Abortion-clinic picketers.

The BBQ Pit
1361

Pro-life answers to your pro-choice scenerios:

  1. You are probably lying about the rape. Only sluts are raped. The child should not be denid life for what its father did. You can endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  2. You can go on welfare to endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  3. The chld should not be denied life for what its father did, so endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  4. Your father no doubt wants you to have an abortion so he can continue his illegal activities. The child should not be denied life for what its father did, so endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  5. You can go on welfare to endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  6. You do not know how the medication will affect the baby. Even if it does, the child should still be allowed to live. It’s better to be born handicapped than be killed. You can endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  7. The child should still be allowed to live. It’s better to be born handicapped witth a serious genetic disease than be killed. You can endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  8. The world is not overpopulated and even it is, one more baby won’t make a difference. You can endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  9. Not every child is traumatizsed by adoption, and it is better to have a bad adoptive family than to be killed. You can endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  10. The child should not be killed because of your past history. You can endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  11. The child should not be killed because of you and your husband’s intentions and mistakes. You can endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

  12. You can continue your education after you endure this temporary minor inconvenience and give the child to a loving, married couple.

1362

Call me crazy, but I don’t believe you are really trying to give a set of good-faith answers to these questions from a pro-life perspective.

It’s… well, I hate to say it, but it’s almost like you disfavor the pro-life view, and thus gave a set of answers that you deliberately designed to paint the pro-life view as negative.

1363

Because if you press a pro-choicer enough, you’ll inevitably run him/her into the same arguments. It’s not that much of a secret.

My first post on the last page.

Oh, it’s not a loaded question. I’ll go out on a limb here and say that most pro-choicers would squirm at the the thought of a woman deliberately harming her unborn child (not killing it), yet these same individuals somehow think it perfectly okay to kill that child en utero or even to cause that child to be born dead (i.e., through the use of a saline abortion) or to die directly after being expelled from the uterus. Apparently, it’s okay to kill a child en utero (or have its death closely follow being expelled from the uterus), but it’s not okay to maim or injure that child while en utero. Makes sense, if you don’t think about it too much. Cognitive dissonance, at it’s finest.

Oh, but there is definite mental gymnastics.

If, as you assert here, a woman can be denied the ability to act according to her own will because of effects it will have on the unborn presently, or even on the unborn in the future, then her right to bodily autonomy isn’t absolute as she can be made to something, or prevented from doing something, so long as it is in the best interest of the unborn make/prevent her from doing something. So are you saying that a woman’s right to bodily autonomy can be subverted? Or are you saying that this only applies when the unborn can feel pain? If so, then your argument is essentially that it’s okay if a woman throws down a 40 ounce a day, so long as she causes her unborn child to die before it can feel pain. Yes?

(That ‘yes’ is a rhetorical question, because that’s precisely what your argument is, even if you won’t admit to it.)

Amazing. So abortion is either about men controlling women or women controlling women. Gee. I bet next you’re going to mention ‘the patriarchy’, too.

Except it is true, and no amount of posturing on your end will make it any less true. It just means that you’d rather hold to your ignorance.

Nope human life, and your own cite doesn’t agree with you (emphasis mine)- “A zygote is the beginning of a new human being. Human development begins at fertilization,”. The zygote is the beginning and may eventually develop into a human, but it isn’t not itself a human being.
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You, quite frankly, deserve to be ridiculed and mocked.

This is the worst reading I’ve ever had the displeasure of encountering. It doesn’t say that fertilization is the beginning of the process by which the unborn begin to turn into human beings, but that fertilization is the beginning of a human. Taking your (very liberal) reading at face value, we would have to assume that human development involves a non-human entity, in which case it’s wouldn’t be human development, but rather something else.

This, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, demonstrates the futility in trying to argue with pro-choicers. Even when given something which clearly demonstrates they’re wrong, they’ll assert that they’re right. There is no amount of evidence to the contrary one could provide which will make them admit that they were wrong.

1364

So how would **you **have counseled someone in those situations?

1365

It makes perfect logical sense, and there is no dissonance. I can evict a renter, but I cannot beat them with a hammer.

A pregnant woman can remove the fetus (that this results in fetal death is not the primary goal of the activity), but she cannot abuse it.

1366

Is that so? Well, it’s nice to know a woman can’t sue a man for pregnancy-related costs.

The state in which a woman can avail herself of potential motherhood by walking herself into the nearest abortion clinic.

The same state in which women are required to donate their body parts to ensure the survival of their children.

(You really want to go here, because I can totally be facetious.)

…Where have you been the last forty or so years? The only reason people argue that the state had insufficient grounds to tell a citizen she must remain pregnant against her will is because the unborn aren’t persons. I know you don’t live in the U.S., but a cursory glance at Roe v. Wade will tell you that much. Hell, I’d even be willing to bet that the same is true in Canada.

For a moment, let’s get away from abortion. Let’s, for argument’s sake, assume we’re arguing whether or not slavery should be legal or illegal. There is virtually no one here who would argue that emancipating the slaves is contingent on whether or not we have a social safety net set up in order to absorb the shock emancipating the slaves would have. There is virtually no one here who would argue that emancipating the slaves to be contingent on whether or not we can force equal treatment of the ex-slaves by the ex-slave owners. Those would all be deemed red herrings, which have little to do with whether or not slavery should be legal or illegal, as they do not address the issue of whether something is wrong or not. It’s the same deal with abortion. None of your arguments have any bearing on the abortion debate.

I admit, I did get a slight chuckle out of this. Iirc, you were posed with numerous questions in that other thread that you never did get around to answering. Before you tell someone “they can’t logically defend their stance”, I think you might want to look in the proverbial mirror.

1367

I would like to know this as well. I extend my invitation to you to counter any snark you’ve identified with an honest discussion of the situations I proposed. Because I would really like to understand why a woman should be forced to subjugate her bodily autonomy (only when she’s pregnant) when nobody else is required to. And if all situations are created equal?

1368

No, it doesn’t make logical sense. See, you can’t claim a woman has an absolute right to bodily autonomy, and then claim that she cannot do certain things to and with her body because of the effect it has on the unborn. The two notions are incongruent.

If she has an absolute right to bodily autonomy (and don’t tell me how no one here has stated as much), then the effects her actions have on the fetus are immaterial (whether that’s death or being abused). If the women can be prevented from engaging in certain activities because of the effects allowing her to engage in those activities would have on the unborn, then there is no absolute right to bodily autonomy, as her will can be subverted in the interest of another. Those are your only two choices, though I’m sure you’ll continue with the gymnastics.

Oh, yeah, and does this make sense to you?

“I only cut the ropes holding the suspended scaffold up! The fact that the window cleaner plummeted to his/her death wasn’t the primary goal of my activity!”

1369

This is not an answer. Why is a fetus not deserving of financial support from both of its parents?

Okay, since you’re being obtuse, I’ll clarify: In what state are women not legally compelled to financially support their *born *children as men are?

You realize that in the instance where she seeks an abortion, the father is treated the same as the mother; neither are responsible for child support. The question is where are the requirements of child support not applied to both natural parents regardless of whether they contributed the egg or sperm?

Go ahead and explain. I have no idea what you’re getting at. What state and which body parts are men compelled to subjugate for the survival of their child?

I’m not looking for humor or non-serious answers. If that’s all you can provide, it seems to be you don’t have any logical answer.

I guess it’s hard to argue with that unless you believe people ought to be compelled to subjugate their bodies for the health and well-being of others. Frankly, if all things were created equal, I’d have trouble arguing with that. If that’s not truly pro-life, I don’t know what would be.

What really bugs me is that there is a long list of people awaiting transplants and there are plenty of ‘innocent little babies’ dying of blood-related diseases. A great deal of suffering could be eliminated and many lives could be saved if healthy human beings donated blood and organs (especially once they are dead and not using them any longer) as a rule rather than an exception. But pro-life people merely give lip service to saving these lives by saying blood and organ donation happens “out of the goodness of people’s hearts.” How about because they truly treasure life in all its forms…not just the unborn form?

FWIW, I am a semi-regular blood donor*. I am a registered organ donor. I am pro-choice. I am anti-capital punishment. I abhor preventable/reducible human suffering. Yet I know I am but one person to make a difference. I can’t compel anyone to care about people in the way I do. But I challenge anyone who claims to be pro-life to consider *all *life as passionately as they do unborn life and do their part to diminish the suffering of actual, living people. I give **Bricker **the utmost credit for doing just that.

  • Admittedly, I could do better and donate more often.
1370

No, they are not. My position is completely consistent with the idea that a fetus has some human rights, but not others, as befitting its status as a being that possesses human genetics but not other traits like “consciousness” and “adulthood”. A mother’s bodily autonomy only extends to her own body.

You will also note that your hypothetical specifically regarded deliberate abuse to the fetus. Are you familiar, at all, with the principle of double effect? Or the idea that motive has a huge bearing on whether or not many activities are criminal/unethical?

Look, dumbass, you’re not arguing with everyone here, you’re arguing with individual people with individual views. I am not speaking for people who have different beliefs than I do, even if the functional outcome of those beliefs with regard to their position on abortion rights is similar to mine.

Absolutes are generally bullshit, anyway.

Obviously idiotic, in the absence of further information as to motive.

See, the difference here is that you will not catch me in a stupid gotcha, because I don’t go around saying things like “All A are B and must be treated exactly like any other B”.
Meanwhile, **classyladyhp **asserted at one point that you couldn’t differentiate on the rights of a first trimester fetus vs. a third trimester fetus, because we don’t give different rights to a 5yr old and a 20 yr old, which is so patently idiotic I didn’t even bother mentioning drivers licenses and legal majority.

1371

Yes, it is an answer. I don’t know where you get the “why is a fetus not deserving of financial support from both its parents?” thing from, but men can be sued for pregnancy related expenses pertaining to the health of the unborn.

I wasn’t being obtuse. You get a response equal to the level of your question. What you are ignoring is that if point A is sex and point F is child support payments, that a woman won’t get to point F unless she really wants to. Compare that to a man, where it’s basically have sex and submit to the woman’s will, and you see the difference between the two. Sure, you could argue that after a child is born the two become equal (which they don’t, but I won’t go there), but that would require ignoring what happens before birth and even before the woman decides to take her child home from the hospital.

My answer was 100% serious.

1372

Yes they are, and no manner of flailing is going to win you this point.

If a mother’s bodily autonomy extends only to her own body, then it can be assumed that the fetus also has it’s own right to bodily autonomy which only extends to its own body. If the fetus has its own right to bodily autonomy, then abortion becomes becomes impermissible because it requires violating the bodily autonomy of the unborn. Of course, you could argue that the unborn has no right to bodily autonomy, in which case it has no right to be acted against by another, including being killed and abused. It’s either or. You don’t get to pick and choose under what instances (i.e., killed vs. abused) the fetus has a right to not be harmed.

That’s irrelevant in a situation where the mother has absolute bodily autonomy and can decide what to do with her body regardless of the effects it has on the unborn. It’s quite odd to say that a woman can deliberately kill her unborn child because she wants to and have that be perfectly acceptable, but not to have her deliberately abuse it and be perfectly acceptable.

As a side question, if a woman wanted to have an abortion in sole hopes of killing the unborn, do you think that should be prevented?

In this regard, I’m arguing against you. And resorting to insults? Tsk tsk tsk. Usually, when one results to insults, they’ve run out of points to make (if they had any to make to begin with).

Oh? Best you’d better tell that to some of your fellow pro-choicers, then.

The motive was to cut the rope.

Oh, you’ve been “caught” in other ways, namely the fact that your position is inherently contradictory.

1373

Those are the ideas I have picked up from several “pro-life” books I’ve read. They all consider pregnancy a minor inconveience, think any woman can hand her child over for adoption with no egative effects, and think there is no reason to have an abortion.

Rand Alcorn, in his book “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Quetions” refers to pregnancy as a “temporary inconvenience.” Of course, he also states that “Pr-life people vote the same as pro-abortion people.” Though if a bill came along forcing certain groups to have abortions, I certainly wouldn’t be for it.

1374

Abortion can be performed without violating the fetus’ bodily autonomy. The fact that a sufficiently young fetus cannot live autonomously doesn’t change that fact. I am not violating your bodily autonomy by refusing to give you water, even if you are dying of thirst.

If we someday live in a world where this question is rendered relevant by technology, yes. This, by the way, is the final piece that renders my position non-contradictory–I don’t view abortion rights as absolute rights but “best current answer”.

This is the pit, moron. I’ll continue winning the argument AND calling you what you are.

I do, when it moves me to do so. I am not, obviously, obliged to respond to every shitty argument I see ever–but in this thread alone, I’ve yelled at Trihs and others for the idiotic “all pro-lifers are misogynist” canard. You can’t hang hypocrisy on me either.

In the absence of a specific motive that would cause double effect to apply, I’m comfortable calling this negligence/manslaughter. Similarly, in the absence of mens rea, you couldn’t get a first-degree murder conviction out of it in my state–if he cuts the rope without looking to see if someone’s attached to it, and can prove his ignorance, he’s getting at most 3rd-degree in PA.

Keep fuckin’ that chicken. If you really believe this, lay out a proof starting with what you think my axioms are.

1375

An abortion can only be performed without violating the fetus’ bodily autonomy so long as the fetus is no worse off post the abortion as it was prior. If it’s dead, then it’s kind of hard to talk about bodily autonomy :wink:

Anyway, I see now that you’re treating a refusal to grant sustenance as the same as taking sustenance away from. Interesting. If the two are equivalent, then why would you not go to jail for refusing to be organ donor and having someone die because of it, yet would go to jail if you walked into an ICU and unplugging someone on life support, having them die because of it?

I didn’t ask you about the future. I asked you about today, though I have a sneaky suspicion that you wouldn’t argue that a woman shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion if her sole purpose was to kill the unborn. Why would you?

Unfortunately, you’re not winning, so the insults just don’t work. Not to mention the

No, I’m talking about the people speaking in absolutes. You know, the “a-woman-has-the-absolute-right-to-get-an-abortion-whenever-she-wants” people.

I just told you what the motive was; to cut the rope. The fact that others died because of my actions is immaterial, as I didn’t really set out to kill them. They were unfortunate casualities.

:rolleyes:

At any rate, I’m glad to see you think women who obtain an abortion should be charged with, at least, negligence/manslaughter. See? We are getting somewhere.

I’d rather eat them. Especially if they’re fried.

1376

Questions:

Does a human non-person exist?
What traits define personhood?

Who makes the definition?
Society has excluded certain humans from personhood before (e.g., African slaves, Chinese, etc.) Should we make a new list of human non-persons?

Newborns lack the ability to perform personal functions - in fact, newborn humans are less capable physically and mentally than virtually all other mammals
All persons were once fetuses. When did we go from non-person status to person status?

Therefore, on the basis of functionally-defined personhood, newborns fail the test could be killed on the basis of “non-personhood”.

1377

I disagree–you are worse off if I evict you, but I am not violating your bodily autonomy by doing so.

The latter is a third thing, analogous to me taking your water from you in the middle of the Sahara. That WOULD be criminal. It would NOT be equivalent if we were in the middle of the Sahara and I had been providing you water and elected to stop.

Because today, if a woman doesn’t have the intention to kill the fetus, but merely wants to be done with the pregnancy, that CANNOT be done without the death of the fetus despite the fact that it wasn’t the intent. So we’re relegated to proving that the woman’s intent is “murder of the fetus” rather than “not being pregnant”–good luck.

Have any of them tried to defend that logically using axioms that result in contradictory behavior? It’s trivially easy to defend that logically without contradiction: “Axiom: until the moment of birth, a fetus is part and parcel of the woman who is carrying it, and is not an independent human.”

You are ignoring the principle of double effect, which I have already established as part of my ethics: “If one performs an action that is specifically good or neutral, and the benefit from that action outweighs the bad consequences, then the bad consequences can be justified by the good caused by the primary cause.”

In your example, the benefit to you cutting the specific rope is negligible, but the bad consequence is profound–the death of a human.

In the abortion example, the benefit to the pregnant mother is profound (she is no longer forced to surrender her bodily autonomy against her consent) and the bad consequence is minimal (a fetus that might potentially be a human might die.).

You can disagree on the status of the fetus vis-a-vis its rights, but that’s an axiomatic disagreement and I have no problem with axiomatic disagreements, as by definition they cannot be arrived at logically.

1378

Of course her intent is to kill. Unless she is a moron she knows that the fetus cannot survive outside her body so she does have the intent to kill. Killing the fetus ends the pregnancy. There is no other way to end the pregnancy today than to kill the fetus.
I don’t know why I bother.

1379

This is what we call an “axiomatic disagreement”. What that means is that the definition of the terms involved (“human”, “person”) cannot be fixed by any observation or experimental test.

It is not possible to prove anything logically at this stage, until we agree on axioms.

It is possible to define “person” based on functions and not reach that logical conclusion. For example purposes only: “A ‘person’ is a being of species homo sapiens who is not dependent on being physically attached to the organ systems of another homo sapiens for their survival.”

Or even “A ‘person’ is a being that has been born.”

We recognize a legal and ethical distinction there all the time. For example, if I shoot a man who is charging me with a raised knife, the legal system will properly judge that I am not guilty of murder because my intent was not to kill them, my intent was to protect myself and killing them was an side effect of the act of self-protection.

In the same way, it is coherent to say a woman getting an abortion does not intend to kill the fetus, she intends to not be pregnant, and killing the fetus is a side effect of not being pregnant.

It’s certainly not because you have a keen grasp of logical and legal principles.

1380

Excellent post.