Well, this is a mental exercise. It’s fun for its own purpose of being a mental exercise, but do you really think that anything you’ve said here is going to matter to me if my birth control fails me?
Be honest with yourself.
Is it going to matter?
Then don’t debate. Or, to be more precise, don’t pretend that the debate hinges on your actions.
Dumb question. We’re not debating the choice that one person makes (whether it’s smoking illegal drugs…looking at legal porn or corporal punishment for children) . We’re debating public policy.
You can take your line of reasoning and apply it to any behavior. Will a “mental exercise” about keeping pedophilia criminalized “matter” to someone who is really into that behavior? Probably not…that doesn’t mean that people can’t discuss it in terms of public policy. (And no, I’m not comparing abortion with pedophilia or illegal drugs etc…I’m responding to your assertion that a debate won’t influence a single personal decision)
Of course the fact that some (or many) people choose to not follow a law (whether it’s illegal drug use, highway speeding, purchasing child porn… whatever) doesn’t necessarily mean that society will choose not to have that law in the first place.
Anyway, do I think that public discussions, political action, lobbying etc can influence legislative action (or court nominees etc…)? Yes.
The most you could achieve with the ‘public policy’ you want is to push abortion underground, make it more dangerous, and cause more women to suffer and risk or lose their lives to get one.
Is that what you really want?
Good lord woman…pick a point to make.
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First you disparage the idea of being “intellectual” about this topic on a message board. (Which is uh…what you’ve been doing as well)
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Then you claim that any discussion is moot because it won’t influence your behavior. I will assume that you use the same logic in ALL SDMB debates about public policy?
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Then you trot out the back alley abortion argument…one that JThunder and others have ripped to shreds…(do a search, he has only addressed that myth about a bazillion times)
This was all in response to even sven’s notion that a embryo decides to take up residency in a uterus.
Of course, Bob hit the nail on the head in terms of “why the hell are you still in this silly little meaningless ‘intellectual’ debate on a message board”?
JThunder hasn’t ripped anything to shreds other than the idea that he’s got any kind of human decency.
I still think that you’re been arguing from a false premise all along, the false premise being that you believe a fetus is a person.
You made the leap of faith from ‘it’s human’ to ‘it’s a person’ with not one shred of evidence in support of your assertations that a fetus is a person with any kind of rights, yet you think I’m the one who is ‘failing’ in this little intellectual exercise?
JThunder and the rest of you haven’t proven a damned thing, haven’t ripped anything to shreds, and are only closer to demonstrating that you’re all suffering from the ostrich phenomena of burying your head in the sand to everything other than what your precious right to life websites spout off as if it were gospel.
Hell, maybe it is gospel, but god doesn’t make laws in this country, so maybe when you get around to providing any evidence at all that a fetus is a person with the rights you ascribe to it we can start talking about public policy. Until then, all you’re doing is mental masturbation and I’m not paying it any more attention than it’s due. Which basically means, hey, this is fun, but it doesn’t matter for naught in real life.
Here we go again.
For the last time, WE are not the ones who are asserting anything about fetal personhood. Rather, it is various pro-choicers here who are making the leap from saying “It’s not yet born” to “It’s not a person.” We have repeatedly asked for evidence, in the form or well-established precedents, that the unborn is NOT considered a person outside of pro-choice claims.
Moreover, if someone is to claim that a living human being CAN be legitimately considered a non-person, then the burden of proof rests on that person’s shoulders. The only situation I’m aware of wherein a class of humans was deemed to be non-persons was with respect to blacks and slavery… and you can surely guess what we think of THAT worldview.
And once more, for the sake of argument, let’s grant that “personhood” is the line that determines what we can and can’t kill. The onus rests on pro-choicers to positively demonstrate that the unborn are definitely NOT persons. After all, it does not good to justify an act of killing by saying, “Oh yeah? Until you people prove that they are indeed persons, I’m going to go ahead and kill these little creatures!”
Actually JThunder, since you’re the one advocating a position different from the prevailing legal opinion of the time, it’s up to you to prove your position adequately to affect a change.
Nobody on the pro-choice side is asking that the current legal definition of a fetus be changed to include personhood, that’s something you’re after, so you have to provide enough proof to warrant that change. So far, you haven’t. You’ve buried your head in the sand and insisted that other people prove things they really don’t need to.
You call it a person with the legal rights people have? Prove it’s so. That’s your assertation. I don’t have to prove the opposite, because I didn’t assert something that is contrary to the law right now. The onus is on you to prove what you assert.
The law does not currently define a fetus as a person. If you wish it to define a fetus as a person, you better get to proving that it is one.
You’ve been declaring since you got to this thread that fetuses are babies, people, and that killing them is murder. You have yet to prove any of that with any kind of credible evidence. The only thing you’ve clung to is your own belief that, regardless of what damage you have to do, you’re going to defend fetuses who you now say are not persons?
I’ve never claimed that a fetus was a person. That premise was put on by someone who wished to argue agaisnt abortion, and for the sake of the debate I argued as if that were the case. It is not, and I have stated many times that I don’t hold that premise to be true. You however have been the one who argued as if it were, without ever proving that it is, and shirked your responsibility to provide credible evidence for your belief that the current law regarding a fetus as not a citizen nor a person should be changed. So, where’s your evidence?
No, it doesn’t. Arguments stand or fall on their own merit, regardless of what the status quo is. Moreover, since we are debating the validity of the status quo, it is circular reasoning to invoke it as some magical authority.
Suppose were were in some country were abortion was illegal (say, the Philippines). Or, suppose that we were to travel back in time to 1971, before Roe v. Wade. According to your statement, the burden of proof would magically shift to the pro-choice side, even if the same exact arguments were being offered.
Alternately, what if were were discussing slavery, in the wake of the Dred Scott decision? The prevailing legal opinion was that blacks were to be treated as mere property. Does this mean that the burden of proof was on the abolitionists to “prove” that blacks were indeed persons, not chattel? Or did the burden of proof still rest on those who insisted on treating blacks as less than human?
I’m not debating the validity of the status quo. I’m stating that your position is invalid until you prove otherwise.
I’m not in the Philippines, nor Ireland, nor is this pre-1971. You wish a change in the status quo, you prove it’s necessary and valid. That burden of proof is not on me.
And absolutely the burden of proof during slavery rested on those abolitionists who wanted legal recognition that blacks were human beings. That’s the way things work JThunder. You want to change the way things are right now? Prove that your opinion is valid and merits a change.
I’ll be waiting.
As others have repeatedly made clear to you, pro-lifers do not care about personhood in the least.
We are not arguing that the current legal definition of a fetus be changed to include personhood.
We are arguing that the whole concept of personhood should be done away with as it is superfluous.
If you disagree with this, please explain how personhood is in any way relevant to pro-life arguments. As I believe JThunder said earlier “personhood is a pro-choice concept designed to make pro-choice arguments run with a minimum of conflation”.
Clear?
Really? We’ve been discussing whether abortion should be kept legal or not. This most certainly IS a discussion about the status quo.
And my position is that the status quo is wrong. In other words, this IS a discussion about the status quo, regardless of what you claim
Yes it is. You said that the unborn is not a person. Prove it. Cite some shred of evidence that “personhood” does not begin until birth.
With all due respect, I think we all know the real reason why you’re avoiding this question.
They have quite clearly demonstrated that they do not care for the lives or health of women.
Then quit using ‘It’s a person and it has rights’ in your ‘Abortion should be illegal.’ argument.
He may have said that, but he has not offered any supporting evidence to prove that personhood is a pro-choice concept. In fact, it’s been the position of the anti-choicers around here that ‘fetuses are people too’.
No. You’ve been discussing how you think abortion should be made illegal. I’ve been telling you that you haven’t managed to prove that claim, and pointing out the holes in your argument, which somehow all begin where you continue to assert things yet not prove a damned one of them.
I don’t have to prove anything, JThunder, I’m not the one asserting things that go against the current law of the land.
I think we’re all well aware you don’t respect me, so drop the guise. You’ve already called me a baby killer, in case you’ve forgotten.
Avoiding? Hardly. I don’t have any obligation to prove anything to you. I’m not the one making wild-assed assumptions that are unsupported by law. You want things to change, you start proving they should. Until then, I will sit here comfortable in the knowledge that you can’t do a damn thing about my right to choose.
did you not read about JThunder’s involvement in womens charitties? And how about all the pro-life women out there? The pro-life movement isn’t some male conspiracy and the sooner you grow up and understand that the better.
I haven’t. I’ve only just joined this debate but I’ve been following it quite closely and as far as I can tell, not only have I not used it but neither has beagledave, JThunder, Joel, Ben Hicks, MtgMan or anyone else.
You will never catch me, nor any other educated pro-lifer saying, “It’s a person and it has rights therefore abortion should be illegal”. We will only argue for the fetus on the grounds that it is a human.
Well, personhood is either a pro-choice concept or a pro-life one, or both. Right?
It certainly isn’t the last two simply because there is no need for the concept in pro-life philosophy. I am of the opinion that the pro-lifers (that’s our term of choice by the way) who argue that the boundaries of personhood should be shifted have simply been duped into thinking its important by the proliferation of the term in both the media and debates such as these.
I reiterate, there is absolutely no need for the concept of personhood in pro-life philosophy so why should we argue for it? The fact that you’ve heard some pro-lifers arguing that the boundaries of personhood should be shifted doesn’t mean this is a position that is integeral to pro-life thought. Heck, I’ve heard pro-choicers arguing that it isn’t infanticide if a mother kills her born children if she decides she can’t be bothered to care for them any more, so long as these born children are not consciously aware.
Anyone who thinks that a woman should be put into a mental institution and drugged against her will so that she can suffer from her illness and deliver an anencephalic stillborn fetus or a baby without eyes has no regard for women. JThunder is one of those people, he has said so himself, and therefore any statement he makes about women’s charities is lip service. If he’s not going to admit that women have the bona fide right to decide how much torment and suffering is acceptable in their lives and how much risk to their health they’re willing to undergo, his claims of compassion are hollow.
So is saying that it’s the murder of an innocent baby different from saying that it’s a person? How so?
When you start respecting my choices, I’ll start respecting what you wish to be called.
Apparently there’s no need for women as anything other than walking incubators either.
And if I were one of them, that’d be valid in this thread. As it is, JThunder has argued for the imprisonment in a mental hospital and forced medication of a woman regardless of what effect it will have on her and the fetus. He has argued that he would force someone to carry to term a fetus without eyes, as was the situation MsRobyn possibly faced due to Depakote.
You ought to read this thread more carefully before you say your side didn’t argue that ‘it’s a person, it has rights too’, because they most certainly have said that. In fact, their entire argument rests on their belief that the fetus is a baby and has all the rights any other baby has.
Are you going to tell me now that when they called it the murder of babies, they weren’t saying babies are people?
That’s a bold faced lie.
I invite you to show me which pro life poster in this thread has started with the position that “fetuses are people too”.
Pro life posters (at least in this thread) have started from the premise that the product of conception is a unique human life. They have argued that the concept of “personhood” is a subjective, often changing philosophical construct used by pro choice folks to justify abortion at timeframe x (where “x” could be viability, brain waves, sentience, exiting the birth canal, severance of the umbilical cord…hell maybe later since several posters have identified language as the key).
Certainly when pro choice folks start from a position of personhood definition (see RTFireflys 12 week definition point, for example) , many pro life folks will probe the basis of that definition and challenge its underpinnings.
Will you provide proof for that claim, will you retract the claim, or will you shift the attention away from your dubious assertions once again?
Upon reflection, I withdraw the “bold faced lie” comment which implies some sort of intent, intent which I don’t have knowledge about.
I also note that Gomez posted essentially the same thing about the “personhood” framework…the joys of cross posting.
So, are you, beagledave going to tell me that when you call it the murder of an innocent baby, you’re also saying a baby is not a person? ‘Baby’ implies ‘person’. If you’re not asserting that it’s a person, quit saying it’s the murder of innocent babies and the ending of innocent human lives. It’s a person or it’s not.
You can’t have it both ways.
Either it’s baby killing, or it’s not. Which are you going to argue?
Wow, you, catsix, and other keep describing pregnancy as an awful experience. You guys seem to have nothing positive to say about it. I think I’ve just gained some insight into your point of view.
Well, having been pregnant twice, you can add my insight into it.
While I enjoyed being pregnant, knowing that I could give birth to abnormal child was a constant source of worry. I had no idea until the 26th week of gestation that Aaron was all right. Blood tests don’t always give a complete picture of fetal development, so it’s entirely possible that I could have been carrying a damaged fetus.
While I respect those people who can parent a disabled child, especially a child with the disabilities I described previously, I know I am not one of them. Having lost a child previously, I was not (and am not) willing to give birth to a child, only to see it suffer and languish. I had to watch my older son essentially wither away until he died in my arms. Am I being selfish to only want healthy children? I think not. I want each of my children, both that one living, and future children, to enjoy life and all of its possibilities. A lifetime of medical intervention, special institutions, therapies, surgeries, and so forth is, to me, not enjoying life.
As I said previously, I don’t see any dignity or nobility in allowing such a damaged child to be born. Likewise, I don’t see those who take such a position as JThunder as allowing women the dignity to make these choices for themselves. It’s not about preventing an act, it’s about the life behind the act. And to me, a life spent suffering is not a life at all. Sorry.
Robin