JThunder, I think he’s asking what conditions were set for the women receiving assistance. Your point, of course, is correct, regardless of the answer.
Yes. **Der Trihs **pretty much spelled it out for me. Unless you want to outlaw killing all animals. Otherwise, we can stick to things we know can suffer. An embryo isn’t aware of anything. There’s nothing there to either perceive or respond to its environment. It’s not going to be terrified over not being able to develop into a person. If want to use a reasonable definition of a person and say that only people have rights, a certain level of brain development is required.
A mother, on the other hand, is a person with feelings and needs. Being pregnant may be a thrill for some, it can make many other mothers pretty sick. Just because it’s common, doesn’t mean this isn’t a serious burden on some mother’s body. Having the baby is an incredible burden on all resources. Giving up the baby for adoption is just as difficult as forcing someone to have the baby and raising him/her.
I simply can’t imagine forcing a woman to go through an unwanted pregnancy. How people have managed to put an egg or embryo on par with a woman is baffling to me. Part of me agrees with Der Trihs when he says that there’s a level of misogyny involved especially when you hear about the antics of the anti-choice people who harass women. I can’t get over John McCain’s contemptuous response to the health exception in the outlawing of late term abortions. Total disregard for the woman.
Does it need to exist currently, or can it be a brain function we could reasonably expect to develop in the future? Does the current absence of such brain function–let’s say the complete absence–mean that an entity’s right to live does not deserve protection, regardless of whether the capacity to suffer and think will be there (in all likelihood) in the future?
Against abortion, don’t have one is fine.
Against abortion, stop those who are not, from having one, is a big difference. To assume your decisions are so fundamentally correct, that they should supersede the right of others to make decisions about their own bodies and own lives is invasive . It is far overstepping ones bounds .
No, every sperm is not sacred. Future potential doesn’t matter and trying to make it matter leads to silliness like that.
It would also indicate that pro-lifers who insist women have the child and then fail to offer any kind of support are also dicks.
btw I don’t know what’s up with this quote within quote within quote stuff going on lately but it’s kind of a pain. Just kinda venting about that.
Whatever. Doesn’t make their argument wrong, though. And, again, this is an argument that seems to idiotically only be applied to pro-life positions, for some reason. You kind of missed that part. No one insists that people pay for the support of toddlers, if they believe it should be against the law to kill them. It’s only the pro-life position that’s distasteful for this “hypocrisy.” Hmm, I wonder why that is.
No, it isn’t, for reasons that have already been given.
Is that your decision? Is that decision so fundamentally correct that it should supercede the right of others to use their bodies to prevent other people from committing what they consider to be a horrendous misdeed?
One might even say that pro-choicers who employ that tactic are being hypocritical. Hmmm… by their own logic then, this makes them “dicks.” Perhaps that argument should be used to demonstrate the falsity of the pro-choice stance … again, if one wants to be consistent.
Sincerely; Good for you for doing something positive. I think you understand that my statements were not directed at you personally. I did acknowledge earlier that I know there are pro-lifers who offer real substantal alternatives.
That’s not what I said. I’m saying that if someone** acts**, rather than just hold the opinion, to prevent women from having an abortion , that action creates a certain amount of obligation on thier part to help provide an alternative and care. Just as above, if you pressure , intimidate, shame, or encourage, a woman to have the child rather than an abortion, and then abandon them both to fend for themselves, you’re kind of a dick.
The analogy isn’t going to work wth me. It’s not applicable. I’ve explained my position and it seems you’ve agreed.
Yes. Because abortion is only a “horrendous misdeed” from a sadistic, twisted viewpoint that has no purpose but the oppression and torment of women. It’s right to stop such people from imposing their will on women for the same reason it’s right to stop a gang of rapists from doing the same. More so, since they are worse than the majority of rapists; at least they don’t rape their victims for months on end.
I’ll take that to mean you see my point.
Correct It only addresses one aspect of the argument and it doesn’t address the overall argument. I’ll point out that the laws that made and keep abortion legal are based on moral arguments about basic human rights.
No it isn’t. The argument is about the responsibility that goes with certain actions with foreseeable consequences. We just happen to be discussing this in relation to the abortion issue. Pro-choice folks aren’t pushing anyone to take on a heavy responsibility. They respect their right to choose.
I didn’t miss it. It simply isn’t a valid comparison. Toddlers are universally recognized as a person. Fetus are not. Actually we as a society do support children who need help and we have laws to protect them from abuse. A toddler or an infant indicates someone has already made a conscious choice to take on a specific responsibility and even then we offer aide. Anti-abortionists advocate something very specific with foreseeable consequences. I’m only advocating they take responsibility for the consequences of what they advocate. I already gave an example you understand.
You’ll have to explain this one because I don’t get the logic.
I’ve already said the toddler agument is an invalid comparison and explained why. Is that what you’re talking about?
Society condones, even encourages, “horrendous misdeeds.” What is bombing a village or shooting at an enemy?
Unless you are a Perfect Pacifist who cannot accept ANY killing of any kind of any living thing, all we are talking about is the degree.
Let’s take what I feel is an average person. This person may perform the following acts of murder, killing, life removing, whatever you call it. But isn’t there a difference between:[ol][li]Shooting a person with a machine gun point blank[]Squashing a bug[]Cutting someone’s head off[]Putting a pet to sleep[]Using an anti-bacterial drug[*]Stabbing someone in self-defense[/ol]?[/li]
So if we agree that some killings are acceptable, all that’s left is to define where that line is. An absolutist could say, “None of them,” but a more practical person would say, “Some of them and it depends a lot on the circumstances.”
If circumstances vary, so do personal decisions, at least if the law allows individuals some leeway to make an informed choice.
And talk about newspeak…your “oppression and torment of women” describes acts that some women call, in all seriousness, “freedom from oppression and torment.”
I missed this. I hope you understand now that this is not my argument.
The recognition of their personhood is not relevant to this particular point; you support a restriction that has financial consequences for someone who conceivably prefers to avoid that responsibility, whether they previously decided to or not. Or would you retract this demand for support should an abortion ban become the law of the land? At that point, then fetuses are recognized as persons, and there is the same societal safety nets for them once born as for the toddlers we’re discussing.
And? Two wrongs don’t make a right.
I fail to see the point of your argument, since the anti-abortionists are trying to eliminate choice.
Only if they are inflicting it on someone else. They are the ones trying to coerce others to suffer and die for their ideals. As right wingers often do, they whine about being oppressed when the government stops them from oppressing or assaulting others.
It seems relevant to me if you’re going to compare a fetus to a toddler. Let’s look at it this way. A fetus has a very real potential for a long term heavy responsibility for someone. {I haven’t even touched on women’s rights to her own body} If you’re offereing to pay for medical bills and have an adoption option for her you’ve covered what to a lot of women will be huge hurdle. If you simply tell her it’s immoral or a sin without solving real practicle issues what happens to the women and child if she decides to keep the baby? What’s being advocated is hundreds of thousands of more babies being born every year because anything else is immoral. Doesn’t that incur some moral obligation to see those babies are properly cared for? We already struggle with care and education for children already here.
What resriction are you talking about? I’m lost on this one.
Then we as a society would have hundreds of thousands of more babies to care for and to find resources for. Can we say for sure that would be a positive thing?
That’s not what it says to me. To me, it says, “I’ve decided that it is not a question of morality, and I do not intend to discuss it on that level.”
I am hard-pressed to think of a circumstance where I would consider simply volunteering that fact, though. Perhaps this is part of why I tend to eschew bumper stickers.
Speaking of bumper stickers, though, one that I really ejoyed seeing (probably on the car of an opponent of legal abortion) read: “What if the Virgin Mary had been pro-choice?”
I found that amusing, because if I didn’t completely misunderstand Magnificat when I was singing it back in college, she was. 
A toddler has a very real potential for a long term heavy responsibility for someone. Yet we still do not permit someone to knock off their kid (let’s say if she loses her job), whether or not we offer any financial assistance. It’s absolutely analogous in this regard.
Parents may not kill their toddlers, and the financial burden this creates is not a factor in this restriction.
Against what standard? Could we say, for sure, that protecting toddlers would provide the same positive benefit against the same standard?