Are the Gloves Coming Off??

[Rebecca12]

Why? Before the Emancipation Proclamation Blacks were not legal persons in our country. In fact they were defined as 3/5ths a white person.

In 1938 Germany if one was not German they were subhuman. Jews were considered subhuman.

In Manchuria China the Japanese considered the Chinese as subhuman to the point some were eaten like animals.

Native Americans were not considered equal in personhood. If they were our forebears would not have slaughtered them and steal their land.

The Irish in the 1840s-1860s were not obviously persons as almost a million of them were starved to death to keep England fat and happy.

Personkind has a terrible history of defining "person."
Forgive me for not considering some philosophical definition of person even if accepted by law to be definitive of how we treat others. Especially when these humans are being terminated against their will with no trial, jury or legal representation.

No disagreement on how we have mistreated others. I disagree with you whether a fertilized egg or a fetus is equivalent to a born alive child or one which is at least viable outside the womb. I will never but ever agree that punishing a pregnant woman for terminating a pregnancy as if she is a murderer is the moral thing to do.

 

[redleghunter]

The fact that a fertilized egg has homo sapiens DNA does not make it automatically equivalent to a child born alive.

Nor is there an equivalent of a new born to a 13 year old adolescent. Nor the equivalent of a 13 year old to a 25 year adult and so on. Human development is a very long process.

Nothing you said makes them equivalent.

So says the subhuman examples I gave. I'm sure glad you don't make the rules.

And don't forget, a substantial portion of those fertilized eggs are discarded by the body and a substantial portion of implanted eggs spontaneously abort. The potentiality of becoming a child is fragile.

Irrelevant to the discussion. Abortion is the intentional, premeditated termination of a human being. What you posit above happens by natural causes.

 

[redleghunter]

No disagreement on how we have mistreated others. I disagree with you whether a fertilized egg or a fetus is equivalent to a born alive child or one which is at least viable outside the womb. I will never but ever agree that punishing a pregnant woman for terminating a pregnancy as if she is a murderer is the moral thing to do.

Noted you take the same approach as those who defined other human beings as subhuman.

 

[Rebecca12]

A 13 year old is not in the womb and is in no way like a fertilized egg.

 

[Rebecca12]

Noted you take the same approach as those who defined other human beings as subhuman.

sua

Not at all. I think we can end this. You have nothing to persuade me and I will not persuade you.

 

[redleghunter]

A 13 year old is not in the womb and is in no way like a fertilized egg.

Nor are they an adult. The point was human development is a very long process and you are applying a subjective philosophical opinion on "person."

The abortion debate boils down to whether or not we value all human life as morally equal throughout human development.

If the answer is 'no' then the burden is on such a person to argue why we as humans are of less moral value during differing stages. Such is a losing argument because any view other than we are morally equal at all stages (even elderly) will be based on subjective opinions.

For example, "bioethicist" Peter Singer does not consider newborns as persons because they don't have in his opinion, a developed mental capacity. Thus using his subjective model it would be ethically acceptable to terminate the life of a three month old child.

 

[redleghunter]

sua

Not at all. I think we can end this. You have nothing to persuade me and I will not persuade you.

It is always a never ending revolving door when dealing with subjective opinions. So you are correct.

 

[Rebecca12]

Nor are they an adult. The point was human development is a very long process and you are applying a subjective philosophical opinion on "person."

The abortion debate boils down to whether or not we value all human life as morally equal throughout human development.

If the answer is 'no' then the burden is on such a person to argue why we as humans are of less moral value during differing stages. Such is a losing argument because any view other than we are morally equal at all stages (even elderly) will be based on subjective opinions.

For example, "bioethicist" Peter Singer does not consider newborns as persons because they don't have in his opinion, a developed mental capacity. Thus using his subjective model it would be ethically acceptable to terminate the life of a three month old child.

The burden is on you to show that the woman's bodily rights are subordinate to a fertilized egg or a non viable fetus. I disagree with how you frame the dispute. But whatever, as I said, we will not persuade each other.

 

[redleghunter]

The burden is on you to show that the woman's bodily rights are subordinate to a fertilized egg or a non viable fetus. I disagree with how you frame the dispute. But whatever, as I said, we will not persuade each other.

Thank you for the conversation.

 

[RDKirk]

Why? Before the Emancipation Proclamation Blacks were not legal persons in our country. In fact they were defined as 3/5ths a white person.

A couple of points to make in both directions:

Counting slaves (not blacks, per se, but slaves) as 3/5 of a person was a compromise to reduce the representational power of the slave-holding states in Congress. The slave-holding states wanted to count their slaves in their population to determine their numbers of House representatives, which would have given them overwhelming majorities. The free states did not want to count slaves at all, which would have given them the Congressional upper hand.

The Emancipation Proclamation didn't change the status of blacks in that regard. Prior to the Civil War, citizenship was not granted by the United States, it was granted by each individual state, and so a citizen of a state was then a citizen of the United States. Blacks were considered either property or Africans, unless the state they lived in had individually given them citizenship in that state (I don't know offhand that any actually did). The Fourteenth Amendment made anyone born in any state a citizen of the United States.

Crimes by white people against blacks were considered totally by the whim of the local municipalities. In the south even into my own childhood, a white man would not likely face prosecution for any crime against a black man, woman, or child. And if he were prosecuted, he would not be convicted (blacks were not allowed on juries in the south when I was young).

None of this is argument against your point.

 

[SPF]

The burden is on you to show that the woman's bodily rights are subordinate to a fertilized egg or a non viable fetus

The quickest way to derail the abortion discussion is to allow it to become a discussion over women's rights. The morality of abortion begins and ends with our understanding and classification of the zygote/embryo/fetus inside the mother’s womb.

All of us agree that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But even those rights have limitations. For example, if I'm a kleptomaniac and my pursuit of happiness involves indiscriminately stealing from every store I walk into, there are laws in place to prevent that. My pursuit of happiness can be restricted. For people who break the law, they risk forfeiting their right to liberty either temporarily or permanently depending on their actions. It is even possible to forfeit your right to life by committing heinous acts of violence against another person. Thus, attempting to justify abortion from a women's rights line of reasoning fails because there are times when our rights can be limited, or temporarily or permanently suspended. To determine whether pregnancy is one of those times or not is going to be based upon understanding the nature of the life inside the womb.

When we look at the laws in America, we can be certain that under all circumstances, the law seeks to protect the innocent. The only time when people risk losing their liberty or life it is a direct result of their individual choice to break the law. Yes, it is true that innocent people are convicted of crimes at times, but that is reflective of a failure of the practice of law as carried out by imperfect people. But the law itself never intends to do harm to innocent individuals.

So again, we need to recognize that the morality of abortion is determined exclusively by an understanding of the moral worth and value of human beings. At this point, thanks to the advances of medicine and science, we know that a new human being comes into existence at fertilization. The question that needs addressing is a simple one - Do human beings possess inherent and innate moral worth and value? Human development takes 25 years. I have never once seen an objective argument for why a human being that has developed only x amount of time is not morally valuable but then suddenly becomes morally valuable once they have developed y amount of time. We don't (or shouldn't) discriminate against humans because of their physical location or level of development.

 

[Dave-W]

To be legalistic, murder is the unlawful killing of a person. Because abortion is not unlawful it isn't murder.

That may be the legal definition. But the biblical definition of "murder" is shedding of innocent blood.

 

[SPF]

To be legalistic, murder is the unlawful killing of a person. Because abortion is not unlawful it isn't murder.

Also, we need to remember that the law does not determine morality. Murder is at all times, 100% immoral. I think we would all agree that what Nazi Germany did at the concentration camps was immoral and wrong. We can say that with confidence regardless of what laws Germany had in place at the time which "permitted" them to do that.

If Donald Trump suddenly declared himself Dictator and all the military generals agreed with this and he consolidated the power and declared that all illegal immigrants should be shot in the face on sight - If that became LAW, would we all agree that shooting illegal immigrants, even 4 and 5 year old children was actually not immoral because the LAW said so? No. The law does not determine morality.

The law seeks to protect the innocent. Consider drunkenness. The law is perfectly fine with people getting drunk. The law however is not perfectly fine with people taking their impaired selves out on the road where they may hurt themselves or another. There are laws against drunk driving to protect the innocent. The law isn't saying that drunkenness is morally right or wrong, and we shouldn't use the law as an argument for or against drunkenness.

Therefore, it is altogether possible that abortion is a type of murder. We have manslaughter, first and second degree murder, vehicular homicide, etc... Just because the law currently permits abortion does not mean that abortion is not actually a form of murder.

 

[SPF]

Quite the number of mass generalizations and stereo-types going on here. Personally, I'm 36, edumucated, married w/3 children, have 0 debt, a white picket fence, and the occasional foster child running around. I don't feel like I fit any of these stereo-types you people like to use. Maybe that's why they're not useful in meaningful discussions.

Oh, and abortion is still immoral.

 

[redleghunter]

Quite the number of mass generalizations and stereo-types going on here. Personally, I'm 36, edumucated, married w/3 children, have 0 debt, a white picket fence, and the occasional foster child running around. I don't feel like I fit any of these stereo-types you people like to use. Maybe that's why they're not useful in meaningful discussions.

Oh, and abortion is still immoral.

It's the usual SJW 'narrative shaping' to silence opponents with bold assertions which if bait is taken will amount to one side (the responding side) to actually take the burden of refuting the assertion.

I am truly amazed that some don't know the difference between an assertion and an argument on these internet chat sites. The burden of proof is always on the one making an assertion.

 

[Fantine]

We are parents and grandparents. My middle son moved to South Korea to experience the American dream, and he is very successful.

Technology has changed so much. We need to start thinking about dividing the amount of work required by available workers. That may mean European style vacations, parental leave, work weeks, and pensions--- but what's wrong with that?

 

[RDKirk]

Lol, Generation Z is incredibly right wing. By that, I don’t mean “conservative”. I mean actually right wing. Don’t let those marching kids fool you.

So if you don't mean conservative, what do you mean?

 

[thecolorsblend]

So if you don't mean conservative, what do you mean?

Um, I meant what I said. "Right wing".

 

[RDKirk]

Um, I meant what I said. "Right wing".

But not conservative? Give me some examples of "right wing but not conservative."

 

[Dave-W]

But not conservative? Give me some examples of "right wing but not conservative."

Neo-Nazis. They are certainly right wing, but as the National Socialism they promote has NEVER been part of the US culture, they cannot be called "conservative."


Conservative = maintaining the status quo, or trying to return to a previous status quo.