Are You a Good Person? Documentary that discusses this subject and Abortion.

Great Debates
422

If a priest were to say the earth is 6,000 years old, would you take his word for it? Rhetorical question, of course. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this. Just pick up a biology/embryology (text)book.

Sperm are haploid sex cells. Ditto for an egg. A fertilized egg is a zygote, and zygotes are the simplest form of an organism. Everything after that is as much the same organism as the following and preceding stages of development. In other words, no, no, yes, yes. My line is more “accurate” (we should say more meaningful) than yours because your line is based on nothing other than your personal opinion as to what constitutes a person, which you’ve yet to define or explain why it’s more meaningful than someone else’s personal opinion. My position has nothing to do with personhood or whatever other undefinable concept you want to throw out. My position is quite simple; if you’re a human, you’re entitled to the same rights as are all other humans. That’s why. Your position is the one which says that some humans have an inherent worth less than that of another human. That requires a rather large helping of justification.

I don’t have to be a mind reader. I can read what you wrote.

You don’t have to, since I’ve yet to mention anything about bestowing rights based on who is and isn’t a person or whatever other such concept pro-choicers like to go on. That’s irrelevant, since it’s completely abstract and can’t be qualified-- something which I’m sure you’re well aware, which is why you rely on it.

It means the last option you gave.

Ummm, what?

Again I say, “ummm, what?”. I don’t know anyone here who has ever said no abortions never ever ever. I don’t know what you’re “showing”, but it’s certainly nothing I’ve seen any pro-lifer would argue.

How did you possibly conclude that “the minority that shouts the loudest should make the laws”? I’m really quite curious, about that one. Either you misread what I said or you misunderstood what you read.

I’m not really understanding the point you’re trying to make, to be honest. For one, In the greater picture, teenagers do not constitute the majority of persons who have abortions, so it’s better to focus on all groups instead of one which isn’t even accountable for the single greatest percentage of abortions.

Anyway, first of all, Germany has stricter laws on abortion than the U.S.; not more lenient laws. In fact, most European countries do. In Germany, for examples, one has to have mandatory pre-abortion counseling (these can be carried out by religious institution) and there is a mandatory three day waiting period. Not so for the U.S. That has a lot to do with a lower abortion rate.

Second of all, the U.S. can be treated as fifty separate countries rather than just one. If you look at abortion rates by state instead of at the national level, you notice a rather unsurprising statistic; the U.S. has an artificially high abortion rate because some states have abnormally high abortion rates. And where are those states located? They’re generally located along the west coast and northeast (indeed, the west coast and northeast are overrepresented given their population and the south and midwest are underrepresented given their population), which also tend to have the highest number of respondents declaring themselves to be pro-choice. In Germany about 14.5 percent (2008) of pregnancies end in abortion while about 22.2 percent of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion. According to Guttmacher, these are the percentage of pregnancies by state which end in abortion.

1.) Delaware: 40.0
2.) New York: 37.6
3.) New Jersey: 31.3
4.) Maryland: 29.0
5.) California: 27.6
6.) Florida: 27.2
7.) Nevada: 25.9
8.) Connecticut: 24.6
9.) Rhode Island: 22.9
10.) Hawaii: 22.6
11.) Illinois: 20.5
12.) Georgia: 19.2
13.) Kansas: 19.2
14.) Michigan: 18.4
15.) Massachusetts: 18.3
16.) Washington: 18.3
17.) Virginia: 17.6
18.) North Carolina: 17.5
19.) Oregon: 17.3
20.) Pennsylvania: 17.0
21.) Texas: 16.5
22.) Louisiana: 16.1
23.) Colorado: 15.7
24.) New Mexico: 15.5
25.) Tennessee: 15.5
26.) Arizona: 15.2
27.) Ohio: 14.7
*Germany: 14.5
28.) Minnesota: 12.5
29.) Vermont: 12.5
30.) Montana: 12.3
31.) New Hampshire: 12.3
32.) Alaska: 12.0
33.) Alabama: 12.0
34.) Iowa: 11.3
35.) Maine: 11.2
36.) North Dakota: 11.2
37.) Oklahoma: 9.9
38.) Arkansas: 8.7
39.) Indiana: 8.3
40.) Nebraska: 8.1
41.) South Carolina: 8.1
42.) Wisconsin: 7.4
43.) Utah: 6.7
44.) West Virginia: 6.6
45.) Missouri: 6.3
46.) Idaho: 6.0
47.) South Dakota: 5.6
48.) Kentucky: 5.1
49.) Mississippi: 4.6
50.) Wyoming: 0.9

(You can get a slightly different set of numbers here, though they’re close to the ones compiled by Guttmacher.)

As you can see, Germany would be just about in the middle. If your point is that the U.S. should be more like Germany, then it could be argued that Germany should be like <enter state with lower abortion rate than Germany> or, at the very least, the states at the top should strive to be more like the states at the bottom. The same is true of teenage pregnancy rates, though there is far less of a regional divide as is abortion rates (even teenage abortion rates). But, alas, it will never happen.

And, yes, I realize that Germany can be broken up into seperate territories just like the U.S. can, but for the purpose of this exercise I’m just treating it as a whole.

423

I’ve studied the biology too (my degree is in the physical sciences, though). Funny that biologists and doctors have as wide-ranging opinions on abortion as lay-people. I say your line is just as arbitrary- especially because it would consider many procedures that assist infertile couples, chemical birth control, and the morning-after pill as equivalent to murder (practices that can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting, or in the fertility specialist case, destroy embryoes). Your position requires just as large a helping of justification if you want to outlaw those practices- if you don’t, then I don’t see how you are consistent.

If a woman doesn’t want a zygote in her, she has the right to take it out. If a zygote crawled inside you- would you be obligated to leave it in for as long as it “wanted”? Why might it be different for a woman?

Please enlighten as to what I wrote that leads you to be certain that I came up with my definition of personhood solely to support a position on abortion.

You would give rights to a zygote. I think that requires as much justification as any other position.

So you do value the mother’s life more than the fetus- after all, the doctor could be wrong, and they both might survive. Why not give them both a chance to live?

What are your opinions about the pill, the morning-after pill, and fertility practices (should they be legal)? I’d like to know if you consider people very close to me murderers.

424

You missed my question so I will reiterate it here - you think a 0.1mm clump of 100 cells should have more rights than a full grown woman, is that correct?

425

I am joining my zygote person love association this weekend. We are planning to stop a dreadful, worthless almost human incubator-I mean woman- from choosing to abort our magnificent five week old future president of the United States of America, who is now growing in our womb-no, I mean (unfortunately) in her incubator.
Join me in our fetus anthem! We shall overcome–the uterus you are in–to let her deal with her own body really is a sin.

426

When I see the people who claime to be Pro-life willing to sacrifice them selves and their own families to support a woman by paying for her health costs, food for her family, child care,educate her children, decent housing and willinly pay taxes to give them support …than I will believe they are Pro-life, not just pro-birth and to he–, with the woman and her family’s health etc. Instead they spend money and time going to rallies etc. to force their religious beliefs on others. Why nor spend that money and time really supporting a woman, and if her life is in danger they just seem to think,Oh well that is her problem for getting pregnant(not knowing or caring about her circumstance) her life is now not worth anything!

427

Where did you show that, I must have missed it sorry! It is certainly not the case in my experience. Even if it were the case, which I highly doubt, the same people (not you necessarily) but many ‘pro-life’ advocates, are the same people who want to cut funding to family planning clinics and want to deny women access to birth control. They are also the same people who want to cut welfare benefits. Care to explain why that is? Are YOU in favour of increasing and making it easier to get benefits to a woman who has become pregnant and NOT had an abortion?

Excellent points. OMG have you done that? Have you adopted any unwanted children?

428

It’s not just the ‘definition of personhood’, or what makes a human, or whatever. A person has the right to get rid of any other organism living inside them if they so desire- whether it be a virus, a candiru fish, a tapeworm, or a zygote. A person has the right to manage his or her body as he/she chooses.

429

Ok that a fine position to have but your position means that you are actually taking away the right of a woman to have control over her own body. So in other words the rights of the unborn child trumps the rights of the grown woman? You’ve never addressed this point. Please do.

430

There’s a stark difference between having an opinion on abortion and acknowledging a simple scientific fact.

…Okay.

So read what you wrote out. You’re not actually putting forth an argument against anything I type out, least because-- and this is really important-- you cannot do so. Even more so, this is a good example of what I was talking about earlier when I said defining someone as a “non-person” to meet an end. Here you, in so many words, state that we cannot define the unborn as humans (???) because doing so would make many procedures and birth control the equivalent murder. Never mind the dubiousness of that claim, what exactly would that have to do with the way the unborn are defined unless you’re defining the unborn in a way to make those things permissible?

shrugs

Anyway, you think my line is arbitrary? Take it up with (1) science and (2) the concept of human rights (which, remarkably, somehow seems to be thrown out the window when it comes to abortion)

And why is that?

(“Because it’s her body!”)

Because, simplified, “wantedness” is not a reason to do so someone as you please.

It’s as I said; because someone being a “non-person” is only brought up when seeking to act against the individual being defined as a “non-person”. I requested someone to prove this as untrue earlier and yet no one did. Unsurprisingly, I might add.

(Not to mention you’d still be begging the question the way you’re trying to make it sound.)

And this is the problem; it requires no more justification than does giving rights to any other human requires justification. See, this is where you’re having trouble, and why the whole Nazi (or even slavery) analogy is so apt. My position is that all humans are entitled to the same basic rights. Your position is that only those humans you think are entitled to basic rights are entitled to them.

For argument’s sake, let’s start from the position that only some, not all, humans are entitled to basic rights. Furthermore, we don’t know which humans are in the “entitled to basic rights” camp and which are in the “not entitled to basic rights” camp. Now let’s assume we have two groups of individuals; A, B and C and X, Y and Z.

Individual A points to Individual X and says “He’s not entitled to the same basic rights as me!”.

Individual B points to Individual Y and says “He’s not entitled to the same basic rights as me!”.

Individual C points to Individual Z and says “He’s not entitled to the same basic rights as me!”.

The instinctive response will be, “Why not?”.

Now to provide a bit of context, Individual A is White while Individual X is Black; Individual B is of some ethnoreligious group while Individual Y is of another; and Individual C is is born while Individual Z is unborn.

Given that piece of information, you will undoubtedly say that Individuals A and B not be allowed to dictate that Individuals X and Y, respectively, be defined out of basic the same basic rights that A and B share, though you will not say the same in relation to Individuals C and Z. But why is that? Why are Individual A and Individual B wrong but not C?

The simple fact is that you can provide no objective reason why the former two instances are impermissible but the latter instance is permissible. Sure, you’ll throw out stuff like “because unborn aren’t born!”, or “because the unborn can’t feel pain!” or something along that lines, but the answer to that is “so what?”. Why is that a more meaningful distinction than the ones Individual A and B can come up with? Presumably, Individual A could look at your criteria and assert that they’re dumb because the only thing that matters is race. Individual B could look at your criteria and assert that they’re dumb because the only thing that matters is the ancestry of ones parents. So, assuming that only some humans are entitled to basic rights, why are your criteria for deciding who those humans are the de facto standard? If you allow Individual Z to be defined out of rights based on criteria you personally find important even though Individual Z is a human, then why can’t Individual A or Individual B define Individuals X and Y, respectively, out of rights based on criteria they personally find important even though Individuals X and Y are humans?

This is where your “argument”-- and I use the term lightly-- runs into a reinforced concrete wall. Your rationale dictates that only those whom you think should be afforded rights have rights. In essence, you’ve adopted an “I-can’t-define-you-out-of-rights-but-you-can-define-someone-else-out-of-rights” approach. In contrast, my approach is exactly the opposite, and is on where “I-can’t-define-you-out-of-rights-and-you-can’t-define-anyone-else-out-of-rights-either”. The latter treats everyone as equal, while the former is exactly the rationale under which slavery persisted and the Nazis went about their business (i.e., they treated their criteria by which they defined others out of rights as self-evident and more meaningful than the criteria of someone else). Of course, you won’t like that claim, but the truth of a claim is not measured by whether one likes it or not.

If you can define someone else out of rights, then there’s nothing which prevents you from being defined out of rights by someone else.

If the mother dies, almost always so too does the unborn child. Not exactly sure how that translates to “valuing one over the other”-- especially since doing nothing would be met with accusations of being a “fetus lover” (which I’ve always found funny).

Fine, fine, fine. There you go. Simple.

It’s somewhere is some long, boring thread. I’ll go search for it when I get not lazy.

Well, it is and it makes sense when you think about it. If you have abortion as a fallback option, you’re less likely to use contraception than you are when you don’t have it available. It’s the same principle by which people tend to drive more recklessly when they have car insurance than they are when they do not car insurance. When the marginal cost of engaging in “risky” activity is low, you’re more likely to engage in that activity than you are when the cost is higher.

1.) It’s not exactly as if it’s hard to find contraceptives. There’s Wal-Mart, Target, 7-11, your local convenience store and/or gas station, among others.

2.) Why should people be given welfare benefits just because they keep popping out children?

Oh, and I’ve adopted no kids. Why should I? Just because one is against abortion doesn’t mean they have to go out and adopt kids. If, for example, the government decided that it’s going to euthanize every child in foster care, would you agree that only those willing to adopt one of those children are the only ones who could speak out against it? I doubt you would.

431

Well, once you’ve convinced yourself that this is irrelevant, you can justify anything.

432

Your argument seems essentially to be the slippery slope argument, which I don’t think is really effective. All you seem to be arguing is that “if you devalue the zygote’s life, then it makes it easier to devalue other groups’ lives”. I don’t buy this (I don’t buy it with those opposed to gay marriage, or DADT, or allowing people to own guns, etc). If we suppose that there will never again be any attempt to devalue life, do you still think abortion is wrong? Do you actually have any arguments on why killing a zygote/fertilized egg is wrong when it is unrelated to any other action or potential actions?

Say that a pregnant (conception was a week or two before) astronaut is alone on the moon with enough supplies to live out her days (and she’ll never be bothered or contacted), but she wants to be alone, so she aborts her pregnancy. If you think this is wrong (by itself- no one else will ever know), why is it wrong?

Does that include the right to control your own body? If I agree with that statement, but include as a basic right the right to control your own body (and therefore to get rid of anything unwanted inside it), then we have conflicting basic rights. I think the rights of the woman trump that of the zygote (were I to agree that zygotes have rights). I guess for you, the rights of the zygote trumps the woman’s rights. Or you don’t agree that control over one’s body is a basic right.

Obviously I disagree. Do you think there should be an exception for rape victims?

So killing zygotes and fertilized eggs is ok, sometimes. How is that not totally inconsistent with everything else you just wrote? Why does the zygote/fertilized egg not get the basic right to life in these cases?

433

I think the slippery slope can be applied to almost any argument- which is why it’s not very effective (and most logicians reject it, I believe). For example- if a woman does not have control over her own body with respect to what to do about an unwanted zygote inside it, what’s to stop the government from restricting her right to use contraception? Or her right to have certain medical procedures (say, a hysterectomy)? What’s to stop the government from forcibly impregnating women?

I think the above argument is about as effective as the argument that restricting the rights of zygotes could lead to anything like slavery or the Holocaust.

434

Can you please supply a cite for this.

You did not answer my question in post #427

435

Please give a link to a peer-reviewed scientific paper proving or demonstrating the personhood or humanity of a fetus. These mean the same thing, despite your slippery attempt to distinguish them.

My wife is a biologist, and specialized in reproductive physiology, and she supports abortion rights. Science can tell us developmental stages. Science can tell us when a fetus begins to have brain activity. Science can tell us the percentage of fetuses which spontaneously abort. When a fetus becomes a person is a philosophical, not scientific matter. As such there is no definitive answer. Given that, I’d rather err on the side of liberty and freedom myself, and let each woman make the decision for herself.

436

Agreed.

I always find pro-choice arguments to be inconsistent and suboptimal, IMO.

437

Because those children are the “persons” who are eligible for those benefits.

Why should “persons” not be given welfare benefits until they’ve popped out, or do you think those nine months of “personhood” don’t really count?

CMC fnord!

438

Number one, as you may or may not realize, slippery slope arguments are not always fallacies, and are not fallacies when the consequent logically flows from the antecedent. Number two, what was posted to you wasn’t a slippery slope argument, anyway, so whatever point you were trying to make is moot.

That’s not the argument at all. I thought I was pretty clear before, but apparently I was not. Either that or you did not understand it. So let me try this again. When you claim, as you (and others) have claimed, that some humans do not deserve the same basic rights as all other humans, this applies to you as well, as there is nothing which says that you have to be given the same basic rights as all other humans. It means that you-- or those groups whom you think should be privy to the same basic rights as all other humans-- are subject to the same rationale you apply to the unborn.

Of course, I already know that you would vehemently oppose someone defining someone else or even a group who you think should have basic rights out of those rights. Well, that is precisely why there is a such concept as human rights; to prevent one group from defining another group out of rights and to ensure that everyone is treated as equal.

I’m calling bullshit, ESPECIALLY as it relates to gays and gay marriage, since one of the MOST COMMON arguments is that gays are entitled to the same rights as any other human is entitled. I wonder what would happen if I were to go into some thread around here about gays and say that gays aren’t entitled to the same rights as all other humans? I would probably be beset upon by hundreds of angry posters declaring how I’m a “bigot” or something like that. Funny how that would work out.

I have no idea what this has to do anything I’ve typed out. Really, I don’t.

Of course not. Now here’s a question for you; let’s say she gives birth and after an undisclosed period of time, she decides she doesn’t want to be a mother anymore. Would it be wrong of her to kill her child?

(Semi-rhetorical question, of course, but useful in answering your above asked question ;))

If, as your claim, there is a right to control your body, then abortion is impermissible because it takes away the right of the unborn to control their body. In fact, the direct implication of your position is that no one has rights that someone else doesn’t want them to have. But moving on. If, as I surmise, you will claim that the unborn don’t have a right to control their body as they’re not “persons”, then you would be guilty of doing that which you say you were not, which is defining the unborn as “non-persons” to meet an end.

Being a woman doesn’t give you more rights than not being one. Being born does not give you more rights than being unborn. The only “ranking” of rights there is, are that life > liberty, liberty > happiness/property and life > happiness/property. Ignoring abortion for a moment, you would be hard pressed to find a single situation in which this isn’t the case.

Nazi :wink:

Noooooooooope.

I’m nothing if not a pragmatist. Let’s take the MAP, for example, since I surmise that’s the biggest issue. It can either prevent the release of an egg from the one of the ovaries, kill sperm (I believe) or make it so that the embryo does not attach to the uterine lining of the wall. Even assuming a perfect 33/33/33 breakdown between the three, I’d rather some embryos failing to attach to the uterine wall rather than a greater percentage of women getting pregnant and having an abortion.

(Yup. As some people here will note, I’m not so naive as to believe that making abortion illegal would drive the rate down to zero.)

I could, but I’m lazy and don’t feel like going back through my posts trying to find said links. But you can just ask Bryan, curlcoat or someone else who’s seen it.

Quite possibly because I see no point, since I’ve answered similar questions two or three times now in this thread alone.

Man, what the **** is wrong with people’s reading comprehension skills around here?

Now, before I respond further, I want to make sure I understand this correctly-- are you saying that human = person? Because, personally, I do hope that’s what you’re saying :D.

439

Smileys do not remove the requirement to avoid name-calling outside The BBQ Pit.

Do not do this again.

[ /Moderating ]

440

Exactly when is a person not a human and a human not a person? Is it DNA based? Our parts have the same dna as all of us. Is a brain dead individual who we can pull the plug on still human but not a person? Is a corpse human but not a person? To give a terrible example, would a baby born with only autonomous functions but no higher brain functions be a human and not a person?
In terms of rights these things are interchangeable.
As far as science goes, you can demonstrate that a fetus has a full set of dna, but not a fully developed set of organs. DNA is clearly not ethically significant, otherwise we’d be inviting dead people to dinner.

441

That sounds like a slippery slope to me, or pretty close.

But anyway- for this- “as there is nothing which says that you have to be given the same basic rights as all other humans”- why not? Why can’t the law say it? If we all just agreed that zygotes got no rights, who suffers?

I seriously don’t get what zygote rights have to do with human rights.

That’s not what I’m saying at all- I’m saying that the argument that “gay marriage will lead to plural marriage, or man on dog, or man on boy” is a BS slippery slope argument.

I’m not sure how you answered it- are you saying it would NOT be wrong of her to abort her pregnancy? If not, then why is it wrong for anyone else?

No- the unborn have the right to control their body. They just don’t have the ability. They don’t have the right to take control of anyone else’s body or bodily function. No one has the right to control someone else’s body. If there’s an unwanted organism inside you, you can get rid of it.

This one’s not about personhood at all- if a zygote (or, say, a tiny little dude with personhood) crawls up your butt, connects itself to your blood supply, and starts a-growin’, I say you have the right to expel it- even if that would lead to its death. I see no difference for women.

That’s pretty damn cruel.