I realize this is not properly the proper debate forum but you seem to have brought it up and in my special school if you dismiss a premise as “self-evident” I get to challenge you on that. Risky move on my part as your premise may actually be–in context–entirely, completely self-evident, however, in some cases it might not be and the foundation of your defense may possibly be germane to another related issue, specifically: Who decides that a zygote, two happily newlywed gametes, a potential future human being, is special? On the other hand, if you testily sputter “…if you cannot see the basic assumption…I cannot explain it further,” well, in my special school, that’s not exactly a mortal sin but you would lose a few points and be invited to collect your ribbon for “Debatin’ and Stuff; Fallacious or Abusive.” At the M & L Special School of Liberal Arts, everyone gets a ribbon.
As we are pretty well off track, I pray your indulgence as I recapitulate our conversation. I asked how you came up with your extremely fringe opinion that abortion is murder and that fetuses are children, you replied that it was simply your view. I reminded you that the question was about how you arrived at this conclusion, you replied that there is something that makes human life uniquely valuable and added that you lack sufficient imagination to conceive of existence beginning at any moment other than conception. I asked what this “something” was, instead of answering my question about the “something,” you replied that you held this truth to be self-evident. I, possibly cattily, chided you for your unwillingness to address a pretty basic epistemological inquiry. And then, you began to melt.
I am genuinely curious who, why or what confers specialness. Is it Government? Medicine? Science? Religion? Sophist Moralists? I’m mildly curious about whether humans are “special” generally, or individually. And are humans, as a class, always more special than all or any other classes of life-form? Is a single human more valuable than an entire class of some other life form? Pollinating insects? Pink hearts? Casuist lawyers? Mostly I would like to know if you think a single human is more valuable than another human and who decides this. I’d like to know how you know that humans are special, and how you “know” that zygotes are special and how you “know” that a legal medical procedure is murder. I don’t think I’m too confused about what you feel, I am at odds with how you think.
I have done so on occasion, and they have in every case simply avoided the question. It could be they needed time to think, that’s fine. But then they never told me the result of that thinking.
The impression I get is that even really serious true believers don’t really think of a zygote as of a kind with a born human being. They believe it intellectually, in a formal sense. But it’s not really a felt belief. It doesn’t really motivate their understanding of the world. It is motivated, it is not a motivator.
Well, shit! If this wretched piece of legislative rabies gets tossed out for that and not because of the ultrasound…no, wait, I think I could get over that.
That may happen. Or it may happen that the legislation’s requirements are severable, in which case striking 253.095(2) relating to hospital standards but leaving the ultrasound requirement intact.
Does this strike you as telling? Mandating stricter hospital-level standards could serve a rational purpose (or at least I can see the potential value to the rare case where an abortion procedure encounters complications in which hospital-level care proves significant) , but how are mandatory ultrasounds anything other than a blatant appeal to emotion?
I think the procedure is not in any way meant to bette inform the woman seeking the abortion. The intent of the procedure is to make getting an abortion demeaning so that some women don’t even try.
I also think that Bricker’s politics, for all his pompous talk about the rule of law, are all about preserving white male privledge.
The entirety of our system of laws places a special emphasis on human beings that does not exist in other animal forms. This is not merely a commentary on our current legal system in the United States. “Thou shalt not kill,” the Fifth Commandment of the Decalogue, was understood by the Hebrews to apply to humans; they readily slaughtered animals as sacrifices to the same G-d that gave them this command.
While penalties may exist for the destruction of animals, or for cruelty to animals, they are not nearly as far-reaching or severe as injury applied to human beings. To take one example, compare and contrast Virginia’s § 18.2-144, which provides a misdemeanor penalty for maliciously shooting, stabbing, wounding or otherwise causing bodily injury to a pet, and a lesser felony (Class 5) for the same done to livestock, with § 18.2-51, which criminalizes the same conduct against a human being with a Class 3 felony. (A misdemeanor is punishable by no more than a year in prison and a $2,500 fine; a Class 3 felony by a 20-year sentence and a potential fine of $100,000.)
Pet shelters routinely euthanize animals that fail to be adopted. Homeless humans are not subject to this penalty.
Do I really need to go on? I said the proposition was self-evident because the disparate treatment of humans and all other living creatures is enshrined in virtually all aspects of life. But you insisted on support for the proposition, so at the very least, the above should constitute a prima facie case and shift the burden to you to show that we do NOT consider humans and animals differently.
Ah, this is a slightly different proposition. While the general treatment of humans as special should be beyond cavil, I readily acknowledge that not everyone agrees that an unborn human, a fetus, a zygote, is particularly deserving of special consideration.
And I further readily acknowledge that this proposition resists proof, since it’s one purely of definition.
They appeal to the emotion of the pregnant mother. They may have the effect of making her realize that she’s got a baby in there, instead of the “mass of tissue” term that pro-choice folks are fond of using.
This is a facile comment. It’s true that mandating ultrasounds is not a practice rich with history, but neither is permitting abortion in the first place. If you’re truly happy with applying that standard, let’s do so.
Don’t discount paternalism - ISTM another motive is based on the assumption that the little lady can’t *really *understand the situation and the consequences of her decision, or she wouldn’t be there in the first place. No, she has to be patiently informed of the “fact” that there’s an actual human being in there, one whose rights in all aspects override her own.
Yes, Lamia should stay more grounded and just invoke bemused aliens.
Degrees of permission have varied significantly through human history, but the practice of terminating an unwanted pregnancy (or infanticiding the result) is certainly long and established.
So what’s your question for me – the question that all other pro-lifers avoided?
Is it “Why aren’t you sad that so many fertilized eggs fail to implant and subsequently die?”
In a sense, yes. But the sadness is similar to the sadness I feel at realizing that many people died when Pompeii erupted, that everyone reading my words now will be dead in a hundred years, that over the next year, that roughly 40,000 children age 2-14 will die over the next twelve months in motor vehicle crashes in the United States alone. Those are all human deaths, too – indeed, those all refer to deaths that you also regard as unambiguously human, correct?
So I’m sad, but in a resigned way, because I realize there’s no good way to prevent those deaths.
Or was your question, “Would I prevent those deaths if the technology existed?”
Yes, as a general principle. Obviously the specifics would matter.
Or was it something else, this question that no pro-lifer could ever handle answering? Well, Frylock, you’re in luck. I am ready to answer any other questions you have about my philosophy of pro-life.
Never again will you have to announce that you’ve posed some question to all pro-lifers and they’ve dodged it. Bring on all your questions.
Killing has certainly existed since Cain and Abel[sup]*[/sup], but not all kills are murder.
I realize you might have thought this was a “zing!” moment for you, but it’s too easily deflected. Anyway, it’s obvious yours is not a position you reasoned yourself into (for what it’s worth, I can imagine a pro-life stance that is based on reason), so I’ve no further incentive to seek out reasonable common ground. Your “humans are special” is virtually identical to magellan01’s “heterosexual marriage is special” - a position that does not lend itself to analysis or logical challenge.
Not all kills are murder, true – but are you denying that murder has existed since before recorded history?
How does your comment that not all kills are murder remotely deflect this?
And I disagree – “humans are special” is reflected in nearly every facet of our society. If you’re denying it, it’s you who are crafting the position unassailable by any logic.
But it’s true that I have a position that does not lend itself to analysis or logical challenge: that a fetus should be considered a human for the purposes of applying the general rule that “humans are special.”
Of course, the contrary position is also bereft of logic or analysis. Both positions are merely definitional.