# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/121 "2011-12-22T14:20:31Z")
> [@SmartAlecCat](#): > > Isn’t the Bible pretty clear that ‘life’ starts at first breath, not conception? > > Where did all this stuff about the sanctity of fertilized eggs come from anyway? Until the early nineteenth century no one opposed abortion. The reform movement of the time viewed it as an evil, just as they viewed all products of sex as evil. Basically, the anti-abortion position was invented as an accessory to the anti-prostitution crusade of Victorian England, out of the belief that someone who does something so evil as have sex should not be able to escape consequences for that action. The anti-woman attitudes of present-day Christianity have continued to make this an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/122 "2011-12-22T14:26:05Z")
> [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](#): > > If the fit of the banana in the human hand is evidence of God’s design, the extremely poor fit of a baby through a vagina must therefore be evidence that God never intended for a baby to be in a human female. The probable reply would be the religious argument that childbirth is supposed to be painful, as punishment for the sins of Eve. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/123 "2011-12-22T14:28:09Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > Until the early nineteenth century no one opposed abortion. The reform movement of the time viewed it as an evil, just as they viewed all products of sex as evil. Basically, the anti-abortion position was invented as an accessory to the anti-prostitution crusade of Victorian England, out of the belief that someone who does something so evil as have sex should not be able to escape consequences for that action. > > The anti-woman attitudes of present-day Christianity have continued to make this an issue. Do you have cites for any of these assertions, or should we just take your word for it? ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/124 "2011-12-22T14:52:47Z")
I was on the first page, and…The only thing I have to say is do you even realize, OP, how offensive and crass and insulting it is to compare any adult Jew, from the Holocaust or from today, to a lump of fetal tissue? Because I’ve seen what results from an abortion and mostly that’s all it is. Forget all of the horror stories you’ve heard about third-trimester abortions; they make a staggeringly small percentage of all abortions. Any Jew, that’s lived his/her life, made friends, made an impact on the world, is worth so much more than a lump of fetal tissue, and to reduce them to being worth no more is a disgrace to both them and us as humans. Yes, I find human life important - but not sacred. And the bit in your video where he talks about sins just makes me laugh. If I don’t believe in your god in the first place, whence sin? I don’t believe in blasphemy, right off the bat. He’s not my God. Thanks again Bryan Ekers. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/125 "2011-12-22T15:09:37Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > Do you, perhaps […] get a little aroused whenever a gay teenager is beaten by his classmates? I missed this earlier, but [this is also inappropriate for Great Debates](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=4749265#post4749265). Don’t do it again. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/126 "2011-12-22T15:14:13Z")
It seems to me that the basis for objection to abortion or religious grounds is that there is an assumption that babies have a soul. I’d like the religious people to provide evidence for this soul, and that it is damaged in an abortion before I consider their objections to be worth my time. If you tell me that I can’t get asthma medication because it kills elves, you better show me that elves exist. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/127 "2011-12-22T15:18:26Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Why? I’ll never understand the objection to this. I mean, I suppose it’s nice to be all high-minded about preventing poverty and abused children and yadda yadda, but at the end of the day, if you’re really concerned with anyone’s rights, bodily sovereignty should be pretty high on your list of important things. > > Of course, anyone is welcome to summarize it any way they like, but I generally aim for brevity. No reason to waste words on people who are never going to agree with you. I think bodily sovereignty is extremely important. I think using the analogy of a parasite or an occupied womb _right off the bat_ leaves the impression that pro-choice people don’t care about children or hate them, which isn’t good. There’s a place for that analogy, but I don’t think that’s the place. That being said, I don’t think it’d make a difference to **lockmat** anyway. > [@Anaamika](#): > > I was on the first page, and…The only thing I have to say is do you even realize, OP, how offensive and crass and insulting it is to compare any adult Jew, from the Holocaust or from today, to a lump of fetal tissue? Based on what he’s posted so far? No, he doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/128 "2011-12-22T15:22:19Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > It seems to me that the basis for objection to abortion or religious grounds is that there is an assumption that babies have a soul. > > I’d like the religious people to provide evidence for this soul, and that it is damaged in an abortion before I consider their objections to be worth my time. And they should also come up with a reason why we should care if it has a soul at all. If a mindless blob of tissue has a soul, so what? What makes an ensouled blob morally more important than a soulless one? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/129 "2011-12-22T15:34:25Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And they should also come up with a reason why we should care if it has a soul at all. If a mindless blob of tissue has a soul, so what? What makes an ensouled blob morally more important than a soulless one? Ensoulled blobs do cost more at the atheist cafeteria. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/130 "2011-12-22T15:37:09Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > How is that the beauty of it? It means it has nothing backing it up at all. Morality is about sympathy for other people and assessment of whether what someone did is right or wrong. No dear, that’s _popularity_. When I’m making moral decisions, I don’t seek the agreement of people who will be unaffected by my decision. > [@](#): > > And, anyways, you admitted that you don’t believe in it absolutely since you said that they can force you to try to have the baby to get it out. That means they’ve just taken control of your body. I said that should should a woman request the extraction of a viable fetus, I’d be okay with a law requiring that efforts be made to keep that fetus alive. The problem here is that you like to think I wanna kill babies, when in reality I just don’t want babies inside unwilling bodies. Their deaths are incidental. > [@](#): > > Then again, every single law on the books is about controlling my body. My body can’t be in a car driving above the speed limit. My hands can’t fire a gun at another person. I can’t stick my body inside of yours. > > I do not have 100% control over what I do with my body. If you want to argue for the right to have an abortion, you need much more than some argument about bodily sovereignty. I see the light. All of these examples are totally comparable to passing a law giving someone else greater rights to your organs than you have. No wait… those examples are dumb. > [@](#): > > There’s a reason pro-choice proponents never claim that the being inside is a person. It takes both bodily sovereignty and that declaration to make abortion okay. Heck, you can do it without the bodily sovereignty. Well, I suppose that’s partly because the idea that a fetus is a “person” in the same sense that you or I are is silly, but it’s mostly because even if it is a person, who gives a shit? You’re a person, that doesn’t give you the right to live in my uterus. > [@](#): > > And since I’m sure to be blasted as being pro-life, I’ll point out that I 100% agree with Cecil on the matter, and thus am neither pro-choice nor pro-life, or perhaps some hodgepodge of both. Brainwave function is the low end and viability is the upper end of when a fetus becomes a person. I’m not gonna blast you as pro-life. I’m gonna blast you for some seriously poorly thought-out arguments. ---
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/131 "2011-12-22T15:38:11Z")
This is really about being able to live in a free society according to the beliefs you cherish. No one faced with choosing an abortion should do anything other than follow their own beliefs, whether you share those or not. It seems a self evident fair trade that if you don’t want me telling you when you ‘have’ to have one, then you don’t get to say I ‘can’t’. If you want your system of beliefs shaped by a fictional work about a virgin raping, risen from the dead zombie, who wants everyone to ‘eat his body’, and ‘drink his blood’, I say, you go right ahead. (Your story, not mine!) Feel free to convert anyone who’ll listen. But don’t think we have any obligation to let your beliefs, or your silly book, shape ours. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/132 "2011-12-22T15:42:15Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I think bodily sovereignty is extremely important. I think using the analogy of a parasite or an occupied womb _right off the bat_ leaves the impression that pro-choice people don’t care about children or hate them, which isn’t good. There’s a place for that analogy, but I don’t think that’s the place. That being said, I don’t think it’d make a difference to **lockmat** anyway. Thing is I \*don’t \*care about children, at least not substantially more than I care about people in general, and more importantly I think that the idea of whether abortion should be legal has anything to do with the question of _liking children_ is ridiculous, and I refuse to let it be framed that way. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/133 "2011-12-22T15:48:27Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > If you tell me that I can’t get asthma medication because it kills elves, you better show me that elves exist. I’d like to…but all you people on asthma “medication” killed them! ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/134 "2011-12-22T15:49:29Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > It seems a self evident fair trade that if you don’t want me telling you when you ‘have’ to have one, then you don’t get to say I ‘can’t’. This misses the fundamental dynamic. To people who are anti-abortion, they really honestly and truly believe that it’s murder. Saying “it seems self-evident that if you don’t want to murder babies then don’t, but if I want to then you shouldn’t get in my way?” Well, it’s not particularly persuasive. Now, true, neither side is likely to convince the other ever, but handwaving away the core of the debate for cheap sloganeering isn’t helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/135 "2011-12-22T15:49:52Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I’d like to…but all you people on asthma “medication” killed them! Well, I guess I can breathe easier knowing the crisis is over. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/136 "2011-12-22T15:51:18Z")
> [@lockmat](#): > > The video begins with holocaust/abortion and segways Nitpick: It’s _segue_. Segway is that two-wheeled machine that you can stand and ride on. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/137 "2011-12-22T15:52:04Z")
Not true, I can’t fucking stand Segways. …what? ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/138 "2011-12-22T16:15:02Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > To people who are anti-abortion, they really honestly and truly believe that it’s murder. [No they don’t.](http://www.amptoons.com/blog/images/prolifebeliefchart.gif) ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/139 "2011-12-22T16:19:38Z")
> [@lockmat](#): > > I like this quote: > Something nonhuman does not become human by getting older and bigger; whatever is human must be human from the beginning. My fingernail is human but nobody bitches at me for cutting it off. > [@lockmat](#): > > - Also, this is ironic. If someone murders a woman who is pregnant, he is not only guilty of killing the woman, but also the baby. Why is it ok for the woman to kill it on her own if she desires, simply because it is her own? So a woman who is on her way to get an abortion will not be punished for killing her child. Yet the man who kills her and the baby while she is on her way to kill it will be guilty of both. The law has a lot of contradictions. I could just as easily say “If abortion was really murder, why is it legal? Therefore its not murder” > [@lockmat](#): > > No, what Hitler did was wrong. So you’re against baby Hitler too , aren’t you? > [@lockmat](#): > > I agree with what Ray Comfort says in the video. Which is worse, rape or murder? Why should we punish the innocent human baby because of the sin of the father? Why can’t she adopt it out instead of killing it? Death is not a punishment, especially if the person has never known life ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/140 "2011-12-22T16:20:21Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > [No they don’t.](http://www.amptoons.com/blog/images/prolifebeliefchart.gif) While I’m sure it must be cognitively useful to ignore facts that disagree with your position, yah, they do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998.md?page=8)