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05/16/2013 02:09:53 PM · #101 |
Ah, so many men discussing childbearing... Bearing a child to term or aborting her or him is the bearer's responsibility, whatever the law, whatever the support system, the religious or political system or lack thereof. The mother or the un-mother is the one who lives with that responsibility however things turn out. She does not know how things will turn out.
(Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal was offered as an indictment of the cavalierly uncaring social policies of the day. Irony). |
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05/16/2013 02:10:03 PM · #102 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
The mother (and of course the father) made a specific choice that led to the dilemma. |
OK -- then how about if the law wants to force a woman to carry the fetus to term, the father be forcibly castrated to ensure that no other woman is subject to the same fate ... oh, and automatic imposition of mandatory child-support payments ... |
I think that would make abortions rare... ;) |
But murders common. |
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05/16/2013 02:12:48 PM · #103 |
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Both of those facts are, I believe, important and both weigh in favor of the unborn baby. |
Yet you have glossed over the only point in question. When does that human life, vested with rights, come into existence? Can you justify your opinion to such an extent that you are comfortable forcing it on others through a rule of law? |
No, not glossed. I said those two facts would point to earlier than later. A third fact could help. Scientifically, we know what "human life" is, and the answer is either it starts at conception or very, very soon after. It makes little scientific sense to not call a zygote or a blastula or a 10-day embryo a "human life". Human rights are typically endowed on human life. What strong examples do we have to the contrary? This fact would also weigh in the baby's favor and weigh for an earlier point than a later one.
I'm not trying to discount your notion that it's a gray zone. I get that and really actually agree with it. But I'm trying to come up with philosophical facts to help determine the point. I think that's the reasonable way to go about it. I have presented three facts that would all encourage us to make that point early in the process. |
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05/16/2013 02:17:16 PM · #104 |
| they need to invent artificial parents to raise the artificial womb baby. |
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05/16/2013 02:21:28 PM · #105 |
Originally posted by tnun:
Ah, so many men discussing childbearing... |
Ah, the joy of being discounted. Don't hate me because I don't have a uterus. I do still have a brain. |
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05/16/2013 02:23:20 PM · #106 |
Originally posted by Cory:
Originally posted by karmat:
Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." |
Really karmat - can you say that you think we are not quickly getting ourselves into serious trouble?
The earth is already insufficient to provide a quality life for many humans, and you seem to be disagreeing that any reasonable measure that reduces the birth rate is a good thing?
So, when do we stop breeding like rabbits? 8 billion? 12 billion? 15 billion? Or do we just wait for the collapse and massive die-offs that are an inevitable result of our current trajectory?
To compare the stating of this fact to mr. Swift's suggestions that we should eat toddlers is just inflammatory and useless. |
Hey Cory, instead of taking 5 words and commenting on it, why don't you look at it in context. Specifically --
Originally posted by karmat:
It was quite possibly a spoof site (and least I hoped it was at the time), but as time has gone on, I've seen more and more people that seem to think like this "church" does. Reminds me of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." |
The "reminds of me of. . ." comment was in relation to the site (that I acknowledged was quite possibly satire)and the people that seem to agree with the "church" and that reminded me of the essay.
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05/16/2013 02:28:36 PM · #107 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
A third fact could help. Scientifically, we know what "human life" is, and the answer is either it starts at conception or very, very soon after. |
Please expand on that point. How do we define "human life" in this context? Not from a religious point of view, but purely scientifically, when does potential shift to individual?
Lets look at it from the other end. Is a person who has no brain activity alive? When heroic life saving fails, that is often the point at which we determine the spark of life has exited the corpus. We can pump their heart for them, but once the brain goes offline, they are dead meat. Can an embryo before the 25th week when brain activity begins, be said to be any more alive that the body in the ICU? More potential, certainly, but equally alive.
Message edited by author 2013-05-16 14:39:37. |
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05/16/2013 02:31:14 PM · #108 |
| Generally speaking, we make exceptions for abortion in the case of rape, and in the case where the pregnancy would threaten the life/health of the mother. We also as a general rule don't mourn the natural loss of a 2-week-old fetus as much as we mourn the natural loss of a 6-month-old fetus. So, in my opinion, whether we are aware of it or not, whether we can articulate it or not, we do ascribe more value to the life of the actual born and living human being than to the "mass of potential life," as Brennan called it; and we do value the fetus more as it develops more fully into a functional human life. |
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05/16/2013 02:33:11 PM · #109 |
Originally posted by karmat:
Originally posted by Cory:
Originally posted by karmat:
Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." |
Really karmat - can you say that you think we are not quickly getting ourselves into serious trouble?
The earth is already insufficient to provide a quality life for many humans, and you seem to be disagreeing that any reasonable measure that reduces the birth rate is a good thing?
So, when do we stop breeding like rabbits? 8 billion? 12 billion? 15 billion? Or do we just wait for the collapse and massive die-offs that are an inevitable result of our current trajectory?
To compare the stating of this fact to mr. Swift's suggestions that we should eat toddlers is just inflammatory and useless. |
Hey Cory, instead of taking 5 words and commenting on it, why don't you look at it in context. Specifically --
Originally posted by karmat:
It was quite possibly a spoof site (and least I hoped it was at the time), but as time has gone on, I've seen more and more people that seem to think like this "church" does. Reminds me of Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." |
The "reminds of me of. . ." comment was in relation to the site (that I acknowledged was quite possibly satire)and the people that seem to agree with the "church" and that reminded me of the essay. |
My apologies. I did misunderstand that. Admittedly, I have been compared to mr. Swift once previously in this thread, so perhaps the mistake was understandable? |
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05/16/2013 02:49:40 PM · #110 |
Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
Generally speaking, we make exceptions for abortion in the case of rape, and in the case where the pregnancy would threaten the life/health of the mother. |
Interestingly, these two cases change the weight of the two facts I presented above so it makes sense (and lends credence to the idea these facts are important).
1) When the life of the mother is at risk we now have the right to life of the baby versus the mother's right to life AND the mother's right to bodily autonomy. This most likely shifts the balance clearly to the mother.
2) When a woman is raped she now also becomes an innocent in the situation. She did not choose or act to be in the place she is in. This shifts the balance to a neutral position (both are innocents versus only the baby).
EDIT; typo
Message edited by author 2013-05-16 14:58:47. |
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05/16/2013 02:54:25 PM · #111 |
Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
Generally speaking, we make exceptions for abortion in the case of rape, and in the case where the pregnancy would threaten the life/health of the mother. We also as a general rule don't mourn the natural loss of a 2-week-old fetus as much as we mourn the natural loss of a 6-month-old fetus. So, in my opinion, whether we are aware of it or not, whether we can articulate it or not, we do ascribe more value to the life of the actual born and living human being than to the "mass of potential life," as Brennan called it; and we do value the fetus more as it develops more fully into a functional human life. |
Yes hence the video I posted of abortion protestors thinking abortion should be illegal but that the women getting them shouldn't go to jail. If they really thought if it as equal to murder, this would not be the thought process. We don't let murderers walk free, as a rule. At some level, even they do get it, even if they don't want to acknowledge it. |
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05/16/2013 02:58:09 PM · #112 |
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
A third fact could help. Scientifically, we know what "human life" is, and the answer is either it starts at conception or very, very soon after. |
Please expand on that point. How do we define "human life" in this context? Not from a religious point of view, but purely scientifically, when does potential shift to individual?
Lets look at it from the other end. Is a person who has no brain activity alive? When heroic life saving fails, that is often the point at which we determine the spark of life has exited the corpus. We can pump their heart for them, but once the brain goes offline, they are dead meat. Can an embryo before the 25th week when brain activity begins, be said to be any more alive that the body in the ICU? More potential, certainly, but equally alive. |
Well, although there is a small amount of fraying at the edges of the definition, we have a pretty clear idea, scientifically, of what is "life" and what is not. Cat...alive. Rock...not alive. Lists of criteria have been created and most will generally agree (I'm sure we could look them up on wiki). There is, like I said, a small amount of fuzziness. Are viruses alive? (most would argue no.)
By herself, a person with no brain activity may be "alive" (having the characteristics of being a life), but she would also be in the active process of dying. Brain activity, however, is not generally considered as part of a scientific term for "life" because many organisms have no brain. Bacteria, single celled organisms, etc.
Maybe, actually, it would be helpful to copy wiki's list for the characteristics of "life" and you can see for yourself:
Originally posted by wiki:
Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, the current understanding is descriptive. Life is considered a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following:
1.Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.
2.Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells ΓΆ€” the basic units of life.
3.Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.
4.Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.
5.Adaptation: The ability to change over time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity, diet, and external factors.
6.Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion; for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism), and chemotaxis.
7.Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms. |
We will note that even a zygote will pass this test fairly easily. Certainly a 10-day embryo.
Message edited by author 2013-05-16 15:00:17. |
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05/16/2013 02:58:52 PM · #113 |
Originally posted by tnun:
Ah, so many men discussing childbearing... Bearing a child to term or aborting her or him is the bearer's responsibility, whatever the law, whatever the support system, the religious or political system or lack thereof. The mother or the un-mother is the one who lives with that responsibility however things turn out. She does not know how things will turn out.
(Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal was offered as an indictment of the cavalierly uncaring social policies of the day. Irony). |
Let this post resound... |
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05/16/2013 02:59:02 PM · #114 |
Originally posted by escapetooz:
Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
Generally speaking, we make exceptions for abortion in the case of rape, and in the case where the pregnancy would threaten the life/health of the mother. We also as a general rule don't mourn the natural loss of a 2-week-old fetus as much as we mourn the natural loss of a 6-month-old fetus. So, in my opinion, whether we are aware of it or not, whether we can articulate it or not, we do ascribe more value to the life of the actual born and living human being than to the "mass of potential life," as Brennan called it; and we do value the fetus more as it develops more fully into a functional human life. |
Yes hence the video I posted of abortion protestors thinking abortion should be illegal but that the women getting them shouldn't go to jail. If they really thought if it as equal to murder, this would not be the thought process. We don't let murderers walk free, as a rule. At some level, even they do get it, even if they don't want to acknowledge it. |
Yes, exactly what I said to my husband as we watched that video. We act in the real world in a way that doesn't jibe with our rhetoric, revealing what we truly believe. |
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05/16/2013 03:11:07 PM · #115 |
Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
Originally posted by escapetooz:
Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
Generally speaking, we make exceptions for abortion in the case of rape, and in the case where the pregnancy would threaten the life/health of the mother. We also as a general rule don't mourn the natural loss of a 2-week-old fetus as much as we mourn the natural loss of a 6-month-old fetus. So, in my opinion, whether we are aware of it or not, whether we can articulate it or not, we do ascribe more value to the life of the actual born and living human being than to the "mass of potential life," as Brennan called it; and we do value the fetus more as it develops more fully into a functional human life. |
Yes hence the video I posted of abortion protestors thinking abortion should be illegal but that the women getting them shouldn't go to jail. If they really thought if it as equal to murder, this would not be the thought process. We don't let murderers walk free, as a rule. At some level, even they do get it, even if they don't want to acknowledge it. |
Yes, exactly what I said to my husband as we watched that video. We act in the real world in a way that doesn't jibe with our rhetoric, revealing what we truly believe. |
illustrated again and again by the "practicing Christian" who is not socially liberal. |
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05/16/2013 03:11:13 PM · #116 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by tnun:
Ah, so many men discussing childbearing... |
Ah, the joy of being discounted. Don't hate me because I don't have a uterus. I do still have a brain. |
Who's discounting who here? Every time we discuss any hot button issue, you display a complete lack of understanding and empathy for the culture and lives of people who are different than you. Not everyone is wealthy, straight, white, male, and evangelical. Everyone does, however, carry around a set of values and beliefs, and knowledge of right and wrong, based on their own culture and background and religion. Not surprisingly, a small number of those values and beliefs are different than yours.
You're putting a lot of effort into arguing about abortion without giving the appearance of bringing your religion into it, but the arguments don't work unless everyone agrees on the assumption that the beliefs that your religion has taught you are more valid than everyone else's. For one thing, given the polling data that exists, I suspect that at least 50% of the people in this country disagree with you on when a fertilized egg becomes a baby.
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05/16/2013 03:16:07 PM · #117 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
2) When a woman is raped she now also becomes an innocent in the situation. She did not choose or act to be in the place she is in. This shifts the balance to a neutral position (both are innocents versus only the baby).
EDIT; typo |
This sort of judgment always disturbs me, and now I have to relate an anecdote of my own. My best friend from college, married 10 years with 4 children (ages 8, 6, 4, and 1.5), had never worked outside the home although she had a college degree. Her husband went to work one day and, apparently tired of their marriage, never came home again -- end of marriage. She discovered several weeks after he left that she was pregnant, and several weeks later she had an abortion. She told me years later that having that abortion was one of the best decisions she had ever made, even though she wanted more children (she and her husband had often discussed having as many as 10 children). She felt it was a good and responsible decision because she was soon battling her husband for child support that took almost 2 years to start collecting from him, defaulted on the mortgage and lost the house, ended up sleeping in and living out of her car for several months with her four kids, experienced a nervous breakdown, and had to deal with behavioral problems like delinquency from school and whatnot with her two oldest kids. It also was several years before she could even find a minimum-wage job because she couldn't afford childcare for the ones that weren't old enough to go to school.
So, is she "an innocent" who deserves to determine her own fate vis-a-vis a pregnancy? What about people who act responsibly with birth control but the birth control fails? And who makes the decision as to who is innocent and who is not? |
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05/16/2013 03:16:09 PM · #118 |
Offensive stuff, Ann. At the least it's ignorant.
Message edited by author 2013-05-16 15:20:30. |
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05/16/2013 03:16:20 PM · #119 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
By herself, a person with no brain activity may be "alive" (having the characteristics of being a life), but she would also be in the active process of dying. Brain activity, however, is not generally considered as part of a scientific term for "life" because many organisms have no brain. Bacteria, single celled organisms, etc. |
This might have value if we were all practicing Jainism, but we are not. Bacteria is not considered sacred life worthy of protection. In our culture we have very little respect for life, unless it is human life. If you cast your net as wide as your definition seems to a person could not take a medication to rid themselves of a tapeworm without taking "life". So is that the line? Any life form as complex as a zygote is sacred and you have not right to remove it from your body because it is alive? |
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05/16/2013 03:18:20 PM · #120 |
Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
So, is she "an innocent" who deserves to determine her own fate vis-a-vis a pregnancy? What about people who act responsibly with birth control but the birth control fails? And who makes the decision as to who is innocent and who is not? |
I'd go back to Ross...The promises of the sexual revolution nothwithstanding, neither contraception nor abortion has done away with these realities. Sex may be "safe" with pills and condoms, but it's never anythhing remotely close to safe."
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Do we not bear any personal responsibility just because sex is fun and feels good and we want to do it? |
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05/16/2013 03:19:39 PM · #121 |
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
By herself, a person with no brain activity may be "alive" (having the characteristics of being a life), but she would also be in the active process of dying. Brain activity, however, is not generally considered as part of a scientific term for "life" because many organisms have no brain. Bacteria, single celled organisms, etc. |
This might have value if we were all practicing Jainism, but we are not. Bacteria is not considered sacred life worthy of protection. In our culture we have very little respect for life, unless it is human life. If you cast your net as wide as your definition seems to a person could not take a medication to rid themselves of a tapeworm without taking "life". So is that the line? Any life form as complex as a zygote is sacred and you have not right to remove it from your body because it is alive? |
Now, now, Brennan. You are MUCH smarter than this. We were defining "life". We did not mention "human life" (yet) and nobody is trying to attribute basic human rights to non-human life.
Message edited by author 2013-05-16 15:19:53. |
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05/16/2013 03:21:01 PM · #122 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
So, is she "an innocent" who deserves to determine her own fate vis-a-vis a pregnancy? What about people who act responsibly with birth control but the birth control fails? And who makes the decision as to who is innocent and who is not? |
I'd go back to Ross...The promises of the sexual revolution nothwithstanding, neither contraception nor abortion has done away with these realities. Sex may be "safe" with pills and condoms, but it's never anythhing remotely close to safe."
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime. Do we not bear any personal responsibility just because sex is fun and feels good and we want to do it? |
WoW... not that I had any reason to expect anything more from you. |
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05/16/2013 03:24:13 PM · #123 |
Originally posted by Judith Polakoff:
WoW... not that I had any reason to expect anything more from you. |
I know. We think very differently at times. |
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05/16/2013 03:27:15 PM · #124 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
We were defining "life". We did not mention "human life" (yet) and nobody is trying to attribute basic human rights to non-human life. |
My argument was a brain death definition of the end of human life and it's application to when human life began. I heard you expanded the argument to "Bacteria, single celled organisms, etc. " that were alive but brainless as a response. So we have now decided that not all life is sacred, and organisms without brains will not be attributed basic human rights, yes? Or no? |
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05/16/2013 03:36:03 PM · #125 |
Originally posted by BrennanOB:
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
We were defining "life". We did not mention "human life" (yet) and nobody is trying to attribute basic human rights to non-human life. |
My argument was a brain death definition of the end of human life and it's application to when human life began. I heard you expanded the argument to "Bacteria, single celled organisms, etc. " that were alive but brainless as a response. So we have now decided that not all life is sacred, and organisms without brains will not be attributed basic human rights, yes? Or no? |
I think we're getting sidways here. Let's go back. We have three separate ideas we're talking about: life, human life, and human persons. I had thought we were on the very first one: what is life? "human life" is an easy next step as we can define this via genetics. Human persons (ie. human lives endowed with human rights) becomes the tricky point. When do humans gain or lose their personhood?
IF we want to use brain activity as one of the criteria it will put our embryonic bright line at about six weeks. I'm not sure that's a point you are going to be happy with. HOWEVER, to continue the conversation, one important distinction between the no brain activity embryo and the brain dead person is potential. An early embryo has full potential to gain brain activity. A brain dead individual (assuming we're talking about a strong idea of what "brain dead" really means) does not. That may be important to our discussion. |
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