There’s such a thing as the standard use of language. Using incorrect terms to help frame an argument in your favor doesn’t help. Anti-abortionists are simply wrong to refer to the early stages of conception as a baby. Science already refutes that. There’s no need to use another incorrect term. The embryo isn’t even called a fetus until 8 to 10 weeks after conception.
My suggestion is we stick to science and practical examination of the facts, and the choices before us as a society. As far as I’m concerned the choice is between a woman , her doctor, and her own personal beliefs, and conscience. People can say they FEEL as if it’s killing a baby, but the facts are that that is not in line with science, or how this has been viewed by most societies throughout history.
They simply have nothing to support their arguments except religion and emotion.
Which is your personal moral choice and not one you should be making for others.
FTR; I don’t agree with the use of parasite , but calling a embryo a baby is just as incorrect, maybe more so. It’s purposely using an incorrect term to give your belief emotional weight. That may work for you but making those statements are always factually incorrect. Every time. Facts count, even if you ignore them.
Your statement assumes that a zygote , or an embryo, or even a fetus with no brain, has an equal right to live and counts as a human baby. You have nothing but emotion or religious belief to support that. Historically , this has never been true in most societies. In our own country churches did not teach this to be the case.
Even people with religious beliefs have no idea when the soul or spirit enters the body, and no idea what God thinks on the subject, despite their personal beliefs. The reality is that if abortions are made illegal they will still occur, except more poor women will die. If we as a society do manage to force more pregnancies to be carried to term we also have to face our responsibilities to mothers and children in need. We have to deal with this issue realistically, not with some idealistic concept that suits our personal moral view.
It seems so simple doesn’t it? Now with so many people screaming irrationally about Sharia law being the ultimate goal of Islam {bullpucky} you’d think they’d see that it’s incorrect for any religion to try and force it’s religious morality on people who don’t share their beliefs.
The very principle of religious freedom that protects your right to worship as you choose , is supported and protected by extending that principle to others who believe differently.
I’ve always wondered if believers think it’s possible for mere humans to prevent a soul from being born into human life if God has decided that soul will take a mortal human form. Kinda odd if a miscarriage caused by slipping on the ice could thwart God’s divine plan.
Well, on the one hand there are plenty of people who insist that Islam is innately oppressive and aggressive while Christianity is innately tolerant and loving. And then there are the people who have no problem at all with religion being enforced by law, as long as it’s their religion.
I don’t give a damn what you believe in. I never mentioned what if any religion I follow. I said I don’t believe in killing babies due to my own moral values.
Seconded. Hell, my office wall still has our relatively-frequent ultrasounds (they said we were at a low-birth-weight risk, and then she came out 8lbs two weeks early) with labels: “Dotty”. “Parasite”. “Lumpy the Wonder Fetus”. Etc.
At five months, I can say with no trace of bias that she’s been the most adorable little baby that has ever existed, and I’m happy we let her be a parasite for just shy of 39 weeks.
The term isn’t pejorative, merely descriptive as I understand the strict definition.
Would it be moral to insist that a woman carry a severely deformed fetus to term if she does not want to do so? What if the baby has exencephaly (brain outside skull) or anencephaly (no or virtually no brain)? Some parents are willing to take these to term so they can hold the baby and say goodbye; others cannot go through with it and choose to abort. Isn’t that their choice?
Yes you do - I believe that a fetus is not a baby and does not carry the same rights that I do as an adult woman. You certainly give a damn about that.
Yes but you’re wrong to use the term here. Consciously or unconsciously you are doing an underhanded verbal trick. You are using “parasite” because the term has an emotional charge due to its (very popular) usage for horrid unrelated creatures living off you in your gut. But then so you can justify your use of the term when called on it you rely on a usage that is highly uncommon but technically correct.
Face it, if “parasite” was a term only used to describe a thing living off you that was created by your own actions and carrying as much of your own DNA as you were capable of transmitting using any readily available means, you wouldn’t be slinging the term about because it wouldn’t carry the emotional charge you are wanting to transmit.
I agree with your position in the debate, but here you are doing a dishonest troll and switch and that makes your tactics (if not your precise technical words) as bad as anti’s would when they refer to a fetus as a “baby”.
A pointless line unless followed up by convincing ontological argument. Would you respect an argument that laws should not apply to a US citizen in the US who doesn’t believe in the US government?
I’d kill a baby if it was inside my body and I didn’t want it there. Or, more accurately, I’d remove a baby from inside my body if I didn’t want it there and if it dies - tough luck - I’m going to base my decision on what is the optimal outcome for me and feel no need to have my decisions questioned by anyone else. This also applies to tumours and other unwanted objects inside a person’s body.
And since I want this right for myself, it’d be pretty darn hypocritical for me to object to others having it, too. Besides, Canada’s had effectively no abortion law for several years now, with no negative effects I’m aware of, so that pretty much eliminates any argument that such laws are necessary, and I dislike unnecessary law as a matter of principal.
Alright, since people seem to feel strongly about it I’ll retract my use of the word ‘parasite’. My point in using it was just to emphasize that the embryo, whatever you want to call it, is a little thing living inside you and surviving only by taking resources from you. This is, in essence, a parasitic relationship - and most people can understand the desire for someone to get rid of a parasite living in their body. I kind of think the pro-choice argument is two-fold - a) an embryo is not a person with full human rights and therefore removing it is not equivalent to murder, and b) even if an embryo *was *a person, no kind of human rights extend to the right to hijack someone else’s body against their will. The parasite thing, to my mind, is more about the latter point, but I will concede that applying it to the former point is less than accurate.
I disagree that this follows from my point. Belief in a religion is not really the same as belief in a government system.
Agreed. There’s no evidence that gods are even possible much less exist; while denying the existence of government is about as sensible as denying the existence of rocks.
Those people that protest or promote violence do not understand if they have never been raped or molested or beaten into submission. I have been there. And 40 yrs. ago I gave my baby away, because Planned Parenthood did give me that choice,even though I wanted my child…I felt i had no choice,no money, and my family would not help me. Unless people stand outside to help a woman go through those 9 mos., help monetarily, or want to adopt…don’t shove signs,ugly words and such unless you are prepared to the these things…
I don’t think reference to human rights is useful since it just begs the question as to what they are. Human rights are not set down in stone for us: they are what we decide they should be. Nor, per your second argument, is reference to precedent useful since actually there are instances of law compelling one to use oneself to support another: those in relation to child support for example.
The question is always simply one of “what should the law be?” And what the law should be is what is the most rational not what some mythical deity says it should be.
You miss the point, while at the same time making my point for me. You see the existence of government as obvious while your opponent sees the existence of god as obvious. The reason that denial of government laws seems ridiculous to you is the same reason they see the denial of god and their god’s laws as ridiculous.
So simply saying that their sky pixie’s laws shouldn’t apply to you is pointless. Not wrong, but rhetorically pointless. I’m not giving you a lesson in ontology, I’m givin you a lesson in rhetoric.
I have yet to meet a person who describes themself as prolife who actually deserves that designation, almost to a person they are pro-embryos but once the baby has been born, it’s all the mother’s fault for having it. The same people who protest at clinics demand that funding for social services for unemployed and poverty-stricken parents be cut, that they chose to have children and must pay for that. Before we rush off to save possibilities, lets make sure the sure things we already have are going to succeed.
I know human rights are not set in stone. But any debate about abortion presumably involves debate about human rights, and whether or not the rights of the embryo outweigh the rights of the mother. We could say there are no human rights at all, law of the jungle and all that, but I don’t see how that helps.
The precedent is useful since the law compelling you to take care of children involves children that you have made either a tacit or outright promise to take care of. Either you went out and adopted the kid, or you got pregnant and chose to have the kid and take it home rather than adopting, aborting, or surrendering it. Once you’ve agreed to provide for the child it is indeed a crime to neglect it, just like it is a crime to neglect a cat or dog you’ve agreed to provide for. But no law compels people to cloth and feed random kids who just happen to show up at your house. So there is no real precedent saying you must provide for an embryo that just shows up in your uterus, unless of course you want to argue that having sex is a tacit agreement to provide for a child, but then your getting into the ‘punishment for having sex’ thing.
The embryo needs its mother to survive. There are people who need blood transfusions or kidneys transplants or whatever to survive. People die from the lack of those all the time. Yet there is no law that compels everyone to donate blood regularly, or to donate one of their kidneys, or to become organ donors upon their death, and I would hazard a guess that most of us wouldn’t want laws forcing us to do all those things. What about that precedent?
The existence of government *is *obvious - I could head on down to DC and see it in action if I wanted to (or to Ottawa to see my government). You may not agree with all their laws, but that’s not the same as not believing they exist. I actually have no problem with people thinking certain laws are ridiculous (eg. the fact that gay marriage is still illegal in much of your country), but to deny the existence of the government itself would be madness. There are ways to state your case to get the laws changed, but there is no way to petition the sky pixie to stop hating gay people.
The belief in government or even in the process of democracy is not an article of faith, we can see it for ourselves. So I reject your statement that denial of law is the same as denial of the existence of god. Sorry.
