WOW, such a low opinion of me, but I know something that you do not, and that is that during my time in this thread my position has shifted twords the pro choice side. I now support abortion for those whose contraception failed which previous to my involvement in this thread I opposed. So you can continue to make errant assumptions of me which is illogical by my measure of logic, or your can join me in objectivity and dispense with the assumptions of others. My opinion is not set in stone as I am here to learn. What are you here for? Yet you "suppose the difference between us is that my (your) opinion is not set in stone". Call that what you like, I call it a bias clouding your judgment. Claiming that "I (you) don't let my (your) personal bias cloud my (your) judgement" is a silly claim as said bias clouds everyone's judgment from time to time. I am here to learn from the perspective of others as opposed to being here to change the minds of others. We have gone around in circles and I have learned all I can from your perspective so why continue to beat a dead horse?
Women should have sex. Some things are best left to adults. It is well known that some ... not all, but some parents lack the control to maintain the virginity of their children to the point the child gets pregnant. And by women, I don't mean kids still in high school or prior to that. Women can indulge in protection that follows her doctors recommendations. Those who can't take pills have a number of options. The condom sucks. Women won't mind it, but men do mind them. The best bet for the young who is unprepared is to get prepared by her mom. The mom knows the score.s A child is not punishment.
Indeed, and perhaps you will never understand as we are opporating from different premises. I have time and time again laid out my rational and time and time again it has been rejected. What is a rational argument if not one that you agree with? What is the boundary that seperates rational thought from irrational thought? Who gets to decide this and by what authority? No, I am not saying that all. I do not believe a woman is under any moral obligation as I understand that my moral code does not extend outside of myself. Most of my moral code is in line with the law of the land, abortion is one case that in some cases runs afoul of my morality.
"""Not getting the answer you want or agree with is not evasion."""" Not answering is evasion It does almost always boils down to "punish women for having consensual sex."
I absolutely do as ignorance adds to the problem. Forcing women to carry the baby to term comes with new problems, such as not all women or men are good parents and not all foster care or adoptive parents are good parents. As for punishment, it would be silly to do as it would do nothing to solve the problem. In the end abortion is probably a good alternative to an unwanted pregnancy yet I still dislike the whole concept of ending a human life. I may come to say I am pro choice one day but I will never be comfortable with it as it is at best the lesser of two negatives. I am thankful that I was not aborted as I have lived an amazing life. But because of this I cannot dehumanize abortion to the point that I will ever be comfortable with it.
No one asks you to be comfortable with it. If it makes you uncomfortable just don't have one. I don't care about those who are against abortion as long as they don't try to legislate their "feelings"...
Oh... I meant rationale, as in the underlying reason... not rational versus irrational. I understand that you believe it is (personally) immoral to interrupt the process of constructing a human body from the time of conception to the time that it becomes a person (at which point most people agree interpersonal law takes over). I also understand (now) that you do not believe anybody else should be forced to follow your personal moral code. PS: I was probably typing this while you were typing your other post (so I deleted my 'are you pro-choice' question).
I think that is how a lot of pro-choice people feel (that is, abortion is the lesser of two evils). From what I have seen, pro-choice advocates generally hold themselves to a higher standard than what they would force on others, and pro-life advocates generally want to hold others to the standard they have chosen for themselves (if not higher). I appreciate life, and I am thankful for my children, but I would not want any woman to be forced to carry a child that she did not want (or feel guilty if her health or economic circumstances left her with the difficult decision to abort a child that she would have liked to have).
Fair enough. Source citation needed for the above bolded claim. Does a large group of people agreeing on a thing make that thing correct? What if the group of people is small, does that make them less correct? What exactly is interpersonal law? Have a source from an authority that defines and explains it? Why would anyone assume that I was trying to force others to follow my personal moral code? Assuming to know the mind of another is illogical by my measure of logic as I have found assumption to be inherently inaccurate and akin to a throw of the dice. I love questions as they usually make assumption unnecessary. I would currently say I am pro choosing the lesser of two negatives.
Frankily I am quite disappointed with many in both the pro life and pro choice crowds as many only seem to care about their precious view and angery argue over whose right is the right right and who is more wrong. I regretfully agree.
not getting an answer at all is. As I said the premise of your statement did not include any exceptions, to add exceptions at a later date is moving the goalposts. Which is irrelevant, unless you can show me that consenting to sex = consenting to pregnancy . .think about it .. consenting to one person for one action cannot be implied as consent to another person for another action, after all pro-lifers insist that the unborn are a separate individual person from conception and as such it cannot be assumed that a females consent to a man (one person) is consent to a different person (the unborn). Because I am trying to find out what led you to your conclusions, perhaps you have come across something that I (and others) have not thought about and as such it expands our knowledge on the issue, if you offer no rationale then in reality you are not debating you are just soapboxing. and this is the problem with the life begins at conception ideology it is as arbitrary as any other, another reason I discount when life begins as a relevant argument in the abortion debate. The question When does human life being does not simply relate to this issue, it is far to broad a question. Hmm .. so you came to your conclusions how?
Then what is your moral code . .does your moral code allow people to defend themselves against non-consented injuries, and if so explain what the difference is between a fetus who occupies the female womb without consent and the person who attacks you without consent. In this you are wrong, sex education is the US is pure crap, do you think it is just a coincidence that 6 of the top 10 states with the highest teenage pregnancies are states with predominately abstinence only sex education or that a large number of teenage females still believe they cannot get pregnant the first time they have sex.
Wrong, I do not have a low opinion of you at all, please don't project your assumptions onto me . .the word suppose, do you know what it means - "think or assume that something is true or probable but lack proof or certain knowledge", that conclusion is based on your comments, now you have actually responded I no longer think or assume you are unable to re-think your position. Many things. To debate, to learn, to rebut lies and half-truths, to exchange information. Nope not bias, just a conclusion based on your (in)action to respond with anything meaningful, and no I am not clouded by bias in this issue .. As a male I have no direct horse to back in this race, my involvement is purely based on the research I have done from ALL sides of the debate. I have spent many years sifting through the research and that research firmly comes down on the side of pro-choice. Really, you have learned only a fraction of my perspective .. but if you feel that is enough then so be it.
Except research shows that leaving it to the parents is fraught with errors, especially if those parents have deep religious convictions.
The bold portion of my statement was in reference to the point when the fetus become a person "(at which point most people agree interpersonal law takes over)" That was a reference to the fact that law (at least in the US) considers the fetus a person when it is born. For example, if you kill a newborn a few minutes after birth, it is considered a person so you would be tried for murder. That is one of the laws addressing interactions between people (so I called it "interpersonal law"). Most people agree that birth is the official point when it become a person, but some people believe it becomes a person before birth and those laws should apply earlier. When do you believe the developing body becomes a person with its own individual rights? I believe the body (specifically the brain) of a normal fetus has developed to the point of supporting a self-aware mind/spirit/soul by the point of birth (and perhaps even a month or so before birth). I oppose government restrictions on abortion because before it has the capacity for thought, the government is just restricting abortions to make the pro-lifers happy (to get votes) and after that time it is interfering with what is probably the very difficult decision of a woman who has already demonstrated (for seven months or more) that she wants this baby. An abortion at that late stage is generally due to a health crisis, so that is a decision that the woman and her doctor should be making (without worrying that some politically motivated committee is going to review the case and have them both arrested). Why would anyone assume that you were trying to force others to follow your moral code? Because most people in an abortion debate who cite morality are trying to build a case that it is God's morality or universal morality and everybody must follow it. Most pro-choice people that I have met have their own sense of morality but even if they would go to extremes to protect their own unborn they believe it is wrong for the government to make that decision for everybody. Do you realize that Canada has no restrictions on abortion and they have a lower abortion rate than we do in the United States?
Your tag line comments that it is education not legislation. Education is as it is due to legislation. The culture of America has gone to thinking of children as sexual beings. While urges happen, nobody denies that, there are qualify ways to help kids realize they have a long life ahead so sex as a child should not be a thing they rush into. Children are not aware they should screw every person they feel like screwing. This culture has produced a lot of people who don't mind kids having sex, School for sex is fine and all, but I bet those teachers children have to wait on others to teach them. Teachers have little know how on teaching sex. Sure, they have sex, but as you speak not too kindly of parents, they too are parents.
Abortion is an emotional issue, so pro-life advocates sometimes get upset about the prospect that anybody might get an abortion and pro-choice advocates sometimes get upset about the prospect that anybody might be forced to have a child against their will. I think most of the people here are trying to dig deeper into the underlying reasons behind all views. The ones who are NOT really interested in learning more will post their opinion but then vanish when you start asking questions about evidence or logical justification.
Do you think that Jewish law has been the predominant law system? At any point? When you said, "For thousands of years people have accepted the premise that the life of a person begins at birth...", I assumed that you meant in general. That a specific tiny group has accepted that doesn't even make a proper argument from history, which is itself a fallacy. When we talk about banning abortion, what we're actually talking about is bestowing the right to life to the unborn. You brought in the idea of self-awareness. It is either important, or it isn't. And, again, self-awareness isn't something that is generally accepted as occurring until the latter parts of a baby's second year out of the womb. So again, you brought in self-awareness, I see no legal relevance. Do we only protect life and liberty of those with souls? If so, what do we do with gingers? At any right, we don't determine life by meaningful thought. You keep bringing up some qualifiers which I don't think are important, which the legal system doesn't think is important, and which you (apparently) don't think is important. The brain isn't fully developed until around 25 (pre-frontal cortex). The earlier bit about animal brain waves is moot. If there is a human brain and human heart functioning and detected, then I say we should grant human right to life. No one mentioned an IQ test either. "Meaningful" thought is a very poor marker. Once again, if we use "meaningful thought" as the marker of life, then that means that it wouldn't be murder to kill a one year old baby, to kill a person on life support, etc. If you're starting point for human life is "meaningful thought", then the end point can only logically be "meaningful thought". Quite generally, we accept the human heart - we can declare someone dead when it ceases to function, and alive when it is functioning. But "clinically" dead is when both the heart and brain cease functioning, so I say that once both are functioning than legally we should say that that is when life begins. As far as abortion, that gives women PLENTY of time to have one, if they wish to, without violating the standard of life I've just used. No one mentioned an IQ test either. Once you get into "the level of" you've already admitted the point. You've already admitted the fundamental point, that you have no problem with one person's body being used to sustain another whom they have contracted a responsibility for. Now all you're talking about is the degree - I'm not really interested in that. And, again, there's the order of arguments. Where life begins is the first argument, because there is only an issue with this if we believe that life begins before birth. If we do not, then there is nothing to trump the mother's right to privacy. But if we do, then obviously the life of one who she has contracted a responsibility for takes precedence over her privacy or convenience (same goes for the father).
...."""then obviously the life of one who she has contracted a responsibility """" WHO has the woman signed a contract with to be responsible for ??? Is it some mythical "contract " that Anti-Choicers thought up? It must be because it does NOT exist. A fetus is alive, it has life, it is NOT a person.........IF it was then the woman it's in would have every right to stop the harm it's causing her....
My tag line actually says Abortion reduction = education not legislation ie to reduce abortion education is required not stupid legislation that does nothing. I can't believe you actually needed that explained. Rubbish, I suggest you research some history. Which is exactly what comprehensive sex education is about, as well as realising that children (especially teenagers) will still have sex and as such trying to ensure they do so as safety as possible, not just hoping it won't happen like abstinence sex education does. I would sooner a teacher take sex education classes that some religious fanatical parent.
"To contract" is a verb, in this case used meaning "to incur, as a liability or obligation." You don't need to have a signed contract in order to contract (incur, as a liability or obligation) a responsibility. so how do you wish to define personhood, and how do you defend your own way of defining it? The rest is just debating which color paint to use before we've agreed to paint the room.
As already explained to you the issue of personhood is nothing but a red herring, it has zero relevance in the abortion debate even more so if the unborn are seen as being persons from conception because then it takes it away from privacy and into self-defence, or are you suggesting that the unborn, as a independent individual, has a greater right to use another persons body than you or I do?
No, it isn't a red herring. It's central because if you answer the question of when life begins as some point *after* birth, than the abortion debate ends there. There is only significant opposition to abortion because it is believed that a human life is being destroyed. Or tell me, what are the other salient reasons to oppose abortion in which the matter of life is irrelevant?
Except of course the way you are using the verb requires an object, what is the object that the female has incurred a liability or obligation to when she consents to sexual intercourse .. there is no object that incurs a liability or obligation at the time of sexual intercourse. A contract is legally "an agreement with specific terms between two or more persons or entities in which there is a promise to do something in return for a valuable benefit known as consideration.", there can be no contract when one of the persons does not exist, furthermore a contract that requires a person to suffer injury against their will is not enforceable. Again with the red herring, personhood is irrelevant in the debate on abortion, it simply does not matter in the slightest whether the unborn are deemed as persons or not, neither can or will have an effect on the legality of abortion .. in fact the unborn being deemed as persons from conception guarantees abortion being available at any time, for any reason and the state having to pay for it. If the unborn remain as they are ie not persons then abortion cannot be wholly banned If the unborn are deemed as persons from conception, then as a separate individual they MUST gain consent to impose upon the females autonomy, just as any other person must do, if the female refuses to consent then the unborn are injuring her without consent and she has the right to use whatever means available to stop those injuries from occurring, and the state under the equal protection clause has a duty to aid her in doing so. Ergo the personhood status of the unborn is irrelevant to the legality of abortion.
