# 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:** 16
**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 15, 2012, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/301 "2012-02-15T18:35:10Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Maybe a case can be made that home-expulsion does not apply in these extremely rare and heavily-contrived situations, though it clearly would in the vast vast _vast_ majority of trespassing cases that police get called in to resolve every day. That’s right. Home expusion does not usually mean teh death of the expelled. In the4 case of abortion it does. So I “heavily contrived” the situation to make the comparison more analogous because expelling an invited guest from your home simply because you don’t want them there anymore is different than expelling a fetus from your uterus unless you contrive the expulsion from your home to result in the death of teh expelled. > [@](#): > > Clearly, this would not apply to the vast vast _vast_ majority of abortion cases where a woman just doesn’t want to continue a pregnancy. Every abortion kills a fetus. Why do we need to make them all John Connor? > [@florez](#): > > I shall explain where I am coming from on this penis reference, and Damuri Ajashi- feel free to correct my logic any time. > It is just that I would like OMG to understand that my uterus is possibly as important to me as his penis might be to him. I believe that it belongs to me, and I would like to continue ownership of this important piece of my own body. It seems IMO, someone taking away control of my reproduction is equivalent to cutting off a man’s penis. I think that the difference is that cutting off a man’s penis is a bit more permanent. Its a bit more like asking a man to either pass a ping pong ball through his penis or go through an operation to remove the ping pong ball from their prostate that will leave them bedridden for two weeks. The ping pong ball in his prostate will also increase their weight by 20% make you pee every 20 minutes, make you nauseous and give you back problems and reduce your immune system. > [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Ignoring the ridiculous incubator remark, what if she _wouldn’t_ suffer in any discernible way? That’s a BIG if. > [@](#): > > A woman only has the “right to choose” so long as it does not infringe upon the life of a human being. That is, the former is contingent on the latter being false. You cannot, as you’ve done on multiple occassions, assume the latter is false for the purposes of the first being true. If the latter is false, you have to explain why it’s false. This is the crux of the problem. The pro-choice crowd simply assumes that a fetus has no rights whatsoever and that the state has little or no interest in that fetus. Roe v Wade disagrees. The anti-abortion crowd thinks that a fetus is endowed by its creator as soon as the sperm meets the egg. Roe v Wade disagrees. The pro choice crowd seem pretty content to get half a loaf and abide by Roe v Wade even if they think it infringes on the rights of the woman. The anti-abortion crowd does not seem quite as content because killing an organism that has fewer cells than I have fingers is still murder in their book. > [@](#): > > That’s what I said. It, however, does not say what you said I said, which was that “the veil doesn’t ask you to put yourself into that shoes of the aborted and the shoes of the aborter”. It asks what policy you would choose if you knew that you could end up either as the aborted (you die) or the aborter (someone else dies). OK, so then we move to the matter of inclusion of the fetus in the Rawlsian franchise. You assume that they are included and Rawls did not. > [@](#): > > There are no semantics here, as I don’t need them. Well you seem to rely hevily on the fact that their human DNA (along with their potentiality) makes them human. maybe I’m wrong. > [@](#): > > One, fix your link, though I see it’s to John Rawls’ “Political Liberalism”. I’ve read it, so no need to go there. Two, read the intro to the expanded edition of “Political Liberalism”. Can you quote the relevant text or cite to an article that talks about it because I never thought that Rawls reserved a seat behind the veil for zygotes. > [@](#): > > I’ve seen this analogy used many times and its always misapplied. When you drive, you do not consent to being in an accident, but you do accept responsibility for any negative consequences that might result as it relates to a third party. Lets say you just hit a tree. Noone else was involved (lets ignore the fetus for now). Putting aside the notion taht the fetus is a person taht is being harmed, why can’t you seek medical treatment to reverse the effects of that accident? If Jesus came down and said, ensoulment does not occur until the third trimester, would it change your answer? > [@](#): > > Even if you’re a male? Yes, child support laws are bullshit (if that’s where you are going) unless there is SOME sort of actual consent on the part of the father. I know some people argue that teh father consented when he ejaculated into the woman and yetr refuse to see why that leads to the conclusion that the woman consented when she allowed the ejaculation. > [@](#): > > You’re assuming some kind of unfettered right to control your body in the way you see fit. A right, mind you, which doesn’t exist, as I can name tens or hundreds of restrictions dictating what you can do _to_ and _with_ your body. > > Are you arguing what the law _presently is_ or what one _should be allowed to do to and with their body_? If it’s the former, then your argument is nothing more than agreeing with what the law is because it’s the law, in which case you would have to agree with the law if it changed and abortion became illegal, as a woman having an abortion would constitute a “misuse” of her body or whatever you’re using. However, I have a sneaky suspicion that you would _not_ argue this even if abortion became illegal, meaning you’re arguing the second. That is, your argument is about what one _should be allowed to do to and with their body_. I wonder if the conservatives could use the commerce clause to regulate pregnancies. THAT would be fucking ironic. > [@curlcoat](#): > > No. You are trying to get me to make your argument for you, but I do remember that it was you who asked “What makes a recovered consciousness inherently more valuable, more worthy of protection, than a new consciousness?” I dunno if it was someone else who brought up the coma patient before you, but all I did was answer your question. And my response deals in real world likelihoods, not “what if this or what if that”. OK, lets say you have to choose between shooting a coma patient in the head or an 8 month pregnant woman in her uterus. What do you do? For the anti-abortionists, lets say you have to drop a newborn baby into a volcano or drop a cannister with 10 frozen embryos into that same volcano, what do you do? > [@](#): > > Probably. I don’t know. Newborn babies seem like little more than lumps opf flesh, I don’t see how the act of birth makes them any more consious. > [@](#): > > Any fetus in my womb was not invited in. I think we can aargue that. You certainly let in the sperm unless you were raped. > [@](#): > > How could there be when there is no “lets”? Pro-choice people believe that everyone should have their own choice, without any input from anyone else unless invited to do so. And, a lot of the pro-choice stance is “quit trying to push your beliefs off on me” It depends on how you view the rights of the fetus. If you assume it has no rights whatsoever, then you might be right but if you think its a full fledged human then not so much. > [@](#): > > Pro-choice is preserving people’s right to life, because a fetus isn’t a person. I think that is the proper subject of debate. its not axiomatic. > [@](#): > > I’d think it would be obvious that I am doing more than assuming - I do not consider a fetus, particularly a first trimester one, to be a human. Well neither do I but some people do. How do you feel about a third trimester fetus? > [@](#): > > Nope. There is still that little problem of women having to be the one to go thru the pregnancy and childbirth. Then can we at least drop the argument of the fetus having fewer rights because noone wants it as an excuse for why a coma patient is superior to a fetus? > [@florez](#): > > A woman’s uterus is possibly as important to her as a man’s penis is to him. Didn’t someone recently try to force women to have a vaginal ultrasound before abortion and drop it because seomone offered an amendment that would require digital prostate exams before prescribing viagra? > [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > It’s not “right on”. It’s ridiculous. This is an offshoot of the whole “respecting women” line that pro-choicers trot out every now and then. Whether or not you value someone does not hinge on whether or not you allow them to act in a way they want. Just because someone is \ and you don’t allow them to engage in \ does not mean you hate/don’t respect/don’t value \. Yes but in a free society you must justify forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term and by drawing the line at conception you are saying that the right or a blstocyst to continue to exist exceeds a woman’s right to control her own body. I generally hold a pretty high standard for this sort of specific performance. > [@](#): > > Is the focus on the individual who _acts_ or on the individual who is _acted against_? It seems that you’re trying to argue from both sides as it suits you. You need to either focus on either one or the other. At any rate, you did not read what I wrote to you. As it relates to abortion, you argue that you should be allowed to do _to_ and _with_ your body to the detriment of another. However, you do not-- and quite probably would not-- argue the same outside of abortion. When one seeks to act against another, you do not put the focus on the one who is _acting against_ another, but rather the one who is _acted against_. Why is that? Why not place the focus on the one who is _acting against_ another? Or why not, in the case of abortion, put the focus on the one _acted against_? Just to restate the example of the violinist because people seem to keep forgetting it. “You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help. They have therefore kidnapped you, and last night the violinist’s circulatory system was plugged into yours, so that your kidneys can be used to extract poisons from his blood as well as your own. [If he is unplugged from you now, he will die; but] in nine months he will have recovered from his ailment, and can safely be unplugged from you” This is an appropriate analogy to the case of pregnancy in the case of rape. Now lets say that you consented to plugging the violinist into you. Are you now required to sustain that violinist for the next 9 months? Its not like the violinist gave up some other opportunity in order to get plugged into you. It was you or nothing and he would be in the same place as if you had never consented to to arrangement in the first place. > [@](#): > > And again I point out you’re assuming some unfettered right to control your body. A right, mind you, which _does not_ exist. Unfettered right? No. but there is SOME right isn’t there. One taht seems to get almost entirely discounted by your persepctive. > [@](#): > > ..By the way, most pro-lifers couldn’t care less about your right to control your uterus so much as they care what you do to another. And that’s the problem, they place no significance on a person’s right to control their own body when clearly there is a right to physical autonomy absent some good reason to abridge that right. You think a sperm finding an egg is good enough reason and others do not believe taht is the case. > [@curlcoat](#): > > A large percentage of the population doesn’t think that they are. Why are you right and those folks are wrong? Cuz God is on his side 🆒 > [@](#): > > _Any_ time you force an \ (woman) to carry a pregnancy because you don’t allow them to engage in \ (abortion), you show how little you value or respect that woman as a human being. Or it shows how much he values the life of the zygote. Its not a single dimension measurement. I think I would FORCE a woman in her 8th month to give birth to a child if the pregnancy didn’t threaten her life or health, I wouldn’t do it in the third month tho. Isn’t it a balancing of rights and interests? > [@](#): > > No individual is being acted against when an abortion is performed. Simply because you choose to believe that a fetus is a human on equal footing with an actual living and breathing person doesn’t make it a fact. You don’t have to believe a fetus is equal to the mother to constrain the mother’s right to kill the fetus. > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No; there is no “someone” to protect. thats just witnessing. > [@](#): > > And? By that logic you shouldn’t be allowed to use chemotherapy on a tumor because it’s become “something more”. First of all I don’t think a cancer tumor is seomthing “more” in the same way that a zygote is something more. Second, I think that abortions to protect the life or physical health of the mother are permissible so if necessary medical treatment (for example chemotherapy) kills a fetus then it is permissible. > [@](#): > > They aren’t people, whether the woman haters choose to admit it or not. more witnessing. > [@](#): > > No, since it is inside the woman. Then can we drop the silly notion that what makes you human if how amny people happen to love you? > [@](#): > > Because one side is composed of woman hating sadists. They are “anti-abortion” as a means of hurting women because the government here won’t let them just pick up clubs and beat women for being “sluts”. There are about as many of those on the anti-abortion inside as there were actual racists in the tea party. IOW not every anti-abortionist hates women. ---
**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 15, 2012, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/302 "2012-02-15T19:38:01Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > That’s right. Home expusion does not usually mean teh death of the expelled. In the4 case of abortion it does. So I “heavily contrived” the situation to make the comparison more analogous because expelling an invited guest from your home simply because you don’t want them there anymore is different than expelling a fetus from your uterus unless you contrive the expulsion from your home to result in the death of teh expelled. Ah, but my point is that while an home is analogous to a uterus, it is not exactly the same as a uterus. The uterus is several magnitudes more personal, and thus the amount of control, I am arguing, should be accordingly greater. Similarly, though someone who steals your sandwich out of the community refrigerator and someone who steals your car are both stealing from you, the latter represents a far greater personal investment and thus should be taken more seriously. And thus being stuck with an unwanted houseguest for one night is an intrusion, as is having one growing inside your body for months at a time. The situations are vaguely similar, yet the latter is far more serious. I use the unwanted trespasser as an analogy because it’s easily graspable and commonplace and relevant, as opposed to someone seriously arguing the individual freedom means the freedom to go around raping people (or at least that anyone arguing for individual freedom should admit that it _does_). Further, there’s no question that the unwanted houseguest is indeed a person, human being, etc. and thus trying to define what is a person or human being is irrelevant. It’s the intrusion that matters, not the nature of the intruder. ---
**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 15, 2012, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/303 "2012-02-15T21:08:39Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Ah, but my point is that while an home is analogous to a uterus, it is not exactly the same as a uterus. The uterus is several magnitudes more personal, and thus the amount of control, I am arguing, should be accordingly greater. > > Similarly, though someone who steals your sandwich out of the community refrigerator and someone who steals your car are both stealing from you, the latter represents a far greater personal investment and thus should be taken more seriously. > > And thus being stuck with an unwanted houseguest for one night is an intrusion, as is having one growing inside your body for months at a time. The situations are vaguely similar, yet the latter is far more serious. I use the unwanted trespasser as an analogy because it’s easily graspable and commonplace and relevant, as opposed to someone seriously arguing the individual freedom means the freedom to go around raping people (or at least that anyone arguing for individual freedom should admit that it _does_). > > Further, there’s no question that the unwanted houseguest is indeed a person, human being, etc. and thus trying to define what is a person or human being is irrelevant. It’s the intrusion that matters, not the nature of the intruder. I agree. That’s why these analogies tend to suck (so much so that any reasonably appropriate analogies end up with their own wikipedia page) but the violinist analogy is not entirely inappropriate. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2012, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/304 "2012-02-15T21:52:21Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > OK, lets say you have to choose between shooting a coma patient in the head or an 8 month pregnant woman in her uterus. What do you do? Why? That isn’t the same thing at all as pulling the plug on a coma patient, or a woman having an abortion. Also, you seem to be continuing to forget about that real world likelihoods thing. > [@](#): > > I don’t know. Newborn babies seem like little more than lumps opf flesh, I don’t see how the act of birth makes them any more consious. You don’t see any difference between a fetus and a newborn? > [@](#): > > I think we can aargue that. You certainly let in the sperm unless you were raped. So? Permission to engage in intercourse is not in any way permission to create a pregnancy. > [@](#): > > It depends on how you view the rights of the fetus. If you assume it has no rights whatsoever, then you might be right but if you think its a full fledged human then not so much. That doesn’t have anything to do with what I said. Pro-choice people are not trying to force the antis to do anything, so there is no “lets all do it my way” in their position. > [@](#): > > I think that is the proper subject of debate. its not axiomatic. [Dictionary.com](http://Dictionary.com) seems to disagree with you. > [@](#): > > Well neither do I but some people do. How do you feel about a third trimester fetus? Me personally? I don’t like any of them. > [@](#): > > Then can we at least drop the argument of the fetus having fewer rights because noone wants it as an excuse for why a coma patient is superior to a fetus? Depends. My part of that argument is that any actual person is more important than a fetus, even if that person is in a coma. > [@](#): > > Cuz God is on his side 🆒 Perhaps his god, but none that I recognize. > [@](#): > > Or it shows how much he values the life of the zygote. Its not a single dimension measurement. I think I would FORCE a woman in her 8th month to give birth to a child if the pregnancy didn’t threaten her life or health, I wouldn’t do it in the third month tho. Isn’t it a balancing of rights and interests? You would force a woman to continue to carry a pregnancy if they find out in her 8th month that the baby is going to be born dead, or will die soon after delivery? > [@](#): > > You don’t have to believe a fetus is equal to the mother to constrain the mother’s right to kill the fetus. Damn near. There is no legal constraint on humanely killing any living thing except humans, so making abortion illegal would put the fetus on the same footing as a living human. ---
**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 15, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/305 "2012-02-15T23:21:41Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > A large percentage of the population doesn’t think that they are. Why are you right and those folks are wrong? What kind of argument is this? If there’s a population of a million people, one of whom says that 2 + 2 = 4 and 999,999 of whom who say that 2 + 2 = 5, the fact that there are 999,998 _more_ people who say that the 2 + 2 = 5 will not make 2 + 2 = 5. > [@](#): > > No hon, it is completely “right on”, and you go on to prove it. Wrong and wrong. > [@](#): > > _Any_ time you force an \ (woman) to carry a pregnancy because you don’t allow them to engage in \ (abortion), you show how little you value or respect that woman as a human being. This was ridiculous the first time it was said, and it hasn’t become any less ridiculous. I ask Bryan this repeatedly and I’ll ask you the same; do you live in an anarchy (or do you not know what that question means?)? > [@](#): > > All you care about is that she act as incubator for something that might eventually become a living human, and the really sad thing is you won’t give a shit about the baby after it is born, particularly if it’s girl. [citation needed] > [@](#): > > Since you are male, you just don’t get the issue, and you never will. Fine then. Roe v. Wade should go by the wayside, since it was decided by nine men and, as you just said, men “don’t get the issue”, right? Right…? That’s a rhetorical question because, of course, you won’t agree. What you _really_ meant to type was that unless you’re a pro-choice male then you can’t get the issue. Which, for the record, is an assumption which hinges on the otherwise false notion that where differences in abortion attitudes by gender are found, women are more approving of abortion than men are when, in fact, it’s the exact opposite (that is, men are more approving of abortion than are women). Buuut… You won’t care about that. > [@](#): > > No individual is being acted against when an abortion is performed. You’d be wrong. Once fertilization concludes, a new, unique individual is present. > [@](#): > > One can speak of a successful fertilization when the genetic material of the male spermatozoon has united with that of the female oocyte thereby creating a new, unique individual. ([Evil science](http://www.embryology.ch/anglais/dbefruchtung/objectbefru01.html)) Now, I fully expect you to tell me how you’re arbitrarily defining individual, as this is the only fallback you have. > [@](#): > > Simply because you choose to believe that a fetus is a human on equal footing with an actual living and breathing person doesn’t make it a fact. (1) A fetus is a human, (2) a fetus is alive and (3) and fetus doesn’t have to “breathe” in the sense that you’re using the word. So what are you doing? …Actually, I already know what you’re doing. You’re hiding behind a self-constructed wall of ignorance. > [@](#): > > The two cannot be separated. Really? I don’t see as near as much outcry about a non-pregnant woman wanting to stab herself in her uterus repeatedly as I do about abortion. Do you? > [@](#): > > Would you consider a natural miscarriage to be “reproducing”? Once fertilization concludes, a female has already repdroduced. Having a miscarriage has nothing to do with 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 15, 2012, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/306 "2012-02-15T23:22:10Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I agree. That’s why these analogies tend to suck (so much so that any reasonably appropriate analogies end up with their own wikipedia page) but the violinist analogy is not entirely inappropriate. I forget offhand the premises of the violinist analogy, except some vague sense that it was science-fictiony and weird and nonexistent, unlike unwanted pregnancies or trespassers. Afterthought: Well, whaddya know, it has a wiki page. I’ll read up on it. ---
**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 15, 2012, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/307 "2012-02-15T23:37:05Z")
Huh. Well, that’s not very impressive, though I can appreciate the efforts at highlighting the absurdity of trying to define a fetus as human or not-human, person or not-person, and then basing an argument on that. It does help clarify something Omg said a while back about positive and negative rights, which I didn’t understand at the time because he did a bad job of explaining them. ---
**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 15, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/308 "2012-02-15T23:46:01Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > That’s a BIG if. Not in the slightest, not that it matters anyway. So care to answer the question? > [@](#): > > This is the crux of the problem. No, not really. In fact, there’s very little problem. It boils down to whether or not you believe that only some humans are entitled to human rights. > [@](#): > > Well you seem to rely hevily on the fact that their human DNA (along with their potentiality) makes them human. maybe I’m wrong. There’s a stark difference between having human DNA and being a human being. Again, that’s not semantics. > [@](#): > > Can you quote the relevant text or cite to an article that talks about it because I never thought that Rawls reserved a seat behind the veil for zygotes. [That should take you to the requisite quotes.](http://books.google.com/books?id=roHeAMi8W14C&q=trimester#v=snippet&q=trimester&f=false) > [@](#): > > Lets say you just hit a tree. Noone else was involved (lets ignore the fetus for now). Putting aside the notion taht the fetus is a person taht is being harmed, why can’t you seek medical treatment to reverse the effects of that accident? I don’t know. Why can’t you? > [@](#): > > If Jesus came down and said, ensoulment does not occur until the third trimester, would it change your answer? No, because you’ve never seen me invoke religion. And I don’t have to. > [@](#): > > Yes, child support laws are bullshit (if that’s where you are going) unless there is SOME sort of actual consent on the part of the father. I know some people argue that teh father consented when he ejaculated into the woman and yetr refuse to see why that leads to the conclusion that the woman consented when she allowed the ejaculation. Well, at least you’re at least smart enough to see why you can’t argue that a consent to sex equals a consent to potential parenthood for a male but not for a woman. Now if only others would be so willing. > [@](#): > > Yes but in a free society you must justify forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term and by drawing the line at conception you are saying that the right or a blstocyst to continue to exist exceeds a woman’s right to control her own body. I generally hold a pretty high standard for this sort of specific performance. The rationale for restricting a woman’s “right to bodily autonomy” is exactly the same as it is in the first month as it would be in the last month. That is, the unborn has a right to life which is paramount to the woman’s “right” to abort it. The only “difference”, and I use the term lightly, is with the people who find an abortion less tenable in the ninth month than they do the first, even though the applied rationale for restricting abortion at any point is the same. > [@](#): > > Just to restate the example of the violinist because people seem to keep forgetting it. I’m perfectly aware of the violinist argument. > [@](#): > > Now lets say that you consented to plugging the violinist into you. Are you now required to sustain that violinist for the next 9 months? Its not like the violinist gave up some other opportunity in order to get plugged into you. It was you or nothing and he would be in the same place as if you had never consented to to arrangement in the first place. This assumes that things such as (parental) obligations or duties are created solely because people agree to them when, in fact, this is not the case. There are many examples, the most prominent being child support, of people being forced to do for their progeny even if they don’t want or even if they never explicitly consented to do so simply because society deems it to be in their progeny’s best interest do to so and being forced to provide for them for some period of time. > [@](#): > > Unfettered right? No. but there is SOME right isn’t there. One taht seems to get almost entirely discounted by your persepctive. Well, that’s just false, since I’ve said on more than one occasion that people have the some sort of right to act according to their whims so long as it does not infringe upon the life or health or another. It’s the other side who has argued that one’s right to act is greater than another’s right to not be acted against. > [@](#): > > And that’s the problem, they place no significance on a person’s right to control their own body when clearly there is a right to physical autonomy absent some good reason to abridge that right. You think a sperm finding an egg is good enough reason and others do not believe taht is the case. Here’s the bottom line. If protecting the life of another human is “not a good enough reason to violate one’s physical autonomy”, then what is the purpose of the law? If it’s not a good enough reason to restrict abortion, then why is it a good enough reason to restrict anything? ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/309 "2012-02-16T01:35:13Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > What kind of argument is this? If there’s a population of a million people, one of whom says that 2 + 2 = 4 and 999,999 of whom who say that 2 + 2 = 5, the fact that there are 999,998 _more_ people who say that the 2 + 2 = 5 will not make 2 + 2 = 5. 2+2=4 is a fact, whether or not a fetus=person is an opinion. > [@](#): > > Wrong and wrong. Prove it. > [@](#): > > This was ridiculous the first time it was said, and it hasn’t become any less ridiculous. I ask Bryan this repeatedly and I’ll ask you the same; do you live in an anarchy (or do you not know what that question means?)? That response doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the fact that anti-choice people wish to force women to carry any and all pregnancies they may have. What does whether or not I currently live in an anarchy (and you know I don’t) have to do with that? > [@](#): > > [citation needed] You can start with the lack of any of this fervor about abused kids, babies born to junkies and prostitutes with HIV, kids with no homes, etc from any of the religious organizations that so violently oppose abortion. So, it is easy to see that they don’t care about the fetus once it becomes a human. > [@](#): > > Fine then. Roe v. Wade should go by the wayside, since it was decided by nine men and, as you just said, men “don’t get the issue”, right? Right…? Those men might have actually been smart enough to get input from a wide variety of women, and used that input in their decision. I don’t know since I wasn’t around then (I think - at most I was very young). > [@](#): > > That’s a rhetorical question because, of course, you won’t agree. Guess I gotcha then. > [@](#): > > What you _really_ meant to type was that unless you’re a pro-choice male then you can’t get the issue. Nope. As far as I’m concerned, it is no males business. In real life however, a pro-choice male isn’t going to go about trying to force anyone to follow his opinion on the matter, so that’s pretty moot. > [@](#): > > You’d be wrong. Once fertilization concludes, a new, unique individual is present. That would be your opinion. > [@](#): > > ([Evil science](http://www.embryology.ch/anglais/dbefruchtung/objectbefru01.html)) Theirs too. Or did you think that all scientists are unaffected by religion? > [@](#): > > Now, I fully expect you to tell me how you’re arbitrarily defining individual, as this is the only fallback you have. Not sure what you expect here. > [@](#): > > (1) A fetus is a human, (2) a fetus is alive and (3) and fetus doesn’t have to “breathe” in the sense that you’re using the word. So what are you doing? > > …Actually, I already know what you’re doing. You’re hiding behind a self-constructed wall of ignorance. Ha! No, I am simply using different criteria than you are for human and alive. Neither am I hiding anywhere, since I am not the one trying to force a major change based on what I think the Great Spirit wants me to believe. I have no pony in this race since I had a tubal over 20 years ago, am post menopausal and may have been sterile to begin with, so no need to hide at all. I just think you and yours are completely wrong headed. > [@](#): > > Really? I don’t see as near as much outcry about a non-pregnant woman wanting to stab herself in her uterus repeatedly as I do about abortion. Do you? Well, that could be included as one of the many indications that the anti-abortionists care more about forcing a pregnancy to term than the health and mental well being of the woman. However, I think it’s more likely a result of the fact that _extremely_ few women stab themselves in the uterus. > [@](#): > > Once fertilization concludes, a female has already repdroduced. Having a miscarriage has nothing to do with that. O-kay… :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/310 "2012-02-16T05:38:46Z")
I’m still shocked to see people touting “A fetus is a human worthy of rights” the same way some catholics tout “Every sperm is sacred” – it’s an _opinion_. Not a fact, not even logically backed, just an opinion with nothing behind it beyond your own preconceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/311 "2012-02-16T06:56:34Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > What you _really_ meant to type was that unless you’re a pro-choice male then you can’t get the issue. Which, for the record, is an assumption which hinges on the otherwise false notion that where differences in abortion attitudes by gender are found, women are more approving of abortion than men are when, in fact, it’s the exact opposite (that is, men are more approving of abortion than are women). It doesn’t hinge on that at all. I’m sure there are plenty of women who are members of the religious right, have been brainwashed by their family/faith, have never given serious thought to abortion because they believe it could never happen to them, or are just plain hypocrites who happily have abortions while gleefully denying that other women should be able to have them. The existence of all those kinds of women could easily create a situation where a large percentage of women don’t officially approve of abortion. I’m also sure that there are plenty of men who quite sensibly realize that this is an issue that they might not completely understand, so they approve of the pro-choice stance. I do think that, while males can obviously have an opinion about abortion, they really cannot absolutely understand the situation a woman is in when she faces an unwanted pregnancy. It’s awfully easy to declare black and white morals about a situation that you can guarantee will never, ever happen to you. Never mind that you’re attempting to use popular opinion statistics when you just said that it doesn’t matter what the popular opinion is (2+2=5). > [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > There’s a stark difference between having human DNA and being a human being. 😕 Doesn’t this go against everything you’ve been arguing? Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but we’ve all been telling you that a clump of cells does not make a person, even if it does have human DNA. Whereas you seem to think that even a single cell deserves the same rights as an adult woman, including rights that we actually don’t give to any adult human (I get to live inside your body and there’s nothing you can do about 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 16, 2012, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/312 "2012-02-16T07:56:58Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > 2+2=4 is a fact, whether or not a fetus=person is an opinion. And so is the fact that the unborn are human beings, yet this does not stop people from (constantly) denying that they are. > [@](#): > > Prove it. I have; twice. > [@](#): > > That response doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the fact that anti-choice people wish to force women to carry any and all pregnancies they may have. What does whether or not I currently live in an anarchy (and you know I don’t) have to do with that? No, it has to do with the notion that preventing \ from doing \ means you hate/dislike/don’t respect/whatever \. Unless you live in an anarchy, which you do not, society sets up laws which prevents \ from doing \. It does not mean that society hate \, but rather society has deemed that the good from preventing \ from engaging in \ outweighs the bad of preventing \ from doing \. It says nothing to society’s view of \. > [@](#): > > You can start with the lack of any of this fervor about abused kids, babies born to junkies and prostitutes with HIV, kids with no homes, etc from any of the religious organizations that so violently oppose abortion. So, it is easy to see that they don’t care about the fetus once it becomes a human. Because you’ve never heard of the Salvation Army or Catholic Charities. > [@](#): > > Those men might have actually been smart enough to get input from a wide variety of women, and used that input in their decision. I don’t know since I wasn’t around then (I think - at most I was very young). You just said that “men don’t get the issue and never will”. So even if those nine Supreme Court justices would have talked to a gajillion women, it would not have mattered, since they’re men, could not become pregnant and would have ultimately lacked a fundamental understanding of the issue. Therefore, Roe v. Wade-- according to your argument-- should be nullified on the basis that it was decided by a group of men who do not, and never would, have a proverbial dog in the fight. > [@](#): > > Nope. As far as I’m concerned, it is no males business. In real life however, a pro-choice male isn’t going to go about trying to force anyone to follow his opinion on the matter, so that’s pretty moot. I don’t think you understand anything of which you speak. In real life, a pro-choice male influences abortion policy either by being a judge, being a legislature or by voting for pro-choice politicians. If, as you claim, abortion is no male’s business, then all males should be unable to provide their input into abortion. Assuming a perfect world and we were able to successfully remove men entirely from the issue in every facet and leave the issue _solely_ to women, you would find that support for abortion would go down and the law would end up more restrictive than it is right now. If we were to go futher and completely remove every post-menopausal women from the equation, since they can’t get pregnant, you’d find that support would fall even further. So I feel I must ask; do you _really_ want to hold to the whole “abortion is no male’s business” line? I don’t think you do. > [@](#): > > That would be your opinion. We’ve been over this before but, again, no it’s not [just my opinion](http://www.epm.org/resources/2011/Apr/27/when-does-life-begin-quotes-many-sources/). That is well over thirty quotes for you taken directly from embryology textbooks and biologists alike, and you could _easily_ find more if you searched online. There’s come a certain point in time where you’re not just being ignorant, you’re being _willfully_ ignorant. > [@](#): > > Theirs too. Or did you think that all scientists are unaffected by religion? Why is it that whenever you are given some information you don’t like or which is contrary to whatever opinion you want to hold, you summarily dismiss it under the basis that the individuals who wrote that information are biased (you’ve done this on at least three seperate occasions now)? Could you explain exactly when something is mere “opinion” and when it’s a fact, and when something is “biased” and when it isn’t? > [@](#): > > Ha! No, I am simply using different criteria than you are for human and alive. So you’re using criteria which are both scientifically incorrect and contradictory to English language? > [@](#): > > Neither am I hiding anywhere, since I am not the one trying to force a major change based on what I think the Great Spirit wants me to believe. It’s interesting to me how the first-- and generally only-- people to ever mention religion in any facet are _pro-choicers_ who are trying to hide behind some form of the “Don’t-force-your-beliefs-on-me!” line. > [@](#): > > I just think you and yours are completely wrong headed. You’re wrong, so that doesn’t just bother me. > [@](#): > > Well, that could be included as one of the many indications that the anti-abortionists care more about forcing a pregnancy to term than the health and mental well being of the woman. No, it’s an “indicator” that anti-abortionists care about what a woman does to her unborn child rather than what she does to her body. > [@](#): > > However, I think it’s more likely a result of the fact that _extremely_ few women stab themselves in the uterus. No, it’s because in the fact of a woman stabbing herself in the uterus, she’s harming only herself whereas, in regards to abortion, she is not harming herself, but rather someone else. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > I’m still shocked to see people touting “A fetus is a human worthy of rights” the same way some catholics tout “Every sperm is sacred” – it’s an _opinion_. Not a fact, not even logically backed, just an opinion with nothing behind it beyond your own preconceptions. Ignorance is hard enough to fight. Willful ignorance is just downright impossible, as the only thing which beats it is death. ---
**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 16, 2012, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/313 "2012-02-16T08:02:39Z")
> [@Meyer6](#): > > It doesn’t hinge on that at all. I’m sure there are plenty of women who are members of the religious right, have been brainwashed by their family/faith, have never given serious thought to abortion because they believe it could never happen to them, or are just plain hypocrites who happily have abortions while gleefully denying that other women should be able to have them. The existence of all those kinds of women could easily create a situation where a large percentage of women don’t officially approve of abortion. I’m also sure that there are plenty of men who quite sensibly realize that this is an issue that they might not completely understand, so they approve of the pro-choice stance. So what I’ve gathered from this point is: “All/most women should be pro-choice and if they’re not it’s because they’re members of the religious right/have been brainwashed/haven’t thought about the issue/are hypocrites.” That seems rather convenient. > [@](#): > > Never mind that you’re attempting to use popular opinion statistics when you just said that it doesn’t matter what the popular opinion is (2+2=5). No, I actually didn’t. I was responding to curlcoat, whose claim was that men can’t have an opinion on abortion due to being men. > [@](#): > > Doesn’t this go against everything you’ve been arguing? Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but we’ve all been telling you that a clump of cells does not make a person, even if it does have human DNA. Whereas you seem to think that even a single cell deserves the same rights as an adult woman, including rights that we actually don’t give to any adult human (I get to live inside your body and there’s nothing you can do about it!). 1.) Perhaps you need to go back and read. And carefully. 2.) The “right” is to “not live inside one’s body”; the right is to not be killed. If upholding that right involves letting one “live in one’s body”, then so be it. ---
**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 16, 2012, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/314 "2012-02-16T08:12:35Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > 2.) The “right” is to “not live inside one’s body”; the right is to not be killed. If upholding that right involves letting one “live in one’s body”, then so be it. Well, that’s why reasonable people should not argue for the upholding of such a law, because it causes more harm than good. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 8:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/315 "2012-02-16T08:45:50Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > And so is the fact that the unborn are human beings, yet this does not stop people from (constantly) denying that they are. Again, that is an opinion. The “unborn” (which is yet another way an anti-abortion person tries to force their beliefs off on others) are human fetuses but that doesn’t necessarily make them human beings. It all depends on what you believe, and your total lack of desire to consider that there are any other valid beliefs out there provides a great example of why anti-abortionists are viewed as trying to force everyone to subscribe to their religion - you all simply refuse to even consider that there might be other truths or facts out there. > [@](#): > > I have; twice. Really? Where have you proven that you value women over fetuses? > [@](#): > > No, it has to do with the notion that preventing \ from doing \ means you hate/dislike/don’t respect/whatever \. Unless you live in an anarchy, which you do not, society sets up laws which prevents \ from doing \. It does not mean that society hate \, but rather society has deemed that the good from preventing \ from engaging in \ outweighs the bad of preventing \ from doing \. It says nothing to society’s view of \. You are saying you are completely unaware of societies that have laws that result in viewing and treating women as less than second class citizens? Which is beside the point since this was originally about individuals and not society and laws. > [@](#): > > Because you’ve never heard of the Salvation Army or Catholic Charities. I’ve never heard of Catholic Charities, and I haven’t heard of either of them attempting to force laws thru, shooting anyone or picketing anywhere to do anything about the unwanted and/or abused kids that were born because their mothers couldn’t or wouldn’t abort them. > [@](#): > > You just said that “men don’t get the issue and never will”. So even if those nine Supreme Court justices would have talked to a gajillion women, it would not have mattered, since they’re men, could not become pregnant and would have ultimately lacked a fundamental understanding of the issue. Therefore, Roe v. Wade-- according to your argument-- should be nullified on the basis that it was decided by a group of men who do not, and never would, have a proverbial dog in the fight. I wonder about you some times. I said that the justices could have gone to the source - women - for information on the subject because they themselves would have had no experience on the subject, and used that input as the basis of their decision. Surely you don’t believe that all of the justices would have a fundamental understanding of every issue that come before their court? Of course not. Not that this really has anything to do with anything. Just because the Supreme Court was made up of all men back then doesn’t mean they were the ones that actually made the decision on that issue, they are merely the ones who handed it down. It doesn’t take being able to become pregnant to have the brains to go ask those who can what they think about abortion. > [@](#): > > I don’t think you understand anything of which you speak. In real life, a pro-choice male influences Do you not understand the difference between influence and force? > [@](#): > > If, as you claim, abortion is no male’s business, then all males should be unable to provide their input into abortion. Why? I have not said men cannot provide input, I have said they have no business trying to force their opinions off on women when it comes to abortion. > [@](#): > > Assuming a perfect world and we were able to successfully remove men entirely from the issue in every facet and leave the issue _solely_ to women, you would find that support for abortion would go down and the law would end up more restrictive than it is right now. If we were to go futher and completely remove every post-menopausal women from the equation, since they can’t get pregnant, you’d find that support would fall even further. Uh, no. The people who are most adamant about keeping abortion safe and legal are those who might still need one. As a sterile woman, I’ll kill time discussing it on line, but I’m not going to go any further than that. > [@](#): > > So I feel I must ask; do you _really_ want to hold to the whole “abortion is no male’s business” line? I don’t think you do. You’d be wrong. > [@](#): > > We’ve been over this before but, again, no it’s not [just my opinion](http://www.epm.org/resources/2011/Apr/27/when-does-life-begin-quotes-many-sources/). That is well over thirty quotes for you taken directly from embryology textbooks and biologists alike, and you could _easily_ find more if you searched online. And, as I said prior, it is an opinion held by others as well. Just as you can find cites for your side, if I cared at all I could find just as many for mine, but neither of us is going to find scientific proof because it is just an opinion. > [@](#): > > There’s come a certain point in time where you’re not just being ignorant, you’re being _willfully_ ignorant. Yes, that is exactly what you are doing. At some point you were told that when an egg and sperm meet, that is a new human being, and you are going to stubbornly hold to that opinion no matter what. > [@](#): > > Why is it that whenever you are given some information you don’t like or which is contrary to whatever opinion you want to hold, you summarily dismiss it under the basis that the individuals who wrote that information are biased (you’ve done this on at least three seperate occasions now)? Could you explain exactly when something is mere “opinion” and when it’s a fact, and when something is “biased” and when it isn’t? Well, I didn’t say that the scientists were biased but lets run with that. If I were to bother to get you a bunch of cites from “godless” scientists that showed that their opinion was that humanity begins at birth or whatever, would you give them as much weight as you do the cites you like? > [@](#): > > So you’re using criteria which are both scientifically incorrect and contradictory to English language? Nope. > [@](#): > > It’s interesting to me how the first-- and generally only-- people to ever mention religion in any facet are _pro-choicers_ who are trying to hide behind some form of the “Don’t-force-your-beliefs-on-me!” line. OK then, tell me where you first got the idea that a little blob of cells cooking away inside a human is another human? The ones waving signs and killing doctors are all falling back on religious beliefs. > [@](#): > > No, it’s an “indicator” that anti-abortionists care about what a woman does to her unborn child rather than what she does to her body. Calling it an “unborn child” indicates that you care more about a blob than a real live woman. > [@](#): > > No, it’s because in the fact of a woman stabbing herself in the uterus, she’s harming only herself whereas, in regards to abortion, she is not harming herself, but rather someone else. Snort. Can you provide any cites for a woman stabbing herself in her empty uterus? If not, give this one up. > [@](#): > > Ignorance is hard enough to fight. Willful ignorance is just downright impossible, as the only thing which beats it is death. So you do believe that every sperm is sacred then? ---
**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 16, 2012, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/316 "2012-02-16T09:49:09Z")
> [@curlcoat](#): > > Again, that is an opinion. The “unborn” (which is yet another way an anti-abortion person tries to force their beliefs off on others) are human fetuses but that doesn’t necessarily make them human beings. Basic biology disagrees with you. > [@](#): > > It all depends on what you believe, and your total lack of desire to consider that there are any other valid beliefs out there provides a great example of why anti-abortionists are viewed as trying to force everyone to subscribe to their religion - you all simply refuse to even consider that there might be other truths or facts out there. So, apparently, beliefs now trump actuality. Does this mean that if I believe you’re a chicken, I can kill you and eat you for dinner? Or will that be considered an invalid belief? > [@](#): > > Really? Where have you proven that you value women over fetuses? I don’t know. I didn’t even know that was the question. (In fact, it wasn’t.) > [@](#): > > You are saying you are completely unaware of societies that have laws that result in viewing and treating women as less than second class citizens? Which is beside the point since this was originally about individuals and not society and laws. What do other socities have to do with my quote? And, no, it wasn’t “besides the point”, since the original point was to point out the absurdity in claiming that preventing \ from engaging in \ means you hold some sort of contempt for \. > [@](#): > > I’ve never heard of Catholic Charities, and I haven’t heard of either of them attempting to force laws thru, shooting anyone or picketing anywhere to do anything about the unwanted and/or abused kids that were born because their mothers couldn’t or wouldn’t abort them. One, the Salvation Army is a church and is obstensibly pro-life. Yet every year they collect millions of dollars for the poor and needy. Two, Catholic Charities is run by the Catholic Church, of course. The Catholic Church is also obstensibly pro-life. Every year, they collect millions of dollars for the poor and needy, and even run free/low-cost-shelters for families to live in. Just for the record. > [@](#): > > I wonder about you some times. I said that the justices could have gone to the source - women - for information on the subject because they themselves would have had no experience on the subject, and used that input as the basis of their decision. Surely you don’t believe that all of the justices would have a fundamental understanding of every issue that come before their court? Of course not. > > Not that this really has anything to do with anything. Just because the Supreme Court was made up of all men back then doesn’t mean they were the ones that actually made the decision on that issue, they are merely the ones who handed it down. It doesn’t take being able to become pregnant to have the brains to go ask those who can what they think about abortion. Are… are you serious? How exactly do you know whether or a not a decision was formed by speaking to women or if it was formed absent it? How, exactly do you know they went and consulted with women? What if-- hypothetically speaking, of course-- they consulted with no women and their decision was entirely self-serving? What if no woman agreed with the decision? What if they only consulted those women with whom they already agreed with? What if they only asked one woman in the entire nation? > [@](#): > > Do you not understand the difference between influence and force? Do you not understand what you’re rambling on about? I doubt you do. > [@](#): > > Why? I have not said men cannot provide input, I have said they have no business trying to force their opinions off on women when it comes to abortion. What you said was, and I quote you verbatim, “since you are male, you just don’t get the issue, and you never will”. The direct implication here is that because men aren’t women, they can have no _input at all_ on the abortion issue because it’s something they cannot possibly understand. No input at all means either for or against. …Of course, as you backtrack further, I can only guess that what you really meant was that men can have no input on a woman’s individual decision to abort, yes? I’m going to go ahead and say ‘yes’, in which case, that’s a not so sly way of simply saying that an individual should be able to decide the legality of an action for themselves. Which, you know, would be ridiculous. > [@](#): > > Uh, no. The people who are most adamant about keeping abortion safe and legal are those who might still need one. This is false and I’ve gone over this with you, and others, before in many different threads. The phrase “menopausal militia” is used for a reason. > [@](#): > > And, as I said prior, it is an opinion held by others as well. Just as you can find cites for your side, if I cared at all I could find just as many for mine, but neither of us is going to find scientific proof because it is just an opinion. You say that you could find just as many cites for your side? Oh, please do. I _want_ you to do so. I would absolutely love to see you produce twenty books on embryology which state “the life of every human being begins at some point other than conception”. I will more surely wait, for this should be very interesting. As it is, I’m still waiting for any answer to my question. Could you explain exactly when something is mere “opinion” and when it’s a fact, and when something is “biased” and when it isn’t? I ask because the way it seems is that, following your logic, the statements “The universe is 13.7B years old” and “The earth is 4.5B years old” are also mere opinion. > [@](#): > > Yes, that is exactly what you are doing. At some point you were told that when an egg and sperm meet, that is a new human being, and you are going to stubbornly hold to that opinion no matter what. That’s quite probably because it’s not an opinion; it’s a demonstrable fact, of which science has known for well over a hundred years. And when I say well over a hundred years, I mean dating back to the mid-to-late 19th century here. > [@](#): > > Well, I didn’t say that the scientists were biased but lets run with that. If I were to bother to get you a bunch of cites from “godless” scientists that showed that their opinion was that humanity begins at birth or whatever, would you give them as much weight as you do the cites you like? You can _always_ find people in any field who disagree with the majority consensus, regardless of the topic. Right now, I could find you quite a few scientists who disagree with the theory of evolution. That somehow does not make evolution a matter of “opinion”. Or does it? > [@](#): > > Nope. Then what are you using? > [@](#): > > OK then, tell me where you first got the idea that a little blob of cells cooking away inside a human is another human? The ones waving signs and killing doctors are all falling back on religious beliefs. I took biology. > [@](#): > > Calling it an “unborn child” indicates that you care more about a blob than a real live woman. Calling it an “unborn child” means that I recognize that-- in the English language-- the phrase has meaning. In fact, the world _child_ itself has [prenatal](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/child) [application](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/child). So, apparently, not only do you not like science, but you don’t like the English language, either. Is there anything else you want to show your disdain for? > [@](#): > > Snort. Can you provide any cites for a woman stabbing herself in her empty uterus? If not, give this one up. I probably could if I were to look it up but, then again, I don’t need to look it up as that no bearing on what was said to you 🙂 > [@](#): > > So you do believe that every sperm is sacred then? You do know the difference between a haploid sex cell and a human being, don’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/317 "2012-02-16T12:38:22Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Ignorance is hard enough to fight. Willful ignorance is just downright impossible, as the only thing which beats it is death. Er… No, but thanks for the rhetoric anyways. :rolleyes: Once you’ve given me a clear, logical or evidenced framework that establishes: 1. Human life begins at conception 2. All human life has the right to life, regardless of status, condition, or position 3. A fetus has an equal right to a woman’s body as a woman does (i.e. there is more of a moral imperative to ensure the life and safety of this fetus than to ensure the personal freedom of the woman) 4. The same principle cannot be applied one step further back (sperm/egg cells) Once you have done that, _then_ you can fairly assert that a fetus is worthy of human rights. I’ll tell you this, though: you’re going to fail _miserably_ on point two. And you still make statements like this… > [@](#): > > Basic biology disagrees with you. …Without even understanding what we _mean_ by “human being”. Simple question, OMG. A building is burning, and you have the time to save either a 2-year-old baby or a casket containing 100 fertilized egg cells, ready for implantation. Which do you save? I think any sane human being would save the infant, but I’m not so sure about you. ---
**Author:** ![Meyer6](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@Meyer6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meyer6)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/318 "2012-02-16T16:59:54Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > So what I’ve gathered from this point is: “All/most women should be pro-choice and if they’re not it’s because they’re members of the religious right/have been brainwashed/haven’t thought about the issue/are hypocrites.” Way to evade. No, the point is that you can’t just point to opinion poll results and say “look, men are more likely to be pro-choice than women” and think that that proves something about whether or not a man can really reasonably understand the issues faced by pregnant women. It’s quite obvious that a lot of men don’t, especially when they like to pretend that pregnancy is just a minor inconvenience with no painful or negative side effects. Having said that, I do think that women who oppose abortion pretty do generally fall into those categories: religious, brainwashed, ignorant, hypocritical. Yeah, I’d say that pretty much covers it. > [@](#): > > The “right” is to “not live inside one’s body”; the right is to not be killed. If upholding that right involves letting one “live in one’s body”, then so be it. See, I bet this seems self-evident to you, but it’s really not. For one thing the right not to be killed only applies to human beings, and even you seem to understand that human DNA does not necessarily equal human being. You’re now trying to appeal to science, but absolutely none of the quotes you site claim that a blastocyst or a zygote is a person, they are just talking about its formation. If what you want to prove is that a unique combination of DNA results from fertilization and that development, if allowed to continue, will eventually result in a person, then congrats I guess. But I don’t think anybody has tried to deny that in this thread. That’s all any of those embryology cites are telling us. But you want to take that genetic and biological fact and paste it directly into an argument that is actually philosophical in nature. When does life begin? What makes us human? Does every scrap of human DNA have equal rights? When can the rights of one supersede the rights of another? Surely even you can see that those are philosophical questions, not biological ones. I’ll tell you that I have a biology degree and we never, ever discussed anything even remotely like that, so if you’re trying to claim special knowledge about this due to your ‘education’ you either went to an even shittier school than I thought or you’re being quite disingenuous. Besides all of that, you’re also trying to claim that it’s obvious that we place the right not to be killed above all else no matter what. But that’s not true no matter how you slice it. The killing of another in self defense or by accident is protected by the law, and many of us believe that killing another out of mercy should be permissible too. By your rules a woman couldn’t kill a man who was trying to rape her because his right to life supercedes her right to safety. I really hope you don’t believe that, or you’re an even bigger jerk than I thought. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/319 "2012-02-16T19:22:47Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Basic biology disagrees with you. Weren’t you the one that admitted that even tho you took biology in college, you don’t remember it or don’t understand it? > [@](#): > > So, apparently, beliefs now trump actuality. Does this mean that if I believe you’re a chicken, I can kill you and eat you for dinner? Or will that be considered an invalid belief? If you are mentally unhinged, sure. However this little exercise isn’t going to shift attention from the central discussion, sorry. Which is you cannot prove that a zygote or even a fetus is the same thing as a living human being. > [@](#): > > I don’t know. I didn’t even know that was the question. You answered it a couple of posts ago. If this is how close attention you pay to a discussion, why should we bother to take anything you say seriously? > [@](#): > > (In fact, it wasn’t.) Prove it. > [@](#): > > What do other socities have to do with my quote? Nothing, I wasn’t responding to a quote, I was responding to what you posted. > [@](#): > > And, no, it wasn’t “besides the point”, since the original point was to point out the absurdity in claiming that preventing \ from engaging in \ means you hold some sort of contempt for \. And I gave you examples of whole societies who do that. > [@](#): > > One, the Salvation Army is a church and is obstensibly pro-life. Yet every year they collect millions of dollars for the poor and needy. Two, Catholic Charities is run by the Catholic Church, of course. The Catholic Church is also obstensibly pro-life. Every year, they collect millions of dollars for the poor and needy, and even run free/low-cost-shelters for families to live in. Just for the record. I said “abused and unwanted children”. I also said “fervor”, to which I also add “violence”. You know, how the anti-abortionists oppose the right to choose. > [@](#): > > Are… are you serious? How exactly do you know whether or a not a decision was formed by speaking to women or if it was formed absent it? How, exactly do you know they went and consulted with women? What if-- hypothetically speaking, of course-- they consulted with no women and their decision was entirely self-serving? What if no woman agreed with the decision? What if they only consulted those women with whom they already agreed with? What if they only asked one woman in the entire nation? I don’t know any of that and neither do you. The point is that you were trying to “prove” that men can be involved in the anti-abortion side by citing the fact that the Supreme Court was all men at the time of Roe vs. Wade. Ignoring the facts that at that time women didn’t serve there, that the men don’t make decisions in a vacuum, that it was a very long time ago AND that I didn’t say that men couldn’t make the right decisions, just that they had no business trying to force any pregnancy off on a woman. > [@](#): > > Do you not understand what you’re rambling on about? I doubt you do. So you don’t understand the difference between influence and force? That would explain quite a bit. > [@](#): > > What you said was, and I quote you verbatim, “since you are male, you just don’t get the issue, and you never will”. The direct implication here is that because men aren’t women, they can have no _input at all_ on the abortion issue because it’s something they cannot possibly understand. No input at all means either for or against. Perhaps to you, not to me. This is a great example of your problem tho - you take little bits of information out of context and then wrap totally new, and incorrect, assumptions around it. “Since you are male, you just don’t get the issue, and you never will” means just that and none of the other stuff you attached to it. > [@](#): > > …Of course, as you backtrack further, I can only guess that what you really meant was that men can have no input on a woman’s individual decision to abort, yes? I’m going to go ahead and say ‘yes’, in which case, that’s a not so sly way of simply saying that an individual should be able to decide the legality of an action for themselves. Which, you know, would be ridiculous. No what I meant is what I said - men while never fully understand the issue until they themselves can get pregnant. Therefore men should not be the ones deciding if abortion should be available safe and legal. > [@](#): > > This is false and I’ve gone over this with you, and others, before in many different threads. The phrase “menopausal militia” is used for a reason. You haven’t gone over it with me, and cutsie names don’t indicate any sort of majority. > [@](#): > > You say that you could find just as many cites for your side? Oh, please do. I also said I didn’t care enough to bother; I simply don’t care enough about this discussion to spend a couple of hours wandering about in Google. > [@](#): > > As it is, I’m still waiting for any answer to my question. Could you explain exactly when something is mere “opinion” and when it’s a fact, and when something is “biased” and when it isn’t? It’s a fact when it can be proven. An opinion is biased when the person takes available facts and fits them into their preconceived belief. Which is what you do when you take something like a scientist using the word individual and say “look, that proves he thinks that a fetus is the same thing as a human being”. > [@](#): > > That’s quite probably because it’s not an opinion; it’s a demonstrable fact, of which science has known for well over a hundred years. And when I say well over a hundred years, I mean dating back to the mid-to-late 19th century here. Nope. What is a fact is that when sperm meets an egg, something may start to grow that might become a human being in 8 or 9 months time. Everything else is spin doctoring. > [@](#): > > You can _always_ find people in any field who disagree with the majority consensus, regardless of the topic. Right now, I could find you quite a few scientists who disagree with the theory of evolution. That somehow does not make evolution a matter of “opinion”. Or does it? OK, so the answer to my question was no? And, if those scientists can come up with proof that shows that the theory of evolution is wrong, that would be interesting reading. As far as I know, such folks “prove” evolution wrong by quoting the Bible. > [@](#): > > Then what are you using? I’m using using criteria which is scientifically correct and in the English language that you just happen to not like or agree with. > [@](#): > > I took biology. Ah. So you did there what you are doing here? Picking and choosing facts, and spinning those you don’t like? > [@](#): > > Calling it an “unborn child” means that I recognize that-- in the English language-- the phrase has meaning. In fact, the world _child_ itself has [prenatal](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/child) [application](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/child). So, apparently, not only do you not like science, but you don’t like the English language, either. Is there anything else you want to show your disdain for? Perfect! Do you not realize that dictionaries include all popular definitions, in the order of how frequently they are used? Now, note that in your [dictionary.com](http://dictionary.com) cite, the first three definitions are all living humans, so the most correct definition of “child” is obviously that which applies to something that is alive. Which is why you all have to stick “unborn” in front of child, to show the difference between a _living_ child and a _potential_ child. You should also note that saying “with child” when a woman is pregnant is only an idiom, not a definition. > [@](#): > > I probably could if I were to look it up but, then again, I don’t need to look it up as that no bearing on what was said to you 🙂 Of course it did. You tried to use the lack of “outcry” about a woman stabbing her empty uterus as “proof” that most pro-lifers couldn’t care less about her right to control her uterus so much as they care about a fetus. I countered with the fact that a woman stabbing her empty uterus is so extremely rare that there is no need for “outcry” - you know, a nice way of saying that pulling something out of your ass to try to hold up your side of the discussion doesn’t work. > [@](#): > > You do know the difference between a haploid sex cell and a human being, don’t you? That has zero to do with the question I asked you. Do you not wish to answer 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 16, 2012, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125/320 "2012-02-16T20:23:20Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > Er… No, but thanks for the rhetoric anyways. :rolleyes: Once you’ve given me a clear, logical or evidenced framework that establishes: I grow a bit tired of people misusing the word _logic_ as when they typically do so, what they mean is “a position I agree with” instead of “a position that’s logical”. Anyway… > [@](#): > > 1. Human life begins at conception I direct you to the two links provided in posts #305 and #312 for a small sampling of quotes and other such sources which attest to this fact. It’s _well_ over thirty different sources for you. You, yourself, could probably find twenty to thirty more if you were to look yourself. > [@](#): > > 1. All human life has the right to life, regardless of status, condition, or position. Unless you have lived under a rock for any prolonged period of time over the last seventy or so years, it’s hard for me to believe that you have never heard of [human rights](http://www.ohchr.org/en/issues/Pages/WhatareHumanRights.aspx). > [@](#): > > Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible… > > …All human rights are indivisible, whether they are civil and political rights, **such as the right to life** , equality before the law and freedom of expression; economic, social and cultural rights, such as the rights to work, social security and education , or collective rights, such as the rights to development and self-determination, are indivisible, interrelated and interdependent. The improvement of one right facilitates advancement of the others. Likewise, the deprivation of one right adversely affects the others. I added the bold for emphasis. Of course, I suspect what you’re going to do in response is to try to draw a false equivalency between the unborn and, say, either an organ, a somatic cell of even a sex cell in hopes of arguing that the unborn are human lives but not, in fact, human beings. In which case, I simply direct you back to the aforementioned links above. > [@](#): > > 1. A fetus has an equal right to a woman’s body as a woman does (i.e. there is more of a moral imperative to ensure the life and safety of this fetus than to ensure the personal freedom of the woman). Why do I need to demonstrate this, especially after I _clearly_ stated that: [QUOTE=Me] The “right” is to “not live inside one’s body”; the right is to not be killed. If upholding that right involves letting one “live in one’s body”, then so be it. [/quote] I’d much prefer to argue the things I’ve said or positions I’ve actually taken, and not the things you’re content to have said I’ve said or have taken. > [@](#): > > 1. The same principle cannot be applied one step further back (sperm/egg cells). The same principle can be applied one step backwards if, and only if, you can somehow demonstrate that a haploid sex cell is a human being. Which, by the way, would be absurd. And I will allow you all the time in the world to attempt to do so here though you could save yourself the time and trouble. > [@](#): > > Once you have done that, _then_ you can fairly assert that a fetus is worthy of human rights. One is done. Two is done. Three has no applicability. Four is contingent on your response. > [@](#): > > I’ll tell you this, though: you’re going to fail _miserably_ on point two. And you still make statements like this… That’s weird. It doesn’t look like I failed at all. > [@](#): > > …Without even understanding what we _mean_ by “human being”. How many definitions of the word “human being” are there? Should we use an objective definition of human being or a subjective one? If we are to use a subjective definition of a human being, then who gets to decide which definition becomes **THE** definition. > [@](#): > > Simple question, OMG. A building is burning, and you have the time to save either a 2-year-old baby or a casket containing 100 fertilized egg cells, ready for implantation. Which do you save? I think any sane human being would save the infant, but I’m not so sure about you. I swear I’ve answered this question at least ten times now. Anyway, since you are apparently looking for some kind of “damning” answer, I’ll oblige you. I’d save the two year-old? So what? If it was between a two year-old and a 100 ninety year-olds, I’d save the two year-old. If it was between a two-year old and three forty year-olds, I’d save the two-year old. If it was between a two-year old and a hot twenty-something chick with a nice rack, a nice ass and a decent face, I’d probably save the chick. If it was between… Well, you get the point. The question is, how does my decision to not save one party or parties affect their moral worth and/or standing? The obvious answer to that question is that it does not, as such a position says nothing about the moral worth and/or standing of the individual not chosen, but on my personal preference. > [@Meyer6](#): > > Way to evade. No, the point is that you can’t just point to opinion poll results and say “look, men are more likely to be pro-choice than women” and think that that proves something about whether or not a man can really reasonably understand the issues faced by pregnant women. It’s quite obvious that a lot of men don’t, especially when they like to pretend that pregnancy is just a minor inconvenience with no painful or negative side effects. Except that wasn’t the point _at all_; in fact, it was not even close to it. If group A, who cannot become pregnant, is, where differences in abortion attitudes are found, _more_ permissive of abortion than group B, who can become pregnant, yet group A is stated to “not get the issue” precisely because they cannot become pregnant, it means that being able to become pregnant (due to gender) is associated, in general, with a _less_ permissive attitude of abortion than if they were unable to ever become pregnant (i.e., born a man). In other words, “lacking that intimiate understanding of the issue” equals _more_, in general, permissive attitudes towards abortion while “having that intimate understanding of the issue” equals _less_, in general, permissive attitudes towards abortion. Capisce? I said it to **curlcoat** and I’ll say it to you; you’re laboring under the assumption that it is women who are, in general, more permissive of abortion. Your entire assumption rests on the notion that _if_ men could become pregnant, they’d be more permissive of abortion (the corrolary is that if women were not the ones who became pregnant, they’d become _less_ permissive of abortion). However, neither of these two assumptions are true. It’s the opposite which is true. So if men were removed from the equation _entirely_, abort support would go _down_, not _up_, as men don’t drag support _down_. They help to prop it _up_. (Hopefully I won’t have to re-explain this in the future.) > [@](#): > > Having said that, I do think that women who oppose abortion pretty do generally fall into those categories: religious, brainwashed, ignorant, hypocritical. Yeah, I’d say that pretty much covers it. So unless a woman thinks what you want them to think or adopt the views you think they should adopt, then it’s because they’ve either been brainwashed, are ignorant or hypocritical? Interesting. I wonder if anyone will come out and point out the sexist underpinnings of such a statement? I doubt it. I’d say I’m surprised by your comment, but I’m really not, as your comment reminds me of the comments I received when I asked why [Republicans fair better at the national level than Democrats if they only care about the rich](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=619289) (i.e., because voters are dumb, brainwashed, uneducated, etc. etc. etc.). > [@](#): > > See, I bet this seems self-evident to you, but it’s really not. For one thing the right not to be killed only applies to human beings, and even you seem to understand that human DNA does not necessarily equal human being. This is how I know for a fact you did not click on any of the provided links. These are all **exact** quotes. > [@](#): > > Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2: > > “[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new **human being**.” > [@](#): > > Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3: > > “The development of a **human being** begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” > [@](#): > > Scarr, S., Weinberg, R.A., and Levine A., Understanding Development, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1986. page 86: > > “The development of a new **human being** begins when a male’s sperm pierces the cell membrane of a female’s ovum, or egg…The villi become the placenta, which will nourish the developing infant for the next eight and a half months.” > [@](#): > > Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981 > > “Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a **human being** - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings.” No need to thank me. You’re welcome, though. > [@](#): > > You’re now trying to appeal to science, but absolutely none of the quotes you site claim that a blastocyst or a zygote is a person, they are just talking about its formation. If what you want to prove is that a unique combination of DNA results from fertilization and that development, if allowed to continue, will eventually result in a person, then congrats I guess. But I don’t think anybody has tried to deny that in this thread. That’s all any of those embryology cites are telling us. Aaaaaaaaand… Here we go. The inevitable “Yeah, but it’s not a person!!!11!1!1sh1ft0ne!11!1eleventy1ne1!!!1” response. _shrugs_ The pertinent question is “why not?”. It is important to know the defining characteristic of a person in order to know what a person is not, you first have to know what it is. So would you care to provide for me the exact definition, and qualifications, of a person? (BTW\> What the embryology cites tell us is that the unborn are human beings, which just so happens to be the only ‘trait’ that every single human being alive today shares.) > [@](#): > > But you want to take that genetic and biological fact and paste it directly into an argument that is actually philosophical in nature. (1) When does life begin? (2) What makes us human? (3) Does every scrap of human DNA have equal rights? (4) When can the rights of one supersede the rights of another? Surely even you can see that those are philosophical questions, not biological ones. I’ll tell you that I have a biology degree and we never, ever discussed anything even remotely like that, so if you’re trying to claim special knowledge about this due to your ‘education’ you either went to an even shittier school than I thought or you’re being quite disingenuous. I’ve took the convenience of numbering each one of your “arguments”. (1) “When does life begin” is not a matter of philosophy at all. In fact, it’s a question easily answered by science. Every human being has a very neat beginning, which happens to be at conception. However, for shits and giggles, let’s say that we wanted to get into a debate of “when does life begin?”. Now let’s just assume that we have five people; one who says life begins at conception, one who says life begins at three months, one who says like begins at six months, one who says life begins at birth and one who says life begins three months after you’re born. As the pro-choice mantra usually goes, “people are entitled to their own views regarding when life begins”. So, taken at face value, this means that there is no objective truth regarding when life begins. It’s all subjective. In which case, each individual should be allowed to act in accordance to her belief. That means if each individual kills someone who is under or at each of their “cut off” ages, then this should be allowed. However, few pro-choicers are going to extend the whole “everyone is entitled to their own views” courtesy to the fifth individual, who does not believe life begins until after three months someone is born. But why not? Why should this courtesy not be extended to the last individual? Is her subjective truth any less subjective than the truths of the other four individuals? Are the truths of the first four individuals more objective than the fifth’s? Which one of their truths is the “most objective”? How can there be multiple objective truths about the issue of “when does life begin?”. What happened to “everyone is entitled to their own views regarding when life begins”? Why not just use an objective truth to begin with instead of relying on subjective ones? Eager minds want to know. (2) “What makes us human” is a wholly irrelevant question, as there is not a single charactertistic you can think of which all humans share outside of being human beings. Any characteristic you can think would bar some segment of the population from being defined as persons. This has been evidenced in this thread already, as it relates to “consciousness”, “sentience”, “awareness” and the rest of that stuff. But you are free to come up with a criteria for what makes us human that includes every human being (hell, let’s just constrain it to _born_ human beings). (3) Is every scrap of human DNA a human being? Again, this is a question easily answerable by science. Once we establish what is and isn’t a human being and who is and isn’t a human being, everything else is quite simple as it’s a matter of acknowledging those rights which are to be deemed inherent to all human beings (they’re called human rights, not person rights, unless you’re engaging in some conflation whereby human means person). (4) Life \> liberty \> happiness/property. This is the way the law works in every case _except_ for abortion, where somehow liberty/happiness/property is deemed to trump life. But why should abortion be different? (Because, as Bryan would say, “Because it’s different!”.) It’s funny how pro-choicers hide behind philsophy and religion to try to prop their position up when, oddly enough, they tend to lambaste the two are failing to provide an adequate moral frame on which to fram public policy. > [@](#): > > Besides all of that, you’re also trying to claim that it’s obvious that we place the right not to be killed above all else no matter what. Wrong. And it’s laughably wrong, especially since you (I believe it was you) tried to call me pro-choice earlier in this thread when I said that “abortion is not always impermissable” (or something equal to it). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-gay-marriage-should-not-even-be-controversial/612125.md?page=17)