dk wolf

When I get out of the military and move back to SoCal.. I want to mind-suck the ever living knowledge out of Joe Perez, I'll drive down to SD and pay for his vodka espressos.

I'll be honest, on the subject of abortion. I never put much thought into it as far as you guys have. For me, abortion is a non-issue as previously stated. It's such a mundane issue to be concerned over, and should never take time away from a presidential debate. (which, is what I'm doing now... whatever).

The only thing that I have questions about from this past debate are Romney's statements in regards to taxation. He spoke about his 5 point plan, and after factchecking it, many are in consensus that the numbers don't add up. There is literally no way for him to do this. Now I don't know why he keeps purporting that this will cut costs since all of what I've read (very possible I've been reading the wrong ****) says he will be upping military spending (which, although I'm military, am against increasing the size of).

As far as I'm concerned, Obama hasn't said much to clinch my skepticism (might be missing something obvious), I just don't like the way he's been running things, and his paper trail (money wise) shows a negative trend. His stats regarding unemployment are incorrectly represented.

I'd also rather avoid looking this as a race between two candidates... =\

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I should have been more clear re: "Given present-day medical technology..."

You already know this, but for others:

The limit of viability for preterm infants is, at present, considered to be 24 weeks. That is the age at which, assuming competent medical care, the infant has at least a 50% chance of long-term survival. It is considered a cutoff point, after which the hospital will generally provide aggressive treatment, resuscitate as needed, etc., but before which, they generally will instead say "the child was just too under-developed, there was nothing we could do, etc." (Obviously, the incidence of severe long-term disability is extremely high at this age, but they will plow forth anyway, determined to ensure that yet another human being gets to enjoy a lifetime of epilepsy, cerebral palsy mental retardation and blindness.)



A purely objective person might, at this point, observe that on a per-individual basis, the amount of money expended to preserve the doomed lives of the extremely young, and to briefly extend the lives of the very old, is extraordinarily high as compared to the cost of providing normal medical care for those between the ages of 1 and 70.

In other words, it's an inverse bell-curve, in which the most money (per individual) is spent on those at the very outside fringes of the age range, and who are "least valuable" to society.

The elderly can, to some extent, be defended. They may be grandparents or great grandparents whose passing will be mourned, they are conscious of their own existence, participate in their environment, and have social interactions with others. Or, put bluntly, they are normal human beings who just happen to be getting on in mileage.

Infants, in particular, can be said to be of no value at all. They have not yet formed social bonds, they are unaware of their existence, and they do not participate in their environment in a meaningful way. Extremely premature infants, in particular, are much more likely than anyone else to never be able to participate meaningfully in society, either as a result of death or of severe developmental disabilities, both physical and mental. In other words, we spend the MOST to protect the lives of those whose lives are "worth" the LEAST, and who are the MOST LIKELY to lead a life of comparatively low quality and high suffering.



So, yeah. We have some pretty fucked up priorities as a society.



I predict that Godwin's Law will soon be invoked.




And it is STILL an irrelevant topic vis-a-vis electing a president. (Well, Abortion, I mean. We've drifted into general healthcare at this point. Bring on the Obamacare Death Panels.)

mx5-kiwi

Re the old, who have, in our country spent a lifetime paying tax that covers medical bills.....your country insurances etc...(more or less the same thing, just s different model). infants not so much.....

Interesting discussion, don't stop!

18psi

iTrader: (76)

I'm kinda bummed out the title was changed to "debaters" instead of 'baters

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I also forgot to point out one other thing, which I think is fundamental to an objective discussion of the "value" of life at the extreme ends of the medical-costs bell curve.

An elderly person is a unique commodity. They have spent a lifetime accumulating knowledge and experiences, and while the practical application of this may be the subject of debate, the fact of it is irrefutable.

Even if I had the power to clone a human body, I could not re-create my grandmother. The essence of her being is gone, and it can never be replaced or re-created. So beyond any obligation owed to her (in return for a lifetime of work and insurance premiums), her death can be postulated to have some measurable negative effect on society. (I am presupposing, of course, that my grandmother was not a serial murderer, a child molester, etc. I'm pretty sure she wasn't any of those things, even though she was a democrat...)



Newborn infants, by comparison, are a completely fungible commodity. If we accept the fundamental tenet that "we are all created equal" (or any re-wording of same which is functionally equivalent) then aside from the notional value of hereditary inheritance (eg: the child is special to its parents because its DNA is slightly more similar to theirs than to the rest of humanity) any one newborn infant is freely exchangeable with any other. (see: Duke, Mortimer and Randolph, 1983)

Or, put in a slightly less Heinleinesque-sounding way, it really doesn't matter if your newborn dies, because you can very easily make another one*. (This also satisfies the hereditary inheritance objection.) In fact, if your newborn infant is significantly premature, then you are doing a dis-service both to society and to the newborn itself by expending extraordinary effort to prevent it from dying. The probability is greatly increased that that child will experience a lower quality of life and impose a greater financial and social burden on both its family and on society as a whole (by way of increased insurance and social-service payouts) as compared to a "normal" child. As such, the best thing to do, for all partied concerned without exception, is to just let it die naturally and then make another one.
I mean, this is what we do at work. If we're doing a production run of the cast aluminum end-panels for a console, and one of them comes out of the mold with a huge void in it, we don't expend large amounts of time and effort trying to "save" the part. It just gets chucked into the recycle bin and we pour another one. The direct cost in time and materials to make another end panel is quite small as compared to the costs (both direct cost and opportunity cost) of attempting to repair the defective one.



It is a despicable crime to willingly cause the needless and unjustifiable suffering of a child.

Saml01

iTrader: (9)

^ These are eastern ideologies that most people in the west do not share with you(and me). I once spoke about this in my ethics classes and people looked at me like I was crazy. I got an A though.

bbundy

[quote=Joe Perez;940518].[/ quote]

How dare you bring logical rational thought into a conversation about killing babies.

JasonC SBB

+1 I agree even though I'm closer to pro-choice.

Ditto regarding SS Medicare and welfare - they should be moved from the Feds to the States.