Here we go again... "life begins at conception" bullshit.

Uggh, hurry the fuck UP Nov 5th!!!

Ugh. "Culture of life". I bet she supports the death penalty. And we know she supports the war in Iraq...

Just in case anyone gets their hands on Sarah Palin and they're not sure if it's OK to rape her - go for it.

lol, it's so obvious that Katie Couric is jealous of Miss Palin's stunning good looks and irrefutable moral judgements

I repeat:

I challenge the sifter community to post some video(s) of Palin saying intelligent things that make sense.

How many videos is this now, where Katie has to ask her, "I'm sorry, i just want to ask you again?" in order to get a straight answer.

Its getting to the point where I just dread watching these. I just don't get it. How can the republicans be serious? Even in the pro-life, conservative, etc. camp how could this be the best person they could find?

Perhaps this speaks to the general intelligence of women statistically speaking. Here's a thought: maybe she WAS the smartest republican woman they could find?

>> ^volumptuous:
Here we go again... "life begins at conception" bullshit.
Uggh, hurry the fuck UP Nov 5th!!!


Could you enlighten the rest of us as to when life starts since you seem so sure it doesn't begin at conception?

>> ^BillOreilly:
lol, it's so obvious that Katie Couric is jealous of Miss Palin's stunning good looks and irrefutable moral judgements

interesting priorities.

i guess brains comes 3rd on your list?... 4th?

still with the jealousy? srsly?

I'll upvote to counter Bill O's trolling downvotes, but I won't upvote Gorillaman's comment. I may despise the woman, but would never wish rape upon anyone.

That said, I wouldn't doubt for an instant that her stance would probably dramatically change if she or someone close to her were. Only a monster would force a woman to carry the child of the man who raped them to term.

Considering that the Morning After Pill does not actually "kill" an embryo, it's hard to make a case against it as post-coital contraceptive regardless of when you think life begins.

>> ^SDGundamX:
>> ^volumptuous:
Could you enlighten the rest of us as to when life starts since you seem so sure it doesn't begin at conception?


Saying that a 50-cell blastocyst that has 0 nerve cells (i.e. 0 feeling) possesses human qualities seems to clearly violate Occam's Razor.

If you have an alternative hypothesis, the modern intellectual community would like to hear it.

The point we're all missing is that as humans, we have free will. As Americans we are guaranteed freedom of choice - freedom to choose our religion, or to choose secular existence, and we should be free to choose what we wish to do to our own bodies.

Anyone who wishes to take that freedom away from us are the real monsters.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

The argument is framed wrong. Of course a 50-cell blastocyst is alive, so are yeast cells and paramecium. Better to ask when is a developing fetus a human being.

And also yes the amazing dichotomy of a "culture of life" that promotes bombing countries and the death penalty is a huge mental disconnect.

^Well to them it's all about the potential, something has started forming that could become a human being. Of course every spermissacred and every egg also have potential, so i guess that means a woman is committing murder every time she has her period (why else so much blood), and a man genocide any time he ejaculates.

So she's all for contraception now huh, what happened to her abstinence only stance? Was she presented with some sort of over whelming evidence that occurred right under her nose that actually managed to change her opinion?

>> ^dag:
The argument is framed wrong. Of course a 50-cell blastocyst is alive, so are yeast cells and paramecium. Better to ask when is a developing fetus a human being.
And also yes the amazing dichotomy of a "culture of life" that promotes bombing countries and the death penalty is a huge mental disconnect.


Thanks Dag, that was my point but you said it way better than I ever could. Science can't determine when a developing fetus becomes a human being. At its core the question is a philosophical one, not a scientific one.

My own 2 cents... if you analyze the DNA of a zygote you will find that it neither that of the mother nor the father but that of a unique, unborn human being. As far as I'm concerned it's human at that point and should have all the rights we attribute to humans.

I am not persuaded by the "it can't feel anything" argument. Neither can someone deep in a coma or under anesthesia, but we would consider it murder if we snuffed out their life.

I am also not persuaded by the "it would be horrid to have someone carry around their rapists' baby" argument. I agree, it would be horrid. But the baby didn't rape the woman. Despite the violent nature of its conception, it deserves the same chances for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as the rest of us. That said, if we're going to force women to give birth to a constant reminder of such a traumatic incident we should also be fully willing to support the mother with both free health care and help with giving the baby away for adoption after it is born.

And before I get the "you'd change your mind if a loved one was raped"-argument let me just say my girlfriend in college was raped. I had a front-side seat to the trauma and anguish of such an attack and I know it takes a lifetime of healing to recover from it. It doesn't change the fact that the unborn baby is innocent. You want to burn your clothes after the attack? Fine. I'll get the lighter fluid. But don't take out your pain on someone who isn't the culprit.

EDIT: Strange, the quote button stopped working. This was directed at Kagenin.

We don't have the freedom to kill other people... which is what the argument is all about. When does a human get the status of "human" along with all the rights and protections such a label confers?

>> ^chilaxe:
>> ^SDGundamX:
>> ^volumptuous:
Could you enlighten the rest of us as to when life starts since you seem so sure it doesn't begin at conception?

Saying that a 50-cell blastocyst that has 0 nerve cells (i.e. 0 feeling) possesses human qualities seems to clearly violate Occam's Razor.
If you have an alternative hypothesis, the modern intellectual community would like to hear it.


By your logic, a caterpillar and a butterfly are not the same species since one does not contain any of the qualities of the other. Yet biology clearly shows that the DNA of the two are the same. They are the same species. So perhaps you could explain to the intellectual community how, then, a zygote that is a living organism and, like the caterpillar growing into a butterfly, will itself grow into a human being, will have the same DNA as a human being, and yet is somehow not considered a human being?

For you pro lifers (SDGundamX in particular), do you support Palin's other stance on abortion in that it's ok if the mother's life is at stake?

If so... well, then you've made some odd moral judgment there. You've decided at that point that because the mother is possibly going to come to great physical harm or die, then abortion is ok. You have given the mother's life more weight than the fetus's.

So, question is, why do you do that for physical pain and wellbeing, but give no thought to the mental pain and trauma caused to a woman who has to carry to term a baby she never wanted, or that causes her day in day out reminder of the rape that caused it? In this case you haven't given the mother's wellbeing any weighting at all, and are putting the not yet developed fetus's future above all else.

Odd.

Me? I'm pro a woman having the choice... BUT there is a point in a pregnancy where you have to go 'Hang on, I think at this point we could say this is a real person'. Myself, I would ascribe that to the point that we could remove the fetus and have it live and grow outside the woman. These days that is conceivably possible at 24-26 weeks or so... very dangerous that young, but has been done. I would say, if it can't yet be made to survive outside of the mother's womb, then it's the mother's choice.

After that, well it has a shot on it's own (albeit with a great deal of care and machinery to keep it alive up to 'full term')

"My own 2 cents... if you analyze the DNA of a zygote you will find that it neither that of the mother nor the father but that of a unique, unborn human being. As far as I'm concerned it's human at that point and should have all the rights we attribute to humans.

I am not persuaded by the "it can't feel anything" argument. Neither can someone deep in a coma or under anesthesia, but we would consider it murder if we snuffed out their life. "


You seem to think "uniqueness" means something that it doesn't. Identical twins are not unique, but they have the same rights as everyone else.

We ascribe more rights to humans than to apes, who have more rights than dogs, who have more rights than insects etc. This ordered pattern suggests there's a principle behind our ascription of varying degrees of rights.

There's a 1 to 1 correlation in that pattern between degree of consciousness and level of rights, so that's probably the best candidate you'll find for why we ascribe varying levels of rights. Coma patients are an exception because we believe their feelings are present in some manner.

What a bitch.

"By your logic, a caterpillar and a butterfly are not the same species since one does not contain any of the qualities of the other. Yet biology clearly shows that the DNA of the two are the same. They are the same species. So perhaps you could explain to the intellectual community how, then, a zygote that is a living organism and, like the caterpillar growing into a butterfly, will itself grow into a human being, will have the same DNA as a human being, and yet is somehow not considered a human being?"


I didn't say a zygote isn't a human being, I said it doesn't possess human qualities. Rights exist for reasons, and those reasons are not present in the 50-cell state of a zygote.

cuntry first.

Life doesn't start at conception, it's a continuous process that started 3 billion years ago. Only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons. A fertilized egg is not sentient.

>> ^ponceleon:

Perhaps this speaks to the general intelligence of women statistically speaking. Here's a thought: maybe she WAS the smartest republican woman they could find?


My dear Sir,

I dislike this comment.

Very respectfully yours,

Pinky

(I originally wrote "You are a dick-head," but I thought I might get in trouble for that.)

>> ^Kagenin:
I'll upvote to counter Bill O's trolling downvotes, but I won't upvote Gorillaman's comment. I may despise the woman, but would never wish rape upon anyone.

Moral cowardice. I endorse rape or any other violation of those who have forfeited their human rights by opposing the rights of others.

Sarah Palin should be burned at the stake like the witch she is.

>> ^gorillaman:
>> ^Kagenin:
I'll upvote to counter Bill O's trolling downvotes, but I won't upvote Gorillaman's comment. I may despise the woman, but would never wish rape upon anyone.
Moral cowardice. I endorse rape or any other violation of those who have forfeited their human rights by opposing the rights of others.
Sarah Palin should be burned at the stake like the witch she is.



Oh really, f*ck off.

Moral cowardice my arse. It's sticking to your morals even when you don't agree with someone's stance. It's the moral highground to not stoop to violence and oppression against those you don't like.

Resorting to violence against those you don't like... that's just pure thuggery, and speaks highly of your lack of thinking anything through a great deal.

Oh yes, empty the prisons! Abandon the concept of justice! We should love our enemies and respect their rights above our own.

I'll respond to chilaxe first:

You've changed your argument. Your original argument was that a blastocyst doesn't "possesses human qualities" and the human qualities you referred to in your post were clearly biological in nature (lack of nerve cells). I countered that argument (successfully, I think). Now you're saying that you were really talking about rights not qualities. Okay, fair enough.

I see your point. Attributing most rights is purely arbitrary. We attribute people 21-years old and over the right to drink. We attribute 18-year olds the right to vote and "die on some godforsaken isle" for the glory of their country. The numbers could easily be different(and of course are different depending on which country you live in).

But we're not talking about buying alcohol or registering to vote here. We're talking about life itself. As far as I know, the law here in the U.S. simply assumes all humans have a right to life. You have to present very compelling evidence in a court of law to deprive someone of their right to life--for example, evidence showing that the person poses a mortal danger to society. In other words, the right to life is not assigned, it is assumed by virtue of being human.

Which brings us back to the original question, when are developing embryos considered humans? You seem to be saying it is when they have achieved a certain level of "consciousness"--that we somehow earn rights based on our level of consciousness. That definition seems odd to me though. Wouldn't you agree that an adult ape is more conscious than a newborn infant? An adult ape interacts far more with its environment and shows far greater problem solving abilities than a newborn. Does that mean then that a newborn infant has less rights than an adult ape? We kill adult apes for research and (illegal) sport. Imagine,then, if newborns had less rights than adult apes. Surely that's not what you're suggesting. I only bring it up because I can't see how you're determining when a human is "human." Or maybe I'm still not understanding what you mean by "quality."

"do you support Palin's other stance on abortion in that it's ok if the mother's life is at stake?" Spoco2 (sorry, quote isn't working again for some reason)

Yes I do. I don't see a paradox here. The baby is threatening the mother's life. The baby's right to life does not exceed the mother's own right to life. Please note I am defining "right to life" here as literal life, not "lifestyle." Some people make the jump that because the baby will inconvenience the mother's "life" (they really mean lifestyle) the pregnancy should be allowed to be terminated.

So to answer your question, the baby has become a threat to another person's life. I see the act of terminating the pregnancy in such cases as an act of self-defense on the part of the mother.

And as I said before, I do agree that it is terrible to have to carry a constant reminder or such a horrible crime for 9 months. If society demands such a sacrifice then society also has the responsibility to make sure the mother is cared for medically, psychologically, and economically and that, if the mother so wishes, the baby is adopted. I should point out that not all mothers hate babies born of rape, nor do they view the baby as a constant reminder of the crime. But I certainly wouldn't fault a woman who did feel that way.

Moving on to your view of ascribing the right to life at the time the baby can survive--with medical intervention--outside the womb: I think it's safe to say that as technology advances that time will move closer and closer to conception. It may even become possible to "grow" a human outside of womb under laboratory conditions. Will you simply readjust your view of when abortion is unethical every time there is a medical advancement?

>> ^Kagenin:
Only a monster would force a woman to carry the child of the man who raped them to term.


Why must pro-lifers and pro-choicers throw superlatives at each other all of the time? A monster! HA! Let's think about this. I appreciate that pro-choicers are making a sincere attempt at what they believe to be compassion by giving women the option to abort. Pro-lifers are making an equally sincere attempt at morality. Palin may be a pitiful excuse for a vice-presidential candidate, (no, let me rephrase that) a disastrous embarrassment to the Republican party, but she's not a monster, and neither am I.

>> ^chilaxe:
>> ^SDGundamX:

Could you enlighten the rest of us as to when life starts since you seem so sure it doesn't begin at conception?

>> ^volumptuous:
Saying that a 50-cell blastocyst that has 0 nerve cells (i.e. 0 feeling) possesses human qualities seems to clearly violate Occam's Razor.
If you have an alternative hypothesis, the modern intellectual community would like to hear it.

I thought SDGundamX's question was a very good one, but in essence your response was, "Let me answer your question with another question." You called for an "alternative hypothesis." Alternative to what, exactly? None of you pro-choicers (with the very dubious exception of Spoco) have offered an explanation of when life begins.

Then let me offer my opinion on the subject. Philosophically speaking, if you believe in human life as a concept in and of itself, there MUST be a SET point at which a fertilized egg ceases to be "life" and is suddenly given the sacred status of "human life." It is not philosophically sound to argue that human life begins at some point between 24 and 26 weeks of pregnancy. Human life is not defined by dependency on environment nor on physical or mental capabilities. (A human infant holds the sacred title of "human life," but it has less intellectual capacity and is less capable of independent survival than a border collie.) Infants and fetuses are just as dependent on their environment as zygotes. They are simply in a later stage of human development. A human being cannot be instantly endowed with all of the capabilities of an adult, and there must be a starting point. I'm really sorry that the ovum doesn't instantly take on a little miniature human form when it is fertilized. Then maybe people would think of it as a thing with all of the necessary equipment for becoming an adult human being?

Where is the logic of those who believe in 13-week abortions but not 22-week abortions? I see no difference but time. If you take a child out of the mother at 22 weeks, it cannot survive on it's own. It's gonna need a heck of a lot of help. Ah, but it is human life, is it not? It is no longer all wet and icky and attached to an umbilical cord and TAH DAH! it isn't dead! LIFE! Oh, goody. Now we know when human life begins.

>> ^jwray:
Life doesn't start at conception, it's a continuous process that started 3 billion years ago. Only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons. A fertilized egg is not sentient.


This is by far the best argument I've heard for the moral grounds for abortion (and also extends to stem cell research). It may be what chilaxe was trying to say but I just couldn't understand the way he was saying it. "Sentient" in animal rights is defined as "capable of suffering" and I'm guessing that's how you're using it here (correct me if I'm wrong). Such a definition neatly sidesteps the issue of consciousness.

So okay, I'll agree with you on this--a zygote and the subsequent stages of celluar development are not sentient for some time--estimates vary from the 13th to the 24th week of pregnancy.

I'm not so sure sentience is a pre-requisite for humanity, though. I pointed out above the case of someone in a coma. chilaxe's counter to that was that we believe "their feelings are there in some manner." But those in a deep coma do not respond to pain and will not remember any pain should they eventually wake up. Hence no suffering. Have they therefore lost their humanity? Are they no longer a person?

The answer to both questions is quite clearly no. I'm interested in understanding "why not," because if only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons then a deeply comatose patient should have lost that status by virtue of being beyond suffering. If the argument is that "well, they may wake up and therefore be sentient again" then I would say you have to include developing fetuses as humans because they too may well be sentient someday--if someone doesn't destroy them first.

>> ^Kagenin:
The point we're all missing is that as humans, we have free will. As Americans we are guaranteed freedom of choice - freedom to choose our religion, or to choose secular existence, and we should be free to choose what we wish to do to our own bodies.
Anyone who wishes to take that freedom away from us are the real monsters.

I don't like Palin.

I deeply sympathize with women who have become pregnant as a result of rape or incest, but I want to point out that when a woman becomes pregnant under such circumstances, it is the perpetrator who has robbed her of her freedom. If abortion was a concept that had never been imagined, we would blame the criminal and not the law for taking away a woman's right to choose. A pregnancy may be a tragic consequence of an atrocity, but as was said before, this is not the child's fault. Abortion only adds to an already heinous situation.

Just for reference, here's a detailed list of the Stages of Pre-Natal Development.

It's arguments like these that make me glad that I'm not only pro-choice, but also don't have any qualms regarding infantcide.

Oddly enough, I'm against the death penalty. Strange how that works, isn't it?

>> ^Crosswords:
^Well to them it's all about the potential, something has started forming that could become a human being. Of course every spermissacred and every egg also have potential, so i guess that means a woman is committing murder every time she has her period (why else so much blood), and a man genocide any time he ejaculates.


It is ridiculous to compare an ovum or a sperm to a zygote. Why? Because neither an ovum nor a sperm if left alone in their unique environments will ever develop into a human being, but a zygote will.

>> ^spoco2:
For you pro lifers (SDGundamX in particular), do you support Palin's other stance on abortion in that it's ok if the mother's life is at stake?
If so... well, then you've made some odd moral judgment there. You've decided at that point that because the mother is possibly going to come to great physical harm or die, then abortion is ok. You have given the mother's life more weight than the fetus's.
So, question is, why do you do that for physical pain and wellbeing, but give no thought to the mental pain and trauma caused to a woman who has to carry to term a baby she never wanted, or that causes her day in day out reminder of the rape that caused it? In this case you haven't given the mother's wellbeing any weighting at all, and are putting the not yet developed fetus's future above all else.
Odd.
Me? I'm pro a woman having the choice... BUT there is a point in a pregnancy where you have to go 'Hang on, I think at this point we could say this is a real person'. Myself, I would ascribe that to the point that we could remove the fetus and have it live and grow outside the woman. These days that is conceivably possible at 24-26 weeks or so... very dangerous that young, but has been done. I would say, if it can't yet be made to survive outside of the mother's womb, then it's the mother's choice.
After that, well it has a shot on it's own (albeit with a great deal of care and machinery to keep it alive up to 'full term')


This is the first good argument I've seen, but of course I entirely disagree with you, Spoco. I don't think it is an odd moral judgment and I agree with SDGundamX that abortion in the case of self-defense is a completely different matter. At that point, what else is there but to determine whose life is more valuable? That ought to be the woman's decision.

The mental pain and trauma of carrying and delivering an unwanted or forced baby can be very severe, indeed, but our emotional well-being is never more important than a human life.

I'm annoyed by people who pretend to know something about the choice to have an abortion. I know three women who believed that an abortion would make them happy when they had it done. All three of them still regret their choice. One is my mom's friend who was pregnant as a result of rape and she had an abortion because she believed that the pregnancy was contributing to her emotional anguish, but once the baby was gone she felt just as unhappy as before. When she had her first child she says that she realized for the first time that what she had done was wrong, and now she suffers because of the guilt. This is a unique situation, of course, but I make this point because some people want to pretend that abortion is the perfect bandaid when it really has consequences of its own sometimes.

When Obama was asked why he voted against the live-birth abortion ban, he said that it was because he believed that it was just another hoop for mothers and doctors to jump through. The doctor would have to come back and check to see if the baby was alive and the mother would have to second-guess the decision that had already been made. Oh my goodness we can't have that! So what if their is a chance that the baby is viable? We can't have hoops that potentially protect life. We can't have those mothers second-guessing a monumental decision that could affect them for the rest of their lives, now can we?

Edit: Forgot to mention, Spoco, that I don't understand how a child "with a great deal of care and machinery to keep it alive" is more "on its own" than a child in the uterus. In fact, the latter is FAR more independent. All the mother has to do is live her life.

Science is exactly where it needs to be in terms of determining what is life and what is not. This argument that life begins at conception begs the question "why?" Theists believe conception is the moment "God" gives you a child... That's kind of gross to think that god is listening to you have sex.

When does this belief in start of life end? Some could argue life begins in the male gonads and the female gonads separately. Therefore, I could believe everytime I masturbate I kill millions of little blankfists. Civilization would most likely thank me for that.

>> ^chilaxe:
"By your logic, a caterpillar and a butterfly are not the same species since one does not contain any of the qualities of the other. Yet biology clearly shows that the DNA of the two are the same. They are the same species. So perhaps you could explain to the intellectual community how, then, a zygote that is a living organism and, like the caterpillar growing into a butterfly, will itself grow into a human being, will have the same DNA as a human being, and yet is somehow not considered a human being?"
I didn't say a zygote isn't a human being, I said it doesn't possess human qualities. Rights exist for reasons, and those reasons are not present in the 50-cell state of a zygote.

I see what you're saying, but you can't get out of this argument so easily. Exactly what qualities make someone human? What, specifically, are these reasons that we have rights? (I feel like Katie asking Sarah to be more specific: http://www.videosift.com/video/Tina-Fey-as-Sarah-Palin-she-does-is-again )

>> ^jwray:
Life doesn't start at conception, it's a continuous process that started 3 billion years ago. Only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons. A fertilized egg is not sentient.


Okay, finally a defined point at which life begins! I believe science puts sentience at about 6 months after conception. If you want to say life begins when the embryo can feel pain, I say, well, at least you put life somewhere. But you must realize that the consequence of that logic means that the babies who are born before this (up to a month) and live are not human until some time later. In that case, it would be okay for the mother to change her mind at any time during that month and flush the thing.

>> ^Fronzer:
It's arguments like these that make me glad that I'm not only pro-choice, but also don't have any qualms regarding infantcide.
Oddly enough, I'm against the death penalty. Strange how that works, isn't it?


Well, at least your morals don't conflict. (Excuse me while I vomit.) But, seriously, if you don't think infanticide is wrong, then being pro-choice would be a logical choice for you, albeit immoral and repugnant. It's these people who don't see the difference between infanticide and abortion that I don't understand.

"Incest is wrong? Oh boy..."

Oops. Repost.

Isn't any sex incest seeing how we're all from the same gene pool? Or is that me trying to justify having sex with my cousin?

I didn't hear her say "force" or imply that she would force anyone to do anything. She would "counsel" women to have their babies rather than abort them. According to data referring to the mental health of women after abortions, this is sound advice.

Every sperm is sacred. I thought we covered this already.

I was wondering what everyone thinks about miscarriages? Are they God's little abortions or...?

Someone help me get Carlin off my roof.

Waaaay too much blush. Is that to hide the fact that she's constantly flushed from embarrassment as a result of being way out of her depth?

Grrr. So basically you people believe that it is ok to let a person suffer for the rest of their lives because they are not allowed to make a choice concerning their own body and mental welfare. We have enough children in care waiting for the love of a family as it is. Those children were chosen to be born and look at them now. So it's better to potentially let not only the mother of this crime suffer the guilt, fear, hatred, future relationships and children, but also bring a child into the world who is unwanted and unloved because of the act. Take your blinkers off and stop whitewashing the issue, for fucks sake

/\ Agreed

This is where religion and science meet head on, and the fringes of bullshit intermingle with more bullshit.

I agree with both sides on this, and how do I do that? Because I know that at any point any life can end and I am comfortable with that.

But then again I was raised with Bushido Ideals - I am not Japanese though.

On another note: I would rather have a woman do an abortion at a clinic then in the bathroom with a clothes hanger.

>> ^dag:
The argument is framed wrong. Of course a 50-cell blastocyst is alive, so are yeast cells and paramecium. Better to ask when is a developing fetus a human being.
And also yes the amazing dichotomy of a "culture of life" that promotes bombing countries and the death penalty is a huge mental disconnect.


No, your argument is framed wrong. There's a big difference between defenseless unborn children and terrorist organizations and axe murderers. Or is that so difficult to see?

thepinky said:
The mental pain and trauma of carrying and delivering an unwanted or forced baby can be very severe, indeed, but our emotional well-being is never more important than a human life.

I'm annoyed by people who pretend to know something about the choice to have an abortion. I know three women who believed that an abortion would make them happy when they had it done. All three of them still regret their choice.

--

I disagree that emotional well-being is never more important than a human life. What's the point of living if it will be in constant pain, depression, etc.? I realize there is the potential to "get over" the trauma, but I think you should reconsider what makes living worthwhile, and should allow a person to make that decision for themselves.

Also, I know a woman who had an abortion and she does not regret her choice. She's living a great life now, one that she probably would not have been able to live had she not had the abortion.

I support abortion up to the 80th trimester. Anything past that is just crazy and irresponsible.

@pinky
BWAHAHA... the biggest strawman...
"It is ridiculous to compare an ovum or a sperm to a zygote. Why? Because neither an ovum nor a sperm if left alone in their unique environments will ever develop into a human being, but a zygote will."

Are you kidding? An zygote cannot survive on its own any more than a brain cell can survive sitting on the kitchen table. In fact, a human body can even reject an zygote and it does it all the time.

Here is the problem with this whole issue, you have to pick some point (both legally and logistically) to cell a human as born. We use BIRTHDATE for a reason, it defines the birth of a human. It's when a fetus exits a human body and lives on its own either in the world, or in an NICU.

To extrapolate the nonsense of the slippery slope of legal rights at conception, a woman should be charged with child abuse for drinking or smoking while pregnant. How about taking medications? What about a woman that falls down?

See a woman that gives their child alcohol or subjects them to smoking or throws their baby down the stairs would be in trouble for child abuse. If a zygote is really given the legal status of a baby, then a woman that causes a miscarriage from physical injury should be charges with murder, just like a woman that shakes a baby to death. It isn't an exaggeration, it is following the logical conclusion of those who cling on to some intangible timeline of when life begins.

@billO, what about those unborn babies who grow up to be axe murderers?

What about the unborn baby who will kill the mother? See, you cannot both declare equal weight to an unborn babies life and then say that the mother's life is more important. All life is equal under the law, so all the pregnancies that will be fatal to the mother MUST be allow to continue under this logic. We have to rely on prayer and just let women die (oh and the fetus as well) because life began at conception.

>> ^BillOreilly:

There's a big difference between defenseless unborn children and terrorist organizations and axe murderers. Or is that so difficult to see?


I had no idea that the 96,000 people that have died in Iraq were all terrorists! My god, our 'enemy' is more formidable than I had ever imagined!

As far as axe murderers, pass the axe and I'll take care of him.

I'm all for potential future libs being aborted.

Which the libs seem to support, too, so...bi-partisanship!

>> ^lantern53:
I'm all for potential future libs being aborted.
Which the libs seem to support, too, so...bi-partisanship!


Now there's a man that makes sense. Future president right there, kids. Better start the hate attacks before he becomes too powerful and its too late for your simplistic atheist/child-killing minds.

I wish they'd let you take home the abortion when you're done. I want to see if I can copy newspaper images with it like Silly Putty.

"What a bitch."

Totally agree with that.

People like Palin scare the shit out of me. It's one thing to have a private belief or opinion, but forcing it on others is a horrifying thing to behold.

Making people pay for rape kits is absurd and humiliating.

I had my house broken into and the police came and dusted for prints and cordoned off rooms, and you know what? Never received a bill for that.

Something tells me that Palin has never been raped--I find it hard to believe that someone even willingly had sex with that talking head.

It's hard enough to report it when it happens. It's hard enough to submit yourself to a degrading experience of people up to their literal elbows in your business. Then getting charged for that? What a kick in the face.

People who've been abused by a parent or family member carry that shame with them forever.. And knowing that you'd have to pay for a rape kit if you came forward is just another reason to hold that pain inside and never address the person who raped you.

Ugh, and counseling a girl to carry her father's child is just wrong, genetically and in so many other ways.

So it should be illegal, but no one should go to jail, in these "circumstances which are absolutely less than ideal."

>> ^CaptainPlanet420:
> Now there's a man that makes sense. Future president right there, kids. Better start the hate attacks before he becomes too powerful and its too late for your simplistic atheist/child-killing minds.

assuming lantern is a man?

before nominating him, wouldn't you want to ask if he's gay?

Bloddy hell far to mutch to read i do not come on the sift to read a book after each vidoe.

RIGHT if people insist on having a indepth debate about something and you actualy want to come to a conclusoin ore at minimum better your understanding of it you realy cannot debate on sutch a brad thing with out defining things clearly befor hand. as an example there is clearly a difrence between a morning after abortoin and say snapping a babbys neck as it pops out the vagina. my piont anny way is that this thing started as some people making borad comments about difrent opinoins to do with aborsoin in the context of a vidoe post that is fine and cool and ovously everyone reeding knows its a vidoe coment and so exspects a degree of lose ness if you like. however if you start arguing eachother lay down your argument specificly what you meen and maby agree with the other parties like a protocal for the conversatoin.

now if your still with me after reading that i commend you.

some new thoughts i got from reeding all this chit chatter and things i hadnot thought about before that i think are worth pionting out.

* aborting a babby can be as tramatic as keeping the babby from the mothers perspective

( this will differ from person to person but the piont is abortoin still sucks and is not a true FiX to the situatoin intemrs of what the mother of the fetus babby is fealing and it would be false for a pregnent person rape victim ore not to think of abortoin as a fix its mearly a optoin with its own varables and outcomes ) < i have thought of it before but not in the same light >

* I will personaly contribute to an alredy inapropreatly long vidoe comment list.

* please lern how to argue properly people (might not be you cba to read back again)
and dont use stupid argument techneeks its retarded
at least a cuple of people contributed with consice interjectoins like dags initail post.

^That's comedy genius that is

>> ^deedub81:
I didn't hear her say "force" or imply that she would force anyone to do anything. She would "council" women to have their babies rather than abort them. According to data referring to the mental health of women after abortions, this is sound advice.

Deedub is absolutely right.

>> ^littledragon_79:
I was wondering what everyone thinks about miscarriages? Are they God's little abortions or...?
I was wondering what everyone thinks about infant death? Are they God's little infanticides or...?

>> ^SDGundamX:
> Could you enlighten the rest of us as to when life starts since you seem so sure it doesn't begin at conception?

Saint Thomas Aquinas didn't believe that a fertilized egg had a soul.

he didn't agree with abortion, but still thought it took at least 40 days after conception.

personally, i dont think it really matters where life "begins" - if someone is going to have to carry you for 9 months and deal with 18 years of bringing you up, they get the right to pull the plug before they screw your future life up.

>> ^alien_concept:
Grrr. So basically you people believe that it is ok to let a person suffer for the rest of their lives because they are not allowed to make a choice concerning their own body and mental welfare. We have enough children in care waiting for the love of a family as it is. Those children were chosen to be born and look at them now. So it's better to potentially let not only the mother of this crime suffer the potential guilt, fear, hatred, future relationships and children, but also bring a child into the world who is unwanted and unloved because of the act. Take your blinkers off and stop whitewashing the issue, for fucks sake


I don't understand what you're saying. Does an abortion instantly fix all of the suffering that was caused by the rape or incest?

Unwanted, unloved children have just as much right to life as you do. All of these fluffy arguments don't change the fact that this argument is a matter of principle, not individual situation.

For example, my stance against the death penalty is a matter of principle. It is a fact that the death of a murderer often gives the family and friends of the victim closure and a feeling of justice. To deny the death penalty is to cause many people to suffer for the rest of their lives. But the death penalty is wrong because if even one innocent person is executed, it is too many. Monsters may be living semi-comfortable lives on our taxpayer dollars, families may be constantly harrowed up by the thought that their loved-one's murderer is still living, but the death penalty is still WRONG. I carry the same logic into the topic of abortion. Many children may be born unwanted and unloved and have to live off of taxpayer money, women may have to suffer even more pain by carrying a child and then knowing that it is living, but abortion is STILL WRONG.

>> ^thepinky:
>> ^deedub81:
I didn't hear her say "force" or imply that she would force anyone to do anything. She would "council" women to have their babies rather than abort them. According to data referring to the mental health of women after abortions, this is sound advice.

Deedub is absolutely right.

yes, but only because Palin is too chickenshit to actually state what she believes, regarding the force of law on abortion.

also, no one is against the idea of "counselling" before making a life-altering decision like this.
that's a flimsy red herring by palin.

>> ^jrbedford:
thepinky said:
The mental pain and trauma of carrying and delivering an unwanted or forced baby can be very severe, indeed, but our emotional well-being is never more important than a human life.
I'm annoyed by people who pretend to know something about the choice to have an abortion. I know three women who believed that an abortion would make them happy when they had it done. All three of them still regret their choice.
--
I disagree that emotional well-being is never more important than a human life. What's the point of living if it will be in constant pain, depression, etc.? I realize there is the potential to "get over" the trauma, but I think you should reconsider what makes living worthwhile, and should allow a person to make that decision for themselves.
Also, I know a woman who had an abortion and she does not regret her choice. She's living a great life now, one that she probably would not have been able to live had she not had the abortion.


Well, you do have a very good point there. However, Gundam is right that there is a difference between life and lifestyle, and I would venture to say that almost never does a pregnancy damage a life so much that it is not worth living. But let me say this: It may weaken my argument to mention it, but I actually do believe that women ought not to be FORCED to carry a child in the case of rape, incest, or threat to life, but I agree with Palin that she should be counciled to have the baby and that we ought to make it as easy as possible for her to do that. And the reason I believe this is because of what I mention earlier, that "ALMOST NEVER does a pregnancy damage a life..." I agree with you that sometimes (very seldomly) a pregnancy could in essence destroy the life of the mother. This is why it ought to remain a choice in those cases, because, yes, the LIFE and not the lifestyle of the mother is potentially more valuable than the life of the baby. But abortion as it stands today is advertized as some kind of instant fix. We make no effort to impress upon people the magnitude of the decision they are making. Like Deedub pointed out, abortion can be a cause for suffering in and of itself.

And abortion is still wrong.

"I would...uh...not choose to...uh...participate in that kind of contraception"

Yea, with 5 kids your stance on contraception is no secret

>> ^thepinky:
>> ^jrbedford:
thepinky said:
The mental pain and trauma of carrying and delivering an unwanted or forced baby can be very severe, indeed, but our emotional well-being is never more important than a human life.
I'm annoyed by people who pretend to know something about the choice to have an abortion. I know three women who believed that an abortion would make them happy when they had it done. All three of them still regret their choice.
--
I disagree that emotional well-being is never more important than a human life. What's the point of living if it will be in constant pain, depression, etc.? I realize there is the potential to "get over" the trauma, but I think you should reconsider what makes living worthwhile, and should allow a person to make that decision for themselves.
Also, I know a woman who had an abortion and she does not regret her choice. She's living a great life now, one that she probably would not have been able to live had she not had the abortion.

Well, you do have a very good point there. However, Gundam is right that there is a difference between life and lifestyle, and I would venture to say that almost never does a pregnancy damage a life so much that it is not worth living. But let me say this: It may weaken my argument to mention it, but I actually do believe that women ought not to be FORCED to carry a child in the case of rape, incest, or threat to life, but I agree with Palin that she should be counciled to have the baby and that we ought to make it as easy as possible for her to do that. And the reason I believe this is because of what I mention earlier, that "ALMOST NEVER does a pregnancy damage a life..." I agree with you that sometimes (very seldomly) a pregnancy could in essence destroy the life of the mother. This is why it ought to remain a choice in those cases, because, yes, the LIFE and not the lifestyle of the mother is potentially more valuable than the life of the baby. But abortion as it stands today is advertized as some kind of instant fix. We make no effort to impress upon people the magnitude of the decision they are making. Like Deedub pointed out, abortion can be a cause for suffering in and of itself.
And abortion is still wrong.


Well, its clear we have a Sarah Palin to go along with the Lantern dude for president in 2024. CaptainPlanet420 promise - you have my vote.

>> ^thepinky: this is not the child's fault.

So now you're calling a 50-cell blastocyst a "child"? Whaaaaat?


>> ^thepinky:
Abortion only adds to an already heinous situation.

Says someone who's never been raped and then carried the fetus through full term.


And to think that we can just "counsel" people and everything will be awesome, is fucking hysterical.

Do you know how many orphans there are in this country? Do you know how many orphans never get adopted, grow up with zero parents and go on to lead utterly shit lives?

Do you understand that people like Palin and McCain are against gays adopting children? (find me one anti-choice politician or religious leader who also believes in gay adoption)

Noone likes having an abortion. Most people will never even tell their best friends. There are very good reasons why most western European countries have very few abortions, but remain free to do so. And to leave this to the pro-life crew is exactly the opposite way of bringing down the number of abortions we have here in USA.

To leave this up to hard-core evangelicals, and those who are wholly influenced by the far-right, and the Fallwell's and Dobson's who believe even basic sex-education and contraception is immoral and against GOD, is basically begging for "back-room" and "coat-hanger" abortions.

Europe didn't decrease abortion rates by leaving the issue in the hands of the most religious. They did it with full-blown sex-education, and saturated their schools and public squares with free contraception. Which is another reason why HIV and STD's are rampant here, and sparse over there.

I'm with Biden on this one:
"As close to a consensus that can exist in a society that is as heterogeneous as ours."


And notice Palin keeps using the "choose" word. She would "counsel" someone to make the right "choice". OK, so then after that awesome counseling, then they choose to abort, then what?


This debate is nonsense. It's a wedge-issue that the Repubs will never part with. They "gay marriage" thing is almost a non-issue anymore, they've obviously been found to not be so fiscally conservative as people thought. They've completely screwed their awesome "WAR ON TERROR" issue, immigration for now is DOA. So this is all they've got, and they're not letting it go.

>> ^thepinky:
>> ^deedub81:
I didn't hear her say "force" or imply that she would force anyone to do anything. She would "council" women to have their babies rather than abort them. According to data referring to the mental health of women after abortions, this is sound advice.

Deedub is absolutely right.


So what does this mean in regards to her potential role as vice president?

BTW: Here you go
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html


"Approximately 26 million legal and 20 million illegal abortions were performed worldwide in 1995, resulting in a worldwide abortion rate of 35 per 1,000 women aged 15–44. Among the subregions of the world, Eastern Europe had the highest abortion rate (90 per 1,000) and Western Europe the lowest rate (11 per 1,000). Among countries where abortion is legal without restriction as to reason, the highest abortion rate, 83 per 1,000, was reported for Vietnam and the lowest, seven per 1,000, for Belgium and the Netherlands. Abortion rates are no lower overall in areas where abortion is generally restricted by law (and where many abortions are performed under unsafe conditions) than in areas where abortion is legally permitted."


Anyone who's been to Belgium or the Netherlands can attest: They're not shy about sex. I've been to Belgium countless times, and the amount of brothels and sex-workers there is staggering. People are not afraid of sexuality, but they're smart, they use contraceptives, and although abortion is legal, there's hardly any of it.

The End.

Abortion is cool.

No one seems to be taking up the cause of the amputations! A man's leg has far more human attributes than a 50 cell blastocyst! What of the depraved individuals giving up one of their God-given kidneys for a transplant? WHAT IF THE TRANSPLANT DOESN'T TAKE?? OH THE HUMANITY!!!

The next time I see someone waste billions of children giving someone a facial, I may have to shoot them. With a gun I mean. Really.

I believe a baby isn't human.

With 6 billion plus in the world we got enough humans as it is.

>> ^thepinky:
>> ^alien_concept:
Grrr. So basically you people believe that it is ok to let a person suffer for the rest of their lives because they are not allowed to make a choice concerning their own body and mental welfare. We have enough children in care waiting for the love of a family as it is. Those children were chosen to be born and look at them now. So it's better to potentially let not only the mother of this crime suffer the potential guilt, fear, hatred, future relationships and children, but also bring a child into the world who is unwanted and unloved because of the act. Take your blinkers off and stop whitewashing the issue, for fucks sake

I don't understand what you're saying. Does an abortion instantly fix all of the suffering that was caused by the rape or incest?
Unwanted, unloved children have just as much right to life as you do. All of these fluffy arguments don't change the fact that this argument is a matter of principle, not individual situation.
For example, my stance against the death penalty is a matter of principle. It is a fact that the death of a murderer often gives the family and friends of the victim closure and a feeling of justice. To deny the death penalty is to cause many people to suffer for the rest of their lives. But the death penalty is wrong because if even one innocent person is executed, it is too many. Monsters may be living semi-comfortable lives on our taxpayer dollars, families may be constantly harrowed up by the thought that their loved-one's murderer is still living, but the death penalty is still WRONG. I carry the same logic into the topic of abortion. Many children may be born unwanted and unloved and have to live off of taxpayer money, women may have to suffer even more pain by carrying a child and then knowing that it is living, but abortion is STILL WRONG.


You took that paragraph right there, and all you got out of it was that I could have been saying abortion fixes everything? I'm hardly implying that abortion should be forced on a victim am I. "I don't understand what you're saying" you write. Yet you have so much to say for yourself. Classic case of a narrow mind lady. Oh and to say unwanted/unloved children have just as much right to life? Just.Inane

>> ^thepinky

agreed with the part that matters:

> ...I actually do believe that women ought not to be FORCED to carry a child in the case of rape, incest, or threat to life...

that's the only real issue. the force of law.

> And abortion is still wrong.

then don't have one.
i'm not saying it's right. no one's throwing abortion parties.

what matters is, the force of law.
whether or not you get to call the cops because someone had an abortion.

I'll tell you how to spell "close hanger" if you teach me how to use "council" properly.


>> ^NordlichReiter:
...On another note: I would rather have a woman do an abortion at a clinic then in the bathroom with a close hanger.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/lists/women.html

If it is ungodly to abort a fetus, then why doesn't god do something about it, in person.

God needs to come down and do it herself instead of sending the crazies out!

O by the way, why the fuck are we arguing over this, babbies go to heaven if they die before original sin.

Abortion is not wrong. Death Penalty is not wrong either. The two are not directly related though.

Science can absolutely determine when a fetus is a person, but we have to define the boundaries for when something is a person. Is it complexity? Thought? Consciousness? These are, as others have said, more philosophical questions than scientific ones.

I don't think a small fetus should be counted as a person, just because it has the potential of being a person. It is not a person yet. This means that the mother, who is a person, has rights over her body, which supersede any rights of the potential child. The threshold for when the child becomes a person is something to be determined, when the boundaries for a person is set up.


Death penalty is not wrong, in my mind. I believe there are crimes that are so heinous that the criminal forfeits his life. Of course you have to be absolutely certain that (s)he did the crime and so on.

>> ^deedub81:
I'll tell you how to spell "close hanger" if you teach me how to use "council" properly.

>> ^NordlichReiter:
...On another note: I would rather have a woman do an abortion at a clinic then in the bathroom with a close hanger.



What the fuck does that have to do with any thing? Go back to you tube.

what a GREAT discussion!
i have read through the 80+ comments and have been impressed with many of the arguments.
that being said..
the arguments being presented here,while valid,all fall into the trap.
the "when does life begin" and the "fetus rights" trap.
both are valid and significant arguments to discuss,but ignore the larger premise of "legality".
because THATS what this argument is REALLY about..legality.
the concept of a government,ANY government,legislating "morality" should be a reprehensible idea to any free thinking human being.
because thats what this issue is ultimately about..morality.
it is a moral choice that a woman has to make to abort a pregnancy.
thats a choice that only she can make,and from my experience,it has always been an almost unbearable one.
if you are pro-life or pro-choice,these are your choices based on your philosophies,concepts and understandings based on YOUR moral understandings.
henceforth your views and decisions will be based accordingly.
and as we have seen on this thread,our views are varied immensely.
but once you ask,or allow, the government to legislate morality,when does it end?
where would you put the "do not pass" sign?
in the old testament,if a woman was accused and found guilty of adultery she
was "to be brought into the streets and stoned to death".
adultery is a moral issue,as is lying and stealing, even masturbation.
morality itself is a relative perception.
some base theirs from a religious standpoint,others a sense of fairness guides their morality.mostly we get our morality from family,friends and neighbors.community helps shape how we look at things from a moral perspective.
but if you let the government legislate morality,we risk fascism,or worse...
a theocratic fascism.
that should give everyone pause.
till next time..peace.
Enoch D.D.S

note* i am pro-life and counsel women who are either contemplating,or have had an abortion.

To argue whether life begins at conception is ridiculous. Of course it does. The word itself is the definition of fertilization and implantation of an embryo.

The question rather is does it have it's own right to live? Or does the woman have the right to her child's life while her body gestates it.

When does a child have human rights? There is a duality in this country on this. A woman can have an abortion in her 3rd trimester, yet a person can be charged with 2 counts of murder for killing a pregnant woman.

@ enoch: But don't we already legislate morality? The age that people can "legally" have sex, drink, drive, smoke, and watch pornography are not based on some scientific formula but some completely arbitrary collective moral sense of when people should be allowed to do those things.

Just say it plainly. As long as a fetus is not free of it's mother's body; the mother has the right to kill it.

But call it what it is. You are killing human life. Quit dancing around it to make it sound better.

Personally, I would never have an abortion..no matter what. Society cannot legislate it for women though. How can one force a woman to have a baby in cases of incest, severe birth defects or rape?

I really don't like Sarah Palin. However, if she would've just answered the damn question directly and honestly, I would have to concede the slightest bit of respect for her. Not enough to be worth a damn, but still.

"Yes, that is what I believe." That's all it takes.

And for those who still don't get it, it's not usually the "women should have the right to do what they want with their own bodies" that is the barrier; it's the belief that their own bodies aren't the only ones at stake.

If we truly have rights over our own bodies, then legalize all drug use, assisted suicide and prostitution.

Point 1: (on topic) While I don't agree with the somewhat tongue in cheek assessment that Sarah Palin is the most intelligent woman McCain could find to take his VP slot (which is, needless to say, offensive to many women out there), I can use it as a clear demonstration that McCain has done women, particularly in the political field, absolutely no favours picking Palin as an offsider.

Would you use Sarah Palin as a role model for aspiring young women who want to get in to politics? "Look girls, one day you can be as incoherent and unprepared as Ms. Palin..." I think not. She is, daily, setting back real women in politics because she just reinforces the "old boys" opinion that women are unsuited for such careers.

That is not to say she is completely incapable as a politician, merely that she is so far out of her depth that she looks incapable. I oppose her moral stances and think that governments should lean towards less meddling in the affairs of citizens (ie. reducing this mania for victimless crimes), but that is another issue.

Point 2: Abortion. Oooh, very scary topic. Splitting hairs over sentience or when life actually stops being an abstract concept and actually gets a ticket to this great ride we call human existence is pointless because there is no clear determinate that everyone will agree on.

My personal take? Leave the choice to the mother and let her take responsibility for her actions and the life of her child. In the long run, the government and the pro-lifers do not have to spend the rest of their life raising said child or taking responsibility for it. They make a nice clean moral judgement and wash their hands of the rest.

I do not agree with killing unborn babies but faced with the choice of forcing a woman to live with a child produced by rape when she really doesn't want to, there is no question in my mind that her priorities and preferences must take precedence over my own. Following on, if a young women get's pregnant (through lack of contraception, failure of contraception, stupidity etc), do I or anyone else have the right to dictate that the rest of her life must follow a certain path because of an error in judgement?

To mitigate this, set an arbitrary period on legal abortion at which point it is reasonable to expect a person to have made a informed decision on whether they want to terminate the child. Add a self-defense clause re: imminent danger of death to the mother and you're done.

ps. Some people might think ^ is a bit flippant. It's not, but the complexity of the issue and the emotion charged nature of it means that there will never be a true meeting of the minds. As such, the only recourse a government should take is an arbitrary decision that acknowledges that pro-lifers get the easiest time in this whole debate, but demand the most.

That is, they get to dictate terms of how another persons life plays out, but take no responsibility for that result. No care taken, no responsibility taken.

In some cases, they take that self righteousness a step or 2 further...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion-related_violence

Two years ago, if you had asked me my position on abortion I would have told you I was pro-choice all the way. Then I saw an actual abortion performed and had everything I believed turned upside down. Seeing the doctor wash little dismembered body-parts--arms, legs, parts of a skull--and count everything up to make sure he got it all... that pretty much convinced me I needed to re-examine my beliefs. I have tried since that time to be open to all positions on the matter and to form my own opinion based on reason and logic. The conclusion I came to is very similar to swampgirl's--abortion is morally wrong but is also a necessary evil.

I'm an atheist, so I don't oppose abortion on any religious grounds. No, like swampgirl said earlier, I just think we should stop beating around the bush. We're taking human lives here. Granted, we're doing it as mercifully as we can (i.e. before the nervous and pain response systems are fully developed) and for ostensibly good reasons. But I think too many people try to gloss over the fact that a human life is ended in the process. I think people are uncomfortable with the idea and that's why we quibble over when a human is an officially recognized "person" or when certain rights should be ascribed.

However, although I oppose abortion on moral grounds, I do not agree with making abortions illegal. That probably seems paradoxical to most people, but it stems from the fact that I am pragmatic. There are serious problems with making abortion illegal: backroom abortions and their associated risks; a suddenly skyrocketing number of babies that need adoption placement in a system that is already burgeoning under the weight of unwanted or neglected children; massive population expansion at a time when resources such as clean water are becoming scarce; and so on. In an ideal world, we could make abortions illegal and provide superior care and support for all women who must carry unwanted babies and place all of those unwanted babies with caring, loving, families. But I've seen enough of the world to know that it is anything but ideal.

And so I believe that as horrible as it is, legal abortions are necessary in the world. It kind of depresses me a little bit that I can find something immoral and yet still condone it. I think maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old that I'm willing to compromise my morals for pragmatic concerns.

^ same reason ron paul doesn't personally condone or participate in abortion.
med school, becoming an ob/gyn, he had to observe one.

made him sick. it'd make almost anyone sick.
and that personal involvement, is a very understandable reason why people can lose sight of the real issue.

>> ^SDGundamX:
>> ^jwray:
Life doesn't start at conception, it's a continuous process that started 3 billion years ago. Only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons. A fertilized egg is not sentient.

This is by far the best argument I've heard for the moral grounds for abortion (and also extends to stem cell research). It may be what chilaxe was trying to say but I just couldn't understand the way he was saying it. "Sentient" in animal rights is defined as "capable of suffering" and I'm guessing that's how you're using it here (correct me if I'm wrong). Such a definition neatly sidesteps the issue of consciousness.
So okay, I'll agree with you on this--a zygote and the subsequent stages of celluar development are not sentient for some time--estimates vary from the 13th to the 24th week of pregnancy.
I'm not so sure sentience is a pre-requisite for humanity, though. I pointed out above the case of someone in a coma. chilaxe's counter to that was that we believe "their feelings are there in some manner." But those in a deep coma do not respond to pain and will not remember any pain should they eventually wake up. Hence no suffering. Have they therefore lost their humanity? Are they no longer a person?
The answer to both questions is quite clearly no. I'm interested in understanding "why not," because if only sentient life forms have the moral status of persons then a deeply comatose patient should have lost that status by virtue of being beyond suffering. If the argument is that "well, they may wake up and therefore be sentient again" then I would say you have to include developing fetuses as humans because they too may well be sentient someday--if someone doesn't destroy them first.


The difference is that the person in a coma with the possibility of recovery had some desires in the past that ought to be considered, while the fertilized egg never had any desires.

I would argue that a person with severe brain damage, in a persistent vegetative state, with no hope of ever recovering consciousness (such as Terri Schaivo during her 15 minutes of fame) has lost their personhood. If the brain is dead, then they are, for all moral purposes, practically dead.

the concept of a government,ANY government,legislating "morality" should be a reprehensible idea to any free thinking human being.

Murder is immoral. Murder is also against the law. There's a connection.
Lying (for fraud) and stealing are also against the law, and also generally immoral. There's a connection.

Although I agree with your premise of the law giving people as much personal freedom as possible without infringing on the rights of others, here's the rub: the "not infringing on the rights of others" part is the whole of morality. That's why it bugs the hell out of me when people say "you can't legislate morality". Every good law is based on morality, promoting the general welfare, or a practical expedient to the enforcement of other good laws (such as taxes necessary to pay the cops and feed the poor).

in the old testament,if a woman was accused and found guilty of adultery she was "to be brought into the streets and stoned to death"...but if you let the government legislate morality,we risk fascism,or worse

Leviticus is not morality.

lying and stealing, even masturbation.

A prerequisite for calling an action immoral should be that it has a victim. There's no victim of masturbation. Masturbation is not even a moral issue.

Very well said, and I agree with you on many points. However, I don't believe that simple abortion is the answer. I think most people agree that fewer abortions in this country would be a good thing. I would have liked Palin's answer much more if she had said something more like my opinion, which is:

Yes, I do believe that abortion in the case of rape or incest is wrong and I would counsel a woman in that situation to go through with the pregnancy. It is, of course, a great sacrifice for her both emotionally and physically, and that is why I believe that it ought to be her choice. Her agency was taken from her by the man who impregnated her, and if she believe that her "life" (lifestyle) would be irreparably destroyed by the pregnancy, than she should be free to decide whether her life or the embryo's life is more human.

The answer to reducing abortions in general is not to make all abortions legal. There are steps that we must take in order to reduce abortion rates including providing healthcare and adoption programs for unwanted pregnancies, better and earlier sex education (with full consent of the parents), and free access to contraception. Abortion should be illegal for pregnancies more advanced than 24 weeks because when higher brain functioning and pain receptors are developed, there can be almost no doubt that the child ought to have human rights.

But pragmatics should never be a reason for a moral decision. That is why we ought NEVER to torture prisoners. Sure, we might save some American lives by torturing terrorists for information, but torture is something we do not (or should not) do as a matter of principle.

>> ^SDGundamX:
Two years ago, if you had asked me my position on abortion I would have told you I was pro-choice all the way. Then I saw an actual abortion performed and had everything I believed turned upside down. Seeing the doctor wash little dismembered body-parts--arms, legs, parts of a skull--and count everything up to make sure he got it all... that pretty much convinced me I needed to re-examine my beliefs. I have tried since that time to be open to all positions on the matter and to form my own opinion based on reason and logic. The conclusion I came to is very similar to swampgirl's--abortion is morally wrong but is also a necessary evil.
I'm an atheist, so I don't oppose abortion on any religious grounds. No, like swampgirl said earlier, I just think we should stop beating around the bush. We're taking human lives here. Granted, we're doing it as mercifully as we can (i.e. before the nervous and pain response systems are fully developed) and for ostensibly good reasons. But I think too many people try to gloss over the fact that a human life is ended in the process. I think people are uncomfortable with the idea and that's why we quibble over when a human is an officially recognized "person" or when certain rights should be ascribed.
However, although I oppose abortion on moral grounds, I do not agree with making abortions illegal. That probably seems paradoxical to most people, but it stems from the fact that I am pragmatic. There are serious problems with making abortion illegal: backroom abortions and their associated risks; a suddenly skyrocketing number of babies that need adoption placement in a system that is already burgeoning under the weight of unwanted or neglected children; massive population expansion at a time when resources such as clean water are becoming scarce; and so on. In an ideal world, we could make abortions illegal and provide superior care and support for all women who must carry unwanted babies and place all of those unwanted babies with caring, loving, families. But I've seen enough of the world to know that it is anything but ideal.
And so I believe that as horrible as it is, legal abortions are necessary in the world. It kind of depresses me a little bit that I can find something immoral and yet still condone it. I think maybe it's a sign that I'm getting old that I'm willing to compromise my morals for pragmatic concerns.

>> ^volumptuous:
>> ^thepinky: this is not the child's fault.

So now you're calling a 50-cell blastocyst a "child"? Whaaaaat?
>> ^thepinky:
Abortion only adds to an already heinous situation.
Says someone who's never been raped and then carried the fetus through full term.
And to think that we can just "counsel" people and everything will be awesome, is fucking hysterical.
Do you know how many orphans there are in this country? Do you know how many orphans never get adopted, grow up with zero parents and go on to lead utterly shit lives?.


You don't know anything about my life, and we're all being hypothetical/philosophical here, so leave my life out of it unless you really want to know why I am probably about 3572.84 times more qualified to talk about sexual crime and foster care and adoption and pregnancy and abortion than you are. M'kay, pumpkin?

You are taking a pragmatic view of a moral issue, which is just crazy weird to me. Legalized murder would totally reduce the population and most murder would probably occur among the poorer classes, greatly reducing poverty. But it's still murder.

Just how many orphans grow up to lead "utterly [poop] lives?" Do you know? How many of them lead good lives? How many kids with two parents lead bad lives? This argument has nothing to do with whether or not those children will have good lives or not. You cannot deal out judgment upon the value of anyone's life. Life is life is life and it should be protected whether it's crappy or not.

agreed GUNDAM,and jwray brings up the exact point (harming others) where this argument always gets caught up.
is abortion murder?
i say it is.but that does not mean i wish for the government to step in and create legislation to ban it.
roe vs wade has stood up well for 35 years,mainly in part (in my opinion) due to the fact it compromises.
and while i agree jwray that laws may pertain to morals,but really they are in place to protect the victims.
so while masturbation is a victimless crime,it is still against the law in some states.just as me using an old testament reference was a jab at brutality for the sake of justice,that was jab at stupid,archaic and puritanical laws.
that whole diatribe was my lil jab at some of the archaic laws that have infected human society.
though i understand your point,which you made succinctly,it brings us back to
the beginning,in which we ask,when does life start?this is the juxposition that can never truly be clarified.
if life starts at conception,then its murder.
and if thats true,
how can we deprive this "potential individual" of its/his or hers..rights?
and the deabte rages on.
all im saying is keep government out,
it is already a relative issue with the person involved.
a moral crisis they will have to face,and ultimately take responsibility for.
but thats my take on the issue.
i thank gundam and jwray for their well-thought out posts.
till next time..peace.
Enoch D.D.S

This whole first world argument about whether or not abortion and fetuses are human crap really annoys the shit out of me.

If humanity and society as a whole was as altruistic about helping each other then I would support the ban of abortion, because that would mean each and every child would be raised in a loving environment, with a proper education given to them no matter what crack all gang rape environment they came from.

But thats not the case is it now? Society as a whole doesn't like taxes that go toward building foster homes and giving even a modicum of a real life to these children.

Because honestly when economic cost factors in, alot of people's morality tends to fly out of the goddamn window. But it's nicer to just talk in moral abstracts.

"i want to see less and less abortions in the united states, i haven't spoken to anyone who disagrees with me on that".

Oh! I see! you haven't spoken to anyone who disagrees with that.

It's like when you said "I think I am prepared" (to be VP). Unarguable! You are genius!

Fundamentalists think they are being so clear and logical with their extremism, and that we should all appreciate them for being so "committed" to their "ideals".

Fuck that, I have the strength and compassion to recognise that forcing a girl to spend her whole life raising her father's child is fucking sick, twisted and ridiculous.

What's more ridiculous is she'll just go get a backstreet abortion anyway, and maybe lose her womb in the process. Way to treat a pedophiliaincestrape victim. How I admire your respect for "life".

By the way, I believe life applies to animals as well, are you gonna stop shooting the fuck out of them?

>> ^thepinky:
I was wondering what everyone thinks about infant death? Are they God's little infanticides or...?


having experienced what you are talking about here, I feel that you are clinging to an extremist blanket rule on abortion that is unworkable and will never be enforced. Give it up. Let other women make their own choices, your God will judge them, not you.

Playing devil's advocate here, why does the concept of human life supersede any possible imaginable suffering absolutely? What exactly makes life so sacred? Hell, I'm inclined to think this way myself but I can't help suspecting it's almost an instinctual gut reaction, which is not necessarily moral in all applicable cases.

The notion of life in and of itself may be clearly definable and homogeneous but surely anyone can agree that the standard of life various people enjoy varies. So surely the satisfaction derived from that life does not originate purely from being alive, but from enjoying the time you spend on this earth. Going by that argument and considering the notion we have considerable power of when to bring new 'life' into the world surely it's not too much of a leap of faith to argue we also have the power to ensure that when we do so, we leave that child with the greatest potential to accomplish whatever they wish within society? In an ideal world sure, every unwanted baby will be handed over to a loving family, but until that comes to pass why should an innocent child have to suffer through a life of lovelessness, underachievement and perceived inferiority that could potentially occur as a result of being adopted or left to fend for themselves as an orphan? Sure you could argue this is a result of underfunded or failing government programmes, or social inequality but the problem still stands.

Totally off that topic, the abstract notion that 'life' is morally sacred and precious questionably defies our preordained instincts. Women in third world countries tend to have more children, arguably as a unconscious reaction to the relative decreased chance of each child's survival and the need to pass on their genes.

^thepinky:
For example, my stance against the death penalty is a matter of principle. It is a fact that the death of a murderer often gives the family and friends of the victim closure and a feeling of justice. To deny the death penalty is to cause many people to suffer for the rest of their lives. But the death penalty is wrong because if even one innocent person is executed, it is too many. Monsters may be living semi-comfortable lives on our taxpayer dollars, families may be constantly harrowed up by the thought that their loved-one's murderer is still living, but the death penalty is still WRONG. I carry the same logic into the topic of abortion. Many children may be born unwanted and unloved and have to live off of taxpayer money, women may have to suffer even more pain by carrying a child and then knowing that it is living, but abortion is STILL WRONG.


I suspect what you're really talking about here is revenge not justice or potentially closure, in which case I'd disagree. As I see it justice should not be about punishment but about be about protecting social order and the public good, it would be seeing to it that the perpetrator never commits whatever they did again, so I don't see it as being analogous to an eye for an eye kind of thinking. Sure punishment is an inherent side-product and deterrant aspect of say getting jail-time but it's not the point of it. So in that sense unless you're considering any crime an in-mate could commit against another as a result of not being put to death, applying the death penalty serves not judicial purpose.

I didn't see an answer to my question. So I'll ask it another way. Sarah Palin said she would "counsel" women to have their babies rather than abort them. What does this mean as a vice president? She obviously wouldn't counsel them personally — she would have to promote legislation that would require counseling. What would this legislation look like? And if a woman didn't want counseling (it does assume she didn't consider all the issues before making the decision - which is kind of condescending)?

>> ^thepinky:
You don't know anything about my life, and we're all being hypothetical/philosophical here, so leave my life out of it unless you really want to know why I am probably about 3572.84 times more qualified to talk about sexual crime and foster care and adoption and pregnancy and abortion than you are. M'kay, pumpkin?


Sorry "sweetie" but you were the one who brought up how not-horrible it is.

I haven't been raped and then carried the fetus to fullterm, so I'd rather leave that "choice" up to the individual who's going through the experience, rather than shove my morals upon their life.


The end of this discussion is easy.

The countries on this planet with the smartest people, who have the best sex-education and open access to contraceptives, are the countries that have THE LEAST amount of abortions.

The countries that have the strictest laws banning abortions, have 300 times the amount of them, and since they are illegal, they are these same type of "back room" or "coat hanger" abortions that are so utterly horrible.

And I don't give one shit about what Ron Paul saw. I've seen the procedure as well. It's an utterly disgusting process that I don't wish on anyone. But that has nothing to do with abortion laws.

And again for the class:


The countries on this planet with the smartest people, who have the best sex-education and open access to contraceptives, are the countries that have THE LEAST amount of abortions.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/25s3099.html

ThePinky said:

"I would have liked Palin's answer much more if she had said something more like my opinion, which is:"

For some reason I just find this statement fucking hilarious.

Reading the above tread, is it safe to conclude that the jury is still out on when exactly a human life starts? If so, would it be reasonable for a person with a certain opinion to prevent people with a different opinion to make the choice they believe is right?

Anyway, the most stupid thing Palin says in this interview seems to be overlooked: there is a huge difference between something being illegal and putting someone in jail (e.g. doctors could lose their licenses, clinics could be closed &c).

Life is sacred is a stupid notion of idealists, life isn't sacred, we wish it was but it isn't.

I can bet right now there is a fire mission danger close to some civilian village, right now there are hundreds of children dying out of malutrition and disease and famine and war. All this is happening while people in the 1st world argue about banning abortion... shit if you care so much adopt all the babies in Africa that are born to slain parents of war and HIV.

The other day AP put out a story that the US would need to donate about 79 billion to help African development to a point where the socities would become self sustained.

Contrast that with the 700 billion dollar bail out plan for the economy, remember that the figure picked was arbitrary when most analysts presume that toxic debt exposure exceeds the trillion mark.

Raised by doctors my view of life is only at birth, you don't count a chick that didn't hatch from its egg as alive do you?

I think life begins when you get your driver's license.

Conception begins the moment the woman's bra is unstrapped. Fellatio is the best method of birth control. Parents should have one year after birth to legally abort. The death penalty should only be employed for acts of treason.

Some one gag both of them.

>> ^Farhad2000:
Life is sacred is a stupid notion of idealists, life isn't sacred, we wish it was but it isn't.
I can bet right now there is a fire mission danger close to some civilian village, right now there are hundreds of children dying out of malutrition and disease and famine and war. All this is happening while people in the 1st world argue about banning abortion... shit if you care so much adopt all the babies in Africa that are born to slain parents of war and HIV.
The other day AP put out a story that the US would need to donate about 79 billion to help African development to a point where the socities would become self sustained.
Contrast that with the 700 billion dollar bail out plan for the economy, remember that the figure picked was arbitrary when most analysts presume that toxic debt exposure exceeds the trillion mark.
Raised by doctors my view of life is only at birth, you don't count a chick that didn't hatch from its egg as alive do you?


But it's still a chick. You just said so in your own statement. The same thing applies to any stage of human development you choose: it's a human zygote, a human blastocyst, etc. It's human. Whether it is considered a "person" under the law is the debatable point.

And clearly society disagrees with you about life beginning at birth for, as swampgirl pointed out, someone who kills a pregnant woman can be charged in many states with a double-murder.

"clearly society disagrees with you"

omg what a pathetic argument that is. clearly society thought Bush deserved a second term, but that doesn't mean shit. clearly society thinks God requires his people to go to a special building every week. so what? i am still not going.

is this a record for the longist sift comment sectoin ever ?

There's no dichotomy between good moral principles and whichever general principles would be in the best interest of almost everybody.

If the mother didn't want to have a child, chances are that she wouldn't take care of the child as well as someone who wanted to have a child, so children in general are better off if parents in general are allowed to abort.

The Beethoven fallacy applies equally well to arguing against abstinence (who knows what genius you might have created if you hadn't abstained from sex!), so it shouldn't be taken seriously.

A rational determination whether legalized early-abortion is moral should weigh the harm of early-abortion itself (zero except the placebo effect) against the benefits (freedom of women, less suffering of destitute unwanted children) and the harms of the opposite legislation (delayed abortions, back-alley coathanger abortions, more babies than we need, penalties against doctors and women) against the benefits of the opposite legislation (none, unless there's a shortage of babies).

We never should've given women the vote.

>> ^quantumushroom:
We never should've given women the vote.


Representative governments have the benefit of preventing bloody wars of succession and, if you keep an eye on the past 500 years of history, almost always producing better policies than autocracies. If the 19th amendment were rejected, and subsequent attempts were rejected, there might have been a war over women's suffrage. That is why, as a selfish man, it is in your interest to support the 19th amendment. Also, if you ever want to get laid...

while the born quibble over the unborn, the leaders strip both of their humanity

Bristol. Piper. Track. Willow. Trig
After 5 kids and a moral certitude against contraception, Sarah Palin now only takes it in the ass, with the occasional facial.

>> ^MINK:
"clearly society disagrees with you"
omg what a pathetic argument that is. clearly society thought Bush deserved a second term, but that doesn't mean shit. clearly society thinks God requires his people to go to a special building every week. so what? i am still not going.


Okay, how about "the law disagrees with you" then. Happy now? And since society has a great deal of influence on deciding who is going to sit in the legislative chairs and make those laws, I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss society's views.

>> ^jwray:
There's no dichotomy between good moral principles and whichever general principles would be in the best interest of almost everybody.
If the mother didn't want to have a child, chances are that she wouldn't take care of the child as well as someone who wanted to have a child, so children in general are better off if parents in general are allowed to abort.
The Beethoven fallacy applies equally well to arguing against abstinence (who knows what genius you might have created if you hadn't abstained from sex!), so it shouldn't be taken seriously.
A rational determination whether legalized early-abortion is moral should weigh the harm of early-abortion itself (zero except the placebo effect) against the benefits (freedom of women, less suffering of destitute unwanted children) and the harms of the opposite legislation (delayed abortions, back-alley coathanger abortions, more babies than we need, penalties against doctors and women) against the benefits of the opposite legislation (none, unless there's a shortage of babies).


It's pure speculation on your part to assume that a child is better off living with parents who intended to have them than those living with parents where the pregnancy was unwanted. There are plenty of parents who "wanted" their children who go on to commit horrible physical and/or psychological abuse against them. There are plenty of "unwanted" children (from parents who are against abortion or did not have access to the procedure) who go on to lead successful lives.

But even assuming it were true that the wanted children were categorically better off, that's still no reason to assume that an "unwanted" child couldn't go on to lead a healthy and productive life. It's all relative, isn't it? The unwanted child didn't lead as happy a childhood as the wanted child but that does not automatically make them better off dead.

As for the "zero cost" of legal early-term abortion, perhaps it is zero cost to the parents but I think the unborn child is certainly paying a price.

Again, I'm not arguing for making abortion illegal but I am against having people trying to gloss over what abortion actually is: the taking of a human life. All this talk about "zero cost" and the like is, to me, just as dehumanizing as when the military calls civilian deaths in combat "collateral damage."

>> ^Ryjkyj:
ThePinky said:
"I would have liked Palin's answer much more if she had said something more like my opinion, which is:"
For some reason I just find this statement fucking hilarious.


Aye...

Total surprise that someone would like something better if it was more akin to their own opinion... 8 |

>> ^Ryjkyj:
ThePinky said:
"I would have liked Palin's answer much more if she had said something more like my opinion, which is:"
For some reason I just find this statement fucking hilarious.


That's because I'm a funny gal.

>> ^Farhad2000:
Life is sacred is a stupid notion of idealists, life isn't sacred, we wish it was but it isn't.

I know what you were getting at in this comment in the context of your entire comment, but I think you hit on something that would be a good philosophical exercise for everyone in this thread (world?) to embark on. This is actually something that I wish people would spend more time thinking about...

Why is life sacred? Why is life valuable?

I've got my own reasons, but I think too often people believe that life is sacred without ever questioning why they have that belief.

Sorry to bring back a week old thread, but I hardly get chances to go all philosophical on video sites.

"Life" starts quite a bit before conception, actually. A sperm is alive and an egg is alive too. Abortion rights have very little to do with when "life" starts, but the pro-life part wants us to think that. A tree is alive too.

When is it a person, when should it have human rights? Those are relevant questions.

The first many weeks, a baby is less complex and conscious than a pig or dog, and we would sacrifice the animal any day to save a single human life - why not a fetus? Until a fetus reaches a certain stage, I don't consider it a human life and thus, when you make a cost/benefit analysis of it, the mother may feel that she wins more (loses less) by having the abortion. Who are we to say otherwise? It's her body and her call.



>> ^SDGundamX:
Could you enlighten the rest of us as to when life starts since you seem so sure it doesn't begin at conception?

We never should've given women the vote.

Still funny. To be taken cum grano salis.

*promote discussion of enormous proportions.

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 7:30pm PDT - promote requested by gwiz665.

>> ^gwiz665:
promote discussion of enormous proportions.


It has all been said, no? I just don't understand how Palin can call herself "pro-life" when she's in favor of the death penalty. That makes her a giant hypocrite in my eyes.

* If it's so "obvious" Palin was unfit to lead, the libmedia wouldn't have gone to such lengths to assassinate her.

Nowhere does Palin say a rape victim should be "forced" to bear a child and in fact says no one should be jailed for having an abortion. Another sift based on a lie. (See above)*

Sorry for the wall of text, but it's split up - just three individual rebuttals(mostly). Three posts in one maybe? 1 is about potential life, 2 is our screwed up scale and the attacks made utilising the opponent's uncertainty and 3 is the broken terminology being used to implicitly argue.

If just one person is better off for reading just one of these points I'll be happy

Ok, some argument flaws to point out which I see have seen largely unaddressed so far:

1. Argument for potential life (I think thepinky used this one, as well as others). Left alone in its unique environment x will become y; z will not. This is pure inaction bias. The absence of taking action is an action itself. When making a choice, either doing something or not bestows the exact same responsibility given a neutral context. In real social situations, there are other actors which may have brought about a situation, etc, so it's a bit more complex there.

Basically, leaving a fertilised egg in place and removing it are both positive actions. You cannot say that there is potential life because of "what would have happened". This is also countered by pretty much any cell in the body being able to become an individual human being. From skin cells you scratch off to millions of sperm to eggs, they are all potential human beings. This is usually "countered" by saying it is innate potential, not just potential. That is the no true scottsman fallacy. It also stems from inaction bias.

What are the consequences? Whatever scale you use to rate or determine if something counts as a person you must apply it objectively to both the fertilised egg and everything else. Just prepare for cognitive dissonance, however, since when rating a fertilised egg's level of consciousness or personhood generally a sperm of unfertilised egg is pretty much rates exactly the same.

2. Which leads us to point two. The scale we try to make to classify varying levels of devlopment is completely messed up. This would be a scientific problem if only science were actually in the position to answer our questions to a degree of confidence. Nobody knows what constitutes consciousness or the nature of it. At the moment our most informed observations say that brains are conscious. We don't know how, why, if consciousness is anything but an illusion, if it is specific to brains (or things like brains), if it is physical, the nature of existence and so on!

The passive argument "Look at all these unasnwered questions in your reasoning! If you're more wrong, we're more right." is silly. It just makes that argument more "wrong"; your own retains however much wrongness it had!

Also, the absence of unanswered questions does not make a good argument. Wanna see me answer all questions in existence? God did it. There! No, you build a model and apply it to reality. The better it fits, the better the model. I heard things brought up like why do dogs and pigs not have more rights than human fetuses then? Good question. Our scale is messed up, but we at a species are trying. We can hope to eventually have these things sorted, if at all physically possible for us.

3. Being hung up on the term "human life" or similar. Arguing in a biological sense about whether a fertilised egg (or sperm, or egg) is "human" or not, is classed as part of the human species or other definition.

The problem is people stop at that definition. For example, "From a fertilised egg to birth to death it is always a human being, for such and such sound reasoning, therefor they have the interests of a person." In the case of being a human as in part of this species, you have to remember species is a distinction for purely usefulness purposes in biology. It is arbitrary and meant as a tool - it has no bearing to the actual debate at hand.

My point being, many of the terms used around here have no basis in the context of the argument. One person is talking about a human life in the strict biological sense as basis for personhood and the other is using a description more along the lines of sentient, conscious, able to feel, etc. Be careful around the terms human, life, etc.

That's it for what I can remember for now

So, despite everything we don't know, the best we can go on at the moment says a fertilised egg is nothing special, that a fly's brain is over 100,000 neurons, so what of that 50-cell blostocyst mentioned so much? The best we can determine is it's a gradual scale from no consciousness to more. Drawing lines is horribly messy but observation of reality at least says if it has no neurons it is no more different than any other clump of matter or cells or anything. So far. What happens if we try to draw the line closer, when we try and determine at which point it becomes "conscious enough"? Fierce debate. That is good, but right now debating whether a fertilised egg is anything special is drawing attention away from the important area.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Nowhere does Palin say a rape victim should be "forced" to bear a child and in fact says no one should be jailed for having an abortion. Another sift based on a lie. (See above)

It's an inference based on her policy of wanting abortion to be ILLEGAL. If you can't terminate a pregnancy legally, you're forced to carry the child, commit suicide, or attempt a miscarriage.


We allow family to choose to pull the plug and end the lives of people on life support, that doesn't seem so different from allow a mother the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

I've never understood the hypocrisy of the majority of abortion opponents. They'll fight tooth and nail to save lives(debatable), but are perfectly fine with military action that costs countless lives(no debate).

Shouldn't we be able to agree that if "life is sacred" then that should apply to all lives(including murders, terrorists, communists, and Dick Cheney), not just the ones we find conveniently sacred.