Quote :

" the fetus is a person. and so it shouldn't be murdered. not even in rape. because it's a person. inconvenience, heart ache, life-altering circumstances aren't an excuse to kill someone"

So pro-life conservatives are also against the death penalty and wars. Got it.

11/12/2013 1:17:32 AM

Death penalty? It all goes back to that responsibility I keep talking about. No higher moral ground, no basis in religion for me. Whoever gets judged by their peers to have done a crime heinous enough to warrant death, should have refrained from whatever action put them in that place to begin with.

What conservatives today do you know of that keep harping on war? I think most of them are done with the current ones we're in. Afghanistan....had to do something regarding 9/11. Iraq...bad intel, revenge for daddy, who knows, but we didn't all support it. Shit, I'm all for calling our men and women home and letting the rest of the world deal with their own problems.

But for me, being pro-life and pro-capital punishment doesn't cause internal conflict. One person made a choice, the other one doesn't have a choice.

11/12/2013 7:14:07 AM

Come on guys. No one is going to agree.

11/12/2013 7:34:42 AM

Quote :

" the fetus is a person."

I think it is more like a parasite.

That is until it can survive outside of its host i.e. Viable....

11/12/2013 8:34:19 AM

Quote :

"If it were, I know a lot of people that should be killed. They just make life so unnecessarily hard for others! http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2013/10/21/why-we-should-legalize-murder-for-hire/?comments#comments"

So then just articulate why a husband is a better comparison than say, a duck.

Why is a fetus more like a husband than a duck?

11/12/2013 8:43:55 AM

Smath74 said:

Quote :

"if the medical procedure involved a woman KILLING my offspring, then yes I should 100% have a say in it."

To which I responded:

Quote :

"soyou just give the child to the man and its okay, just remove it from the woman and give it to the man. Since its a child and not a fetus, the man should do just fine taking care of it on his own."

To which rjrumfel replied:

Quote :

"Someone bitched at me a few pages ago for speaking hypotheticals, so don't do it here. We have no idea how a father would do taking care of a child. I would think however that if he were that serious that he would go to such lengths to try to talk the mother out of killing it, then he would be serious about raising it."

(emphasis mine)

Dude we definitely know how well the father would do, the child would die. That's the problem with calling a fetus a child, a child can live independently of the mother but a fetus can not. If you remove the fetus and give it to the father, then the fetus will die.

Smath was saying that he should get a say because its his child, but that ignores that the child is wholly dependent on the mother since its a fetus. To resolve Smath's problem, the solution is to simply give the fetus to him. It was using sarcasm to make a point, not a hypothetical. the point of my response was that you can't ignore that it is a part of the woman's body, and is completely dependent on the woman, until it is developed enough to be viable outside of the womb. Before it reaches the point, it is an issue of a woman having the power to make medical decisions for her own body and has nothing to do with who all provided genetic material to make the fetus.

11/12/2013 9:42:50 AM

Quote :

"the only exception might be when the pregnancy or birth would be clearly life-threatening. If one person has to die, who should you choose? Murder is never ok, but when nature or life presents a situation where one will absolutely not survive, and you have to choose, there are no easy answers. For the other circumstances of abortion, the baby is a human so the answers are much easier, no matter how we want to convolute our morals and vocabulary and desensitize an entire culture to mask the truth. I think it's safe to say, though, that those instances make up less than 0.05% of total abortions in this country, and if all of the other cases were outlawed, that'd be great progress."

ah, so murder IS ok whenever you arbitrarily decide it is? haha got it.

11/12/2013 10:38:56 AM

Please, please, "pro-lifers" define "person" for me.

If I chop of your head and keep it alive is your detached body a person or your detached head?

The point of this is that personhood requires a mind, not human looking limbs and non-brain organs. Being alive and having human DNA does not a person make.

11/12/2013 11:07:30 AM

^^is killing an armed thug who is about to murder my wife and kids indefensible? OF COURSE IT'S NOT ARBITRARY! there's a lot of reasoning that goes into determining when it is ok to take a life, like say...i dono...maybe when THAT LIFE IS ABOUT TO TAKE OTHERS!

^conception. it's the beginning of a human, which will mature into a full human, if not actively interfered with by outside forces (or crap goes wrong).

Really? How can you keep a head alive detached from a person? Weird science you guys subscribe to. No wonder all the confusion.

And if personhood requires a mind, the brain begins developing as early as week 3. So, again, even if this country took your definition of when personhood begins and made all the other abortions after week 3 illegal, I'd consider it progress.

If the brain isn't developed enough by week 3 for your standard of personhood, then why stop at birth? Or even at childhood? Brains continue to develop well into our 20s. Hmmm...this hit man for hire stuff is actually starting to make a lot more sense now!

11/12/2013 12:08:21 PM

Quote :

"^^is killing an armed thug who is about to murder my wife and kids indefensible? OF COURSE IT'S NOT ARBITRARY! there's a lot of reasoning that goes into determining when it is ok to take a life, like say...i dono...maybe when THAT LIFE IS ABOUT TO TAKE OTHERS!"

so abortion is okay in cases of self-defense?

based on that, abortion is not okay in cases of rape

Quote :

"^conception. it's the beginning of a human, which will mature into a full human, if not actively interfered with by outside forces (or crap goes wrong). "

but if not actively interfered with by outside forces, every human would die. a mother is actively supporting the fetus, its an outside force.

[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 12:12 PM. Reason : .]

11/12/2013 12:10:26 PM

^you're right. I'm one of the consistent pro-lifers that says abortion shouldn't even be legal in cases of rape.

And the mother is naturally supporting the fetus. There's a difference.

11/12/2013 12:27:40 PM

so no abortion unless its threatening the life of the mother?

at least that is a consistent position. its not a good position, on account of ignoring the rights of the mother over her own body, but its consistent.

11/12/2013 12:29:20 PM

^^no offense, but i find it pretty disgusting that you think a woman should have to carry a baby that was unwillingly (and violently) put in her by a rapist, for 9 months, and then raise it if she didn't want to.

(and yes, i know you find abortion disgusting)

11/12/2013 12:31:08 PM

Quote :

"conception. it's the beginning of a human, which will mature into a full human, if not actively interfered with by outside forces (or crap goes wrong)"

if two fertile humans have sex, it's the beginning of a human. doesn't matter if the sperm and egg haven't joined yet

a condom is an outside force. birth control pills are an outside force. your personal definition is arbitrary.

the zygote doesn't implant until 6-12 days after conception. is Plan B acceptable?

[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 12:40 PM. Reason : .]

11/12/2013 12:39:10 PM

i think it's terrible that ohmy would force a rape victim to carry a baby to full term, yet also would have the nerve to abort a baby that threatened the mother's life. why not let God decide who gets to live in that case??

[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 1:08 PM. Reason : .]

11/12/2013 12:56:17 PM

the self-defense falls apart, but i was ignoring that for the time being. the problem with the self-defense argument, is why do you chose the mother to defend versus the baby? In some cases its going to be clear, but there are plenty of instances of high risk that are not definite.

If there is a chance that the mother can give birth, but will most likely die during the process, why is anyone allowed to chose the mother over the baby or chose the baby over the mother? If both are full humans with full rights, why should you ever get to decide to save one at the expense of the other?

In other instances of self-defense there is a victim and an attacker. One party has ignored our agreed-upon rules and is threatening another person, only one person is innocent. In the case of mother and child, both parties are innocent. So if the fetus has full human rights, how can you decide to abort it to save the mother?

11/12/2013 1:09:02 PM

^^i know you're being facetious, but that's not a bad point. y'all are right the self-defense argument isn't a good parallel. i never meant it to be one. i only brought it up to mention that it's similar only in that someone is going to die, and your action or lack of action determines who. failing to act is just as participatory as acting. so there's no real argument for "oh just let God decide."

^^^A sperm is not a whole living member of the species homo sapiens. Nor is an egg. My definition isn't arbitrary. zygote is the beginning. Plan B is not acceptable either. However, every pro-choicer's argument I've seen for personhood is completely arbitrary.

But what I'm seeing here is that there's no solid, irrefutable proof for when personhood begins from either side. Only evidence that suggests. And evidence that we interpret to fit our own preconceived world views. If you don't believe humans are inherently different from animals then you are right to advocate for abortion (and even for genocide I would think). If you believe that humans are inherently different from animals, that personhood is a real thing, then we rightfully proceed to argue over when that personhood begins. and that's the big argument here it seems. And it also seems there's no irrefutable proof either way.

So if you're not sure that something is a person, why be so adamant about killing it? Maybe you personally think you're sure, but it's clear that the medical/scientific community and the culture at large is not sure, so why pass laws that legalize what might be murder? 55 million of these-things-we're-not-quite-sure-are-humans-or-not have been wiped out.

ps I don't mean to imply that because we haven't arrived at irrefutable proof, we just stop discovering, interpreting, and debating. i think these are certainly all worthwhile pursuits, as we hope to get closer to the truth.

[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 1:21 PM. Reason : ]

11/12/2013 1:16:33 PM

Quote :

"but it's similar that someone is going to die, and your action or lack of action determines who. failing to act is just as participatory as acting. so there's no real argument for "oh just let God decide." "

how is that not true about any instance of self-defense?

Quote :

"A sperm is not a whole living member of the species homo sapiens. Nor is an egg. My definition isn't arbitrary. zygote is the beginning. Plan B is not acceptable either. However, every pro-choicer's argument I've seen for personhood is completely arbitrary. "

it is in the sense that the act of conception (intercourse) is not when the zygote is formed, which is what he posted

but regardless, here is the problem with the rest of your post: most pro-choice people are not basing their argument on personhood. most pro-choice arguments are about the rights of the mother over her own body.

[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 1:22 PM. Reason : .]

11/12/2013 1:20:58 PM

Quote :

" failing to act is just as participatory as acting. so there's no real argument for "oh just let God decide." "

nope, you're wrong. CHOOSING not to act and letting God almighty to decide which 'person' gets to die is what God would want, and the very definition of action. Total submission to his will and all that good stuff. right? RIGHT?? Don't believe me? Just ask Christian Scientists who don't believe in modern medicine/vaccines.





[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 1:24 PM. Reason : .]

11/12/2013 1:21:23 PM

(^FYI Christian Scientists =/= Christians)

11/12/2013 1:27:42 PM

Quote :

"how is that not true about any instance of self-defense?"

what? I'm saying that IS the similarity. some sort of miscommunication here i think.

Quote :

"but regardless, here is the problem with the rest of your post: most pro-choice people are not basing their argument on personhood. most pro-choice arguments are about the rights of the mother over her own body."

Some don't address personhood because it makes it easier to talk about personal liberty and frame it as a matter of choice (and bigoted conservatives who want to restrict women's choices). But we all agree that you're free to exercise your personal liberties so long as they don't interfere with other people's, especially in the case of the human right to life. I am free to exercise my personal liberties, so long as I'm not murdering my neighbors or parents or kids. so of course if one thinks it is a real human life the woman is taking when she is exercising her personal liberty, we have a problem.

And EightyFour's just getting ignored for all of his strawmen attempts.

11/12/2013 1:27:51 PM

^^depends on who you ask, but that's not really the point



[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 1:30 PM. Reason : .]

11/12/2013 1:29:56 PM

Quote :

"Some don't address personhood because it makes it easier to talk about personal liberty and frame it as a matter of choice (and bigoted conservatives who want to restrict women's choices). But we all agree that you're free to exercise your personal liberties so long as they don't interfere with other people's, especially in the case of the human right to life. I am free to exercise my personal liberties, so long as I'm not murdering my neighbors or parents or kids. so of course if one thinks it is a real human life the woman is taking when she is exercising her personal liberty, we have a problem."

go back to the famous pianist metaphor

most pro-choice supporters agree that it would be a great service for someone to allow a famous pianist to remain sewn to their back, but that it is their choice if they want to remove the pianist even if it means he will die; i.e. it is a nice thing to do but there is no obligation. This is the position irrespective of if we are talking about a clump of cells, or a human. Its consistent. Even if you believe that the fetus is a human being, it's still the mother's decision because its her body.

11/12/2013 1:43:35 PM

This thread needs to be aborted; is it too far along to do so?

For the pro-abortion types, how late is too late to scrape one of these non-humans?

11/12/2013 1:44:21 PM

Quote :

"If you believe that humans are inherently different from animals, that personhood is a real thing, then we rightfully proceed to argue over when that personhood begins. and that's the big argument here it seems. And it also seems there's no irrefutable proof either way. "

The idea of a person is at least somewhat definitional. We refer to people as persons because our society began only after the most similar competing hominids were wiped out. This is why we have "cousin" species, but not so much "sibling" species, as Neanderthals would be more accurately described. We had no need to refer to any extremely closely related species. Depending on the time in history, we have included or excluded other (more distant) animals from our definition of person, although this is, in no way, infinitely defensible.

Quote :

"If you don't believe humans are inherently different from animals then you are right to advocate for abortion (and even for genocide I would think)."

The modern moral framework exists, rather you want to ignore it or not. This framework is reflected in Roe vs. Wade, although that decision still leaves some argumentative room.

The framework is that you can't kill an individual that has agency. If someone doesn't presently have agency but will develop it, then you don't have an obligation to keep it alive, but you have no right to kill it if there's another party willing to assume care.

In Roe vs. Wade, it was assessed that a fetus older than a certain age (20 weeks-ish) is viable outside the womb. The state will thus assume care of this fetus if the mother abandons it. However, there's a complicated twist. If the woman aborts it of her free will and the state assumes care, then a prematurely induced birth will have lifetime negative consequences on this baby, which will be a ward of the state. Because of that, it was thought that a state can force a woman to continue carrying a fetus within a limited set of circumstances. We all agree it would be kind of ridiculous to elect to give premature birth at 25 weeks and leave the thing for the hospital to try to save, and the state to find adoptive parents for. This complication is due to the fact that sometimes we start walking a weird line between an abortion and a premature induced birth.

That grey area, however, is much much smaller than the completely insane "pro-life" position that people ITT apparently admit to holding.

11/12/2013 1:47:39 PM

Quote :

"For the pro-abortion types, how late is too late to scrape one of these non-humans?"

if it were up to me, it would be after the first couple months (unless it was discovered later that the mother was in danger)

11/12/2013 1:49:22 PM

8 months and 29 days

11/12/2013 1:58:45 PM

Quote :

"if it were up to me, it would be after the first couple months"

why then? just curious

11/12/2013 1:58:58 PM

No specific reason. After that they get bigger, better defined, they get more "baby-like". I'm just not comfortable with late-term abortions, especially after the point in which they could be removed and survive. A decision should be able to have been made within the first few months.

11/12/2013 2:07:23 PM

So can we all agree first trimester? Or should it be two?

11/12/2013 2:14:01 PM

In all seriousness, I'd say around the 4th month since there's no real chance the fetus will survive, and four months is quite a bit of time to decide. I have no idea what it's like to be pregnant and that might seem pretty late to some women though

11/12/2013 2:19:53 PM

I really know nothing about babies.

Can a 6 month old be viable? If that would be very unlikely then it seems that would also be late enough to please most pro-choice folks?

To hell with those on either extreme. Every sperm is not sacred, and 9mo olds shouldnt be decapitated (etc).

Lets make the official Wolf Web abortion policy 6mos then, thanks.

11/12/2013 2:24:51 PM

6 months is viable, but risky health-wise

but what does it matter if it's viable? should the woman be forced to carry it to term?

or who will care for it if she births it early?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterm_birth#Classification

[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 2:28 PM. Reason : .]

11/12/2013 2:27:49 PM

Well if its viable I would say that makes the pro-lifers argument stronger.

You wont have the disco_stus arguing anymore that its a non-human clump of cells.

11/12/2013 2:32:44 PM

Quote :

"but what does it matter if it's viable? should the woman be forced to carry it to term?"

And seriously, what if someone insists that they will pay for the incubators and whatnot to nurse a 6 month fetus until it can go home with a family?

That is an extremely uncomfortable scenario, and it is the only valid abortion debate. There should be no debate for fetuses before any possibility of viability, and there never has been any debate for infants (which are obviously viable).

To the extent that you have a life form that someone wants to protect, how can you possibly allow someone else to terminate it?

[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 2:53 PM. Reason : ]

11/12/2013 2:52:55 PM

Quote :

"To the extent that you have a life form that someone wants to protect, how can you possibly allow someone else to terminate it?"

but...is it responsible to birth a child that has a high risk of health issues and no parents?

11/12/2013 3:06:41 PM

Who cares if it's responsible or not. Life is a precious gift!

11/12/2013 3:09:24 PM

^^ well that's the problem with going 100% into the bodily autonomy argument. The argument says that the woman should have full freedom to get the child out of her, but doesn't necessarily endorse killing the child in the process.

Of course, it's not a simple matter of euthanizing a moving fetus after being removed. My understanding is that late-term abortions often involve euthanizing the fetus in the womb and then removing its body parts piece by piece. It is not a pleasant process. The other alternative is inducing labor prematurely, and I don't know the borderlines between when each procedure can be done. So it might not be possible to remove the fetus in tact, but it might be. It's not obvious, and it's a question for the doctors.

That doesn't change the fact that there are some abortions where the fetus could be nursed to health (with some non-zero chance at life). The bodily autonomy argument is difficult for those cases. It leads to a conclusion that I think a lot of pro-choice people don't agree with.

11/12/2013 3:22:45 PM

the clear solution would be government abortion panels

11/12/2013 3:30:46 PM

that sounds fascist. i like 'abortion elections' better

11/12/2013 3:32:58 PM

I'd like to change my statement from "If it was up to me" to "I'd prefer..."

11/12/2013 3:33:43 PM

Ok so lets have some sort of "aborted fetus gymnastics" where the 6mo old is subjected to a series of tests.

If it fails you're all good; you had a successful abortion.

If it passes we need to decide if the parents get charged with attempted murder or does it simply go up for adoption?

Or does the father finally get a say in what happens to it?

11/12/2013 4:10:54 PM

you're being kinda ridiculous. bad mood?

11/12/2013 4:18:35 PM

I don't think I want my tax dollars going to subsidize these 'abortion gymnastics'

11/12/2013 4:19:48 PM

Quote :

"^^ well that's the problem with going 100% into the bodily autonomy argument. The argument says that the woman should have full freedom to get the child out of her, but doesn't necessarily endorse killing the child in the process."

no, the argument is that since it is still a part of her body, she gets to decide what to do with it. Its not only saying that she should have the freedom to "get the child out of her", its saying that she has the freedom to make decisions for parts of her body.

11/12/2013 4:21:22 PM

^ Then you're on your own. I don't think there would be any popular support for that kind of thinking. You don't get to kill something just because it came out of your body, just like you don't get to kill your own infant. This is why almost no one supports partial-birth abortions.

If the conditions are met:
- the fetus is viable
- someone is volunteering to care for it

Then there's no good argument against allowing someone to save its life. You've never had the right to throw a newborn in the trash for this reason.

The bodily autonomy argument would at best argue for allowing decision making irrelevant of the welfare of the fetus. So if there's a destructive method and an non-destructive method of aborting, she should have full liberty to choose the destructive method. But if the method isn't going to be destructive anyway, and the family doesn't want it, then it should be up to society what to do with it.

11/12/2013 4:40:21 PM

Quote :

"f it were up to me, it would be after the first couple months (unless it was discovered later that the mother was in danger) "

yeah, that's pretty much my take.

11/12/2013 5:52:46 PM

Quote :

"What conservatives today do you know of that keep harping on war? I think most of them are done with the current ones we're in. Afghanistan....had to do something regarding 9/11. Iraq...bad intel, revenge for daddy, who knows, but we didn't all support it. Shit, I'm all for calling our men and women home and letting the rest of the world deal with their own problems. But for me, being pro-life and pro-capital punishment doesn't cause internal conflict. One person made a choice, the other one doesn't have a choice."

Almost no one is really pining for a war, but when you consider how many innocent children (and adults) our guns and bombs slaughter, you don't see conservatives rallying against wars anywhere nearly as strongly as they rally against abortion. And these deaths clearly have a more negative effect on the world than deaths from abortions.

And if you support the death penalty, which has definitely murdered and continues to murder innocent people, then the statement that murdering a human life is always wrong was a lie.

11/12/2013 6:12:00 PM

I'm for abortion, but much more limited than it is now. I'm for the death penalty, but more limited than it is now (in most ways, from a broad policy perspective. in a few cases, it's a little more "prick that motherfucker in the arm and be done with it, but it's tough to legislate that without having something dangerous on your hands). I'm obviously no peacenik, but I think that we should scale back a few capabilities and some of our involvement/employments overseas.

So...I guess that makes me pro-death, but in a measured, moderate, restrained way.

[Edited on November 12, 2013 at 6:27 PM. Reason : ]

11/12/2013 6:26:56 PM

Quote :

"So...I guess that makes me pro-death, but in a measured, moderate, restrained way."

I'd argue the vast majority of Americans are pro-death, it's just not convenient to phrase things this way.

I've been saying for a while on here that abortion IS murder, but so what? We (as a society) support murder all the time.

11/12/2013 6:28:55 PM