King, do you think the "consequence" should be raising an unwanted child? Great situation for both, amirite?

(September 30, 2015 at 4:07 pm)lkingpinl Wrote:

(September 30, 2015 at 3:56 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: CL, that's your definition of life.  Not the definition of life, and yours certainly isn't based on any scientific reasoning (brain activity, ability to feel pain, consciousness, etc).  So no, I don't have to think that aborting an early term fetus is 'killing a human', thank you very much.

In any case, bodily autonomy is paramount for me in this issue.  The rights of the woman to use her own body as she likes supersedes the rights of anyone else, even if we were to agree that a blastocyst had the rights of a human being.  You're not asking for equal human rights for an embryo, you're asking for special rights above those that we would give ANY human, from a toddler to the Pope.  No human in any situation can claim another's body to use as their own, and there's no reason we should give that 'special' right to a fetus either.

I agree that you don't have to agree with that definition.  

I emphasized the above because you don't really believe that the fetus claimed the woman's body to use as their own out of their own volition?  You do understand the only reason for it's existence was out of a choice that the mother made (not counting cases of rape)?  You don't think that if the mother makes a conscious choice to have consensual sex knowing that pregnancy is always a possibility, she bares no responsibility for the consequence?  And the embryo, fetus, blastocyst (however you want to categorize it) is also equally part of her willing partner.  Does the woman's rights supersede his as well?  Look I've said repeatedly this is not an easy topic so there are not easy answers.

Maybe she didn't make that choice consciously and got pregnant by accident. Or maybe she changed her mind due to certain factors such as sudden lack of support from the would-be father, fear or anxiety, depression, or simply realising she's not ready to be a mother yet.

(September 30, 2015 at 4:07 pm)lkingpinl Wrote:

(September 30, 2015 at 3:56 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: CL, that's your definition of life.  Not the definition of life, and yours certainly isn't based on any scientific reasoning (brain activity, ability to feel pain, consciousness, etc).  So no, I don't have to think that aborting an early term fetus is 'killing a human', thank you very much.

In any case, bodily autonomy is paramount for me in this issue.  The rights of the woman to use her own body as she likes supersedes the rights of anyone else, even if we were to agree that a blastocyst had the rights of a human being.  You're not asking for equal human rights for an embryo, you're asking for special rights above those that we would give ANY human, from a toddler to the Pope.  No human in any situation can claim another's body to use as their own, and there's no reason we should give that 'special' right to a fetus either.

I agree that you don't have to agree with that definition.  

I emphasized the above because you don't really believe that the fetus claimed the woman's body to use as their own out of their own volition?  You do understand the only reason for it's existence was out of a choice that the mother made (not counting cases of rape)?  You don't think that if the mother makes a conscious choice to have consensual sex knowing that pregnancy is always a possibility, she bares no responsibility for the consequence?  And the embryo, fetus, blastocyst (however you want to categorize it) is also equally part of her willing partner.  Does the woman's rights supersede his as well?  Look I've said repeatedly this is not an easy topic so there are not easy answers.

It might not be an 'easy' answer, but there is a simple one: Bodily Autonomy rights should be paramount in these discussions.  What about cases of consensual sex where contraception fails? Or consensual sex with a partner you believed to be sterile but happens to get pregnant?  

Consent to sex is NOT consent to becoming pregnant, and consent to becoming pregnant is NOT consent to staying pregnant.  If one puts bodily autonomy of the woman first, it doesn't matter what the 'intent' of the act was, nor does it matter that an embryo has no 'intent'.  The fact that an embryo has no intent is completely irrelevant to the matter, because you'll notice I said 'no human in any situation' has the right to another's body.

I'm also curious as to your reasoning for letting rape victims abort, if you do indeed believe that human life starts at conception.  You said yourself that the embryo had no intent of coming into existence, so why should the mother be able to abort an embryo/'human life' that resulted from a rape?

(September 30, 2015 at 4:07 pm)lkingpinl Wrote: I agree that you don't have to agree with that definition.  

I emphasized the above because you don't really believe that the fetus claimed the woman's body to use as their own out of their own volition?  You do understand the only reason for it's existence was out of a choice that the mother made (not counting cases of rape)?  You don't think that if the mother makes a conscious choice to have consensual sex knowing that pregnancy is always a possibility, she bares no responsibility for the consequence?  And the embryo, fetus, blastocyst (however you want to categorize it) is also equally part of her willing partner.  Does the woman's rights supersede his as well?  Look I've said repeatedly this is not an easy topic so there are not easy answers.

Yes. Her right--only one right, not "rights"--to bodily integrity supersedes anyone else's, including the sex partner and the fetus/embryo/baby/fully-grown-human-adult-in-potentiam.

Whether it is a conscious decision that led to the creation of that fetus (etc) is irrelevant to the basic question, which is why in my kidney example I specifically state that Person A causes  the kidney failure of Person B, and that only Person A's kidney could keep Person B alive. Even under such extreme circumstances, we still do not have the legal right to use government laws to force Person A to surrender their bodily autonomy on behalf of Person B's continued existence. How one feels about this circumstance is up to their own conscience.

I think it's important to note that we're not pushing for the morality of abortion. Nobody's saying that you have to think it's okay. We're talking about the legal policies of abortion, because we've seen over the last century that outlawing or restricting abortion does absolutely nothing but A) bring more children into bad situations B) increase the number of unsafe abortions.

(September 30, 2015 at 3:56 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: CL, that's your definition of life.  Not the definition of life, and yours certainly isn't based on any scientific reasoning (brain activity, ability to feel pain, consciousness, etc).  So no, I don't have to think that aborting an early term fetus is 'killing a human', thank you very much.

In any case, bodily autonomy is paramount for me in this issue.  The rights of the woman to use her own body as she likes supersedes the rights of anyone else, even if we were to agree that a blastocyst had the rights of a human being.  You're not asking for equal human rights for an embryo, you're asking for special rights above those that we would give ANY human, from a toddler to the Pope.  No human in any situation can claim another's body to use as their own, and there's no reason we should give that 'special' right to a fetus either.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=life+definition

life
līf/
noun

1. 1.
   the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death.
   "the origins of life"
   synonyms:
   existence, being, living, animation; More
   [url=https://www.google.com/search?biw=1242&bih=585&q=define+creation&sa=X&ved=0CCMQ_SowAGoVChMI_cnqxcifyAIVyZeACh2XBAGv][/url]
   2.
   the existence of an individual human being or animal.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/life

life
noun \ˈlīf\
: the ability to grow, change, etc., that separates plants and animals from things like water or rocks
: the period of time when a person is alive
: the experience of being alive

http://www.merriam-webster.com/medical/life

life
 noun\ˈlīf\

plural lives \ˈlīvz\ 
Medical Definition of LIFE
a :  the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional plant or animal from a dead body
b :  a state of living characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction

CL, I'm surprised you'd just resort to pasting dictionary definitions. Hell, just look at 'b' from your last one, it still works. "Reaction to stimuli and reproduction." Neither of which a fetus can do.


So stop pretending 'life' is some monolithic, easy definition. In any case, the definition of 'life' is beside the point when we're talking about bodily autonomy.

(September 30, 2015 at 3:51 pm)lkingpinl Wrote: [...]
Can you explain why killing a baby in utero is ok based solely on the decision of the mother (as you said you have no say), but killing a baby a minute after its born is murder?  Is it a different baby?  Is it any less dependent on the mother than when in utero?  
[...]

Of course the child is way less dependent on the mother after the birth. Are you even serious? That's why when a mother dies during or shortly after child-birth, a child can survive, whereas if she dies a few months before - it can't, unless perhaps some doctors decide to "play god" in order to artificially keep the fetus alive. An option, that - as you probably know - was not available until very recently and has very small chances of success even with everything modern medicine has to offer.

Also - nobody's advocating 3rd trimester abortions. The way you're presenting the issue is simplistic and basically - an attempt at appeal to emotions. Which is understandable, since you don't seem to have any actual arguments at your disposal.

(September 30, 2015 at 4:10 pm)rexbeccarox Wrote: King, do you think the "consequence" should be raising an unwanted child? Great situation for both, amirite?

Not really Becca and that's one of the reasons this is a tough topic.  There are avenues such as adoption, but in this country that process is a joke.  There is no right answer and each situation is entirely unique.  One thing I can say is that I would never judge anyone that had an abortion for any reason whatsoever.  I tend not to judge anyone's actions whether I agree with their choice or not.

Oh lord now we've moved on from hitler to abortion?

Ok I'll bite.

"Can you explain why killing a baby in utero is ok based solely on the decision of the mother (as you said you have no say), but killing a baby a minute after its born is murder?" Kp

A fetus isn't scientifically or legally considered a baby until after it is born. Different people have different opinions on late term abortions, but I think the important thing to remember is that it's not worth debating. Late term abortions account for only 1% of abortions performed and of those it's almost always to save the mother's life. If the even tinier number of people who do non-medically necessary late term abortions had access to affordable abortions with no hoops, we could eliminate all late term abortions that aren't medically necessary. As it is we've already eliminated almost all of them.


"Is it a different baby? Is it any less dependent on the mother than when in utero?"

Yes it is less dependent. In one case it is physically depending on the mother's body and in the other case it isn't. I always wonder what argument prolifers would use if we went in and carefully removed fetuses and let them die on the table. It's not killing them. Just removing them from the mother's body and then they happened to die. People always argue that sure women have the right to bodily autonomy but not to the extent of killing another life. Ok what if we don't kill it and it simply dies. Like being disconnected from life support.