I don’t know and I don’t care. I have already said that I don’t agree with that.
You don’t have a right to a risk free life. Every time you have intercourse you run the risk of pregnancy. A person must take responsibility for their actions.
Hmm.
Hypothetical: Muad’Dib’s desired laws come to pass. If it can be shown that you knowingly and willfully caused an abortion, you are guilty of murder/manslaughter/etc.
What happens when a woman discovers she is pregnant, and ceases eating until she spontaneously aborts? Do we hook her up to a feeding tube? Restrain her, so she doesn’t injure the fetus?
What is the legal status of a cell teased from a developing zygote? The same cell, after it is put back into the zygote? In one location, it has the ‘potential’ to develop into a person distinct from the zygote. In the other, it doesn’t.
How will life insurance policies on zygotes work?
Does the survivior of a vanishing twin pair face murder charges?
And finally, have I made the point that applying standards of personhood to something that is not a person by no stretch of science, sematics, or philosophy is a really, really silly idea?
Sperm and eggs do not have human rights. They are only potential humans and left to their own accord will never “wake up” into consciousness.
Animals do not have human rights because they also lack self-aware consciousness. The moment that some proves to me otherwise I will join PETA and become a militant vegan.
If you’re seriously insisting I remain celibate for the rest of my natural life, I have one suggestion for you. You go first! I asked if I could call you a slave-owner earlier. I take that back. It’s an insult to slave holders. You are a hypocrite. I await your arrival at my place with handcuffs, but I assure you I will have company and you will not enjoy them.
You have just fucking well demonstated you have no regard for my human life and welfare. In my book that makes you worse than a murderer or a hypocrite; it makes you a sociopath.
A family friend of ours wanted children as badly as it’s possible for a person to want anything, yet pregnancy after pregnancy ended in miscarriage. In order to carry her twin daughters to term, she had to spend 3 months confined to bed. With each miscarriage, she felt awful, that she’d failed as a woman. Yet you, in your arrogance, rather than leaving her alone to grieve the children she wanted more than anything else in the world would have her poked and prodded after each miscarriage only lest she have done the thing she was least likely to do, adding to her grief and pain. You arrogant sociopath!
Oh yes, if a woman who has been sterilized by having her tubes tied, so to speak, becomes pregnant despite that procedure, I believe she’s at greater risk of an ectopic procedure. It has happened that women who’ve had hysterectomies have nevertheless have fertilized eggs try to implant. Are either of these types of women murderers? A neighbor of mine had two successive ectopic pregnancies, despite wanting more kids. Is she a murderer? She’s a wonderful mother, I’ll tell you that.
It seems particularly appropriate to leave you with this curse: since you believe every act of sexual intercourse (including oral?) has the potential to result in intercourse and many of the most effective forms of birth control can, in some circumstances, prevent implantation, may you never, ever have an orgasm again as long as you live. Yes, that does include by masturbation.
CJ
Incorrect. As it stands, “A fertilized ovum is a human individual with the rights and responsibilities thereof” is a premise. If you have justification for it (beyond ‘just because’) feel free to post it.
Congratulations. You have completely failed to address the identical-twin issue.
Also, the z/e/g of a woman who has an abortion will never wake up. Therefore, it is not really human under your standard.
Stop me if I’m wrong, but don’t we declare people without brains legally dead?
Posited: the differences between a black man and a white one are just a teensy bit bigger than that between a newly fertilized ovum and an adult. Please tell me you agree to this.
Apples and oranges. The hoodlums would still be up on vandalism charges if the farmer had sown his seeds in a salt plain.
And we are saying that clumps of cells (the really small ones, anyway) are not human by any reasonable standard.
Muad’Dib, sex results in the destruction of fertilized eggs. If a couple have sex and the lady becomes pregnant, there is a very good chance that the zygote will spontaneously abort. Moreover, as has been previously mentioned, there is no form of birth control that stop this from happening. Also as has been previously mentioned, if you have ever had sex, you could well be an accessory to murder.
Also on this note: wouldn’t a good way to prevent these tragic deaths be to simply cordon off all men and only allow sex under controlled circumstances?
I’d love to see the test that can discriminate between an ectopic pregnancy and, just as an example, an IVF zygote, or a zygote implanted in a mother who will die if the pregnancy is not immediately terminated and one who will commit suicide rather than bear the child.
A fertilized ovum needs a prepared uterus, certain nutrients, a lack of certain chemical compunds, and a whole bunch of other things to ‘wake up’. An unfertilized ovum needs all that, plus a sperm cell.
If you’re allowed to posit based on percent chances that something will become a person with assloads of help from the enviornment…checks watch…then if you’re male, you just comitted murder.
Embryos do not have human rights. Left to their own accord they will never wake up.
You know what’s hilarious?
When your own damn link betrays you.
Next time, try reading the ENTIRE link, genius.
::snicker::
Oddly enough, before Roe v. Wade, when abortion was illegal, we didn’t seem to need to lock pregnant women up to prevent them from aborting. Why do you expect we would if Roe v. Wade is overturned?
Regards,
Shodan
Read it yourself. Treating the dot test as logically equivalent to self-aware consciousness is a bad idea, because
a:] It can be (hah hah) aped, by a trained animal, and
b:] not everyone who demonstrates self-awareness can pass it.
This does not mean that the dot test is not an indicator of consciousness.
Arg. Once more, with fewer negatives:
This does not…dammit.
The fact that a dot test is not 100% correlated with self-aware consciousness does not mean that it’s not a damn good indicator thereof. Moreover, there was no indication that Megan was trained to recognize the dot (if she was, someone please tell me). The other objection is specious: the claim is not that self-awareness is identical to passing the dot test, only that passing the dot test (without training) implies (colloquially, not logically) self-awareness.
Out of curiosity, what would be a good test for self-awareness? I hope it’s good and rigorous, or Muab’Dib will have to start a campaign to Free ELIZA.
Wow.
Let me see if I got this straight.
You offer up a link to “prove” that chimps have self awareness.
The author of the page that YOU linked to says
It almost seems that you’re arguing against the point (and expect me to defend, I guess) made by the author of a web page that…
…wait for it…
YOU used as a cite.
Do you often use cites that don’t support your case?
Do you often use cites that you don’t even bother to read?
Wow. Just wow.
I know it’s a bit embarrassing to get caught in a gaff…but you’re not helping your case, dude.
I have to give it to Muad’Dib…at least he’s being consistant.
Hell, I have a lot of respect for him. His conclusions are entirely consistent with his premises.
I disagree thoroughly with his premises, and with his conclusions. But I understand how he arrived at his premises, and what those premises are, and I understand how he reaches his conclusions from there.
Sigh. The author is offering his own opinion on the significance of the experiment. I do not agree with him about said significance. I do agree with him about the results of the experiment.
One would hope that you could distinguish between the data and the analysis of the data.
A trained animal can pass the mirror test.
Of course, you are welcome to dispute that the experiment took place as described. In fact, I am having trouble finding a link to it myself.
Again, when I find a primary link to the study, I will post it.
If you would like a point-by-point of the bit from the article:
I have found no evidence that Megan was trained to respond to the ink.
Had the article claimed that passing the mirror test was logically equivalent to being self-aware, this would be a valid criticism. This is not claimed.
The author could use a course in basic logic. A->B does not mean that B->A, and given the nebulous nature of what is being tested for, it’s damn easy to create false positives.
My request for a better experiment still stands, of course.
Except under the system you propose, my “life” would be a life in reproductive prison.
Siege, I nonsexually love you.
You’re right. Instead, pregnant women who wanted abortions sought them out by any means they could, including illegal ones. In addition to the infamous coat-hangar example, I’ve read of women douching with drain cleaner and other substances. A number of women (I don’t know how many and I doubt I could find a cite both sides would consider valid) died from these abortions. Making abortion illegal will not stop abortion. If I thought it would, I might well be in favor of it. Believe it or not, I, too genuinely would like to see a time when no one ever finds herself in a position where she even considers abortion, let alone has one. Unfortunately, I don’t see how such a day can come about.
Back in the Winter of Our Missed Content, when I was still new to this message board, I started a GD thread asking people who believed abortion should be illegal what the penalty for having an abortion should be, and how it should compare to the penalty for rape. That thread was lost when the board went down, and I never did get an answer, although I did get some very interesting responses.
Just as surely as Muad Dib believes that having an abortion is murdering a baby, so I believe that making abortion illegal will cause women who cannot legally have abortions to die. It’s a horrible choice: kill babies or kill women. Two and a half years ago, I was unemployed and suicidal. I did not have the financial or emotional resources to successfully carry a child to term. I barely had the financial and emotional resources to sustain myself, and that was only with the help of a very good therapist and some extremely good friends. A pregnancy would probably have pushed me over the edge into suicide if abortion was not available. I took all appropriate precautions, including not having sex. Unfortunately, last I heard, rapists don’t stop to ask if you’re on birth control. I wasn’t raped and I didn’t get pregnant. Yes, I know. The traditional retort is that most abortions don’t happen as a result of rape, and yes, I am personalizing this. Here’s the thing. If you try to tell me “That’s different” or “But that’s the exception”, in my book you’re no better than Dan Quayle who was ardently pro-life yet, when he was asked what would happen if one of his daughters became pregnant by a rapist, said that he would want her to have the option of having an abortion. That’s all I’m asking for. Not for you to condone abortion as a good or desirable thing, but to have it safe and available when the alternative is carrying a child to term which one is financially, physically, or psychologically incapable of doing so, when abortion is, if not the best or ideal choice, the least bad one of those available.
CJ
One last point before I turn in. The reason I have been so adamantly opposed to me becoming a parent is I suffered from severe, undiagnosed, untreated clinical depression until I was in my late 20’s. One of the primary causes of that depression was the emotional abuse I suffered as a child. I could see the roots of that abuse in the way my grandfather raised my father and I had and have reason to believe the same potential existed in me. I consider it extremely immoral to bring a child into the world when I have reason to believe I’d abuse that child in the same way I was abused. I simply will not do it. Things have changed since then with the help of good treatment for depression and I’m now willing to concede that, with the right husband in the right circumstances, I won’t necessarily repeat the pattern. Still, at the risk of sounding harsh or depressed, I would have severe qualms about bringing a child into the world knowing that I would do as badly by him or her as my parents did by me. I hate typing that; I do love them. I can’t deny the damage done, though.
If I had chosen to have an abortion at any point in my life, I can see how it would look like an act of convenience to someone who doesn’t know my story and who only knows the surface me. I’ve also read comparisons of abortion to child abuse. If abortion were the only way I had to prevent child abuse, then yes, I would do it.
I will also repeat, since some people seem a bit hard-of-seeing here that I have taken all appropriate precautions when I have been sexually active including discussing what happens if I become pregant with the gentleman involved at the time and reaching a consensus. One reason I do that is precisely because nothing is infallible.
CJ
Just to be clear then, you are also opposed to in-vitro fertilization, the pill, IUD’s and vigorous exertion, by the woman, within 48-72 hours after sex? All of these behaviors may knowingly result in a fertizlied egg not becoming a human.
And, the poster I referred to outlined some of your basic assertions. Once again, if your goal is truly noble, that is trying to really convince people of the validity of your viewpoint, you will need to address them.
Honestly, I have given you a lot of leeway since I understand this issue brings out the emotions on both sides, but you will have to address those topics.
There are others who oppose your viewpoint that I think go overboard, but you are advocating more than saving babies. You are advocating the reduction of civil liberties and the inclusion of government in private reproductive rights. You see, when you call for this, it means alot more than just professing a belief, you are forcing others to believe the same thing. You claim you are a libertarian, but that is very hard to believe given the draconic methods you have asserted should be used to advance your personal belief.
Seems to me that seeking out a safe medical procedure to resolve a problem is showing responsibility. Being irresponsible would be living in denial about the problem and making it worse as a result.
Muad’Dib, have you ever taken the Political Compass Test? If you don’t mind my asking, where on the grid did you fall?
You have a right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”. You do not have a right to anything else. It may be harsh but I see no contradiction there.
I am not “anti-choice”, I am anti-abortion. I do not call your side pro-abortion, please show me the same respect.
Again, you are building a strawman and are being silly. Women and men would be no more “subjugated” then they already are for the care of their born children. Do we have concentration camps now that force parents to give the most optimal upbringing for their born children? No.
I am not robbing them of a choice. I am saying that a legitimate choice never existed in the first place. Just as you do not have a legitimate choice to kill someone for looking at you funny, you do not have a choice to kill the unborn. The idea of its existence is a fallacy.
It is as much my buisness and the buisness of society as it would be if you shot a man walking down the street.
It is no more weaselly then laws that permit you to kill another in self-defense.
I have already stated that I support abortion in the case of defects so extreme as to prevent the child from ever gaining consciousness. I such a case it really is nothing more than a clump of tissue.
It is not Life that I really respect, it is self-aware consciousness.
I am not religous and my opinions are based on any religous teachings.
I am, however, conflicted about the case of rape and incest and am not ready to pronounce a decision about such situations. If forced, I would side with letting the child be brought to term because it is an innocent third party that deserves no punishment, especially not death, for the acts of some other evil person. It is one of the hallmarks of Western Civilization that we do not believe that the sins of the father are passed to the children.
The father would be held just as responsible as the mother.
She is not “just a woman”. Stop trying to inject misogyny where there is none.
Those would be tragic and terrible occurrences that should be fought against as much as possible. No different than car related fatalities that are just as tragic and terrible and that we do all we can to prevent, but you don’t see people advocating the outlaw of roads.
As do you I.