# Are You a Good Person? Documentary that discusses this subject and Abortion. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 21, 2011, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998 "2011-12-21T21:17:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Tab\_Q.Wertus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@Tab\_Q.Wertus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tab_Q.Wertus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/382 "2012-01-10T12:36:17Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Which among other things would mean that the enslavement of blacks in America was “morally justified”. “Moral = whatever the majority thinks” is an idea that quickly leads to absurdities. Yes it sure does. But if “Moral = whatever the majority thinks” is wrong. Then who or what does decide what is moral and what is not? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/383 "2012-01-10T13:34:22Z")
> [@lockmat](#): > > I think you’re missing the point. I really would like for you to understand the gospel, which means “good news.” > > The bad news is, we are guilty before a holy and just God. > > The Good news is, he made a way for us to be seen a righteouss. It’s like Ray explains in the video… > > We are standing before God our judge and our fine is something we cannot repay, say, $50,000. Since we cannot repay it, we are going to prison. > > The good news is Jesus stepped in and paid our fine, by dying on the cross (he paid our wage, death). And if we confess our sins and repent from them we will be saved. > > Realize our position (guilty) but embrace and thank God the forgiveness and sacrafice he made for us. That’s how much he loves us. That is your religious concept, and no one should force you to have an abortion, but that is the same with a woman, you don’t know her circumstance nor are you willing to sacrifice your family( or self) to provide,medical care, food, shelter,education or child care until the betus once becoming a born child is an adult. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/384 "2012-01-10T13:40:44Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > A just and holy Father would not consign His children to eternal punishment for temporal misdeeds, and certainly not for a flaw that He built into them. > Just saying. If your holy and just God could prevent a conception( as he did in the OT) it says he closed the women’s wombs., He could prevent it from happening now. There are many women who want to conceive but cannot, but he allows a woman who is either over burdened with children and abuses them,or send them chidren that the woman cannot take care of physically, mentally or finacially. We have sepration of Church and State and no religon should dictate to another. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/385 "2012-01-10T13:48:08Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I just have to ask; what the hell is a potential life? I keep seeing the phrase thrown out, but I’m waiting for someone to qualify it. I think the word was meant’ potential person’. Life began eon’s ago and every sperm that can fertilize an ova is human life weither it makes the ova or not. Many lives are sacrificed (in that sense) each time a man ejaculates. Look at all the human lives lost over the centuries MY, My! ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/386 "2012-01-10T13:51:13Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Eh? What about all the organs taken from people who are dead in car accidents or whatnot? > > No because conception directs the fetus on a direct path toward persoonhood while just being a sperm does not. Notice you say"Directs the path toward person hood, Saying then it hasn’t yet made the journy complete. ---
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/387 "2012-01-10T13:53:13Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > The bottom line is that if abortion is morally wrong, then it should not be allowed. To say you don’t like it but it should be allowed regardless requires some amount of logical disconnect. Is adultery morally wrong? Should we arrest Newt Gingrich? For that matter, only 3 of the ten commandments are currently illegal, and I don’t see conservatives clamoring to change that anytime soon. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2012, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/388 "2012-01-10T14:25:03Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Sure, but your claim was, and I quote: “Whether or not an action is allowed or disallowed is based on the _ **moral questionableness** _ of said action.” (emphasis yours) Somewhere along the way, you overlooked how laws actually get written, which is a matter of some significance and relevance. No, I didn’t. Next contention, please. > [@](#): > > Moral questionableness might contribute to how a law get _proposed_, but simply being about something morally questionable (however one chooses to define such a spectacularly slippery descriptor) won’t get a law automatically passed… Because that’s what I said, right? > [@](#): > > …but I elaborate on this later in this post. Is this going to be more of your “I’ll write a lot but not say a lot” thing? I hope not. > [@](#): > > I guess I should be offended by this, but it’s simply too nonsensical to get worked up about. Is it nonsensical? Indeed, it is not. Either (1) you do not realize what you wrote out or (2) you are indeed ignorant of history. You said, and I’m going to quote you verbatim here: > [@You](#): > > Abortion may or may not, also, depending on how one chooses to define “harm” and “other”, but is a sufficiently unique situation (one being inside the body of another) that it is reasonable to treat it differently than rape or murder or anything else. There are three separate issues here. 1.) Choosing how you want to define “harm”. 2.) Choosing who you want to define as an “other”. 3.) Treating your own distinctions as self-evident and meaningful without explaining why they are correct. The third I don’t need to elaborate on, because you’ll just ignore it, anyway. Besides, issues one and two are far more important. Summed up, your argument is one in which a group can only be harmed so long as the law allows it or defines them in a way which says they have no right to not be harmed (or have any basic protections under the law) under the basis of not being the same-- or equal-- to everyone else. It’s a proposition the Nazis would wholeheartedly agree with, since it’s what they actually did. Henceforth why I said, in post #348: > [@Me](#): > > History will attest to the fact that certain segments of the population have been defined as “non-persons” in order to meet an end. > [@](#): > > Okay, I get your point now. Prohibitions against gay marriage (and past prohibitions against women voting and blacks voting and interracial marriage… really, _lots_ of prohibitions that were inherently unfair) are gradually being whittled because “moral questionableness” is indeed a bad basis for forming law. Incorrect. Prohibitions, for example, on gay marriage go by the wayside because people become more accepting of them and gays in general. Just look at the U.S., for example. It’s not really all that surprising that the states which have among the highest support for gay marriage have them legal in some form and the states with the lowest have them banned. The same thing goes for interracial marriages (at the time of Loving v. Virginia, they were mostly a southern thing), women voting and whatever else you want to throw out. …But I’m sure you knew that. Why, exactly, do you continue to try to argue against me? Really. It’s mind-boggling. > [@](#): > > A lot of what is considered “moral” in a given era is informed by the prevailing prejudices and fears and pseudoscientific beliefs, which fall away as the population becomes more educated. Were women and blacks incapable of voting? A lot of people sure _thought_ so, to the point that it became a moral issue to them, something to be actively resisted. Was interracial marriage something that would create “mongrels” ? A lot of people sure _thought_ so, to the point that it became a moral issue to them, something to be actively resisted. I don’t remember ever saying that what’s considered moral and immoral was static. I don’t ever remember claiming that the law was written in stone and unable to be changed. Could you show me where I said, or even insinuated, as much? > [@](#): > > So what you “won” was just my admission that some of your lawmakers and indeed many of your voters are motivated by bigotry masked as morality. To be fair, some of my lawmakers and voters, are too. I expect no country exists or has ever existed that was free of such behaviour, but at least I live in an era where social progress has occurred and is occurring within my lifetime, so the damage they can do is being limited year by year. I suspect (indeed, hope) gay marriage will be legal across the U.S. within 20 years. And to quote myself, as it’s very applicable here: > [@Me](#): > > [Moral questionableness] is a terrible basis for forming the law only when you disagree with with societal consensus (moral questionableness is not a matter of personal opinion). But that’s what happens when you live in a non-anarchy. > [@](#): > > I suspect (indeed, hope) that any effort to put major restrictions on abortion in the U.S., on the federal or state level, will be met with a backlash and scofflaw indifference and evasion. Not this argument again. I don’t know how many times I have to explain this to you, but age is positively associated with abortion approval, meaning that older persons are more-- not less-- supportive of abortion than are younger persons. I don’t know what kind of backlash you’re hoping to see, but it won’t happen as you’re laboring under some faulty assumption. As older generations die off (mainly the ones who were born or came of age around the time Roe v. Wade happened) they’ll be replaced with people who have less favorable views of abortion (born in the 1980’s or later). It’s not a matter of if, but when. And, for the record, I’d bet a good amount of money that you’d see a similar pattern in Canada as well as social movements tend to adopt similar patterns between countries (especially nowadays since it’s easy to connect with people halfway around the world). ---
**Author:** ![Tab\_Q.Wertus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8491ac/32.png) [@Tab\_Q.Wertus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tab_Q.Wertus)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/389 "2012-01-10T15:39:43Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > This is all I need to quote. It’s a terrible basis for forming the law only when you disagree with with societal consensus (moral questionableness is not a matter of personal opinion). But that’s what happens when you live in a non-anarchy. You are actually saying that societal consensus decides what is moral. My logic may be faulty but doesn’t that mean that slavery in the 19th century was moral? And racial segregation in the 20th century was moral – at least in the south? And because there are still more pro-choicers out there than pro-lifers. Isn’t abortion moral? Please explain to me where my logic has gone wrong. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2012, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/390 "2012-01-10T18:23:19Z")
Twice now I have written a detailed and thoughtful reply to OMG’s latest, and twice I have, while clicking back and forth among various tabs to compile and research my response, accidentally hit the little X, losing my work. Rather embarrassing and annoying, to be sure, but a reply _is_ forthcoming, barring the thread getting closed in the meantime or something. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/391 "2012-01-10T21:33:55Z")
> [@lockmat](#): > > I truly think Ray Comfort in the video has a valid point. > > Hitler had the legal sanction of the German people to committ the holocaust. None of us would kill them or would think it’s ok. I’ll restate what he asked, “It’s not ok for me to kill those Jews, but it is for someone else to.” Is it not killed regardless of who is doing it? Could you please stop using my dead relatives to score political points? Could you please just cut it out? The holocaust is not an abstraction to me. The holocaust took quite a few of my relatives. The holocaust was the tatoos on my best friend’s mom’s arm. To this day I can still conjure up that memory and the look in her eyes as she tried to avoid my innocent questions about it. The only truth is that the Ray Comforts of the world would not have given a damn about them when they were alive. He wouldn’t have uttered a word in protest or carried a single sign against Hilter, let alone volunteered during World War II to help fight against him. Stop using dead Jewish children. It’s like listening to a form of verbal necrophilia and equally as immoral. It’s just disgusting. We Jews are not your strawmen or your convenient analogies or your trump cards. We’re certainly not for you to use to as a way of putting a law into place that most Jews do not agree with religiously or morally. Do you understand this? ---
**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:** [January 10, 2012, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/392 "2012-01-10T22:38:40Z")
> [@Tab\_Q.Wertus](#): > > You are actually saying that societal consensus decides what is moral. > > My logic may be faulty but doesn’t that mean that slavery in the 19th century was moral? Most certainly not, since the argument _against_ slavery was that it was immoral while one of the arguments, among many, for it were that those who wanted to outlaw slavery had no right to force their morals on those who did not. I wonder where I’ve heard that argument before… But I digress. Back to an earlier point. It doesn’t matter what you think of the Holocaust comparison; it’s 100% valid. The Nazis used an elaborate set of legal codes to strip certain individuals of basic rights held by the rest of society, so much so to the point where those individuals were rendered as non-persons (i.e., they had no standing under the law). The fact of the matter is that rendering some segment of the population as non-persons in order to meet some goal is nothing new, and has been used in the past to rather catastrophic effects. The fact that most pro-choicers refuse to acknowledge that fact or stamp their collective feet in protest is their problem. It doesn’t make the comparison any less valid. The only time you hear the phrase “non-person” come up is when one is looking to act against another, and the “non-person” tag is always directed at the individual who is being acted against. What I find funniest about the whole thing is that, apparently, the way it works is that it’s not okay for, say, me to define Individual Y as a non-person to meet an end, but it’s perfectly okay for you to define Individual X as a non-person to meet an end. Actually, scratch that. It _would_ be funny, if it wasn’t sad. > [@](#): > > And racial segregation in the 20th century was moral – at least in the south? Indeed it was until society decided it wasn’t. Glad you’re catching on. > [@](#): > > And because there are still more pro-choicers out there than pro-lifers. Isn’t abortion moral? Yeah, that’s not true either. At least not in the U.S. > [@](#): > > Please explain to me where my logic has gone wrong. See above. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/393 "2012-01-10T22:48:53Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I don’t know how many times I have to explain this to you, but age is positively associated with abortion approval, meaning that older persons are more-- not less-- supportive of abortion than are younger persons. This is probably because older people remember when it was illegal. There weren’t that many fewer abortions just a lot fewer SAFE abortions. Its the same reason that vaccines are going out of style as people forget what the polio epidemic was like. ---
**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:** [January 10, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/394 "2012-01-10T23:06:49Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > This is probably because older people remember when it was illegal. There weren’t that many fewer abortions just a lot fewer SAFE abortions. Its the same reason that vaccines are going out of style as people forget what the polio epidemic was like. Except the **OLDEST** group – the one’s most likely to remember “the good old days”-- are the **LEAST** approving of abortion because they were this way in 1973. They haven’t shifted their views. Rather, they’ve merely aged. It’s those who were born or came of age around 1973 (people between about 35’ish and 60’ish) who are the most approving and that group would be too young to remember “the good old days”. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/395 "2012-01-10T23:23:03Z")
People may disapprove of abortion in the abtract. It does not mean they won’t get one if they feel they need to do so. I want abortion legal at least partially because my mother told she was raped and impregnated in 1963 and had to get one illegally. Not all of us are ignorant about history. Many of us certainly don’t want to see it repeated with regards to abortion. I’m sorry conservatives seem unable to confront that fact. ---
**Author:** ![the\_ignored](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@the\_ignored](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_ignored)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/396 "2012-01-11T05:33:06Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Heh, he’s asking people to finish this sentence: “It’s okay to kill a baby in the womb when…” > > My response would be to drop the “when” and call it a day. > > ..continuing… > > ETA: Okay, I won’t further comment until the OP does, but I will watch the whole thing with what I fully expect will be geometrically increasing levels of skepticism. I remember posting an answer to some guy’s blog when he asked that question. This is how I answered him: “It’s okay to kill a baby in the womb when god tells you to.” (referring to many OT instances of genocide allegedly commanded by god). Yeah, those same “pro-lifers” have no problem when god kills, but still call themselves “pro-life”. I figure the best way to deal with those people when they’re protesting outside a clinic is to tell them that unless they show that they have signed adoption papers, they can pike off. ---
**Author:** ![the\_ignored](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@the\_ignored](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_ignored)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/397 "2012-01-11T05:44:12Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > … > But I digress. Back to an earlier point. It doesn’t matter what you think of the Holocaust comparison; it’s 100% valid. The Nazis used an elaborate set of legal codes to strip certain individuals of basic rights held by the rest of society, so much so to the point where those individuals were rendered as non-persons (i.e., they had no standing under the law). The fact of the matter is that rendering some segment of the population as non-persons in order to meet some goal is nothing new, and has been used in the past to rather catastrophic effects. The fact that most pro-choicers refuse to acknowledge that fact or stamp their collective feet in protest is their problem. It doesn’t make the comparison any less valid. The only time you hear the phrase “non-person” come up is when one is looking to act against another, and the “non-person” tag is always directed at the individual who is being acted against. The holocaust analogy fails on these points 1. it was people of a certain ethnic group that Hitler was after. The unborn are not an ethnic group, but are at an earlier state of development. Once they’re born, they have all their “rights” again. No Jew or gypsy, etc. could hope for any such reprieve in nazi germany. 2. If I remember correctly, most abortions are done before their is even a nervous system to register pain. Not so with the nazi holocaust. That’s probably why the “non-person” tag is used with the unborn. Once they’re born though, they’re home free (well, from that problem anyway!) Again, that’s not something Hitler’s victims had to look forward to. ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/398 "2012-01-11T06:25:50Z")
this thread is still going? ---
**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:** [January 11, 2012, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/399 "2012-01-11T06:39:10Z")
See. I wonder if people actually read what they type out. > [@the\_ignored](#): > > The holocaust analogy fails on these points > > 1. it was people of a certain ethnic group that Hitler was after. The unborn are not an ethnic group, but are at an earlier state of development. Once they’re born, they have all their “rights” again. No Jew or gypsy, etc. could hope for any such reprieve in nazi germany. Ehhh, no. The Nazis had a stated goal (heck, you should read the Nazi platform in 1920) and achieved that goal by effectively rendering those whom they wanted to get rid of as non-persons. It’s really quite simple. Really, it is. > [@](#): > > 1. If I remember correctly, most abortions are done before their is even a nervous system to register pain. Not so with the nazi holocaust. > > That’s probably why the “non-person” tag is used with the unborn. Once they’re born though, they’re home free (well, from that problem anyway!) Again, that’s not something Hitler’s victims had to look forward to. What the hell does having a fully formed nervous system, the ability to feel pain or being born have to do with anything? I’d say it’s a red herring, but it’s not even. It’s a complete irrelevancy, because it has nothing to do with the actual issue, which is defining groups as non-persons (based on arbitrary criteria, mind you) in order to meet a stated end. If you want to get down to it you (and not just you, specifically) are doing nothing other than trying to claim that you’re different from person Y because while they differentiate based on A, you differentiate on B. That doesn’t make any sense, least because you provide no justification why your stated criteria are any more meaningful than someone else’s, and is done only to make yourself feel better. Note how the pro-choicers in this thread won’t say “It’s wrong to define certain groups as non-persons”. Rather, it seems to be “It’s wrong to define certain groups as non-persons when I disagree with defining them as such. Otherwise, it’s a-okay to do”. Hell, no one even bothered to tackle the whole point about the only time you see something about a “non-person”, it’s being done to rationalize acting against that “non-persons”. Does that really make sense to you? It shouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/400 "2012-01-11T13:09:23Z")
> [@Tab\_Q.Wertus](#): > > You are actually saying that societal consensus decides what is moral. > My logic may be faulty but doesn’t that mean that slavery in the 19th century was moral? > And racial segregation in the 20th century was moral – at least in the south? > And because there are still more pro-choicers out there than pro-lifers. Isn’t abortion moral? > Please explain to me where my logic has gone wrong. Is self defense moral? Is having childern that may starve to death Moral? Is war Moral? ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2012, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/401 "2012-01-11T13:20:38Z")
[quote=“Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative, post:392, topic:606998”] Most certainly not, since the argument _against_ slavery was that it was immoral while one of the arguments, among many, for it were that those who wanted to outlaw slavery had no right to force their morals on those who did not. I wonder where I’ve heard that argument before… But I digress. Back to an earlier point. It doesn’t matter what you think of the Holocaust comparison; it’s 100% valid. The Nazis used an elaborate set of legal codes to strip certain individuals of basic rights held by the rest of society, so much so to the point where those individuals were rendered as non-persons (i.e., they had no standing under the law). The fact of the matter is that rendering some segment of the population as non-persons in order to meet some goal is nothing new, and has been used in the past to rather catastrophic effects. The fact that most pro-choicers refuse to acknowledge that fact or stamp their collective feet in protest is their problem. It doesn’t make the comparison any less valid. The only time you hear the phrase “non-person” come up is when one is looking to act against another, and the “non-person” tag is always directed at the individual who is being acted against. What I find funniest about the whole thing is that, apparently, the way it works is that it’s not okay for, say, me to define Individual Y as a non-person to meet an end, but it’s perfectly okay for you to define Individual X as a non-person to meet an end. Actually, scratch that. It _would_ be funny, if it wasn’t sad. Indeed it was until society decided it wasn’t. Glad you’re catching on. Yeah, that’s not true either. At least not in the U.S. See above.[/QUOTE There is no comparison to the Holocost. It was a terrible crime against the already born people, Hitler took out his revenge agaist his Bilogical father who was Jewish and deserted him. The people slaughtered were all ready well born, and part of society,as were the slaves! A true tradgey which we must never allow, but like any one doing something for self defense, should have the right to their ownprotection or thei other family members. Nor should any woman be forced to carry a fetus etc. until it is a full human being, or forced to abort. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998.md?page=21)