[Kazan]

it's pretty pathetic when the admins start word filtering valid political science terms

[Grug]

I don't think abortion should be taken lightly, but I do believe its up to the mother and / or father to decide what happens.

A fetous is not a human. It's a form of life yes, but until it starts kicking, I don't think its much of an issue.
Plus as pregnancy goes on, its more unlikely the mother would wish to part with it.

But banning abortion completely is plain outright bigotry against non-believers of certain religeons.

[WMCoolmon]

But banning abortion completely is plain outright bigotry against non-believers of certain religeons.

Why?

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Goober5000

I could turn this around and say that all you have to do is show that unborn children are human, thus they deserve not to be aborted. Or I could even say that since there's uncertainly about whether it's a life, we should err on the side of preserving life as a matter of ethics.

But can you -  What defines 'human'; DNA, or life?  The 'preservation of life' is a moot point if you cannot define if life itself exists to be preserved.

Originally posted by WMCoolmon


I'm just tired of this feeling that there are two sides to the debate: There are liberal babykillers, and then there are sexist religious conservatives.

I don't understand that view, particularly 'liberal babykillers'; insofar as I can tell no-one has said abortion is 'a good thing', just that it may be necessary and should be preserved as an option.... it's a characterisation (not one I'm blaming you for, I mean for the general cons arguement) I hate, because it's simply a lie to elicit an emotive choice.  I support the choice, I may or may not support the (a individual) act of abortion depending on the circumstances of it.

I don't see the against arguement as sexist myself, either; I understand the basis of it ("life begins at conception and should be sacred and inviolate" IIRC), I respect the right to hold it, I simply don't think others should be held to it.

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
I read this thread and I see people griping because the US is imposing civil rights 'progress'. What exactly does that mean? It seems to me that it's some arbitrary label, that can apply to complete opposites of the same side. Unless you believe in complete anarchy, more 'rights' aren't necessarily a good thing.

You're confusing 'right' with 'civil right', though. The 'civil' part is a quantifier that prevents anarchy and lawlessness being validated through the issue of individual rights.

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Nor do I see this as being some sort of equal rights progress, because most of the opinion's I've heard have been to grant unequal decision power. (See the last debate on this topic) It's always the mother's right to choose, not the childbearer. As many feminists are always quick to add when someone uses the male pronoun rather than a gender neutral one, that makes a difference. (I'm not exactly a big supporter of affirmative action - better to weed out corruption than to encourage counter-corruption, IMHO).

Abortion by nature is always going to be unequal; it's a medical procedure, and it's one persons life at stake - the mother, not the father (again, there's the issue of when you believe the childs life begins that comes to the fore here).  It's not a gender bias, just sheer medical pragmatism.  

In a sense, granting equality in that decision would actually be achieving the opposite - denying the mother equality as she would be subject to a 3rd party decision, yet one which she could not reciprocate.  For a (loose) example, perhaps then the wife/girlfriend should be given a veto if a man wants to go and have a vasectomy? (this is possibly veering sharply back into the previous topic anyways, so I'll stop that line here)

Originally posted by WMCoolmon

Anyway, so I don't see this as a victory on China's part, or some grand crusade on part of the US's part, just two different ideologies in conflict.

Well, China has a vested interest in abortion anyways (except for HK), but IMO it's very noticeable that reportedly only the Vatican supported the US in this; and would seem to include any of the more religious countries at the pre-conference,

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon


Why?

Denial of free choice irrespective of religion.  Any ban would be based upon a religious belief over the beginning of life (as there is no scientific evidence to support it AFAIK), and thus would impose that belief (or rather, its consequences) upon everyone.

[vyper]

[q] it may be permitted but it isn't held as morally beneficial[/q]

That still falls under the definition of it being "ok".

[Kazan]

to put more fine of a point on one aldo's saying

a "featus" does not becoming an individual (And therefore even able to be CONSIDERED in a court of law) until very late in the third trimester when it becomes able to live outside the mothers body without the aid of modern medical technology

as one british lawmaker put it: "any other opinion is religious"

[Kazan]

Originally posted by Ford Prefect
EDIT: Haha! "Chr!stofascist" is taboo now. Ah well, it was corny anyway.

yes terms that are constructed for accuracy and self-explanatory nature are "corny"

i could switch to the mouthful: "totalitarian theocrats"

[Sapphire]

I find it amusing how primitive bacteria on another planet is considered "life" by science and intelligent people, yet an unborn fetus isn't....

[Ghostavo]

I thought the argument here was being human, not alive...

If the argument was using "life" instead of "human", then everybody would be guilty of mass murder.

As you were...

[aldo_14]

I consider the use of 'christofacist' to come pretty close to meeting Gdwins' Law, in all honesty.  

 It strikes me as deliberately insulting to call your opponents (i.e. those who disagree) facists, and that's not normally a good way to have a proper discussion.  Particularly on a single point of belief; I would imagine it's not all that different to me being called an 'immoral heathen' (which I think someone effectively called europe as a whole in another thread....) for my particular opinions.

[Kazan]

aldo_14 then you don't know what godwin's law means or says

A) there is a validity exemption to godwin's law
B) nazis = fascist but fascists != nazis

basically you're sticking your underinformed foot in your mouth so kindly STFU on stuff that you have no idea what the **** you're talking about

I call them fascists BECAUSE THEY FIT THE DEFINITION OF FASCISTS

//annoyed at aldo's ignorance and the insulting nature of his presumptioous opinion

[aldo_14]

Kazan, my point is that the best points have to be made in the best way, with a tone that encourages due consideration and fair dismissal.  To do so otherwise means that any existing factual basis loses credibility with the posters own tone.

I think you've proven that for me -  Thank you.

[Kazan]

no i've just given you another opportunity to act sanctimonious (Sp?)

christofascism is a (the) proper political science term for the movement, just because you cannot keep "fascists are not nazis, but nazis are fascists" straight in your head isn't my fault.

As for "with a tone that encourage due consideration" - that requires an expectance of the other side to _EVER_ give due consideration which is NEVER going to happen due to their mindset: they don't listen to reason, they listen to no one but their own delusions and manipulations of those delusions

[aldo_14]

I beg to differ with your tone & attitude, but that would be to drag this thread off-topic.  I don't believe acting for a bit of politeness is sanctimonious, but maybe you consider 'STFU' more appropriate for measured conversation?

I will point out that I said 'pretty close to meeting Godwins Law', in that it's a fairly tacit attempt to use the crimes of notorious regimes, associated individuals or ideologies to draw a negative comparison, often in a disproportionate way to the actual single issue.

Of course, you can feel free to carry on ranting if you wish.  Personally, I'd rather dissect the various arguements and counter arguements in a way that doesn't have people replying with caps lock and underscores to denote the spittle on their monitor.

Now, where were we?

Abortion, I think.......

[WeatherOp]

Do you want to know whats funny, is that killing unborn babys are not murder and you can't get a felony having an abortion, but if I go out and open up a grave and steal their clothes I can get put in jail for years.

And off the abortion thing, do you know that you can get a much longer prison sentence for hurting a dog, than the morons who beat their children, who most of the time don't get no jail time at all, DHR just takes away their kids, and 6 months later, they get them back, and it happens all over again. Thats what gets me steamed,

[Sapphire]

Originally posted by WeatherOp
....but if I go out and open up a grave and steal their clothes I can get put in jail for years.

 

And you know this from experience?  

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WeatherOp
Do you want to know whats funny, is that killing unborn babys are not murder and you can't get a felony having an abortion, but if I go out and open up a grave and steal their clothes I can get put in jail for years.

What's your point?  That desecration of graves should be allowed?  Because there's no parallel there atall; the fundamental issue behind abortion is, are foetuses alive in the first place?  Do they exist as a legal, living entity which would be considered as being 'killed', or as a collection of cells?  And if the latter, and you still think abortion should be stopped, then surely cells in a petri dish shouldn't be used for research either? (because, biologically, they are the same thing).

Originally posted by WeatherOp
And off the abortion thing, do you know that you can get a much longer prison sentence for hurting a dog, than the morons who beat their children, who most of the time don't get no jail time at all, DHR just takes away their kids, and 6 months later, they get them back, and it happens all over again. Thats what gets me steamed,

Alright, that's simply Ot anyways.  And I'm not sure it even applies over here.

[WeatherOp]

No I think people who open greaves should be punished, it's that most people care more about a pile of bones than what will be born someday. And that is about what I ment will the other thing, people care more about the Animals, than their Children, and that is basicly what our law says, I pretty sure if you beat your children back a hunded years ago, they might string you up for it, but if you shot someone's dog, you would probley just have to buy the owner a new one, but now it has reversed.

I'm sorry I'm just blowing off some steam.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by WeatherOp
No I think people who open greaves should be punished, it's that most people care more about a pile of bones than what will be born someday. And that is about what I ment will the other thing, people care more about the Animals, than their Children, and that is basicly what our law says, I pretty sure if you beat your children back a hunded years ago, they might string you up for it, but if you shot someone's dog, you would probley just have to buy the owner a new one, but now it has reversed.

I think that isn't true in the slightest.  Firstly, in the former there seems to be some vague characterisation that by supporting abortion - the choice of it, rather - you are somehow advocating killing babies.  That's not true; all I am saying is that this is a medical procedure to remove a foreign object - which is what a child is until it develops into a legally living stage - and that it should be available as a treatment in the appropriate circumstances.

The key issue obviously is whether you consider a foetus to be a child before the scientifically defined point of life.  That's obviously a deeply personal view, and one which I don;t expect or ask you to change any more than I would change my own view.  

What I'm asking is,  really, that people can understand that view can differ (and in many, many different ways, too), it's equally legitimate to do so, and please just let people make that decision for themselves rather than legislate it upon them.

On the subject of child cruelty, I think it'd be very rare you'll find an abused child being returned to the parent doing the abusing; I think possibly what you're thinking is really that it feels like you can't punish some of these people enough.

 I suspect the beating of children may have actually been more common 100 years ago, though - but it would have been accepted as part of 'discipline'.