It’s not in the official rules and you’re not being punished, but we discourage it because it’s kind of inconsiderate. Anyway hopefully the discussion can move on from here.
In case you didn’t see my other post, I also wanted to explain that Straight Dope moderators and administrators also post on the site. Our official actions are set off by post titles or tags that say ‘Moderating’ or ‘Modding’ or things like that. Our other posts are no different from everybody else’s.
Or more topically, can someone be a good person if they’re pro-choice?
My brother works in neuroscience. Last year he was talking about abortion issues and what his science told him about it. Basically he emphasized that a fetus’s brain is not really wired to do anything resembling consciousness until the 3rd trimester and that a person on life support we would consider brain dead medically would not be lesser brain activity-wise than a 2nd trimester and earlier fetus. The whole concept of first and second trimester abortion being wrong is based upon religious concepts of the human soul, one that inexplicably believes in a soul that begins at conception for humans but never for any animal even if that animal has superior intelligence to some humans. Also these people tend to support all sorts of brutality in war toward humans, some that are pregnant so long as they can view it only through the prism of their domestic media.
It’s a cheap exploit of human compassion. Were wired to be empathetic to our babies and it’s easy or even natural to transfer that to early stage human fetuses. Right and wrong aren’t the survival instincts your animal ancestry gave you though, no matter how much you enshroud it in misogynistic elements of your cultural traditions and religious dogma. Pushing your emotional buttons empowers religious organizations and political groups. That’s why this is an issue.
“Sorry, did not intend to say that people who have come to conclusions have never thought through it. I agree, many have, but I believe many have not.”
And do you further assume that all of the persons who have considered the issue are of one opinion, and the ‘none-thinkers’ of another?
I’m watching it now and one minute in, I’m wondering: why are there so many rapid camera cuts? Just reviewing the first 60 seconds of the discussion with Alicia (0:09 to 1:09), I count nine camera cuts, including a few side-by-side images straight out of The Thomas Crowne Affair. I’ve seen music videos that were more static.
I don’t buy this as the “full” interview, by which I’d mean a full continuous unedited interview, and if Comfort has two (possibly three) cameras trained on Alicia, I can picture that being enough of a distraction and discomfort to her to help his cause, making her confused and uncertain enough to be manipulated.
Heck, I’m confident and articulate in my pro-choice views, but if there were two or three cameras stuck in my face (and moving around, as some parts of the video indicate), I can picture myself stammering at moments, which a determined editor can easily turn into an impression of utter uncertainty.
What punishment do you propose for my mom after she had an abortion because she was raped? Why should she be punished in the name of YOUR religious beliefs?
I like this quote:
Something nonhuman does not become human by getting older and bigger; whatever is human must be human from the beginning.
To discuss abortions and the gospel of Christ.
In the immediate context, you’re exactly right.
The reason it is similar is because in both instances, someone is giving thought to killing a human.
no
Condemn? No? There are waiting lists of people who want to adopt. The parents may not want them, but others do.
I have never protested outside a dr.s office, neither do I advocate it, nor do I advocate violence in opposing abortion. Also, as I said, someone who uses a condom can still get pregnant and have an abortion.
No to both of those.
In God’s eyes (and mine), no I am not a good person. I can be very selfish at times, but I am fighting it. I do not claim to be a good person.
The pro-choice stance is that it’s a woman’s right to choose to kill her own baby because it’s her baby, right?
A couple of things to think about:
A baby looks very much like a baby at only six weeks.
Parents legally have parental rights up to the the age of 18. At what point do we stop giving parents rights to kill their child? Right now they are allowed to kill their child while it is in the womb. What is the difference between a baby inside the womb and one that is out of it, besides the fact that it’s in the womb? Are they both not human? If they are both human, why do we not allow parents the right to kill their child up to 18 years old. It is after all, *their *child.
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.
It is important to understand I am against the murder of human life (not simply a baby). It is scientific fact that human life begins at conception.
Thing is:
[ul]
[li]There’s no reason to think god(s) exists (or even can exist), and many to think that they don’t.[/li]
[li]There’s no reason to think that any gods are good even if they do exist.[/li]
[li]Gods if they did exist have no moral or legal authority over us. And “might makes right” is pretty much the opposite of “good”.[/li]
[li]Opposing abortion is barbaric, effectively the same as raping a woman for nine months.[/li]
[li]The actual effects of the anti-abortion crusade have always been cruelty inflicted on women and on the children they are forced to bear; there’s nothing moral about that.[/li][/ul]
“Hello, I’m brand new here, and completely self righteous, obsessed and fanatical. If you don’t agree with me you will go to hell and burn in a fire for eternity. I am a good Christian. I am Christ-like. When the rapture comes I’ll be proven right. I will, you’ll see. You’ll see. Every sperm is sacred. Every sperm is good.”
Okay, this is a little over the top - like comparing abortion to the holocaust. The rest of your post is uncharacteristically reasonable.
lockmat, I realize this makes a little work for you, but instead of responding like this:
[QUOTE=Marley23]
Based on your summary, no, I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. It sounds like he is trying to show that people find impersonal mass killing more tolerable than killing an individual up close.
In the immediate context, you’re exactly right.
No, it’s not kind of like that. The comparison is so vile that I’m not sure it’s worthwhile to explain it. If you didn’t see it for yourself, I don’t know if anybody else could make you see it. Do you actually think this is a sensible comparison?
The reason it is similar is because in both instances, someone is giving thought to killing a human.
[/QUOTE]
Please do it this way:
[QUOTE=Marley23]
Based on your summary, no, I don’t think that’s what he’s doing. It sounds like he is trying to show that people find impersonal mass killing more tolerable than killing an individual up close.
[/quote]
[QUOTE=Marley23]
No, it’s not kind of like that. The comparison is so vile that I’m not sure it’s worthwhile to explain it. If you didn’t see it for yourself, I don’t know if anybody else could make you see it. Do you actually think this is a sensible comparison?
[/quote]
You can do this by typing out the quote tags this way: [noparse]
[/noparse]. I’ll go back and edit your post. We have a rule against altering text inside of the quote tags because it can confuse people about who is saying what. I realize you weren’t trying to mislead anybody.
lockmat,
If a fertilized egg is a human being then do you consider ending an ectopic pregnancy murder? What about chemical pregnancies? Is the failure of a fertilized egg to plant the same thing as ending a life?
No, what Hitler did was wrong.
You can do things that are good. A criminal can be a criminal and still do good things, no? Yet a judge will still make him pay his fine. A Christian will continue to sin (do bad things), but because of his belief that Christ paid the penalty for his sins, he has eternal life. I have absolutely no righteousness of my own in God’s eyes. I depend on Jesus’.
I agree, there are also people who are pro-life that have not thought of it much either.
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?
Why? In both cases a woman’s body is being forcibly and intimately used for another. And in fact forced impregnation on a large scale is widely considered a war crime and is a common component of genocide; kill the men, children & old women and rape & impregnate the young women. Right out of chimpanzee behavior or the Bible.
Because a fetus is a thing not a person, and therefore her wishes take precedence. What you are actually calling for is for the woman to be punished - which of course is the real point of the anti-abortion movement, the torment of women.
Personal comments like this aren’t allowed in Great Debates. Don’t do it again.
Have Ray try both out and get back to us.
lockmat,
You did not answer my question. What punishment should my Jewish mother suffer in the name of your Christian beliefs because she had an abortion? Your theology is not mine. I am Reform Jewish. We do not believe a woman should be forced into a pregnancy nor do we believe that life begins at conception. Why should YOUR religious beliefs overrule ours? Particularly in so private a matter? If you’re going to have the unbelievable chutzpah to evoke Jewish history for your own twisted ends you should at least know something about the subject.
Well, actually, the key element is not specifically that it’s a baby, or even that it’s her baby, but that it’s an unwanted object growing inside her body. The nature of the object, be it a baby, a person, a human, a life, whatever, is secondary to the larger issue of her having the right to make these decisions regarding her own health, and the alternative (abortions are banned) is not a better solution, or at least not enough of one for society to impose on the individual in this way, even if the society really wanted to.
So?
I’m okay with it being at birth. At that point, the parents can legally transfer parental rights and a responsibilities to others, an option that is not available before birth.
I’m prepared to shrug and say “no difference, aside for the rather massively significant one of it’s location inside the body of another person.”
Sure, why not?
Well, as before, I’m okay with birth being the demarcation. And I don’t see how a pro-choice position leads to one being okay with killing 17 year-olds. Heck, Canada currently has had no abortion law for over 20 years, but I’m not aware of any efforts or inclinations to issue a license-to-kill to upset parents.
It’s not really ironic; pregnancy is a known aggravating factor in cases of domestic abuse and murder (i.e. if a woman is being beaten by her husband or boyfriend, she likely to keep on being beaten and possibly killed if she gets pregnant with a child he doesn’t want but she will not abort). I don’t know offhand how many cases have been prosecuted for assaults causing abortion on a woman who was actually on her way to an abortion clinic, though. I get that it’s supposed to sound like some bizarre legal quandary, like shooting a person who is falling from a tall building, but I don’t find it all that compelling.
Yeah, but some of us look at the larger issues of what kinds of societies we want to live in and what kinds of freedoms we want to have. And, to be blunt, pregnancies are not so rare (and the allegedly punishing God is not so proven) that society has a compelling need to force all of them to completion.
I know. 
So it has nothing to do with trimesters. It’s a twist on the old saying “one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.”
I guess we need to start from the beginning here: you realize that most pro-choice people do not consider a fetus to be a human being, right?