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On April 01 2015 23:03 Maenander wrote:
Aaah, every sperm is sacred ... think about all the potential humans you could help bring to life right now, how immoral of you not do it.
A foetus is already more than just a potential person. It's the starting point for an actual, real person. The miscarriage comparison is completely off because that has nothing to do with abortion.
On April 01 2015 22:54 ZasZ. wrote:
Our populations are already wildly out of control, if people want to avoid having eight children per family, that's fine with me.
There are about a dozen methods cheaply available to avoid pregnancy. Abortion as population control, are you serious?
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The Arkansas House on Tuesday approved a religious freedom measure that mirrors the one Pence signed into law in Indiana -- sparking outrage from businesses, sports organizations and popular culture figures who said it opened the door to discrimination against gays and lesbians.
Hutchinson, a Republican in his first year in office, said Monday that he'd sign the measure -- but that was when lawmakers were still trying to find tweaks that ultimately eluded them.
"If this bill reaches my desk in similar form as to what has been passed in 20 other states then I will sign it," he said then.
A Hutchinson spokesman told CNN that the governor will release a public statement announcing what he's decided to do Wednesday morning -- likely around 11:30 a.m. Eastern time. He said there will be no public signing ceremony.
source
Essentially the same as the Indiana law, which has now received widespread backlash across the country.
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On April 01 2015 23:11 Nyxisto wrote:
A foetus is already more than just a potential person. It's the starting point for an actual, real person. The miscarriage comparison is completely off because that has nothing to do with abortion.
Oh but it has to do with abortion. These miscarriages could potentially be avoided. If you really think conception defines the starting point for being a person, then it would be criminal to not try to save all these "persons". Half of mankind is dying, but barely anyone notices.
Because defining conception as the starting point of being a person is not very useful.
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On April 01 2015 21:46 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 21:41 kwizach wrote:On April 01 2015 21:38 Nyxisto wrote:
Sanctity of life should be an absolute no-brainer both for religious and non-religious people. I also find the whole early pregnancy diagnostic thing disturbing that's legal in Denmark for example, which has resulted in lots of abortions of children with down syndrome. Except they weren't children yet. but they were going to be. As several people have pointed out the 'conciousness' criteria is pretty stupid. A comatose person doesn't lose their rights because they aren't concious. The implication is what really matters. A foetus is already existing life that will eventually develop into a real person. By aborting it you take that chance away.
The Problem with this discussion is, that people cant decide or agree on a definition of what is a "human", every definition of this term brought some serious problems. humans have a right to live, but if you cant agree on if a embryo is human than this "right" has no meaning.
conciousness is not more stupid than "implication".
with a implication you get also problems, cause then even "safe sex" would lead to a not born child and should be banned.
you said: but the embryo is the real start of a human.
yeah why do you say that?! why not conception?! totally arbitrary.
or animals could through evolution get to a human like state, if we wouldnt shoot them the whole time.
also a problem is, that you base your decisions on knowing what happens in the future - makes me a bit uneasy.
you can now set totally arbitrary rules, like implication is only used if there is already an embryo, but then you are no better than any other approach. either you follow your ethic argument to the end or you shouldnt make it at all. just using it were it suits you is exactly as arbitrary as saying an embryo is no human and thats the reason i can kill it.
the ultimate argument, in my opinion, pro abortion is a utilitarian one.
if you ban abortion, doesnt mean no embryos/babys are abortet.
so now maybe you save some babys, but sacrifice womans health cause they do it on the black market.
and are these babys really saved? cause if they are born into a family which doesnt want a baby you maybe give room to even more pain than a single dead embryo.
also before you ban abortion you would have to ban the death sentence, cause if society can decide that killing criminals is ok (there is no doubt that they are humans, contrary to embryos), than it can decide that abortions are ok.
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On April 01 2015 23:11 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 23:03 Maenander wrote:
Aaah, every sperm is sacred ... think about all the potential humans you could help bring to life right now, how immoral of you not do it.
A foetus is already more than just a potential person. It's the starting point for an actual, real person. The miscarriage comparison is completely off because that has nothing to do with abortion. Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 22:54 ZasZ. wrote:
Our populations are already wildly out of control, if people want to avoid having eight children per family, that's fine with me. There are about a dozen methods cheaply available to avoid pregnancy. Abortion as population control, are you serious?
Abortion as population control is a terrible argument. Agreed.
However, a foetus is a potential person in the same way a sperm cell is. All a sperm cell needs is an egg cell and a conductive environment (generally found together). The foetus needs a conductive environment. A 9-week-old foetus cannot be kept alive outside the womb, and thus it really isn't much other than a weird lump of tissue growing in the mother's uterus. A special kind of tumor, if you like 
It's only by week 20 that you could call a fetus a potential human (in that it is at least possible to keep it alive outside of the womb), and by week 24 its survival chance outside the womb increases to 50%, making it as likely to be a human as a lump of dead organic matter. For me personally, a cut-off rate for abortion makes sense at 24 weeks, although anywhere between 20 and about 32 weeks seems reasonable to me (after 32 weeks babies don't necessarily need fancy hospital apparatus like incubators to be kept alive).
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On April 01 2015 23:29 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 23:11 Nyxisto wrote:On April 01 2015 23:03 Maenander wrote:
Aaah, every sperm is sacred ... think about all the potential humans you could help bring to life right now, how immoral of you not do it.
A foetus is already more than just a potential person. It's the starting point for an actual, real person. The miscarriage comparison is completely off because that has nothing to do with abortion. On April 01 2015 22:54 ZasZ. wrote:
Our populations are already wildly out of control, if people want to avoid having eight children per family, that's fine with me. There are about a dozen methods cheaply available to avoid pregnancy. Abortion as population control, are you serious? Abortion as population control is a terrible argument. Agreed. However, a foetus is a potential person in the same way a sperm cell is. All a sperm cell needs is an egg cell and a conductive environment (generally found together). The foetus needs a conductive environment. A 9-week-old foetus cannot be kept alive outside the womb, and thus it really isn't much other than a weird lump of tissue growing in the mother's uterus. A special kind of tumor, if you like It's only by week 20 that you could call a fetus a potential human (in that it is at least possible to keep it alive outside of the womb), and by week 24 its survival chance outside the womb increases to 50%, making it as likely to be a human as a lump of dead organic matter. For me personally, a cut-off rate for abortion makes sense at 24 weeks, although anywhere between 20 and about 32 weeks seems reasonable to me (after 32 weeks babies don't necessarily need fancy hospital apparatus like incubators to be kept alive).
well a sperm cell on it's own is different in that no matter how much you pamper it, no matter how warm and cozy you make it it actually won't become a human by itself because about 50% are missing
Again, I still think it just comes down to what's practical but the point at which it's no longer reliant on other people/things can be misused in an equally weird fashion. If you don't look after a 6 month old baby it's going to die as well despite being able to breathe by itself becaue it's not going to walk into a supermarket and get it's own food. You could make an argument that it's just a varying degree of how much you need to assist for it to survive.
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On April 01 2015 23:09 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 12:56 GreenHorizons wrote:This is not going to help Indiana... An Indiana judge on Monday sentenced a 33-year-old woman, Purvi Patel, to 20 years in prison on charges of feticide and neglect of a dependent.
Patel is the first woman in Indiana to be convicted under the state’s feticide law. Activists say the case highlights the way that prosecutors across the U.S. are increasingly using laws designed to protect expecting mothers to criminalize women for terminating a pregnancy or allegedly harming an unborn child.
In 2013, Patel was arrested after seeking help in an emergency room for excessive bleeding, with an umbilical cord protruding from her vagina. She first told staff she hadn’t been pregnant but then revealed that she had given birth at her home in Granger, Indiana, according to court documents.
Patel told an investigator that she thought the fetus wasn’t alive and that she left it in a plastic bag in a dumpster outside her family home.
A police investigation recovered the fetus and charged Patel with killing her baby.
"I assumed because the baby was dead there was nothing to do," the South Bend Tribune, a local newspaper, reported she said in a police interview that was performed just hours after she was admitted to the hospital.
"I've never been in this situation. I've never been pregnant before," she allegedly told the police from the hospital while recovering from sedation and blood loss, before she had legal counsel.
Reproductive rights advocates say Patel’s case isn’t the first instance in which a woman has been accused under fetal homicide laws.
Although the laws were intended to deal with crimes against pregnant women and to target illegal abortion providers, they are increasingly used to prosecute women who miscarry, have stillbirths, try to terminate their own pregnancies or are accused of harming a fetus by taking drugs, according to Sara Ainsworth, legal director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW).
“We are gravely concerned that this case represents a trend in punishing pregnant women for their pregnancy outcomes and demonstrates that women will be targeted for terminating their pregnancies, even though abortion opponents routinely claim that if abortion were re-criminalized in the U.S., no pregnant woman would be punished,” she said. Source Reading that, it sounds like she was very confused and probably not mentally 100% there. However, it also sounds like she gave birth (home, and alone, which is already something that should not happen), and then killed the baby and threw it in the dumpster. That latter is manslaughter, regardless of what else happens. Why was it ruled feticide rather than infanticide? The article seems incomplete at best.
This article makes an interesting case that she was convicted of both killing her fetus and her living child through neglect. It's an opinion piece but a worthwhile read.
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On April 01 2015 23:11 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 23:03 Maenander wrote:
Aaah, every sperm is sacred ... think about all the potential humans you could help bring to life right now, how immoral of you not do it.
A foetus is already more than just a potential person. It's the starting point for an actual, real person. The miscarriage comparison is completely off because that has nothing to do with abortion. Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 22:54 ZasZ. wrote:
Our populations are already wildly out of control, if people want to avoid having eight children per family, that's fine with me. There are about a dozen methods cheaply available to avoid pregnancy. Abortion as population control, are you serious?
I guess I'm not serious, because that's not what I said at all? There are many methods available to avoid pregnancy that are cheaper than abortion, and people should be using them if they do not wish to get pregnant. But humans are stupid, and it doesn't always work out that way. And if a woman does not want her pregnancy, I would rather her terminate than bring another child into an overpopulated world so that she can half-ass her parental responsibilities.
You had to make a pretty severe leap to go from what I said to abortion as some form of government population control. The difference here is that if individuals wish to terminate their own pregnancies, I don't see the benefit or moral standing to judge them for their reasons in doing so (this was all in reply to your initial post regarding the morality of aborting due to defects).
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The Arkansas Governor has asked for the Religious Freedom Bill to be recalled and changed so it can mirror federal law. Wow.
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On April 02 2015 00:48 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
The Arkansas Governor has asked for the Religious Freedom Bill to be recalled and changed so it can mirror federal law. Wow.
The CEO of Walmart and everyone else who matters in the country told him not to sign it. Every once and a while common sense prevails.
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On April 01 2015 23:29 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 23:11 Nyxisto wrote:On April 01 2015 23:03 Maenander wrote:
Aaah, every sperm is sacred ... think about all the potential humans you could help bring to life right now, how immoral of you not do it.
A foetus is already more than just a potential person. It's the starting point for an actual, real person. The miscarriage comparison is completely off because that has nothing to do with abortion. On April 01 2015 22:54 ZasZ. wrote:
Our populations are already wildly out of control, if people want to avoid having eight children per family, that's fine with me. There are about a dozen methods cheaply available to avoid pregnancy. Abortion as population control, are you serious? Abortion as population control is a terrible argument. Agreed. However, a foetus is a potential person in the same way a sperm cell is. All a sperm cell needs is an egg cell and a conductive environment (generally found together). The foetus needs a conductive environment. A 9-week-old foetus cannot be kept alive outside the womb, and thus it really isn't much other than a weird lump of tissue growing in the mother's uterus. A special kind of tumor, if you like It's only by week 20 that you could call a fetus a potential human (in that it is at least possible to keep it alive outside of the womb), and by week 24 its survival chance outside the womb increases to 50%, making it as likely to be a human as a lump of dead organic matter. For me personally, a cut-off rate for abortion makes sense at 24 weeks, although anywhere between 20 and about 32 weeks seems reasonable to me (after 32 weeks babies don't necessarily need fancy hospital apparatus like incubators to be kept alive).
So does a baby. Hell, so do you.
As for your cutoff at week 20, as medical technology advances, that date will be pushed further and further back. It's possible that at some point in the future, we could have babies "born" having never been in a womb. In vitro fertilization followed by "pregnancy" in some kind of artificial womb. It seems ridiculous to me to set a cut off based on a date which we can be pretty damn sure will change in the near future.
My personal opinion is that either abortion should be legal till the baby is 3-4 years old, as this is around the time they stop being nothing but an eating, pooping mass of cells and start developing a personality; or abortion should be completely illegal from conception. Anything else is an arbitrary half-measure to me.
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Norway28683 Posts
I'm sorry, but that last paragraph.. either we should allow killing children until they are 3-4 years old, or abortion should be completely banned? Anything else is a half-measure? Half-measure against what? What's wrong with it being arbitrary anyway, laws and politics being arbitrary is kind of like, an essential part of it?
I don't want to be rude, but do you think it's a requirement to have this type of strict adherence to principles even when they clearly conflict with reason to be a libertarian or is it just coincidental? Because it almost seems like the cornerstone of (the collective) your belief, that you should try to establish principles that cannot and should not ever be broken or mediated by human interaction, even if abandoning the principles makes for a better society. Which makes no sense, as another core principle seems to be that mediating interaction between people can replace every function of the state, but whatever.
Like honestly, making the claim that "abortion should either be completely illegal or legal until the baby is 3-4 years old" just strikes me as kind of this, exercise in taking 'the logical position' to absurdity, like you're trying to be a parody of an (arbiter-y) supercomputer that looks into the future and determines life worth based on accurate prediction and 100% adherence to utilitarianism
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any discussion about the sanctity of life that limits the sanctity of life to humans has lost all moral appeal. for me at least.
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On April 02 2015 01:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm sorry, but that last paragraph.. either we should allow killing children until they are 3-4 years old, or abortion should be completely banned? Anything else is a half-measure? Half-measure against what? What's wrong with it being arbitrary anyway, laws and politics being arbitrary is kind of like, an essential part of it?
I don't want to be rude, but do you think it's a requirement to have this type of strict adherence to principles even when they clearly conflict with reason to be a libertarian or is it just coincidental? Because it almost seems like the cornerstone of (the collective) your belief, that you should try to establish principles that cannot and should not ever be broken or mediated by human interaction, even if abandoning the principles makes for a better society. Which makes no sense, as another core principle seems to be that mediating interaction between people can replace every function of the state, but whatever.
Like honestly, making the claim that "abortion should either be completely illegal or legal until the baby is 3-4 years old" just strikes me as kind of this, exercise in taking 'the logical position' to absurdity, like you're trying to be a parody of an (arbiter-y) supercomputer that looks into the future and determines life worth based on accurate prediction and 100% adherence to utilitarianism
It sounds like a total "2edgy4me" argument. Seems a little disingenuous and there solely for shock value.
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On April 02 2015 01:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm sorry, but that last paragraph.. either we should allow killing children until they are 3-4 years old, or abortion should be completely banned? Anything else is a half-measure? Half-measure against what? What's wrong with it being arbitrary anyway, laws and politics being arbitrary is kind of like, an essential part of it?
I don't want to be rude, but do you think it's a requirement to have this type of strict adherence to principles even when they clearly conflict with reason to be a libertarian or is it just coincidental? Because it almost seems like the cornerstone of (the collective) your belief, that you should try to establish principles that cannot and should not ever be broken or mediated by human interaction, even if abandoning the principles makes for a better society. Which makes no sense, as another core principle seems to be that mediating interaction between people can replace every function of the state, but whatever.
Like honestly, making the claim that "abortion should either be completely illegal or legal until the baby is 3-4 years old" just strikes me as kind of this, exercise in taking 'the logical position' to absurdity, like you're trying to be a parody of an (arbiter-y) supercomputer that looks into the future and determines life worth based on accurate prediction and 100% adherence to utilitarianism
I kind of understand the point though. a three day old foetus can't survive on its own and a two year old child can't, conciousness is a shaky argument, because it's also not quite clear when that starts, so there is no real qualitative difference. You can't just draw some arbitrary line, this doesn't work like traffic regulation. Either you have some clear point when a human is a human or you don't. The definition of a human life is not some consensus decision where you take everybody's opinion and then calculate the arithmetic mean.
My view is that with pregnancy you pretty much have the starting point for human life. A sperm or an egg cell alone do not constitute a human. But when both come together you pretty much have a starting point for human life. From there on it's just gradual development.
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On April 02 2015 01:23 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On April 01 2015 23:29 Acrofales wrote:On April 01 2015 23:11 Nyxisto wrote:On April 01 2015 23:03 Maenander wrote:
Aaah, every sperm is sacred ... think about all the potential humans you could help bring to life right now, how immoral of you not do it.
A foetus is already more than just a potential person. It's the starting point for an actual, real person. The miscarriage comparison is completely off because that has nothing to do with abortion. On April 01 2015 22:54 ZasZ. wrote:
Our populations are already wildly out of control, if people want to avoid having eight children per family, that's fine with me. There are about a dozen methods cheaply available to avoid pregnancy. Abortion as population control, are you serious? Abortion as population control is a terrible argument. Agreed. However, a foetus is a potential person in the same way a sperm cell is. All a sperm cell needs is an egg cell and a conductive environment (generally found together). The foetus needs a conductive environment. A 9-week-old foetus cannot be kept alive outside the womb, and thus it really isn't much other than a weird lump of tissue growing in the mother's uterus. A special kind of tumor, if you like It's only by week 20 that you could call a fetus a potential human (in that it is at least possible to keep it alive outside of the womb), and by week 24 its survival chance outside the womb increases to 50%, making it as likely to be a human as a lump of dead organic matter. For me personally, a cut-off rate for abortion makes sense at 24 weeks, although anywhere between 20 and about 32 weeks seems reasonable to me (after 32 weeks babies don't necessarily need fancy hospital apparatus like incubators to be kept alive). So does a baby. Hell, so do you. As for your cutoff at week 20, as medical technology advances, that date will be pushed further and further back. It's possible that at some point in the future, we could have babies "born" having never been in a womb. In vitro fertilization followed by "pregnancy" in some kind of artificial womb. It seems ridiculous to me to set a cut off based on a date which we can be pretty damn sure will change in the near future. My personal opinion is that either abortion should be legal till the baby is 3-4 years old, as this is around the time they stop being nothing but an eating, pooping mass of cells and start developing a personality; or abortion should be completely illegal from conception. Anything else is an arbitrary half-measure to me.
Is this your way of trying to prove equivalence between abortion and murdering children as long as it's before their 4th birthday? There is a pretty big difference, psychologically and emotionally, between a woman who becomes pregnant and decides she does not want a child (relatively normal and common) and a woman who decides that after giving birth to her child and taking care of them for several years to murder them (relatively psychopathic and uncommon). Equating them is lunacy.
If the cut-off date for a legal abortion needs to be changed, it can be changed, that is the beauty of "arbitrary half-measures," as you call them. They can be negotiated, but it is important to keep in mind that a woman's reproductive rights hang in the balance.
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On April 02 2015 01:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm sorry, but that last paragraph.. either we should allow killing children until they are 3-4 years old, or abortion should be completely banned? Anything else is a half-measure? Half-measure against what? What's wrong with it being arbitrary anyway, laws and politics being arbitrary is kind of like, an essential part of it?
I don't want to be rude, but do you think it's a requirement to have this type of strict adherence to principles even when they clearly conflict with reason to be a libertarian or is it just coincidental? Because it almost seems like the cornerstone of (the collective) your belief, that you should try to establish principles that cannot and should not ever be broken or mediated by human interaction, even if abandoning the principles makes for a better society. Which makes no sense, as another core principle seems to be that mediating interaction between people can replace every function of the state, but whatever.
Like honestly, making the claim that "abortion should either be completely illegal or legal until the baby is 3-4 years old" just strikes me as kind of this, exercise in taking 'the logical position' to absurdity, like you're trying to be a parody of an (arbiter-y) supercomputer that looks into the future and determines life worth based on accurate prediction and 100% adherence to utilitarianism
I personally do not believe abandoning principles can ever make for a better society. A more convenient society, maybe. But not better.
On April 02 2015 01:51 ZasZ. wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 01:23 Millitron wrote:On April 01 2015 23:29 Acrofales wrote:On April 01 2015 23:11 Nyxisto wrote:On April 01 2015 23:03 Maenander wrote:
Aaah, every sperm is sacred ... think about all the potential humans you could help bring to life right now, how immoral of you not do it.
A foetus is already more than just a potential person. It's the starting point for an actual, real person. The miscarriage comparison is completely off because that has nothing to do with abortion. On April 01 2015 22:54 ZasZ. wrote:
Our populations are already wildly out of control, if people want to avoid having eight children per family, that's fine with me. There are about a dozen methods cheaply available to avoid pregnancy. Abortion as population control, are you serious? Abortion as population control is a terrible argument. Agreed. However, a foetus is a potential person in the same way a sperm cell is. All a sperm cell needs is an egg cell and a conductive environment (generally found together). The foetus needs a conductive environment. A 9-week-old foetus cannot be kept alive outside the womb, and thus it really isn't much other than a weird lump of tissue growing in the mother's uterus. A special kind of tumor, if you like It's only by week 20 that you could call a fetus a potential human (in that it is at least possible to keep it alive outside of the womb), and by week 24 its survival chance outside the womb increases to 50%, making it as likely to be a human as a lump of dead organic matter. For me personally, a cut-off rate for abortion makes sense at 24 weeks, although anywhere between 20 and about 32 weeks seems reasonable to me (after 32 weeks babies don't necessarily need fancy hospital apparatus like incubators to be kept alive). So does a baby. Hell, so do you. As for your cutoff at week 20, as medical technology advances, that date will be pushed further and further back. It's possible that at some point in the future, we could have babies "born" having never been in a womb. In vitro fertilization followed by "pregnancy" in some kind of artificial womb. It seems ridiculous to me to set a cut off based on a date which we can be pretty damn sure will change in the near future. My personal opinion is that either abortion should be legal till the baby is 3-4 years old, as this is around the time they stop being nothing but an eating, pooping mass of cells and start developing a personality; or abortion should be completely illegal from conception. Anything else is an arbitrary half-measure to me. Is this your way of trying to prove equivalence between abortion and murdering children as long as it's before their 4th birthday? There is a pretty big difference, psychologically and emotionally, between a woman who becomes pregnant and decides she does not want a child (relatively normal and common) and a woman who decides that after giving birth to her child and taking care of them for several years to murder them (relatively psychopathic and uncommon). Equating them is lunacy. If the cut-off date for a legal abortion needs to be changed, it can be changed, that is the beauty of "arbitrary half-measures," as you call them. They can be negotiated, but it is important to keep in mind that a woman's reproductive rights hang in the balance.
What is the difference between a baby 5 minutes before birth, and 5 minutes after birth? There isn't much, if any.
What is the difference between a fetus 5 minutes before the current cut-off and 5 minutes after the current cut-off?
I do not believe a baby is a person because a baby does none of the things that separate people from animals. A baby has no will, a baby has no sense of self, a baby has no sense of the future. All babies do is eat, sleep, and poop. They're just a mass of cells.
This is completely ignoring the fact that that fetus took two people to make. Shouldn't the father have any say as to what happens to the fetus? I mean if women who want to keep the child can demand child support, shouldn't men who want to keep the child be able to?
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Norway28683 Posts
On April 02 2015 01:48 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 01:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm sorry, but that last paragraph.. either we should allow killing children until they are 3-4 years old, or abortion should be completely banned? Anything else is a half-measure? Half-measure against what? What's wrong with it being arbitrary anyway, laws and politics being arbitrary is kind of like, an essential part of it?
I don't want to be rude, but do you think it's a requirement to have this type of strict adherence to principles even when they clearly conflict with reason to be a libertarian or is it just coincidental? Because it almost seems like the cornerstone of (the collective) your belief, that you should try to establish principles that cannot and should not ever be broken or mediated by human interaction, even if abandoning the principles makes for a better society. Which makes no sense, as another core principle seems to be that mediating interaction between people can replace every function of the state, but whatever.
Like honestly, making the claim that "abortion should either be completely illegal or legal until the baby is 3-4 years old" just strikes me as kind of this, exercise in taking 'the logical position' to absurdity, like you're trying to be a parody of an (arbiter-y) supercomputer that looks into the future and determines life worth based on accurate prediction and 100% adherence to utilitarianism I kind of understand the point though. a three day old foetus can't survive on its own and a two year old child can't, conciousness is a shaky argument, because it's also not quite clear when that starts, so there is no real qualitative difference. You can't just draw some arbitrary line, this doesn't work like traffic regulation. Either you have some clear point when a human is a human or you don't. The definition of a human life is not some consensus decision where you take everybody's opinion and then calculate the arithmetic mean. My view is that with pregnancy you pretty much have the starting point for human life. A sperm or an egg cell alone do not constitute a human. But when both come together you pretty much have a starting point for human life. From there on it's just gradual development.
Why must there be a clear line between where it's human or not? We, as in, the collective humanity, can't even agree. You say that pregnancy is the starting point for human life, personally I don't think fetuses look enough like humans to constitute humans until at least 20 weeks in, maybe longer.. If not even humans can agree at what point a fetus becomes human, isn't that indicative of it just.. not being clear cut? I don't argue for consciousness, and I think the "can survive with assistance outside the embryo" is gonna be subject to change, so that doesn't fully work (although it's convenient at the moment because the technological level we are current at is largely in agreement with the highest age people are 'comfortable' with abortions anyway). But "at conception" or "at birth" don't work for me either - I think fetuses a day after conception look nothing even remotely close to people and watching a 1 day old fetus could not possibly give me any feeling of attachment, even if it were my own. Birth doesn't work for the opposite reason - a baby one day before birth looks far too much like an actual person for me to be anywhere near comfortable killing it. For me, the reasonable position essentially becomes the following ;
Accept that unwanted pregnancies can happen. They can, even if people take precautions, and they happen even more often if people are reckless. Reckless people can probably be expected to not become parent of the year, maybe it's okay if they get to abort if they fuck up. (Although ideally they do not - and the best way to combat this is having inexpensive and very available birth control coupled with sex education stressing responsibility rather than abstinence. ) People who are otherwise reasonable but just unlucky (condom broke for example) should not be punished for this (and having a baby at the wrong stage of your life can certainly feel like punishment. )
At the same time, accept that there are many people in the world who feel an attachment towards 'unborn children'. Be it religious or otherwise, it is a reality that many people feel attachment for the unborn children and even if they don't consider it murder, they consider abortions, at best, a necessary evil. So how about we just set the time frame for legal abortions at a level where most people don't agree that it really resembles a person, but also one where people have ample opportunity to make an informed choice about whether to keep the baby or not? I mean, for most women, a late abortion is far more emotionally troubling than an early abortion is. Fact is - my proposed solution is basically exactly what most western countries have been doing for the past decades, but I don't understand what the problem with it is? Or, I do when it's a religious context, but then I ignore it because religion shouldn't be deciding policy anyway. 
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On April 02 2015 01:52 Millitron wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 01:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm sorry, but that last paragraph.. either we should allow killing children until they are 3-4 years old, or abortion should be completely banned? Anything else is a half-measure? Half-measure against what? What's wrong with it being arbitrary anyway, laws and politics being arbitrary is kind of like, an essential part of it?
I don't want to be rude, but do you think it's a requirement to have this type of strict adherence to principles even when they clearly conflict with reason to be a libertarian or is it just coincidental? Because it almost seems like the cornerstone of (the collective) your belief, that you should try to establish principles that cannot and should not ever be broken or mediated by human interaction, even if abandoning the principles makes for a better society. Which makes no sense, as another core principle seems to be that mediating interaction between people can replace every function of the state, but whatever.
Like honestly, making the claim that "abortion should either be completely illegal or legal until the baby is 3-4 years old" just strikes me as kind of this, exercise in taking 'the logical position' to absurdity, like you're trying to be a parody of an (arbiter-y) supercomputer that looks into the future and determines life worth based on accurate prediction and 100% adherence to utilitarianism I personally do not believe abandoning principles can ever make for a better society. A more convenient society, maybe. But not better.[...]
what about stuff that just flat out isn't practical yet so we settle for what we can get?
Take animal rights for an example. We have a lot more in that regard than we used to some time ago (I'd assume). There's still a lot of fucked up stuff happening on a daily basis but in general people think that animals should at least die (somewhat) painless and not be tortured. I wouldn't be surprised if we get stricter rules in that direction in the near future as it becomes more viable but just isn't right now when we need/want our steaks to be non-tofu and affordable.
I'm not actually a vegetarian or some PETA guy btw, just think it's heading towards stricter rules in the long run
Would you say it would be better to abandon all of that and let people torture animals as they want just because we don't want stricter laws on that yet?
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On April 02 2015 02:14 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 01:48 Nyxisto wrote:On April 02 2015 01:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm sorry, but that last paragraph.. either we should allow killing children until they are 3-4 years old, or abortion should be completely banned? Anything else is a half-measure? Half-measure against what? What's wrong with it being arbitrary anyway, laws and politics being arbitrary is kind of like, an essential part of it?
I don't want to be rude, but do you think it's a requirement to have this type of strict adherence to principles even when they clearly conflict with reason to be a libertarian or is it just coincidental? Because it almost seems like the cornerstone of (the collective) your belief, that you should try to establish principles that cannot and should not ever be broken or mediated by human interaction, even if abandoning the principles makes for a better society. Which makes no sense, as another core principle seems to be that mediating interaction between people can replace every function of the state, but whatever.
Like honestly, making the claim that "abortion should either be completely illegal or legal until the baby is 3-4 years old" just strikes me as kind of this, exercise in taking 'the logical position' to absurdity, like you're trying to be a parody of an (arbiter-y) supercomputer that looks into the future and determines life worth based on accurate prediction and 100% adherence to utilitarianism I kind of understand the point though. a three day old foetus can't survive on its own and a two year old child can't, conciousness is a shaky argument, because it's also not quite clear when that starts, so there is no real qualitative difference. You can't just draw some arbitrary line, this doesn't work like traffic regulation. Either you have some clear point when a human is a human or you don't. The definition of a human life is not some consensus decision where you take everybody's opinion and then calculate the arithmetic mean. My view is that with pregnancy you pretty much have the starting point for human life. A sperm or an egg cell alone do not constitute a human. But when both come together you pretty much have a starting point for human life. From there on it's just gradual development. Why must there be a clear line between where it's human or not? We, as in, the collective humanity, can't even agree. You say that pregnancy is the starting point for human life, personally I don't think fetuses look enough like humans to constitute humans until at least 20 weeks in, maybe longer.. If not even humans can agree at what point a fetus becomes human, isn't that indicative of it just.. not being clear cut? I don't argue for consciousness, and I think the "can survive with assistance outside the embryo" is gonna be subject to change, so that doesn't fully work (although it's convenient at the moment because the technological level we are current at is largely in agreement with the highest age people are 'comfortable' with abortions anyway). But "at conception" or "at birth" don't work for me either - I think fetuses a day after conception look nothing even remotely close to people and watching a 1 day old fetus could not possibly give me any feeling of attachment, even if it were my own. Birth doesn't work for the opposite reason - a baby one day before birth looks far too much like an actual person for me to be anywhere near comfortable killing it. For me, the reasonable position essentially becomes the following ; Accept that unwanted pregnancies can happen. They can, even if people take precautions, and they happen even more often if people are reckless. Reckless people can probably be expected to not become parent of the year, maybe it's okay if they get to abort if they fuck up. (Although ideally they do not - and the best way to combat this is having inexpensive and very available birth control coupled with sex education stressing responsibility rather than abstinence. ) People who are otherwise reasonable but just unlucky (condom broke for example) should not be punished for this (and having a baby at the wrong stage of your life can certainly feel like punishment. ) At the same time, accept that there are many people in the world who feel an attachment towards 'unborn children'. Be it religious or otherwise, it is a reality that many people feel attachment for the unborn children and even if they don't consider it murder, they consider abortions, at best, a necessary evil. So how about we just set the time frame for legal abortions at a level where most people don't agree that it really resembles a person, but also one where people have ample opportunity to make an informed choice about whether to keep the baby or not? I mean, for most women, a late abortion is far more emotionally troubling than an early abortion is. Fact is - my proposed solution is basically exactly what most western countries have been doing for the past decades, but I don't understand what the problem with it is? Or, I do when it's a religious context, but then I ignore it because religion shouldn't be deciding policy anyway.
What about adoption?
On April 02 2015 02:17 Toadesstern wrote:Show nested quote +On April 02 2015 01:52 Millitron wrote:On April 02 2015 01:35 Liquid`Drone wrote:
I'm sorry, but that last paragraph.. either we should allow killing children until they are 3-4 years old, or abortion should be completely banned? Anything else is a half-measure? Half-measure against what? What's wrong with it being arbitrary anyway, laws and politics being arbitrary is kind of like, an essential part of it?
I don't want to be rude, but do you think it's a requirement to have this type of strict adherence to principles even when they clearly conflict with reason to be a libertarian or is it just coincidental? Because it almost seems like the cornerstone of (the collective) your belief, that you should try to establish principles that cannot and should not ever be broken or mediated by human interaction, even if abandoning the principles makes for a better society. Which makes no sense, as another core principle seems to be that mediating interaction between people can replace every function of the state, but whatever.
Like honestly, making the claim that "abortion should either be completely illegal or legal until the baby is 3-4 years old" just strikes me as kind of this, exercise in taking 'the logical position' to absurdity, like you're trying to be a parody of an (arbiter-y) supercomputer that looks into the future and determines life worth based on accurate prediction and 100% adherence to utilitarianism I personally do not believe abandoning principles can ever make for a better society. A more convenient society, maybe. But not better.[...] what about stuff that just flat out isn't practical yet so we settle for what we can get? Take animal rights for an example. We have a lot more in that regard than we used to some time ago (I'd assume). There's still a lot of fucked up stuff happening on a daily basis but in general people think that animals should at least die (somewhat) painless and not be tortured. I wouldn't be surprised if we get stricter rules in that direction in the near future as it becomes more viable but just isn't right now when we need/want our steaks to be non-tofu and affordable. I'm not actually a vegetarian or some PETA guy btw, just think it's heading towards stricter rules in the long run Would you say it would be better to abandon all of that and let people torture animals as they want just because we don't want stricter laws on that yet?
I don't see how this is related to what I said. Non-violence is a pretty important principle in western society. Torturing animals is pretty clearly against that principle. I don't know that it should be a criminal offense, but it should definitely warrant forced psychiatric help.
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EPT
