Why kill the innocent?

Discussion in 'Abortion' started by Thrasos, Mar 4, 2020.

  1. Giftedone

    Giftedone Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Though this was the "Abortion" Section - am I in the wrong room ?
     
  2. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    you can choose not to have a baby - and if I am hooked up to your blood supply against your will, and that is the only way I will survive, yes, you can disconnect me - I can't force you to give me use of your blood and organs to keep me alive
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2020
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  3. Jolly Penguin

    Jolly Penguin Well-Known Member

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    That seems to sum you and your pointlessly belligerence well. I am done with you. I will converse with others.
     
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  4. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    LOL! Ya, all those FACTS must be intimidating...all those inconvenient questions that you can't answer....so maybe it is best if you avoid them anyway you can ;)

    Like: what rights do you want a fetus to have?

    It's a simple straightforward question and YOU have said a fetus should have rights....WHAT rights? Why can't you say?

    Why can't you defend your position ?


    Just another Anti-Choicer with no good argument?
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2020
  5. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    Yet that is what Anti-Choicers wish to do to women....as if women have no rights!
     
  6. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    Isn't there a song called "Another One Bites The Dust" ??? :)
     
  7. Jolly Penguin

    Jolly Penguin Well-Known Member

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    All legislation is based on what the lawmaker, be that king, congress, voting public, etc wish to be law. With laws that deal with moral issues, that comes from moral arguments.

    I am not very familiar with your DOMA, but from a quick google I see it was about rights and benefits for same sex couples. I believe some time prior to that many of your states had outlawed homosexuality (or at least sodomy), and that later on than DOMA your country eventually legalized same sex marriage and enforced legal protections for homosexual couples on par with opposite sex couples.I could be wrong about that. I remember those debates amongst Americans and I think I remember that moral argument being won for the most part by those endorsing gay marriage, and that your law changed accordingly.

    You also had laws enforcing slavery in your country's history, which were overturned, partly by moral argument. Women were given the right to vote as well, partly because of moral argument.The moral arguments for the principles of freedom, fairness, and equality have been growing.

    I think they may grow further. I foresee sometime in the distant future vegetarianism becoming mandated, and possibly some rights being extended to the unborn.

    I would agree with you, were I convinced firmly that the unborn should have no rights. But I remain undecided on that.

    The question for me is does the unborn at the stage it is currently at (and I think your 23/24 month mark is a safe point) have moral reason for me to consider it/her/him my equal. And if it does, then does its right to live outweigh a pregnant woman's right to bodily autonomy. Leaving that solely up to the mother is to bias that decision against the unborn and discard any rights the unborn should have.

    Bodily autonomy is not a right that are always considered absolute. The draft comes to mind. Laws against prostitution come to mind. Organ donor cards upon death (which are NOT fully followed in my area; the decision can be blocked by the family) come to mind. Laws against doctor assisted suicide also come to mind. And then of course there were those slavery laws of old that I'm glad to say were undone..

    It always strikes me as odd to hear people argue the bolidly autonomy argument regarding abortion and then turn around and dismiss it in other cases. .

    Going back to the initial responses of quoting what the law is, I would find it distasteful to base one's view on all of this on the current state of the law. That's why I was surprised to see people stating what the law is as if that's all need be said to support that it should be so. Such a person would have endorsed slavery and not looked at black people as moral equals prior to the emancipation.

    So long as you have already concluded that the unborn should not be regarded as a moral equal, sure. But in the later stages of development, I can't reach that conclusion so easily.

    I think you may base that on already dismissing the unborn as not a moral equal. But even if it was a moral equal, I suppose you could argue that you would be sacrificing the one for the many. Another moral quandry.

    Yes. That's one reason why I can easily not care at all about a freshly fertilized egg (to take the most extreme example). That some DO care about that cell, more than say the pig that became their bacon for breakfast this morning.I can not understand. The only reason I can see for holding that position is unquestioned obedience to arbitrary religious doctrine.

    That's not an argument I would empathize with, as the same could be said of...

    Well yes. How about when they put you under for an operation. It isn't ok for the doctor to kill you, right? Even if you have no family who would miss you? It would be wrong.

    You bring up an interesting hypothetical, but we could argue in that case that this would greatly endanger the lives of others. The same argument can be made when the mother's life is seriously in danger for carrying the baby. In some cases that can be a very potent argument.

    That is the potential dilemma and while it is unlikely to ever be that drastic it does mean that people who should be locked up are not because of the "rights" that you want to grant to the fetus. [/quote]

    If you want to do the incarceration analogy, then one could argue that all innocent unborn are already placed into a cell (womb) without their consent, and abortion is the decision by the one who put them there, as to whether or not they are moved to death row. I think an examination of if they should or should not have any rights is pretty important here. I have difficulty concluding one way or the other.

    I think you would find that sentence disturbing if you replaced the word "fetus" with any being that you already recognize as being a moral equal. It would equate to the arguments slaveholders made regarding their slaves. They decide what rights they should have, etc.

    We impose our morality on others all the time, and especially upon those who kill.
    Again, what you write here only works if you've already decided the unborn should have no rights.

    Wait. Did they? Woudn't that have been the Canadian model you just described? Didn't you say earlier that your courts made it illegal after X weeks that science found to be the "viability" marker? That isn't putting the pregnant woman's individual right over states rights or the right to life of the unborn.

    I don't endorse a "pro-life" or "pro-choice" position on this, as I am undecided. I find the question difficult to settle my mind on, and I don't see it as binary. I see a spectrum and I'm not sure where I fit on it.

    .
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2020
  8. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    Right, but why did you specifically mention slaughter by genocide?
     
  9. FoxHastings

    FoxHastings Well-Known Member

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    It boils down to, what rights do you want a fetus to have....?
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2020
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  10. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    Okay, then why the 26 week cut off?
     
  11. FreshAir

    FreshAir Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    that is my personal choice, your free to choose what ever you want, I am pro-choice, I only choose for myself - I do not want to force my choice on others
     
    Last edited: Aug 8, 2020
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  12. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    Okay, so what if the women wanted an abortion at point of birth? It should be legal?
     
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  13. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    As an example of something which happens in other countries which presumably you care about. You DO care about it don't you?
     
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  14. Derideo_Te

    Derideo_Te Well-Known Member

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    And by doing so they are REPLACING the immoral arguments that were used to deprive people of their bodily autonomy AKA slavery, depriving women/blacks of the right to vote AKA emancipation/civil rights and depriving gays of the right to marry the consenting adult of their choice AKA overturning DOMA.

    In terms of consistency I am opposed to laws making prostitution illegal and prohibiting doctors proving assisted suicide so I am not flip flopping when it comes to bodily autonomy.

    That is exactly the problem with basing laws upon morality. Christian morality endorses slavery because it can be found in the bible. Modern morality has evolved to understand that is a denial of bodily autonomy and Individual Rights as defined in the Constitution.

    Morality is a slippery slope when used as the basis for legislation. It is better to take a secular approach to determine the limitations and responsibilities that come with individual rights. My right to own a gun does NOT give me the right to use it to deprive others of their possessions.

    When it comes to pregnancy prior to viability the fetus is essentially parasitic and cannot live independently outside of the uterus therefore it cannot have any individual rights that would override those of the woman carrying it. Complications caused by the pregnancy can kill and giving the fetus those rights means giving it the right to kill the woman carrying it. That is unacceptable on both secular and moral grounds.

    Please read the RvW decision so that we can both be on the same page.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade#Supreme_Court_decision

    Yes, it is a spectrum and that automatically removes the "pro-life" option because that is binary and imposes an undue burden without consent. As mentioned earlier consenting to intercourse is not a de facto consent to being pregnant and bearing an unwanted child.

    That means that somewhere on the spectrum you want to grant the fetus rights. Rather than doing that RvW invokes States Rights to step in and make that determination post viability. My own position is that is immoral because many of the crippling problems can only be detected during the 3rd trimester.

    So my question to you is to assume that you granted the fetus the absolute right to life post viability and it is born with serious medical conditions that mean that it will require 24*7 care for the rest of it's life. How do you justify the morality of imposing that burden on the person who must now provide this 24*7 care for many decades to come? Bear in mind that had you NOT granted the fetus that absolute right to life the pregnancy could have been terminated as soon as the condition was discovered. That decision would rest with the woman and her doctor and she could still CHOOSE to complete the pregnancy anyway but you want to DENY her that choice which strikes me as being immoral since it is NOT your decision to make.

    Are you aware of the case in Ireland where an abortion was DENIED because there was a fetal heartbeat even though it ended up KILLING the woman? The fetus was going to die under all circumstances but the REFUSAL to provide an abortion ended up KILLING her too. Where does the morality stand when it means that a woman MUST die because you have chosen to grant the absolute right to life post viability?
     
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  15. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    But why that specific example?
     
  16. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    Well because it was the worst that I could think of. If I said a substantially less terrible thing, you may have wriggled out of it, saying that you wouldn't care because it's not your country. You clearly would care about genocide, so I think that I've made my point which you're clearly unable to counter.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2020
  17. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    The truth of the matter is you believe abortion is genocide but just won’t admit it.
     
  18. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    Why the hell wouldn't I admit that? Have I shown myself to be a shy pro-lifer? Although I can certainly see why you think that's what I was doing!
     
  19. ECA

    ECA Well-Known Member

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    What country are you from?
     
  20. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    How did you know that his position is that a single human cell is the same as a living human?
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2020
  21. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    Well you don't believe that. You believe that abortion should be provided as health care. And according to you, without this aspect of health care (abortion) women don't have bodily autonomy.
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2020
  22. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    Sure it's a legal medical procedure. That doesn't change the fact that it's like no other medical procedure. It actually has nothing to do with HEALTH unless it is required to save a woman's life.
     
  23. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    So most pro-life people don't actually want abortion banned? Surely you can't be serious!
     
  24. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    You might consider not saying it because it's a totally dumb thing to say! Before safe and regulated abortions were carried out within the health system, some women performed an abortion themselves. If successful, how the hell were they forced to gestate?
     
    Last edited: Aug 9, 2020
  25. chris155au

    chris155au Well-Known Member

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    Sure, they're the same in those aspects. That doesn't mean they are the same in EVERY aspect!
     

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