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From a pragmatic standpoint, however, consider the alternative. Is abortion worse than people who don't want / can't afford to provide a proper environment (socially, economically, etc) for a child being forced to give birth? I ask this both from the point of view of the child, and of society as a whole.
1 **** society.
2. abortion ends a life, so yes.
at least you have a fighting chance if born. not everyone is a millionaire. you gotta play cards dealt, you should be lucky enough to live in a country that allows you to prosper despite such hard-comings.
we also make it so hella easy for people to have zero personal responsibility for themselves if it was harder to be a 15yo mom of 5 children, people wouldn't be so inclined to do it. but "society" steals from individual contributors to give to undeserving burdens under the guise it's benefiting society (ending poor, ending hungry, jerking us off), but it's only self-perpetuating, not solving the issue. I mean how many years of stealing other peoples money to give to dickholes does it take for people to realize that it simply doesnt work?
Sadly, I have no choice but to live in it. Thus, it's in my best interest (and yours) to make it function as well as possible.
Originally Posted by Braineack
2. abortion ends a life, so yes.
1: I think we can all agree that there are some lives not worth living. See "wrongful life."
2: Opinions on this vary, within both the medical and religious communities.
From a purely scientific standpoint, coherant neural activity begins around the end of the second trimester, and this is roughly coincident with both fetal viability and the "late term" rule which is generally applied by most states in determining abortion laws.
From a religious standpoint, the Christian bible doesn't directly talk about abortion (which is an interesting omission, as it was commonly practiced in the areas surrounding the Jewish settlements in which most of the text was written), except in one specific place: Numbers 5:11-3. In this passage, the bible mandates abortion for women who have been unfaithful to their husbands, and lists a recipe and procedure which the priest is to follow to carry it out.
Beyond that, most passages which give some clue as to the biblical standard for the beginning of life speak of breath. Eg:
Genesis 2:7 - And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Job 27:3 - All the while my breath [is] in me, and the spirit of God [is] in my nostrils;
Job 33:4 - The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.
Thus, a Christian who is a biblical literalist could reasonably condone all forms of abortion up to and including partial-birth abortion.
2: Opinions on this vary, within both the medical and religious communities.
The science is pretty settled, really, unless you happen to be someone with a particular motivation to politicize the issue. Embryology textbooks are in agreement about when the life-cycle begins.
Obfuscations about "life" vs "a life" or "human" vs "human being" or "potential" or "viable" qualifications have nothing to do with the science of the matter.
The science is pretty settled, really, unless you happen to be someone with a particular motivation to politicize the issue. Embryology textbooks are in agreement about when the life-cycle begins.
From a legal standpoint (since this is the politics section), there is not universal agreement as to the earliest possible definition of "viability."
I'd also question whether this "settled" definition contained within embryology textbooks has changed at all over the past 45 years. Admittedly, I have never studied embryology.
I have. Quite extensively.
Unless something physically ends the process (kills the cells), human formation begins withing microseconds of a sperm entering an egg.
From a pragmatic standpoint, however, consider the alternative. Is abortion worse than people who don't want / can't afford to provide a proper environment (socially, economically, etc) for a child being forced to give birth? I ask this both from the point of view of the child, and of society as a whole.
The Roman Catholic Church, with its anti-abortion / anti-contraception policy, has done more to increase poverty and human suffering overall than any other single fascist regime in modern history.
Life vs. convenience certainly is a popular theme, especially if you're making the rules. It's popular in Communist countries because they make the rules, and because life isn't worth that much. It's also popular among the Libs in the U.S. as well, and for the same reason. Dems have been the party of slavery and "life as convenience" since day one. If we need something from you, we'll take it. Social Democrats are the standard-bearer's of eugenics.
Liberty is the standard-bearer for life. If you don't value liberty, then you don't much value life. And vice versa.
As for the Roman Catholic church, the argument falls flat in India, China, Africa and a hundred other places. When life is base, the rules of evolution take over and having more offspring is simply a way of making sure you'll have someone to take care of you when you're older. Or apparently kill you--in the pragmatic countries.
Social Democrats are the standard-bearer's of eugenics.
(...)
As for the Roman Catholic church, the argument falls flat in India, China, Africa and a hundred other places. When life is base, the rules of evolution take over and having more offspring is simply a way of making sure you'll have someone to take care of you when you're older. Or apparently kill you--in the pragmatic countries.
I'm pretty far from the left in most regards. Social policy is sort of a mixed bag for me- I don't care who wants to marry who, or what gender you consider yourself to be, so long as you don't try to force me to speak SJW-talk or expect me to subsidize your lifestyle.
That said, I see a lot of people every day whose very existence tends to lend credence to the eugenics movement.
As for China, India and Africa, Catholicism never really caught on there. And you can't really compare countries in which starvation and poverty and considered to be the norm with countries in which concepts such as "lifestyle choice" and "discretionary income" are commonplace. Inasmuch as the family structure is concerned, modern Catholicism strives to emulate the model of third-world nations in which economic security is positively correlated with family size. It is an obsolete concept in industrialized nations.
I'm pretty far from the left in most regards. Social policy is sort of a mixed bag for me- I don't care who wants to marry who, or what gender you consider yourself to be, so long as you don't try to force me to speak SJW-talk or expect me to subsidize your lifestyle.
That said, I see a lot of people every day whose very existence tends to lend credence to the eugenics movement.
As for China, India and Africa, Catholicism never really caught on there. And you can't really compare countries in which starvation and poverty and considered to be the norm with countries in which concepts such as "lifestyle choice" and "discretionary income" are commonplace. Inasmuch as the family structure is concerned, modern Catholicism strives to emulate the model of third-world nations in which economic security is positively correlated with family size. It is an obsolete concept in industrialized nations.
Unrelated, but funny:
That's my point about India/China/Africa. They're not bound by Catholicism, and yet they breed like rabbits. Ergo, it's not the RC's fault.
And the cartoon is what's wrong with America. There are enough people who will give up their own freedom to be governed by someone who is supposedly superior to them. Hillary is not superior to the wart I have on my knee. Paraphrasing Hayek, the smartest dude in the room can't know what I need to buy when I go to the store, so a government-controlled economy or government-controlled society will never work as well as an open market, "dumb guy" system.
That's my point about India/China/Africa. They're not bound by Catholicism, and yet they breed like rabbits. Ergo, it's not the RC's fault.
When viewed in this context, Catholicism is an evolutionary adaptation.
(Disclaimer: the following is going to sound, to some extent, like white supremacist BS. Sorry about that.)
Many millennia ago, the peoples of Europe existed in a state which is comparable to the most impoverished people of Asia and Africa today. Poverty was the norm. Child mortality was high, and average lifespans were short. Most families grew the food which they ate, using inefficient methods. Common household chores such as cooking, cleaning, and clothesmaking were done without the benefit of mechanization.
As a result, there was a high demand for labor within the family unit, and children were an inexpensive and highly available source of this labor. And during this time, the ideals of the Catholic Church with regard to procreation was perfectly in-step with the needs of daily life.
As time went on, technology offset much of the demand for labor in daily life. Modern agriculture meant that most families could do something other than grow food. Textile mills and clothing factories meant that shirts could be purchased inexpensively. Vacuum cleaners, refrigerators, stoves, washing machines and the like meant that caring for the household became a part-time job for a single person, rather than a full-time job for three.
And yet the religion held steadfast to its old ideals, in much the same way that the Jewish faith holds to dietary customs which made sense in an era before refrigeration and modern sanitation and cooking methods.
It will be interesting to look back at the various Dharmic faiths in a few hundred years.
I have yet to hear an argument against abortion that isn't rooted in religion, and if we are to separate church and state, then how can we possibly take a governmental stance on abortion?
Babies are easy to create - hell, probably more than half the time, they are created by accident. Anti-abortion is merely another way of society placing far more value on a human life than it is actually worth. I can't see why it matters if life is terminated moments after conception or moments before birth; cows can feel, yet we kill healthy adult cows all the time. If your religion, values, or personal beliefs tell you not to have an abortion, then don't have an abortion, but don't go trying to force upon others that their religion, values, or personal beliefs are wrong.
I had to type this with one hand, as my 5-day-old son is occupying the other.
I have yet to hear an argument against abortion that isn't rooted in religion, and if we are to separate church and state, then how can we possibly take a governmental stance on abortion?
Alright, I'll bite. What's your argument against murder that isn't rooted in religion?
I have yet to hear an argument against abortion that isn't rooted in religion, and if we are to separate church and state, then how can we possibly take a governmental stance on abortion?
we shouldnt kill people. pretty simple argument right there.
we shouldnt kill people. pretty simple argument right there.
Agreed. But what is a person?
An amorphous blob of cells, which has no discernible organs and no brain, is clearly not a person. It certainly has the potential to become one, and will, if uninterrupted, become a person roughly 50% of the time. (Appx 50% of all fertilizations result in miscarriage, most commonly before the female is even aware of the pregnancy. Source.) But in the present-tense, it does not have any of the characteristics of a person, nor is it conscious. Nature imbues no rights upon such an object.
This is probably the reason that female birth control by means of inert intrauterine devices does not provoke outrage. The principal mechanism of action of these devices is not to prevent ovulation or fertilization, but rather to prevent the fertilized egg from successfully implanting itself on the wall of the uterus, and thus causing it to simply be flushed out with the next menstrual cycle. If one believes that "life" begins at the instant of fertilization, then IUDs are a form of murder.
If "person" means "unique human life", then I don't see how a fertilized egg could be anything other than a person. It's not dead. It's not the same human life as the mother or father (again, refer to your embryology textbooks). And it's not some other kind of organism -- it's not a raccoon, or a sea slug, or an algae.
Is it or is it not a unique, living, human organism?
08-10-2016, 03:16 PM
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