Abortion??? anyone??

[Federal Farmer]

Post #94, my friend...

Rambling amoral crap.

 

[palerider]

I am so relieved! Here I though that the Roe v. Wade ruling made abortion legal. I guess that there are not thousands of abortions being performed in the U.S. now. I do not, "want to justify the decision..." It is what it is, semantics will not result in stooping abortions. In other words, you are correct in what you say, but your correctness on the wording of the decision is without effect on the practice.

Cases are winding their way through the lower courts right now that are going to force the high court to look not at a theoretical right of women, but what is actually being terminated when an abortion is performed. The fact that I am correct in what I say is the handwriting on the wall for abortion on demand.

I wonder who posted this:" ...From the time fertilization is complete, the unborn is alive and since they can be nothing but a human, and they have done nothing to anyone, from that point they are innocent human beings. "They don't lose their innocence until after they are born..." Have they done something "unlawful" now that they are born? If not, then the innocence you speak of must be absence of sin.
Seems like the religious doctrine of original sin is bestowed when a child is born, to me.

Innocence is defined as freedom from legal or specific wrong; guiltlessness. I understand that you would love for this to be a religious argument as your position would be as valid as anyone elses. I am afraid that you will have to find someone else, however, if a religious argument is what you want. I will stick to the superior legal and scientific positions if you don't mind.

 

[palerider]

A foetus created by humans is of the same species but it is not immediately a person, child, baby, adult or anything else that we genuinely understand to be a person.

Care to try and prove that? person, child, fetus, blastocyst, baby, child, toddler, adult, embryo, old geezer, etc., are just nouns that we use to describe the same thing at various points along its life. If you look at the legal dictionary in use in the supreme court, you will find person defined as "a human being". Now do feel free to prove that unborns are not human beings.

A few cells with no brain is just not a person and nobody really thinks it is.

The uneducated once thought the earth was flat and the sun was a god crossing the sky on a chariot. Uneducated folk often have a hard time wrapping thier minds around things they don't understand. Educate yourself and you won't have to be afraid of the facts.

The anti-abortionists can't concede this very obvious point because their house of cards then falls down.

Strangely enough, I can provide credible materials that support my postion while the best you can do is to voice your own uneducated opinion.

Fortunately most governments understand this which is why abortion is generally a legal choice available to a pregnant woman

Appeal to popularity is a common logical fallacy. It is one of those that exposes most prominently a lack of education.

 

[palerider]

Personage is defined by the existence of a conciseness. For example, no one feels bad (well, family often does) pulling the plug on a coma victim. The only difference here is that the child has the ability to one day become a person, the coma victim was already a person, but no longer. But I see no difference in this given the state of the conscious mind of a fetus.

Take a look in the legal dictionary in use by the supreme court. You will find that the legal definition of person is "a human being". Now, again. Can you prove in any real way that unborns are not human beings?

 

[palerider]

Why does abortion debate always descend into the trading of strict legal nicities, the definitions of what collections of cells are called or definitions of celluar functionaliy?

Isn't it more to do with the woman - her desire to be a mother, to decide whether she wants the baby or not? Science cannot answer the question of whether a mother will be a good parent or role model for her offspring and niether can lawyers or religion.

Your right to live isn't based on whether your parents would be good ones or not. And your right to live isn't based on whether you are wanted or not. Your postion represents a common logical fallacy. You are begging the question and simply assuming that the child is not a living human being with the same right to live as any other human being. In order to advance your line of thinking, the onus is upon you to first prove that the child is not a living human being and therefore the mother's wants do take precedence.

Those "definitons" are a nasty hurdle in your argument however. Words mean what they mean and things are what they are. Attempting to unilatarally redefine what is and isn't a human being doesn't constitute a rational argument.

 

[palerider]

The typical opposition to abortion is that it destroys innocent human life. Liberals usually object that the fetus is not "human life." I think this is the wrong issue to be addressing. We can establish that the fetus is human life, just as multitudes of cells throughout the human body are "human life."

Your argument begins to break down here. An unborn isn't just human life; it is an individual human being.

We cannot, however, establish that the fetus is human life of significant moral value as easily. The embryo lacks moral value entirely because it does not have a single trait of personhood.

This isn't a moral question, It is a legal question. A question of basic human rights.

It is not self-aware, (meaning that it does not have the capacity to view itself as a distinct entity existing over time), it does not have the capability to form rational moral preferences about its future, and it lacks the capacity to feel pain. It does not possess the capacity to feel pain until it is a late fetus.

Neither does a newborn, nor a child up to the age of at least a year and yet, their right to live is protected. This really fouls up your line of thinking. Lets see what other logical problems we can find in your line of thought.

Hence, the reason that the killing of an embryo or fetus is not morally equivalent to the murder of an older human is because the embryo or fetus (I’ll say fetus for convenience) is not a self-aware being, and does not possess certain necessary traits of personhood, such as the aforementioned self-consciousness, rationality, and for a long time, the capacity to feel pleasure and pain.

Once more in case you missed it. Killing another human being is not a moral issue. It is a legal issue. When you kill you don't find yourself brought before a priest, you find yourself before a judge because it is not a moral code you have broken but a law.

A fetus does not have the same claim to life as a being that possesses those characteristics, and a fetus lacks personhood. Many nonhuman animals possess greater traits of personhood than a fetus does, and it is considered morally acceptable to kill those animals because they taste good.

I have referred to the very legal dictionary found in the chambers of the supreme court as well as practically every other court in the nation. Black's Legal Dictionary. The legal definiton for person is "a human being". Now prove that unborns are not human beings.

As for the common claim that a fetus is a potential person, a potential person does not possess the same moral rights as an actual person.

One should only play philosopher if one is good at it. I have already addressed the philosophical angle on the personhood issue and you will find all of your arguments neatly disected. Rather than retype the whole thing, I will simply direct you back to the original post.

https://www.houseofpolitics.com/forum/showpost.php?p=61979&postcount=62

 

[palerider]

Nobody really considers a few cells on their own with no brain to be a human being, person, child, baby etc because they aren't.

It is interesting how you attempt to lable everyone as uneducated as you . Your own intellectual limitations, or those of anyone else really have no bearing on the facts.

Now when it comes to a large collection of cells with a functioning brain all of which is capable of supporting itself outside the mother's body and in fact has been doing so for years, many 'pro-lifers' suddenly have a conversion and think it is perfectly fine for them to be killed.

A lesser person than me would call that hypocrisy.

A more educated person than you would call it the logical fallacy that it is. When you strip the logical fallcay away from your argument darwin, there is nothing left but your own unsupported, uncorroborated, uneducated opinion. Of what value do you beleive that is when contrasted against hard science that says you are wrong?

 

[palerider]

What do you call the top row of images? Do you note any distinction between them?

Yes. One is a human being, the others are not. Your point?

 

[palerider]

Great post.

Also, if these pro-lifers eat a chicken's egg that has been fertilsed (as some are when they arrive on your table) do they say they are eating chicken rather than eggs?

If you had any biological education at all, you would know that if you are eating an egg that has been fertilized, that you are, indeed, eating an immature chicken. Again, your inability to wrap your mind around biological fact does not change it. It only reveals your own intellectual shortcomings.

 

[palerider]

Post #94, my friend...

Torn into small pieces that will be easy for you to digest here:


https://www.houseofpolitics.com/forum/showpost.php?p=61979&postcount=62

 

[Agnapostate]

Torn into small pieces that will be easy for you to digest here:


https://www.houseofpolitics.com/forum/showpost.php?p=61979&postcount=62

Am I then correct in assuming that you consider nonhuman animals to be persons, since they have higher cognitive functions and greater self-awareness than human fetuses do? Whatever your definition of personhood is, you cannot honestly deny that.

 

[Agnapostate]

Your argument begins to break down here. An unborn isn't just human life; it is an individual human being.

I will readily acknowledge that an unborn is an individual human being. This does not lend any credence to your argument, as I am not challenging the claim that an unborn is an innocent human being, but rather, the claim that it is a person.

This isn't a moral question, It is a legal question. A question of basic human rights.

The concept of "basic human rights" is lacking in some regards. It does not hold that human fetuses should be granted greater rights than nonhuman animals that possess a higher level of self-awareness, rationality, and the capacity to feel pleausre and pain than they do.

Neither does a newborn, nor a child up to the age of at least a year and yet, their right to live is protected. This really fouls up your line of thinking. Lets see what other logical problems we can find in your line of thought.

Primarily, it is necessary to note the psychological impacts that would be incurred on the parents of a baby if it is killed. When a woman aborts her child in the womb, she presumably wanted it to die. When she carries it to term, she presumably wants the child to live. Hence, killing a live infant is to deny the rational moral preferences of parents for their child to live, and is thus morally wrong.

I am sure you will bring up the issue of parents who want their child to die, and while I can envisio few real-life instances of this, it would not be morally acceptable because a live infant could easily be adopted by another, while an embryo or fetus coild not.

Once more in case you missed it. Killing another human being is not a moral issue. It is a legal issue. When you kill you don't find yourself brought before a priest, you find yourself before a judge because it is not a moral code you have broken but a law.

Do you assume that the law is the premier source of moral guidelines? If so, you would have to conclude that slavery, prohibitions against women and black voting, and Jim Crow laws were morally sound since they were, after all, "the law." Not to mention the rather obvious fact that the law as it is currently written permits abortion for the first two trimesters.

I have referred to the very legal dictionary found in the chambers of the supreme court as well as practically every other court in the nation. Black's Legal Dictionary. The legal definiton for person is "a human being". Now prove that unborns are not human beings.

That legal definition of a person is incorrect, just as previous legal definitions of women and blacks as property rather than persons were incorrect. Now prove that blacks and women are not property.

One should only play philosopher if one is good at it. I have already addressed the philosophical angle on the personhood issue and you will find all of your arguments neatly disected. Rather than retype the whole thing, I will simply direct you back to the original post.

https://www.houseofpolitics.com/forum/showpost.php?p=61979&postcount=62

I have not found any of my arguments dissected, and am eager to await your response on the issue of nonhuman animals, as they obviously possess higher levels of cognitive functioning than fetuses do.

 

[palerider]

Am I then correct in assuming that you consider nonhuman animals to be persons, since they have higher cognitive functions and greater self-awareness than human fetuses do? Whatever your definition of personhood is, you cannot honestly deny that.

Person is a legal term. What I "consider" is irrelavent as the legal dictionary that the judge keeps at his bench or in his chambers renders my opinion irrelavent. Black's Legal Dictionary, THE legal dictionary defines person as "a human being". Simple as that. You could argue in court for a week and you simply won't be able to get past that simple fact.

Also, you are never correct in assuming. If youi are unclear about what I have said, then you ask me what I have said. I don't consider non humans to be persons since personhood is not dependent upon higher cognitive functions. As I clearly stated, personhood is a matter of kind. Since animals are not our kind, they can not be persons.

And of course I can deny it. Attempting to change what I said rather than address it head on does not constitute rational argument.

 

[palerider]

I will readily acknowledge that an unborn is an individual human being. This does not lend any credence to your argument, as I am not challenging the claim that an unborn is an innocent human being, but rather, the claim that it is a person.

I have already argued the personhood debate and to date, no one, including you, has even put a scratch in it. Further, as I have already pointed out, person is a legal term. Black's Legal Dictionary, the very legal dictionary that is in use in the Supreme Court defines person as "a human being". That little fact effectively tears your argument apart.

Suppose you and I are in the court and your argument depends on the word person meaning one thing and my argument depends on person meaning antoher. If we can't come to terms, the judge is obligated to put us on the same page so that we are arguing the same thing. He calls us into his chambers, takes out Black's Legal Dictionary and turns to page 1152 (depending on the edition) and looks down to the word person. He will then read the definiton. person - n. - a human being. He will then ask you if you can present any evidence that suggests that unborns are not human beings. Since you just plainly admitted that unborns are human beings, exactly what do you propose to tell the judge?

The concept of "basic human rights" is lacking in some regards. It does not hold that human fetuses should be granted greater rights than nonhuman animals that possess a higher level of self-awareness, rationality, and the capacity to feel pleausre and pain than they do.

Perhaps it is, and perhaps it isn't. Since our very nation was founded on the principle of human rights, and the primary responsibility of our government and legal system is to protect those rights, arguing over the "problems" of human rights is moot.

Primarily, it is necessary to note the psychological impacts that would be incurred on the parents of a baby if it is killed. When a woman aborts her child in the womb, she presumably wanted it to die. When she carries it to term, she presumably wants the child to live. Hence, killing a live infant is to deny the rational moral preferences of parents for their child to live, and is thus morally wrong.

Maybe you shoud take a bit of time to enlighten yourself on the psychological impacts of abortion if it is so important to you. The fact is that your rights are not dependent upon their psychological impact on someone else. Any argument that assumes that the child is not a living human bieng with as much right to have their basic human rights protected as you is a logical fallacy. It begs the question. In order to have any validitiy, you must deal with the assumption first, and then continue with the line of thought.

Do you assume that the law is the premier source of moral guidelines? If so, you would have to conclude that slavery, prohibitions against women and black voting, and Jim Crow laws were morally sound since they were, after all, "the law." Not to mention the rather obvious fact that the law as it is currently written permits abortion for the first two trimesters.

I rarely assume anything. It is not an assumption to hold the position that the law is the law, and morals are morals and if one's "moral guidelines" cross a legal boundry, that the law takes precedence.

My position on slavery, prohibitions against women, jim crow laws, etc., are the same as my position on abortion. In all those cases, the courts made a decision based on assumptions and in doing so, violated thier judicial responsibility and ethical responsibilities by acting in a condition of uncertainty and making a decision which could result in great harm being done.

Abortion is no different. Read roe v wade. The judges never address the child. They make the assumption that it is "at best" "a potential human life". They made that assumtion in the face of overwhelmig scientific evidence that states explicitly that unborns are living human beings. That being the case, a woman most certainly has the right to terminate a potential human life, but there is no mention of a woman's right to kill a living human being.

That legal definition of a person is incorrect, just as previous legal definitions of women and blacks as property rather than persons were incorrect. Now prove that blacks and women are not property.

Sorry, but the legal definition of person is correct. Do feel free to go look it up. In the cases of roe and slavery, the judges sidestepped the issue by making the assumption that unborns and blacks were not human beings and therefore not persons. The case law proves this. Women were never considered to be property under US law. Bad law did deny them equal access to the law.

I have not found any of my arguments dissected, and am eager to await your response on the issue of nonhuman animals, as they obviously possess higher levels of cognitive functioning than fetuses do.

Why am I not surprised?

Any argument that bases personhood on the level of cognitive function is flawed at its foundation. We all posess cognitive function to different degrees ranging from zero in the case of chidren born with ancephaly to the upper limits of human capacity in the case of a very few superintelligent individuals. None of us, however, no matter where we fall on the intelligence scale, is considered to be more of a person or less of a person in the eyes of the law due to our cognitive abilities. The child born with ancephaly who will never have a thought or a feeling and will live only a few days at most, is just as much a person, in the eyes of the law as the most brilliant person in the country. Neither can be summarily killed based on the wishes or wants of another individual. Both are equally protected by the 14th amendment.

We can do all manner of things that might make us better or worse persons. More or less honest or ethical, etc., but none of us can do anythnig at all to make ourselves more or less of a person. This is because personhood is a matter of kind and not a product of the degree to which we manifest our potential. That being the case, any argument that hinges personhood on cognitive function is flawed at its very foundation and any argument built upon that foundation is equally flawed.

 

[dahermit]

The Elephant in the room.

This thread avoids the elephant in the room.
Some try to frame the opponents argument by insisting that this only a legal argument not a religious one. However, the intensity, emotion, and anger over what are just legal definitions imply that there is something more than just a legal argument. If this were just a discussion of the legal interpretation of when a person attains legal status, it would not have the elements of emotion found in these posts by pro-life advocates.

Insist all you want, that religion plays no part in this discussion. The intensity of your arguments betray your real motivation; religious dogma. Your insistence that it is not, is just an disingenuous attempt to weaken and limit the opposition's argument. The honest among the anti-abortionists should admit the motivation is religious based and those who are anti-abortion but non-religious are certainly a very small minority.

That being said, an embryo is not a human being, it is an embryo. If an embryo was a human being, it would be called a human being instead of an embryo. A fetus is not a person, it is a fetus. If a fetus was a person, it would be called a person not a fetus.

Fertility clinics that provide in vitro fertilization services have hundreds of frozen fertilized human eggs in storage. Pro-lifers would have use believe that these are humans held hostage indefinitely (and some destroyed or "murdered),what must certainly is without their permission. Nevertheless, there is no pro-life movement that is bringing legal suit to free them. If the argument is a strictly legal one, why no habeas corpus?

An observation: As far as I know, no Christian religion thinks that an unborn that dies goes to hell (Catholics believe that they go to "Limbo" I think.). If that be the case, it would seem logical that abortion would be an advantage inasmuch as it would be an automatic escape from the possibility of going to hell. And, life is so short it is insignificant to the length of time a "soul" is going to spend in eternity. It follows then, to be aborted instead of born would be a huge advantage for a "soul". So, why the drama?