I already assumed you disagreed there, because otherwise we wouldn’t have had this discussion in the first place. 
So your definition is, I take it, “human life starts at conception; human life = personhood: abortion is murder.” Correct?
Good thing that all of the pro life posters have made appeals to scripture part of their rationale.
Oh wait.
:smack:
Are you posting :smack: because you think that’s what I think? That all pro-life posters appeal to scripture? Because obviously I don’t. But I have come across one. I’ve discussed several different arguments people quote for being pro-life, and one of them was the Bible. I was just coming up with a suggestion on what may have caused JThunder to falsely believe that I place ‘personhood’ at birth.
Or was the :smack: for any of the possible combinations of pro-life / scripture / rationale? Because however false and wrong that implication would be, I could understand that particular mistake also. :wally
Well, yes, although I should qualify my “abortion is murder” statement. Murder is a legal term referring to the unlawful taking of a human life. It’s also used in a more philosophical sense to refer to the morally wrong taking of a human life, and it is in that admittedly more imprecise way that I’m using it.
Perhaps a better summary of my position would be to say that:
[ul]
[li]Conception begins human life, and[/li][li]The deliberate taking of any human life is an act that has a very high burden of necessity to overcome before it’s permissible[/li][/ul]
You have come across one pro life poster who made an appeal to scripture part of their rationale? Are we reading the same thread?
Which pro life poster (not some dude in a bar or on the subway) has made appeal to scripture part of their rationale here?
I asked for a definition of personhood. Your cite offered multiple beliefs, but not a single definition – much less a well-established one that existed prior to Roe v. Wade.
My objection stands.
My apologies. I was confusing you with Der Trihs who spoke about the alleged non-personhood of a one-month fetus.
Why don’t you ask your fellow pro-choicers? They’re the ones who claim that personhood is the relevant defining characteristic. I have made no such claim. Quite the contrary; I was the one who asked them (and you) for a well-established definition of personhood that would justify their claims.
So far, nobody has stepped forward with such a definition. People have asserted that personhood begins at birth, or at other stages of development, but nobody has been able to defend those claims.
Ah, yes. Because the pro-lifers here have been relying heavily on the Bible to support their views. For example, there was… um… errrr…
Dang it. I can’t think of any pro-lifers here who have cited Scripture to defend their beliefs. What’s going on?
Say, can you help me out? Can you tell us where the Bible came into play in the course of this discussion? After all, if you complained about pro-lifers use of the Bible, then surely somebody here must have been guilty of that heinous deed, right? So who was the guilty culprit, and when did he use Scripture to condemn abortion?
So, would you want the constitution to be amended so that wherever it reads person, it should also be taken to refer to any human life? Or would you want ‘the deliberate taking of any human life … etc.’ to be a(n electible) State amendment only. If I understood correctly, then I assume the latter …
The federal constitution should be silent on this issue. Just as murder and robbery are a matter for the plenary police power of the state, so, too, should the regulation of abortion be. There is nothing about abortion that fits into the limited powers enumerated to belong to the federal government.
Nor do I see these issues as matters for state “amendment”. These are simply laws, in the same way that robbery and murder are criminalized, and the practice of chiropractic medicine is legal but subject to state regulation.
First of all, were a Jew to have no other definition of personhood than ‘that which starts once a child has come into this world half-way’, that would still be a definition of personhood. And it would be as valid as your belief that conception creates something that holds such rights that it supercedes a woman’s right to decide what happens with, to, from, and inside her own body.
No problem, I’m not perfect either.
To qualify as a person, something has to be capable of being self-aware. While the process of self-awareness hasn’t been scientifically spelt out, memory, perception and high-level brain functions and activity are clearly prerequisites for the formation of a self. Without a self and self-awareness, someone cannot stand out as an individual within society and cannot be distinguished from an animal. Without perception, someone cannot suffer.
Nobody has been able to defend those claims, or have been able to defend those claims to your satisfaction? Bonny Steinbok or Carl Sagan (cited in that link above) do a pretty decent job, I think. You may feel their statements crumble in the face of your superior arguments, but I certainly don’t.
(this part is also for you, beagledave, since you asked the same question)
If we are talking about this thread (also for you, then I brought it into play here myself. I never said anything else. I gave a list of reasons that I have come across that people used to justify their intent on making abortion illegal and taking away female autonomy over the female anatomy (hah!); and citing religion and/or the Bible was number 3, I think.
Even here that wasn’t necessarily completely irrelevant; **Bricker ** being a fairly devout Roman Catholic, I am not altogether sure that if I were to ask him if his stance on abortion is unrelated to the 19th century Roman Catholic definition of life starting at conception, he would say yes. If I were then to ask him what the Roman Catholics base this on if not the Bible, it would be relevant or at the very least good background material.
To answer your question to the poster and place: it was on another board (GTPlanet.net), dedicated to Cars but also in possession of a lively Opinions section in which some serious discussions take place, among which a 30-something page thread on abortion. The member I had the discussion with goes by the nick of ‘Swift’, and with him I had a scriptural debate on this subject. If there are no people on the SMDB that quote the Bible on this subject, then you won’t hear me complaining.
Is there anything at all you think should be regulated on the federal level? Should slavery have been abolished, for instance, the way it has been now? Or do you think that if, say, the state of New York wants to try it out, that should be fine too?
Arwin: Can you reply to my post #210 and tell me how that is different from Bricker’s position on abortion, and why I am not also a hypocrite?
Try post #216.
Huh? That didn’t address my post. Does my position on work vs theft make me a hypocrite?
No, it wouldn’t. It would be an assertion that personhood begins at birth. That is not the same as a definition. It merely makes an assertion, without explaining what the intrinsic qualities are that confer personhood.
Your approach is similar to those who once asserted that blacks were non-persons. One can utter such claims until the cows come home, but without a definition of personhood, such claims are meaningless. They hold as much water as a sieve does.
Again, you’re making an assertion. Assertions are a dime a dozen. I could just as easily assert that a person is any human being, period.
Moreover, if self-awareness is the necessary criterion, then what about newborn infants? What about the severely retarded? Shall we kill them as well?
You’re confusing “defense” with “assertions.” The article you cited offered multiple viewpoints on when personhood begins, but none of them proceeded from any well-accepted definition of personhood. I can only conclude that their criteria for personhood were selected after the fact, in order to justify a pro-choice position.
Some people are posting here about women forced to carry and give birth to unwanted children. I am curious as to who forced them to get pregnant. People do know that birth control doesn’t always work, they did take the chance knowingly. Also, if its okay to choose to dispose of an unborn child, we really should extend that to the terminally ill, elderly, and other disabled people, its only right.
If you can explain to me why your Theft analogy is different on a metaphorical level from Bricker’s Child Abuse analogy, I will.
So, you’re saying, basically, we shouldn’t have sex more than once or twice in our lifetime, or never if we don’t want any children?
Not only that, we should not give women access to abortions, because, you know, they made the choice upon having sex… :rolleyes:
Umm that would be our point.
No one on the board (even though YOU said “That all pro-life posters appeal to scripture? Because obviously I don’t. But I have come across one.”) relied on scripture to support their pro life position.
I’m a Roman Catholic as well…that doesn’t mean I can’t offer up non-scriptual rationales for my opposition to abortion, the death penalty or the war in Iraq.
You just seemed to be making a straw man argument with the biblical source references.
Is this merely your opinion, or do you have some sort of reference for that assertion?
“Personhood” is quite the slippery concept. It’s a subjective notion heavily rooted in the particular culture of the day. If we were in the mid 19th century, a black American would not qualify as a full “person”.
From here
Also see myths 12,13 and 14 at the same site.
I don’t see how that plays into it, so I’ll pass. But I will point out that the only people agreeing with you on the hypocracy thing is Der Trihs and (maybe) Scott Plaid. Not much of a ringing endorsement, btw…