Abortion: Pro-Choice or Pro-Life?

[IATIA]

Life and human life are very different considerations for us. We take life to live. To me that's justified.

And a woman, through error, is condemned to a 'prison' for 18 years. Is that life? An appendix has the same DNA as my first cell, is the removal of the appendix 'verboten'. Without the soul as a delineating factor, I see no difference.

[The Grand Nudger]

Bold assertions without evidence? Frodo, we had this little court case called Roe v Wade on this side of the pond, that was the end result. Human embryos, fetus, etc are not protected by any of the laws concerning murder because they are not given the status of personhood (whereas the mother does enjoy that status and associated rights). What other evidence is required? Not a person, not murder, what's left?

Late Edit: Look, you keep attempting to inject charged language where it obviously does not belong, which is exactly how the "pro-life" movement rolls, and don't even try to tell me that this movement isn't a religious one. If you can use the terms abortion and murder interchangeably, then why not apple cake and murder? You seem to have an axe to grind with regards to personhood, but what could you possibly be basing that on? You keep claiming that you have a scientific consensus to back you up...this is common bullshit. What terms biologists use to describe or classify any organisms life cycle is completely meaningless within the context of our laws. Those designations were not coined to give weight to your argument, nor did they give any weight to the argument when it was presented by much slicker individuals in court. Personhood was decided based upon the fetus viability outside the womb. Which is exactly 0. The federal governments responsibility to pursue the interests of the mother (who has been granted personhood, and is a citizen) take precedence here largely based on that criteria. The languages of our founding documents and bill of rights etc have also been considered and it has been decided that this langauge does not imply or command that human embryos be granted personhood, rights, or protections of the same.

Now, there is no consensus of the exact moment that life begins (in the context of a specifically human life obviously). None. That's why I know that you don't have any consensus to cling to, because I don't either, not from science. It would be impossible to discuss these things without a language to convey ideas, specifically time frames, and so some scientists will speak about the "beginning" of life, largely influenced by their own specialty and in the context of whatever discipline they're engaged in. "But some scientist said life begins at conception!" Did he say it in court, after putting forward a peer reviewed paper directly responding to the question of abortion and morality? The only point at which your argument and science converge is in the language, which is always the wedge that you see in these conversations. Don't argue that it's immoral to murder a person when what you really want to argue is that a fetus is a person. Unless you can establish this then you have no argument. As I've explained above, that's been tried, but you're welcome to give it a go if you feel more competent than those originally involved. Or maybe you have some data that was unavailable to them?

"If a fetus is a person" doesn't work either, because there is no conjecture at this point, that issue has been decided.

[fr0d0]

Life and human life are very different considerations for us. We take life to live. To me that's justified.

And a woman, through error, is condemned to a 'prison' for 18 years. Is that life? An appendix has the same DNA as my first cell, is the removal of the appendix 'verboten'. Without the soul as a delineating factor, I see no difference.

So, further thwarting Rhythms flow here (is he PMing you guys to stop this?), you are suggesting that any bit that falls off or gets cut off/ out of a human is the same as a full human and should be regarded biologically as a member of the human species?

I see a difference.

Bold assertions without evidence? Frodo, we had this little court case on this side of the pond

Which has nothing to do with the point in hand. Are you too disagreeing with biologists?

The law is changeable. I know very well where the law stands on this case, and I don't have a problem with it. <--please let that have time to sink in.

But there we have the law coming down on one side of the discussion. It IS legal, therefore it's right? <---not necessarily. Many people make a living thwarting the law. The police say that they only catch the bad criminals. The law is a servant of what is right and wrong, not the other way around.

Fact remains, which you fail to address: Human life begins at conception. So says the scientific biological community.

You know better. You would force me to be silent, because just like Min, I would suggest that you are the same as "these fuckers" who wish to "inflict their fucking religion on other people"

Late Edit: Look, you keep attempting to inject charged language where it obviously does not belong, which is exactly how the "pro-life" movement rolls, and don't even try to tell me that this movement isn't a religious one.

The "Pro-Life Movement" is indeed a religious one. I AM NOT SUPPORTING THE PRO LIFE MOVEMENT.

If you can use the terms abortion and murder interchangeably, then why not apple cake and murder?

If you read above you'll see other people bringing all of that into the discussion and not me. Look at what I've written, rather than assume it's what you have imagined, and you'll see that you're badly mistaken. Don't worry, I don't expect an apology.

Those designations were not coined to give weight to your argument

You mean the Pro-Life Movement arguement.

[The Grand Nudger]

I did give you the benefit of the doubt. Is someone else here arguing that abortion is wrong because embryos are people and killing a person is murder? ::Looks around::

Link your scientific consensus regarding the beginning of life at conception. I want to see it (more accurately I want YOU to see how muddy those waters are). Now what does this have to say about personhood and the law that hasn't already been argued?

"I don't have a problem with the law, I just think it is wrong and that people who have abortions are murderers."

I don't agree with abortion either but at least I don't blow smoke up anyones ass like I have the weight of some legitimate authority behind me. I have an opinion, my arguments might sway the opinions of others, but they are not strong enough to sway the process of law. Nor are they in any way strong enough to even approach morality. I don't like it. That's the heads and tails of it. Why is it so hard to admit that we sometimes hold opinions with such weak justifications as to be dismissed out of hand?

[IATIA]

... you are suggesting that any bit that falls off or gets cut off/ out of a human is the same as a full human and should be regarded biologically as a member of the human species?

In 1962, John Gurdon announced that he too had successfully cloned frogs but, unlike Briggs and Kling’s method, he did so by transferring differentiated intestinal nuclei from feeding tadpoles (Wilmut et al., 2000).

Pretty much any human cell has the potential to develop into another human.

However, inciting differentiated nuclei to behave as undifferentiated nuclei was thought to be impossible, since the conventional wisdom at the time was that once a cell was differentiated (e.g., once it became a cardiac cell, a liver cell, or a blood cell) it could never reverse into an undifferentiated state.

[Violet]

@Rhythm's "If abortion is murder, miscarriage is involuntary manslaughter"

Already said it... page one of the thread.

And if abortion is murder, then a miscarriage is manslaughter. Go on: charge your suffering wives, daughters, girlfriends, mothers, and many other women. And a stillbirth, what's that? How about them periods... all of those potential lives flushing out of them, plenty of times even when it's interacted with a sperm on the way out. That's 'killing' that isn't even thought about, do you feel kosher with that? And hell, if you're a meat eater then what is so different about a human life and another animal's?

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I think not.

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I swear... do people even read my posts for anything but the pictures?

[IATIA]

I swear... do people even read my posts for anything but the pictures?

That is why we keep making you come back.

[The Grand Nudger]

I avoid your posts almost as a rule..lol.

(Again, and as always, those better than I have said it best and said it first.)

[reverendjeremiah]

Life and human life are very different considerations for us. We take life to live. To me that's justified.

And a woman, through error, is condemned to a 'prison' for 18 years. Is that life? An appendix has the same DNA as my first cell, is the removal of the appendix 'verboten'. Without the soul as a delineating factor, I see no difference.

There is none..your appendix is very much just as alive as a fetus

[kılıç_mehmet]

If someone is so opposed to abortion, they are insecure about themselves, and their own daughters. They think that this will stop them from actually fornicating, but they do not raise their daughters well as not to commit the said act, but it is their daughters who get pregnant outside of marriage, and get abortions, and to hide their shame, they oppose abortion.
And how exactly are they going to do this after abortion clinics are abolished?
Midwives, like the old times?