I mean, what's so special about viability? none. its just a comfortable line for yourself. this is moral aesthetics.

you could just as easily draw the line at a beating heart, brain waves, self awareness, race, age, whatever.

7/6/2010 12:05:14 PM

And we've reached Godwin by page 3!

7/6/2010 12:13:48 PM

YOU LIKE THAT DON'T YOU

7/6/2010 12:18:37 PM

EPIC Solinari = Stewie EXPOSED!?!?!

7/6/2010 12:20:31 PM

Quote :

"I mean, what's so special about viability? none. its just a comfortable line for yourself."

What's so special about the moment a sperm and egg join together? They have the exact same atomic makeup before they join and the exact same ability to form a human child, it's just a comfortable line for yourself. You could just as well draw the line before they join, before intercourse has occured, or when the parents reach puberty.

To me being a human being with all the protections that come with it is something that comes with the experience of being human. Just being a mass of cells in the correct makeup to be considered human isn't enough for me, this is why I wouldn't consider it murder to pull the plug on a Schiavo-esque vegitable.

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 12:42 PM. Reason : ]

7/6/2010 12:41:46 PM

Quote :

"You could just as well draw the line before they join, before intercourse has occured, or when the parents reach puberty."

Oh, come the fuck on. This is the kind of retarded bullshit that makes me say stuff like:
2. The pro-abortion types are really making complete fools of themselves in this thread (not all, of course, but a significant portion...and I didn't really notice any idiocy from the anti-abortion crowd).

I mean, there might be so anti-abortion stuff that I disagree with in here, but in a quick skim of a big chunk of the thread, I haven't seen anything even remotely this fucking stupid...whereas I've seen several comments that are at least this retarded coming from the pro-abortion side.


Otherwise, I agree that conception is still a somewhat arbitrary place to draw the line. Probably the least arbitrary out of all the easily determined, concrete places to draw a line, but still arbitrary.

I also didn't have a problem with pulling the plug on Terry Schiavo, but those cases are very situationally-dependent.

7/6/2010 12:49:45 PM

Quote :

"I mean, what's so special about viability? none."

at that point it would be possible for the fetus to be separated from the womb and have a good shot at surviving independently of the mother

try to let that sink into your brain; it's not arbitrary, and its only deficiency is the inability to precisely and objectively measure it

7/6/2010 12:50:14 PM

Quote :

"1. eliminate all federal or tax payer funding from abortions or abortion clinics."

What about a professor at public university like NCSU whose health plan covers women's reproductive health? That would mean some tax funds are going in that direction. Should a private university like Duke have that option in the health plans they offer to professors, but not NCSU?

I phrase it in terms of health plan options because that is the way the republican majority Town Council of Apex looks at government funding of abortion when they last voted on the issue. The standard government employee package offered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of NC covers abortion so basically all municpalities had that standard package.

But looking at it on a larger scale, should we say Duke has the option to offer the standard package health care plan to attract the best professors, but NCSU should not?

As for my own stance on the issue, I'm kind of in the keep them safe, rare, and legal camp. I know people disagree on whether or not they should be legal, but I think there is a lot of agreement on the desire that they should be rare. Not many people want lots of abortions for abortion's sake, and I think we should focus on that area of agreement. I support efforts like comprehensive sex education (which thankfully NC took a step towards last year, even though mostly GOP opposition gutted it somewhat), and easier access to contraceptatives, birth control, and the like.

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 12:53 PM. Reason : .]

7/6/2010 12:52:34 PM

Still waiting on a post from theDuke866 that is more substantive than "you guys are tools, but I'm not going to tell you where the line is."

7/6/2010 12:53:38 PM

That's basically his normal response.

7/6/2010 12:54:17 PM

I just dont believe in the government/tax payers paying for it. the individual was responsible and the individual should bare the burden. if John Q public has a moral issue with abortion, he has that right. he has the right to not want his tax dollars funding it.

that is compromise is all about.

I am for sex education and I am all for the tax payers funding comprehensive sex ed.

7/6/2010 1:00:11 PM

they can bare more than that if you know what i'm sayin

i'm just sayin

7/6/2010 1:21:38 PM

Quote :

"t's not arbitrary, and its only deficiency is the inability to precisely and objectively measure it"

It's not arbitrary in and of itself. It's arbitrary to choose that as the metric by which you measure when it's OK to have an aboriton.

...which leads to my next point, which is that it's a terrible place to draw that line.

(and again, for the reasons i mentioned earlier, it's impractical to the point of being utterly absurd to even consider it, even if it was a legitimate excuse for aborting a fetus/baby)

7/6/2010 1:37:47 PM

Some people (and thankfully the Supreme Court) don't equivocate fetus and baby the way that you do. So it's vitally important to delineate where a fetus stops being part of the mother. It's not impractical. We have enormous insight about fetal development down to the week that higher brain functions and sentience arrive.

So man up and tell us when you think a fetus is no longer a part of the mother carrying it. At what point does a fetus gain personhood?

7/6/2010 1:45:45 PM

the fetus is never a part of the mother. it has a completely different bloodtype, dna, sex, everything.

7/6/2010 1:50:57 PM

Quote :

"It's not arbitrary in and of itself. It's arbitrary to choose that as the metric by which you measure when it's OK to have an aboriton."

There are a lot of things in our society that are arbitrary, but we make distinctions because if we didn't we'd have to evaluate every single situation individually and that would take literally forever.

I mean, the legal age is 18. If you photograph a girl in the nude who is 17 years and 364 days old, you're guilty of producing child pornography.

But we all know that there's no difference between a person who is 17 years 364 days old and someone who is 18 years old. It's just an arbitrary age.

Yet we send people to jail for it.

7/6/2010 1:52:35 PM

^^So 9 weeks then? Before that it's cool?

7/6/2010 1:54:34 PM

Quote :

"theDuke866: (unless you're warped like BridgetSPK and think that it's murder of a baby, and that's OK."

I don't think it's warped. We all have our own little places where we draw our lines on this issue. You apparently think taking a life during the first few weeks is cool. That's your line.

I just got tired of drawing my own little arbitrary line and justifying it and shit. Abortion is ending a life. It's not like murder murder, but it is ending a life--killing, I guess. I suspect that anybody who is capable of growing a life in their belly understands this fact.

Sorry I'm not willing to equivocate about life just to make folks more comfortable with my pro-choice stance.

7/6/2010 1:55:20 PM

It's as much a murder of a life as ejaculating is.

7/6/2010 1:57:45 PM

edit: double post

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 1:57 PM. Reason : ]

7/6/2010 1:57:45 PM

Quote :

"I just got tired of drawing my own little arbitrary line and justifying it and shit. Abortion is ending a life. It's not like murder murder, but it is ending a life--killing, I guess. I suspect that anybody who is capable of growing a life in their belly understands this fact. Sorry I'm not willing to equivocate about life just to make folks more comfortable with my pro-choice stance."

THANK YOU

finally some honesty. For the record, this is my exact position as well.

7/6/2010 2:03:33 PM

my position is to hell with the unborn

kill it if you want

the sooner the better, probably

if only for your own health

7/6/2010 2:12:41 PM

I can tolerate innocent civilians being killed during the prosecution of a war to secure our national interests

How could I not tolerate innocent babies being killed in order to serve a mother's interests.

7/6/2010 2:30:31 PM

innocent civilians aren't specifically targeted and killed

7/6/2010 3:13:29 PM

sometimes they are

7/6/2010 3:19:43 PM

Quote :

"innocent babies"

zygote != baby
embryo != baby
non-sentient fetus != baby
day before birth fetus probably == baby.

Question: If an unborn child is diagnosed with Anencephaly and will certainly not survive long after birth if not still-birthed due to inability to regulate its own heartbeat, should the mother be forced to carry the baby to term? If the criteria is "different bloodtype, dna, sex, everything" an Anencephalic baby has all of that. What it doesn't have is most of a brain.

7/6/2010 3:28:34 PM

Quote :

"innocent civilians aren't specifically targeted and killed"

at least not officially

7/6/2010 3:29:12 PM

Quote :

"day before birth fetus probably == baby."

come on man, seriously... probably? really?

This is why BridgetSPK and I are the only ones ITT with any honesty to ourselves.

Quote :

"I just got tired of drawing my own little arbitrary line and justifying it and shit. Abortion is ending a life. It's not like murder murder, but it is ending a life--killing, I guess. I suspect that anybody who is capable of growing a life in their belly understands this fact. Sorry I'm not willing to equivocate about life just to make folks more comfortable with my pro-choice stance."

7/6/2010 3:49:08 PM

Quote :

"It's not like murder murder"

Oh well if it's not murder murder then it's OK. Just murder.

7/6/2010 3:51:30 PM

that's a poor choice of words, and it reminds me of this: http://thehathorlegacy.com/hollywood-thinks-rape-is-okay-as-long-as-its-not-rape-rap/

7/6/2010 3:57:18 PM

Holy shit solinari, you took exception with my word maybe? Did you even read the rest of my post? Should a fetus with Anencephaly be considered a "baby" and therefore protected by law against murder? Is the answer no? Does this answer change the day before it would otherwise be stillborn?

7/6/2010 3:58:31 PM

Quote :

"Oh well if it's not murder murder then it's OK. Just murder."

yea i mean as long as the baby is hot as fuck then its ok

Quote :

"Should a fetus with Anencephaly be considered a "baby" and therefore protected by law against murder? Is the answer no? Does this answer change the day before it would otherwise be stillborn?"

I can't really answer these questions in the way you are asking them, because I support abortion rights. But here's my best try:

Should a fetus with Anencephaly be considered a "baby"
yes

and therefore protected by law against murder?
no

Is the answer no?
yes

Does this answer change the day before it would otherwise be stillborn?
no

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 4:22 PM. Reason : ]

7/6/2010 4:19:36 PM

Quote :

""I just got tired of drawing my own little arbitrary line and justifying it and shit. Abortion is ending a life. It's not like murder murder, but it is ending a life--killing, I guess. I suspect that anybody who is capable of growing a life in their belly understands this fact. Sorry I'm not willing to equivocate about life just to make folks more comfortable with my pro-choice stance.""

agreed. I have zero ethical qualms with abortion. In fact, I haven't much thought about it, but I don't think I'd have ethical qualms with legalizing infant euthanasia if the baby was predicted to have serious medical problems throughout life that weren't detected prior to birth.

7/6/2010 4:27:23 PM

Hahah

are people in here seriously suggesting women should be forced to carry an anencephalic baby to term

seriously

[Edited on July 6, 2010 at 4:31 PM. Reason : EVERY LIFE IS PRECIOUS, EVEN THOSE WITHOUT BRAINS WHO DIE WITHIN DAYS]

7/6/2010 4:30:58 PM

The only person who answered was Solinari, who I had assumed was anti-abortion but just said he was pro-abortion. He confused me.

7/6/2010 4:42:27 PM

philosophical consistency can be confusing to a lot of people when they are first confronted with it.

7/6/2010 5:08:15 PM

Brainwaves, heartbeat, ability to feel pain, fingerprints, ability to taste things, to hear external noises, and even REM eye movements are developed by the time you hit the third trimester (or even into month #5).

at that point if you abort, the biologist and the human in me tells me you're killing a little person. fwiw, i have been a scientist most of my life.

the line is blurry/imperfect - it always is - but has to be drawn.

except for the exceptions, e.g. anencephalic, etc., it should be disallowed past month 6 (or maybe sooner).

that's my take on it.

i don't know how you would "punish" someone who illegally got an abortion past the line, i just think the line should be drawn.

that's just what my conscience tells me..

7/6/2010 5:19:43 PM

Quote :

"Oh, come the fuck on. This is the kind of retarded bullshit blah blah blah whine whine whine"

I skimmed the thread to and I only saw you making faggot non-arguments like these.

Quote :

"Otherwise, I agree that conception is still a somewhat arbitrary place to draw the line."

So it's "retarded bullshit" but you agree with it?

Quote :

"I also didn't have a problem with pulling the plug on Terry Schiavo, but those cases are very situationally-dependent."

Not when you think about it. We judge an individual's "humanity" by it's ability to do things we consider human, like thinking or learning.

7/6/2010 5:57:55 PM

or having heterosexual relationships, or you know, pretty much whatever gives us an excuse to snuff out some people who annoy us

7/6/2010 6:29:55 PM

Quote :

"disco_stu All American 2006 Posts user info edit post Still waiting on a post from theDuke866 that is more substantive than "you guys are tools, but I'm not going to tell you where the line is." 7/6/2010 12:53:38 PM God All American 26365 Posts user info edit post That's basically his normal response."

7/6/2010 6:53:12 PM

pro-abortion. killing off a clump of cells isn't the same as killing a baby, and we already have too many unwanted children in our orphanages and foster care system as it is.

7/7/2010 12:19:41 AM

Quote :

"So it's "retarded bullshit" but you agree with it?"

In fact, I specifically disagreed with it.

Quote :

" killing off a clump of cells isn't the same as killing a baby"

Concur. My issue is with describing it as a clump of cells absurdly late in the game, at which point it's more than that.

That, and I abhor the logic of "I agree that this is the killing of a baby, but we have too many babies relative to our number of suitable parents, so let's just kill off the extras".

Aside from it being ethically repugnant, who the fuck are we to make that determination? I have a good friend who was born to a 14-year old mother, who's father has been in prison his entire life, but who grew up to get a civil engineering degree from NCSU with good grades, worked for a while in a civil engineering job, and is now an F-18 WSO with a TOP SECRET clearance. In fact, he just finished TOPGUN. Tell him that he never had a chance.

7/7/2010 8:18:21 AM

^ he won the lottery of life

7/7/2010 8:25:21 AM

^^ Counterpoint: HITLER

7/7/2010 8:30:58 AM

"ethically repugnant"

"who the fuck are we"

7/7/2010 8:35:25 AM

Hey God since you seem to love strawman and slippery slope arguments, how about we just go ahead and sterilize all poor people? Their kids will never have a chance anyway.

[Edited on July 7, 2010 at 8:36 AM. Reason : AND MIGHT BE THE NEXT HITLER OMG]

7/7/2010 8:35:48 AM

who the fuck am I to say that I shouldn't kill someone that annoys me

I should get off my moralist high horse

7/7/2010 8:36:26 AM

is it killing if i squeeze a pimple

7/7/2010 8:37:11 AM

nah dog

is it killing if i crush a senior citizen?

7/7/2010 8:40:38 AM

before i answer that

have we at least agreed on a definition of "killing"

7/7/2010 8:42:05 AM