# Obama at Notre Dame **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 17, 2009, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773 "2009-05-17T19:20:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Captain\_Carrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@Captain\_Carrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Carrot)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/141 "2009-05-19T03:19:31Z")
> [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > Oh, I think it’s been demonstrated that your views are abhorrent. To your satisfaction. Not necessarily to anyone else’s. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/142 "2009-05-19T10:24:25Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Sure they can. They can also be sentient. A knocked-out patient, that’s what we’re talking about right? They certainly can’t suffer as a result of any physical trauma you could apply, including, let’s say, killing them. > [@](#): > > I don’t get your point with this one. A dead human being is no longer a person. There are people who temporarily flat-line their brain activity. Sometimes it’s an accident, severe hypothermia, that type of thing. Sometimes it’s medically induced for certain operations. In both situations, the person flat-lines, has zero brain activity, and no capacity for any sort of pain. Then they regain their brain functions. Are they “persons” while they flat-line? Can we disregard their well-being because they lack the capacity to suffer? > [@](#): > > 3rd trimester abortions are already illegal, except in extemely extingent circumstances (usually the fetus is already dead), and comprise something like 1/16 of 1% of all abortions. Completely elective abortion of healthy fetuses by healthy women does not occur in the US, so it’s irrelevant to the discussion, but I have said several times in the past on this board that while (I still think the woman has the right to have the fetus removed from her body, I have no objection to removing it intact and alive if possible. If the government wants to induce some kind of live birth and remove the fetus to an incubator or something, and become that fetus’s guardian at taxpayer expense, that’s fine with me. I think it would virtually never happen, though. > > Obviously, it needs to be acknowledged by both sides that a fetus is not exactly the same at every stage of development. An baby is clearly a baby an hour before birth, but clearly is NOT a baby an hour after conception. There is no bright line of development for when it becomes a person, but clearly there is a time when it isn’t and a time when it is (barring religious beliefs which carry no legal weight). 90% of all abortions are performed in the 1st trimester, virtually all the rest in the 2nd. Can a fetus suffer in the 3rd trimester? I don’t know, probably in the very late stages, but they aren’t aborted anyway. I do know that crack babies suffer tremendously after they’re born, and get sent home to hideous households, and I’d just as soon prevent those pregnancies before the end product _can_ suffer. That’s quite a slippery slope, deciding whose lives are worth living. If that suffering is so profound, why not kill them after they’re born? If the parents agreed, would that be OK? > [@](#): > > Do you think that a fertilized egg is exactly the same as a living baby? Because while a claim that a 9 month fetus isn’t a baby is tough to really sell, the claim that a zygote or a week old embryo is a baby is pretty ridiculous too. There has to be a compromise between those two extreme positions. Exactly the same? No. But neither is a toddler exactly the same as as adult. But all of them I would categorize as human beings, deserving of certain rights. The most fundamental right is the right to live (not trying to preach, but you asked what I thought). I don’t require someone to possess the current capacity to think or suffer to consider someone a human being, and I bet most people don’t (at least when considering my examples above). As soon as there is a distinct human being, one with a singular unity of identity, I think you have someone who has a right to live. I just don’t know what compromise can dovetail with that belief. I can’t envision what sort of “meet me half way” scenario would be okay. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/143 "2009-05-19T11:44:28Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > I don’t require someone to possess the current capacity to think or suffer to consider someone a human being, and I bet most people don’t (at least when considering my examples above). As soon as there is a distinct human being, one with a singular unity of identity, I think you have someone who has a right to live. I just don’t know what compromise can dovetail with that belief. I can’t envision what sort of “meet me half way” scenario would be okay. Might I ask why then you differentiate between chickens and people? I mean, genetically speaking a just-fertilised human egg and a just-fertilised chicken egg are considerably different. But in moral terms, what is it about that human egg that means aborting it would be a wrong, but aborting the chicken egg wouldn’t be (or at least, would be to a lesser extent)? Why does that human egg deserve rights which the chicken egg does not? They have a similar capacity to suffer, for one thing. And just as a seperate point; while for me personally the term of importance is “person” and not human being, I do require someone to possess the current capacity to think to consider someone a person. So there are some of us outside that most! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/144 "2009-05-19T12:57:04Z")
What came first - the question or the beg? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/145 "2009-05-19T14:42:21Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > A knocked-out patient, that’s what we’re talking about right? They certainly can’t suffer as a result of any physical trauma you could apply, including, let’s say, killing them. There is still significant brain activity going on, and the fact that the anasthesia has been intentionally administered under contractual and legal conditions obligates the medical personnel to bring them back out of it. This is a case where it doesn’t matter if they can feel physical pain because it was the medical personnel who caused that condition. A dead body can’t suffer physical pain either, but that doesn’t mean you can CAUSE a body to be dead. In the case of a pregnancy, the woman doing the terminating has done nothing to cause the embryo or fetus not to be sentient. > [@](#): > > There are people who temporarily flat-line their brain activity. Sometimes it’s an accident, severe hypothermia, that type of thing. Sometimes it’s medically induced for certain operations. In both situations, the person flat-lines, has zero brain activity, and no capacity for any sort of pain. Then they regain their brain functions. Are they “persons” while they flat-line? I don’t believe you’re right that it’s ever intentionally induced. Do you have a cite for that? Sometimes comas are induced, but that doesn’t flatline brain activity. As for the general question, if there’s no brain activity, it’s not a person. > [@](#): > > Can we disregard their well-being because they lack the capacity to suffer? If their brains are dead, they don’t possess the capacity for 'well-being." They are dead. > [@](#): > > That’s quite a slippery slope, deciding whose lives are worth living. Not at all. If the pregnancy is terminated, there IS no "who."You can’t victimize people who never existed. > [@](#): > > If that suffering is so profound, why not kill them after they’re born? Because that would be murder. Duh. > [@](#): > > Exactly the same? No. But neither is a toddler exactly the same as as adult. But all of them I would categorize as human beings, deserving of certain rights. The most fundamental right is the right to live (not trying to preach, but you asked what I thought). I don’t require someone to possess the current capacity to think or suffer to consider someone a human being, and I bet most people don’t (at least when considering my examples above). As soon as there is a distinct human being, one with a singular unity of identity, I think you have someone who has a right to live. I just don’t know what compromise can dovetail with that belief. I can’t envision what sort of “meet me half way” scenario would be okay. You’re aware that this is all just religious belief, though. There is no actual logical or scientific basis for it. It’s just assertion. Calling a zygote a “distinct human being,” and therefore a “person” is just a tautology, a restatement of the assertion. It’s not a proof or argument. How is it any different from PETA asserting that animals are “persons” deserving of the same legal protection as humans? ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/146 "2009-05-19T20:39:50Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Bottom line: REGARDLESS of the issue (abortion, slavery, death penalty, war, et al), it’s dishonest and just plain SILLY to tell your opponents, **“Abandon your deeply held principles, and pour your energies into supporting some ‘pragmatic’ measures that may or may not advance your cause,”** and pretend that’s some kind of reasonable compromise. That’s not even remotely what President Obama said. In fact, he said _exactly_ the opposite. > [@Barack Obama](#): > > The question, then, is how do we work through these conflicts? Is it possible for us to join hands in common effort? As citizens of a vibrant and varied democracy, how do we engage in vigorous debate? How does each of us **remain firm in our principles** , and fight for what we consider right, without demonizing those with just as strongly held convictions on the other side? > > . . . > > Understand - I do not suggest that the debate surrounding abortion can or should go away. No matter how much we may want to fudge it - indeed, while we know that the views of most Americans on the subject are complex and even contradictory - the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. **Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction**. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature. > > . . . > > In this world of competing claims about what is right and what is true, **have confidence in the values with which you’ve been raised and educated. Be unafraid to speak your mind when those values are at stake. Hold firm to your faith and allow it to guide you on your journey**. Stand as a lighthouse. > > . . . > > [http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hPGFJU\_iN-BLabzIsD4P9Bl3AUAgD9887Q983l](http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hPGFJU_iN-BLabzIsD4P9Bl3AUAgD9887Q983l) ---
**Author:** ![LilShieste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9f8e36/32.png) [@LilShieste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilShieste)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/147 "2009-05-19T21:23:36Z")
> [@CoolHandCox](#): > > The time I have pondered it though, I never took abortion as causing any suffering or anything. I always just thought of it as ending a high chance of birth. What are the odds that a just fertilized egg will come to full term? (not rhetorical, I’m asking). I assume high, but don’t know why I think that. [According to this cite](http://www.bioethics.gov/transcripts/jan03/session1.html), it’s actually _much_ lower than you think: > [@](#): > > **PROF. SANDEL:** Thank you. I have two questions about the rate of natural embryo loss in human beings. The first is what percent of fertilized eggs fail to implant or are otherwise lost? And the second question is is it the case that all of these lost embryos contain genetic defects that would have prevented their normal development and birth? > > \*\*DR. OPITZ:\*\*The answer to your first question is that it is enormous. Estimates range all the way from 60 percent to 80 percent of the very earliest stages, cleavage stages, for example, that are lost. ---
**Author:** ![Carol\_Stream](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c2a13f/32.png) [@Carol\_Stream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carol_Stream)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/148 "2009-05-19T22:21:10Z")
> [@Locrian](#): > > Just a question, Carol. Suppose you were raped and impregnated. Abortion, yes or no?I’m assuming you will raise the baby. Abortion vs. raising the baby are not the only two options. ---
**Author:** ![Locrian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/locrian/32/14146_2.png) [@Locrian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Locrian)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2009, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/149 "2009-05-19T23:19:37Z")
> [@Carol\_Stream](#): > > Abortion vs. raising the baby are not the only two options. So… foster home? Either way, you’re not aborting, you’ve hypothetically been raped, you’re pregnant. Let’s also suppose the rape baby you’re carrying poses a high chance for a miscarriage, more than a few doctors are telling you this, and they’re also saying that this miscarriage may cause you an inability to become pregnant in the future. What then? I’m only posing these ideas to show that abortion is certainly not always evil, as you described earlier. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/150 "2009-05-20T15:46:43Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I’m in favor of abortion whenever and wherever the pregnant woman wants it and/or the treating physician deems it medically necessary, which is exactly the position of all good and decent people. Without exception. I think you’ve probably come to know me and my position on abortion, **BrainGlutton**. Are you saying that I am not a “good and decent person?” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/151 "2009-05-20T15:53:55Z")
I just feel sorry for all the Students at Notre Dame, who had their day marred by a bunch of frothing rageaholic bufoons. ---
**Author:** ![Shayna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shayna/32/17976_2.png) [@Shayna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shayna)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/152 "2009-05-20T16:11:45Z")
> [@Barack Obama](#): > > What bothered the doctor was an entry that my campaign staff had posted on my website - an entry that said I would fight “right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman’s right to choose.” The doctor said that he had assumed I was a reasonable person, but that if I truly believed that every pro-life individual was simply an ideologue who wanted to inflict suffering on women, then I was not very reasonable. He wrote, “I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words.” > > **Fair-minded words.** > > After I read the doctor’s letter, I wrote back to him and thanked him. I didn’t change my position, but I did tell my staff to change the words on my website. And I said a prayer that night that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. Because when we do that - when we open our hearts and our minds to those who may not think like we do or believe what we do - that’s when we discover at least the possibility of common ground. Too bad even those on my side of the political spectrum didn’t read or listen to this speech with the same open mind they expected the opposition to. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/153 "2009-05-20T22:08:30Z")
I didn’t see anyone answer this directly so I wanted to respond here > [@astorian](#): > > Ross Douthat put it well: Barack Obama pretends he wants to rise above the culture wars. In reality, he wants to win them for his side. > > Let’s try a an analoy: SUPPOSE that A die-hard pro-death penalty President appeared before the ACLU and gave a pleasant-sounding speech in which he said, “Nobody likes the death penalty, and we all think it’s regrettable, but it’s always existed in the United States, and it always will. Instead of fighting against the death penalty, can’t we all agree that it would be better if there were fewer capital crimes being committed in the first place? Let us all join together and pledge to hire millions of new cops, to build hundreds of new prisons, and to crack down on petty crimes. If we did that, there’d be far fewer murders, and there’d be fewer executions.” > > Think the ACLU would view that as a compromise? > > Well, that’s precisely the extent to which Barack Obama is making any genuine outreach to anti-abortion forces. He thinks saying, “Give up your opposition to abortion, and let’s all start passing out more condoms and jacking up welfare” amounts to a compromise. > > It’s not. It’s a friendly demand that his enemies roll over and die. I don’t know about the ACLU, but I would accept that speech as a very praise-worthy one that seems to want to compromise, with a caveat: I think you got some of the tone wrong. In Obama’s speech, he did not say “\*\*instead \*\*of fighting against abortion” or infer anything of the sort like you did in your example. He truly compromised; he accepted that some ideas are irreconciliable and that both sides will continue to make its case. His request was that we use words to communicate, not demonize, which is exactly the point missed by some posters when they scoffed that Obama “merely” changed some of the words on his website Does it feel good to be called a extremist ideologue? Of course not, so anyone who mocks a change in his rhetoric implies that they either are an ideologue or want the fighting words to continue. So yes, it is a compromise that Obama made with that doctor who took offense at his website. Like he said in the speech, changing some of the harsher words makes true compromise and understanding a better possibility, and that at least the benefits of such change is that both sides argue in good faith instead of cynicism And that’s what Obama basically said in his speech. It was a magnanimous outreach towards those who usually scream and spit and show idiotic pictures of fetuses. Stop that, your point is getting lost through all that bullshit, Obama’s saying. Until those people accept that pro-choicers like me aren’t the devil’s incarnate, there can be no compromise. And in the meantime, if you’re a pro-lifers, babies are dying. Such strong rhetoric does no good at all. So quit the bullshit guys and start talking like adults With that caveat changed in your example, I would absolutely expect any reasonable person include those at the ACLU to accept such a death penalty compromise. They still be against it, but by arguing in not such an idiotic way, they can bring about real change such as the ones you highlighted: more prisons, more cops, crackdowns on petty crimes. Those type of things do help, and its much better to do that then stand in a picket line to change something that wont be changed Now I will say one thing about your comparison and that is that the death penalty is much much closer to being abolished than abortion. Many states already have it suspended. And there is the fact that there isn’t a big Supreme Court case like Roe vs. Wade mandating its legality. Any laws against abortion will have to be some kind of Constitutional Amendment, or you guys will have to get more justices on the bench. Neither of those things are happening anytime soon. So drop the hate-filled act and do something to prevent unwanted pregnancies and lower the desire for abortions. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2009, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773/154 "2009-05-22T09:57:51Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > There is still significant brain activity going on, and the fact that the anasthesia has been intentionally administered under contractual and legal conditions obligates the medical personnel to bring them back out of it. The question isn’t whether it’s a contractual obligation, Diogenes. Come on. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe you’re right that it’s ever intentionally induced. Do you have a cite for that? Sometimes comas are induced, but that doesn’t flatline brain activity. As for the general question, if there’s no brain activity, it’s not a person. I actually provided [a cite](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=239889&highlight=brain+dead&page=2) for you on this before–note your response (post #55), which refers to a person given a flat EEG. The link I provided there seems lost, but semantic debates aside, you seemed satisfied then that there are patients who have flatlined EEGs who recover brain activity. I can dig up other cites if you need them, I guess. This also occurs accidentally, in severe hypothermia cases, for example. It really does occur. So, while in this condition, without the capacity to suffer, do you dismiss any thoughts of rights for these individuals? > [@](#): > > If their brains are dead, they don’t possess the capacity for 'well-being." They are dead. Not in the instances I’m referring to–they are alive and regain their brain functions. > [@](#): > > Not at all. If the pregnancy is terminated, there IS no "who."You can’t victimize people who never existed. Diogenes, this is no less arbitrary or axiomatic a definition. > [@](#): > > Because that would be murder. Duh. But would it be wrong? > [@](#): > > You’re aware that this is all just religious belief, though. There is no actual logical or scientific basis for it. It’s just assertion. Calling a zygote a “distinct human being,” and therefore a “person” is just a tautology, a restatement of the assertion. It’s not a proof or argument. How is it any different from PETA asserting that animals are “persons” deserving of the same legal protection as humans? I concede at its base it’s an axiomatic belief, as is yours. But it’s not essentially religious. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obama-at-notre-dame/496773.md?page=7)