(June 18, 2014 at 9:03 am)Esquilax Wrote: And I'm so goddamn tired of hearing these arguments too, which, I'm sorry, are no different from "well, the little slut should have kept her legs together if she didn't want to get pregnant!" except that the phrasing is nicer. We don't take this attitude with any other situation, and yet now I'm suddenly supposed to accept this "there are never any mistakes, and you have no right to mitigate the consequences on yourself now," attitude when it comes to abortion?

We don't leave drunk drivers dying on the side of the road near their crashed cars, we don't just not accept police reports from mugging victims if they were flashing their cash around dark alleys, we don't refuse to treat self inflicted wounds, we don't go with this "now you must face the worst case scenario for your actions no matter what!" nonsense anywhere else, so why does the argument suddenly become valid with abortion?

Nonsense. There are people, lots of them, who think pregnancy is the righteous punishment for sex. But such people define the fetus as human from the moment of conception. That they make exceptions in the case of rape belies those who consider pregnancy a punishment for premarital sex. Otherwise why would rape matter in equation at all. But calling all those who do not condone late abortions as puritans out to punish promescuity is just as inflammatory as saying, oooo! see the pictures it looks like a baby, it's murder.

So back to the analogy wars . . . A woman in her first couple trimesters who doesn't want a baby is a little like the drunk driver who hurts himself or the depressed person who cuts himself. And I see no problem with her choosing to end the pregnancy. There's only one person involved and that's the pregnant woman.

But should she continue the pregnancy until it's late term, she has allowed the situation to involve two people, herself and a baby. I've heard it argued that allowing a baby to continue unwanted in her mother gives it more rights than when give born people. That's true. We don't give born people the right to life off someone elses biological system. But we also give more rights to born babies and children than, than we do to grown-ups. We give them the right to their parent's care and in lieu of their parents, the state's care. Child abuse and neglect are crimes. Adult neglect is not a crime. We should give the unborn human the use of a uterus for the same reasons we should feed, house, and educate children.

Six or seven months is plenty of time to treat pregnancy with abortion before there's another human life involved.

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(June 18, 2014 at 6:28 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: I defined human being in the OP and no, Boru, I do not believe that at all. In fertilization the genetic information from both the man and woman meet and the formation of a new, living human being is formed. Sperm and oocytes do not meet this requirement but a unicellular zygote that genetically directs its own development does.
Cthulhu, I have been kind and charitable in my responses what have I done to deserve such snark? Or perhaps I have read you all wrong in that case....

I don't think you have been personally attacked. As a pro-late-term life, pro-early-choice, atheist, I'm in the minority. Only about 20 % of atheists are pro-choice. People disagree with me. They do so vehemently. But I don't feel personally attacked. And you shouldn't either. Grow up and respond to the arguments and not to feeling hurt because not everyone agrees.

(June 18, 2014 at 7:02 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: Cthulhu, I have defined a human being as someone belonging to the species homo-sapien. I believe this to be the default view and indeed, the only coherant definition. Indeed, the zygote to the fetus, fetus to the child, child to adult. Are all just stages of their development. Since the fetus is informationally complete in its human informationit can be said it is a human being. Or similarly, as Alexander Pruss PhD in both mathematics and philosophy who holds a professorship at Baylor University states, if something exists and never ceases to exist than it can be said that thing is still alive. I am a fetus, I was a fetus just as I was a child and to say a fetus is any less human than a child is completely arbitrary.

Careful, now. What is the semantic difference between "human" and "human being?" What kind of existential statement does the extra word carry with it? I think it carries connotations of subjective existence: a personality, the ability to experience pleasure and pain, the ability to have perceptions about the outer world and to interact with the world. And for most of a fetus' development, it does not have these things.

As for the "informationally complete," this is true. The fetus has a unique genetic identity, separate from either the mother or the father. An abortion means not ever getting to find out what that new identity could grow into-- and for me, this is no trivial philosophical question. However, equating the destruction of a potential human with the destruction of an existent human being is kind of like equating the destruction of a dictionary with the destruction of the works of Shakespeare. Time matters.

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(June 18, 2014 at 9:16 pm)Jenny A Wrote: I don't think you have been personally attacked. As a pro-late-term life, pro-early-choice, atheist, I'm in the minority. Only about 20 % of atheists are pro-choice.

Is this a real number? It seems to me almost every non-religious person is likely to be pro-early-choice and pro-late-term-life. Who are these 80% of atheists who are anti-abortion?

(June 18, 2014 at 9:29 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(June 18, 2014 at 7:02 pm)Arthur123 Wrote: [quote='Jenny A' pid='691569' dateline='1403140609']
I don't think you have been personally attacked. As a pro-late-term life, pro-early-choice, atheist, I'm in the minority. Only about 20 % of atheists are pro-choice.

Is this a real number? It seems to me almost every non-religious person is likely to be pro-early-choice and pro-late-term-life. Who are these 80% of atheists who are anti-abortion?

No it's a typo. I corrected above. Only 20% of atheists are pro-life.
Sorry.

The statistics are odd though, because the choice is pro-life or pro-choice. Those of us like me who are pro early and mid term choice and pro-life late term have to choose one or the other in most polls. I usually choose pro-choice in polls and at the voting booth, because the question is usually early to mid-term abortions.

(June 18, 2014 at 9:56 pm)Jenny A Wrote: The statistics are odd though, because the choice is pro-life or pro-choice. Those of us like me who are pro early and mid term choice and pro-life late term have to choose one or the other in most polls. I usually choose pro-choice in polls and at the voting booth, because the question is usually early to mid-term abortions.

I think we're all pro-life. The only real issue is where we draw the line between organic material and a protected entity.

I think nobody cares about the physical existence. If we did, it would be illegal to pull the plug on an obviously brain-dead hospital patient; or we'd dig up corpses and hook them up to IV drips and lung machines. The fact that plugs may be pulled means that it is the potential for a human to think and feel that we cherish. And while a fetus has that potential, it hasn't achieved that potential any more than individual sperm or egg have.

(June 18, 2014 at 10:09 pm)bennyboy Wrote:

(June 18, 2014 at 9:56 pm)Jenny A Wrote: The statistics are odd though, because the choice is pro-life or pro-choice. Those of us like me who are pro early and mid term choice and pro-life late term have to choose one or the other in most polls. I usually choose pro-choice in polls and at the voting booth, because the question is usually early to mid-term abortions.

I think we're all pro-life. The only real issue is where we draw the line between organic material and a protected entity.

I think nobody cares about the physical existence. If we did, it would be illegal to pull the plug on an obviously brain-dead hospital patient. The fact that plugs may be pulled means that it is the potential for a human to think and feel that we cherish. And while a fetus has that potential, it hasn't achieved that potential any more than individual sperm or egg have.

I agree, the question is where we draw the line in the sand. I draw it earlier than most atheists, but much later than most Christians.

In Biblical times and earlier many cultures didn't draw the line until after a child turned between two and five. Many more didn't draw the line until after the first year of life. Thus the practice of exposing babies as a method of birth control.

(June 18, 2014 at 10:22 pm)Jenny A Wrote: When the woman's life is in danger I agree a late term abortion is just fine. Heartbreaking, but just fine ethically.

Late term abortions just cus, aren't common. But then neither is murder. So what's wrong with requiring a reason for late term abortions?

This is where I am at personally - though in terms of politics, I vote pro-choice. I can neither become pregnant, not father any more children, and it is not my place to substitute my judgment for anyone else's.