"Pro-life"

[Electric Skeptic]

There is no one alive who did not survive gestation...you're simply anti-biology, and living in denial. Your survival permits you the sacred privilege of calling this truth "garbage", and your own life, hanging on the thread of your mother's whim, could have aborted a brilliant argument against your own life...

But you cannot even see the contradiction in your stand. As a survivor, you don't need to...those who are still in gestation will hope for more to differ with the blind.
Your statement is ghoulish.

Sorry...as your gestation was an inseparable part of your own existence, you cannot make the call on another. Science is not a smorgasbord where you deny biology here...and enforce it there. Where the sperm meets the egg, we have now seen an explosion of light...and life has begun. No being alive is spared that moment, and now, that life is in the hands of those who have become the most callous.
This statement alone is blind to the fact that it's not about her body any more, any more than it's her own blood she sheds. The complete DNA of another individual has now been entrusted to her.
Of all human interaction, the sex act alone ascribes inalterable responsibility that a hedonist like yourself will deny...

...but your dismissal has no truth to it. Because the child's life is involved, you are wrong. Dead wrong.

Just an aside...your talk of "civilized" society makes me laugh. I once called into a talk show in Boston when they were discussing abortion, and I asked what they thought about abortion in Saudi Arabia, where they will do amniocentesis to ascertain the sex of the child, and if it's a girl, they will abort it. "That's barbaric!" exclaimed the host.

I said, "This is an interesting view. They're barbaric in Islamic countries, because they discriminate in whom they will abort, but we're civilized, because we abort our own offspring indiscriminately."

One point to note here - the pro-choice position is not anti-biology or anti-science, and anybody who claims it is is scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to arguments. They can never point out the slightest thing that is anti-biology or anti-science.

 

[Whateverman]

Because the child's life is involved, you are wrong.

An acorn isn't a tree.

A fetus isn't a child.

 

[Temujin]

There is no one alive who did not survive gestation...you're simply anti-biology, and living in denial. Your survival permits you the sacred privilege of calling this truth "garbage", and your own life, hanging on the thread of your mother's whim, could have aborted a brilliant argument against your own life...

This is irrelevant. The vast majority of eggs are never fertilised. A substantial number of those that are fertilised are spontaneously aborted, most without the woman even knowing she was ever pregnant. Those embryos and foetuses that do go on to eventual birth are spectacularly lucky without taking into consideration any elective abortion at all. Being born is not any kind of argument against abortion.
[q]
But you cannot even see the contradiction in your stand. As a survivor, you don't need to...those who are still in gestation will hope for more to differ with the blind.
Your statement is ghoulish.[/QUOTE] There is no contradiction. Your statement is illogical.

Sorry...as your gestation was an inseparable part of your own existence, you cannot make the call on another. Science is not a smorgasbord where you deny biology here...and enforce it there. Where the sperm meets the egg, we have now seen an explosion of light...and life has begun. No being alive is spared that moment, and now, that life is in the hands of those who have become the most callous.

So what? This is not an argument against ending inconvenient pregnancy before the developing foetus becomes a person with consciousness, self-awareness, independent existence or rights.

This statement alone is blind to the fact that it's not about her body any more, any more than it's her own blood she sheds. The complete DNA of another individual has now been entrusted to her.
Of all human interaction, the sex act alone ascribes inalterable responsibility that a hedonist like yourself will deny...

Wrong. It is totally about her body until the moment that the developing foetus is no longer dependent on it.

...but your dismissal has no truth to it. Because the child's life is involved, you are wrong. Dead wrong.

There is no child. There is a potential child. This is not the same thing.

[QUOTE yJust an aside...your talk of "civilized" society makes me laugh. I once called into a talk show in Boston when they were discussing abortion, and I asked what they thought about abortion in Saudi Arabia, where they will do amniocentesis to ascertain the sex of the child, and if it's a girl, they will abort it. "That's barbaric!" exclaimed the host.

I said, "This is an interesting view. They're barbaric in Islamic countries, because they discriminate in whom they will abort, but we're civilized, because we abort our own offspring indiscriminately."
[/QUOTE] Not indiscriminately. At the choice of the pregnant woman. Gender selection is in fact an illegal reason for abortion, in most circumstances. Certainly in the UK. The reason is that, while legal abortion is good for society in general, gender selection is not, as it can quickly lead to unbalanced populations.

 

[tbeachhead]

This is irrelevant. The vast majority of eggs are never fertilied.

Total non sequitur...The fact that the egg that was YOU was fertilized provides the serendipitous circumstances of this encounter. You were no less you from the day your mother was born with that special egg fully developed and ready at any time for unique fertilization., That fact that you were not wearing a nametag for humans to read...you were already known.

A substantial number of those that are fertilized are spontaneously aborted, most without the woman even knowing she was ever pregnant. Those embryos and foetuses that do go on to eventual birth are spectacularly lucky without taking into consideration any elective abortion at all. Being born is not any kind of argument against abortion.

Still non sequitur. Some call it luck. We're dealing with those, although I do not consider this exchange a result of random chance...

But you cannot even see the contradiction in your stand. As a survivor, you don't need to...those who are still in gestation will hope for more to differ with the blind. Your statement is ghoulish.

There is no contradiction. Your statement is illogical.

It's actually science based

So what? This is not an argument against ending inconvenient pregnancy before the developing foetus becomes a person with consciousness, self-awareness, independent existence or rights.

I had eight children...I was inconvenienced. The result? The next generation.

A lot of folks seem daunted by the concept of a next generation...perhaps their ilk should not proliferate.

Did you ever stop to think that the constitution itself recognizes the fundamental principles of life? See, a thriving society sees it's purpose: "To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity." What you must hate about that statement is that you now become responsible, and the steward of that liberty unto the next generation. And this is what you're seeking to deny. But the reality is, what you secure for yourself is exactly what you're passing on. You want to rid yourself of the next generation? Guess what they'll be wanting to do, when they start making the call...If you still haven't guessed, grow old in Amsterdam.

Wrong. It is totally about her body until the moment that the developing foetus is no longer dependent on it.
There is no child. There is a potential child. This is not the same thing.

You can blithely call it wrong and deny the science. You've granted yourself that license. Not her blood. Not her body Simple as that, despite your denial.

Just an aside...your talk of "civilized" society makes me laugh. I once called into a talk show in Boston when they were discussing abortion, and I asked what they thought about abortion in Saudi Arabia, where they will do amniocentesis to ascertain the sex of the child, and if it's a girl, they will abort it. "That's barbaric!" exclaimed the host.

I said, "This is an interesting view. They're barbaric in Islamic countries, because they discriminate in whom they will abort, but we're civilized, because we abort our own offspring indiscriminately."

Not indiscriminately. At the choice of the pregnant woman. Gender selection is in fact an illegal reason for abortion, in most circumstances. Certainly in the UK. The reason is that, while legal abortion is good for society in general, gender selection is not, as it can quickly lead to unbalanced populations.

You've redefined indiscriminately...willy nilly...with regard only to the convenience of the survivor, at the expense of the innocent and helpless sacrificial victim...not discriminating due to the sex of the victim, but urged on only for the convenience of the survivor.

 

[Temujin]

Total non sequitur...The fact that the egg that was YOU was fertilized provides the serendipitous circumstances of this encounter. You were no less you from the day your mother was born with that special egg fully developed and ready at any time for unique fertilization., That fact that you were not wearing a nametag for humans to read...you were already known.

Still non sequitur. Some call it luck. We're dealing with those, although I do not consider this exchange a result of random chance...
It's actually science based

I had eight children...I was inconvenienced. The result? The next generation.

A lot of folks seem daunted by the concept of a next generation...perhaps their ilk should not proliferate.

Did you ever stop to think that the constitution itself recognizes the fundamental principles of life? See, a thriving society sees it's purpose: "To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and to our posterity." What you must hate about that statement is that you now become responsible, and the steward of that liberty unto the next generation. And this is what you're seeking to deny. But the reality is, what you secure for yourself is exactly what you're passing on. You want to rid yourself of the next generation? Guess what they'll be wanting to do, when they start making the call...If you still haven't guessed, grow old in Amsterdam.
You can blithely call it wrong and deny the science. You've granted yourself that license. Not her blood. Not her body Simple as that, despite your denial.

You've redefined indiscriminately...willy nilly...with regard only to the convenience of the survivor, at the expense of the innocent and helpless sacrificial victim.

You are making so many completely wrong assumptions here that it is laughable.

It just doesn't matter who goes on to the next generation, as long as somebody does. If that is what you are concerned about, pollution is a much greater threat than abortion. The whole point of abortion is that those children who are born are wanted and in a good position to be cared for and nurtured. One thing that the earth is not short of is human beings. The more we can ensure the welfare of those who are born, the better. Churning out children into bad circumstances does no-one any favours, including those children.

You keep bringing "science" into the question. Why? It has nothing to do with science. When society decides to draw a line and accept a developing human as a person is not affected by the science. We all know how an egg is fertilised, the developmental stages it goes through to birth and beyond. The science is not in question. It tells us what happens. It does not tell us how we ought to treat an embryo, a foetus, an infant or an adult. We decide that collectively as a society. That you find yourself disagreeing with the verdict society has come to, is your problem, not mine.

 

[tbeachhead]

You are making so many completely wrong assumptions here that it is laughable.

You're in denial...biology is relevant to the argument.

I'll list the facts that you seem to deny, and you can tell me if I misunderstood you.

First, when your mother was born, she was carrying innumerable eggs, each fully mature and ready for fertilization. The egg that became you was one in that number.
Second, when that egg met your father's DNA it became a human being, unique in DNA and uniquely you from the start, and you developed as yourself, clearly destined to develop in to an intellectual capable of making the erroneous statements that you enjoy proliferating here. Had you skipped a single stage of that development, another ill-informed writer, disdaining his own development, would have had to take up this dialog with irrepressible reason.

It just doesn't matter who goes on to the next generation, as long as somebody does.

Sorry...I had to put down my coffee...

Another might have taken up this discourse in your stead...but this last statement had to come from you alone. No one could have made me chuckle better.

If that is what you are concerned about, pollution is a much greater threat than abortion.

Life is unique, as you prove with each post. Pollution can be ignored, as we blithely ignore what communism did to the Aral Sea, but pollution can be reversed, as those around the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio will remember. It burned in the seventies...you can fish the river today. No death but that of Jesus Christ Himself has ever been reversed as yet...

The whole point of abortion is that those children who are born are wanted and in a good position to be cared for and nurtured.

I'm assuming you typed that with a straight face...and that you've never taught in a high school. That's where I spent forty years of my life.

I worked with kids who never knew they were wanted...and with those who survived abortion. I never regretted working with any of them, or thinking that they were better off dead. That is a loser's attitude, and I'm actually armed to help kids who were on the verge of suicide...who had been taught by losers that they were better off dead. You see...ever single moment is like a day on CARM: your next post is sure to be your best. Don't stop posting.

But you! You're playing God. He does a much better job than you deciding who should live and who should die. He knows the end from the beginning, and you're stuck with clearly handicapped guesses...without ever weighing the consequences of being wrong. How does one imagine the death they caused was best for the dead?

One thing that the earth is not short of is human beings. The more we can ensure the welfare of those who are born, the better.

Ensure? Really? If we give them a chance to live, and make up our minds to hold them up...they'll be fine. Don't miss the first step...You have to give THEM the chance to live. Some of the biggest hearts have survived circumstances you might have, as your own "god," spared them.

Churning out children into bad circumstances does no-one any favours, including those children.

Here's the thing: "churning" begins with an act that can be lawfully abated. Deciding not to "churn" after you've already done the churning is wrong. If you do not want a baby, don't churn. If you have to get your rocks off, there are ways to prevent the inevitable results of functional biology. Folks want to rock without the consequences

The decision to contain one's own libido for the sake of the next generation has a name...let me think...it's called...wait...we used to talk about this: Oh yes. Honor. Self-control. Patience. You have to look in the archives to get this explained to you.

You keep bringing "science" into the question. Why? It has nothing to do with science. When society decides to draw a line and accept a developing human as a person is not affected by the science. We all know how an egg is fertilised, the developmental stages it goes through to birth and beyond. The science is not in question. It tells us what happens. It does not tell us how we ought to treat an embryo, a foetus, an infant or an adult. We decide that collectively as a society. That you find yourself disagreeing with the verdict society has come to, is your problem, not mine.

Sorry...Biology is still science. Consequence is result...You see...the human being is a matter of science, that society's response to life, especially to the most innocent and vulnerable, is to kill it, is a matter of contemptable guilt. I get that you won't see this, but you do not want to ignore what happened to fallen empires and why. Each perished under the weight of pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness and they did not care for the poor and the needy. They thought they were great, they were obese...they entertained themselves to death...and they killed the weakest among them.

 

[Temujin]

You're in denial...biology is relevant to the argument.

I'll list the facts that you seem to deny, and you can tell me if I misunderstood you.

First, when your mother was born, she was carrying innumerable eggs, each fully mature and ready for fertilization. The egg that became you was one in that number.
Second, when that egg met your father's DNA it became a human being, unique in DNA and uniquely you from the start, and you developed as yourself, clearly destined to develop in to an intellectual capable of making the erroneous statements that you enjoy proliferating here. Had you skipped a single stage of that development, another ill-informed writer, disdaining his own development, would have had to take up this dialog with irrepressible reason.

All this is true. All this is irrelevant. Any abortion that happens, doesn't happen to a person like me. It doesn't happen to a person at all. It does not matter how often you suggest that I am a survivor of abortion, lucky to be alive, etc. etc. It makes no difference. Abortion is a moral and a social issue, not a biological one.

Life is unique, as you prove with each post. Pollution can be ignored, as we blithely ignore what communism did to the Aral Sea, but pollution can be reversed, as those around the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio will remember. It burned in the seventies...you can fish the river today. No death but that of Jesus Christ Himself has ever been reversed as yet...

And yet it is apparently pollution, particularly the American habit of stuffing farm animals with hormones, that is drastically reducing the levels of fertility, damaging sperm counts and male genitalia. As I said, it is having a greater effect on the next generation than abortion. We don't need to increase the population, but it would be good to have sufficient young people to run the place after I retire.

I'm assuming you typed that with a straight face...and that you've never taught in a high school. That's where I spent forty years of my life.

You would assume wrong. I have taught in various establishments for most of my working life.

I worked with kids who never knew they were wanted...and with those who survived abortion. I never regretted working with any of them, or thinking that they were better off dead. That is a loser's attitude, and I'm actually armed to help kids who were on the verge of suicide...who had been taught by losers that they were better off dead. You see...ever single moment is like a day on CARM: your next post is sure to be your best. Don't stop posting.

Good for you. I have also worked in deprived communities. Including working as a safeguarding manager enabling young women in my care to obtain abortions if they wanted and needed one.

But you! You're playing God. He does a much better job than you deciding who should live and who should die. He knows the end from the beginning, and you're stuck with clearly handicapped guesses...without ever weighing the consequences of being wrong. How does one imagine the death they caused was best for the dead?

I don't play God. I don't even believe in God. God has no part to play in determining social policy, either directly or as part of your belief. Doing right by people is more important than doing right by a deity that the majority of people don't believe in. If by chance he exists and cannot be bothered to arrange things more sensibly, then He should leave it to human beings to sort out.

Ensure? Really? If we give them a chance to live, and make up our minds to hold them up...they'll be fine. Don't miss the first step...You have to give THEM the chance to live. Some of the biggest hearts have survived circumstances you might have, as your own "god," spared them.

Except you don't do that. The vast majority of "pro-life" supporters are right wing evangelists who would rather run a mile in tight shoes than vote for any programme that realistically supports the poor.

Here's the thing: "churning" begins with an act that can be lawfully abated. Deciding not to "churn" after you've already done the churning is wrong. If you do not want a baby, don't churn. If you have to get your rocks off, there are ways to prevent the inevitable results of functional biology. Folks want to rock without the consequences

Here's the thing. A healthy sex life has nothing to do with reproduction. Pair bonding and simply enjoying sex is not just an optional extra but a fundamental part of being human. No contraceptive method is 100% effective. No woman should be bullied into abstinence or blackmailed into parenthood. Putting the interests of a non-person ahead of the interests of an actual person is grotesque and unfair.

The decision to contain one's own libido for the sake of the next generation has a name...let me think...it's called...wait...we used to talk about this: Oh yes. Honor. Self-control. Patience. You have to look in the archives to get this explained to you.

The word you are grasping for is "unnatural" with a side order of "perverse". Reproduction is not the sole, or even the prime function of sex. Having an abortion when unwillingly pregnant is both mature and responsible. Declaring total abstinence for the foreseeable future is neither.

Sorry...Biology is still science. Consequence is result...You see...the human being is a matter of science, that society's response to life, especially to the most innocent and vulnerable, is to kill it, is a matter of contemptable guilt. I get that you won't see this, but you do not want to ignore what happened to fallen empires and why. Each perished under the weight of pride, fullness of bread, abundance of idleness and they did not care for the poor and the needy. They thought they were great, they were obese...they entertained themselves to death...and they killed the weakest among them.

Biology is indeed science, and is irrelevant to moral or social issues. What is contemptible is forcing vulnerable women to go through a process they don't wish to undergo, possibly ruining their entire lives as a result, and blaming them for the fact. Women who are pregnant have a number of choices available to them. They should have all the options clearly explained, then enabled to take the action that they choose. Any other course is repression.

 

[docphin5]

Abortion and infanticide has always been a part of society.

It was illegal for most of our nation’s history. So we got rid of slavery but now kill our future children. Not much progress, IMO.

That doesn't make it a good thing, but certainly society is not collapsing because of current abortion law.

Slavery led to a civil war and 500,000 dead or wounded Americans.
Black culture has the highest abortion rates and high black on black crime rates. So is there an association between the devaluation of human life of the unborn and the willingness to murder others? If so, then what does that portend for our future?

Some consequences to bad national decisions are not always seen immediately but are insidious and slowly erode the values which hold societys together.

Repressive laws harassing vulnerable women are a lot more destructive.

Certainly, banning abortions is not the solution. There needs to be more effort on primary prevention of unwanted pregnancy: education, easily available birth control, policies supporting adoption, promoting committed relationships again, honoring good parenting, etc. it is not easy, but better than devaluing human life and telling each successive generation that their lives were expendable.

 

[HouOz]

https://www.facebook.com/1455174441/posts/10222781753279825

 

[Temujin]

It was illegal for most of our nation’s history. So we got rid of slavery but now kill our future children. Not much progress, IMO.

I wasn't thinking of your nation's history, but the history of mankind, of which your nation takes but a tiny fraction. We have got rid of slavery and protect women from the horrors of illegal abortion. Abortion numbers are coming down. A huge amount of progress.

Slavery led to a civil war and 500,000 dead or wounded Americans.
Black culture has the highest abortion rates and high black on black crime rates. So is there an association between the devaluation of human life of the unborn and the willingness to murder others? If so, then what does that portend for our future?

You are again arguing from the very particular case of your country's history. I would say that legal and easily accessible abortion, together with other medical and advice centres available to women of disadvantaged backgrounds, shows an increasing tendency within society to care for others. In general societal responsibility towards its most vulnerable members is increasing. SSM, gay and trans rights, the increasing awareness of institutional racism in bodies such as the police, feminism and abortion rights, all have this theme. I would dispute that there is an increased tendency to murder others. How many lynchings have there been recently? Yes, there are mass killings by a Lone, frequently deranged gunman. This speaks more to available weaponry than a devaluation of the value of life. The really disturbing events are those when a group of people gather together specifically to commit murder on a small number of vulnerable individuals. That is rather less common than in the past. Would you argue that this is because legal abortion has taught us to care for vulnerable women? I thought not.

Some consequences to bad national decisions are not always seen immediately but are insidious and slowly erode the values which hold societys together.

Very true. However, in the specific case of abortion, I would cite that Abortion Act 1967 enacted in the UK, which is acknowledged to be an astoundingly successful piece of legislation which has effectively removed all controversy around the subject, is accepted by those of all points of view and has saved very many lives. It was sponsored incidentally, by a devout Christian MP, Sir David Steel.

Certainly, banning abortions is not the solution. There needs to be more effort on primary prevention of unwanted pregnancy: education, easily available birth control, policies supporting adoption, promoting committed relationships again, honoring good parenting, etc. it is not easy, but better than devaluing human life and telling each successive generation that their lives were expendable.

Here I am in complete agreement with you. I don't accept that properly drafted and enforced laws on abortion devalue human life in any way, but I do agree that they are a part, hopefully an increasingly small part, of a sound reproduction strategy, which concentrates on education and care for the vulnerable.

 

[docphin5]

I wasn't thinking of your nation's history, but the history of mankind, of which your nation takes but a tiny fraction. We have got rid of slavery and protect women from the horrors of illegal abortion. Abortion numbers are coming down. A huge amount of progress.

You are again arguing from the very particular case of your country's history. I would say that legal and easily accessible abortion, together with other medical and advice centres available to women of disadvantaged backgrounds, shows an increasing tendency within society to care for others.

Abortion kills the most vulnerable so you seem to be excluding an important demographic when you claim “easily accessible abortion...shows care for others”. If a society can define away a whole segment of human life then it is only caring for those in power and justifies killing the most vulnerable. That is how holocausts happen because dehumanizing humans becomes normalized.

You say, “we got rid of the horrors of illegal abortion.” I imagine legal abortions remain horrible for the unborn human. See how you have compartmentalized the unborn human from human society when you describe how everything is now better that we can legally kill unborn humans. It only took redefining them as nonhuman. It is injustice and immoral disguised as a medical procedure along the lines of removing a hangnail.

For most of human history the unwanted children were sacrificed on altars of stone to some god for religious purposes. All we did was replace the stone altar with a stainless steel surgical table, change the priest to a doctor, and eliminated the god, unless individualism is the new ”god”. Calling it by a different name does not change what it is.

In general societal responsibility towards its most vulnerable members is increasing. SSM, gay and trans rights, the increasing awareness of institutional racism in bodies such as the police, feminism and abortion rights, all have this theme.

Not buying the liberal propaganda that equal rights requires the right to kill unborn humans.

Not buying the institutional racism either. Institutional racism was eliminated in the USA over fifty years ago (Cannot speak for the UK). Are there individuals who do bad things to others? Of course, but that happens across the board. It is not the same as as “institutionalized racism”. You just bought into the political propaganda that seeks to divide people and make them perpetual victims requiring a party to save them; and you are attempting to lump those who defend the unborn with “racists”. Keep drinking the Kool Aid.

I would dispute that there is an increased tendency to murder others. How many lynchings have there been recently?

They don’t lynch people anymore. Now they just run around in the streets with knives and machetes and stab each other. You should know something about that. Here the youth shoot each other over drugs and money. Either way, it is crime that is possibly made worse by a culture that devalues human life. It should be investigated.

Yes, there are mass killings by a Lone, frequently deranged gunman. This speaks more to available weaponry than a devaluation of the value of life. The really disturbing events are those when a group of people gather together specifically to commit murder on a small number of vulnerable individuals. That is rather less common than in the past.

Right, there is less institutionalized crime against adult minorities because we have made it illegal to do so. Now, we just need to apply that same emphasis on protecting the weakest members of all, that is, the unborn humans.

Would you argue that this is because legal abortion has taught us to care for vulnerable women? I thought not.

see above.

Very true. However, in the specific case of abortion, I would cite that Abortion Act 1967 enacted in the UK, which is acknowledged to be an astoundingly successful piece of legislation which has effectively removed all controversy around the subject, is accepted by those of all points of view and has saved very many lives. It was sponsored incidentally, by a devout Christian MP, Sir David Steel.

Don’t know much about it.

Here I am in complete agreement with you. I don't accept that properly drafted and enforced laws on abortion devalue human life in any way, but I do agree that they are a part, hopefully an increasingly small part, of a sound reproduction strategy, which concentrates on education and care for the vulnerable.

Let‘s not forget that unborn babies (especially babies that could exist outside the womb.) are among those whom you call “vulnerable”. They should be cared for too.

 

[Temujin]

Abortion kills the most vulnerable so you seem to be excluding an important demographic when you claim “easily accessible abortion...shows care for others”. If a society can define away a whole segment of human life then it is only caring for those in power and justifies killing the most vulnerable. That is how holocausts happen because dehumanizing humans becomes normalized.

You say, “we got rid of the horrors of illegal abortion.” I imagine legal abortions remain horrible for the unborn human. See how you have compartmentalized the unborn human from human society when you describe how everything is now better that we can legally kill unborn humans. It only took redefining them as nonhuman. It is injustice and immoral disguised as a medical procedure along the lines of removing a hangnail.

For most of human history the unwanted children were sacrificed on altars of stone to some god for religious purposes. All we did was replace the stone altar with a stainless steel surgical table, change the priest to a doctor, and eliminated the god, unless individualism is the new ”god”. Calling it by a different name does not change what it is.


Not buying the liberal propaganda that equal rights requires the right to kill unborn humans.

Not buying the institutional racism either. Institutional racism was eliminated in the USA over fifty years ago (Cannot speak for the UK). Are there individuals who do bad things to others? Of course, but that happens across the board. It is not the same as as “institutionalized racism”. You just bought into the political propaganda that seeks to divide people and make them perpetual victims requiring a party to save them; and you are attempting to lump those who defend the unborn with “racists”. Keep drinking the Kool Aid.


They don’t lynch people anymore. Now they just run around in the streets with knives and machetes and stab each other. You should know something about that. Here the youth shoot each other over drugs and money. Either way, it is crime that is possibly made worse by a culture that devalues human life. It should be investigated.

Right, there is less institutionalized crime against adult minorities because we have made it illegal to do so. Now, we just need to apply that same emphasis on protecting the weakest members of all, that is, the unborn humans.

see above.

Don’t know much about it.

Let‘s not forget that unborn babies (especially babies that could exist outside the womb.) are among those whom you call “vulnerable”. They should be cared for too.

We are talking at cross purposes for one simple reason. I do not agree that the unborn foetus has any value at all, above what the woman carrying it chooses to give it. If she chooses to cherish it, then she should be supported in that choice. If she chooses to terminate the pregnancy, then that choice too should be respected. The foetus, at least the early foetus, is not a person, has no rights whatever, and I am more than comfortable with that position. All your angst over dehumanising the helpless just doesn't wash with me. I understand your position, I just don't agree with it. For me the unborn foetus has no moral worth whatsoever. The morality of abortion is based solely, in my opinion, on how the woman is treated. This is not cynical expediency as some seek to make it. It is a genuine moral position that not just I, but the majority of people take. The pro-life position is very far from having the moral high ground, so attempts to shame abortion as immoral don't cut the mustard. I would agree with your final sentence concerning unborn capable of surviving outside the womb. To me, any human that can survive without a placenta is an independent being and should be regarded as a person. Until that point, they are not a person and should not be treated as one unless the woman chooses to do so.

On the tangential question of institutionalised racism, I had to laugh. If black people are proportionately more likely to be arrested, shot while evading arrest, charged, convicted, jailed and executed than white people in the same circumstances, then you have institutionalised racism in the justice system. If black people are proportionately less employed, less well paid, are offered fewer interviews, are laid off more often than white people in the same circumstances, then you have institutionalised racism in the workplace. Similar considerations can be made for education, health or any other aspect of public life. I have visited the US in the last 50 years. I have relatives who live their. I follow the news. The suggestion that the US did away with institutionalised racism 50 years ago is total fantasy.

 

[LifeIn]

An acorn isn't a tree.

But both can be morally destroyed under the right circumstances.

A fetus isn't a child.

That is a matter of societal convention. There is a continuous transformation from fetus into 5-year-old child. At what point in this development would you say it is moral to destroy the thing in question merely for the convenience of others?

 

[tbeachhead]

All this is true. All this is irrelevant. Any abortion that happens, doesn't happen to a person like me. It doesn't happen to a person at all. It does not matter how often you suggest that I am a survivor of abortion, lucky to be alive, etc. etc. It makes no difference. Abortion is a moral and a social issue, not a biological one.

One of the saddest, most honest testimonies to amorality I've ever read...The fact is, potential is the seed from which all creativity is born. A rock doesn't have the potential to become a Shakespeare...or a Bacon, depending on which side of that theory you're on...but a fetus does. The child you destroy in the womb will accomplish nothing. You, on the other hand, have here presented a skilled argument in favor of "not giving a shit" that no dead fetus could ever have made. In order to contradict your own point and prove that you at least matter, you HAD TO survive gestation, and by God's grace alone you did, and all lurkers, who likewise survived are reading with wonder your argument against survival.

And yet it is apparently pollution, particularly the American habit of stuffing farm animals with hormones, that is drastically reducing the levels of fertility, damaging sperm counts and male genitalia. As I said, it is having a greater effect on the next generation than abortion. We don't need to increase the population, but it would be good to have sufficient young people to run the place after I retire.

Some of your persuasion argue even against this...Bill Gates is convinced that the more dead, the better for the planet.

You would assume wrong. I have taught in various establishments for most of my working life.

Can you think of any students you would wish dead? Do you really feel godlike enough to say it would be better for them had they never been born?

Good for you. I have also worked in deprived communities. Including working as a safeguarding manager enabling young women in my care to obtain abortions if they wanted and needed one.

As a teacher, I'm sorry for the lost. I'm not better off for their death.

I don't play God. I don't even believe in God.

Things happen inadvertently, though don't they...helping others destroy the life in them for the sake of convenience. You don't need to believe in God to presume to act in his behalf. God knows the end from the beginning, and you called for the end at the beginning.

God has no part to play in determining social policy, either directly or as part of your belief.

He might think otherwise. You see...he wrote the owners manual. It's really quite pragmatic: If the consequences of an act are evil, the act itself is evil. Hence, when the USSR drained the Aral Sea to irrigate the desert, and all that returned to the sea was the effluvium of rotting waste, killing the sea for generations, and turning the land into noxious waste, draining the sea was an act of evil.

You have not weighed the consequences of shedding innocent blood...and you cannot, because, not being God, you cannot see the end. But you have ensured that end as you have assured yourself that there is no consequence. One chapter of the Bible, if you took the time, would bear witness to what is happening and why you think the way you do...just one. It's all written in Romans 1, a chapter that Canada is forbidden to read on the radio.

Doing right by people is more important than doing right by a deity that the majority of people don't believe in. If by chance he exists and cannot be bothered to arrange things more sensibly, then He should leave it to human beings to sort out.

His resurrection from the dead is proof enough of His existence...and your very statement is proof enough that He has given to us to "arrange things more sensibly", and to hold us accountable for what we are calling "sensibly." Since the death of a child makes sense to you...you will be given the chance to explain your own reasoning...and I'm sure the child will be able to listen to the argument as you make it.

Except you don't do that. The vast majority of "pro-life" supporters are right wing evangelists who would rather run a mile in tight shoes than vote for any programme that realistically supports the poor.

I don't vote for programs that politicians, whose net worth has increased by 1000% while in office, assure me will "help the poor." We just signed a multi-trillion "help the poor, COVID relief" handout where 9% goes to COVID relief, and 91% gets distributed among themselves and their constituents.

Here's the thing. A healthy sex life has nothing to do with reproduction.

Um...Coincidentally, it can be argued that it does.

A sex life, healthy or unhealthy, that includes the exchange of bodily fluids in propitious orifices, runs the risk of having EVERYTHING to do with reproduction.

Pair bonding and simply enjoying sex is not just an optional extra but a fundamental part of being human.

Again, you presume. There are those who are predisposed to contain themselves for a set purpose...and that is a sublimely, admirably, quintessentially human choice.

No contraceptive method is 100% effective.

Nonsense. Abstinence has never been known to fail, but once in the history of mankind. And that once was foreseen and foretold...and a matter of faith and not human contact.

No woman should be bullied into abstinence or blackmailed into parenthood. Putting the interests of a non-person ahead of the interests of an actual person is grotesque and unfair.

You choose interesting terms. Of course I agree that no one should be "bullied" into anything, although, I believe good education can be said to "bully" the attentive into THINKING...something that is more and more discouraged these days. Morality is a matter of public health, despite your own claims and apparent misunderstandings.

The word you are grasping for is "unnatural" with a side order of "perverse". Reproduction is not the sole, or even the prime function of sex. Having an abortion when unwillingly pregnant is both mature and responsible. Declaring total abstinence for the foreseeable future is neither.

Again...we'll obviously disagree when three human beings are involved. When you discount your own gestation as the beginning of you, you only prove that living in denial does not produce the most thought-induced results.

Biology is indeed science, and is irrelevant to moral or social issues. What is contemptible is forcing vulnerable women to go through a process they don't wish to undergo, possibly ruining their entire lives as a result, and blaming them for the fact. Women who are pregnant have a number of choices available to them. They should have all the options clearly explained, then enabled to take the action that they choose. Any other course is repression.

When it explains why this is a three way conversation and not a two way conversation, you have to resort again to denial to suggest what you do. Thanks again for your post and your patience.

 

[Temujin]

One of the saddest, most honest testimonies to amorality I've ever read...The fact is, potential is the seed from which all creativity is born. A rock doesn't have the potential to become a Shakespeare...or a Bacon, depending on which side of that theory you're on...but a fetus does. The child you destroy in the womb will accomplish nothing. You, on the other hand, have here presented a skilled argument in favor of "not giving a shit" that no dead fetus could ever have made. In order to contradict your own point and prove that you at least matter, you HAD TO survive gestation, and by God's grace alone you did, and all lurkers, who likewise survived are reading with wonder your argument against survival.

Another non-argument. For every Shakespeare there is a Torquemada. For every Martin Luther there is a Hitler (They were actually quite similar in some ways.) The potential of the conceived embryo is no more significant than the potential of the contents of a used condom.

Some of your persuasion argue even against this...Bill Gates is convinced that the more dead, the better for the planet.

No, it is not more dead that the planet needs, but fewer living. Most people can tell the difference.

Can you think of any students you would wish dead? Do you really feel godlike enough to say it would be better for them had they never been born?

Pro-choice doesn't mean that it's my choice. I don't wish death on anybody, and I speak as one who has fought, and killed in battle.

As a teacher, I'm sorry for the lost. I'm not better off for their death.

As a teacher, I know that it isn't about me. My feelings, whatever they may be, are irrelevant. My task is to enable those who have decisions to make, to make them with as much knowledge and as few barriers as possible.

Things happen inadvertently, though don't they...helping others destroy the life in them for the sake of convenience. You don't need to believe in God to presume to act in his behalf. God knows the end from the beginning, and you called for the end at the beginning.

Lol! You have absolutely know idea of the circumstances. You just make assumptions about "convenience". I don't act on God's behalf anymore than I act on behalf of Thor, or Shiva, or Big Ears. Your beliefs have no impact whatever on my actions.

He might think otherwise. You see...he wrote the owners manual. It's really quite pragmatic: If the consequences of an act are evil, the act itself is evil. Hence, when the USSR drained the Aral Sea to irrigate the desert, and all that returned to the sea was the effluvium of rotting waste, killing the sea for generations, and turning the land into noxious waste, draining the sea was an act of evil.

Evil is an over-used term for things that we would rather not happen. Your example is irrelevant. An interesting story, but no link to abortion.

You have not weighed the consequences of shedding innocent blood...and you cannot, because, not being God, you cannot see the end. But you have ensured that end as you have assured yourself that there is no consequence. One chapter of the Bible, if you took the time, would bear witness to what is happening and why you think the way you do...just one. It's all written in Romans 1, a chapter that Canada is forbidden to read on the radio.

I am an atheist. Bible verses leave me completely unmoved. That is not why I am pro-choice. I know Christians who are pro-choice and atheists who are anti-abortion. There are probably some of each reading these posts. I am also not Canadian, and have no interest in what Canadians are permitted to listen to (read?) on the radio.

His resurrection from the dead is proof enough of His existence...and your very statement is proof enough that He has given to us to "arrange things more sensibly", and to hold us accountable for what we are calling "sensibly." Since the death of a child makes sense to you...you will be given the chance to explain your own reasoning...and I'm sure the child will be able to listen to the argument as you make it.

If this is an attempt to persuade me that God exists, that there is life after death, that the unborn foetus is a child with the capacity to listen to reason, then it has failed.

I don't vote for programs that politicians, whose net worth has increased by 1000% while in office, assure me will "help the poor." We just signed a multi-trillion "help the poor, COVID relief" handout where 9% goes to COVID relief, and 91% gets distributed among themselves and their constituents.

Yet you would happily vote for measures that forced those poor to bring unwanted children into the world without any attempt to support them, while all the while offering sanctimonious prayers to the value of life. Do you know the child mortality rate in the US?

A sex life, healthy or unhealthy, that includes the exchange of bodily fluids in propitious orifices, runs the risk of having EVERYTHING to do with reproduction.

Indeed it does. So for the heterosexual at least effective sex education, freely available contraception and advice and guidance on abortion, are all vital elements of public health.

Again, you presume. There are those who are predisposed to contain themselves for a set purpose...and that is a sublimely, admirably, quintessentially human choice.

It is perverse and abnormal, which is why it so seldom occurs.

Nonsense. Abstinence has never been known to fail, but once in the history of mankind. And that once was foreseen and foretold...and a matter of faith and not human contact.

Abstinence fails all the time, due to a completely understandable failure of will. Continued voluntary abstinence is both perverse and abnormal.

You choose interesting terms. Of course I agree that no one should be "bullied" into anything, although, I believe good education can be said to "bully" the attentive into THINKING...something that is more and more discouraged these days. Morality is a matter of public health, despite your own claims and apparent misunderstandings.

Morality is not a public anything. Morality is personal and subjective. It might drive a person to seek a particular policy direction, but no-one has a monopoly on morality.

Again...we'll obviously disagree when three human beings are involved. When you discount your own gestation as the beginning of you, you only prove that living in denial does not produce the most thought-induced results.

There are not three human beings involved. There is one person, and one potential person. That's it. If you want to discuss the point that I believe that a person becomes a person, then that would probably be better done separately. You can argue as much as you like that the embryo is a person, but that doesn't make it so. Greater minds than ours have thought this through and made a decision.

When it explains why this is a three way conversation and not a two way conversation, you have to resort again to denial to suggest what you do. Thanks again for your post and your patience.

No, this is not a "three-way conversation". It is a decision to be made by the single human mind with any say in the matter. There is no conversation, which implies advocacy or persuasion. There is a giving and receiving of information, a decision, then a giving and receiving of support, whatever form that decision takes. The only persuasion I would presume to give a pregnant woman considering an abortion, would be an attempt to persuade her that she should make the choice based on her own needs and wishes, not those of her parents, the putative father or his parents, or society at large. Every person's circumstances are unique, and no one knows them better than the person themselves. If she wishes to consider the "potential" of the life growing inside her, then she will do so. It is not my job to persuade her either way. Neither is it your job, or God's. There is only one life of consequence at stake, hers.

 

[Whateverman]

A fetus isn't a child

That is a matter of societal convention.

In the same sense that "an acorn isn't a tree" is likewise a societal convention, yes. Anything written in English is a societal convention - so perhaps I'm not understanding your point in saying it...

There is a continuous transformation from fetus into 5-year-old child.

Absolutely.

At what point in this development would you say it is moral to destroy the thing in question merely for the convenience of others?

I'm not sure. I only know that an acorn isn't a tree, and destroying one isn't the same as destroying the other - for the sake of necessity or convenience or whatever the motivation.

I'm fairly certain that destroying a fetus during the first term is morally-acceptable. Beyond that, my discomfort grows notably through the second trimester, to the point that I consider it morally repugnant to destroy it during the third.

 

[LifeIn]

I'm fairly certain that destroying a fetus during the first term is morally-acceptable. Beyond that, my discomfort grows notably through the second trimester, to the point that I consider it morally repugnant to destroy it during the third.

What is it about the fetus that changes over this period of time that makes it more repugnant to destroy it in the third trimester than in the second or the first? It is that is physically looks more like people we know? It is that it is larger? If we applied that criteria to adults we would have less respect for the life of midgets or people with Facial Infused Lipomatosis than we would for full-sized adults with normal faces.

It is risky to base our morality on how we feel. Such a basis has led to all sorts of atrocities in human history, including the holocaust, American slavery, various genocides around the world, as well as lesser forms of oppression.

 

[tbeachhead]

In the same sense that "an acorn isn't a tree" is likewise a societal convention, yes.

Yes...in EXACTLY that same sense. And there is NO tree that wasn't first an acorn. None. Few would argue that the life of the tree and the life of the child have the same value, although in this depraved millennium I've even heard that argument voiced.

Here's the unfortunate distinction...Oaks are not given responsibility and dominion over the forest. That's man's job and delegated duty, and the ultimate form by which his judgment is made. Oaks don't shed blood.

 

[Temujin]

What is it about the fetus that changes over this period of time that makes it more repugnant to destroy it in the third trimester than in the second or the first? It is that is physically looks more like people we know? It is that it is larger? If we applied that criteria to adults we would have less respect for the life of midgets or people with Facial Infused Lipomatosis than we would for full-sized adults with normal faces.

It is none of those things. It develops from an indeterminate cluster of cells to a being with a functioning nervous system and cerebral cortex capable of survival ex utero. That is what makes it a person, the ability to breathe and live independently of the mother.

It is risky to base our morality on how we feel. Such a basis has led to all sorts of atrocities in human history, including the holocaust, American slavery, various genocides around the world, as well as lesser forms of oppression.

And yet our feelings are all we have when it comes to morality. We might out-source our feelings to someone else's feelings, or even someone else's claims about God's feelings; but when it comes down to it, all we have to guide our morality is our conscience. In other words, our feelings.

 

[Temujin]

Yes...in EXACTLY that same sense. And there is NO tree that wasn't first an acorn. None. Few would argue that the life of the tree and the life of the child have the same value, although in this depraved millennium I've even heard that argument voiced.

Yet there a very great number of acorns that don't become trees. I would certainly not value a tree more than a child, but not necessarily an embryo. The value of the unborn is the value placed on it by the woman carrying it, nothing more, nothing less. It may be the world to her. It may be a nightmare burden. She decides. No one else has the right.

Here's the unfortunate distinction...Oaks are not given responsibility and dominion over the forest. That's man's job and delegated duty, and the ultimate form by which his judgment is made. Oaks don't shed blood.

We are not "given" dominion. We have taken it, because we are able to do so. Whether we are able to exercise it competently is another matter. At some point in the near or far future, humanity will fail and become extinct, as all animals do. Oak trees may not survive until then, but some form of life surely will.