What kind of thinking is that?
Not all people believe the world is round, so by default it isn’t?
I know that’s a bad example, and personhood is subjective, but that is still faulty logic.
I think I need to be clearer; I personally don’t think a fetus is a person. This isn’t something you need to convince me of. However, other people have different definitions as to what a person is, or indeed whether or not that’s important.
I suspect were there are a larger amount of people willing to outlaw abortion, then certainly harsh, murder-like punishments would be enforced. It might be the case that some people are willing to give those who have abortions or abortion providers a limited pass based on that they don’t think they’re comitting murder. Plus generally people tend not to have the facilities or ability to lock someone up for 10-to-life, or kill, without actually getting locked up themselves. There are good reasons why it does not occur beyond simply and solely that they’re liars.
Not speaking for him but seems to me he is saying it is not logically possible for us to prove a fetus is not a person. If some people want to restrict a woman’s right to an abortion it is incumbent upon them to prove the personhood of the fetus. If they can establish that then they have something.
I realize there’s little reasoned give-and-take in the abortion debate, but obviously, a pre-born human (I can’t think of a politically neutral way to put it) is not necessarily merely a blastocyst. It certainly is early on, but would you argue that the fetus one day prior to birth is merely a blastocyst?
Our dear guest, Emery, failed to provide a solution to the situation beyond proposing that one’s choice to have an abortion is wrong. Emery, you should post your address so that all the unwed mothers can come live with you and you can assist with 18 years of support for each and every one of those children. Not interested in providing that? Perhaps you should be careful about imposing unfunded mandates on others then.
Only if they believe a woman is a person. And care at all about “women’s health” (quotes courtesy of McCain and Samantha Bee).
Ok…it was a bit snarky but meant as illustration of my sense of the non-child status of the fetus. Certainly the growth of the baby is a continuum. When it stops being a collection of cells, devoid of consciousness and switches to full personhood I have no idea. Certainly once its consciousness is intact I would say that is a child and should not be aborted except under extreme extenuating circumstances (life of the mother).
Obviously drawing the line is arbitrary but I am content allowing first trimester abortions as safely in the “not a child” category. After that things start getting dicey…by the third trimester I think the “child” aspect of the fetus is intact and should be protected. In this fashion I think the rights of the mother and baby are preserved.
Who has the right to ‘borrow’ your blood or your body without your permission?
Who has the right to cause you pain without your permission?
Who has the right to impede your freedom without your permission?
I am willing slave to no one. My body is my own, and I will stand against anyone that would enslave me or would force enslavement on another.
If someone would threaten your health (life) or liberty, do you have the right to obtain your freedom - even if it meant death for one seeking life?
Would you cry for help in defending your self?
If you wish to secure that and all inalienable rights for yourself, you must secure them for all; even pregnant women.
Peace
rwj
Spot the flawed logic: All you have to do is look at what people do (for instance: Paint portraits, build houses, govern, etc) and look at what toddlers do (none of that). A toddler is not a person.
Cliffy, please provide evidence that all the things you mentioned are necessary to be considered a person.
Why does everyone assume the other side picks the extreme end of pregnancy? I think humanness starts at about 6-8 weeks. Some think abortion is morally unjust in the third trimester. It’s irrelevant to me that embryos are spontaneously aborted for no reason just as stillbirths are irrelevant to the discussion. Condoms and IUDs are fine by me too. Now please tell me why it’s OK to end a life, as I have defined it, for any reason a woman should desire?
I’ll help you out here:
Fetus.
I don’t see any responses from Emery after being informed about the search function and access to the 14 quadrillion arguments and justifications advanced by all sides since the board was established, so hopefully any further statements by Emery on this issue will go beyond sloganeering and scolding. :dubious:
Yeah, but that isn’t scientifically accurate. It’s not a “fetus” early in the process (e.g. the embryonic part of the process.) I don’t believe it’s a fetus until the first trimester’s up. A blastocyst is most definitely not a fetus.
I don’t know if we have a generic word that covers the entire pregnancy.
[Devil’s Advocate On]
I think the answer to this is that by choosing to have sex you have by default granted permission for those things to happen and are thus not a slave.
Of course if the woman was raped that changes the above argument but then the vast majority of abortions are by people who willingly engaged in sex.
[Devil’s Advocate Off]
Well, Mr. Devil, a choice to have sex is a choice to have sex. It’s not a choice to have a baby. I think you can make the argument that if someone is well into their pregnancy, that they’ve implicitly granted permission to the fetus to stay there (assuming we’re considering the fetus a person with all rights of personhood). But I think you’re argument is devilishly invalid.
Since the “unborn child” issue is being covered, I’ll leave you with this:
Here is one justification (and there are certainly more): the fetus/baby is wanted, but something goes horribly wrong during gestation. The baby, if born, will have horrific medical problems that will cause nothing but pain for it and grief for the parents, not to mention astronomically high bills. And then it will die. The doctors can’t do anything about this.
In this kind of situation, I’d actually have trouble understanding why they wouldn’t abort.
ALmost on topic, on talk radio today, some caller claimed abortion killed 3,000 babies a day in the United States. I suppose because it was on AM radio, it must be true. Anyone else have a good estimate we can hang our hat on?
…And by choosing to leave your locked room you have by default granted permission to be mugged or murdered and thus not a victim of crime.
I will agree that those that call to condemn the sin of abortion as crime advocate for the devil.
Peace
rwj
Yeah, but isn’t the one a natural consequence of the other? I mean, vaginal sex is the process by which a man impregnates a woman. So it seems like you shouldn’t be doing the one if you’re not prepared for the other.
Yeah. But they’re wrong. See above. A fetus just isn’t anything like a person, any more than a spleen is a garden hose. This is not a matter of opinion. They are different things.
Perhaps they’re not liars, they just are living the unexamined life. But they associate with people on the Pill, yes? They have them over for tea? OK, maybe they don’t have the power by themselves to lock those folks up. But pro-life people quite often have pro-choice friends. But they don’t have friends that murdered schoolchildren, and wouldn’t. Because they don’t think abortion is murder.
–Cliffy
[quote=“IntelSoldier, post:49, topic:470098”]
Cliffy, please provide evidence that all the things you mentioned are necessary to be considered a person.
[quote]
Seriously? You want to just pretend that we don’t have 6 or 7 billion examples of what people are? This doesn’t require careful parsing or analysis. There’s just no argument to be made that fetuses are people. Because we know what a person is, and a fetus is obviously not that.
Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one. That isn’t a life.
–Cliffy
I argue that an embryo/fetus, while biologically a human being, has not yet come into existence in a morally relevant sense.
Anybody reading this post can understand that there’s something that it feels like to be a person. We have hopes, goals, personalities, a sense of identity. To destroy a person is to destroy this identity.
A fetus is not conscious and has not developed an identity. In fact, until 28 weeks into development it hasn’t even developed the ability to sense pain (cite). In other words, there is nothing that it feels like to be a fetus. In a similar sense, there is nothing that it feels like to be a tree either. In both cases of cutting down a tree and aborting a fetus, a living entity has had its life terminated.
Killing a cow is actually much worse than killing a fetus, because a cow can actually feel pain. To be outraged about one killing and not the other is nothing more than speciesism (like racism, except against other species).