Abortion

Conservativation said:

Why must it be about you? I never suggested you painfully contrived anything, I very clearly said the writer of the violinist argument painfully contrived that.
How did it seem as if that was anyone but the author of that argument?

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It's quite obvious when a person uses an example which is "pointed" at someone else. Credit me with some intelligence, please.

sacerdote said:

While driving to the dentist and listening to BBC Radio, abortion was being discussed. On the show the announcer stated that at latest count, there have been forty-five million abortions annually world-wide.

This is unbelievable and so sad. Many decry the loss of life from other means: wars, murders, etc., and all are tragic. But this number, forty-five million abortions annually is truly unbelievable.

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It's only getting started. Barely getting started. There will come a day when it will be legal to torture and kill a 2 year old child. It will likely happen within the next decade. Then it will continue to escalate until all imaginable evil will be regarded as legal and good. All goodness and innocence and beauty will be illegal and punishable by death.

It will happen within my lifetime. Not a matter of if but when.

The real question is whether or not God will show us mercy and end the world so that it doesn't last long.

I think other then for the health of a mother abortion is a cheap cop out of the reality of life.

However politically im pro choice.

Soothfish said:

It's only getting started. Barely getting started. There will come a day when it will be legal to torture and kill a 2 year old child. It will likely happen within the next decade. Then it will continue to escalate until all imaginable evil will be regarded as legal and good. All goodness and innocence and beauty will be illegal and punishable by death.

It will happen within my lifetime. Not a matter of if but when.

The real question is whether or not God will show us mercy and end the world so that it doesn't last long.

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I'm pretty sure it's against the rules to bet money against a claim from a fellow poster, but man I wish I could right now!

dreamer1982 said:

I'm still waiting to hear the fantastical refutation.

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Here is one refutation, if I may. This is a portion of an article by Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason.

The key question in any slippery slope appeal is whether the two situations are truly similar in a morally relevant way. If not, then the illustration is guilty of a logical slippery slope fallacy. The analogy fails and the argument falls apart.

Are there important differences between pregnancy and kidnapping? Yes, many.

First, the violinist is artificially attached to the woman. A mother's unborn baby, however, is not surgically connected, nor was it ever "attached" to her. Instead, the baby is being produced by the mother's own body by the natural process of reproduction.

Both Thompson and McDonagh treat the child--the woman's own daughter or son--like an invading stranger intent on doing harm. They make the mother/child union into a host/predator relationship.

A child is not an invader, though, a parasite living off his mother. A mother's womb is the baby's natural environment. Eileen McDonagh wants us to believe that the child growing inside of a woman is trespassing. One trespasses when he's not in his rightful place, but a baby developing in the womb belongs there.

Thompson ignores a second important distinction. In the violinist illustration, the woman might be justified withholding life-giving treatment from the musician under these circumstances. Abortion, though, is not merely withholding treatment. It is actively taking another human being's life through poisoning or dismemberment. A more accurate parallel with abortion would be to crush the violinist or cut him into pieces before unplugging him.

Third, the violinist illustration is not parallel to pregnancy because it equates a stranger/stranger relationship with a mother/child relationship. This is a key point and brings into focus the most dangerous presumption of the violinist illustration, also echoed in McDonagh's thesis. Both presume it is unreasonable to expect a mother to have any obligations towards her own child.

The violinist analogy suggests that a mother has no more responsibility for the welfare of her child than she has to a total stranger. McDonagh's view is even worse. She argues the child is not merely a stranger, but a violent assailant the mother needs to ward off in self-defense.

This error becomes immediately evident if we amend Thompson's illustration. What if the mother woke up from an accident to find herself surgically connected to her own child? What kind of mother would willingly cut the life-support system to her two-year-old in a situation like that? And what would we think of her if she did?

Blood relationships are never based on choice, yet they entail moral obligations, nonetheless. This is why the courts prosecute negligent parents. They have consistently ruled, for example, that fathers have an obligation to support their children even if they are unplanned and unwanted.

If it is moral for a mother to deny her child the necessities of life (through abortion) before it is born, how can she be obligated to provide the same necessities after he's born? Remember, Thompson concedes that the fetus is a person from the moment of conception. If her argument works to justify abortion, it works just as well to justify killing any dependent child. After all, a two-year-old makes a much greater demand on a woman than a developing unborn.

Thompson is mistaken in presuming that pregnancy is the thing that expropriates a woman's liberty. Motherhood does that, and motherhood doesn't end with the birth of the child. Unlike the woman connected to the violinist, a mother is not released in nine months. Her burden has just begun. If Thompson's argument works, then no child is safe from a mother who wants her liberty.

In the end, both Thompson's and McDonagh's arguments prove too much. They allow us to kill any human being who is dependent upon us, young or old, if that person restrains our personal liberty.

The simple fact is, in a civilized society no one has the freedom to do whatever she wants with her own body. Liberty unfettered by morality is the operative rule of anarchy, not civilization. At any given moment, each of us is constrained by hundreds of laws reflecting our moral responsibilities to our community. The most primal of those rules is the obligation of a mother to her helpless child. This is one of the reasons the public outcry against Susan Smith was so intense.

'logical falacy' and 'non-sequitur' and the sort of terms often used to make out things that are logical and reality, arent. One can often spot the point made that wins the argument by such responses to it.

There is no argument. All human beings came into existence by conception, its an observable fact, different views expressed in different countries saying the unborn is not a human being at different times for different reasons shows the views not only disrespect reality, but they are even ignorant of their own stupidity.

Soothfish said:

It's only getting started. Barely getting started. There will come a day when it will be legal to torture and kill a 2 year old child. It will likely happen within the next decade. Then it will continue to escalate until all imaginable evil will be regarded as legal and good. All goodness and innocence and beauty will be illegal and punishable by death.

It will happen within my lifetime. Not a matter of if but when.

The real question is whether or not God will show us mercy and end the world so that it doesn't last long.

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Lol, I realize you're kidding, but the sad thing is that there really are people who believe that seriously.

Incariol said:

Lol, I realize you're kidding, but the sad thing is that there really are people who believe that seriously.

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Why should he be kidding? If its ok to kill the unborn at 12 or 24 weeks why not at 2 years?

brightmorningstar said:

Why should he be kidding? If its ok to kill the unborn at 12 or 24 weeks why not at 2 years?

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I generally try and make the generous assumption that most people are intelligent enough to not commit the slippery slope fallacy.

Incariol said:

I generally try and make the generous assumption that most people are intelligent enough to not commit the slippery slope fallacy.

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But not everyone finds any credibility in your opinion.
Thinking it is ok to kill the unborn at 12 or 24 weeks has already shown there is not enough inteligence and the slipery slope has already started.
Why 12 weeks, why 24? Already the view has ignored the objective reality that all life starts at conception, whether 12 weeks old or 24 weeks old. Whether one thinks its ok to terminate it at 12 weeks or 24 weeks is just subjective. Why not 2 years? Sure the subjective criteria might not meet your thinking but so what, its subjective.

Incariol said:

I generally try and make the generous assumption that most people are intelligent enough to not commit the slippery slope fallacy.

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It is not a "slippery slope" argument but a prediction of the degradation of the human spirit. People are developing a greater love for their own selves and their egos and a greater hatred for virtue and beauty.

The evidence is overwhelming and the funny part is that NOBODY can argue against this point without accidentally demonstrating hatred, banality, and/or callous disregard. The ones who gladly accept the evil do not even understand the concepts of unconditional love and beauty. These things are not in their nature.

brightmorningstar said:

But not everyone finds any credibility in your opinion.
Thinking it is ok to kill the unborn at 12 or 24 weeks has already shown there is not enough inteligence and the slipery slope has already started.
Why 12 weeks, why 24? Already the view has ignored the objective reality that all life starts at conception, whether 12 weeks old or 24 weeks old. Whether one thinks its ok to terminate it at 12 weeks or 24 weeks is just subjective. Why not 2 years? Sure the subjective criteria might not meet your thinking but so what, its subjective.

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You are trying to make a logical argument out of a subject that only matters in the heart.

Why should a cold heart care if it has arms and legs and a mind or even if it can talk and draw pictures? There is no reason for anyone to choose morality. They can easily choose evil and it has its reasons too.

Hi Soothfish,
I agree with you, except that it is logical as well, it is logical to follow observable reality rather than different subjective unrealities.

brightmorningstar said:

Thinking it is ok to kill the unborn at 12 or 24 weeks has already shown there is not enough inteligence[sic] and the slipery[sic] slope has already started. Why 12 weeks, why 24?

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Just a bit of irony: accusing others of lacking “intelligence” and in the same breath misspelling the word is… interesting.

The reason is that, contrary to the hardcore pro-life camp’s suggestion, humans don’t spring into existence fully formed all at once. There are steps to human making; our basic structures required for self-sustaining survival and the qualities that make us “human” are assembled piece by piece over the better part of a year. If defining characteristics of a human are not present at the earliest stages, however, there can be no sensible accusation of murder. You cannot destroy something that doesn’t exist.

The biggest problem pro-life advocates seem to have is anachronistic argumentation; that is, supposing that because a thing will likely develop into something other than what it currently is, it must therefore be treated like that future thing and merits its moral status. Nothing could be further from the truth. The atoms that compose an apple may be destined to be consumed by a man, its matter used to produce sperm and those sperm used to combine with an egg to grow up into a fully developed human adult, but we don’t attribute to apples the status of “human” just because it harbors the potential to be built into one. We must treat things as they are, not as what they may become. Destroying an apple is not synonymous with murder of a human.

So the big question is “what are the defining characteristics of a person?” What is it that the pro-life camp is trying so avidly to protect? Are they trying to protect this entity because it’s “human” (in the sense that it contains human DNA)? If that’s the case, they should be abhorred at the thought of scratching an itch or clapping their hands, committing genocide against countless little human skin cells that are likewise packed with human DNA. Very well then, the presence of human DNA does not merit protection of an entity. Is it “life?” Pro-lifers often shout “Life begins at conception,” but no one is disagreeing with that fact. If the zygote/fetus wasn’t composed of biologically living tissue, there would be no reason to kill it. Yet something being biologically alive does not necessitate protection from termination. If this were true, again, you would be guilty of genocide whenever you scratched and itch or clapped your hands, destroying countless thousands of little living skin cells. So saying “life begins at conception,” implying that “life” inherently warrants protection from termination, really isn’t a very good argument, as we kill many things with “life” constantly with no moral reservations.

We’re left with quite a question, then. If “life” is not a characteristic that warrants a subject unconditional protection, nor is possessing human DNA, what are we squabbling over? I submit the heart of the issue is “personhood.” By “person” I mean to refer the essence of human individuals: the self, defined by such characteristics as sentience, self-awareness, intelligence, consciousness, and the general traits that compose an individual’s “personality.”

Pro-lifers get up in arms over abortion because they view it not as yet another clump of human cells or another example of biological life, but because they believe it to be a person. However, there’s just no reason to define a zygote as such when the entity in question demonstrates no evidence of what constitutes a “person;” the capacity for higher thought. These things cannot exist before the apparatus is present. No cerebral cortex, developed spinal column, different brain hemispheres, etc. all point to the absence of any kind of “person.” Heck, the hind brain doesn’t even start developing until week 8, and that’s the unconscious part of the brain that monitors automatic functions like heartbeat & breathing.

At the earliest stages of pregnancy, the entity in question simply does not harbor any traits of a “person” in any degree. If it’s not a person, then, we have only terminated a potential person – which is actually no person at all – and our “crime” is of the same kind as smashing an apple that would have been consumed and its nutrients used to construct a person at some later point. You cannot destroy what was never there to begin with. This is not to say that the defining characteristics of personhood aren’t present later in the pregnancy (we have good reason to believe they are, especially at 20+ weeks, due to brain development), only that the arbitrary point of conception is not a good place to start in claiming the existence of a person in the womb and that abortions at earlier stages are morally permissible.

Jedi said:

Just a bit of irony: accusing others of lacking "intelligence" and in the same breath misspelling the word is... interesting.

The reason is that, contrary to the hardcore pro-life camp's suggestion, humans don't spring into existence fully formed all at once. There are steps to human making; our basic structures required for self-sustaining survival and the qualities that make us "human" are assembled piece by piece over the better part of a year. If defining characteristics of a human are not present at the earliest stages, however, there can be no sensible accusation of murder. You cannot destroy something that doesn't exist.

The biggest problem pro-life advocates seem to have is anachronistic argumentation; that is, supposing that because a thing will likely develop into something other than what it currently is, it must therefore be treated like that future thing and merits its moral status. Nothing could be further from the truth. The atoms that compose an apple may be destined to be consumed by a man, its matter used to produce sperm and those sperm used to combine with an egg to grow up into a fully developed human adult, but we don't attribute to apples the status of "human" just because it harbors the potential to be built into one. We must treat things as they are, not as what they may become. Destroying an apple is not synonymous with murder of a human.

So the big question is "what are the defining characteristics of a person?" What is it that the pro-life camp is trying so avidly to protect? Are they trying to protect this entity because it's "human" (in the sense that it contains human DNA)? If that's the case, they should be abhorred at the thought of scratching an itch or clapping their hands, committing genocide against countless little human skin cells that are likewise packed with human DNA. Very well then, the presence of human DNA does not merit protection of an entity. Is it "life?" Pro-lifers often shout "Life begins at conception," but no one is disagreeing with that fact. If the zygote/fetus wasn't composed of biologically living tissue, there would be no reason to kill it. Yet something being biologically alive does not necessitate protection from termination. If this were true, again, you would be guilty of genocide whenever you scratched and itch or clapped your hands, destroying countless thousands of little living skin cells. So saying "life begins at conception," implying that "life" inherently warrants protection from termination, really isn't a very good argument, as we kill many things with "life" constantly with no moral reservations.

We're left with quite a question, then. If "life" is not a characteristic that warrants a subject unconditional protection, nor is possessing human DNA, what are we squabbling over? I submit the heart of the issue is "personhood." By "person" I mean to refer the essence of human individuals: the self, defined by such characteristics as sentience, self-awareness, intelligence, consciousness, and the general traits that compose an individual's "personality."

Pro-lifers get up in arms over abortion because they view it not as yet another clump of human cells or another example of biological life, but because they believe it to be a person. However, there's just no reason to define a zygote as such when the entity in question demonstrates no evidence of what constitutes a "person;" the capacity for higher thought. These things cannot exist before the apparatus is present. No cerebral cortex, developed spinal column, different brain hemispheres, etc. all point to the absence of any kind of "person." Heck, the hind brain doesn't even start developing until week 8, and that's the unconscious part of the brain that monitors automatic functions like heartbeat & breathing.

At the earliest stages of pregnancy, the entity in question simply does not harbor any traits of a "person" in any degree. If it's not a person, then, we have only terminated a potential person - which is actually no person at all - and our "crime" is of the same kind as smashing an apple that would have been consumed and its nutrients used to construct a person at some later point. You cannot destroy what was never there to begin with. This is not to say that the defining characteristics of personhood aren't present later in the pregnancy (we have good reason to believe they are, especially at 20+ weeks, due to brain development), only that the arbitrary point of conception is not a good place to start in claiming the existence of a person in the womb and that abortions at earlier stages are morally permissible.

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Your reasoning is so faulty that I don't know where to begin to answer the errors in you statements. First, you haven't got a clue what the pro life position is. We don't believe that just any life begins at conception, we believe that "a life" begins at conception. That is to say a human being/life begins at conception, one that will develop into a baby, an infant, a child, an adult and an elderly human being. The unborn are at a particular stage of development and not being "assembled pice by piece" or "a potential human being". They are 100% human being. Skin cells are not developing into different stages of a human being. They are a part of a human being. You are confusing parts with wholes.

Person and personhood are psychological terms not scientific terms. I've asked many pro choice advocates when does the unborn become a person? And I have received just as many different answers, from when the unborn has a brain to when it is born. The reason I get a different answer from everyone I ask is because no one knows for sure when the unborn becomes a person. And since no one knows when the unborn becomes a person, then it is possible that some abortions are killing innocent human beings. I believe the all human beings are persons. The only reason people are bringing up personhood is because they have already lost the argument that the unborn is not a human being and now they have to find another way to justify abortions.

Your reasoning is so faulty that I don't know where to begin to answer the errors in you statements.

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Okay then, let's see where.

First, you haven't got a clue what the pro life position is. We don't believe that just any life begins at conception, we believe that "a life" begins at conception. That is to say a human being/life begins at conception, one that will develop into a baby, an infant, a child, an adult and an elderly human being.

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Which is exactly what I said the pro-life position was...

The unborn are at a particular stage of development and not being "assembled pice by piece" or "a potential human being". They are 100% human being. Skin cells are not developing into different stages of a human being. They are a part of a human being. You are confusing parts with wholes.

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You're just throwing around a bunch of vague pro-life phrases out there. By "human being" do you mean "person," possessing the traits I described in my previous post? If not, then how do you define "human being" (i.e. what traits define it) and is there evidence of those traits existing at the earliest stages of pregnancy? Additionally, how are those traits unique to the "human being" that distinguish it from other examples of life (e.g. a cockroach) and human organic matter (e.g. the body of a recently deceased human or human skin cells)?

Person and personhood are psychological terms not scientific terms.

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Because Psychology is in no way scientific...

I've asked many pro choice advocates when does the unborn become a person? And I have received just as many different answers, from when the unborn has a brain to when it is born. The reason I get a different answer from everyone I ask is because no one knows for sure when the unborn becomes a person.

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This is a fallacious conclusion, as difference in opinion does not negate certainty or accuracy. Indeed, if this assertion of yours is true, then Jesus' status of diety is in question, as countless Christians disagree over countless things concerning Christian theology. Should all Christians' thoughts on theology be considered invalid because there is disagreement, just as you have done with those who are pro-choice?

And since no one knows when the unborn becomes a person, then it is possible that some abortions are killing innocent human beings.

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And, on the other side of the coin, if this is true, it is possible pro-life people are condemning others of murder before the clump of cells is even a person, making atrocious accusations toward innocent people.

I believe the all human beings are persons.

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This sentence is meaningless as "human beings" and "persons" are so far synonymous in this discussion. If they are not, what's the difference? If they are the same, then this sentence is nothing more than the logic fallacy of circular reasoning.

The only reason people are bringing up personhood is because they have already lost the argument that the unborn is not a human being and now they have to find another way to justify abortions.

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Lost? Not quite. You have yet to convince anyone that a zygote is a "human being;" some entity exhibiting unspecified traits concerning which you only beg the question of its status as a moral entity worthy of unconditional protection.

Be careful not to think yourself high and mighty while those who disagree with you are morally bankrupt. The difference here isn't one of value, but of fact. Everyone agress that persons ought to be protected if at all possible. The divide here is different conclusions about whether or not what we're dealing with is, in fact, a person. Like I mentioned previously, a zygote at the earliest stages exhibites none of the defining traits of a person (or "human being"); such traits as sentience, consciousness, being self-aware, intelligence, and other qualities that compose some sort of "personality." If these things aren't present, then there exists no person. If there is no person, terminating the organic apparatus cannot be considered murder.

Jedi,

Just a bit of irony: accusing others of lacking "intelligence" and in the same breath misspelling the word is… interesting.

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So as the life starts at conception and this both the life at 12 weeks and 24 weeks is still the life, abortion is killing the life. I think it is reasonable to call out a lack of intelligence if there is observable proof for it.
Now as to your next point, I wouldn’t suggest the human sprang into existence fully formed. It is observably not the case. But we can observe the human who dies, back during his adulthood, his adolescence, his childhood, the point at which he was born and the scans of him in his mother’s womb, from foetus back to embryo.
But hey, if one wants to put forward an observably obviously incorrect claim that it not the human at any stage then assume the human is born fully formed.

supposing that because a thing will likely develop into something other than what it currently is,

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This thingy thing you are referring to isn’t by any chance a human being in foetus stage developing as the human being?

Except that it must therefore be treated like that future thing and merits its moral status.

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Ok so if one were to say the child can be killed if the parents wish because it isnt a fully grown human, you are ok with that? Or are you only ok with any subjective opinion you have? Say 12 weeks and 24 weeks, sentience or whatever, isn’t suitable for others? Its not for pro-choice of course, pro-choice doesn’t want any life terminated, but I am talking about the crazy argument you are putting forward.

Destroying an apple is not synonymous with murder of a human.

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An apple no, but a foestus is a human being and not an apple.

So the big question is "what are the defining characteristics of a person?"

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That was my question. The pro-life see one can observe the human being from conception to adulthood, subjective criteria in order to murder the human at various stages is about as sick as humanity can get.

What is it that the pro-life camp is trying so avidly to protect? Are they trying to protect this entity because it’s "human" (in the sense that it contains human DNA)?

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So having not know the pro-life argument, you now know from my explanations above your understanding was incorrect.

If that’s the case, they should be abhorred at the thought of scratching an itch or clapping their hands, committing genocide against countless little human skin cells

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This is observable nonsense, one can observe a skin cell isn’t a human being developing. One can observe for alonmg time and see that. One can however observe a human foetus developing.
If one cant see the wood for the trees all one will see is some trees. Pro-life can see the wood and the rest of the world.
So be careful, making criteria up about when a human being can live is something a little Austrian corporal did in Germany half a century ago.
Get a grip of reality.

Lost? Not quite. You have yet to convince anyone that a zygote is a "human being;" some entity exhibiting unspecified traits concerning which you only beg the question of its status as a moral entity worthy of unconditional protection.

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Ok convince me a child is a 'human being' some entity you call child which doesnt even have the ability to reproduce and thus continue the species is hardly a human being. Convince me otherwise. LOL

Jedi said:

Okay then, let's see where.



Which is exactly what I said the pro-life position was...



You're just throwing around a bunch of vague pro-life phrases out there. By "human being" do you mean "person," possessing the traits I described in my previous post? If not, then how do you define "human being" (i.e. what traits define it) and is there evidence of those traits existing at the earliest stages of pregnancy? Additionally, how are those traits unique to the "human being" that distinguish it from other examples of life (e.g. a cockroach) and human organic matter (e.g. the body of a recently deceased human or human skin cells)?



Because Psychology is in no way scientific...



This is a fallacious conclusion, as difference in opinion does not negate certainty or accuracy. Indeed, if this assertion of yours is true, then Jesus' status of diety is in question, as countless Christians disagree over countless things concerning Christian theology. Should all Christians' thoughts on theology be considered invalid because there is disagreement, just as you have done with those who are pro-choice?



And, on the other side of the coin, if this is true, it is possible pro-life people are condemning others of murder before the clump of cells is even a person, making atrocious accusations toward innocent people.



This sentence is meaningless as "human beings" and "persons" are so far synonymous in this discussion. If they are not, what's the difference? If they are the same, then this sentence is nothing more than the logic fallacy of circular reasoning.



Lost? Not quite. You have yet to convince anyone that a zygote is a "human being;" some entity exhibiting unspecified traits concerning which you only beg the question of its status as a moral entity worthy of unconditional protection.

Be careful not to think yourself high and mighty while those who disagree with you are morally bankrupt. The difference here isn't one of value, but of fact. Everyone agress that persons ought to be protected if at all possible. The divide here is different conclusions about whether or not what we're dealing with is, in fact, a person. Like I mentioned previously, a zygote at the earliest stages exhibites none of the defining traits of a person (or "human being"); such traits as sentience, consciousness, being self-aware, intelligence, and other qualities that compose some sort of "personality." If these things aren't present, then there exists no person. If there is no person, terminating the organic apparatus cannot be considered murder.

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A human being is exactly what you get when sperm fertilizes an egg. If it's not a human life then what kind of life is it? A dog, a monkey, an elephant, maybe a fish, human beings only produce human beings. Embryonic science has already established that the unborn is a human being. And since you have stated that "human beings" and "persons" are synonymous then all unborn human beings are persons.

Human beings have value simply because they are human, not because of some trait they gain or lose during their lifetime. From the earliest stages of development the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. They are not part of larger human beings (like skin cells).

If you thought my statement was a fallacious conclusion, then tell me, exactly when does the unborn become a person? No one knows the answer for sure. Because science (which is measurable) cannot tell us when the unborn becomes a person (which is not measurable). And since we don't know when the unborn becomes a person, then it is better to error on the side of life then on the side of death.

Again, there is not need to convince anyone that the unborn is a human being, since embryonic science has already established it. And those that deny this are just fooling themselves. So since the unborn is a human being and a person then terminating the unborn can and should be considered the killing of an innocent human life.