Doctor recalls abortions before Roe v. Wade

[motivez]

Sorry, but you only "think" it's human life worthy of having rights, you believe it because of your moral or religious convictions, but there's no hard science that proves it's a sentient being that should be given rights which supercede the woman's.

Not everyone prescribes to this belief, obviously, or we wouldn't be having the debate. They think the fetus is not a separate entity deserving of rights, and science has not proven them wrong (or right).

Until there is such evidence, you're forcing your beliefs on someone else's body, exerting control over their reproductive system.

[7960]

Originally Posted by motivez

Sorry, but you only "think" it's human life......

If it's not human life what is it? Might a tree spring forth from her womb?

[motivez]

I'm not going to play semantics games

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

Sorry, but you only "think" it's human life worthy of having rights, you believe it because of your moral or religious convictions, but there's no hard science that proves it's a sentient being that should be given rights which supercede the woman's.

First, it's absolutely human. There's no denying that. That would be an indisputable scientific fact. Secondly, there is no scientific reason it isn't deserving of human rights. It's a question of personal morality. People use the science to help judge their morality but there is no proving a fetus deserves rights just as there is no proving a fetus is undeserving of rights.

Not everyone prescribes to this belief, obviously, or we wouldn't be having the debate. They think the fetus is not a separate entity deserving of rights, and science has not proven them wrong (or right).

Until there is such evidence, you're forcing your beliefs on someone else's body, exerting control over their reproductive system.

How does science provide evidence that it is deserving of rights? What science could possibly exist to end the debate? As long as humans develop inside a womb and there are unwanted pregnancies there will be a desire for abortion among a significant population within in our society.

The science is there and it is simply someone's personal opinion that comes into question on abortion. This isn't a debate that can be answered by science. Only people's interpretations of morality based on the science.

[7960]

Originally Posted by motivez

I'm not going to play semantics games

It's not semantics.


Let's get this clear right now. I'm pro-choice. I think a woman should have the right to make medical decisions about her body. But don't be disingenuous and try to convince me that what's being aborted isn't human.

[motivez]

sigh

When I say "human life" I'm talking about a sentient being with rights, a human being. Some people believe it's simply a clump of cells, and until it's viable (or later trimesters) it isn't deserving of any type of protections

I'm obviously not trying to say it's a tree.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

sigh

When I say "human life" I'm talking about a sentient being with rights, a human being. Some people believe it's simply a clump of cells, and until it's viable (or later trimesters) it isn't deserving of any type of protections

I'm obviously not trying to say it's a tree.

Not everyone cares about sentience in the argument of abortion. In fact, most pro-life people wouldn't care regardless because they believe that all humans should be protected by the state despite their location on the development timeline. Sentience is a major issue for pro-choice people, not necessarily pro-lifers.

Basically the argument would go like this:

Pro-Life: You just murdered your baby
Pro-Choice: You can't prove that it felt anything
Pro-Life: Doesn't make it right

I've yet to meet a pro-lifer who bases their views of abortion on sentience. They base their opinion on the protection of human life. They don't necessarily care how developed the life is, just the fact that it has been created and should be protected from being killed... especially for reasons of convenience and irregardless of whether or not people feel they are human enough to deserve rights.

[motivez]

Sorry, but it's the crux of their argument.

They believe "life" begins at conception, some believe it has a soul, and that it's murder to terminate it. For it to be murder, there has to be some sort of rights violated. If it's not a sentient being, it has no rights to protect.

Obviously those pro life people have no qualms about other forms of killing, ie animals, plants, insects, etc, because they don't view them as sentient beings that have rights which supercede our need to eat or use them for our own purposes, or kill them because they're pests.

They've made a moral judgment that says the clump of cells that forms a fetus in the womb is different from those I have listed above, others have made a judgment that it's not.

Those who think it's different and deserve protection want to force their moral judgment on those who feel otherwise, and for them to do so, means they'll have to exert control over someone else's body and reproductive system.

[lew]

Originally Posted by motivez

Sorry, it's not a valid comparison, because there's still a debate that's not settled about whether a fetus is alive and deserving of rights that supercede the mother's.

edit:

Also, why do you feel like it's acceptable for you to force other people to ascribe to your morality / religious beliefs?

For the same reason I feel it's acceptable to force other people to ascribe to my morality beliefs when it comes to theft, rape, and murder.

[lew]

Originally Posted by motivez

Sorry, but it's the crux of their argument.

They believe "life" begins at conception, some believe it has a soul, and that it's murder to terminate it. For it to be murder, there has to be some sort of rights violated. If it's not a sentient being, it has no rights to protect.

Obviously those pro life people have no qualms about other forms of killing, ie animals, plants, insects, etc, because they don't view them as sentient beings that have rights which supercede our need to eat or use them for our own purposes, or kill them because they're pests.

They've made a moral judgment that says the clump of cells that forms a fetus in the womb is different from those I have listed above, others have made a judgment that it's not.

Those who think it's different and deserve protection want to force their moral judgment on those who feel otherwise, and for them to do so, means they'll have to exert control over someone else's body and reproductive system.

I agree. Human beings are of more worth to me than cockroaches.

[motivez]

Originally Posted by lew

For the same reason I feel it's acceptable to force other people to ascribe to my morality beliefs when it comes to theft, rape, and murder.

Completely different, because each of those crimes involves 1 person violating someone else's rights.

Abortion only does if you believe a fetus is a human life with rights of its own, and not everyone does..

[motivez]

Originally Posted by lew

I agree. Human beings are of more worth to me than cockroaches.

Plenty of intelligent people have come to the conclusion that a fetus is not the same thing as a human being, especially in the early stages of pregnancy.

Are you against morning after pills?

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by motivez

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/03/he...in&oref=slogin

This is a great article, one I think every person who thinks abortion should be illegal should read..

Like the author points out, even when it was illegal, people still performed them.. only they were unsafe, and often put the person at risk needlessly..

While I have come to feel like Roe v Wade is an imperfect decision for many reasons, and in a high minded debate about the law and states rights, I could agree that it should probably be a states isuse, pragmatism wins out the debate in my mind.

If it were a states rights issue, people living in those states without the means to move or travel to one where it might be performed would have to suffer through the consequences of the pre-Roe mindset of those states, and it would no doubt hit the poor the hardest, those same poor who are more likely to be incapable of adequately caring for their unwanted children in the first place.

I don't think it should be a States' rights issue at all. I think there should be an amendment to the Constitution. SCOTUS' reasoning was quite a bit of a stretch and invoked philosophical abstractions, like "self-ownership" and the like. There is nothing in the Constitution that acknowledges the human body as a piece of property to be owned by one's self, nor is that assumed by British common law.

It was a ridiculous decision, and the gross abuse of power used by SCOTUS should be abhorred by anyone that is a citizen of this country. We've reached a point where the highest law of the land is no longer the Constitution itself, but the SCOTUS's interpretation of the Constitution. Fuck that.

[7960]

Originally Posted by motivez

Sorry, but it's the crux of their argument.

They believe "life" begins at conception, some believe it has a soul, and that it's murder to terminate it. For it to be murder, there has to be some sort of rights violated. If it's not a sentient being, it has no rights to protect.

there was a time when blacks had no rights and it would have been just fine to kill one for any reason.

that means killing blacks is ok?

Originally Posted by motivez

sigh

When I say "human life" I'm talking about a sentient being with rights, a human being. Some people believe it's simply a clump of cells, and until it's viable (or later trimesters) it isn't deserving of any type of protections

why "viable"? a fetus at 6 months in utero is still NOT sentient!

be careful when you draw your line, and when questioned about it please don't move it to help your argument if you plan to move it back for the next question.

question; a friend of mine had a baby born without a brain. since it wasn't sentient and never would be, would it have been ok for him to kill it?

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by motivez

Abortion only does if you believe a fetus is a human life with rights of its own, and not everyone does..

I disagree. I am pro-choice, and I think that a fetus has the same rights as any other person. The mother has a right to do with her body as she pleases, and the fetus does not have the right to use the government to initiate force against the mother to coerce her into effectively acting as the fetus's incubation chamber. It certainly has its own rights, though, and if an assailant were to do harm to it, that assailant ought to be punished for it.

My position on abortion has nothing to do with whether or not the fetus has rights. Its rights are irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.

[Scrum]

A fetus is a parasite living off the mother. Her rights come first and if she makes the choice, it's nobody elses right to tell her what to do with her body.

This is clearly a self-ownership issue. The mother is a person with all the rights that come with it.
Can anyone prove the same of the fetus?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by motivez

Sorry, but it's the crux of their argument.

They believe "life" begins at conception, some believe it has a soul, and that it's murder to terminate it. For it to be murder, there has to be some sort of rights violated. If it's not a sentient being, it has no rights to protect.

Once again, that is your pro-choice opinion. Your asserting your beliefs onto their judgments. I don't know a single pro-lifer who would change their stance on abortion regarding sentience. It doesn't matter to them. What matters is that there is a developing human being in the womb and it deserves the right to develop itself. Also you have to be careful here because you are essentially suggesting that I could walk into a hospital and terminate the life of every non sentient human being.

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Scrum

A fetus is a parasite living off the mother. Her rights come first and if she makes the choice, it's nobody elses right to tell her what to do with her body.

The old tapeworm argument.. It's a valid opinion, but not everyone believes that humans without the ability to care for themselves are undeserving of rights.

This is clearly a self-ownership issue. The mother is a person with all the rights that come with it.
Can anyone prove the same of the fetus?

Obviously we can't claim the fetus is a person with all the rights that come with it. Whether it should be so is subjective and determined by your opinions. Roe v Wade makes it legal and takes your stance, but it was also one of the most far-reaching SCOTUS explanations we've ever had in this country and in my opinion the reasoning was clearly activist and unconstitutional...

Now if you believe a developing human is nothing more than a tapeworm or parasite, then by all means you wouldn't oppose the termination of its life. But, if you believe it is a vulnerable human being deserving of the chance to grow then you would abhorrently object to referring to it as a parasite which could be disposed of.