Author Topic: Roe might be in woe  (Read 45001 times)

DJQuag

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Roe might be in woe
« on: March 10, 2021, 02:04:25 PM »
Looks like Arkansas has won the right to be the test for whether our new Supreme Court will rule on whether women should be forced to incubate a dangerous parasitical human for nine months before expelling them in a manner that is dangerous to the both of them. Well done on winning *that* particularly disgusting point of American history!

Bonus points for adding in that rape and incest don't amount to sh*t, people are trying to play it off as "It's just to put it to the courts," but yeah buddy if they're confident and looking just to overturn precedent it's either they thought it wouldn't work or they thought that sh*t would go through. Either way if you win that law is law and then what're you gonna do? *Defend* it?


Me? I think Barrett is the lynchpin. Call me whatever names but somehow I am not seeing a lifelong Catholic with her amount of kids, her connections, and her jurisdicial writings and history coming along and turning heel on the antichoice crowd. Roe and Casey are done, at least until some more Conservative members of the court stroke out.

https://apnews.com/article/us-news-arkansas-legislation-courts-asa-hutchinson-24ca79cb9b416f81d9152f54881c7a74


JoshuaD

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2021, 02:53:08 PM »
I'm not as hopeful as you, but I would be overjoyed if Roe and Casey were overturned.  They are both horrible rulings contrary to reason, contrary to the natural law, and without any basis in the Constitution. The child is a child. We cannot kill children because we find them inconvenient or a burden.  Abortion is the modern political equivalent to slavery: somehow there are two sides and somehow both sides have influence over people's minds, when the "pro-choice" side (much like the pro-slavery side) is completely wrong and abhorrent in their beliefs. History will eventually (and rightly) look back at our age and say "how were they so barbaric". You are on the wrong side of this issue, and it stains your hands with blood.

NobleHunter

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2021, 03:05:35 PM »
If a child is a child, then what are miscarriages?

Lloyd Perna

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2021, 03:32:41 PM »
If a child is a child, then what are miscarriages?

A tragedy.

TheDrake

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2021, 04:43:08 PM »
Fetus:Child as Batter:Cake

Batter is not a cake, and a fetus is not a child. Particularly before there is any brain, which defines a human. Unless you subscribe to the whole "soul" thing, in which case I'm waiting for any evidence.

TheDrake

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2021, 04:50:20 PM »
If you truly want to recognize an amorphous blob of human cells as a person, you're going to have to change a lot more than abortion. Like claiming them as a dependent on taxes, and allowing people to buy life insurance, punishing pregnant women who take drugs for child abuse, on and on.

Even the Arkansas bill doesn't agree with your "child is a child" argument, otherwise it would be calling abortion pre-meditated murder and the mothers would be charged with conspiracy. So don't pump yourself up as the morally superior arbiter with your flawed logic.

Fenring

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2021, 06:18:52 PM »
TheDrake, in fairness your disputation points just now seem to be at best tangential and not directly related to what JoshuaD mentioned. Mentioning difficulties in administration and jurisprudence in response to a blanket statement that murder is going on seems to me sort of beside the point. If we grant his point that fetuses are people then how that sorts out in everyday life is something to explore, not a speed bump that suddenly derails any pro-life argument. You might as well have argued (using the analogy already given in this thread) that since the Southern economy and legal system was entwined with slavery, then what would become of those if slavery was deemed inhuman and banned? Well the answer to that would have been...it doesn't matter, just figure it out. Interestingly in that case figuring it out isn't precisely what happened since a civil war laid the previous system to waste. But enormous resistance, plus the lifestyle of many people being ties to the current state of law, does not materially answer the charge that an inhuman practice is legal.

JoshuaD

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #7 on: March 11, 2021, 04:09:24 AM »
So don't pump yourself up as the morally superior arbiter with your flawed logic.

My logic isn't flawed, and I definitely don't "pump myself up" as a morally superior arbiter. Abortion is murder. My hands are bloody, too.

I am starting to doubt that any egg-headed response is going to help people see the truth. Words on a screen are just words on a screen. But a child is a child, and he is that child the moment he is conceived. He is brilliant and potential and actual. He is a body unified with a form, a soul. This is not a claim from scriptural faith -- I am a faithless wretch -- this is a claim from reason.

Reason tells us that materialism is an insufficient philosophy.  Reason tells us that humans have a spiritual dimension and an animating principle; a form. Aristotle could see all of this from his high hill in Greece, without ever reading a Christian scripture.  Modern science -- reason unified with observation -- tells us that the form of a human arises at the moment of conception.  Reason tells us that the substance of a person is not subject to the accident of birth; the fundamental substance and being arose much earlier.

JoshuaD

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2021, 04:18:44 AM »
The conceit of our age has taught us to neuter our intellects.  Stare at the act of abortion with the open and honest mind of a child, and the horror of what you are witnessing is obvious. It is murder.

I happened to be watching the movie "Contact" a few nights ago. In it, the protagonist is shook to the core of her identity (which is rooted in being a skeptical scientist) when she has a deep experience that cannot be verified by others.  She makes a big statement at the end of the movie, that starts with "As a scientist, I must think..." and continues to say words which reject her immediate and obvious experiences.

It is exactly how we all act today, and it is exactly wrong. No profession and no philosophy has the ability to curtail or contain how and what we think. We must think only one thing: that which is true.

Abortion is murder. Our age is swirling with arguments and beautiful actresses and appeals to our emotions, all trying to distract us from this obvious truth. That child is of the same nature as you and me, and his right to live is the same as mine and yours.  If we destroy his, we destroy our own, and if we, as a nation and as a world, embrace this murderous philosophy, the future will soon be stained not only with the blood of the unborn, but also the blood of our brothers and ourselves.

oldbrian

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #9 on: March 11, 2021, 08:39:59 AM »
Could you explain briefly how reason tells us that humans have a soul?  And do other higher animals, such as dolphins and elephants also have souls?  Or is it unique to humans?

I remember this discussion from many years ago, but I don't remember your argument.  If you made it then - I seem to remember you NOT being a faithless wretch back then.

yossarian22c

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2021, 10:14:00 AM »
Does everyone who supports this also support financially supporting that child? Health care, education, child care, food, and all those expenses for 18 years.

rightleft22

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2021, 10:29:29 AM »
I consider myself pro-choice , meaning we are responsible and accountable for our choices even those overly influenced by our hormones.
The Pro Choice movement tends to define THE choice as being after sex (assuming the majority of unwanted pregnancies' occur after consensual sex)  That's a problem. Abortion ought not be relied on as a birth control choice.

If the Pro-Life movement chooses to force individuals who may not hold the same values, to save the lives of the unborn they must also provide the means to give that child the best chances in the "pursuit of happiness".  The GOP is generally regarded as the pro-life party, yet at the same time works against any social safety net... is a problem. 

Aris Katsaris

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2021, 11:04:34 AM »
There are no bright distinguishing lines between a fetus and a baby.
Then again there are no bright distinguishing lines between a human and a non-human.

Abortion is a form of murder perhaps.
But so is killing pigs & cows.

Between the death of a fetus and the death of a cow, I don't know which is the most tragic or the worst crime.

And yet I'm not a vegetarian, far from it. If I was ever to be judged for my crimes, I think my non-vegetarianism would condemn me to hell, far more than my support for abortion rights for women.

TheDrake

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2021, 11:50:25 AM »
I consider myself pro-choice , meaning we are responsible and accountable for our choices even those overly influenced by our hormones.
The Pro Choice movement tends to define THE choice as being after sex (assuming the majority of unwanted pregnancies' occur after consensual sex)  That's a problem. Abortion ought not be relied on as a birth control choice.

If the Pro-Life movement chooses to force individuals who may not hold the same values, to save the lives of the unborn they must also provide the means to give that child the best chances in the "pursuit of happiness".  The GOP is generally regarded as the pro-life party, yet at the same time works against any social safety net... is a problem.

The extremes not only don't want abortion, they want to limit access to contraception as well. The furthest extremes even say that masturbation is wrong.

You know what you will never see? An anti-abortion bill coupled with funding for the distribution of contraceptives, including availability in schools. Because it is primarily a group of moralizing SOBs who really just think people having sex is a really bad idea.

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Accounting for the number of children in these households, I find that 13.9 million children lived in a household characterized by child food insecurity in the third week in June, 5.6 times as many as in all of 2018 (2.5 million) and 2.7 times as many than did at the peak of the Great Recession in 2008 (5.1 million). During the week of June 19-23, 17.9 percent of children in the United States live in a household where an adult reported that the children are not getting enough to eat due to a lack of resources.

A child is a child right? So where are all the mighty child advocates for starving and malnourished kids?

I cant speak to Joshua's motives, I'm speaking generically about the vast swath of "pro-life" people. That society's responsibility to "protect the child" somehow ends with delivery.

Fenring is quite right though, the argument is really fundamentally about personhood and the right to life. One view is shrouded in superstition and mysticism about the "soul", the other is based on consistent scientific analysis that recognizes brain death, which when there is no brain is a, well, no-brainer.

msquared

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2021, 12:40:51 PM »
One fact remains, is that at the point of conception, it is a human life.  It is genetically different from the mother and would test as human cells.  As to when it becomes "human" that is still not known, so the pro life camp errors on the side of caution.

yossarian22c

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #15 on: March 11, 2021, 01:02:54 PM »
The extremes not only don't want abortion, they want to limit access to contraception as well. The furthest extremes even say that masturbation is wrong.

You know what you will never see? An anti-abortion bill coupled with funding for the distribution of contraceptives, including availability in schools. Because it is primarily a group of moralizing SOBs who really just think people having sex is a really bad idea.

As Pete pointed out years ago, no piece of legislation has reduced abortions more than Obamacare did by making sure contraceptives were fully covered under all health insurance plans. Given the success of that bill in reducing abortions you think the pro-life movement would jump on board the free contraceptives for everyone bandwagon.

TheDrake

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #16 on: March 11, 2021, 01:19:16 PM »
One fact remains, is that at the point of conception, it is a human life.  It is genetically different from the mother and would test as human cells.  As to when it becomes "human" that is still not known, so the pro life camp errors on the side of caution.

A cancer biopsy would pass that test also. "a human life" is a problematic term, particularly with the indefinite article.

TheDrake

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #17 on: March 11, 2021, 01:21:04 PM »
Let's also not ignore the strong correlation between people with "pro-life" views who want schools to teach abstinence only.

msquared

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #18 on: March 11, 2021, 01:21:13 PM »
But the cancer cells are genetically the same as the mother.  The cells of the baby are different.  They are human and distinct from the mother.

Aris Katsaris

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #19 on: March 11, 2021, 01:55:52 PM »
Quote
They are human and distinct from the mother.

Do you really care about whether the DNA is the same or distinct with that of the mother? Is that your true objection? I mean if a mother was carrying a perfect DNA clone of herself inside her womb, would the fetus have less moral value then a fetus which had separate DNA? What if we implant woman A with the clone of woman B, and woman B with the clone of woman A? Then each fetus has the exact same DNA as another adult person, but not that of their mothers.

Is the uniqueness of the DNA really what's important here?

msquared

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #20 on: March 11, 2021, 02:01:38 PM »
I think it is right now, since human cloning is not a thing that can be done right now.

It is one aspect that needs addressing.  The statements that they are just a blob of cells that the mother can do what she wants with looses some steam when the blob of cells is genetically different from her.

yossarian22c

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #21 on: March 11, 2021, 02:08:42 PM »
I think it is right now, since human cloning is not a thing that can be done right now.

I think it probably could be done given the resources and will. I think the scientific community has backed away somewhat from cloning technology after Dolly the lamb because of the moral aspects and lack of practical applications.

Wayward Son

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #22 on: March 11, 2021, 02:18:55 PM »
Further problems arise because about 3/4 of the fertilized eggs do not attach to the womb and are spontaneously aborted.

Are they human lives?  Shouldn't we be trying to stop that horrible slaughter, too? ;)

And while an embryo normally has a unique DNA from the parents, how do we define those with two unique DNAs in their bodies (chimeras)?  Are they considered two human beings, or murderers who absorbed another human life?

Biology is messy.  There are few bright lines between states: human and non-human, alive and dead, male and female, person and non-person.  Creating such a bright line is more imposing your own prejudices than making anything clear.  I mean, when I say "think of a baby," does anyone think of an embryo?  When I say "think of a thousand babies," does anyone think of a test tube holding a thousand fertilized human eggs? :)

A fertilized human egg is not a human being.  It has the potential to become one, IF it is captured in a womb and IF it comes to full term and nothing major goes wrong.  Until then, it is only developing.  Giving it more status than that is not scientific.

Aris Katsaris

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #23 on: March 11, 2021, 02:42:08 PM »
I think it is right now, since human cloning is not a thing that can be done right now.

It is one aspect that needs addressing.  The statements that they are just a blob of cells that the mother can do what she wants with looses some steam when the blob of cells is genetically different from her.

If a person gets an organ transplant, who does the organ belong to, the donor (whose DNA it has) or the recipient?

TheDrake

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #24 on: March 11, 2021, 02:50:54 PM »
But the cancer cells are genetically the same as the mother.  The cells of the baby are different.  They are human and distinct from the mother.

They are not. By definition cancer cells have mutated and are genetically distinct from healthy cells.

As for "alive/dead" we already made that decision with brain death, which is why we don't have people artificially being kept alive by respirators. No functioning brain, not entitled to human legal rights.

msquared

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #25 on: March 11, 2021, 02:54:42 PM »
Man you guys are grasping at straws trying to knock this down.  The fact remains that the fertilized egg is genetically human and different than the mother. Ignoring that ignores science as well.  I made no other comments about viability, or who the stuff came from.

msquared

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #26 on: March 11, 2021, 02:57:58 PM »
I will have to check with some Dr types I know and look into how different cancer cells are from the person who has the cancer as compared to a fertilized egg.  My guess is that while cancer cells have mutated genes, you can still identify who they came from and that the amount of change between cancerous cells and healthy cells is very small as compared to the genetic difference between a mother and her baby.

Aris Katsaris

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #27 on: March 11, 2021, 02:59:05 PM »
I've never cared about whether the fetus is genetically same or different, so what I'm trying to understand is why *you* care. That's not a straw, that's the entire basis of your argument, which you are returning to time and again: That it's genetically different. So try to make me realize why it matters whether it's the same DNA or different.

All your facts are granted, and all your facts remain seemingly irrelevant. Telling me that it has a different DNA and making me care about that is like telling me that fetus is spelled with an F, and F means respect, so I should respect the fetus. Namely, it sounds like insane troll logic.

If we travelled back in time to a world that didn't know anything about DNA or genetics, would your argument have changed? Do two siblings in a set of triplets get to override the wishes of the third triplet? Who cares about whether it's the same DNA vs different?
« Last Edit: March 11, 2021, 03:01:57 PM by Aris Katsaris »

TheDrake

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #28 on: March 11, 2021, 03:03:31 PM »
Precision is kind of important when you're talking about defining personhood. You chose to drag out that as part of your criteria, you can't complain when it gets examined. I'll drop it though, as any points have long since been made.

In other news, any bets on how many of the conservative religious pro-lifers would welcome an artificial womb and public funds to save the child's life? I'm guessing they would still be slamming planned parenthood, the interference with "God's plan", the lack of personal responsibility by the mother, and so many more judgemental views. It would make their motivations pretty clear with that separation. "Punish the sinner!"

rightleft22

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #29 on: March 11, 2021, 03:39:40 PM »
"Punish the sinner!"

All about Eve... only the one gender is the sinner and so punished the other gets to make the rules.

LetterRip

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #30 on: March 11, 2021, 03:41:57 PM »
Man you guys are grasping at straws trying to knock this down.  The fact remains that the fertilized egg is genetically human and different than the mother. Ignoring that ignores science as well.  I made no other comments about viability, or who the stuff came from.

Each cell in the mother is genetically human and different than every other cell in the mother.  Any time a human cell replicates you get a unique human cell.  Each cancer cell is also unique from its host and each other.  Also you don't seem likely to think that a cloned cell of the mother that is used to make a fetus should be ok to abort, nor do you seem likely to endorse the aborting of the second twin, or a triplet etc.  So it is unclear what you think it is important - all (or nearly all) human cells are unique, but a fetus that wasn't unique you would still object to their abortion.  Since you are a twin, I'm pretty sure you considered your brother to be a human being.

Wayward Son

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #31 on: March 11, 2021, 04:11:56 PM »
The fact that we get into these detailed and somewhat silly arguments about genetics demonstrates that you can apply a complex concept like "personhood" to the development stages of a person. ;)

TheDeamon

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #32 on: March 12, 2021, 12:34:45 AM »
So don't pump yourself up as the morally superior arbiter with your flawed logic.

My logic isn't flawed, and I definitely don't "pump myself up" as a morally superior arbiter. Abortion is murder. My hands are bloody, too.

I am starting to doubt that any egg-headed response is going to help people see the truth. Words on a screen are just words on a screen. But a child is a child, and he is that child the moment he is conceived. He is brilliant and potential and actual. He is a body unified with a form, a soul. This is not a claim from scriptural faith -- I am a faithless wretch -- this is a claim from reason.

Reason tells us that materialism is an insufficient philosophy.  Reason tells us that humans have a spiritual dimension and an animating principle; a form. Aristotle could see all of this from his high hill in Greece, without ever reading a Christian scripture.  Modern science -- reason unified with observation -- tells us that the form of a human arises at the moment of conception.  Reason tells us that the substance of a person is not subject to the accident of birth; the fundamental substance and being arose much earlier.

Eh, I'm still personally hewing closer to when science indicates significant brain activity has started to occur.

Legally I'd say the line should be about when the fetus has become viable outside of the womb so far as best medical practice of the time in question is able to determine. Which basically means if it has developed into the second trimester, the woman is committed to seeing it through absent an extreme extenuating circumstance.

On that note, I am open to public funding and publicly funded medical care to cover expenses incurred due to the "involuntary pregnancy" on the part of the mother. Of course, that comes with the provision that the kid also ends up in the public adoption system at that point.

TheDeamon

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #33 on: March 12, 2021, 12:39:33 AM »
Does everyone who supports this also support financially supporting that child? Health care, education, child care, food, and all those expenses for 18 years.

Plenty of people want to adopt infants. There is a very long waiting list for that in the United States. It is unlikely that most of these children would end up in the foster-care system and in need of further state assistance once adopted. And also consider that in the event that such a thing did actually start to happen: State governments would then have a strong incentive to push for education on the other forms on birth-control that are available. You know, condoms, birth control, spermicides, and so on?

And I already said I would support providing financial support to the mother for the term of the pregnancy.

TheDeamon

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #34 on: March 12, 2021, 12:43:29 AM »
One fact remains, is that at the point of conception, it is a human life.  It is genetically different from the mother and would test as human cells.  As to when it becomes "human" that is still not known, so the pro life camp errors on the side of caution.

A cancer biopsy would pass that test also. "a human life" is a problematic term, particularly with the indefinite article.

Except we can detect those cells are also cancerous, and therefore unhealthy. And nobody has made the argument that a cancer tumor is ever going to have the capability of becoming a being capable of human reason in its own right.

TheDeamon

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #35 on: March 12, 2021, 12:48:04 AM »
I think it is right now, since human cloning is not a thing that can be done right now.

human cloning can be done right now, it just happens to be ill advised as the human clone would be likely to have all kinds of health issues that would need to be addressed, and would be very unlikely to live to reach puberty, never mind adulthood.

Quote
It is one aspect that needs addressing.  The statements that they are just a blob of cells that the mother can do what she wants with looses some steam when the blob of cells is genetically different from her.

And the matter of the "blob of cells" in question being a known quantity with a well understood progression path which is likely to culminate in a new human being unless some outside factor ends the process.

A biopsy of my shoulder isn't going to become another person in any kind of "normal circumstance" (but the evil clone makers might make it happen) even though that biopsy contains human cells.

TheDeamon

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #36 on: March 12, 2021, 12:53:37 AM »
And while an embryo normally has a unique DNA from the parents, how do we define those with two unique DNAs in their bodies (chimeras)?  Are they considered two human beings, or murderers who absorbed another human life?

With the high resolution sequencing techniques available now... Most people have more the one "unique DNA signature" in all reality. Because biology is messy and cell division processes rarely happen perfectly. They just happen to match closely enough that they're virtually indistinguishable from each other in most cases.

And "the human chimera" that you specifically allude to in terms of DNA, which is different from what I'm speaking of, is being found more and more often due the commercial DNA testing for both ancestry research and paternity verification.

TheDeamon

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #37 on: March 12, 2021, 12:59:46 AM »
Precision is kind of important when you're talking about defining personhood. You chose to drag out that as part of your criteria, you can't complain when it gets examined. I'll drop it though, as any points have long since been made.

In other news, any bets on how many of the conservative religious pro-lifers would welcome an artificial womb and public funds to save the child's life? I'm guessing they would still be slamming planned parenthood, the interference with "God's plan", the lack of personal responsibility by the mother, and so many more judgemental views. It would make their motivations pretty clear with that separation. "Punish the sinner!"

You need to realize that people are "pro-life" or "pro-choice" for their own reasons, and these groups are not monolithic.

Yes, there are a lot of highly organized religious groups that would reflexively denounce an artificial womb solution.

I for one would be open to seeing it pursued, and it is being worked on, it has been discussed in here before as I recall.

There are some concerns I'd have about potential impact on fetal brain development given the potential lack of certain stimuli development in such a womb, but I suspect most of that could be identified with animal studies, although there is the chance for some outlying unanticipated issues to crop up all the same. It happens with new science/technology and stuff which has never been done before. You don't know until somebody tries.

JoshuaD

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #38 on: March 12, 2021, 02:36:23 AM »
Could you explain briefly how reason tells us that humans have a soul?  And do other higher animals, such as dolphins and elephants also have souls?  Or is it unique to humans?

Here's a brief summary of Aristotle's thoughts on the topic. He was a man of reason, not a man of faith.

His teachings, expressed very shortly, are that chairs and roosters and humans are different things. They are different things because they have different forms. The form of a thing tell us what it is. Matter alone is just potentiality. Matter compounded with form is what makes things

There are non-living things and living things.  The soul is the form and the animating principle of a living thing. Living things have powers that non-living things do not possess. The soul is the cause and the source of those powers.

Different living things exist in a nested hierarchy. All living things have the power of growth, nutrition, and reproduction. Animals also have the powers of locomotion and perception. Rational beings also have the powers of the intellect.  So yes, dolphins and elephants have souls, but their souls are of a different nature than the souls of man, because humans are rational creatures.

It's worth noting that virtually every metaphysics reasoned out by the various cultures around the world except materialism comes to the conclusion that there is something like a soul. Materialism is an incoherent anomaly that happens to have a privileged position in our age.

Of course, different schools of thoughts have done a better or worse job of mapping exactly what the soul is and how it works (just like different scientists have done a better or worse job of mapping the physical laws of nature). But the idea that the existence of a soul doesn't originate in Christian scripture or arise as a tenant of faith. It arises when people try to answer the question: what are we?

I remember this discussion from many years ago, but I don't remember your argument.  If you made it then - I seem to remember you NOT being a faithless wretch back then.

You must be misremembering, because I've always been pretty faithless. It's a flaw of mine that I'm trying to remedy. It's not easy.

Does everyone who supports this also support financially supporting that child? Health care, education, child care, food, and all those expenses for 18 years.

No definitely not. I don't think it is a good thing to build the state infrastructure required to provide that to the orphan children, and there would be something unjust in the state taking it from others by force in order to give it to the orphans. I think that approach you advocate for will give us very bad results. 

One could have legitimate opposed slavery while at the same time opposing "forty acres and a mule". Slavery was an abomination. Abortion is an abomination. They are both deeply offensive to the dignity of man and, like slavery, abortion must be seen clearly by society as soon as possible. We are murdering children by the millions. It is evil and it is destroying us.

The question of how we care for those who are unloved is a provincial question. Children are owed the love and care of their parents. When the parents fail to fulfill their responsibilities to their children, it is a tragedy. We can be good people who desire to fix that evil without concluding that we need to build a massive state to do so.

There are no bright distinguishing lines between a fetus and a baby.
Then again there are no bright distinguishing lines between a human and a non-human.
Abortion is a form of murder perhaps.
But so is killing pigs & cows.
Between the death of a fetus and the death of a cow, I don't know which is the most tragic or the worst crime.
And yet I'm not a vegetarian, far from it. If I was ever to be judged for my crimes, I think my non-vegetarianism would condemn me to hell, far more than my support for abortion rights for women.

This is the confusion that materialism leads to. If things don't have form -- if things aren't things -- then of course morality has no firm basis to be built upon, and you cannot think clearly about anything. We get what we have today: people blindly pawing at the moral truth, built on intuitions, popular belief, and small direct insight, without any structural guidance, resulting in a combination of complete impotency to see the truth in some respects, while zealously exaggerating the truth in other respects.

If we can't distinguish between a fly and a human, or between a human and a tree, then we are far, far away from being able to talk about rights and morality in any intelligent way.

And that's what we're seeing today. Many people, in a misguided desire to bring the clarity of science to all disciplines of knowledge, have instead begun limiting knowledge to only those places that science can illuminate, leaving the rest of the giant library of potential human knowledge dark. The old systems of thought provide less reassurance (in a way) than science, but greater illumination.

I consider myself pro-choice , meaning we are responsible and accountable for our choices even those overly influenced by our hormones.
The Pro Choice movement tends to define THE choice as being after sex (assuming the majority of unwanted pregnancies' occur after consensual sex)  That's a problem. Abortion ought not be relied on as a birth control choice.

If the Pro-Life movement chooses to force individuals who may not hold the same values, to save the lives of the unborn they must also provide the means to give that child the best chances in the "pursuit of happiness".  The GOP is generally regarded as the pro-life party, yet at the same time works against any social safety net... is a problem.

The right wants a social safety net, and they often provide one. They do not want an over-reaching state, which they believe causes many more problems than it solves. You can care about your neighbors without being a statist who imagines every physical need people might have can be attended to by a bureaucracy, monopolized violence, and taxes. That's a really absurd assertion.

The extremes not only don't want abortion, they want to limit access to contraception as well. The furthest extremes even say that masturbation is wrong.

Yes. Freedom and self-expression are not the only virtues. Chastity and temperance are also virtues.  When, as a society, we encourage wild disorder of the sexual appetite, we create massive problems in our society and our culture. Problems we are all seeing today. Our society is diseased. One of the root causes of that disease is the sexual revolution. Contraception as at the forefront of that. When you're treating a disease, it is usually wise to focus on the root cause, not on the various symptoms that arise as a result. When someone has a heart disease, you treat the heart.

It is not good that people have started treating sex primarily as a tool of self-gratification and entertainment. Sex is properly ordered towards procreation and the strengthening of a marriage. Strong married couples are the foundation of society. They are the primary social safety net that people like me believe in. They can do the things that you wrongly imagine the state can accomplish. Children deserve their parents, not a bureaucrat. When we tear down all of the boundaries around sex, we tear down marriage and tear down the most important unit of society: the family. In doing so, we all suffer. 

So yes, I definitely oppose contraception. And if you're asking my advice, yes, avoid masturbation too. Get married, attend to your relationship like a careful gardener, sleep with your wife regularly, love her with all of your heart, make lots of beautiful children, and be happy.

I cant speak to Joshua's motives, I'm speaking generically about the vast swath of "pro-life" people. That society's responsibility to "protect the child" somehow ends with delivery.

This isn't even close to true. The pro-life movement also opposes murder of a person after they are born. People shouldn't be murdered. It's pretty fundamental.

If you want to talk about to what degree a society should build governmental structures to assist those in need, we can have that conversation. It's a provincial question where I imagine you and I will share some common ground (and may even share some criticisms of the republican-right). But you don't get to import it into the conversation about murder.

It's like saying "Oh right, you oppose the murder of the homeless, so why don't you take them into your house and clothe and feed them? Hypocrite!" It's absurd.

Fenring is quite right though, the argument is really fundamentally about personhood and the right to life. One view is shrouded in superstition and mysticism about the "soul", the other is based on consistent scientific analysis that recognizes brain death, which when there is no brain is a, well, no-brainer.

Philosophy isn't "superstition" or "mysticism".  It is reason.

Materialism is incoherent. It doesn't work. I understand the allure of reducing everything to a scientific inquiry, but it collapses. You see it right here in this thread. Science is a great but limited tool. There are things that we can know -- actually know, not just imagine or believe via superstition -- using tools other than science. When we refuse to use those tools, we neuter our minds and we do harm to ourselves and others.

Is the uniqueness of the DNA really what's important here?

I won't speak for msquared, but for my part: no. What is important is that the unborn child is an independent person. The fact that he hasn't yet developed a particular physical feature that people have -- like a brain or nervous system or eyes -- does not change what he is. He is a person. That is his nature. It is the same fundamental nature as me or you. Just like you and I should not be murdered (even if we happened to go blind or brain-dead) neither should the unborn child.

Further problems arise because about 3/4 of the fertilized eggs do not attach to the womb and are spontaneously aborted.

Are they human lives?  Shouldn't we be trying to stop that horrible slaughter, too? ;)

Yes they are human lives. It is a sad thing when a human life is lost through the natural processes of the body, but it's not akin to abortion.  It's like saying 'well my uncle died of old age yesterday, so if you oppose murder, shouldn't you also oppose death-from-aging!?'  It's a silly statement.

Biology is messy.  There are few bright lines between states: human and non-human, alive and dead, male and female, person and non-person.  Creating such a bright line is more imposing your own prejudices than making anything clear.

I promise, things are more clear once you can actually distinguish between things and have some sort of sensible metaphysics. Materialism is a cloud of hazy confusion. Come stand over here for a while and at some point you'll find yourself looking around saying "oh, well, that made everything a lot more clear. Why did I resist using all of the knowledge available for so long?"

A fertilized human egg is not a human being.  It has the potential to become one, IF it is captured in a womb and IF it comes to full term and nothing major goes wrong.  Until then, it is only developing.  Giving it more status than that is not scientific.

"Person status" is not a scientific term. Science has no idea and no capacity to talk about persons or morality. These are metaphysical concepts. Science is a subset of human knowledge and it is blind to metaphysics. It is only concerned with the material world. Of course giving any person anywhere a metaphysical "status" is not scientific. That's the whole point. Science isn't the only crucible of truth. It's really cool, but ultimately really limited. There are other disciplines of knowledge that are essential. If you close your eyes to them, you can't know anything about morality in any systemic or coherent way, and that's a really important thing to have.

The fact that we get into these detailed and somewhat silly arguments about genetics demonstrates that you can apply a complex concept like "personhood" to the development stages of a person. ;)

The fact that people argue about things doesn't demonstrate anything but that people argue. The truth is the truth. People have always had trouble seeing it. If you were sitting in the back of a bar-room in 1800 as some abolitionists and slavers debated the merits and evils of slavery, you might similarly say "The fact that we can get into these detailed and somewhat silly arguments about 'species' demonstrates that ..." and you might think it's a clever or insightful statement, but you'd just be wrong. Black people are humans just like me and you, contrary to whatever some dumb things people said about sub-species (often in the name of science) 200 years ago. Similarly, an unborn child is a person, just like me and you, despite the fact that people are making arguments otherwise.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2021, 02:41:10 AM by JoshuaD »

LetterRip

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #39 on: March 12, 2021, 10:14:35 AM »
Human cloning is viable right now.  It is only ethics considerations that are preventing it - humans are primates, and healthy Macaques have been cloned from adult Macaques already, thus human clones should be the exact same procedure.  Since the clones were healthy, we can expect human clones to also be healthy.

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In this study, we have cloned five cynomolgus macaque monkeys by SCNT using fibroblasts obtained from a young adult male monkey.

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/article/6/1/101/5290358

LetterRip

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #40 on: March 12, 2021, 10:22:52 AM »

Legally I'd say the line should be about when the fetus has become viable outside of the womb so far as best medical practice of the time in question is able to determine. Which basically means if it has developed into the second trimester, the woman is committed to seeing it through absent an extreme extenuating circumstance.

So - artificial wombs that can take an embryo from a freshly fertilized egg to capable of living outside the womb are likely to come in the fairly near future (I'd be shocked if it takes 20 years).  So does that mean that you think all IVF should be brought to maturation?  That we should 'rescue' embryos that failed to implant?

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On that note, I am open to public funding and publicly funded medical care to cover expenses incurred due to the "involuntary pregnancy" on the part of the mother. Of course, that comes with the provision that the kid also ends up in the public adoption system at that point.

We already have way more children in need of homes than we have homes willing to provide for them.

Also what is your view on deformed fetuses - late term abortions are mostly for fetuses that have severe defects that aren't detectable at earlier stages of development.

NobleHunter

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #41 on: March 12, 2021, 10:26:12 AM »
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So yes, I definitely oppose contraception. And if you're asking my advice, yes, avoid masturbation too. Get married, attend to your relationship like a careful gardener, sleep with your wife regularly, love her with all of your heart, make lots of beautiful children, and be happy.

What of people who can't do that and be happy?

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What is important is that the unborn child is an independent person.

Except, of course, they are not independent and are actually the most dependent form of life there is.

Since we are talking about things being things, is an acorn an oak tree?

LetterRip

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #42 on: March 12, 2021, 10:28:52 AM »
I'm curious - would those of you who are opposed to abortion under most circumstances - would removing and cryogenically freezing the fetus for later implantation be morally acceptable to you?  Ie removing and ceasing the fetuses development but not killing it.  That should also be a technology that will be possible in the not distant future.

LetterRip

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #43 on: March 12, 2021, 10:38:41 AM »
So yes, I definitely oppose contraception. And if you're asking my advice, yes, avoid masturbation too. Get married, attend to your relationship like a careful gardener, sleep with your wife regularly, love her with all of your heart, make lots of beautiful children, and be happy.

The average woman is capable of having 15 children that make it to adulthood with modern medicine.  Even if every person were to live in a tiny home and consume as much food, water, and energy as the most resource conscientious person in the world, we would still all die within 1 or 2 generations.  Happiness would literally cease to exist if people followed your beliefs.

rightleft22

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #44 on: March 12, 2021, 10:48:14 AM »
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The right wants a social safety net, and they often provide one. They do not want an over-reaching state, which they believe causes many more problems than it solves. You can care about your neighbors without being a statist who imagines every physical need people might have can be attended to by a bureaucracy, monopolized violence, and taxes. That's a really absurd assertion.

The actions of the right, in general, don't match that intention. At least not the new conservatism that appears to view any social safety nets as a gateway to socialism.  The social "safety net' my evangelicals friends which to create is one not run but government but by the church and corporation.

With regards to the corporation such a 'net' must be profitable and so tends to work against itself at some point. With regards to the church such help tends to come with a push of values that those need that help might not adhere to. And then the question of who pays? the member of the church? (for the good or ill government is the best way we have of collecting collative funds)
I have not known a Church organization that hasn't succumbed at some point or two or three.... to the bureaucracy and mismanagement that is associated "big government". Its seems governing regardless of size or implementation inherits the the problem of how the hell do we do it and keep the people happy and if no happy inline.

As to the debate, any Pro life stance that does not include measures to ensure the 'unwanted' child has a reasonable chance at the 'pursuit of happiness' its not really a Pro life stance. IMO
Its a disconnect. 

TheDeamon

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #45 on: March 12, 2021, 04:53:29 PM »
Quote
On that note, I am open to public funding and publicly funded medical care to cover expenses incurred due to the "involuntary pregnancy" on the part of the mother. Of course, that comes with the provision that the kid also ends up in the public adoption system at that point.

We already have way more children in need of homes than we have homes willing to provide for them.

You seem to be unaware of the issues with regard to adoption. Yes, the foster-care system is full of children with a lack of parents willing to take them in.

No, their situation does not apply to the specific group we are talking about.
People overwhelmingly want to adopt a kid and raise it "as their own." They cannot do this very effectively with a child over the age of 5. Most won't want to try with any child over the age of 2, or really even 1. But newborn infants? As I already said, there are long waiting lists to adopt those children when they become available.

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Also what is your view on deformed fetuses - late term abortions are mostly for fetuses that have severe defects that aren't detectable at earlier stages of development.

Depends on the "deformation" involved and other factors. In general if we're talking down's syndrome, I'd be opposed. If we're talking extensive congenital defects that bring the odds of survival past the first few months near to zero even with medical intervention? That's a worthy discussion item, and I don't really have a position on it.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2021, 04:56:30 PM by TheDeamon »

TheDrake

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #46 on: March 12, 2021, 06:23:20 PM »
No, their situation does not apply to the specific group we are talking about.
People overwhelmingly want to adopt a kid and raise it "as their own." They cannot do this very effectively with a child over the age of 5. Most won't want to try with any child over the age of 2, or really even 1. But newborn infants? As I already said, there are long waiting lists to adopt those children when they become available.

Healthy ones. What about the down's syndrome kids you mentioned earlier? Other non-terminal defects? How about if the mother is smoking, drinking, or doing drugs during pregnancy? Or just malnourished? I can't find any solid statistics on the matter, but I'd be willing to guess a larger percentage of pregnancies otherwise terminated would be considered "undesirable" by prospective parents.

DJQuag

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #47 on: March 12, 2021, 07:07:14 PM »
Sex in the grander evolutionary view is about procreation. Granted.

It's not all it is. Our closest living relatives, bonobos, use sexual contact and stimulation as tools in intraspecific bonding and conflict-resolution techniques.

Sometimes people have sex because they want to procreate.  Cool. Most of the time it's not and it never, ever was like that. At any time in any culture in any religion. People like banging. Hell, they like it so much that whatever genetic aspect to homosexuality exists has managed to survive to the present day despite not producing offspring.

Namedropping Aristotle isn't going to change any of that, and it's not going to change the fact that pregnancy is unpleasant and dangerous for a woman but at least you can stand on high and lecture women without the risk of getting pregnant, right Joshua?

Fenring

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #48 on: March 12, 2021, 07:13:25 PM »
The idea that there are 'too many children' is a wild and inaccurate myth. The waiting lists to adopt babies are years long, even babies from China and other Asian countries. I have a couple of friends who wanted to adopt, and didn't want to wait 5+ years to be able to do so, and went to a Chinese adoption agency that deals with kids with either deformations or issues of various kinds, at differing degrees of severity. My friends opted for 'not that severe' as their guideline, and so they only had to wait months or maybe a year for their request to be accepted, and even then it required of them a trip to China to first meet the child. In point of fact there is an insane shortage of adoptable babies worldwide, which strangely is coinciding with people increasingly having difficulties conceiving. A large part of this may be due to a greatly increase age of trying to get pregnant, but I wonder whether that's the only factor.

As TheDeamon mentioned, once you get into the foster care system it's a whole other kettle of fish, and indeed it can be tough to find an adoptive family for a kid who's been in foster for years. But the chimera of 'what will happen to all the babies' if pregnancies went to term is simply a red herring smokescreen. There are more than enough families that would love to have them, would even pay big bucks to get them.

I'm not trying to address the personhood question here, because frankly that is boiling down in America to little more than faith vs faith. In one case, faith in one kind of common sense (i.e. that a person has to look like a bona fide person to count as a person) versus another kind of common sense (i.e. that we should not judge a person by his/her level of development, and that personhood is not a privilege granted as an anniversary present). Ironically both sides also argue that science is 'on their side', even though of course it does not take sides because science is not a person with an opinion. Anyone can create moving goalposts and say that personhood requires brain waves, science says that brainwaves start at X age, therefore science is ok with early term abortion. But the error of this type of argument should be painfully evident. Likewise arguments about heartbeat, human-like appearance, birth itself, or even technical minutiae such as the timing of implantation; each of these are arbitrary sign posts that due to a person's ego he has decided this criterion makes the most sense, therefore becomes some kind of formal definition of personhood, and will hang their hat on that even though in principle lives may be at stake.

Someone above mentioned that Catholics err on the side of caution, and although that's a clunky way to call it at least this is a reasonably coherent position, i.e. that if one can't be sure based on some objective criterion, then don't make the worst mistake one can make. I'm not trying to persuade anyone here that this position is the one everyone must take, but at minimum it's a clear and logical one. Maybe there are other logical positions as well, but the vast majority I hear amount to little more than "well in my opinion the line should be drawn here." What does your opinion matter about (potentially) someone else's life?

Fenring

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Re: Roe might be in woe
« Reply #49 on: March 12, 2021, 07:19:01 PM »
Sometimes people have sex because they want to procreate.  Cool. Most of the time it's not and it never, ever was like that. At any time in any culture in any religion. People like banging. Hell, they like it so much that whatever genetic aspect to homosexuality exists has managed to survive to the present day despite not producing offspring.

The argument was never that sex can only be used for procreation; that's a strawman. Clearly it can be used for any number of things, which include performance art and negotiating tactics. The fact that monkeys use sex for pleasure would only suggest we should as well if we were no different from monkeys. After all, dolphins rape extravagantly, so therefore why shouldn't we...

The point that at least some groups put forward isn't that sex is only for procreation, but rather than if we are to live up to our potential as enlightened beings we should treat it that way. You can of course disagree, but the argument to fight against is the idea that sexuality can be engaged in as a base occupation, but can also be treated in a way befitting a special dignity of man - so special that in fact we have not even come close yet to realizing that dignity. It is actually quite a peculiar position to tackle, that sex envisioned in a particular way is part of a far nobler version of ourselves, one that is extraordinarily central to proper self-respect and in turn correctly ordered in terms of respecting other metaphysical truths. That is, at any rate, the argument being put forward. No one would dispute that people can behave like monkeys if they want to :p