legislating morality

[TexanKnight]

abortion is not a morality issue. It is a killing issue. We outlaw killing all the time. Do not minimize it by making it a morality issue.

 

[bz5]

stop putting words in my mouth. that would never happen. that is a straw man argument, and if that’s not obvious to everyone else on the boards, then you need to look up “straw man argument” on wikipedia.

that’s not my opinion at all. it’s not even close to my opinion. if you can’t understand this, then feel free to ask me questions. but what you are doing really is arguing with yourself. because the “opinions” that you ascribe to me are your own, as are your criticisms of them. like a snake eating its tail.

so when exactly does the unborn life become a human? like i said, it is my firm religious belief that life begins when you take your first breath. things like breath, wind and lightness are very important to taoists.

i know that this is true, the truth, because i believe it;p but when does andromedus think that life begins? how can we know it?

so you must understand that i can’t move an inch from my position. so what would andromedus do next, now that you have reached an impasse?

How is that a straw man argument? Have you never heard of partial birth abortion? Did you hear of the recent case in Canada of a woman who killed her newborn and tried to hide the body? The woman was then let off by the judge, who cited the fact that since abortion is legal, this really wasn’t so different.

 

[Mumbles140]

**1)**i agree. but you are playing a little loose and fast with scientific facts. as much fun as watching tv is, you can’t rely on it for medical information. clinical death means cardiac arrest, when the heart stops beating, and blood flow ceases to deliver oxygen to the brain. but just because someone is clinically dead, it doesn’t mean they are permanently dead; like you mentioned, CPR may be used to revive people.

**2)**but back to my religious beliefs, i think that life ends when you take your last breath. but science doesn’t have an arbitrary line after which if a person crosses it they are considered dead. science also doesn’t teach us that life begins at any particular time. it is a religious and personal belief that life begins at conception, for instance. but science would not confirm either of our positions.

from the Guardian:
**3)**Ian Wilmut, the creator of Dolly the sheep and Britain’s latest researcher to gain a human cloning licence, will only use human embryos to research motor neurone disease until they are 14 days old. The two-week line was drawn largely because before that time, embryos have not developed what is called the primitive streak, a thickening of the embryo that eventually forms the backbone.

so i guess this is an example of a scientific opinion, but it isn’t the same as claiming that science proves life begins 2 weeks after conception.

1. The TV thing was a draw-in to ‘common sense’. I was trained in CPR, but I believe the average person understands clinical death as cardiac arrest.
2. Science doesn’t have any ‘arbitrary’ line, which is why they must classify clinical death as such. It is then subjective on the part of the doctor/treating responder to determine when someone is no longer able to be revived. Regardless, neither of those times rely solely on breath. I’m not discounting your religious beliefs, only stating that it is not the same view held by the scientific/medical community.
3. Though this confirms life at 2 weeks, it doesn’t discount the fact that life begins at conception. At the moment of conception, there is an entirely separate organism. Though residing in the womb, it is a separate being than the mother, with it’s own unique DNA structure, carrying its own unique traits, and in the process of developing into a human. My arguments were never based on the formative stages of the body, but rather on the fact that it is a separate being with unique human DNA, and that it is living. If you have some way of refuting those facts, please do, but to my knowledge, they are set in stone.

 

[ExplosiveOxygen]

You wanted a quote, so here it is. As a reminder, my statement was: Your suggestion is that suffering is bad, and people ‘may not’ have a good shot in life of ‘making something’ of themselves by being properly educated and raised…

So my inference is that you can’t rely on the state to educate (agreed), and if a parent is unable to ‘foster a child to full potential’ (my emphasis added), then that causes lifelong damage to the child. So I took that ‘lifelong damage’ to mean they were ‘handicapped’ from someone who was properly raised. The implication is that they will be worse off (suffer). So, by handicapping them, you are putting their value as less than others, and so your options include preventing their birth.

However, this is entirely speculating on the conditions existing before they are even conceived - your attempt to nip it in the bud, so to speak. My point was that if this were the case, someone like Obama may have met your reasoning to be aborted, or have his birth ‘prevented’ from occurring.

You finish by outright claiming that bringing a child into the world where there is suffering caused by unfit parenting is ‘destruction’. Again, the implication lies that the child is better off never being conceived/born. But let’s continue this. Looking into the news, we see about kidnappings, child abuse, sexual assault, etc. What’s to say that a child in a good home can’t experience this type of suffering? Should they, too, be prevented the chance to suffer by taking away their chance of life?

Yes, if you can tell the future. The statistics of unwilling mothers giving birth speak for themselves. Not to mention, if you made abortion illegal and a mother REALLY wanted to abort, well you avoided those issues altogether.

Your argument seems to be that if you can’t fix everything then don’t fix the little things.

 

[ExplosiveOxygen]

How do you propose to end suffering? And isn’t murder causing harm? There have been several abortionists and pro-choice advocates who, after watching the destructive and harmful video tape of an actual abortion, have become pro-life. Their testimony is that the fetus is suffering. So, ending abortions is helping to end suffering.

You seem to be ignoring my actual arguments in this thread so I will say it to you clearly, and you can refer to my earlier posts for clarity.
If you want to ban abortion. Don’t wait until your abortion ban is passed to fix the welfare of the children who will be born to unwilling parents.

 

[Mumbles140]

You seem to be ignoring my actual arguments in this thread so I will say it to you clearly, and you can refer to my earlier posts for clarity.
If you want to ban abortion. Don’t wait until your abortion ban is passed to fix the welfare of the children who will be born to unwilling parents.

I see. So if abortions are banned, there will be more children born to parents who did not intend to have the pregnancy. Assuming only a percentage are adopted, that leaves some to be raised by unwilling parents. Therefore, before banning abortion, we need to make sure a system is in place for these children to be raised properly and in a good environment, or else they have the potential to suffer greatly - I believe your phrasing was ‘destruction’ in regards to their life. Is that a fair assessment of your argument?

My apologies for not understanding it more clearly before. I was wondering why the educational system and responsibility of parents was brought in with your arguments, but I understand your point now. So, again, is that a reasonable understanding of the point you are making?

 

[ExplosiveOxygen]

I see. So if abortions are banned, there will be more children born to parents who did not intend to have the pregnancy. Assuming only a percentage are adopted, that leaves some to be raised by unwilling parents. Therefore, before banning abortion, we need to make sure a system is in place for these children to be raised properly and in a good environment, or else they have the potential to suffer greatly - I believe your phrasing was ‘destruction’ in regards to their life. Is that a fair assessment of your argument?

My apologies for not understanding it more clearly before. I was wondering why the educational system and responsibility of parents was brought in with your arguments, but I understand your point now. So, again, is that a reasonable understanding of the point you are making?

It’s better than before, both changes need to occur together, not one or the other first.

 

[Mumbles140]

It’s better than before, both changes need to occur together, not one or the other first.

I see now. I agree with you, except I propose this: Keeping a wide-spread abortion ban hypothetical (since that is a long ways off), but looking at the welfare system (not just the government subsidy, but our community support system, etc), it will take a lot of repair and work. I say to get working on it now and build it up strong while the fight against legalized abortion continues. However, if I had the choice of one over the other, I would cease abortions first. I consider this to be a much more grave act, and I think this evil needs to be eradicated immediately. Though not perfect, society has a way of adjusting for sudden changes (such as if millions of babies were born rather than aborted), and I believe an abortion ban would jump-start the welfare system (again, used loosely) and really bring about the change necessary to support these and all children.

 

[z0wb13]

abortion is not a morality issue. It is a killing issue. We outlaw killing all the time. Do not minimize it by making it a morality issue.

we also encourage killing all the time. you aren’t making a point; this is an emotional appeal.

 

[z0wb13]

1. Though this confirms life at 2 weeks,

this doesn’t “confirm” that life begins at 2 weeks. you are making that up, whole cloth. all it confirms is that the scientist who cloned dolly doesn’t use 2 week old cells for research. and i will concede that is likely personal or religious beliefs that guide this decision. but if your argument is “two weeks is better than 4 weeks,” then you need to look in a mirror and say to yourself “i find beliefs which are similar to my own more acceptable than those that are dissimilar.”

it doesn’t discount the fact that life begins at conception. At the moment of conception, there is an entirely separate organism. Though residing in the womb, it is a separate being than the mother, with it’s own unique DNA structure, carrying its own unique traits, and in the process of developing into a human. My arguments were never based on the formative stages of the body, but rather on the fact that it is a separate being with unique human DNA, and that it is living. If you have some way of refuting those facts, please do, but to my knowledge, they are set in stone.

okay, i have the perfect example that refutes those facts. twins. do. not. have. unique. human. d. n. a. also, the twin doesn’t form at the moment of conception. it happens very early, to be sure, often before implantation (which if you want to get clinical, is the “moment” that pregnancy begins). but the bright line that you draw at conception only reveals your incomplete understanding of human reproduction.

wikipedia: The degree of separation of the twins in utero depends on if and when they split into two zygotes. Dizygotic twins were always two zygotes. Monozygotic twins split into two zygotes at some time very early in the pregnancy. The timing of this separation determines the chorionicity and amniocity (the number of sacs) of the pregnancy. Dichorionic twins either never divided (i.e.: were dizygotic) or they divided within the first 4 days. Monoamnionic twins divide after the first week.

but still, even if you were right, i mean in your medical knowledge (that every pregnancy was somehow orderly, even identical, between different cases) you still can’t say that conception is the beginning of life. or rather, you can say it, but you must concede that you are taking a position based on religious beliefs, and not based on objective reality.

life is a continuum. here’s a challenge, try to point out on a rainbow the exact moment that it changes from red to orange. that’s the easy part (635 nm). the hard part is explaining why your perceptions are any more valid than anyone else’s.

 

[z0wb13]

we also encourage killing all the time. you aren’t making a point; this is an emotional appeal.

i just want to point out before anyone else does what a weak argument this is;p

but it isn’t like all killing is treated the same under the law, either. there are degrees of murder. i think there is an obvious difference in intent between, let’s say: hitting and killing some unfortunate pedestrian on a dark road, and following an estranged spouse home after work and stabbing them. i think most reasonable people would agree that these are two different crimes, even though the net effect is minus one.

so it is unfair and ridiculous to equate abortion with “murdering babies.” unfair: because the intent certainly isn’t similar at all to most of the other things that motivate murder. ridiculous: because there is no baby, because nearly all abortions are performed before there is ever anything that looks even remotely like a baby.

 

[TexanKnight]

we also encourage killing all the time. you aren’t making a point; this is an emotional appeal.

no it isn’t. An emotional appeal would be to ask you to donate to breast cancer research.

Abortion is killing. nothing to do with emotion.

But, if you minimize it like you are doing, it sure makes it easier to justify…

 

[bz5]

so it is unfair and ridiculous to equate abortion with “murdering babies.” unfair: because the intent certainly isn’t similar at all to most of the other things that motivate murder. ridiculous: because there is no baby, because nearly all abortions are performed before there is ever anything that looks even remotely like a baby.

But again, THIS is what seems very emotional, rather than logical or scientific. You don’t always feel the EMOTIONAL pull to a fetus that you do to a warm, cooing newborn (I did with my first baby,but I can see how others wouldn’t). You don’t feel the EMOTIONAL attraction to someone in a stage of life who doesn’t look as cute as a baby.

 

[bz5]

I see now. I agree with you, except I propose this: Keeping a wide-spread abortion ban hypothetical (since that is a long ways off), but looking at the welfare system (not just the government subsidy, but our community support system, etc), it will take a lot of repair and work. I say to get working on it now and build it up strong while the fight against legalized abortion continues. However, if I had the choice of one over the other, I would cease abortions first. I consider this to be a much more grave act, and I think this evil needs to be eradicated immediately. Though not perfect, society has a way of adjusting for sudden changes (such as if millions of babies were born rather than aborted), and I believe an abortion ban would jump-start the welfare system (again, used loosely) and really bring about the change necessary to support these and all children.

I would also add that in a society that would value life, seeing it as precious and from God, it would seem to me much more likely that these children would be cared for - the charity, the good education, and all the needy families require - it seems much more likely to be provided in a community that truly respects life

 

[Mumbles140]

we also encourage killing all the time. you aren’t making a point; this is an emotional appeal.

Let me clarify - this is an issue of murder: the taking of an innocent, defenseless life. This is not someone shooting back in self defense. This is the willful act to end the life of another, plain and simple.

 

[Mumbles140]

**1)**this doesn’t “confirm” that life begins at 2 weeks. you are making that up, whole cloth. all it confirms is that the scientist who cloned dolly doesn’t use 2 week old cells for research. and i will concede that is likely personal or religious beliefs that guide this decision. but if your argument is “two weeks is better than 4 weeks,” then you need to look in a mirror and say to yourself “i find beliefs which are similar to my own more acceptable than those that are dissimilar.”

**2)**okay, i have the perfect example that refutes those facts. twins. do. not. have. unique. human. d. n. a. also, the twin doesn’t form at the moment of conception. it happens very early, to be sure, often before implantation (which if you want to get clinical, is the “moment” that pregnancy begins). but the bright line that you draw at conception only reveals your incomplete understanding of human reproduction.

**3)**but still, even if you were right, i mean in your medical knowledge (that every pregnancy was somehow orderly, even identical, between different cases) you still can’t say that conception is the beginning of life. or rather, you can say it, but you must concede that you are taking a position based on religious beliefs, and not based on objective reality.

life is a continuum. here’s a challenge, try to point out on a rainbow the exact moment that it changes from red to orange. that’s the easy part (635 nm). the hard part is explaining why your perceptions are any more valid than anyone else’s.

1. The scientist is confirming that it has begun to grow a backbone. How can something grow if it isn’t alive? People talk about ‘formation’ and ‘it doesn’t look human’, but it has a backbone - it is classified as a vertebrate at two weeks. Seems pretty clear…
2. I’m sorry, I didn’t think it necessary to state that by ‘unique human DNA’, I meant unique from the parents’. This is not simply living cells of the parents’ sticking around together. Those cells joined to create something new. There is nothing concerning religious beliefs here - separate DNA from the parents means a separate, living organism. What happens afterwards in regards to twins is irrelevant - we are only looking at the differences between the parent and the child. Though it is within the woman’s body, it is clearly a separate entity than the woman.

Also, the idea that implantation begins pregnancy is simply ridiculous. It is used often by proponents of RU-486 because they claim it isn’t an abortifacient, but simply prevents implantation. But let’s be real - whether the child is implanted or not does not change that it is a living entity, separate from the parents, with unique DNA. This in itself shows it is human. Now, I will say that pregnancy starts with implantation, but the life is there either way.

1. If you can somehow disprove that a fertilized embryo is not living, does not have human DNA, or should otherwise not be counted as a separate organism, I would love to hear it. All my support for those cases has been scientific. Your claim that they are my religious beliefs is correct, but they are backed by science. Where is your science that life begins at the first breath? I know your religious beliefs hold to that, but where is the science?

 

[Mumbles140]

i just want to point out before anyone else does what a weak argument this is;p

but it isn’t like all killing is treated the same under the law, either. there are degrees of murder. i think there is an obvious difference in intent between, let’s say: hitting and killing some unfortunate pedestrian on a dark road, and following an estranged spouse home after work and stabbing them. i think most reasonable people would agree that these are two different crimes, even though the net effect is minus one.

so it is unfair and ridiculous to equate abortion with “murdering babies.” unfair: because the intent certainly isn’t similar at all to most of the other things that motivate murder. ridiculous: because there is no baby, because nearly all abortions are performed before there is ever anything that looks even remotely like a baby.

But first-degree murder is such because it is premeditated. It is planned, thought out, and the decision is made to commit the act. Second-degree murder is the ‘spur of the moment’ decision to kill. Manslaughter is intent to harm (but not kill), but death still occurs. At least, this is my understanding of things. I claim to be know legal expert, but as a broad generalization, I believe these are decent rules of thumb.

That being said, when a woman goes to an abortion clinic, fills out the paperwork, pays for the procedure, etc, I think it is safe to assume that is premeditated. Plain and simple, it is a decision made before the act, not during it. This clearly fits the bill of 1st degree murder.

 

[Mumbles140]

I would also add that in a society that would value life, seeing it as precious and from God, it would seem to me much more likely that these children would be cared for - the charity, the good education, and all the needy families require - it seems much more likely to be provided in a community that truly respects life

I agree wholeheartedly

 

[Izdaari]

Of course morality is always involved when we legislate… but there are limits to government’s role. The question is, what limits do we believe are appropriate? If government can prescribe morality without limit, well, how is that different from Saudi Arabia? In content? Sure, but how is it different in principle?

 

[z0wb13]

mumbles: Also, the idea that implantation begins pregnancy is simply ridiculous.

i think if you knew more about human reproduction, it would make more sense to you. but i can’t be bothered to look it up for you right now.

but let’s just assume that you knew that some forms of infertility are caused by certain genetically-inherited thyroid disorders. in women with this kind of infertility, conception may still occur, but implantation, and resulting pregnancy, will not.

if abortion is a kind of premeditated murder, then a women that knows she is incapable of carrying a pregnancy to term is the same as a serial killer. you have to realize that no reasonable person would come to that conclusion. and furthermore, shouldn’t a women in this situation be encouraged to use condoms, as that would prevent contraception and the impending “murder?”

human pregnancy is something that only happens to sexually mature women; a 2 or 4 cell clump cannot become pregnant. i am struck that this hadn’t even occurred to you. that you believe God decides when each conception occurs, and further that you think you can comprehend God’s will, and that if a woman chooses to have an abortion, she is somehow undermining God’s plan… i understand all of that.

but, explain how this isn’t a religious position? i would suggest this line of debate, because every time you bring up science, you keep getting things factually wrong.

if you think i’m being rude, let me apologize. but be certain that i haven’t criticized any of your beliefs; i am only pointing out that your snapple-top “facts” are either wrong or incomplete.

also let me point out that i’m not a mind-reader, and that when you say something is “unique” i think that you mean exactly what the definition of that word is, and not that you meant to say “different.” and if what you are saying is that: anything with different dna than what came before it should be treated like a citizen, then we have to start issuing driver’s licenses to melanoma.

having “unique” dna doesn’t mean that something is alive. no science book in the world would make this claim. a dead fish is teeming with unique dna. a blastocyst is not a person in any objective reality. you could claim that zygotes are sacred, and should be legally protected, but it will be very difficult to prove that something is sacred without making supernatural assumptions.