Abortion Policy

[chilon]

(Breaking off from General Petraeus thread)

Yes but it is a human blastocyst, and a human fetus. There isn't even any need to bring philosophy into the argument. At the moment of conception, the blastocyst is alive, and it grows into a fetus, which is also alive, and has been conceived by 2 humans. Therefore it is a alive, and human.

Again you keep relying on a specific notion of what counts as an existing human being. You define human as exactly the same thing as anything that can potentially develop into a human.

I do not define human being the same way. To me a fertilized egg is not a human being but a potential human being. Sorry but they are not functionally the same thing. Your subjective belief is that morally a potential human being (a fertilized egg) is a human being but that is not a self-evident truth. It is a definitional one.

Even if we grant your status of human and alive then who says those are the only qualities that count? Being able to exist independently of life support (which a fertilized egg and Terry Shiavo cannot) and being conscious (something a fertilized egg and Terry Shiavo are not) are integral aspects of what it means to be a human being.

Science also teaches us that at the moment of conception everything about a human, which is printed in their DNA, is set in stone. When i was conceived my DNA stated i would be a white male with light brown hair and brown eyes, who will grow to the height of 5'8'', etc.

This is an incorrect understanding of human DNA and human development. "Everything about a human" is most certainly NOT set in stone at moment of conception. That is an extreme genetic determinism that virtually no one in biology or medicine believes and is not supported by evidence. It is an entirely incorrect way of understanding DNA. DNA sets NOTHING in "stone". it simply provides loose guidelines by which MANY environmental factors actually determine development. Things like height or weight are not at all "set in stone" by DNA.

The correct paradigm is Nature via Nurture. A good reference is the book by the same name by Mark Ridley sums up the current prevailing theories quite well.
http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Via-Nur.../dp/0060006781

The point of conception nothing is set in stone except potentialities. In the days when we knew less of medical science many fetus naturally were not carried to term.

I suggest you do some research into DNA, genetics and MCB as you keep using an incorrect premise for your arguments: 'At point of conception everything is set in stone'.

Also when infants are first born they only meet one of your criteria. they still need somebody to take care of them, they are still completely dependent on their mother or another caretaker. Infants do not simply become self sufficient the moment they are born. so according to your conditions of human life technically they do not meet it, because they are not self sufficient.

Infants can exist outside of the mother's body and without constant nurturing for large periods of time. They can exist without constant support of the mother. It is a big difference between a fertilized egg being 100% dependent on the mother and a newbord being reliant on a mother or something for sustenance.

Plus consciousness and cognition is really my determining factor not degrees of reliance on another person for sustenance. The 100% reliance on the mother in the first trimester or the 100% reliance of Terry Shiavo on machines is really the deciding factor.

Finally I do not agree with morning after pills. I believe that if people want to have sex they should have it responsibly and use a condom, or other forms of effective pre-conception birth control. 'I was drunk' or 'I didn't think x would happen if i did y' is not an acceptable excuse for other forms of bad behavior, so why should sex be any different?

Do you believe morning after pills should be outlawed based on your beliefs?

The question is if she could survive with just a feeding tube, and not machines to keep her heart pumping and her body functioning.

No. The question is whether Terry Shiavo was capable of independent consciousness. She was not. If she is brain dead but her body can function she is not a human being in any real sense. Its not a person without the brain and consciousness, its just an organic shell. Without consciousness a living body is just a zombie not a human.


Do you believe Terry Shiavo should have been kept alive artificially even though she was brain dead for ....how long exactly?

That someone she was a "human" even though she was not capable of conscious thought?

Point taken. but just because some women don't regret it does not make it any more valid or sound reason for the government to allow it, and in many cases allow teenagers to do it without informing a parent/guardian.

Yes, it does. The Government has no business making subjective and arbitrary decisions about what citizens can and cannot do with their bodies.

Essentially it amounts to a right to bodily self-determination. And a women's right to bodily self-determination outweighs vague potentialities based on subjective abstract beliefs in the first trimester.

If you like abortion fine, but don try to assert power and control over society to force them to accept your arbitrary moral views.

First I do not "like abortion". I believe women have the right to have one if they so choose.

The difference is MY beliefs do not force themselves on anyone else. Yours do. If my girlfriend feels the need to have an abortion that has nothing to do with you. That is why abortion should be legal. You seem to believe government should try to force individuals to NOT do things based on YOUR subjective beliefs. See the difference?

People that want to outlaw abortion are forcing their beliefs on others by making it illegal. Pro-choice does not force any belief onto anyone. If you don't believe in abortions then its simple: Don't have one. I can totally respect that if you don't want an abortion you choose not to have one. What I can't respect is you telling every single women what she can and can't do because of your subjective spiritual beliefs.

What gives you the right to force your religious beliefs onto every women?

Personally yes i do. But that is irrelevant to the point of this post which is that there is a scientific basis as to why conception is important regardless of a soul.

You have not provided any scientific basis for why conception is the absolute only point in development that matters without a soul. Not everyone believes that the potentialty of a human life at the point of conception is somehow the best or most logical determining point. It makes much more sense to use consciousness development as that point which means 1st trimester abortions are fine.

Also, if you believe in a soul then how can abortion ever be murder? A soul is immortal. If you abort that body the soul can simply hop into another body. Of course that is based on an Eastern conception of the soul where souls reincarnate and really just bounce into another body if one body is aborted. Not quite sure why some Western Christians have such a weird conception of a soul. Like if a baby is aborted you somehow believe that soul can never enter another body?

[xcorps]

If my girlfriend feels the need to have an abortion that has nothing to do with you.

This is my only real disagreement with your post (other than my belief that life begins at conception, but that's not really a matter for debate, at least not for me).

The father has an inherent inalienable interest in the fetus until he releases that interest.

[chilon]

The father has an inherent inalienable interest in the fetus until he releases that interest.

Well what I meant is that if I get my girlfriend pregnant it is our decision as a couple what to do. It is not the concern of anyone else besides the Mother and Father is what I meant.

[xcorps]

Oops, I just reread what you wrote, fumble on my part. You wrote "If MY girlfriend ..has nothing to do with you". I read "If YOUR girlfriend..has nothing to do with you".

Apologies.

[Spartan90]

Is this more of an EMM thread? I remember a while back I did a debate regarding the ethics of stem cell research with Silver Guard, and it ended up turning into a debate regarding the morals of abortion. He thoroughly whooped my ass, but it's still reasonably relevant to this discussion.

[jman47]

Again you keep relying on a specific notion of what counts as an existing human being. You define human as exactly the same thing as anything that can potentially develop into a human.

I do not define human being the same way. To me a fertilized egg is not a human being but a potential human being. Sorry but they are not functionally the same thing. Your subjective belief is that morally a potential human being (a fertilized egg) is a human being but that is not a self-evident truth. It is a definitional one.

Even if we grant your status of human and alive then who says those are the only qualities that count? Being able to exist independently of life support (which a fertilized egg and Terry Shiavo cannot) and being conscious (something a fertilized egg and Terry Shiavo are not) are integral aspects of what it means to be a human being.

I define life support as needing medical assistance outside of feeding to survive. both fetuses and vegetables rely on feeding, but are physically capable of continuing life without any other assistance. That is life. There are many people who are born with mental conditions that make them need assistance for the rest of their life, including feeding bathing, because they have serious mental, physical, and cognitive inabilities. this does not make them any less human, so why would it for a vegetable or a fetus?

This is an incorrect understanding of human DNA and human development. "Everything about a human" is most certainly NOT set in stone at moment of conception. That is an extreme genetic determinism that virtually no one in biology or medicine believes and is not supported by evidence. It is an entirely incorrect way of understanding DNA. DNA sets NOTHING in "stone". it simply provides loose guidelines by which MANY environmental factors actually determine development. Things like height or weight are not at all "set in stone" by DNA.

The correct paradigm is Nature via Nurture. A good reference is the book by the same name by Mark Ridley sums up the current prevailing theories quite well.
http://www.amazon.com/Nature-Via-Nur.../dp/0060006781

The point of conception nothing is set in stone except potentialities. In the days when we knew less of medical science many fetus naturally were not carried to term.

I suggest you do some research into DNA, genetics and MCB as you keep using an incorrect premise for your arguments: 'At point of conception everything is set in stone'.

I apologize for being vague. Personalities are developed generally based on nurture more than nature, however what we look like, our body chemistry, and any hereditary or functional diseases are written in DNA. For example I have High functioning autism, which is something i was born with, and severely effects social relationships but grants me a much larger intelligence than many people i meet in every day life. Ironically it also does affect my personality in a way because of my many social failures caused by the disease that wouldn't have happened if i was 'normal'. However everything that we are born with has to do with DNA, which is configured based on the DNA of our parents, and is configured at conception.

Infants can exist outside of the mother's body and without constant nurturing for large periods of time. They can exist without constant support of the mother. It is a big difference between a fertilized egg being 100% dependent on the mother and a newborn being reliant on a mother or something for sustenance.

Plus consciousness and cognition is really my determining factor not degrees of reliance on another person for sustenance. The 100% reliance on the mother in the first trimester or the 100% reliance of Terry Shiavo on machines is really the deciding factor.

Infants can exist outside their mother's body, however need nurturing to survive. if a newborn is left on a table and not touched after birth how long until you think it would die? It likely would not live very long. And once again there is a difference between machines that keep the body working and machines that just feed somebody, with the body continuing on its own. I'm not an expert on the Terry Schiavo case so I'm not going to make an opinion on her specific case. However If all you need is food, with your body functioning, you are alive. Maybe not mentally but physically you are alive. If you need machines to keep your heart from stopping completely, that is a very different case.

Do you believe morning after pills should be outlawed based on your beliefs?

I believe that people should be better educated to make informed decisions about sex, and using Pre-conception birth control, not encourage them to end a life they created just because they didn't think of the consequences of their actions because 'condoms reduce pleasure' or some other ridiculous argument. Either take responsibility for your actions or don't participate in such actions. Until people are better educated such pills may be a necessity, however with proper education, hopefully the necessity would decrease to where their use would be moot.

No. The question is whether Terry Shiavo was capable of independent consciousness. She was not. If she is brain dead but her body can function she is not a human being in any real sense. Its not a person without the brain and consciousness, its just an organic shell. Without consciousness a living body is just a zombie not a human.


Do you believe Terry Shiavo should have been kept alive artificially even though she was brain dead for ....how long exactly?

That someone she was a "human" even though she was not capable of conscious thought?

If all she needed was to be fed, yes. just like people with other problems such as major mental diseases from birth, or elderly with Alzheimer's, are allowed to live until their natural death. I doubt her family saw her as just a 'zombie'.

Yes, it does. The Government has no business making subjective and arbitrary decisions about what citizens can and cannot do with their bodies.

Essentially it amounts to a right to bodily self-determination. And a women's right to bodily self-determination outweighs vague potentialities based on subjective abstract beliefs in the first trimester.

For the record I support abortion in the cases involving rape or the possibility that carrying the baby to term would end the mother's life. However abortion has evolved beyond that into 'I had consensual unprotected sex and now I'm pregnant, I can't face consequences for my actions like an adult, so i will just kill the baby and everything will be OK! There are also families that pressure their teenage girl's into an abortion even if they don't want one, based on some vague concept of 'dishonor'. The sad irony is that a girl can have an abortion and not tell her parents, abusive or not, but if she wants to keep the baby there is no way she can hide it. Essentially girls can be forced by pressure to have an abortion but actually under current laws face little pressure if they decide to kill their baby.

First I do not "like abortion". I believe women have the right to have one if they so choose.

The difference is MY beliefs do not force themselves on anyone else. Yours do. If my girlfriend feels the need to have an abortion that has nothing to do with you. That is why abortion should be legal. You seem to believe government should try to force individuals to NOT do things based on YOUR subjective beliefs. See the difference?

People that want to outlaw abortion are forcing their beliefs on others by making it illegal. Pro-choice does not force any belief onto anyone. If you don't believe in abortions then its simple: Don't have one. I can totally respect that if you don't want an abortion you choose not to have one. What I can't respect is you telling every single women what she can and can't do because of your subjective spiritual beliefs.

What gives you the right to force your religious beliefs onto every women?

Once again I have not even brought spirituality into this debate. I never said 'I AM TEH CHRIST SOLDIER I HATE BABYKILLINGZ!!!' or something equally retarded.

And as Xcorps stated what if a woman wants an abortion and the Father wants the child, and they cannot come to an agreement? what happens then? Both are equally important in having a child, why should only the woman have a choice if the father is perfectly willing and capable to raise the child, even if it means raising the child alone because the woman wants nothing to do with it. Which also brings me to the next point, which is women can simply have the child and put it up for adoption. With the amount of families begging to adopt children because they cannot have their own, or just prefer adoption, why is abortion ever the only option?

You have not provided any scientific basis for why conception is the absolute only point in development that matters without a soul. Not everyone believes that the potentialty of a human life at the point of conception is somehow the best or most logical determining point. It makes much more sense to use consciousness development as that point which means 1st trimester abortions are fine.

It is not the only important point, but considering that DNA is configured at conception, and you need to conceive to have a life in the first place, It is obviously very important.

Also, if you believe in a soul then how can abortion ever be murder? A soul is immortal. If you abort that body the soul can simply hop into another body. Of course that is based on an Eastern conception of the soul where souls reincarnate and really just bounce into another body if one body is aborted. Not quite sure why some Western Christians have such a weird conception of a soul. Like if a baby is aborted you somehow believe that soul can never enter another body?

Strawman. This is why I dodged the soul question originally, my religion and belief on souls have nothing to do with this argument to begin with. Also some eastern religions frown upon hurting all creatures, including insects, which in a western sense most people would value the life of insects less than that of an unborn child.

[chilon]

I define life support as needing medical assistance outside of feeding to survive. both fetuses and vegetables rely on feeding, but are physically capable of continuing life without any other assistance. That is life. There are many people who are born with mental conditions that make them need assistance for the rest of their life, including feeding bathing, because they have serious mental, physical, and cognitive inabilities. this does not make them any less human, so why would it for a vegetable or a fetus?

You seem to make this remarkable and paradigm distinction at the concept of "life". As if a collection of cells that is "living" is somehow remarkable. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but if you actually think about it the fact that something is "life" is pretty meaningless. Virii are 'life'. Cellular automatons that exist only on computers are "life". Life is really not all that impressive. Bacteria "lives'. The Bubonic plague was life under your definition of it. It is not "life" that makes being a human so special. It is consciousness. It is a certain type of pattern recognizing life that makes humans so evolved.

For you, the determining factor seems to be some sole ability of a body to keep itself self-sustaining even without any conscious thought. To me that might be a life but it is no life worth living. The reaction of almost everyone I talked to about Terry Shiavo was "If that was me I would WANT the plug pulled".
Most people do NOT associate their own status as a human being with simply the body's ability to keep itself functioning but rather the brain/mind's ability to think and be self-aware. A body without a mind is not a human. Its a lump of cells repeating robotic patterns.

For me, what makes a human being a human being is the brain/mind/nervous system that functions and is self-aware. In every case of mental handicaps or conditions there is still a mind that is self-aware. With Terry Shiavo and with a 2 week old fertilized egg there is aboslutely ZERO self-consciousness.

So you can put the concept of "life" up on a pedestal but unless you never kill insects (spiders, ants, etc) then you are a hypocrite. It is really not "life" that is important even if that makes for a pretty sounding speech. It is consciousness and conscious thought that is really remarkable.

I apologize for being vague. Personalities are developed generally based on nurture more than nature, however what we look like, our body chemistry, and any hereditary or functional diseases are written in DNA. However everything that we are born with has to do with DNA, which is configured based on the DNA of our parents, and is configured at conception.

You are still incorrect. Again, don't just reply but go look up that book I linked. It already gives a better and more in depth proof of what I mean than what I can relate on a forum.

But in short, bodies are NOT entirely determined by DNA at conception. Again, that is just wrong. There are many environmental factors that determine just about everything about your body from height and weight to how your hair is and how your teeth are. DNA only provides a very general potentiality of these traits. Virtually nothing but a very vague imperfect guideline is set by DNA combinations. You are misunderstanding how DNA and genetics operates. Ridley's book really explains this better than any other literature on the subject, you should just read it before trying to make this fallacious DNA determines at conception argument because it is very flawed.

However If all you need is food, with your body functioning, you are alive. Maybe not mentally but physically you are alive.

And here apparently is the key to why we differ in view. You seem to view physically living as the standard for things. I view mental living as the standard. If a body is alive but the mind is not there is not person, no human being.

"I think therefore I am" -Descartes

"Yo soy yo y mi circumstancia" - Jose Ortega y Gasset

"the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion" - Charles Saunders Peirce


Three different philosophers with very different views on what it means to be human. One thing they all have in common is that all their views rely on mental living not physical living. It is the mental that makes a human being not a physical shell that can self-sustain for a little while. Mental life defines being alive.

Until people are better educated such pills may be a necessity, however with proper education, hopefully the necessity would decrease to where their use would be moot.

There is a difference between decreasing use and banning it from your Moral High Horse.

It is not the only important point, but considering that DNA is configured at conception, and you need to conceive to have a life in the first place, It is obviously very important.

You are not your DNA.

You are how your vague DNA instructions manifested through a host of potentialities. DNA makes no difference in this case. It is consciousness that matters.










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This is why I dodged the soul question originally, my religion and belief on souls have nothing to do with this argument to begin with. Also some eastern religions frown upon hurting all creatures, including insects, which in a western sense most people would value the life of insects less than that of an unborn child.

They do actually but Ill save this part for later....

[Henry of Grosmont]

Abortion is up to a woman. None else. /thread.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

Abortion is up to a woman. None else. /thread.

so a woman canmake decisions concerning the life of a man without his consent?

[Henry of Grosmont]

so a woman canmake decisions concerning the life of a man without his consent?

What man?

[xcorps]

There are also families that pressure their teenage girl's into an abortion even if they don't want one, based on some vague concept of 'dishonor'. The sad irony is that a girl can have an abortion and not tell her parents, abusive or not, but if she wants to keep the baby there is no way she can hide it. Essentially girls can be forced by pressure to have an abortion but actually under current laws face little pressure if they decide to kill their baby.

This doesn't just happen to teenage girls. Adult women have unprotected sex and use abortion as a method of birth control. Adoption is a much more difficult process for many women to endure than abortion. I know this from from very painful family behavior.

[A Fistful Of Dollars]

Who gives a en about the Morales, NOT EVERYONE HAS THE SAME MORALES!

You have NO RIGHT, NO RIGHT to force your beliefs upon someone else.

Are you saying a mother should keep a child as the result of a rape?

Or an incest child from sexual abuse?

[HansDuet]