screw the republicans. i don't give a damn about republicans. i care about children. i care about human life. there is a Democrats-For-Life organization as well. this need not be a republican/democrat discussion. when it gets put in that "us against them" (i usually vote democrat so i must think this way too -- or with republicans as well) the real issues get masked...the realities get masked and ignored. i'm with you...we should be doing tons more to help single moms. the church should be doing more...the government should be doing more. we all should be. but because we're not let's don't sit back and say, "well...it's probably a life...but because the government isn't helping out at every turn, it's still ok to extinguish the little suckers at our whim."
we dont live in an ideal world where every couple is married and can plan for a child dontcha think we need to deal with realities and not ideals? what sense does it make to push absenense only education?
i don't disagree with you at all. planned parenthood attempts to demonize these clinics, and they're very vocal about it. and i agree with you it isn't enough. the point was made that pro-lifers don't give a damn about the women...that they won't do what's necessary to remedy the other factors involved. i'm pointing to an example of that not being true. and everyone i know is actually involved in the pro-life movement supports these places like freaking crazy.
Your own poll here shows that FAR MORE THAN HALF of all respondants support legal abortions. The only thing we are divided on is the circumstances. Besides, the people who identify as pro-choice are too large a demographic to simply overrule by banning abortion. Rape is illegal and should be, as 99.5% of us would agree. When less than half believe that something should be illegal, we should reconsider banning said thing. IMO, in order to ban anything, we should have the support of 90+ % of the population.
Source please? Some quotes about dehumanizing- "In the eyes of the law...the slave is not a person" Virginia Supreme Court Decision "An Indian is not a person within the meaning of the Constitution" -George Canfield American Law Review, 1881 "The statutory word 'person' did not in these circumestances include women." British voting rights case, 1909 "The Reichsgericht itself refused to recognize Jews... as 'persons' in the legal sense." German Supreme Court Decision, 1936 "Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons. [Therefore], the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee." Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 1979 "The law of Canada does not recognize the unborn child as a legal person possessing rights." Canadian Supreme Court, 1997
"Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons. [Therefore], the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee." Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, 1979 this is absolutely chilling to me.
Hey - I just wanted to comment on the veracity of the numbers... I was riding my bike down around the mall on Sunday afternoon (well, I didn't really succeed because there was no place to go) and I couldn't see a single blade of grass from the Capitol to the Washington monument (I didn't check down towards the Lincoln Memorial, but I have no reason to doubt it was equally packed). I don't have the expertise to comment on how many people that was Pretty much all law enforcement and park police officials interviewed on local news said it was by far the largest demonstration they had seen in the past 15 or 20 years except for maybe the million man march in '92 (which had an estimated 870K people in attendance. The bounds of that estimate were from 640K to 1.1Million...) At any rate, there were a hell of a lot of people, and I have never seen an assembly that large in my life. Politics aside, it was pretty amazing in that respect.
the "face" of the pro-life movement is the Republican face, so i aplogize for just addressing that side of it if we have a republican pres, congress and bush gets to apoint a couple of Justices, then the odds are it will become illegal and we all will have to deal with the aftereffects of that and I don't believe that the Republicans will provide the support needed in the short term my stance isn't "because the government isn't helping out at every turn, it's still ok to extinguish the little suckers at our whim.", not at all, I was just projecting to the next step...b/c the right IS chipping away at the legality, fetal rights bills etc etc
No, because the child (once born) is dependant on ANY adult to take care of it, it is not dependant of the internal biological processes of the mother. OK, I will grant you that "religious" is probably the wrong term. Morality is what you are trying to force on people.
1. again...the legal definition of life. do you need me to repeat it? it's the definition used for time of death...when those activities cease...particularly relevant in some probate proceedings for determining who pre-deceased who in a common accident. 2. it's merely the definition of murder that i posted, andy. that's it. if it is a life (and there's nothing "moral" about that discussion...that discussion is a science argument) then it gets the same protections that you and i get. if you get murdered tonight, am i forcing my morality on the murderer to expect him to be brought to justice? you're seeing things in these arguments that aren't there.
Sorry, Max, but this rings hollow to me. It is the woman's right to decide what is to happen to her body. Until the government can remove the fetus and incubate it, they have no business banning abortion.
This has been remarkably civil compared to most abortion debates. My questions... This definition, though the most expansive yet in this argument, still doesn't quite get what it means to be alive, or more precisely, what it means to be human. What of twins? They, by definition, are not distinctive from all other living things, yet Mary Kate (though correctly considered the uglier one) is still considered alive. Along those lines, Dolly is still considered a sheep, right? Similarly, is not the Raelian baby (if, let's say, the Raelians weren't completely full of it; after all, the technology does exist), a clone of another human being, alive? What of a teratoma? In this way men can give a kind of birth. A mutation of a single gamete in produces a type of cancer. Yet it "manifests all the characteristics of biological life: metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction (cellular)." A teratoma is different from most tumors in that as it grows its original germ cell is capable of differentiating into any and all kinds of human cells. After operation to extract the tumor, surgeons are left with, say, a fist-sized ball of cardiac muscle (still beating) with canines and impacted molars radiating in different directions, with hair follicles and neural pathways (as in the example I've seen documented.) When prodded (because, in this one example, of its rudimentary nervous system), it recoiled. Due to the cardiac tissue, it pulsed with life. And it was capable of survival (albeit only a matter of several hours to days) outside of the human body from which it originated. Though this kind of teratoma is a living thing borne of humans, I would still consider it a cancer, something to be immediately removed and thrown away (or saved for a wicked cool mantelpiece jar). Yet, by your definition above, it is alive and worth saving. Finally, what of babies born without forebrains? It's a common enough occurence. They meet all the criteria above. They can breathe without respirators, and can survive for extended periods if fed. Yet they are incapable of thought, individuality. Is not that a necessity for life? They might technically be alive, I would argue, but certainly not human, and not worthy of protection. What I find lacking in the traditional pro-life arguments is the weighing in of consciousness, (or, barring that, Singer's capacity to feel pain argument). Arguably, a fetus late in its third trimester is capable of some self-awareness. Yet, just as clearly, a clump of 32 cells is not. A clump of 32 cells will not mourn its termination. Where is the capacity for thought in the pro-life/abortion debate? (I have only witnessed it brought up to argue against late-term abortions, but the rationale mysteriously disappears when discussing the initial weeks.) I'm legitimately interested in the pro-life side's response.
ok...so we're clear. it's your position that ultimately rests on some sense of morality centered around the woman's rights to do whatever she does with her body...even if, as you said earlier, you know for a fact the baby inside her is living and conscious. i've presented to you in the past: 1. science -- gestational development of the fetus 2. law -- very objective definitions of the markers of life (brainwaves and heartbeat) and you ultimately come back to the "well...it's a woman's right no matter what science and/or the law say." let's just be clear about who is making the position solely on "soft" issues. or on some sense of morality alone.
No, it is a mass of cells until it can live outside the mother. If the woman chooses, it might BECOME a human, but until then, it is a growth, a mass of cells that is more analagous to a tumor than a human. The difference being a tumor is not designed to and will never grow into a human being. Comparing the two is just being intellectually dishonest. IMO, in order to ban anything, we should have the support of 90+ % of the population. So I assume you would have been against the civil rights movement in the 60s? Banning racial discrimination had nowhere close to support from 90% of the people, or anywhere close to that. Yet, we did it because it protected a class that was otherwise unable to protect itself. This is no different. You're base your entire argument on your own personal and arbitrary definition of life and then dismiss anyone else's views which may be based on a different but just as valid definition of life. Why is your definition of life any more valid than Max's or twhy77's or anyone else's?
