Saen, I think everyone agrees that symbols are less important that citizens, just as candy bars are less important that citizens. I’d rather all the butterfingers in the world be shoplifted than have one innocent person be killed.
But I don’t believe fetuses are person. And so the comparison of importance is flawed. Symbols are, in my eyes and the eyes of the law, more important than fetuses.
Daniel
I’m glad my mother chose to give me life too, but that doesn’t mean that I have any business criticizing some women for choosing differently. You say that they will possibly live in guilt for choosing to have an abortion? Great. Their mistake. Let them live with it. If they don’t feel guilty, more power to them. I commend them for being a strong-willed person. Some pro-lifers I know could have the common decency, and maturity, for that matter
And yes, again, there was a Constitutional issue in Roe v. Wade. And it was, the “potential” mother’s right to privacy. The 4th amendment may not explicitly say this, but seeing that the Constitution was created as a framework for this country’s Judicial, Legislative, and Executive systems, that can safely be set aside. You build on framework, which is exactly what the court has done. If you want to read that document for exactly what it says, have at it. Go ahead and argue at that brick wall. I prefer to keep up with the times.
You also refered to Slavery. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
The purpose of disposing of Slavery was to set people free, and grant them equal rights. I believe that Roe v. Wade does the same thing for “potential” mothers. It grants them rights. You may be able to say that you’re trying to grant the same rights to the fetus, or the embryo, or the zygote, but seeing that you like to quote the Court so much, don’t forget that they plainly said “potential life”. Which means that it’s not quite there yet.
It is hard for me to answer that. But I do know two things:
I got pregnant for the same reason millions of teenagers do: I thought “it couldn’t happen to me”. Kids are stupid, arrogant, and believe that they are somehow immune to bad consequences. That is a fact that will never change.
If that is your argument for making abortion illegal, it is a weak one. Witness the millions of illegal abortions prior to the legalization. The fact that it was illegal (and still is in many places) didn’t stop women living under those conditions from getting pregnant, or from getting, or trying to get, abortions.
stoid
Those alleged millions are a myth. The U.S. Bureau of Vital Statistics Center for Disease Control says that there were only 24 women who died from illegal abortions in 1972, the year before Roe v Wade legalized abortion in all 50 states. In addition, Dr. Bernard Nathanson, one of the original NARAL founders, himself confessed, “We spoke of 5,000-10,000 deaths a year. . . . I confess that I knew the figures were totally false. . . it was a useful figure, widely accepted, so why go out of our way to correct it with honest statistics?” (Aborting America, New York, Doubleday, 1973).
Also, consider the words of Mary Calderone, the then-medical director of Planned Parenthood. In the July 1960 edition of the American Journal of Public Health, she said,
So while people often hear of millions of deaths due to back alley abortions, the statistics simply don’t support that claim… and Planned Parenthood’s own spokeperson tacitly admitted that, over a decade before Roe v. Wade occured.
…Nor does the post you’re responding to. Stoid mentioned “millions of illegal abortions.” Not “millions of deaths.”
Do you have some proof that the “millions of illegal abortions” are a myth? I read through your cite and couldn’t find anything mentioning the total number of illegal abortions.
You’re not addressing Stoids point precisely or even generally: if I understand Stoid’s point, it was this:
Women’s deaths from abortions don’t enter into it.
Daniel
Thanks, Daniel, saved me the trouble.
Well, doesnt seem week to me. I have searched for the most unbiased statictics I could find. In other words I tried to stay away from strictly pro-choice or pro-life web sites. But had to settle for roevswade.org and the planned parenthood one.
Estimates of the annual number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s range from 200,000 to 1.2 million (Tietze & Henshaw, 1986).
Year Annual Number of Abortions
1973 744,600
1974 898,600
1975 1,034,200
1976 1,179,300
1977 1,316,700
1978 1,409,600
1979 1,497,700
1980 1,553,900
1981 1,577,300
1982 1,573,900
1983 1,575,000
1984 1,577,200
1985 1,588,600
1986 1,574,000
1987 1,559,100
1988 1,590,800
1989 1,566,900
1990 1,608,600
1991 1,556,500
1992 1,528,900
1993 1,500,000 estimated
1994 1,435,000 *
1995 1,210,000 **
1996 1,200,000 estimated
1997 1,200,000 estimated
subtotal 35,056,400
+1,402,256 (4% underreporting)
GRAND TOTAL 36,458,656 abortions, 1973-1997
http://www.roevwade.org/rvw1.html
Now I have to work and if you could find something more unbiased (like government statistics) it would be appreciated.
On several sites I see statements that 1/3 of pregnancies since 1973 were aborted. Again dont have time to back those statements up.
“That makes each of us born after 1973 – Abortion Survivors. However, many babies don’t survive. In fact, since 1973 over 41 million babies have been killed in the womb. This means that 1 in 3 pregnancies end in abortion.”
http://www.abortionaborted.org/generationxdout.htm
Now I also think this number is a bit exagerrated. But If it even comes close it is an eye opener.
Saen, it’s weak because it has nothing to do with what Stoid was saying. That’s not a matter of statistics – it’s a matter of claiming Stoid’s “millions of abortions” is a myth because there haven’t been “millions of deaths from abortion.” When you argue against something that someone didn’t say, it’s not a valid argument.
And I’m an abortion survivor? I’ve also heard that 1 in 3 Americans have suffered parental abuse. But I haven’t – am I an abuse survivor? That’s a REALLY novel use of the word “survivor.”
As I stated before, I often find arguments with prolifers going round in circles. One of the reasons for this is that I often find prolifers redefining words mid-argument, or addressing a point entirely irrelevant to my argument and claiming to have refuted me. I think you’ve done both these things so far.
Daniel
Daniel
DanielWithrow
I agree that deaths from illegal abortions is not an argument to her claim about millions of illegal abortions. But my argument is not weak to her argument, since she braught up the anount of illegal abortions prior to legalization. My comparison of her “millions” before and the millions after is very valid.
As far as poeple redifing in mid sentence is that for pro-lifers there is not just one reason why abortion is wrong. Like squee tried to trap me on that if you approve of abortion for rape victims you have to approve of them for everyone. period. I do not approve of abortion for rape victims and said many people do. I found myself defending them because I made that claim so therfore my reasons of anti-abortion were invalid.
The “irrelevency” of my argument, or your “apples and oranges” rebuttle to me was you doing what you accuse me os. My argument was for potential. You said that the potential for a symbol was more imortant than the potential for life. And you have every right to disagree with me but i WAS adressing your point exactly.
So far my argument has went from the inadiquacies of the supreme court ruling, to eggs and fetuses, to rape and consentual sex. And now abortion statistics. Not one of these reasons make me anti-abortion, but all of them plus more. And the only conclusion that I have come to with my arguments is that those that disagree with me do it on the value of their principles. Not on the validity of the argument.
You state for a fact that a fetus is less imprtant than a candy bar. I disagree 100%, and would like to know where that fact comes from besides the law we are arguing today. Sqweels states that a fetus is as important as a chicken…that is also where i disagree 100% and the only proof you have is again the argument we are discussing. Wich from the beginning is what I was arguing about to begin with.
Actually, I would say that a fetus is as important as the woman who is carrying it regards it to be.
Saen wrote:
And if abortion were outlawed except in cases of rape, and a pregnant woman came into an abortion clinic claiming that she had been raped, how would she prove it?
We can’t ask her to provide proof of a conviction in a rape trial – it takes months or even years for a case to go to trial. By that time the fetus will be in kindergarten. And besides, the rapist might be an anonymous shadowy figure who’s never been apprehended. “Search the police records and see if this woman reported a rape the same day she got pregnant,” you say? Horsefeathers. Many rape victims are too shocked or ashamed to go to the police right away, and some rapes go completely unreported. Are we going to force the raped women who don’t submit a police report to carry their fetuses to term?
Again I do not approve of abortion in cases of rape. but if it ever came to that then that woudl be something that would be decided by the legislature wich should have made these laws to begin with. And if every woman who wanted an abortion cried rape, well there are penalties for filing false police reports and a stiffer penalty for claiming rape for an abortion would not be unimaginable.
Right.
And wrong.
Your first declaration is correct.
Your second declaration does not equal your first declaration and is wrong.
Your first declaration says “A implies B is not equivalent to Not A implies Not B.” This is correct.
Let’s assume A implies B is a true statement. We can logically conclude from this that Not B implies Not A.
The second statement is the contrapositive to our true statement, and is true by definition. (Work it out).
However, we can not logically conclude that either of the following are true: B implies A or Not A implies Not B.
The first of these is the converse, the second is the inverse.
Only in an “if and only if” relationship due the converse and inverse become true if the given statement is true.
Cite, and cite?
See, you missed what I was saying both times.
First, I said that symbol-potential has to be judged on entirely different grounds than personhood-potential. Assuming that eagles aren’t protected because of their intrinsic value (and given Western law, that’s a ridiculously safe assumption), we’re simply looking at keeping up the numbers. I somehow doubt that you oppose abortion because you want to keep up the peoplesupply. If so, we gotta argue this differently. If that’s not your motive for opposing abortion, then you’re comparing it to something completely different.
Second, I consider a fetus to be MUCH, MUCH more important that a candy bar, and I wish you’d pass over some of that crack you’re smoking. What I DID say was that I consider candy bars to be less important than human beings, but that doesn’t mean that I gotta oppose abortion.
Here’s the deal: fetuses, as I see it, like candy bars, have no inherent rights. Their importance resides entirely in how important they are to rights-possessing beings.
Now, I guarandamntee you that your average fetus is more important to your average mom than your average Babe Ruth is to your average Stop-n-Go customer. Therefore, the fetus is more important.
But that importance isn’t inherent.
Do you see?
That does, of course, beg the question of why fetuses have no inherent rights in my views. I’m not even approaching that one until I’m sure you’re with me so far, though: none of this “I have lots of reasons for opposing abortion, so every time I get cornered on the illogic of one reason, I’ll jump over to another reason and defend my jump based on the multifacetedness of my philosophy.” We’ll work through this step by step or not at all.
Daniel
Not so. Your claim is only correct if A and B are mutually exclusive. Let us consider some examples.
Caucasians are human beings. Does this imply that non-Caucasians are not human beings? Obviously not.
Dogs have fur. Does this mean that non-dogs do not have fur? Clearly, that is false.
Human beings breathe. Does this suggest that non-humans do not breathe? Certainly not so.
Hoopy Frood is a computer user. Does this mean that people other than Hoopy Frood are not computers users? Demonstrably false.
And by the same token, “Pro-choicers oppose the killing of adult humans” does not imply that “Pro-lifers do not oppose the killing of adult humans.”
This fallacy is a well-known one, and is discussed in innumerable books on logic. BTW, I erred in describing this as “affirming the consequent.” This fallacy is more accurately known as denying the antecedent, and is discussed quite thoroughly here.
“Non-caucasians are not human beings” is NOT “not B implies not A”. It is, in fact, “not A implies not B”.
“Not B implies not A” would be: “Non-human beings are not caucasians.”
So you’re right. I made a typo in my previous posting, and you were merely replying to my mistyped post. My error.
ONCE AGAIN THOUGH, please note that the core of this argument is whether “Pro-choicers oppose killing adult humans” implies that “Pro-lifers do not oppose killing adult humans.” In other words, does “A -> B” imply “NOT A -> NOT B”? Obviously not… and that’s the point which I meant to argue. An unfortunate typo led me to say “NOT B -> NOT A” instead.
I really didn’t feel like stopping to puzzle out what you guys were arguing, so let’s make this simple:
Your question implied that I may have be less concerned with possible pregnancy because I knew I could abort it. Seeing that this is what you were driving at, I responded that it is a weak argument because millions of women had unwanted pregnancies when abortion was illegal, which means that making it illegal is not going to eliminate abortion, because it’s not going to eliminate unwanted pregnancy.
stoid
Just as a what-the-hell-by-the-way…I feel the opinions of people with penises on the subject of abortion are ultimately completely meaningless. Perhaps not with a particular abortion that a particular woman is having, especially if it is your sperm that brought it on, but in terms of the larger question.
But of course, that is predicated on my belief that the question shouldn’t be open to debate by anyone, really. I have a hard core belief in self-determination…my body cannot be used in any manner I do not wish it to be. So the idea that anyone, male or female, wishes to impose on my absolute right to determine what I will and will not do with my body, is anathema to me.
Just wanted to mention that.
Stoid, surprisingly, I’d disagree with you, sorta.
First, on a practical level, penis-people-'pinions are pretty meaningful. Roe v. Wade was decided, for example, by nine PPPs.
From a philosophical standpoint, though, I still think you’re a little bit wrong.
If a fetus gets the full rights of a human being, then all of us – men and women – have a moral obligation to not let those rights be violated. We gotta decide as a society whether the rights of the fetus outweigh the rights of a pregnant woman.
You seem to hold the rights of the pregnant woman to be inviolable, which is a respectable position. I don’t – I think those rights are really important (everyone’s right to control over their own body is really important) – but I do think that if a person is planning on carrying a fetus to term, she’s morally obligated not to, for example, take thalidomide during her pregnancy.
Society decides what’s acceptable and not acceptable based on ethical principles (at least, that’s what we do ideally). Sometimes society limits freedoms based on ethical principles. We don’t exclude citizens from these debates just because their freedom can’t be theoretically limited in the way we’re debating – in an argument about chemical castration of rapists, for example, we wouldn’t exclude women from the conversation. (Not the best analogy, but it’s late, and it’s the best I can think of. Rapist != pregnant woman, to be clear).
I do think that the inviolable self-determination position is a pretty strong one. But it’s not beyond debate, and it’s certainly not something that only women are allowed to debate.
Incidentally, would you exclude women from the discussion once they’ve passed menopause? Would women who are sterile not be allowed to participate? How would that work?
Daniel