# Abortion & gay marriage should not even be controversial **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 7, 2012, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125 "2012-02-07T21:53:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/181 "2012-02-09T13:36:48Z")
Good news - the Washington state legislature just voted to approve gay marriage. I’m particularly fond of this OMG-level stupid quote, from CNN: > [@CNN](#): > > Joseph Backholm, director of the Family Policy Institute of Washington, has said the issue should be put to a public vote. “If we as a state are going to take the position that mothers and fathers are interchangeable and replaceable, if we are going to send a message to fathers and potential fathers in this state that it isn’t important to be in the lives of their children because dads specifically don’t matter, that is something we should all do together,” he said last month. Classic. Evidently Backholm has never heard of divorce or gay adoption, and is under the impression lesbian marriages will destroy fatherhood. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/182 "2012-02-09T13:56:51Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Such as? Such as how it should be raised. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/183 "2012-02-09T14:08:02Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > Such as how it should be raised. And what if she doesn’t want to (or is financially unable to) raise it? ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/184 "2012-02-09T14:42:36Z")
> [@DMC](#): > > That’s not an argument against SSM but against government-sanctioned marriage in general. Hell, under your scenario, gays would be getting married in every state of the union. Well, in that SSM is a type of marriage, it’s an argument against. But it would be a moot point, it wouldn’t matter if someone recognized SSM or not because it wouldn’t grant any legal benefits, just like the second and later marriages for some Mormon sects. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/185 "2012-02-09T15:50:15Z")
> [@florez](#): > > Little Nemo, > Read OMG, he is a representative of the anti choice side. He believes that a woman got herself into a pickle and should be punished by carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term. It is all about punishment for him. Other Anti choice people believe that women are incubators, other anti choice people think that god wants them to save the contents of the uterus, from the owner of the uterus. > It goes on and on…but the other side are basically holier then thou, and potentially dangerous crazies who get off on messing with a woman’s right to control her own reproduction. They will do anything to make sure that a woman has no power at all. What I’m seeing are two sides that completely disagree with each other but are essentially the same - both sides are claiming that this is a simple issue and they possess the absolute objective truth even while they argue about what that truth is. My position is that this is a very complex issue and there is no absolute objective truth. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/186 "2012-02-09T15:59:28Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What I’m seeing are two sides that completely disagree with each other but are essentially the same - both sides are claiming that this is a simple issue and they possess the absolute objective truth even while they argue about what that truth is. No; one side has facts and ethics on its side, the other has malice, lies and delusions on its side. You are doing the equivalent of looking at the civil rights movement and the segregationists and trying to pretend that both sides were equally moral, well meaning, and factually correct. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/187 "2012-02-09T16:36:51Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I had to take zoology, and I promptly forgot everything I learned after I passed the class. And considering that I don’t do anything even remotely involving animals (bioremediation), it’s quite excusable. It’s just not possible to have this poor of a grounding if you had gone to university in Canada. Inconceivable in fact. Required core 2nd, 3rd year courses would have included Intro Zoology, vertebrate Zoology, advanced marine inverts, animal physiology, Intro botany, plant physiology, marine botany, and THEN you’d take advanced electives. Sounds to me like you have the equivalent of completion of first year courses, and now work planting trees. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/188 "2012-02-09T16:45:49Z")
> [@Meyer6](#): > > Please explain to me how I could decide whether or not to allow for abortion (or anything else) if I were a fetus, being that they are unable to think, feel, or reason. Because the veil of ignorance does not assume you are a certain thing (in this case a fetus), but rather asks what policy you would make regarding, in this case, abortion if the only thing you knew about abortion was that you could either be the aborted, in which case you would die, or the one who aborts, in which case you would live and someone else would die. That’s why. Again I ask, do they not teach philosophy in Canada? The “contentions” you keep bringing up have no bearing on the veil of ignorance. They are, _at best_, flimsy attempts to avoid debate. > [@](#): > > We’re back to the ‘if you were a tree, would you want to be chopped down’ hypothetical. I don’t know how I would feel about being chopped down because there’s no such thing as a tree with feelings on the matter. I don’t know how I would feel about being aborted because there’s no such thing as a fetus with feelings on the matter. No, we’re back to you desperately searching for some kind of “out”. Unless you could demonstrate that, at some point in your life, you were a tree, then you are doing nothing more than obfuscating. And rather badly, to boot. > [@](#): > > Contrast this with arguments about say slavery, where you can attempt to remove your bias and imagine how others feel and how it would feel if that were you. Do you really not see the difference? … The veil of ignorance does not involve “imagining how someone else feels”. The veil assumes that you, the individual, are ignorant of your place in society and are given a chance to shape that society’s rules or laws. You can either be subject to inequalities within that society or benefit from them. Assuming you lived behind the veil, you would choose those policies which result in the “maximum” amount justice, primarily to keep yourself from being subjected to “unjust” laws. Now, with that being said, I understand the refusal to engage in the experiment, I really do. No rationale individual is going to say that a policy in which you could either be killed or kill someone else is a fair or equitable thing, and no rationale individual would argue that they would want to be killed. I know it, you know it, Bryan knows and every other individual who reads this post knows it. > [@](#): > > You’re just heaving those goalposts all over the damn place, aren’t you? I said that the people who made those three statements are not necessarily the same people who want sex selective abortion to be illegal. Yes, there are pro-choicers who want limitations placed on when and why a woman can get an abortion. No, not all pro-choicers agree about exactly where the laws should lie. That doesn’t make them not pro-choice, and it certainly doesn’t make them pro-life. I oft say this, but perhaps you should go back and reread my posts, as you will notice that I’ve shifted no goalposts. In fact, I’ve been saying the exact same thing for four or so pages now. Indeed, you simply refuse to answer the questions I posed to you and continue to argue against some ridiculous straw man. What I’ve asked, on more than one occassion, is: > [@Me](#): > > That presents a HUGE stumbling block for pro-choicers. How can it be wrong to abort because you don’t like the gender of your child while arguing that the woman in question has the right to abort for any reason because it’s her body? How can it be wrong to abort because you don’t like the gender of your child while arguing that that which is to be aborted isn’t a person/tissue/a blob of cells/whatever other line you want to use? How can it be wrong for a woman to abort at seven weeks because she doesn’t like the gender of her child while arguing that she has the right to abort up to 24-weeks? The fact is that it can’t be. These propositions are all contradictory. You just keep saying something along the lines of “well, not all pro-choicers believe \!”, which is odd, because I never said they did, or even should. My post has to do with specific arguments used by pro-choicers and how they are incompatible certain restrictions. Now, with that being said, go back and click on the link I provided you in my last post. Now go back to [post #121](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=14752681&postcount=121) and click the link there. The first one, especially, outlines situations in which Canadians would leave abortion legal/make illegal. If you read, you will notice that “legal under any circumstance (~48%)” or “always legal + always legal first three months (~67%)” is consistently greater than the percentage of people who would make sex-selective abortion illegal (~60%). Essentially, this means that there is an overlap between people who would make sex-selective abortions illegal and those who would either leave abortions legal under any circumstance and/or always legal in the first three months. Of course, you’re content to, apparently, presume that these individuals only come from… Well, I don’t know where you think they come from. I, on the other hand, acknowledge and have consistently acknowledged that these people are pulled from the proverbial “middle”, and are adopting a position which would be incompatible with their stated beliefs. If, for example, you say abortion should always be legal then you cannot say that sex-selective abortions should ever be illegal. If, for example, you say abortion should always be legal in the first three months, then you cannot say that sex-selective abortions in the first three months should be illegal. I asked you to explain how this could be without stating this to be contradictory and have yet to be given a response, for obvious reasons. If, for example, you say that abortion laws should not be changed then you cannot say that sex-selective abortions should be made illegal. And so on and so forth. So again I say, I’ll wait. (Oh, and since you keep bringing this up, could you show me where I said or insinuated that “all pro-choicers [should] agree about exactly where the laws should lie”? I’d love to see it.) > [@martu](#): > > Because the people in the coma were conscious before going into a coma whereas fetuses were not. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Could you explain to me what past status has to do with future status? Especially since **Lobohan** wanted to mention being brain dead, and how the unborn are, which literally has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with now as it relates to the future? > [@](#): > > Or to put it another way, a person is in in a coma and a clump of cells is in a uterus. These two things are not the same. Why aren’t they the same thing? What’s the difference between a clump of cells in a uterus and a clump of cells out of it if neither, as **Lobohan** put it, has “sense of self and intellect”? Which is what makes people, well, people. > [@](#): > > Do you ever think your posts through before writing them? I think that question would be better suited to yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/189 "2012-02-09T16:48:18Z")
> [@Meyer6](#): > > Omg a Black Conservative, I must admit that I didn’t read all your links to the giant walls of text that you’re so fond of, but the bizarre hypotheticals are not doing you any favours. The ‘assuming two individuals, one who will be aborted and the other is the aborter - you could be either one! Don’t you see how eeeevil abortion is now!’ hypothetical is just plain stupid. The mother-in-law was just as bad. You seem to think that you’re winning points with these things, but you’re not. > > It would help if you stuck to either facts or reasonable, real-world analogies. Try to make your argument without falling back on such weird flights of fancy. It really exposes the weaknesses in your side. The first bizarre thought experiment is based on a pretty welll known philosophical thought expiriment that is probably the greatest contribution to philosophy in the last hundred years. The mother in law one is flawed because you can kick your mother in law out on the street. The violinist thought is probably more apt (and was designed specifically to highlight the moral issues surrounding abortion). > [@Lobohan](#): > > A corpse isn’t a man. A brain dead person isn’t a man. A heart beat isn’t a man. It’s the consciousness and the sense of self that we love. Once that’s gone forever it’s not a person. It’s a fleshy monument. And before it’s there, it’s nothing but a potentiality. How much consciousness and sense of self does a newborn have compared to a fetus in its 8th month or its 7th month for that matter? Of course if you want to insist that human rights attach at conception, then you are being just as arbitrary as the pro-choice crowd that wants to deraw the line of life at exit from the uterus. Why not mourn every period and ejaculation as the loss of life while youar eat it? > [@curlcoat](#): > > What is a fact is that this will never be solved to everyone’s satisfaction, so you therefore have no right to force anyone to do what you want them to. It’s really as simple as that - your beliefs are yours, not universal. The answer to “we cannot solve this to everyone’s satisfaction” is not “so lets do it my way” I could just as easily say, we can’t resove this so therfore you have no right to kill a fetus. [QUOTE=magellan01;14750773It gives credence to the belief that when conservatives disagree with liberals, they the think liberals wrong; when liberals disagree with conservatives, they think conservatives evil.[/quote] I believe the saying is that conservatives believe that liberals have bad ideas while liberals believe that conservatives are bad people. Well I know plenty of liberals who don’t think ALL conservatives are bad people I also know plenty of conservatives who believe they have a monopoly on good ideas. Hell, a lot of them think they have a monopoly on god. > [@Guinastasia](#): > > So’s drunk driving. Which is illegal in most states IIRC. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Nope. Not seeing the moral issue there. At least, none depending on the rights/interest of the fetus. There are larger social issues, sex-selection has given China a painful shortage of women. Look, I’m not saying **society** has no claim at all on a woman’s body, I’m saying a **fetus** doesn’t. You really think the objection that people have to sex selective abortions in China or Canada is based on the impact to Chinese society or Canadian society? Come on pull the other one. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m okay with recognizing it as human and aborting it anyway, if that’s what the mother wants. Please explain? Because my support for abortions in the first trimester is based on the notion tha they are not human enough for human rights to vest and my objection to abortions in the third trimester is because I think human rights have vested. > [@curlcoat](#): > > I don’t have to wish them away because they aren’t my morals. What I do wish is that other people would quit trying to force their morals off on me. You don’t think pedophiles feel the same way about their consensual relationships with minors? > [@](#): > > No, I don’t see a problem. Abortion is legal, and everyone can decide where their moral cutoff is. No they can’t. The state can ban abortion in the third trimester with health exceptions. the state can highly regulate abortions in the second trimester. > [@chappy](#): > > The word marriage and its meaning have been consistent since its conception and the vast majority of people recognize this. See polygamy. See miscegenation. > [@magellan01](#): > > No, it didn’t. You and others keep dragging out this false, bullshit argument. In fact, there was _no time during the history of the U.S_. that antimiscegenation was illegal nationally. Just like polygamy was. [quote] You know, there’s one good thing about liberal dolts like you bringing up this bullshit argument. It rightly pisses of American blacks when you try to ride on the coattails of their very unique history of abuse, and pushes them a little further into the conservative camp. So, nice work. Especially since its unintentional. Well, it is pretty eyerolling when gays equate their struggle to the struggle of blacks in America but some of the analogies are appropriate. > [@](#): > > See above, idiot. The definition of the word was not altered. There was no confusion. There was only debate in some states as to whether the marriage should be allowed. So marriage includes polygamy? > [@](#): > > In other words, fuck people who see the world differently than you due to religious values. Gotcha. This attitude can be attributed to people on both sides of the marriage debate but one side is trying to force their religious beliefs on the other while the other side is trying to ignore the religious beliefs of the other. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Just as there’s nothing that calls for a different word for same sex couples. Well its not separate facilities its under the law. How would you feel if they just called everything a civil union and just let people get married by their respective churches. > [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I’m really starting to believe that the pro-choice position is the intellectually inferior one, since I often feel like I’m trying to explain differential calculus to a first grader. The rabid pro-choice argument is about as indefensible as the rabid anti-abortion argument. I don’t hold to the maxim taht the answer is always somewhere in teh middle but this time, I thik the answer is somewhere in the middle. I think Roe v Wade got it right and I only see one side trying to get rid of it. I have yet to see a pro-choice rally against Roe v Wade because Roe explicitly permits states to regulate abortions in the second trimester or ban abortions in the third trimester. > [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > It’s wrong to kill someone in a coma because they sometimes get out of it but it’s permissible to kill the unborn even though they will be “conscious” in the future? Well I don’t know that the Rawlsian social contract would preserve the life of someone ina coma merely because they “might” wake up some day. > [@](#): > > If it’s wrong to kill someone in a coma because they “will be” conscious in the future, then why isn’t it equally as wrong to kill the unborn because they “will be” conscious in the future? If it’s wrong to kill someone in a coma who “will be” conscious in exactly nine months time, then why isn’t it equally as wrong to kill the unborn because they “will be” conscious in exactly nine months time? Because we are conscripting a woman’s womb for 9 months to preserve the potential life of a blastocyst. Keeping a coma patient alive doesn’t require this type of specific performance. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/190 "2012-02-09T16:53:27Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > The veil of ignorance does not involve “imagining how someone else feels”. The veil assumes that you, the individual, are ignorant of your place in society and are given a chance to shape that society’s rules or laws. You can either be subject to inequalities within that society or benefit from them. Assuming you lived behind the veil, you would choose those policies which result in the “maximum” amount justice, primarily to keep yourself from being subjected to “unjust” laws. Which is just another way of saying “imagine how someone else feels.” > [@](#): > > Now, with that being said, I understand the refusal to engage in the experiment, I really do. No rationale individual is going to say that a policy in which you could either be killed or kill someone else is a fair or equitable thing, and no rationale individual would argue that they would want to be killed. I know it, you know it, Bryan knows and every other individual who reads this post knows it. Okay, now imagine a society where one can be a woman forced to undergo a pregnancy against her will or the person who makes her undergo a pregnancy against her will. You don’t know which one you’ll be. Now what? ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/191 "2012-02-09T16:54:29Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > It’s just not possible to have this poor of a grounding if you had gone to university in Canada. Inconceivable in fact. Required core 2nd, 3rd year courses would have included Intro Zoology, vertebrate Zoology, advanced marine inverts, animal physiology, Intro botany, plant physiology, marine botany, and THEN you’d take advanced electives. Sounds to me like you have the equivalent of completion of first year courses, and now work planting trees. Well, my otherwise-useless-except-for-looks degree would say you’re wrong. But, wait, how did you deduce I have poor grounding in marine biology, anyway? It’s not inconceivable (dare, I say it would be pretty common) for people to forget most of what they learned in college if it’s not applicable to what they do for a living. And all that stuff about animals really isn’t applicable, since most days are spent dealing with contaminants in the soil or whatever. And, fwiw, I’ve never planted a tree a day in my life and probably wouldn’t want to, since I detest physical work. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/192 "2012-02-09T16:57:03Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Which is just another way of saying “imagine how someone else feels.” No, not really. Generally speaking, you shouldn’t follow the Golden Rule. What if one is a masochist? > [@](#): > > Okay, now imagine a society where one can be a woman forced to undergo a pregnancy against her will or the person who makes her undergo a pregnancy against her will. You don’t know which one you’ll be. Now what? The one not killed. There you go. (Oh, but you’re fishing for a response, yes? Well, I’ll oblige you. I’ll say "no pregnancies against anyone’s will. Now what?) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/193 "2012-02-09T17:01:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > What I’m seeing are two sides that completely disagree with each other but are essentially the same - both sides are claiming that this is a simple issue and they possess the absolute objective truth even while they argue about what that truth is. > > My position is that this is a very complex issue and there is no absolute objective truth. Yes, yes, we all appreciate how elegantly you float above the fray in your bubble of self-satisfaction, removed from having to deal with consequences and icky stuff like that. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/194 "2012-02-09T17:03:09Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Oh, but you’re fishing for a response, yes? Well, I’ll oblige you. I’ll say "no pregnancies against anyone’s will. Now what? So you’ve become pro-choice, then. Congratulations. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/195 "2012-02-09T17:09:18Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Well, my otherwise-useless-except-for-looks degree would say you’re wrong. > > But, wait, how did you deduce I have poor grounding in marine biology, anyway? It’s not inconceivable (dare, I say it would be pretty common) for people to forget most of what they learned in college if it’s not applicable to what they do for a living. And all that stuff about animals really isn’t applicable, since most days are spent dealing with contaminants in the soil or whatever. > > And, fwiw, I’ve never planted a tree a day in my life and probably wouldn’t want to, since I detest physical work. You took marine biology… and then say that “most days are spent dealing with contaminants **in the soil** or whatever…” Something does not compute. Actually, marine biologists don’t deal with soil contaminants, interestingly enough. I deduce you have a poor grounding in marine biology since it is not possible to know anything about marine biology if you only took one single course in zoology. Marine biology is the study of organisms in the ocean. A great many of those organisms are animals. It sounds like you didn’t study most of the topic. I deduce that this is why you currently work as a soil tester, and have nothing whatsoever to do with marine biology, since you apparently did not learn anything about marine biology during your degree. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/196 "2012-02-09T17:09:40Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > So you’ve become pro-choice, then. Congratulations. Nope. I’m still as pro-life as ever. (Yeah, I know. You were hoping to get me in some kind of “gotcha!”, right?) ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/197 "2012-02-09T17:11:28Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. > > Could you explain to me what past status has to do with future status? Especially since **Lobohan** wanted to mention being brain dead, and how the unborn are, which literally has nothing to do with the past and everything to do with now as it relates to the future? > > Why aren’t they the same thing? What’s the difference between a clump of cells in a uterus and a clump of cells out of it if neither, as **Lobohan** put it, has “sense of self and intellect”? Which is what makes people, well, people.. Consciousness as has been stated before, are you reading this thread at all? What makes people people are their minds. They can do some wonderful things, like create a polio vaccine or, of course, some terrible things but minds are the thing we find most valuable about others. Someone who has gone into coma had a mind and while there is a chance they may be able to share it with us one day again we consider them a person. A fetus never had a mind. It is not a person. At some point it will develop a mind and at that point it deserves protection. Until then it’s up to the host what should be done with it. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/198 "2012-02-09T17:17:26Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > You took marine biology… and then say that “most days are spent dealing with contaminants **in the soil** or whatever…” > > Something does not compute. Actually, marine biologists don’t deal with soil contaminants, interestingly enough. > > I deduce you have a poor grounding in marine biology since it is not possible to know anything about marine biology if you only took one single course in zoology. Marine biology is the study of organisms in the ocean. A great many of those organisms are animals. It sounds like you didn’t study most of the topic. > > I deduce that this is why you currently work as a soil tester, and have nothing whatsoever to do with marine biology, since you apparently did not learn anything about marine biology during your degree. _If_ you want me to explain this to you, I will. My freshman year of college I was given work study. When you get work study, you tend to get it in the department you’re majoring in. As I was majoring in marine biology, I was given work study in the biology department. Actually, the be correct, I was working at the Center for Environmental Diagnostics and Bioremediation (CEDB). At first I was answering phones and all that boring jazz, but then I was afforded the opportunity to work with one of the professors out on the bay collecting and analyzing soil samples. Generally you don’t get to do that as a freshman, but the department head allowed me to do so as long as I kept my grades up. So I did that for the remainder year. The next year I didn’t get work study, but they allowed me to continue to work with the department doing much of the same around the Gulf. I did that for the remainder of my time in college, minus the last year because I got too busy and took some menial job at Hardee’s. Once I graduated, I got a job in Pensacola and stayed there for a few years, but then I moved to Central Florida, where I am now. So does that help you any? Or is this going to turn into one of those “You’re not really Black!” things which I love so much? …BTW\> Marine biologists don’t all work on the ocean or with animals. You’ve been watching too much Seinfeld. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/199 "2012-02-09T17:18:30Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Of course if you want to insist that human rights attach at conception, then you are being just as arbitrary as the pro-choice crowd that wants to deraw the line of life at exit from the uterus. Birth isn’t arbitrary; that’s the point at which the newborn no longer depends on the mother’s body and when the physical trauma of gestation & birth have culminated. It changes the moral issues considerably. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I believe the saying is that conservatives believe that liberals have bad ideas while liberals believe that conservatives are bad people. Not a very accurate saying. As far as I can tell ideas both sides think the other is composed of bad people with bad ideas. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Well its not separate facilities its under the law. How would you feel if they just called everything a civil union and just let people get married by their respective churches. What about atheists? And that would produce a huge backlash of people screaming that homosexuals took away their marriage. Marriage is and should remain primarily a government function; religion shouldn’t be allowed to hijack it. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2012, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/200 "2012-02-09T17:23:33Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > …BTW\> Marine biologists don’t all work on the ocean or with animals. You’ve been watching too much Seinfeld. I guess I was influenced by my degrees in Marine Biology and the fact I worked in the field for 15 years. But other than that, you’re spot on. I’m always fascinated by folks who took “marine biology”, yet know nothing about the field whatsoever. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125.md?page=11)