How about after the fetus develops a brain? At that point, would you agree with Bricker?
It doesn’t if it doesn’t affect you. See example with colors above
I assume nothing. You speed, you can hit someone. No building regulations? Boom, building collapse. Unfair elections? Sudden we have mole people in charge and good luck trying to get permission to build a skyscraper in the kingdom of the moles
On the other hand, abortion? Affects…the mom, the doctor, and nobody else really.
Nobody’s declaring it finished. I simply support abortion, I know people like you will continue to fight against that. But lets take the logical conclusion of both our sides. If you win, fetuses will be declared persons and nobody would be able to have an abortion. If I win, I allow every mother to decide for themselves whether or not their conscience tells them its the right move or not. Some will have abortions, some won’t. No decision at all is reached on personhood and I’m fine with that
I’m fine with that
Because he might beat me up too. On the other hand, the only “victim” in abortion is the fetus and no one else, ever. It is biologically impossible for any one of you pro-lifers to be aborted, so it will never affect you, ever. With pretty much any other law, you can say that it can come back to hurt you personally. You can be assaulted, killed, raped, robbed, exploited, etc. so we have laws to protect people from that. No one that exists as persons now will ever be aborted. So it’ll never affect you
If you want to stop abortions, I suggest the much more effect way of supporting comprehensive liberal sex education, free contraception and condoms for people, and health care for all people. That will get you much more traction than standing in front of a building and screaming at women
- I’m fine with helmet laws and I’m fine without them.
- I have no strong opinion on that. If people want to make that law, great. If not, oh well
You have decided not to pursue the legal avenues that could let to you desired outcome.
I fail to see how that makes me a hypocrite.
Ok. It’s simply to put the ideas into more perspective.
- I’m OK with or without them.
- A 10-minute video? Sure. A 78-hour video? NO.
You keep asumming that the fact that it doesn’t affect another person is relevant. It’s axiomatic to your point.
Your belief (as per the recommendation) should not affect a person’s conscience of not giving a fuck about others.
This will be lthe last time I will counter the line “abortion doesn’t affect anyone but the mum and doc”. The heart of the abortion debate is specifically that, you haven’t found the answer.
OK, we agree to disagree.
Let’s say she won’t.
I would support measures that reduce the number of abortions.
OK. As I hinted above, I was going by my recollection alone, and welcomed specific counter-examples.
Don’t worry about it, just memory issues. I got 'em, too. Course, I earned mine, you’re just getting old.
It’s that or the booze.
There are any number of perfectly good alternatives to booze. For getting old, just one.
What are you saying exactly?
I disagree that’s the heart of the debate. To me, it seems that for pro-life people, the heart of it is not that it didn’t affect anyone, its irrelevant. Abortion should be banned because its wrong. Even if it doesn’t affect anyone, you consider the fetus human enough to have rights and its wrong to kill one.
On the other hand, for pro-choicers like me, I consider the heart of the debate to be whether or not the fetus deserves rights. That’s why many of us are against late term abortions (which are rare and a bit of a scare-tactic though) because at that point, some pro-choicers also believe the fetus deserves rights. If a pro-choicer believes that the fetus is a person deserving of rights, the argument of the mother’s bodily autonomy would be less convincing. And neither would they mind, thinking logically, if the abortion affects no one if they too believed it should have rights
I don’t think either side gives a shit if abortion affects no one or everyone. Its simply that its the easiest counter to the pro-life argument of not letting people follow their conscience. “We haven’t determined yet if the fetus deserves rights or not, so therefore people should be able to follow their conscience, and therefore if you want to force someone else to not have an abortion, my first comeback will be ‘what’s it to you?’”
Who won’t do what?
Do you support those specific measures I mentioned (sex ed., contraception and condoms for people, health care) and, more importantly because those work, do you support them MORE than you support simply banning abortions? To put it another way, if you had to assign importance to any of these 4 methods with the goal of reducing abortions, which one would you support the most and which one the least?
I don’t know if I’m getting this, but here’s what I read:
[ul]
[li]Wisconsin had a program that gave grant money[/li][li]The legislature passed a bill that would have allowed federal funds to be used to fund the grant[/li][li]Walker vetoed that bill[/li][li]United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation won the grant [/li][li]United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation lost the grant because they didn’t have the right tax status[/li][li]United Sportsmen of Wisconsin Foundation’s president hunted bears illegally[/li][/ul]
Therefore, Walker sucks.
Huh?
I see the point, really, what damage could this do to such a sterling reputation?
I suppose it could be argued that the sportsman are unnecessary inserting objects into bears (at least from the bears point of view).
Resurrecting this thread because of a new study:
The findings are essentially this – looking at an ultrasound does not change women’s decision to have an abortion. Women really are capable of making this decision without ‘help’ from the government.
I’ll also bring up that in this post, Bricker says that he would oppose mandatory ultrasound requirements if it could be proved that it had no affect on their decisions to have an abortion.
So, Bricker, do you stand by your statement, and now oppose such requirements?
Also, to Bricker – you were very wrong about me. I didn’t believe that the mandatory ultrasounds would change women’s minds – because I believe women are actually smart and wise enough to think through big decisions like this about their bodies on their own, without ‘help’. I was correct (and you were not). And even though these ultrasound requirements have no affect on actual abortions, I oppose them just as strongly – because no one should be mandated to have medical procedures performed if they and their doctor do not believe it’s necessary. I believe that, honestly, and very, very strongly.
I’m mighty happy to hear this, as, alas, I was afraid that the extra pressure, fear, and emotional stress would have the effect of changing women’s minds, or at least deterring them, in fairly large numbers. I was afraid this evil, manipulative, and invasive approach would actually be effective.
Damn happy to be wrong on this one. (And Walker et al still belong in the pit for having tried this odious assault against human liberty.)
The study says that a small number of women did change their minds:
So there is a tiny difference – maybe not even significant statistically.
What I said at the time was that I expected a significant number…I might have tossed out 25%. If it had been, say, ten percent, I might have made a case that the benefit still outweighed the imposition on liberty.
But this, I concede, was not. I have only read the abstract, so I may reverse my opinion again if the study methodology is flawed in some way, but based on this evidence, I agree: the law is not justified.
Bravo, Bricker. And even if the difference is significant to some statisticians, it doesn’t follow that the mandatory requirements caused it.
Thank you, Bricker, this speaks well of you.
On a more personal note, do you concede that you were wrong about me in particular – do you understand that my opposition to the law really is about the freedom of women to make decisions about their bodies?
Again, subject to future evidence…yes. I should not have suggested otherwise – you’re the one who knows your motives much more than I.
Thank you, Bricker.
In light of all this, do you better understand the motivations of pro-choice folks such as myself? At least part of the pro-life motivation seems pretty easy to understand, to me at least. I understand that many believe that with each abortion, a baby is being killed.
My motivation is this: the right to bodily autonomy, which includes the right to expel anything or anyone from inside your body if you want it out, for any reason and at any time, is the most fundamental right humans have. From this right, in my opinion, comes the right to be free from violence, including sexual violence.
And this right in particular hits a nerve for at least this reason (to me) – men already have this right… pretty much universally and everywhere on earth. Pretty much no government or authority tells men that in any situation they don’t have the right to expel something or someone from inside their body, if they don’t want it there. Only women, in many countries, have this right restricted – they are told “in some circumstances, you are not able to decide what can enter and/or remain inside your body”. And to me, that’s immensely wrong.