[Aardwolf]

Hypothetical:
If you had to choose between the life of some stranger's unwanted fetus, or the life of my favorite pet, which would you save?

I would choose my pet. And I don't think anyone here would choose otherwise, if the decision actually came up.

[LordMelvin]

Sorry I'm half a page behind, but I don't have a coherent comment on the abortion thing. (also, for some wierd reason, I just tried to type "abourtion" three times... go figure)

Take the census, for example.  All of the extra man-hours and production costs to make it into this huge questionnaire, asking what the **** you drink with your breakfast, etc??  Honestly, all the necessary questions should fit on one page, maybe make it double sided if that's not enough.

WRONG!

Sorry, but as (among half-a-dozen other jobs I've managed to get my hands on since graduation while I waited for the economy to recover) an on-the-ground employee of the census across the entire 2010 count, you couldn't be more wrong with this unresearched bogus echo-chamber talking point. The census asked a total of perhaps eighteen questions this time around. Of those, the majority (as many as ten or twelve questions, depending on which dialogue tree was followed) boiled down to "Am I at the right address, do you live here, did you live here on the official census date, and if not can I speak to someone who does or did, and what time should I come back to find them home?" The only data collected on the residents was name, age, relation to head-of-household, and self-declared ethnic group.

So take your damned (and I mean that literally - those talking points and the liars who spewed them should be damned to hell for the situations they made some of the charming little-old-ladies I was supervising go through. Would you want an elderly grandmother trying to pick up a little spare money in her free time to get huge dogs sicked on her?) Glenn Beck talking points and shove them someplace very uncomfortable, please. (What, like the back of a Volkswagen?)

[Nuke]

Dunno, I avoided that discussion.

Anyways, 'abortion as we know it'

Which is?  1st, 2nd trimester?

When does the being become sentient?  Based on what evidence of sentience?

How much of a margin of error are you giving this avoidance?

Again, I'm asking for off-the-cuff answers, and off-the cuff reasons.

we have the technology to abort while the future dead baby is still an embryo. first trimester maybe. after that, abort the mother. im all for women having the right to abortion, after all noone wants to grow up a rape baby. but make the decision in a timely manor, it is after all a time critical decision and it should be made quickly. because the longer you wait, the more human it becomes (its an iterative process, not the flip of a switch). after that at least recycle the corpse, maybe as cat food or whatever.

[Mikes]

Dunno, I avoided that discussion.

Anyways, 'abortion as we know it'

Which is?  1st, 2nd trimester?

When does the being become sentient?  Based on what evidence of sentience?

How much of a margin of error are you giving this avoidance?

Again, I'm asking for off-the-cuff answers, and off-the cuff reasons.

we have the technology to abort while the future dead baby is still an embryo. first trimester maybe. after that, abort the mother. im all for women having the right to abortion, after all noone wants to grow up a rape baby. but make the decision in a timely manor, it is after all a time critical decision and it should be made quickly. because the longer you wait, the more human it becomes (its an iterative process, not the flip of a switch). after that at least recycle the corpse, maybe as cat food or whatever.

Which corpse, of the mother? I tried to follow your line of thought throughout the paragraph, but went slightly insane in the process

[Nuke]

any and all corpses generated in the process.

[The E]

Well, that's how most people do it. However, the methods used are not 100% effective, and pregnancy may still happen, despite the decision. Abortion is 100% effective, but it should be used as a last resort, if only because it's a surgery and thus not exactly easy on the would be mother's body. And of course, there are rape victims or just plain ol' drunken/drugged sex, though in the latter case the woman (and the man too) should know better than to get themselves drunk/drugged to such degree. Perhaps taxing abortion for non-medical reasons for women who weren't raped could help preventing it from becoming too widespread.

There you go, imposing your morality through law. What the **** gives you the right to say "abortion is too wide-spread"?

[karajorma]

Just to play devil's advocate in a topic that can't end any way but horribly, isn't there an opportunity to make a "choice" before the pregnancy even happens in the first place?  And no, I don't just mean abstinence.

And guess what. The same people who oppose abortion are generally the strongest advocates against teaching about this "choice"


Stupid isn't it?

[jr2]

I don't like the vibe I'm getting here.  All human life has equal value.  I still don't have a ****ing answer to when you think human life is human enough from your point of view to have value equal to the value of the life that so capriciously created it.  Seriously... is the sole value of a human life the value that you assign to it?  So if you don't care for your kid, just slip them some poison?  I know that's not your opinion on that matter, however, your opinion seems to be absent based on your responses.  All I'm getting is the same static over the mother's rights.  Will you ****ing get the point that Jeffrey Dahmer has rights too, but that his rights cease right at the line where they intersect with yours??  I asked when a human life become that, and what your opinion is concerning what makes it human.   I never once stated my opinion on using the government in the abortion decision, or contraceptives.  That's ok, cause I guess I already told you my opinion based on your responses (no, they don't line up to your arrogant stereotype).  I think I'm done with this discussion, this is why I avoided the other thread,  kthxbai

[karajorma]

All human life has equal value.

The question is at what point a foetus becomes a human though.

[jr2]

****!  Yes, will you answer my question???

[z64555]

****!  Yes, will you answer my question???

I'm under the impression that it doesn't matter what any one of us say where that line lays, but rather what society as a whole believes where it is when it comes to discussing the legality of the whole thing.

[The E]

I don't like the vibe I'm getting here.  All human life has equal value.  I still don't have a ****ing answer to when you think human life is human enough from your point of view to have value equal to the value of the life that so capriciously created it. 

As far as I am concerned, it is only after birth that a human life exists independent of the mother.

So if you don't care for your kid, just slip them some poison?

As implied by the previous statement, that would definitely be murder and as such, punishable in my opinion. It seems that most law codes in the western world agree.

your opinion seems to be absent based on your responses.

My opinion is that, whatever my opinion may be (Incidentally, my opinion is that abortion is completely justified in all cases where the mother is not sure of her ability to ensure that the child grows up in a supportive environment. It is not a decision one should make in the heat of the moment, as it were, but the ability to make the decision is crucial), it is ultimately irrelevant because my opinion is not the one that determines the outcome of any decision for or against an abortion.

All I'm getting is the same static over the mother's rights.

As far as I am concerned, the mother's rights are the only thing that matters in this discussion, as per previous statements.

Will you ****ing get the point that Jeffrey Dahmer has rights too, but that his rights cease right at the line where they intersect with yours??

How does a serial killer and sex offender who was murdered in prison figure into this?

what your opinion is concerning what makes it human.

A large degree of similarity (to the 99.999th percentile) of the dataset gathered by the human genome project would be a good start.

I never once stated my opinion on using the government in the abortion decision, or contraceptives.

Let me quote yourself:

C) Anyways, I think we would all agree that abortion would need to be limited at some point.  Where's that point?  I think it shouldn't be allowed, because I think that all life is created by God.

You were saying?

[jr2]

I didn't say what the some point was... well, logically, since I believe life is life from conception, that's my opinion, however, if you honestly don't believe that, as society doesn't, until such a time as they actually believe that, I wouldn't expect the same opinion from them, and thus the law would be set to wherever they think the line is as far as unborn life being human.  Reading your responses, you seem to think that abortion two weeks before due date is A-ok.

Serial killer???  OK, what was wrong with what he did?  He had the right to have fun be happy do what he wanted yadayada yukyuk right up until his little fun injured / killed someone.  Women have all the rights in the world, but that right does not include terminating another's life, so therefore, you have to determine what constitutes another life.  You continuously say that the mother's rights are paramount, to which I would then respond, if you think that a fully functional human life should be allowed to be terminated for the convenience of of another human life, well then, your opinion should also include the rights of parents to do the same after birth.  Maybe we can have some societal progress here and discover some new rights to do whatever the **** we want.

Part of being human is learning that your rights must not infringe on another's.  And I'm not even starting to touch on responsibility.  You brought a life into the world, you take care of them, or find someone who can.  I can see that opinion is different with others who don't think that a life is really human... ok... I follow your train of thought.  However, I don't follow this "it's all up to the mother, lolz, who the **** cares if an infant is being killed".

RE: your human genome project comment.  You're nuts.    The first time the single cell splits, it has two complete copies of the new human's DNA, that will not change for their life.

Another, sort of separate issue IMESHO is the method of abortion.  You wouldn't used an over-sided over-powered vacuum in a swimming pool to put down your cat through dismemberment.  Neither would you chemically burn it to death.  I assume you wouldn't puncture its cranium and deflate its skull.



Honestly, I wasn't really going to try to argue or debate here, just throw some ideas around, and I got such a knee jerk reaction that I remembered why I try to avoid threads like this.    And here I thought I could have some good old political discussion without getting into anything that controversial.  ahahahaHLP

[karajorma]

You're the one who brought up abortion again!

[Polpolion]

The idea behind abortion is that you're not ending someone's life. A foetus isn't sentient. It's not a person, and it's not a fully functional life. It can't even live outside of its mother short of life support, you can't use that as an argument. Giving it rights like it were a person makes less sense than asking a minor to go buy you booze because "he'll be an adult soon anyway". And before you go bashing HLP consider that you're the one making barely legible posts and repeating the same argument over and over, ignoring the issues we've brought up that put massive holes in that argument. You're not allowed To make multiple posts on a topic only to get up and say "well I never wanted to discuss it anyway, you must have tricked me".

[Nuke]

****!  Yes, will you answer my question???

when it has more neurons than a house cat (a chimp or a dolphin would be better choices but i like kitties they're so cute). when it comes to sentience, its all about neuron count. like how the performance of a cpu is based on transistor count. what you bible thumpers call a soul is really just the way its wired together, like the vhdl code for an fpga. its meat, and subject to decay.

[jr2]

So, Pol would say that abortion is ok up until the point where a pre-term baby can survive on its own without life support. (at this point you would call it a baby)

However, also, according to Pol's logic, anyone who has been in some sort of accident and requires life support ceases to be human, unless the fact that he had been human somehow propagates.  I'm talking in the case where the patient that became victim of said accident can actually recover, setting aside the issue of if they cannot recover.  This appears to be a logical contradiction, care to clarify?

Again, not arguing here, just getting opinions and exploring.

@Nuke: I think your example at least makes sense to me, in its own way.  What is your line of reasoning on that?  House cat has some sort of sentience?

EDIT:

You're the one who brought up abortion again!

Yeah, it was mentioned in the thread I was posting in.  If I plugged for YEC in a thread on Global Warming, would you let that slide?

[Ghostavo]

So, Pol would say that abortion is ok up until the point where a pre-term baby can survive on its own without life support. (at this point you would call it a baby)

However, also, according to Pol's logic, anyone who has been in some sort of accident and requires life support ceases to be human, unless the fact that he had been human somehow propagates.  I'm talking in the case where the patient that became victim of said accident can actually recover, setting aside the issue of if they cannot recover.  This appears to be a logical contradiction, care to clarify?

Again, not arguing here, just getting opinions and exploring.

Any definition of human life is arbitrary. The fact that you can reduce any definition to absurdity just demonstrates that.

[Polpolion]

So, Pol would say that abortion is ok up until the point where a pre-term baby can survive on its own without life support. (at this point you would call it a baby)

However, also, according to Pol's logic, anyone who has been in some sort of accident and requires life support ceases to be human, unless the fact that he had been human somehow propagates.  I'm talking in the case where the patient that became victim of said accident can actually recover, setting aside the issue of if they cannot recover.  This appears to be a logical contradiction, care to clarify?

If this is revenge for me not reading your posts I am sorry, but please, if you are going to write a direct response to my post please actually read what I said.

[Nuke]

@Nuke: I think your example at least makes sense to me, in its own way.  What is your line of reasoning on that?  House cat has some sort of sentience?

as i said in the prins, house cat is probibly a bad choice (though im convinced mine have some master plan in the works). ape/dolphin would be better as there has been some research into the self awareness of those species. mirror reaction tests, ability to follow human instructions, some apes have been able to learn sign language (to be fair all animals communicate, and im not sure what separates animal communication from actual language). i dont have sources, just things ive seen in documentaries on pbs/discovery/whatever, whos titles ive long forgotten. so id say science has a rough estimate of the number of neurons neccisary to count as sentient life (again speculation). it likely has lots to do with emergent complexity, chaos theory, fractals, etc. patterns from chaos, more neurons > more chaos > more patterns >  more sentience.