always be allowed to choose the life of her child above her own.

We are speaking of an intrinsic evil and religious views should be as valid here as they are with murder, robbery or any other grave crime. Morality is what our laws, for the most part, are based upon.
 
Mumbles140 said:
It’s a science issue about whether it is a human being. I don’t know how you would classify a living thing with human dna and a developing human body, but to me, it’s a human, and whether you believe it has a soul attached or not does not matter because there is a clear definition of murder, and it doesn’t involve whether or not a human has a soul.
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this isn’t true. a fetus has none of the qualities that are generally attributed to a human. the potential to become something does not qualify it as being that thing. that’s why vegetarians can eat eggs but not chickens. that’s why furniture is made out of trees, not seeds.

it is a religious sentiment that attempts to define an embryo as a human being. so, how can another person’s religious perspective be used to make the laws?
 
Mumbles140 said:
It’s a science issue about whether it is a human being. I don’t know how you would classify a living thing with human dna and a developing human body, but to me, it’s a human, and whether you believe it has a soul attached or not does not matter because there is a clear definition of murder, and it doesn’t involve whether or not a human has a soul.
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If abortion is murder, then what penalties should apply? I think I posted elsewhere that first degree murder charges apply to people who hire contract killers too. Just because the mother does not perform the abortion herself does not mean she is just a bystander. Rather, she paid for the abortion and is just as guilty as the doctor who performed it. Therefore first degree murder charges apply for this killer for her premeditated murder.

I bring up this topic of legal punishments because there seems to be a real reluctance here to discuss the next step after outlawing abortions. Abortion is murder. Then treat women who get abortions as the criminals they are. Can’t outlaw something without giving legal sanctions.

And if the women who abort are not charged with murder, tried, and convicted, then legally abortion is not murder. It’s something else. And if something else, what is it?
 
z0wb13 said:
this isn’t true. a fetus has none of the qualities that are generally attributed to a human. the potential to become something does not qualify it as being that thing. that’s why vegetarians can eat eggs but not chickens. that’s why furniture is made out of trees, not seeds.

it is a religious sentiment that attempts to define an embryo as a human being. so, how can another person’s religious perspective be used to make the laws?
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Ok, let me fill you in some some farm life - you don’t eat fertilized eggs. Every egg is inspected, and if it has a little red spot floating in it, you leave it to hatch. Vegetarians eat eggs because the eggs we eat are not living.

And it isn’t religious sentiment. How would you define a living being, with an active heart beat, that is human DNA, human flesh, and human blood?
 
dusty_david said:
If abortion is murder, then what penalties should apply? I think I posted elsewhere that first degree murder charges apply to people who hire contract killers too. Just because the mother does not perform the abortion herself does not mean she is just a bystander. Rather, she paid for the abortion and is just as guilty as the doctor who performed it. Therefore first degree murder charges apply for this killer for her premeditated murder.

I bring up this topic of legal punishments because there seems to be a real reluctance here to discuss the next step after outlawing abortions. Abortion is murder. Then treat women who get abortions as the criminals they are. Can’t outlaw something without giving legal sanctions.

And if the women who abort are not charged with murder, tried, and convicted, then legally abortion is not murder. It’s something else. And if something else, what is it?
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There’s the case in Indiana, I believe, of the woman who was pregnant and willingly took rat poison. Her child was born, severely ill, and died 3 days later. The woman is being charged with murder, as well she should. Her direct actions caused the death of her child. Now, what about if the child died 3 days before she was supposed to give birth? Is the child not still fully formed, fully human? It was the same actions, and should receive the same punishment.
 
so my question isn’t on whether or not abortion is a sin. rather, i want to know is if it is ever alright to force one person’s beliefs on another person, and why or under what circumstances.

It doesn’t have to have anything about the woman’s morality. In a sense, I’m not worried about her so much as the life of her child. I wouldn’t be worried about the murderer’s soul as much as the victim’s life.

As for abortions, I’m OK with an abortion so long as the child survives healthy. Maybe someday medical science will be able to remove the child in a viable state…but that’s not really the point of an abortion, is it? The purpose is to be rid of an “inconveniace”.
 
““And if the women who abort are not charged with murder, tried, and convicted, then legally abortion is not murder. It’s something else. And if something else, what is it?””

OK then; let just work backwards then. The born child is human, right? Go back ten minutes before the birth; is it a human then? Yes? Ok, how about ten days earlier? Yes?

At what MOMENT, size, weight, number of cells, appearance, (whatever!) is it no longer human? Who decides? The doctor? The mother?

And what if we’re wrong? This is a human we’re talking about. Do you think God will just say, “It’s OK, the doctors said 28 weeks and 8 seconds, so you couldn’t have known any better.”

WHAT IF…we’re wrong? Murder; at least from the child’s point of view.
 
z0wb13 said:
this isn’t true. a fetus has none of the qualities that are generally attributed to a human. the potential to become something does not qualify it as being that thing. that’s why vegetarians can eat eggs but not chickens. that’s why furniture is made out of trees, not seeds.

it is a religious sentiment that attempts to define an embryo as a human being. so, how can another person’s religious perspective be used to make the laws?
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I agree with you in terms of science and religion. But, in all fairness, some vegetarians don’t eat eggs.
 
Glennonite said:
““And if the women who abort are not charged with murder, tried, and convicted, then legally abortion is not murder. It’s something else. And if something else, what is it?””

OK then; let just work backwards then. The born child is human, right? Go back ten minutes before the birth; is it a human then? Yes? Ok, how about ten days earlier? Yes?

At what MOMENT, size, weight, number of cells, appearance, (whatever!) is it no longer human? Who decides? The doctor? The mother?

And what if we’re wrong? This is a human we’re talking about. Do you think God will just say, “It’s OK, the doctors said 28 weeks and 8 seconds, so you couldn’t have known any better.”

WHAT IF…we’re wrong? Murder; at least from the child’s point of view.
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Here here! Abortion advocates love going into this game, but when it comes to talking hard numbers, their vagueness is dispersed, and you see the opinion of what they consider human is based on their stance on abortion. My stance on abortion is from when I recognize human life, and that will be the defining difference between us and them.
 
z0wb13 said:
this isn’t true. a fetus has none of the qualities that are generally attributed to a human. the potential to become something does not qualify it as being that thing. that’s why vegetarians can eat eggs but not chickens. that’s why furniture is made out of trees, not seeds.

it is a religious sentiment that attempts to define an embryo as a human being. so, how can another person’s religious perspective be used to make the laws?
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What do you mean, ‘none of the qualities?’ At exactly what STAGE are you talking about? “Fetus” is used to define an unborn child up to the moment of birth.

40 week old fetus in the womb has ‘none of the qualities of a human’. . .40 week fetus delivered ONE minute later and suddenly, wow, it’s human?:rolleyes:

I find it puzzling that you can make such a tremendously blanket kind of statement “None of the qualities” and act as though your statement is the fact without any kind of proof to back you up.
 
Tantum_ergo said:
What do you mean, ‘none of the qualities?’ At exactly what STAGE are you talking about? “Fetus” is used to define an unborn child up to the moment of birth.

40 week old fetus in the womb has ‘none of the qualities of a human’. . .40 week fetus delivered ONE minute later and suddenly, wow, it’s human?:rolleyes:

I find it puzzling that you can make such a tremendously blanket kind of statement “None of the qualities” and act as though your statement is the fact without any kind of proof to back you up.
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Exactly. I mean, around roughly 2 months it starts forming fingerprints, the most common method of identifying a human being. If you can’t say that is a quality of being a human, then I’d love to find out where you learned science/anatomy.
 
Mumbles140 said:
It’s a science issue about whether it is a human being. I don’t know how you would classify a living thing with human dna and a developing human body, but to me, it’s a human, and whether you believe it has a soul attached or not does not matter because there is a clear definition of murder, and it doesn’t involve whether or not a human has a soul.
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And do you honestly rely on science in other matters: for example, its belief in evolution and its advocacy of stem cell research? Or, on the other hand, is your appeal to science only when science accords with your religious principles? If not a cafeteria Catholic, are you perhaps a cafeteria science proponent? Since when do Catholics believe that the definition of a human does not include a soul? Perhaps this is a legal argument, but hardly a religious one. Whether the former or the latter, there are plenty of counterarguments, some of which have already been expressed.
 
meltzerboy said:
And do you honestly rely on science in other matters: for example, its belief in evolution and its advocacy of stem cell research? Or, on the other hand, is your appeal to science only when science accords with your religious principles? If not a cafeteria Catholic, are you perhaps a cafeteria science proponent? Since when do Catholics believe that the definition of a human does not include a soul? Perhaps this is a legal argument, but hardly a religious one. Whether the former or the latter, there are plenty of counterarguments, some of which have already been expressed.
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Science explains what God has created. My stance is open concerning evolution. I certainly believe in adaptation of living beings over time, but I don’t know if that argument can carry everything anti-Creationists/atheists tack on to it.

I’m also in favor of stem cell research, just not embryonic. Skin cells are actually fascinating sources, as is placenta and other post-birth matter. Think of many stem cells we could have if all of those aborted children had been born…

I don’t see science as a conflict with religion, although apparently you do.

And I absolutely believe in the soul from the moment of conception through all eternity. I made my statement about the law of murdering not concerning itself with a soul because certain people stated they didn’t agree on when a person was given a soul.
 
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