According to today’s Technician, I missed a set of photos where the group (which, I now learn, calls itself “Organization for Bio-Ethical Change”) displayed photos from the Holocaust alongside the dead baby photos. Two letters are up in the campus forum; to access them, go to the above URL, click on “Download Today’s PDF,” and go to page 7.
Incorrect. I’ve not yet discussed 28-week-old fetuses in this thread. I’ve discussed single-celled organisms. I agree that there’s a gray area in between the two, but I disagree that there’s any sense in treating abortions prior to (say) 12 weeks as moral issues.
Daniel
That old canard?
What are you personally doing to stop the bloodshed happening in Iraq…howzabout the people being put to death via capital punishment in your own country?
Are you doing “everything in your power” to stop these evil actions…or just being a pussy on a messageboard?
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Why are you discussing elective abortions performed on single celled organsims? They never happen.
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You mentioned NO “gray area” in your post that I responded to…you drew a pretty firm line in the sand…
Again by your line of reasoning…because a baby born at 28 weeks “expresses” a desire for hunger… it gets your “protection”.
A 36 week old in utero fetus that doesn’t “express” that same desire for hunger (because it doesnt need to) obviously doesn’t.
What the hell can I do in Iraq at this point? The war is over, and any insurgent violence is beyond my control and not within my realm of knowledge to do anything to stop. If I went over there all gung-ho and tried to do something I’d probably just get kidnapped and become the next Nick Berg.
As for capitol punishment, what can I do, organize a prison break on death row? Yeah, that’ll save lives. I recognize most of these people don’t belong in society, I just don’t think killing them is the proper way to remove them from society.
Those actions are too distant or too heaviliy guarded or too beyond my means for me to do anything about.
You personally could do a lot more to save unborn lives than I could to stop a prisoner from being executed. You could kidnap a pregnant woman who wants to get an abortion and chain her up until she gives birth. Sure, you’ll go to prison but at least you saved a life!
The fuck are you talking about? I was responding to Muad, not to you; read his posts to understand mine. You’re being ridiculous.
Thanks so much for explaining my line of reasoning! Do try to get it right next time.
I said that what matters is whether it has desires etc., not whether it expresses them. I only brought up whether it expresses desires when some asshole challenged me to prove that a neonate has desires. Clearly one can’t express something one doesn’t have. But that doesn’t mean I moved the standard.
Perhaps if you showed a little less interest in proving how superior you were, and a little more interest in addressing what I actually say, this conversation could be more productive, what?
Daniel
Well certainly you opposed the run up to the war…right? Plenty of folks did civil acts of disobedience and more both during this war and other war times events like Nam. Some of them ended up in jail.
But here you were, wasting time on the message boards.
You’re really asking what can you do to change public policy? Have you protested in front of prisons…have you organized mass mailings to change the opinions of legislators…have you done ANYTHING beyond being on the boards?
I get it. You’ve done absolutely ZIP about atrocities beyond hanging around a message board (and voting, I guess)…but you hold others to a different standard.
Ayup.
I guess I’m confused now…In your post on an earlier page (in response to Muad…you drew a line in the sand about who gets your “protection”. In further posts on THIS page in response to me…you 'clarified" I guess what you meant by “desires”. I’m pointing out that your line in the sand would allow a baby born at 28 weeks to get your “protection”, but a 36 week old fetus to not get your protection. If my previous post was confusing, I apologize.
Well that’s cute and all…but how does one know whether one “has” all of those wonderful attributes like desires and hopes and emotions unless they are expressed in some fashion?
Simple question then…does a 36 week old in utero fetus HAVE “desires, experience, identity, hopes, dreams”?
If so, how do you know?
If not…is it therefore not deserving of your “protection”?
Right. Shall I e-mail you my home address then so you can imprison me for the next 9 months? You see, I have had sex within the last week, and for all you know the birth control method I use may prevent implantation under some circumstance. Even I’m not sure whether it does or not, although from what I know of how it works, it follows logically that it might.
That is what you are demanding of us, whether you like it or not. Tell me, while you’re imprisoning me, will you arrange for someone to pay my mortgage, car payments, and other bills, or am I on my own for that? If my employer fires me because I’ve been imprisoned for committing murder, my health insurance will lapse. Are you prepared to pay the medical bills involved in me giving birth if I do so or shall I just shove the poor kid into the world and let him take his chances? For that matter, I trust you will make arrangements for adoption for this putative child. Perhaps you’d care to raise him.
Tell you what. If you get to call me a “murderer” because I have used the pill which may, in some circumstances, prevent implantation, how about I get to call you a “slave master” because, if I am truly a murderer, you’d have me imprisoned against my will?
Oh yes. I suggest you never have sex with a woman who’s on the pill or has an IUD or winds up using emergency contraception. That, sir, would make you an accessory to murder.
With no respect whatsoever,
CJ
The tests on neonatal emotion have been performed in Syracuse; nonetheless, I believe that their results apply equally to babies in Asheville. Why would the infant’s location (Syracuse or Asheville) change its neurological structure?
Similarly, why would the infant’s location (inside or outside the womb) change its neurological structure?
Unless I see evidence that the act of being born enables an infant to feel the desires that a born infant expresses, I’ll not think that the act of being born makes a difference.
So, to answer your first question, I’d say, “I think so.”
To answer your second, I’d say, “Why wouldn’t it?”
Daniel
Man, I really hate to have to say this but you people (and I mean all of you, on both sides of this issue) are really missing the big point here and dancing around the important societal implications of legislating that conception begins at birth.
For example, what will this do to carpool lanes? I mean, if a clump of cells is a person, then that should satisfy the two people or more requirement, right? And what about when they (the baby incubators, that is) go to the movies? Shouldn’t the baby incubator have to pay for the clump of cells as well?
And the movies raise even stickier issues? Are you paying for a seat (in which case the incubator is only taking up one, so one ticket is ok) or are you paying for the experience of watching the movie (in which case, perhaps we need a week by week graduated price based on how well we think the clump of cells can hear in the womb). And holy shit, what about movie ratings! Should we let cell incubators attend anything but G rated movies?
Way to miss the big picture guys.
You laugh. A woman in California successfully argued a case that, since she was pregnant, she should be able to use the carpool lane. Year or so ago, IIRC.
Sigh. I may have to give up being sarcastic as I can’t keep up with how stupid people really are.
Thanks for the answer.
To answer YOUR question…I HAVE seen some folks on the boards(not you, obviously) suggest that the location IS important in terms of what “it” is…either neurologically or something else.
I guess I (and apparently others) am still unclear as to what you mean by “desires” when its stated in context with things like “identity, hopes and dream”.
Those are philosophical, not biological concepts…but yet you narrowly define “desires” when it comes to newborns in terms of their needing/wanting nourishment, a biological construct.
My beagle “desires” food (way too often I might add). I’m not sure that you would ascribe hopes and dreams to her though. I don’t think one does to an infant either…which is where the “infanticide” thinking comes from.
The same as we enforce child protection laws today.
Prevention is more important than punishment.
Quite possibly. Just as we already lock up people who are a danger to themselves or others. There could be a removal of the fetus so it could be implanted in a willing mother if someone were dead set on killing the child.
I don’t know how they might find out. It would probably be the case that they almost always only found out after it was too late, just as it is now with most crime.
If taken properly they would not terminate a pregnancy.
If it really came to making the pills illeagal, we would prevent it the same as we try to pervent other drug trafficing.
It may very well prove difficult to enforce such laws. That does not make them wrong.
I missed something, why would an IUD be illegal?
Unless there was something suspicious about it, I doubt that the vast majority of miscarriages would be investigated.
I have already stated that I support abortion to save a womans life.
I don’t want to force anyone to do anything that they don’t want to do. But I am just being realistic in that I am fairly certain that no matter what I say I am not going to win over any hearts and minds today.
I am telling you how to live your life just as much as the government does when it says that you can’t steal or kill people. If I am right then these new laws will need to be enforced just as much as the laws against murder that we already have.
An IUD often prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine wall. If the “line” is drawn at strict fertilization, as opposed to say implantation…then an IUD would violate that line.
And I know that a majority of the country agrees with me. Does that make it right?
Since I jump on pro choice folks for this, I gotta be consistent. 
I think you’re reading too much into the Zogby poll. If you look at a large number of differently worded polls…you get a simple majority of folks who believe something along the lines of “abortion is murder/manslaughter/taking of a human life” etc…
However you DON’T get the same majority that want to straight out outlaw it.
Many want restrictions (waiting periods…notification…no later term abortion) etc…but you won’t get a simple majority who want to outlaw it all together…even excluding life of mother exception…which seems to be your position.
No, I am not a fundimentalist. My view were reached through personal thought and debate, not “just cause”. As I have already explained at the moment of fertilization the child stops being a potential and becomes an actual. Because it is a single cell is irrelevent, a unique human life has begun, to abort is to end that life. That the child is currently incapable of consciousness is irrelevent because it will eventually “wake up” (if not, then it is ok to kill it because it is not really human). It is no different than a person in a coma. The temporary inability to attain consciousness does not take away a persons human rights.
And to me the unborn are just as human as you or I and your inability to understand this is baffling to me. To me they are humans that are being denied their human rights just as the slaves were.
1.A farmer just finishes planting his yearly crop. During the night hoodlams come and destroy all of the seedlings. Should they get in trouble? The seedlings have no value, you can’t eat or sell them. You can only make a profit from mature plants. So the farmer has not lost anything of value then.
2.That is were we dissagree. I am not talking about a clump of cells that might turn into a human. I am talking about a clump of cells that already are human. That their current state is that of a clump of cells is irrelevent.
3.Yes, if IVF results in the destruction of fertilized eggs.
It is only an insult if I am wrong.