If fetus = potential life, then self-pleasure also = potential life. And, potential life != humanhood life (as poorly defined above). Therefore, Actual Life > inconvenience (to Actual Life) > Potential Life Cow-law and Bird-law are both third year, right? Clip SFW, rest of episode not (language): <object width="512" height="296"><param name="movie" value="http://www.hulu.com/embed/q9khGpYIODlayAc8gAP5Ug/0/100"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.hulu.com/embed/q9khGpYIODlayAc8gAP5Ug/0/100" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" width="512" height="296"></embed></object> The 1:30 mark on dovetails nicely into this discussion. Yeah; I enjoy these discussions; good way to mentally engage / pass the time. Don't mean to offend/step on anyone's toes. Unless, of course, anyone here is in his/her personal third trimester, or is an infant, in which case I will gladly dance a jig on some toes. Humanhood FTW.
honestly, i appreciate your tone and your honesty. rep points for you for the discussion, despite our disagreement on the topic.
^^^ I do respect your viewpoint, Max. Swift sure did make those Irish babies sound delicious, didn't he?
^^^ My ancestors were English. Sorry, mate. Though, if it makes you feel any better, they were probably thrown out of the country for some reason or another.
Fascinating thread - almost sad at times. I admit I am too scared to confront my true feelings on this issue... I honestly don't think anyone would know how you'd feel until your wife/daughter/close friend fell pregnant via rape - or was in some other situation where abortion had to be considered.
Importantly, however, and pertaining to this thread, the Crown did hand out free (sheepskin) condoms for my ancestors' raping/pillaging needs. Long live the King!
One could argue that she made the choice to continue that pregnancy after the first trimester. So a 30 year old illiterate deaf mute with a bad leg is all of a sudden not human? That is really...well...warped. All babies are special. You never know who they will grow up to be. Most will be quite unremarkable. Some will be the great musicians, scientists and politicians of the next generation. I have never heard anybody before insinuate that a baby is not human. Not that you can see. There is a lot going on though. If you spent any real time with a newborn, you'd see it. I honestly cannot believe I am reading this. Your views on this are really kind of sick. How good of you. I wonder why you feel that way since they aren't special and do not do anything that makes us human. Your post...overall...is disturbing.
It bothers me that we allow abortions right up until birth, technically. I know, most doctors wouldn't do it but they can. I suppose that the birth is the only truly clear demarcation we can offer but the arguement that we are not talking about a human being's rights really seems to fall apart experientially. I have a good friend who has had a few abortions but the last one she had after 20 weeks and after learning she was going to have a boy. Her family pressured her into the abortion because she was suffering from depression (not uncommon in pregnancy) and afterwards she felt very much as if she had murdered her son although she had been extremely pro-choice until then. Biologically your body reacts very much as if the fetus is NOT a part of you. Generally, mothers do not reject the baby as a foreign matter but the bodies do operate rather independently. Consider gestational diabeties, for instance, where the babies sugar needs conflict directly with the mother's. Certainly by the end of the pregnancy parents are thinking about the baby as if it is a person. When the twins were born it highlighted for me the silliness of asking which was older. There is a six minute difference in their ages but it was just a matter of geography, they were certainly both whole people but one happened to be inches away. My point is that somewhere between the act of sex and the birth of the child a person begins and we haven't settled on when it happens. We haven't decided as a society whether a fetus is a person or not and if so when it happened. A good friend of mine argued (back when I was pro choice) that it is like standing before a curtain and not being sure if there is a human behind it. Do you shoot? She would say that of course you wouldn't until you knew for certain that there was no one there.
I consider my self "pro-choice", to a degree, but that doesn't mean I think abortion is ok in general. I think there are 3 general positions (of course, some overlap): (1) They think abortion is nothing but a medical procedure on the mother. Not a moral issue. (2) Abortion is wrong, but support the rights of mothers to make that choice (to varying degrees). (3) Abortion is wrong, essentially murder. Can not be allowed. I'm under (2), and stories like this just piss me off.
Some other values that humans have is mercy, empathy and a sense of time which also separate us from the lower the animals. The pro-life argument considers that while a fetus might not have the ability to reason as humans we have the ability to consider that has the potential of person and to empathize with its plight. As I said I'm pro-choice but I don't think this is as black and white an issue as you make it out to be. Also just curious, but are you an Objectivist?
And Native Americans, Jews and Blacks were denied citizenship and other rights guarenteed under the Bill of Rights. Would you apply those to fetuses if you consider them human?
F^ck the Crown! <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/DXzhEokVn0s&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/DXzhEokVn0s&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
