Rape and Incest - justification for Abortion? - Page 19

On June 18 2013 01:34 sc2superfan101 wrote:

First of all, guys, let's stop the Bible discussion.

No one in this thread has provided any evidence that their political opinions will benefit society.

• Compared to states that support women’s health, those states that oppose safe and legal abortion spend
far less money per child on a range of services such as foster care, education, welfare, and the adoption of
children who have physical and mental disabilities (Schroedel, 2000).

• The states that have the strongest laws against safe and legal abortion are also the states in which women
suffer from lower levels of education and higher levels of poverty, as well as from a lower ratio of female-to-male
earnings. They also have a lower percentage of women in the legislature and fewer mandates requiring
insurance providers to cover minimum hospital stays after childbirth (Schroedel, 2000)

On June 16 2013 01:57 MattD wrote:


Religion, thats why it exists.

On June 18 2013 08:41 codonbyte wrote:

This. You see, the US has this region down south called "The Bible Belt". They really don't like it when anything happens to human gametes. A lot of people down there are even against research about how to use stem cells to possibly cure cancer and save lives. They feel that to do so would be taking human lives (i.e. they feel that each stem cell is already a human life).

On June 18 2013 08:55 TerribleTrioJon wrote:

What a strawman. xD

They generally distinguish between gametes and embryos, as well as between stem cells obtained from adults, and embryonic stem cells (obtained through the destruction of human embryos).

On June 18 2013 08:58 codonbyte wrote:

Some people do, but not everyone. Either way, the fact that some people prioritize the life of single cells over the well-being of humans with a terrible disease (such as cancer) that could be cured by the stem cells is horrifyingly backwards.

On June 18 2013 09:09 TerribleTrioJon wrote:

Most do. And it's likely because their position is based on principle and informed by science, and not because of warm feelings for gametes and stem cells.

And it would actually be completely understandable, if that life in question is that of a nascent human being and organism. It would be horrific and ethically condemnable to end the life of say... a 5 year-old child (or even a 25 year-old who gives his consent), to give one of his or her essential organs to an adult in need.

On June 18 2013 08:41 codonbyte wrote:
A fetus on the other hand is physically bound to the woman who is carrying it and therefore doesn't have the same rights as a child outside the womb.

On June 18 2013 09:38 codonbyte wrote:

Woah, 5 year old? Who said anything about ending the life of a five year old? Who said anything about ending the life of anyone? My post that you quoted was about SINGLE CELLS. Where exactly did I say anything about a 5 year old?

On June 18 2013 08:15 koreasilver wrote:
What does it matter what some conservatives might think if they're conceptually broken? Aside from that, biblical precedence isn't clear on the issues of abortion as such either, and although it is clear that it considers incest abhorrent, there is nothing that suggests that a child born of incest is to be considered lesser as a human being. We only begin to see clear opposition to abortion as such as a distinct problem apart from sexuality with the early church. Personally I've never actually heard or read any conservative Christian offer such a comical opinion like that a life born from incest is a "sinful abomination" as if the orthodoxy doesn't teach that all humans are sinful and are always born in sin regardless of whether or not conception took place within or out of wedlock (Augustine). It's comical to a degree that I find it more likely that you're just setting up a scarecrow than that you're actually reiterating a position that "religious conservatives" take. But given that I spend little time with religious conservatives and with Americans much less so, maybe it's a possibility. But regardless such a position is incoherent not just conceptually but within the framework of Christian orthodoxy and should readily be dismissed by everyone because it's inane.

On June 18 2013 08:15 koreasilver wrote:
As for the first paragraph, any East Asian that has lived in/with/through our Confucian motherlands would understand that completely. One doesn't even need to go that far - one could go through the arduous task of opening up a history book (or wikipedia) and looking at the pre-Christian West with the Greeks and the Romans and see the oppression of women easily enough. It is not as if the modern secularist is all so suddenly equitable to all gender and sex either. There are plenty of nonreligious misogynists now and there always has been. Blaming the churches for everything is a very peculiar eurocentric ethnocentrism that doesn't have any ground in historical reality.

On June 18 2013 10:04 sunprince wrote:


It matters so that we understand what their assumptions and line of reasoning is, so that we might more easily debunk them.



That's not an argument for the historical oppression of women. You simply repeated your claim that they were oppressed in East Asia, Greek, and Roman society, without actually giving any explanation for how or why you think they were oppressed.

The supposed historical oppression of women is one of those modern myths that ignores the reality of history, which much more accurately reflects class-based oppression where everyone outside of the apex, male and female, were oppressed by both the males and females of that apex.

On June 18 2013 10:11 Acrofales wrote:

Huh? Sure there were classes, but women were categorically not allowed positions of power. Whether you look at ancient Greece (Sparta was an exception) or Rome, women had no place in government (except as the wife, or mother, of someone). Power was strongly linked to the military (once again, with the exception of Sparta), which was a 100% male organization.

Trying to argue that women had an equal position in society in the antiquities just means you need to reread your history books.

EDIT: to make it very clear, I neither know, nor care what you two are arguing about and it is clearly widely offtopic. Just correcting a factual mistake here.

On June 18 2013 09:45 CallMeLukas wrote:


So a difference in environment is what grants rights? If not, then where do you draw the line between "abortion is ok" and "abortion is murder?" Following your argument, abortion should be ok right up until birth.

On June 18 2013 10:47 codonbyte wrote:

Actually, by my argument abortion would not be legal right up until birth because there is a period of time before birth where the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb, and hence abortion would only be legal up until that point, not right up until birth.

On June 18 2013 11:24 datcirclejerk wrote:

What's so great about surviving outside the womb? Doesn't it depend upon our own technology?

If so, doesn't that suggest that your standard for human life changes as human technology changes, meaning it is a pointless and arbitrary definition for life?

If we reach the technology capable of providing a single cell to full human maturity, are all of the hypocrites here going to suddenly accept the premise that life begins at conception, since that is when it can survive outside the womb? Obviously not...

It's all complete bullshit, I'm sorry to say. You people have absolutely no reasoning behind your lines drawn in the sand, you just want a line drawn in the sand, period. Just be honest with yourselves and say that you support abortion because it is convenient, but cannot justify it from a moral perspective. It is perfectly fine to say "I reject morality if it is inconvenient," since that is what the majority of human beings do anyway. Morality is meaningless. As I stated before, it is all evolved emotions, and emotions are not absolutes.

On June 18 2013 12:10 Acrofales wrote:


No. You are guilty of a reductio ad absurdum. While there are a number of different periods in which ethicists argue that abortion can be ethical, they depend largely on what makes a human being human. Being a zygote does not make it human (at least imho).

When does a foetus stop being a clump of cells and start being a human? Ethicists are unclear. My own feeling is that it is somewhere between the first brain activity and birth. Brain activity is a precondition for consciousness, but is clearly not a sufficient precondition (plenty of animals with a brain are not considered conscious). Because we don't know, using "viability outside the uterus" is a fairly decent proxy (and also coincided decently with when higher brain function starts).

On June 17 2013 08:36 Crushinator wrote:


If men carried babies, they would be women.

On June 18 2013 10:39 sunprince wrote:


Nowhere did I argue that women had an equal position in society. My argument is that women were not historically "oppressed".

Women were heavily protected and along with that had limited rights and responsibilities, but this does not equate to "oppression". This treatment is similar to how we treat children (and no one would argue that we "oppress" children), but it is not similar to how slaves were treated in more recent history (an actual example of oppression).

In your examples of ancient Greece and Rome, it is rather obvious that while both male and female slaves were actually oppressed, the female members of the ruling class were not oppressed, despite not being true equals.

On June 18 2013 12:15 sunprince wrote:


I have a different take on this: it doesn't matter when the fetus starts being human. Take the following thought experiment:

If there was an adult human hooked up to your body so that they could survive, would you be ethically required to stay connected for their sake? My position is no, your bodily autonomy trumps their survival. While it might be admirable for you to sustain them at cost to yourself, you are certainly well within your right to choose not to do so.

When we apply that to abortion, it doesn't matter if the fetus if human. Even if it was, the woman's right to bodily autonomy means that she is allowed to disconnect herself from it, even if this would result in the fetus's death. What matters more to this perspective is whether the fetus can survive, because at that point it is no longer necessary to kill the fetus after removing it from the woman's body.