I’m almost a little worried about engaging on this topic, though I’m grateful to Auguste for pointing out that the Raving Atheist finally completed his conversion 2 and a half years after I said that he would have to or the cognitive dissonance would break him down. Ever since I wrote that post, he’s been violently angry at me, to the point where it’s scary, so it’s worrisome to pay attention and feed his super-narcissism. But this isn’t and has never been about the sad little dweeb who was giving online atheism a bad name. This is about the relationship between atheism and feminism, or more specifically, between humanism and feminism, with the understanding that most atheists are humanists and rationalists. (Raving Atheist, however, appeared to be an assholist.) I tend to think that a science-and-reason-based worldview will slowly but surely chip away at sexism. A lot of feminists would no doubt violently disagree, pointing out all the historical examples of science-based sexism, but my argument is that the way to push back against science that’s based in prejudice-justification instead of actual evidence and reason is to apply evidence and reason. No one is saying that science comes up with perfect solutions right out of the box, but that’s no reason to abandon it. The history of science is chock full of sexist blathering, but it’s just as chock full of examples of people bravely putting reason before sexism and prevailing.
The specific issue in question---the one that drove the assholist in question towards conversion---is abortion. One of the reasons I suspect this issue fascinates me so much is because it’s one of those issues where there’s not actually a legitimate disagreement, so long as everyone in the debate accepts the idea that ours is a secular government and religious oppression is wrong. There are no rational arguments against legal abortion. Some controversial topics actually make sense, because both sides have a point within a shared values system. For instance, I disagree with the idea of preemptive war, but I can understand how it makes sense theoretically. (It just falls apart in practice, which is something we’re learning the hard way.) But there’s no rational reason to oppose legal abortion, especially with current restrictions that protect the fetus after it really has developed into a baby that feels things and could survive outside the womb.* So far, the most popular of the Reality Cast videos has been the one where I posit that abortion should remain legal precisely as a matter of religious liberty, because the only real arguments against it are based in religious dogma, not reason.
What I really don’t get about mainstream media coverage of this issue is how they avoid pointing out that this is fundamentally a debate about theocracy, not “life”. Considering how everyone just wishes the issue would go away, it would be fucking wonderful if the mainstream media quit wringing their hands over this and pointed out what is obvious---that the anti-choice movement is fundamentally a theocratic movement that wishes to ban abortion as a way to push their religious beliefs on everyone else. And that there are no rational, secular anti-choice arguments. None. Abortion bans are in the same pile of issues as gay marriage bans, creationism in schools, prayer in schools, and other theocratic movements---ways to get around the First Amendment that protects religious freedom. Because to believe that an embryo has equal or usually greater value than a woman is to imbue it with magical properties derived usually from god. Most anti-choicers really do quietly believe that embryonic life does have more value than adult female life, because embryos are “innocent” and pregnant women clearly are not, because they’ve touched a penis and we have proof.
Not that there aren’t anti-choice atheists. I’ve met a handful online, and to the last one, they were raving misogynists who I suspect wish to punish women for not choosing them (they’re ALL men), and thus---and this is the most important part---they’ve set aside their commitment to rational thinking in order to hurt women. So that’s your abortion ban supporters: religious maniacs, raving misogynists, and a few people who sympathize with them because they’ve absorbed our culture’s malice towards sexual women. If you buy into the idea that women should be full citizens with equal rights, and you believe that the government should respect the protections of the First Amendment, you must be pro-choice. There are no secular anti-choice arguments.
Not that people haven’t tried. Misogyny runs deep in our culture, and even rationalists and humanists fall into the trap of trying to justify it. But all their arguments are pretty worthless.
Embryos have unique DNA, and therefore they’re unique people from conception and deserve equal or greater status in our society than women. I deal with this one in the video. Embryos are far from unique in having DNA separate from the person housing the cells---so do sperm and eggs, as do cancer cells, I do believe. More to the point, 1 in 250 births results in two babies that have identical DNA---we call them identical twins. If you believe that unique DNA = unique person, you have to believe that these two separate individuals are one person. It’s clear we don’t believe that.
What do humans tend to use as marker for what is and isn’t a person? Well, I think the example of Siamese twins is quite telling in this department. Siamese twins are identical twins that split, as all do, from one fertilized egg, but they didn’t split completely. (Or re-fused in the womb.) Either way, they’re attached. What’s interesting is that we only consider Siamese twins two separate people in some cases. If someone is split from the waist down and has like 3 legs but only one head, we call them one person. If they’re split from the waist up so they have two heads, we call them two people. The definition of when a person is a person is when they have a unique consciousness, not unique DNA. It’s historically true, but it’s also the most rational approach, because people experience personhood as a form of consciousness. But it also means that a fetus doesn’t really become a person until it has a consciousness, so really the earliest point that the state should even care to protect it should be about 29 weeks. Even then, the pregnant woman deserves more protection, so health exceptions should apply to abortion restrictions. It’s clear that human beings do not really consider embryos and first trimester fetuses to be anything close to people. When first term pregnancies end in miscarriage, there is no name, no funeral, and generally none of the reaction that we have when an actual person is lost. Not that it isn’t sad---losing a pregnancy is sad if you wanted it. But it’s not like losing a child, and we know it.
That’s the biggie. But there’s a few other arguments that could conceivably be secular.
Abortion rights promote female promiscuity. This is what people mean when they say they don’t like it to be used as birth control. It’s assumed that a woman who chooses abortion for the simple reason she doesn’t want to have a baby is somehow getting away with something, and that something is having sex. However, the underlying assumption is that there’s a rational reason to oppose sexual liberation for women, and so far, I haven’t seen it. What few and tenuous social benefits we get from controlling women’s sexuality and shaming it are minor compared to the damage that this control visits upon women. Shaming and controlling female sexuality may make a few men’s lives easier because they can keep women in unhappy, servile relationships by invoking slut shame if they leave, but it makes women’s lives much harder. Sexual shaming of women contributes to bad outcomes on a number of levels: worse health care, lower incomes, lower self-esteem, and even violence against women. Sexual shaming also hurts the majority of men at the expense of the few. Most men are better off in a system where people can try partners on without shame until they find one that suits them best. If half the human race can’t engage in sexual contact freely, the other half has pretty limited options, except for the few that are gay, and even that presumes that misogyny doesn’t lead to homophobia, and we know in the real world that it does.
Abortion is the behavior of neurotic women who don’t enjoy being women. This one very rarely trickles up to the official discourse, but there’s still this lingering belief that motherhood is every woman’s destiny and that abortion must therefore be a neurotic rejection of your biology. Pointing out that most women who have abortions have children already---and that the rest probably will eventually---shuts this avenue down pretty quickly. But it’s worth noting, because it used to be, from what I can tell, a very popular secular anti-choice argument. In fact, I just finished reading the book Revolutionary Road, and (SPOILER ALERT), the non-religious couple at the center of the book gets into an epic struggle over abortion---she wants to terminate an unplanned pregnancy, he doesn’t. And the “rational” anti-choice arguments he invokes are kind of hilarious in modern terms, and I suspect were meant to be darkly comical at the time. The wife quietly gives in during an argument to the idea that he desire to terminate might be a neurotic thing, and her husband jumps on it.
“Believe me, it’s a thing about which your guess is as good as mine. It does sound sort of logical, though, doesn’t it? I do remember reading somewhere---oh, in Freud or Krafft-Ebing or one of those people; this was back in college---I do remember reading something about a woman with a sort of infantile penis-envy thing that carried over into her adult life; I guess this is supposed to be fairly common among women; I don’t know. Anyway, she kept trying to get rid of her pregnancies, and what this particular guy figured out was that she was really trying to sort of open herself up so that the---you know---so that the penis could come out and hang down where it belonged.....”
Another example, I must point out, of how science is self-correcting. Once psychology moved from its bullshit phase to a research-oriented phase, the idea that women who have abortions are especially neurotic died amongst everyone but anti-choicers grasping for a “secular” reason to attack abortion rights.
But this really gets back to where we stand when it comes to the relationship between humanism and feminism. Humanism increasingly tends towards celebrating humans in all their diversity, and so the idea of labeling happy, healthy women as “neurotic” just because they don’t submit to certain gender norms is offensive. So is the idea of deciding that half the population’s basic bodily autonomy should be yanked from them to suit the ideals of a few miserable people who are suspicious of sexual pleasure and of freedom. Really, so is the idea that taking pleasure in sexuality so long as you don’t hurt others is somehow wrong. I could go on, but I figure leave some for the commenters to hash out.
*Yes, trolls, I’m aware that women can get later term abortions for health reasons. Not having these exceptions is blatantly misogyny, a willingness to kill and maim existing women as a way to demonstrate how little their lives matter compared to the offspring of men. That pregnant women suffering complications have fathers who love them would seem to matter, but alas, daughters cease to have value in a patriarchal system once they’ve fucked, I guess.
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1st, a fetus is a potential person, so it should have some rights. Not as much as the, you know, actual person who is bearing it, but some. And that is the difference between a zygote and some other lump of cells, or cancer. What rights those should be can be rationally worked out in a secular society, and I think Roe gets it roughly right (i.e. restrict abortion in late pregnancy), although it should never outweigh the actual person (never forbid abortion completely no matter what stage of pregnancy).
2nd, a secular reason to want to reduce the amount of abortion is that abortion (at least the non-chemical version) is minor surgery. This ties in with health care expenses. Prevention, in this case contraception, is much, much cheaper. So if we want to lower health care costs, we should be working to reduce abortion. Although that is reduction in the number, not banning, so many that isn’t a great argument.
I am afraid that you are correct that there can be no accommodation nor middle ground with our Talibangelicals. Their worldview does not admit to any alternatives which are not inherently evil (in their eyes). They are also impervious to logic, reason, or facts since theirs is a “divinely revealed” worldview. I know them all too well, having spent the first 35 years in Oklahoma (a VERY trying experience for a committed agnostic).
Dan, I don’t think fetuses should have any rights, it’s not a legal entity. What protections or rights do you think fetuses should have that aren’t more easily written as protections for the mother?
There are no rational arguments against legal abortion.
And then proceeded to try to answer some of the arguments. Seems to me that you undermined your own point there.
<y position is simple: an unborn child is a living human being, period. His rights are, or should be, equal to the rights of his mother, but the right to life outweighs rights other than life.
There was an interesting thread on Patterico about a month ago. Using the hypothetical that if science advanced to the point where an unborn child could be removed from a pregnant woman at any point during gestation, and still develop to term, people who support abortion should be satisfied that the pregnant woman can become “unpregnant” at her desire, without having to kill the child. Patterico wrote:
I’m especially fond of the hypothetical because I explicitly discussed it recently with two women: the first night with one who was pro-choice, and the next night, with one who was pro-life. (To my surprise, the pro-choice woman would most assuredly not accept the sort of “no death abortion” that Not Rhetorical posits.)
Note: If anyone here should try to read through the comments, there are two Danas who comment on Patterico. If the comment is just from “Dana,” that’s not me; to distinguish myself from her, my comments have different adjectives applied to the name.
Most, but not all, of Patterico’s commenters are pro-life. But I’d ask the question in this forum, where most support abortion: if we developed the technology to have some sort of “no death” abortion, would you (plural) be content with such being the only form of abortion legally allowed?
The other reason why the idea that everything will be settled if we can just find some kind of compromise between pro- and anti- is so obnoxious is that Roe v. Wade is a compromise between the rights of the fetus and the rights of the mother. So this is yet another case of conservatives declaring the status quo to be the “liberal” position (because we’re willing to accept a compromise rather than being completely inflexible) and therefore any real compromise must be halfway between the status quo and the conservative position. The end result, if we’re not equally “inflexible” is the steady march to the right we’ve seen on so many issues.
His rights, of course. As if we could forget what kind of person really matters to you.
In English, when the sex of a person is unknown or unspecified, the masculine pronouns are both properly used and do not imply that the person referred to is male. The neutral pronouns (it and derivations) are not properly used for human beings.
Dana, if such a an abortion procedure were available, I can think of no reason to deny its usage, but I can also think of no reason to deny the usage of currently available abortion procedures. We allow chemical and surgical abortions now, we could easily add a third type without banning the current types. If there was a form of appendectomy that was preferred by Jains, or a colonoscopy that had the blessing of the Catholic Church that would not be a reason to ban all other forms of appendectomy and colonoscopy. Absent a non-religious reason to ban a medical procedure, why should such a ban be put in place. Just because some religious people feel, for religious reasons, that some medical procedures should be banned, does not mean that they should be, regardless of the availability of religiously approved procedures that have similar outcomes.
the masculine pronouns are both properly used and do not imply that the person referred to is male.
Either pronoun is properly used, of course, and the female pronoun is used increasingly commonly. Since, however, you’ve demonstrated yourself many times to be a flaming sexist, behavior that might be interpreted neutrally in a non-sexist has different implications when you exhibit it. It’s like when you make a point of calling Valerie Plame “Mrs. Wilson.” You know what it’s going to mean to the people you’re addressing, but if anyone calls you on it, you can always play innocent.
Personally, my opinion is that so long as it lives inside of me, then I get to say how long it stays there. Period and end of discussion. And if you aren’t a bearer of a uterus, then you don’t get to have any say, legally or morally, about what goes on inside said uterus.
However, to answer Dana’s hypothetical, if technology were developed to the point that an embryo could be removed and incubated somewhere else, and said procedure were no more invasive or dangerous to the woman than a regular abortion, either medical or surgical for that point in the pregnancy, then sure, I’d support that. Because after it’s out, it can become somebody a ward of the state or adopted out or something. And as to that, if I’d had the option to use an incubator that wasn’t me when I was pregnant and still got to have my kids at the end of the process, I’d have been all about that. Because I love my kids, but I hate being pregnant.
But, as technology hasn’t developed to that point and we don’t have artificial wombs available, then I fully support abortion (termination of pregnancy, if it’s viable, then that can be done by inducing birth) on demand, for the entire duration of pregnancy, no questions asked.
Regarding “Revolutionary Road,” this is a bit off-topic, but was the abortion sub-plot included in the recent movie? I didn’t see any mention of it in reviews I read.
The problem is that you are calling the unborn lump of cells a child, when it is no such thing. And that live-abortion imaginary situation seems really problematic to me, because abortion is about ending a pregnancy, or eliminating an embryo or fetus before it is a person. The fetus or embryo is a person that never exists, therefore never suffers. If a woman gave up the embryo, she would be visiting enormous cruelty on this creature, letting it become a person that is brought into this world at a huge disadvantage.
The other problem is that you have to come up with an imaginary situation to get pro-choicers to looks like they’re all for bloody murder. Why don’t you dwell more on the real (and much more abundance) instances where abortion saves lives, and anti-choicers are all for bloody murder of women?
Embryos are far from unique in having DNA separate from the person housing the cells---so do sperm and eggs, as do cancer cells, I do believe.
And, depending on where you decide the interface actualizes, in the mitochondrion.
An, evidence is clear, incorporated symbiote from long...long ago.
[along with a series of entrenched and alien DNA strands from fungi, bacteria and especially viruses from even before (and after) that.]
If somebody’s in trouble and sucking out a few cells can help them, why not. But in Dana’s family, with his women gently but firmly held in the iron grip of The Patriarchy, god help you if it comes down to a question of adult human female vs. a clump of cells.
I’ve already told my daughter she can come to me for anything she needs — from basic birth control to abortion.
I don’t understand how the anti-choicers justify themselves. I’m aware of what they tell the world, but deep down inside, I don’t know what is really going on in their minds.
I can say, however, that I could not live with myself if I could have helped, but didn’t, my daughter or anyone else’s, when she needed help, regardless of what that might be. In a contest between my 17-year old and a clump of cells, the actual living person wins every time.
In all honesty, saving the actual person, at the expense of a few cells, is just basic morality
I get bored by the whole “is a fetus a person” argument. Because who cares? When is the exact moment that a fetus becomes a person is irrelevent. I’ll even give them that a fetus is a person from birth. Doesn’t matter.
Because in our society (and most if not all, I beleive) no one person is forced to utilize their body to keep another person alive. You are not forced to donate organs, blood, your life, etc. in any circumstance. Even when you are responsible for the other person’s need. (i.e. if you are a drunk driver and you cause an accident causing another person to need a blood transfusion or a new kidney, no law or court in the land will require you to give it.)
Fetuses are biological entities (or “people”, if you want to go that route) who need life-support from the host body. One could say the same about viruses and bacteria. Bacteria are separate biological entities who need a host body to survive. No one cries murder when people take antibiotics to kill them off. But anyway, even if fetuses are cute potential little babies, they still require a voluntary host. VOLUNTARY being the key word here. When men are lined up and forced by God or the government to give cute little innocent children with cancer their bone marrow, their blood, their organs, their lives even, then I will listen to what they have to say. Until then, the basic and easy logic here is that all people have rights, but nowhere is it okay to force one person to give up her rights for the survival of a medically dependent other.
One slight nit to pick in an otherwise good post. I *think* you mean preventative war, and not preemptive war. If you really did mean preemtive war and that you meant that one should never strike the first blow, no matter what, then ignore the nit. I’m just used to people saying preventative war is bad.
Comment #23: Northern Virginia on 12/27 at 03:18 PM
uh, Lexie, the vast majority of bacteria don’t need hosts to survive. Definitely not the ones living on every surface in your kitchen.
also, I like the “personhood” argument in point one.
I spend a lot of time with bacteria, and this focus on Life with a capital L as being somehow sacred in a world of factory farms and mass starvation is pure bullshit.
Really, IIRC, a good number of fertilizations self-terminate before the woman even knows she’s pregnant. There’s something very wrong with it genetically or who knows, but out it goes. And I guess the anti-choice crowd believes that the big sky fairy scoops these little cell clots with unique DNA out of the toilet and carries them up to sky fairy land. Because, you know, they all have SOULZ. That would be the logical follow of the rest of their “thought”.
Point being, even their own arguments tend to fall under cracktastic.
Another hypothetical about life always being favored: The law does not force a Jehova’s Witness parent to donate blood to save his or her child. The law (in Texas) does mandate that Child Protective Services takes “custody” of the child for the purpose of consenting to a transfusion only. Nor does the law force any other parent (male or female) to donate organs or bone marrow to their child. And I will tell you right now that no court would ever order that. I’ve been in this medico-legal bidness for some time, so I speak with some authority on this.
Why should women, then, be forced to incubate an unwanted, unborn, embryo or fetus? Makes no logical sense whatsoever.
[M]y position is simple: an unborn child is a living human being, period.
My position is simple: anyone who fails to make a significant moral distinction between a blastocyst and a toddler is being irrational, period.
Comment #27: Craig Pennington on 12/27 at 04:04 PM
Anders:
As I said, I’m pretty open to a rational discussion of what rights a potential should have. I think Roe cuts it about correctly (that late term pregnancy abortions should be restricted but not banned).
My point, though, is that the potential for life deserves some consideration. What that level of consideration is should be discussed rationally.
I’ve never met an anti-choice atheist but I still don’t think saying “they just think that because they can’t laid” is a fair criticism of anyone’s position. Unless of course their argument begins “we can’t get laid because of x, y and z about women and this is a problem with women”. Why can’t we stick to stated positions and the arguments upon which they are explicitly founded. Those can demolished. Imagining what we think the other person implicitly believes and giving them a hypothetical biography strikes me as just us chasing our own tails. I say us and our because I of course agree with the main thrust of what you said.
As regards the non-"death" abortion method, surely its a matter of some consequence that the child has to be taken care of after it is “born”? If the woman is handed the child several months later what’s the point of the procedure. It seem unlikely that most women who want abortions have them because childbirth is uncomfortable and pregnancy can be awkward. The point of an abortion is surely that the woman does not want a child. So if the procedure was available and the fundies had other methods banned that would leave the child in the care of the mother (who doesn’t want it) or the state. While I’m all for good social services I would not agree that it is in the best interest of the child to enter state care if we consider the actual state of social services.
As a side note to all this, I wish people who have never read Freud were not permitted to reference him, same goes for Marx. Also psychoanalysis is not psychology and never was so I don’t think we can really say that psychology has moved on from Freud. The most minor of points but if you have ever studied either its one of those things that nags at you when people say it.
Christian dogma demands that we who are saved fight against birth control and recreational abortions. Being particularly devout, I’ve gone so far as to construct a special vacuum device that attaches to my penis at night, in order to save any nocturnal emmisions that might occur (it happens quite frequently). I have a collection of Mason jars in my basement lair, filled with vault copies of my precious bodily fluids, Trillions of spermatazoics, my own army of Ruggeds waiting to take over the Earth after I ascend into Heaven during The Rupture.
Comment #30: RUGGED IN MONTANA on 12/27 at 04:29 PM
Really, IIRC, a good number of fertilizations self-terminate before the woman even knows she’s pregnant.
The best medical estimates (no hard numbers for obvious reasons) is about half. The vast majority of fertilizations never come to term, owing to genetic or developmental problems or to other health related issues. I hold a very simple moral principle that it is not a person until it is an independently viable being. Which position the Bible (Leviticus, I believe) upholds (causing a pregnant woman to miscarry is not an injury under Hebrew religious law).
1st, a fetus is a potential person, so it should have some rights. Not as much as the, you know, actual person who is bearing it, but some. And that is the difference between a zygote and some other lump of cells, or cancer.
Nope, Dan. Amanda also used sperm and eggs as examples, and sperm and ova are also potential persons. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have that much respect for them myself. It is at this point that the anti-abortionist usually breaks out the “but… but… but… a zygote has a full set of human DNA!” argument, which Amanda also points out is a fallacy - we regard conciousness (or, perhaps more accurately, a conscious identity) as humannness, not DNA.
Dana: [My] position is simple: an unborn child is a living human being, period.
A religious statement, not a scientific or logical statement. Which is great for you and those who share your religion.
His rights are, or should be, equal to the rights of his mother,
Interesting choice of gender there.
Why should women, then, be forced to incubate an unwanted, unborn, embryo or fetus? Makes no logical sense whatsoever.
There tend to be moral distinctions drawn between lack of action and positive actions. GIVEN the premise that a fertilised egg is a full person (which, obviously, I don’t share), I think there is a distinction between the positive act of an abortion and declining to contribute blood or organs. GIVEN that premise, I’d be more troubled with abortion than Lexie’s position, although I think all in all I’d plump for the “women’s right” side of the argument.
My point, though, is that the potential for life deserves some consideration.
This might be the case if the adoption agencies were closed for lack of business and if the human race was in danger of dying out from lack of fertility. They’re not, it isn’t, and the “potential for human life”, in aggregate, isn’t worth a damned thing. In general, sperm, ove and fertilised eggs aren’t worth that much.
For individuals who have fertility problems, they might have some importance. That’s their business, I have sympathy for them, and I wish them luck.
One thing few anti-choicers (especially female) realize is just what happens when you systematically undermine women’s bodily autonomy. I’m adamantly pro-choice, but I’m an infertility blogger who’s dealt with recurrent pregnancy loss, and thus most of my blog posts on abortion are about how it effects women who WANT their pregnancy.
So, major blog whoring ahead, as I think these posts are relevant:
(How valuing the fetus over the mother effects women in labor and birth, from forced cesareans to criminal proceedings against women who refuse c-section)
(Musings on why the hell the anti-choicers, if they care so much about life from conception, focus solely on abortion but not miscarriage and stillbirth, when they could save more “lives” that way and not be fucking evil)
And then proceeded to try to answer some of the arguments. Seems to me that you undermined your own point there.
Thank you, Dana, for once again proving that your reading comprehension is slightly below that of a small pile of peat moss. It is eminently clear from your response that you have absolutely no fucking clue whatsoever what this post was arguing, to the point that attempting to explain it to you would probably be utterly futile.
My position is simple: an unborn child is a living human being, period. His rights are, or should be, equal to the rights of his mother, but the right to life outweighs rights other than life.
Your position is what is commonly referred to as an “argument by assertion.” Also known as the “because I said so” fallacy.
You have this “argument” thing exactly backwards. Amanda stakes a claim and provides plenty of evidence to substantiate it, but you can’t even identify the initial claim properly, much less evaluate the evidence given in support, and as a result dismiss it out of hand. You, on the other hand, make a series of objectively baseless assertions, then proceed to build a self-referential worldview around them.
I haven’t yet seen the Reality Cast video AM refers to (last sentence paragraph 2), but I’ve read enough postings here to get the main points, which are a brilliant analysis.
A necessary corollary of which is something I’ve wondered for a long time, which is: why the heck didn’t the Supremes, back in 1973, use this 1st-Amendment basis for their decision, instead of the “constitutional right to privacy” (based on the 14th Amendment) that—although I think most Americans would agree with it in principle—is arguably suspect, and has formed the basis for much of the anti-choice argumentation. (The Supremes themselves had rejected the lower Court’s use of the 9th Amendment in support of abortion rights.)
As AM rightly suggests, it would have been a lot harder for the antic-choice crowd to make any argument against such a grounding for a Roe-v.-Wade decision that would have resulted in the same essential outcome. (Not that they wouldn’t have tried, of course.) Might have saved us all a good measure of the huge costs of defending women’s rights for the last 35 years. And I really believe the assaults and restrictions on access to (and even just accurate information about) abortion would have been less successful than they have become.
If I’m right on this, it might suggest AM is smarter than even Harry Blackmun. Wonder how Pres-Elect Obama would feel about AM as a Justice? Should we start a petition?
My point, though, is that the potential for life deserves some consideration. What that level of consideration is should be discussed rationally.
What kind of “consideration” did you have in mind? And why would the “potential for life” deserve this “consideration,” but not other kinds of “potential”?
You have the “potential” to be a murderer or rapist. This doesn’t mean that you can be jailed for murder or rape, just as an embryo’s “potential” to become a person does not mean that it should be accorded the protections society gives to persons.
So what you are saying, Dana, is that millions of women every year flush their children down the loo? Tiny little “corpses”, since that’s what you’re left with when a child dies, being improperly disposed of? That’s kind of special, so far as thought goes.
There are a *lot* of very strange things that can happen in a “healthy, normal” womb during pregnancy. Are we also to prosecute newborns at birth if there had been a twin in the womb early in the pregnancy that vanishes off the ultasounds? Science thinks that in many cases the baby born somehow caused the death of the other in a resources fight… And life is life is life, so newborn goes off to jail as a murderer and the mother as an accessory for not having eaten enough or having too small a uterus?
Do you actually pursue these thoughts before you post them Dana, or is that just too hard?
Slightly off-topic I think but I had a question recently pop into my head that relates to abortion and the rights of the woman.
Recently I was reading about a case where a foster mother raped a 13 year old boy, this was the second boy she had done this too. She became pregnant. Should the 13 year old boy have the right to force an abortion if he or his legal guardian, not sure who that would be right now maybe the state, desires it? I am totally pro-choice and hate most anything that someone is forced to do but this question really boggled me, not sure what to think about it. Anyone have any thoughts? This seems a lot different to me than fundies arguing about fetus viability, forcibly restricting females access to things that might hurt the baby etc, its a tough one for me.
Should the 13 year old boy have the right to force an abortion if he or his legal guardian, not sure who that would be right now maybe the state, desires it?
One thing that I’ve noticed is that your “Abortion shouldn’t be used for birth-control” argument and “Slut Shamming” often go hand in hand when women discuss their limits of pro-choice sentiment.
For example, I’ve often been asked by pro-choice friends something like: “I’m completely pro-choice, but I do have limits. Stella has had like four abortions. I think she’s definitely reached her limit--women like her who can’t figure out birth-control should be cut off from the abortion store.”
Now, before I really figured out a more nuanced and flushed out pro-choice position & feminist philosophy, I might have blithely agreed or joked back. I would never have “denied” Stella any 5th 6th or 20th abortions if I were somehow the magical abortion granter, but you know, I wouldn’t have been terribly compassionate from a distance. Now, I have to say that #1 degree of usage does not determine RIGHTS, Reproductive Rights are either legally standing or they are violated by repressive regimes. #2 Abortion is birth-control and that’s fine, though in Stella’s theoretical case, now that I understand domestic violence and other issues feminists have been able to call out and unearth, I might wonder if Stella only received abstinence education, if she has no health insurance, if she moves around quite a bit and can’t keep a hormonal birth control regime, if she has a partner who refuses to wear a condom or who tampers with her birth control and then insists on abortions (which totally happens) or if she comes from a culture (Japan, Russia) where abortion IS considered a reasonable form of birth control over one’s lifetime. I don’t know what’s up with Stella, but I do know that talking about the deserving woman and the harlot only hurts our cause. Many women who consider themselves pro-choice seem to have these “I don’t like how such and such uses her rights” thing going on. Of course, the Dana’s set us up and try to knock us down. Don’t let ‘em (’em stands for them--which is gender neutral, Dana. Shakespeare used gender neutral terms when he mean’t he/she. It was only in the 18th Century when grammar books became popular that “he” was “established” as the neutral usage. In the late 20th Century most English departments and the MLA decided that “he” cannot be used neutrally. SO FUCK OFF).
WTF indeed, Dan. You want women to be subject to forced abortions because they’re criminals, huh? So, do you also think male rapists should be forced to donate a kidney? Tax cheats lose the right to a speedy trial? Murderers get castrated? Jaywalkers lose the right to freedom of association? What other human rights can we randomly violate?
For Christ’s sake, think before you type. Forced abortions for female offenders, government-subsidised prison rape for male criminals, why not? It’s only fair, right? Such a “tough one”.
Dan, to answer your question about forcing a woman to have an abortion against her will because the pregnancy was the result of her raping a child: NO.
This is often the red herring MRA’s throw out there to get the right to force a woman they knocked up to have an abortion. As a pregnancy is entirely conducted within the body of a woman, it is her right to determine how to proceed--to continue the medical condition known as pregnancy or to terminate the pregnancy.
Now, the next step in your formulation, which is the next step that most MRA’s make is, what about child support? Is the 13 year old boy now required to pay child support. Well, in this case, hopefully no--that boy was violated. Legally, she should be in jail, the baby would be in the care of the state because the woman has already proven a danger to children as a pedophile, and the boy would probably have signed his “parental rights” over to the state so that the baby could be placed for adoption or similar.
Now, the MRA’s say, but what about me, if I can’t force a woman to have an abortion, don’t I deserve a financial abortion? To which I say, NO. A woman makes a decision about a pregnancy--biology puts that decision in her hands and if you feel powerless, then advocate for better male birth control methods so you have more of a chance of determining your own fertility. Pregnancy completely occurs in a woman’s body, so just as you can’t force her to give you a kidney, you can’t force her to carry a fetus or force her to have an abortion because it all happens in her body.
Once the child is born, however he/she needs financial support. In extremely rare cases of woman/child rape, the state is the daddy. In the vast majority of he said/she said baby drama that comes out of consensual sex in which birth control failed/non-existent both mother and father are responsible for their child’s care regardless of their feelings for that child. Currently about 60% of child support payments are not paid fully or no paid at all. Prosecuting men for lack of child support is very difficult across state lines. If more men took 50/50 custody of their children, they wouldn’t need to complain about child support--they’d be fucking doing their gawdamn duty.
Anyway, no such thing as financial abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure done in response to a medical condition, pregnancy.
a case where a foster mother raped a 13 year old boy, this was the second boy she had done this too. She became pregnant. Should the 13 year old boy have the right to force an abortion..? I am totally pro-choice and hate most anything that someone is forced to do but this question really boggled me
I would be against any law that provided for any forced abortion for any reason. However, in cases where a woman has fallen pregnant as a result of committing rape/sexual abuse, proven in a court of law, then the law should provide that the raped sperm contributor is not liable for child support costs of the resulting offspring.
“There tend to be moral distinctions drawn between lack of action and positive actions.”
But in pregnancy, lack of action is not possible. Pragnancy is the process in which a woman USES THE FLESH OF HER BODY TO CREATE A PERSON. It doesn’t just happen, she is DOING IT and it is hard work. She has every right to decide to stop the process if she does not want to continue her active participation.
I mean, of all the things a person could be forced to do, holding a gun to someone’s head and forcing her to actively build a whole new person from her own body is about as perverse and cruel as it gets.
The other logical argument that so-called “pro-lifers” fail to comprehend is that, even if you believe an unborn child is fully human from the word go, making abortion illegal doesn’t actually stop abortion. It merely makes it illegal, therefore vastly more dangerous. So all those unborn children die anyway, and the women in question are put at greater risk of injury, infertility or death.
Rebecca: Correct, I (just like everyone else!) have the potential to be a rapist or murderer. Hence we have laws that act to punish (and supposed to prevent) people from doing that. We deal with potentials all the time. But that is pretty far from my point.
Phoenician in a time of Romans: Absolutely, the “potential for personhood” argument can be taken too far. I agree that the “every sperm is sacred” argument is just silly. But at what point do you cut it off? I don’t think many people are comfortable with “abortion on demand” the day before a baby is due to be born. (ignore for now that abortion on demand is a right wing lie, please!). I think that the way Roe handles it, with increasing rights as the fetus grows older, is the right way to handle it.
As for why cut it off at a fertilized egg, I think two reasons. First, because fertilization and implantation are significant steps towards being born. Not to say that implanted egg=baby born 9 months later, but as noted earlier, fertilization is about 50/50, so it’s a big step. I could see an argument for some other step being the cut off point, as I said, I’m pretty open to argument, but that seems like a big one too me. Secondly, eggs and sperm are freakin common. Women have lots and lots of eggs, while men have, what, trillions of sperm over their lives? Giving rights, however attenuated, to something that common, in a situation where the rights can’t actually be implemented without basically destroying the rights of people to own their own bodies, denigrates the idea of rights.
My position is simple: an unborn child is a living human being, period. His rights are, or should be, equal to the rights of his mother, but the right to life outweighs rights other than life.
That’s not an argument. That’s an assertion. Next?
Patterico, by the way, has accidentally played his hand with me and admitted that he was in this to punish women for fucking. He tried to take it back and return to dishonest assertions masquerading as arguments, but his belief that abortion should be banned to control women’s behavior and keep them as second class citizens isn’t exactly hidden well.
Phoenician in a time of Romans: Absolutely, the “potential for personhood” argument can be taken too far. I agree that the “every sperm is sacred” argument is just silly. But at what point do you cut it off?
Generally, I think a human is a person when it can speak. I don’t think babies are persons.
Historically, the most common form of population control is exposure. For the majority of human history, babies have not been considered persons.
Now, I like babies. Most people do. And it just so happens that our socieites have enough resources to afford to raise and carry babies without parents. Therefore, I have no problems with sentimentally extending “personhood” to babies who have been born. Note carefully that this is sentiment not logic.
Now, I could go further as the anti-choicers do, and use this sentiment to consider a fetus a “person”. This would be nice in an abstract sense. However, it does run into a massive, overwhelming problem in that this fetus happens to be carried by an undeniable person. People’s actual rights tend to overrule my sentimental inclinations.
As for why cut it off at a fertilized egg, I think two reasons. First, because fertilization and implantation are significant steps towards being born.
Nope. This is completely fucking arbitary. There is nothing about a fertilised egg as opposed to sperm/ova save a full set of DNA, an argument Amanda has demolished.
Secondly, eggs and sperm are freakin common. Women have lots and lots of eggs, while men have, what, trillions of sperm over their lives?
Fertilised eggs are also too common for rights - where “too common” is defined as “there exists one or more which is not wanted”. Try again.
Giving rights, however attenuated, to something that common, in a situation where the rights can’t actually be implemented without basically destroying the rights of people to own their own bodies, denigrates the idea of rights.
Jesus, it’s like you have a mental failure. Don’t you get it? This is precisely the argument by which the female right to choose trumps any rights of the supposed fetus.
@smartalek: Justice Blackmun was in a corner. The opinion had to be written to legalize abortion, but also be based upon prior case law. Hence the overworked dough of an opinion. Many moons ago, I was the person who was (deliberately) called upon in my Con Law class to brief that case.
The courts are still staggering towards separating the civil from the religious in the US. It’s time-consuming, but I still have hopes that we will get there, one day.
There are a *lot* of really significant points along a pregnancy. Let’s choose the earliest one possible and go from there!
Oh, wait, we’re missing the point. I am happy to admit that I become increasingly uncomfortable with abortion on a personal level as the fetus (or whathaveyou) becomes more developed. However I’m at least as confident as I am uncomfortable that women do not elect to have abortions of healthy fetuses the day before they are to be born. Nor do they have them the day before that. Pregnancy, however much it is wanted, becomes increasingly uncomfortable (and starts making permanent physical changes) the further it progresses. So either you terminate your unwanted baby *early* so as to avoid this (early as you can manage, anyway) or you want the baby and are willing to put up with the side effects. This, I think, more than moral arguments, is why the vast majority of late term abortions are performed on women who are intentionally pregnant and who discover that the quality of life for their unborn does not meet their personal minimum.
But in pregnancy, lack of action is not possible. Pragnancy is the process in which a woman USES THE FLESH OF HER BODY TO CREATE A PERSON. It doesn’t just happen, she is DOING IT and it is hard work.
The argument, which I am not necessarily endorsing, is that pregnancy is not a conscious action. The woman, as a person, is not exercising any agency as the pregnancy goes forward; she is exercising agency in making the decision to abort it. Crudely, her body is doing all the work without her mind performing any action. Pregnancy is not a matter of a choice as an agent; abortion is.
If you’re going to start bringing the effects of the body’s pregnancy on the mind into it, then you’re getting into Lexie’s argument, which involves the relative priority of the female’s rights as a person versus the fetus’s rights as a person. Since I think the latter half of that balance is, um, nothing, it’s not an argument that needs be explored.
Why do we need laws specifically for abortion, anyway? Canada hasn’t had any since...the late 1980s, and we aren’t having late term abortions al over the place. Because women aren’t the stupid, callous creatures we are made out to be, and neither are abortion doctors. We know that aborting a viable fetus is different from aborting a fetus at an earlier stage of development, and so it doesn’t happen without a damned good reason.
Correct, I (just like everyone else!) have the potential to be a rapist or murderer. Hence we have laws that act to punish (and supposed to prevent) people from doing that. We deal with potentials all the time. But that is pretty far from my point.
No, we don’t actually have the laws you speak of. We have laws to jail actual murderers and rapists, ie. people who have committed crimes. Not people who have the potential to commit crimes.
(I realize the analogy’s pretty shaky, but you have yet to undermine it.)
I’ve never met an anti-choice atheist but I still don’t think saying “they just think that because they can’t laid” is a fair criticism of anyone’s position.
THANK GOD I actually criticized their point, or your point would be valid. As it is, I fail to see why you made your comment, since it’s an obvious strawman. I’m speculating as to why people who are otherwise dedicated to rationalism will choose to be irrational in this one instance---and I suspect it’s because envy and misogyny clogs up their brains.
damnit, Dana has pissed me off.
i have, more than once!, complained on this forum about the lack of a way to artificially gestate. because if you can take out a fetus and freeze it until the mother either a)feels ready for baby or b) gives up baby for adoption i think it would be awesome. PLUS, the reason a LOT of women don’t want to have children is because THEY DO NOT WANT TO BE PREGNANT. pregnancy is DANGEROUS, damnit! and artifical uterus would probably allow those women who want kids but don’t want to be pregnant to have them. and will allow all other women to have children much more safely and without all the myriad risks that are involved - because QUALITY of life is important too.
not that i think if there are way to artifically gestate that abortion should then be disallowed - there would still be many valid reasons for abortion, including that one doesn’t even want to artifically gestate.
A necessary corollary of which is something I’ve wondered for a long time, which is: why the heck didn’t the Supremes, back in 1973, use this 1st-Amendment basis for their decision, instead of the “constitutional right to privacy” (based on the 14th Amendment) that—although I think most Americans would agree with it in principle—is arguably suspect, and has formed the basis for much of the anti-choice argumentation.
Sadly, the Court is rooted in history as much as any of us. They went with privacy because it had covered contraception rights first for married couples and then for single people. Abortion was the next logical step---again, it was clear in 1973 as it should be today that a first trimester embryo/fetus is not a baby, and only morally suspect misogynists grasping for a reason to ban abortion would claim that something that can slip out when you sneeze is the exact same thing as a toddler.
Because abortion bans were part of larger birth control bans that forbade contraception, the real battleground was and is over whether or not the state is in the business of regulating sexual morality in situations involving consenting adults. Sexual morality laws weren’t necessarily religious, but really a kind of tradition. But now the only people who think the state should be in the business of enforcing sexual morality laws are those who are pro-theocracy.
I think Blackmun should have struck out and argued for it under equal protection, but I don’t blame him for not anticipating that the debate would reshuffle itself to be a basic religious freedom argument as the only people who didn’t accept Roe were crazy Christians.
There are no rational arguments against legal abortion.
That’s simply not true. Since there is a rational argument that life begins at conception, there is a rational argument that abortion is murder and that since murder is illegal then abortion should be as well. I don’t agree with that argument, but that doesn’t mean it’s not rational. There are rational arguments for all kinds of nonsense. Don’t believe me? Read some Ayn Rand.
And I think it’s a bit much to claim that all anti-legalized abortion (if you’re going to use accurate language, use it for our side too) atheists are misogynists (though I trust you that most of them are). I see no reason why an atheist can’t rationally believe that abortion is murder so therefore it should be outlawed. Again, I don’t agree with that conclusion, but I don’t see how it’s necessarily irrational.
I hear tales of people who aren’t the least bit bothered by abortion, and I trust those tales are true, but my own personal experience, which is considerable, tells me that at least some people, both male and female, are very unhappy to have an abortion (and yes, the male perspective counts in these intensely personal matters, at least if the male in question says it does). For whatever reasons, I think we should strive to create a society in which the fewer abortions that are performed the better. I don’t think making them illegal is the way to achieve that goal. In fact, it strikes me as an example of poor logical reasoning. Birth control works, at least most of the time. That’s where the nutzis give themselves away. If you’re sincerely against abortion, why the fuck would you oppose birth control? For that, I’ll agree, there is no rational reason.
But let’s face it. Pretty much all of us agree that murder is okay in some circumstances. Right wingers included. They happily cheer when our bombs fall on brown skinned children in distant lands. Of course we don’t cheer, and are therefore morally superior, when fetuses are aborted, but the underlying moral reasoning is the same. Thou shalt not kill is not an absolute. It depends on the circumstance.
Since there is a rational argument that life begins at conception
Please explain how this argument doesn’t also protect cancerous tumours, which also have a separate, full set of human DNA? (To say nothing of the ratio of fertilized eggs that never implant.)
As for why cut it off at a fertilized egg, I think two reasons. First, because fertilization and implantation are significant steps towards being born.
You forgot that a human being is involved---a woman who usually cannot give birth at this point in her life. Your utter and complete disregard for women is exactly why there is no such thing as a non-misogynist anti-choice position. You seem to forget that women exist. If fertilization happened in a vacuum, you’d have an argument. It happens inside a thinking, feeling, living person who has a life that you wish to threaten for what you admit is an arbitrary cutting off point.
Ejaculation could easily be the cutting off point. I’ve declared it, now you have to cut off your balls so you can’t kill any more.
See how it feels? Obviously, I’m kidding. But if I hated men as much as anti-choicers hate women, that would feel “logical” to me.
asshole, you know, reading the post would have helped you not look stupid. “It’s a baby at fertilization” is a religious argument based in faith. Therefore it’s not a rational argument. An atheist who chooses to believe that is abandoning reason, almost surely because he is a misogynist who is looking for an excuse to hurt women.
Please explain how this argument doesn’t also protect cancerous tumours, which also have a separate, full set of human DNA? (To say nothing of the ratio of fertilized eggs that never implant.)
My argument doesn’t protects fetuses. I’m quite clear about my pro-legalized abortion stance. I’m just saying one could rationally come to a different conclusion without being a misogynist. And I don’t see how that necessarily represents a disregard for women (though I trust it often does). Unwanted pregnancy can be an intensely personal situation for both man and woman. I agree that the ultimate choice is the woman’s, but other than that, it’s not always so simple.
The argument that abortion is a conscious action and carrying a pregnancy to term is bullshit, and not only because you can use that same damn argument against medicine.
I’m 4 months pregnant and this is true only because I ACTIVELY CHOOSE to be. I CHOSE to engage in behavior that would get me pregnant, and CHOSE to engage in behavior that would maintain that pregnancy (progesterone supplementation and metformin). I have also had a really fucking hard pregnancy so far, having spent over 2 months vomiting almost everything I ate and developing back pain severe enough that had I been working full time prior to becoming pregnant I would currently be on disability. Yes, that’s right, due to pregnancy I can’t work. I have even wound up in the emergency room because of this pregnancy, and had it been much worse my health would have been severely at risk (hyperemesis gravidarum, for the curious).
I have chosen, and choose every single day, to continue this life threatening condition that has already had a profoundly adverse effect on my well being because I want this child. If I didn’t, if I were being forced to continue this pregnancy it would be tantamount to torture.
At any point 2 months ago I could have ceased the medications that were maintaining my pregnancy, and therefore ceased to be pregnant due to lack of action. There is a decent chance that I could be prescribed bedrest, and should I not follow that advice (depending on the medical circumstances), I would cease to be pregnant at a late stage due to yet another lack of action.
Pregnancy is fucking hard, and it is a choice that every child-bearing woman has made at some point in her life. Don’t think for a second you aren’t here because of accident, or a medical condition. Unless your mother didn’t realize she was pregnant until labor, you’re here because she made that choice.
“Actually I’m pretty sure most atheists are buddhist.”
...Buddhism may not have a god at its center, but it has most of the trappings of any other religion. Atheism doesn’t just deny the existence of god/gods, it also denies the irrationalism of religion in general. If you still follow some other form of irrational belief, how can you really be an atheist?…
Sorry for posting as “asshole.” That was an unfortunate artifact from a different thread.
I’ve read a lot on the subject and don’t see how one can make the claim that faith is the only justification for the belief that life begins at conception. Plenty of science and philosophy supports that position as well. I know, plenty of other science and philosophy doesn’t, but the question is open and always will be. You and I agree that abortion should be legal, but that doesn’t mean that well-meaning people can’t rationally come to a different conclusion. Hopefully, we can keep those types out of office and off the supreme court, but still, I can respect some of their reasoning.
I don’t enjoy getting into a contentious argument with people I respect and whose ultimate conclusions I agree with. For good or ill, that’s just the way poor chuckling is written.
I’m just saying one could rationally come to a different conclusion without being a misogynist.
I don’t see any rationality in declaring that a single cell is as worthy of protection as an actual person.
I’ve read a lot on the subject and don’t see how one can make the claim that faith is the only justification for the belief that life begins at conception. Plenty of science and philosophy supports that position as well.
Not in any substantial way. If you claim that “life begins at conception” based on scientific reasoning (the zygote is alive)...well, sperm, ova, and tumors are also alive. The real question is not when life begins, but rather when personhood begins, and science doesn’t speak to that.
Plenty of science and philosophy supports that position as well. I know, plenty of other science and philosophy doesn’t, but the question is open and always will be.
Not really. Philosophy is one thing, it’s all good and well but it can pretty much be anyone’s opinion on something.
Science, however, it totally different and from what I understand all most all reputable scientists know that PREGNANCY begins upon implantation, NOT conception as 1) no one knows when the fuck that actually happens and 2) if there is no implantation then there’s no pregnancy so even if a sperm manages to meet the egg it just becomes a moot point. As someone has explained above already, about 50 percent of “conceptions” end with the egg falling into a toilet or tampon or pad anyways so that’s why scientists don’t declare “life” beginning at conception. It’s pregnancy begins at implantation and whenever “life” begins can be determined by YOU and your opinion, however that can’t be used as medical fact or federal/state law.
@Bitter Scribe: Paul’s rabid anti-choiceness - to the point of contradicting his own libertarian principles which he’s actually pretty consistent about normally - indicates to me that he’s probably some kind of Christian.
I’m 4 months pregnant and this is true only because I ACTIVELY CHOOSE to be.
I think you’re taking my comment further than it was supposed to go. The only point being made there is that if you fell into a coma tomorrow, if the “you” that thinks and feels and acts disappeared, your body will still be pregnant, and in five months would deliver. That’s all.
Being a good mother, dealing with a pregnancy responsibly is something else entirely. I’m not putting down your effort at that.
I don’t see any rationality in declaring that a single cell is as worthy of protection as an actual person.
Neither do I, hence I never declared it. Implied the opposite, actually.
The real question is not when life begins, but rather when personhood begins, and science doesn’t speak to that.
Well, that may be the real question for you, but less so for me. I get more into the philosophical aspects of when it’s acceptable, or not, to kill. That’s probably why I have a bit more sympathy for the anti-legalized abortion position than typical leftist atheist types. Still, I agree that abortion should be legal and try as I might (and I do, I do), I can’t see how my conclusions, if you could call them that, are irrational, much less misogynist. Granted, I’m typing fast and could be in error. Feel free to point out the fallacies of my ways. Again, I’m not claiming I’m right in any absolute sense. Just find these questions compelling.
Since there is a rational argument that life begins at conception, there is a rational argument that abortion is murder and that since murder is illegal then abortion should be as well. I don’t agree with that argument, but that doesn’t mean it’s not rational.
^ You
We’re in agreement on whether or not abortion should be legal. You, however, seem to be changing your mind every few lines about whether the opposing position is rational.
As for irrationality and misogyny...keep in mind that a key premise of the opposing argument is that a single cell (or a clump of several cells if you pick implantation instead of fertilization) with no consciousness or capacity for consciousness, and with a decent chance of never developing a consciousness or capacity for consciousness, has rights that override the fundamental rights of a conscious being that is of necessity a woman.
chuckling, you’re making baseless assertions that are---to make you seem even dumber---dealt with in the post. “Science” doesn’t say life begins at conception. Science says life began a billion years ago and has continued unbroken but evolving since. You refuse to read the post and you refuse to think about it. You’re just kicking your legs around for reasons I don’t understand, except that it’s attention-seeking.
The only point being made there is that if you fell into a coma tomorrow, if the “you” that thinks and feels and acts disappeared, your body will still be pregnant, and in five months would deliver.
Oh, COME ON. You don’t seriously think this do you?
IF she fell into a coma tomorrow and no actions were taken, she would die, as would her fetus.
I’d also like to state that just because an action is not concious, neither is it not an ACTION. Women have been choosing to be pregnant, or to stop being pregnant, for thousands of years.
2nd, a secular reason to want to reduce the amount of abortion is that abortion (at least the non-chemical version) is minor surgery. This ties in with health care expenses. Prevention, in this case contraception, is much, much cheaper. So if we want to lower health care costs, we should be working to reduce abortion. Although that is reduction in the number, not banning, so many that isn’t a great argument.
I’m going to put on my sociological thinking cap here and take on the radical role:
The health care expenses of delivering a child are typically far greater than terminating a pregnancy; therefore, preventing pregnancies would greatly reduce health care costs. Not to mention, one major cause of workplace discrimination against women is the “mommy factor”. Therefore, sterilization (or at least contraception until a child is desired) would eliminate (or greatly reduce) this cost to health care.
I live in central Illinois, which is a strange demographic because while most people in this state are somewhat liberal when it comes to “secular issues”, those same people who happen to live outside of populated areas are values voters on every other issue. So in other words, sex outside of marriage is alright for men and women so long as the women don’t become pregnant-- in this scenario, it is alright for her to commit to an embryo to full term, but not expect child support if he does not commit to his child until adulthood. The same die-hard catholic male who would protest the PP clinics will still have casual heterosexual “irresponsible” sex and joke with a throng of other “nice guys” like himself at a liberal college setting about how pro-choice pregnant women should be forcefully made comatose for the duration of their pregnancies and then murdered.
I dated a lesser version of this “nice guy” and managed to get him to change his mind about a lot of issues. Seriously, even though there are a lot of guys in that situation around here who don’t fall into the misogyny, there are even more who at least profess to be.
uh, Lexie, the vast majority of bacteria don’t need hosts to survive. Definitely not the ones living on every surface in your kitchen.
also, I like the “personhood” argument in point one.
I spend a lot of time with bacteria, and this focus on Life with a capital L as being somehow sacred in a world of factory farms and mass starvation is pure bullshit.
Yes, thank you. The abovestated boyfriend had to change his mind about the term “pro-life” when I carefully explained that according to “The Bible”, since we are stewards of the earth and everything god created, in order to consider oneself as “pro-life”, said person would have to eat only things that had died of natural causes (or at least be vegetarian), strongly opposed to warfare, the death penalty, the fur and leather industry, and support most causes that would enhance the quality of life and reduce the suffering of others, including permitting homosexual couples or stable responsible individuals to adopt in order to reduce the number of “innocent babies” and children in foster care; also strongly in support of sustainable energy and eliminating our dependence on VOCs and other environmental issues. In other words, to be a better Catholic “pro-choicer”, be like the Buddhists.
That really changed his mind, but he was willing at least to consider it.
Mad Child; I’m in Central Illinois too, and gonna go on a limb and guess we’re in the same town. Hi!
PiaToR: I wasn’t responding directly to you, though your comment did prompt it. I’ve seen that argument elsewhere (shockingly, from my own husband, though not attached to abortion), and needed to say, for posterity’s sake, just how bullshit that is.
Not all anti-abortion atheists are men, and I know you know of Jen over at TurntheClockForward.org because she has commented numerous times on RHRealityCheck.org. In your mind, its best that all pro-life atheists are bitter men that can’t get laid. But plenty of us aren’t male, do get laid (sometimes with members of the same sex! :0 ), and listen to The Skeptics Guide to the Universe (although their lazy stance on the personal cost of climate change made me lose mega-respect for the hosts).
Just because you claim that there are no rational secular arguments against legal abortion does not make it true, and The Raving Atheist (who I never read much anyways, he’s a conservative and I am not) becoming a fundie doesn’t change anything. There are still plenty of secular, atheist and agnostic individuals who are firmly pro-life, and struggling to interject our critique into the pro-life movement as a whole; female and male, hetero and GLBTII, conservative and liberal (and libertarian and Marxist and libertarian socialist), vegan and someday-will-become-vegan (because the benefits for human, animal, and earth far outweigh those for animal enslavement and slaughter).
Regardless, at least now I don’t have to worry about people thinking I’m the Raving Atheist posting under a different name.
Comment #87: pro-life atheist on 12/27 at 11:34 PM
“What’s the deal with all the italics? Anyone else seeing it?”
I’m seeing it in Chrome, but not in Firefox. Haven’t tried IE and don’t really want to…
that a single cell (or a clump of several cells if you pick implantation instead of fertilization) ... has rights that override the fundamental rights of a conscious being that is of necessity a woman.
Rebecca, I didn’t mean to imply that the typical wingnut argument is rational, I’m just saying that it is possible to make a rational argument against abortion that is neither religious nor misogynistic. Ultimately the beginning of life, or personhood or whatever you want to call it is a philosophical matter and reasonable people can disagree. But once you agree that life has begun, do you still believe that abortion should be legal? I do. I believe that it’s nobody’s business but the parents, and the ultimate choice resides with the mother. And that’s a trap some of us pro-legalized abortion people fall into. Once you agree that the beginning of life is the determinant factor, rather than the parent’s choice, in whether abortion should be legal or not, you have ceded the argument to the fundamentalists. Granted, it’s probably better to stay away form that line of reasoning in public, but amongst ourselves…
(and yes, I’ve read the post, but remain unswayed by voice of god pronouncements about what secular atheists or anyone else simply must believe. (Don’t you just love it when progressive types play circular firing squad? Not poor chuckling (ever the dumb, stupid, shallow attention grabber (and asshole)). Really, you can disagree with me and I promise not to call you names).
I’m just saying that it is possible to make a rational argument against abortion that is neither religious nor misogynistic.
You’re not convincing me, since I believe that an argument with the premise that a single cell should be allowed to violate a woman’s fundamental rights is misogynistic.
(My argument is the same as Lexie’s above, for the record; I believe embryonic personhood or lack thereof is irrelevant because entities that we know to be persons still do not have a claim on the bodily systems of others.)
I just have to say, the artificial-uterus argument annoys the shit out of me, smacking as it does of some sort of inane Philosophy 101 “gotcha!” BS. We don’t have any, and won’t have any anytime soon, and if we did, we’d still need legal “regular” abortion for those women who did not want to go through the procedure of transferring the embryo, because it was still their bodies which began the pregnancy and still their right to say what happens going forward. Duh.
Hey here’s an equally dumb gotcha idea: what if men could have wombs (and vaginas) installed with sperm floating around and women could have ovary-shooting “tubes” installed that reversed things and let them ejaculate into men and possibly hook up with their sperm and get them pregnant? Would men have the same rights to their bodies!
Well yes! But then life would be really really strange. But hell, if it gets that strange, sure thing, fellas. Abort or don’t, it’s your body your choice! I’ll be happy to escort you past the protesters to the nearest clinic.
“Generally, I think a human is a person when it can speak. I don’t think babies are persons.”
Speak as in say “dog”? (~ 12 months)
Speak as in utter a full, complete, grammatical sentence? (~ 24 months)
Speak as in wave goodbye? (~ 9 months)
And does that mean that children that are mute are never people? Or that kids that learn to walk early but talk late are people before babies that talk early but walk late?
We don’t say babies are people when they are born for sentimental reasons, we say babies are people when they are born for practical, logical reasons. As in, for the same reasons we give everyone the right to vote at the same age, irrespective of actual maturity. It’s just easiest to say that babies are people at birth, for a variety of reasons.
But it also means that a fetus doesn’t really become a person until it has a consciousness, so really the earliest point that the state should even care to protect it should be about 29 weeks.
I’m not sure I understand this. You are defining “consciousness” as the conscious appreciation of pain, right? So, why the 29 wks cut-off? [All the linked article says is that the *biological* capacity--anatomical pathways, connections, etc.--for conscious perception of pain probably does not function before the third trimester. There’s no evidence that a fetus/neonate does, or, for that matter, can interpret the sensation of pain in a conscious manner.]
“Actually I’m pretty sure most atheists are buddhist.”
...Buddhism may not have a god at its center, but it has most of the trappings of any other religion. Atheism doesn’t just deny the existence of god/gods, it also denies the irrationalism of religion in general.
No it doesn’t. This is off topic but it’s one of the things as a naturalist, an atheist, a skeptic and a scientist, that really annoys me about the modern faces of atheism. Somehow people have decided that atheism = “rational” progressive. NO. Atheism is the lack of belief in god and/or gods period full stop. It in no way prevents you from being religious, objectivist, believing in bigfoot, ghosts or souls. Atheism is a very tiny near useless label because of it too, and thats not a bad thing.
If you still follow some other form of irrational belief, how can you really be an atheist?…
oops, ignore “If you still follow some other form of irrational belief, how can you really be an atheist?…” that was from the quoted post, though the answer to the question is: quite easily.
Rebecca: We do have plenty of laws to punish potential crimes. Look up “incohate offenses,” specifically conspiracy and attempt crimes.
Phoenician:
“Giving rights, however attenuated, to something that common, in a situation where the rights can’t actually be implemented without basically destroying the rights of people to own their own bodies, denigrates the idea of rights.
Jesus, it’s like you have a mental failure. Don’t you get it? This is precisely the argument by which the female right to choose trumps any rights of the supposed fetus. “
Actually, that’s the logic that leads to Roe. A sliding scale of no restrictions to heavier restrictions as the fetus develops. But I do appreciate the insults, they are very convincing.
Mad Child:
Yep, abortion can be cheaper then having a kid. But a condom is cheaper then abortion.
Amanda:
I in no way intend to take the woman out of the picture, and apologize if it came out that way. I was speaking purely in terms of Phoenicians “slipperly slope” argument, and trying to establish an end to the slope. I was trying to give a rational argument for where the slope should end, not trying to say abortion should be restricted after contraception because that is when the magical sperm is involved. Personally, in case it matters, I pretty much agree with a liberal reading of Roe, that is that there should be absolutely no restrictions pre-viability, and (extremely) limited restrictions post-viability.
But I’d ask the question in this forum, where most support abortion: if we developed the technology to have some sort of “no death” abortion, would you (plural) be content with such being the only form of abortion legally allowed?
No, since there are enough thinking and feeling children in need of hospital care and adoptive families. But since you are fond of thought experiments, would you support this option if all the children derived from the “no death” fetuses were given to homosexuals to adopt?
And what if extracting a cell from the aborted fetus and cloning it (and discarding the rest of the fetus) were a lot safer and resulted in healthier babies than trying to transfer the whole fetus to the incubation chamber? The end result would be the same (one baby with a particular genetic makeup). Would there be a reason not to favor the cloning option in this case?
In fact, if this hypothetical technology works in *any gestational stage*, couldn’t people use it to create babies from a fertilized egg or embryo that never was extracted from a woman? Would you support making this the default option (phasing out the need for both pregnancies and abortions) if this was safer to both the woman and the child?
Just because you claim that there are no rational secular arguments against legal abortion does not make it true…
Oh, you tease. You tease!
By the way, there totally are rational secular arguments against legal abortion, and I have a truly marvellous proof of this proposition which this comment is too narrow to contain. No fake!
Like so many other conservative “arguments” that whole song-and-dance about how women who get abortions are neurotic weirdoes going against their true nature isn’t actually an argument, so much as it is a story about people having an argument. It says sweet fuck all about whether abortion ought to be made illegal and serves solely to poison the well.
That said, the trailer for Revolutionary Road looks sweet. I’m pumped for it.
That’s simply not true. Since there is a rational argument that life begins at conception, there is a rational argument that abortion is murder and that since murder is illegal then abortion should be as well. I don’t agree with that argument, but that doesn’t mean it’s not rational.
Making arguments out of baseless assertions and wishful thinking isn’t rational. In fact, there’s a whole category of fallacies just for identifying those very arguments.
The fact that no one who asserts that there is a rational argument that life begins at conception is ever actually able to come up with such an argument and present it persuasively ought to be a pretty big clue that there isn’t one, and they’re all just making shit up as they go along in order to justify systemic misogyny.
There are rational arguments for all kinds of nonsense. Don’t believe me? Read some Ayn Rand.
Anyone who thinks Ayn Rand is rational is automatically beyond credibility. Ayn Rand is rational in the same way that tea made out of ground-up dried tiger dick cures impotence.
Christopher Hitchens mentions that Xianity, and most other religions, think of the birth canal as a one-way street. These religions have a basic distaste for female genitalia.
It is a fallacy to argue that a belief is right because it is logical. It is also a fallacy to believe that because one can logically come to one conclusion, it’s impossible to logically come to any other conclusion. Those fallacies are important cornerstones of the fundamentalist mindset.
Of course the most common way to be both logical and wrong is to be wrong about a premise. But it’s not always so simple. Premises often turn out to be matters of opinion, as is the case of the question of when life begins. So it can be logical to posit that (a) it’s wrong to kill living things (y) and (b) life begins at (x) point in time, therefore it’s wrong to kill (y) after (x). Whether or not that is as true as it is logical depends on the premises (a and b). That argument may not be right, but it is logical and I don’t see why a secular atheist couldn’t make it without being, at heart, a misogynist. You’d have to argue that at least one of the premises (a or b) is misogynistic, which I’d think would be difficult to argue. Pretty basic stuff. I don’t see why it would even be controversial.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I see all too clearly why considering an opposing argument can be controversial. The larger issue at play is not logic vs. fallacy, it is open-mindedness vs. fundamentalist mindset. Unfortunately, the fundamentalist mindset is not limited to any one religion or political party. It appears throughout all religions and ideologies. It goes something like this. I believe (x), therefore anyone who believes (not (a) down to the last micron) is (e) evil and (s) stupid and therefore deserves (a) abuse and (d) damnation.
Dan (Grand Emporer etc. etc.) provides an another excellent example of how the fundamentalist mindset works. Note his construction that (AR) is not rational, therefore anyone who thinks that (AR) is rational is beyond credibility(s). First notice how he equates being logical with being right (a cornerstone of fundamentalist thinking, as previously established), essentially arguing that (AR) is not right (w), therefore (AR) is not (l) rational. But more important, he employs the typical strategy of ignoring the salient point. The open minded among us will note that no one ever said that (AR) was rational. The construction was more to the effect that (AR) makes a lot of logical (l), and ultimately wrong (w), arguments, therefore logic is not the same as truth. To counter that argument, one would need to show that few or none of (AR’s) arguments are logical. Good luck with that. Her ultra-logical approach is what people with a fundamentalist mindset find so appealing about her. Never mind her conclusions are a crock of shit (CoS). Again, when looking Rands followers, we see that the inability to understand that logic does not necessarily equal truth is one of the marks of the fundamentalist mindset. You’re not as intellectually far away from the Randians as you think, Dan.
Anyway, that concludes today’s lesson. Additional reading can be found here. There will be quiz (every single day of your life). If you have any questions, you’ll have to find the answers in the provided reading material. Professor chuckling is now on sabbatical and will be unable to provide any further answers (and yes, I’ll be careful not to let the door hit me on the way out, thanks).
That’s simply not true. Since there is a rational argument that life begins at conception, there is a rational argument that abortion is murder and that since murder is illegal then abortion should be as well. I don’t agree with that argument, but that doesn’t mean it’s not rational.
Life != Personhood. An embryo is alive, but it’s unfeasible to call any living thing possessing human DNA a legal Person, when it lacks the necessary hardware to be self aware. Murder is a person killing another person maliciously.
Life != Consciousness (obvious). You’re conflating personhood and Life.
However, the right to bodily autonomy of a person supersedes any potential civil rights of a potential person because the woman is literally growing a new human being out of themselves. Men aren’t gestating the fetus, so their possible desire to produce a child still depends on a woman person to create that life. Again bodily autonomy as a basic right takes necessary presidence for reasons I’m not going to fucking explain.
“Thou shalt not kill.” is a religious assertion. Fertilized eggs are expelled regularly, naturally. If abortion is murder, women commit “murder” constantly.
Not poor chuckling (ever the dumb, stupid, shallow attention grabber (and asshole)).
hahaha he referred to himself in the third person. Does chuckling like his nummies? Yes he does!
The construction was more to the effect that (AR) makes a lot of logical (l), and ultimately wrong (w), arguments, therefore logic is not the same as truth.
Stop trying to say two things at once. You have a hard enough time managing one thought at a time. It is fucking irritating to read you playing silly games with your language. Stop: you suck at it.
Chuckling, logical != rational. Logical means, as you note, logically sound. Rational means logical and based on valid (i.e., reasonable) premises. You note that “Premises often turn out to be matters of opinion, as is the case of the question of when life begins.,” but by applying several tests for logical self consistency, you can. Essentially, Amanda addressed that above, where she noted that except in this region, nobody truly behaves as if life begins at conception.
His rights are, or should be, equal to the rights of his mother, but the right to life outweighs rights other than life.
And the mother’s right to life? Seriously, the government cannot force you to take a test to see if you are a potential bone marrow match, much less force the donation (court case right here in Illinois). But you think the government’s got a right to force someone to provide their entire body for extreme life-support to another person against her will?
Is it because she’s female or because she had sex?
In English, when the sex of a person is unknown or unspecified, the masculine pronouns are both properly used and do not imply that the person referred to is male. The neutral pronouns (it and derivations) are not properly used for human beings.
Dana, pick up a copy of the MLA manual, or pretty much any other style manual from the last 15+ years. Gender-neutral terminology is more appropriate than using “he” or “him” for unknown genders. Whether you chose “s/he”, “she/he”, or change the structure of the sentence to the plural isn’t so important, but refusing to use any of the simple methods to avoid gender-specific language is no longer considered proper.
Asshole. Don’t try to mess with English majors. We’re not sexist prudes. Pfft. You probably still footnote with “ibid” et. al. You’re archaic in more ways than one.
Comment #109: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes on 12/28 at 11:48 AM
The argument, which I am not necessarily endorsing, is that pregnancy is not a conscious action. The woman, as a person, is not exercising any agency as the pregnancy goes forward; she is exercising agency in making the decision to abort it. Crudely, her body is doing all the work without her mind performing any action. Pregnancy is not a matter of a choice as an agent; abortion is.
I know you defended this remark, but I think this is a crucial point: if people really did look at pregnancy as an active choice, i.e., I chose to be pregnant, we wouldn’t have half of these arguments.
Forced-gestationalists don’t believe that pregnancy is a choice--it’s the only thing that can be allowed. The only ‘choice’ would be to end it.
I seriously chose to be pregnant and chose to continue those pregnancies. Forced-gestationalists don’t acknowledge that choice b/c to them I was simply a walking uterus.
As for you comatose pregnant woman? The pregnancy might terminate on its own, depending on what caused the coma, or her doctors and family might very well end the pregnancy in order to save her life. There are forms to fill out for your health care directives, Living Wills, that will let your wishes be known--should the doctor try to save your life or the baby’s, should there be an issue? Some women pick the baby; others pick themselves.
Pregnancy is not just some passive thing that happens to a woman, and if the decision to carry a child to term was given the respect it deserves, then I feel the decision NOT to carry a child to term would have to be given the same respect.
It’s making pregnancy this sweet, natural, slightly inconvenient, temporary situation along with the second class status of women that forced-gestationalists live on. Reality is something completely different.
Comment #110: Caren-Sun-blocking Creator of Animorphic Pancakes on 12/28 at 12:04 PM
Dan:
We do have plenty of laws to punish potential crimes. Look up “incohate offenses,” specifically conspiracy and attempt crimes.
I’d argue that the intent to commit a crime rather than the potential to commit a crime is what’s being punished - you, again, have the potential to commit a murder, but you have no intention to. But we’re really just arguing semantics now.
chuckling, you’re re-using variables to mean different things. Stop iiiiiit.
The Dan of comment #1 has yet to be answered convincingly. The value of the “potential” to become a person that’s inherent in the reproductive process is something that can be rationally argued rather easily. Merely stating that you don’t think sperm or eggs or tumors have a proper level of potential doesn’t kill the argument; it actually shows that you can argue the issue rationally.
That doesn’t take away anything from the rest of the post, since deciding that potential trumps the rights of a mother would be inherently misogynistic, and there’s really no way around that.
The value of the “potential” to become a person that’s inherent in the reproductive process is something that can be rationally argued rather easily.
If this is so, why has no one tried to do it? You might say, almost, that your claims of a powerful potential argument does not sway those of us who only respond to actual arguments.
Let me put this another way. As a healthy, young and fertile (though childless) woman, I am a potential mother of five. Do I get to claim those five on my income taxes now, or do you think maybe I should wait until they’re a little bit more actualized?
...That argument may not be right, but it is logical and I don’t see why a secular atheist couldn’t make it without being, at heart, a misogynist. You’d have to argue that at least one of the premises (a or b) is misogynistic, which I’d think would be difficult to argue. Pretty basic stuff. I don’t see why it would even be controversial.
Yeah, because a person’s premises are pretty much completely inarguable, amirite? I mean, if it just so happens that your first principles line up in such a way that their logical conclusion is that you ought to oppress the hell out of a particular social group, then that’s just how the cookie crumbles, yeah?
And even if those premises don’t actually provide any real people with any tangible benefit, ever, it’s still all good, because premises shouldn’t be challenged - even when their ultimate outcome is to force women to live like they did in the goddamn middle ages! I mean, where’s the controversy, here?
“There are no rational arguments against legal abortion.”
Umm, no. Let me make a humanist argument here. Nothing to do with theocracy or religion at all.
You touch on it in one of your examples: there’s a point, somewhere between fertilisation and Age 21, where a humanist would necessarily agree that this is indeed a human. Endowed with all of the other rights of all other humans.
We might look at the arguments of the philosopher, Peter Singer, about when that point is. He, as of course you all well know, is controversial for insisting that infanticide is just fine, for an infant is not a fully developed human being and thus does not have the full panoply of said rights. I have a feeling that most would reject that particular point, but we are all arguing along the same path.
As Singer points out and as is implicit in Amanda’s post, rights are gradually accumulated in that path between conception and being 21 years old. We don’t let 14 year olds vote but we certainly don’t deny them the right to life. All that we need for an entirely humanist and entirely rational argument against abortion is that that right to life is associated with something innate about being a potentially fully human being, not with actually being one at present. For our 14 year old is not, as our society fully admits, yet fully a human being endowed with all the rights of such.
Amanda insists that it is consciousness that defines when this right to life is endowed. OK, but that is her (and of course that of many others as well) opinion. It isn’t, in logic at least, an irrefutable argument. It can be refuted simply by the statement that someone (something perhaps?)which will, in the absence of action to prevent it, develop consciousness is indeed something that has gained that right to life (a right, to be sure, which needs to be balanced against the right to life of others. Even the Catholic Church doesn’t insist that ectopic pregnancies be brought to the point of the inevitable death of the mother these days).
I don’t, by the way, say that this argument is right or correct, even though it accords pretty closely with my own views. Only that it is rational, and that it is an argument against abortion, one which is not based upon any religious notions at all. It’s purely a humanist argument. Human beings have rights, not human beings do not. OK, when is the line crossed from one to the other and which rights are gained when? We may disagree about it being consciousness or not which is the dividing line but to disagree with Amanda’s view is not irrational, it’s simply disagreeing with Amanda’s view.
Abortion being legal saved my life. Why? Because when I got pregnant at 18 I was suffering from depression and one of the things that makes my depression worse is feeling trapped. Had I no choice in whether or not to continue the pregnancy I would have killed myself.
I feel uncomfortable with the idea of abortion being a primary method of birth control, and reccognise that this is an emotional rather than a rational attitude.
I know a woman who had fluid problems and couldn’t carry to term. She had an induced labor (that didn’t work and they had to do a c-section) because the pregnancy was far enough along that development was sufficient the baby could survive outside the womb. This is the closest thing I’ve heard of, from reliable sources, to a “late term abortion”.
Comment #117: Pope Thorn XXIII on 12/28 at 02:36 PM
Amanda insists that it is consciousness that defines when this right to life is endowed. OK, but that is her (and of course that of many others as well) opinion. It isn’t, in logic at least, an irrefutable argument.
Alas for your argument, human rights are linked to agency and the awareness of an identity. Every basic right is predicated on knowing you exist, and that you can make decisions, or having known these things.
Consciousness is therefore a natural threshhold for any entity to be accorded human rights, as opposed to (say) possession of human DNA. A self-aware computer program, should one exist, would have a greater claim to human rights than a fetus.
“Alas for your argument, human rights are linked to agency and the awareness of an identity. Every basic right is predicated on knowing you exist, and that you can make decisions, or having known these things.”
This might be true, it might not be. Certainly it is true that current law does not assume that it is. Even Amanda’s argument does not assume that it is. A fetus at 38 weeks does not have agency to make decisions. Yet we all agree that such a fetus has greater rights than one at 3 weeks (if, in fact, we can call such a fetus). So no, the definition of humanity does not, in our own words and behaviour, depend upon either agency of the ability to make decisions.
That the definition of humanity is linked to the acquisition of such abilities, of course, I agree (in this humanist argument). But the link can, rationally, be the potential to acquire such, it doesn’t have to be the already happened acquisition of such.
As I have already said, it isn’t necessary for this actually to be true for Amanda’s argument to fail. Only that this is a rational, non-religious, argument. And even if you disagree with it, it is still both rational and non-religious.
“That doesn’t take away anything from the rest of the post, since deciding that potential trumps the rights of a mother would be inherently misogynistic, and there’s really no way around that.”
I never said that, or meant to imply it. My point continues to be that Roe is a good thing precisely because it gives increasing rights as a fetus develops, and as the potential becomes closer and closer to realization. Of course the rights of the woman trumps the rights of a lump of cells. The question is, or should be, how do you give some consideration to the lump, while maintaining the rights of the woman, and I think Roe does that pretty well.
I dont’ know if he hated women or just didn’t really ever consider their feelings, but my ex was one of those who, while being athiest (buddist) and a supposedly rational person, was damned certain that abortion of any kind was murder and that if I had one then he would consider me a murderer. This despite the fact that I had 2 difficult labours and needed surgury after the second to save my life. Add to this the fact he felt I should stay even tho I no longer loved him “for the good of the kids” I realized it was high time to leave. For some reason he just never could get the idea that there are circumstances that each woman has to deal with that may make a pregnancy impossible for her to deal with. Thankfully my now husband and I both know that I will not be having a 3rd baby even if I were to get pregnant (unlikely as he has been fixed) So yeah, I’m guessing mysogynist.
ah...the pro-deathers are at it again. Now trying to rationalize the grizzly medical procedure know as abortion. Where the unborn childs gets his limbs ripped off and decapitated, or sucked up a vacuum, just so they can have irresponsible sex with no consequences.
...their messiah...you know the sociopath we elected President is in the same boat with the pro-deathers...although he thinks abortion should be legal outside the womb as well...a real sicko ...boy did he dupe a lot of people...most sociopaths do though....
“Where the unborn childs gets his limbs ripped off and decapitated, or sucked up a vacuum, just so they can have irresponsible sex with no consequences.”
Yawn. Can’t you people come up with some new talking points? These are old and stale.
We might look at the arguments of the philosopher, Peter Singer, about when that point is. He, as of course you all well know, is controversial for insisting that infanticide is just fine, for an infant is not a fully developed human being and thus does not have the full panoply of said rights.
When someone says “Peter Singer thinks X about Y’s rights,” it just means the speaker doesn’t understand Peter Singer. He does not believe in rights. Full stop.
You touch on it in one of your examples: there’s a point, somewhere between fertilisation and Age 21, where a humanist would necessarily agree that this is indeed a human.
Bad form of the argument already. “Human” is not the relevant question. There are cases of births of humans without brains. These are clearly human, that is, they have DNA of a Homo sapiens, but they are also clearly not persons.
“Is this a person?” is the only relevant question. If you insist on other terms, like “alive” or “human” or “baby”, then you are a weasel, speaking weasel words.
I will correct your weaselness from here on:
All that we need for an entirely humanist and entirely rational argument against abortion is that that right to life is associated with something innate about being a potentially fully [person], not with actually being one at present. For our 14 year old is not, as our society fully admits, yet fully a [person] endowed with all the rights of such.
You fucked up several times in rapid succession. Nobody thinks that a 14 year old is not fully a person. Denial of certain rights to 14 year olds does not hinge upon whether they are persons; it hinges upon (our possibly incorrect perceptions of) their ability to make use of those rights: to enter into contracts, fully informed of the consequences. You’re also making the naturalistic fallacy, deriving ought from is: the fact that our societies erroneously and unjustly deny 14 year olds the right to vote cannot be used to infer that 14 year olds do not have that right which is being denied them; see the distinction between civil rights and natural rights. And by the way, we don’t protect a 14 year old’s right to life because she might later develop into a person more able to utilize that right; we protect her right to life because she is right now a person making use of that right. Really, that analogy was pure shit and you ought to apologize for inflicting it upon us.
But your major fuck up is this: insisting that there is some “entirely rational argument” for giving actual current rights to potential future people, without even hinting at what that rational argument might be. You didn’t even try. You just waved your hand and said “let there be rights.”
I dont’ know if he hated women or just didn’t really ever consider their feelings, but my ex was one of those who, while being athiest (buddist) and a supposedly rational person, was damned certain that abortion of any kind was murder and that if I had one then he would consider me a murderer. This despite the fact that I had 2 difficult labours and needed surgury after the second to save my life. Add to this the fact he felt I should stay even tho I no longer loved him “for the good of the kids” I realized it was high time to leave.
I’m really glad to hear that you got away (hopefully safely), LadyH. Good to hear also that you’ve found someone who respects you! Thank you for sharing your story.
James, i asked you this before. i ask again -
why do you want me to die? if i attempt to carry a pregnancy to term I. Will. Die. period. and, while we’re at it, since i will probably die before 30 weeks, SO WILL THE FETUS.
but if i get pregnant through some contraception failure, i should just suck it up and die anyway?
FUCK. YOU.
when YOU are at risk, we can fucking talk. in the meantime, go read your holy book. didn’t God tell you to bash babies head against rocks to kill them? it’s in there.
I know this is from waaaay back up the page, but I couldn’t help myself:
“the right to life outweighs rights other than life.”
I, for one, am delighted to hear this. A colleague of mine is in urgent need of a kidney transplant, but there is great difficulty in finding a suitable donor. It’s good to know that once somebody with a compatible kidney is found we don’t have to wait around asking for their permission to cut them open and take the organ. After all, my colleague’s right to life outweighs any of the rights that “donor” might have, as long as we don’t kill them!
denelian, that straw man argument is getting worn out. 98% of abortion are for matters of convienance.
We’re not asking any mother to risk her life. Measures can be taken to save the mother and the baby. You don’t have to slaughter thhe baby to save your life.
“Tell you what, James. When I get to decide whether or not you’re allowed to donate a kidney, you can decide what I can do with my uterus. Deal? “
Sure, sounds fair.
Remember, once you put another person in your uterus (btw: by your own consent), all bets are off.
One can volunteer a body organ and then un-volunteer it…
“so, James, are you against abortion in cases of rape(where the person is put in a womans’ uterus WITHOUT her consent)? “
(..ok, I’ll comment on the <1% of cases..)
Yes, I would still be against abortion in the case of rape. Abortion is an instrinsic evil. It should never happen, a doctor should never commit an abortion.
denelian, that straw man argument is getting worn out. 98% of abortion are for matters of convienance.
A graduate of John McCain’s “Health of the Mother” School I see. That’s one lie.
We’re not asking any mother to risk her life. Measures can be taken to save the mother and the baby. You don’t have to slaughter thhe baby to save your life.
Hmm, I’ll be conservative and say 1.5 lies there.
“Tell you what, James. When I get to decide whether or not you’re allowed to donate a kidney, you can decide what I can do with my uterus. Deal? “
Sure, sounds fair.
Wow, I’m impressed. You actually hold to your convictions.
Remember, once you put another person in your uterus (btw: by your own consent), all bets are off.
Oh, you don’t, that was another lie, as is this.
One can volunteer a body organ and then un-volunteer it…
Well, that’s correct.
One canNOT volunteer a body organ and then un-volunteer it…
Oh, you mean you meant lie there too. Ok. 5.5 lies in such a short post.
“One canNOT volunteer a body organ and then un-volunteer it…”
Uh, yeah, you can. If you volunteer to donate a kidney and then change your mind as they’re wheeling you into the operating room, they have to stop. So why is the uterus the one and only organ that cannot be un-volunteered?
“what lenghts liberals will go to keep abortion legal. why do they hate children so much.”
Jesus Christ, you’re dull. Where did all of the fun forced-birth trolls go? At least Sharon had some creative invective.
First notice how he equates being logical with being right (a cornerstone of fundamentalist thinking, as previously established), essentially arguing that (AR) is not right (w), therefore (AR) is not (l) rational.
You know what else isn’t rational? Pretending that someone said something that they didn’t solely because you think it makes you look less full of crap.
In fact, I think my point was that while being logical does not necessarily make you right, it is impossible to be right (i.e., truthful) without being logical. Notice that this necessarily eliminates anything based on an opinion from the categories of “right,” “wrong” and “rational.” It does not matter whether an opinion is “right” or “wrong,” because opinions aren’t even taking part in the process that determines such things. If, as you claim, “when life begins” is merely a matter of opinion, then no discussion on the subject can ever be rational at all. It’s just a disconnected assertion framed in the trappings of logic. Because ultimately, that’s all an opinion is. In short, if “when life begins” is just a matter of opinion, then arguing about it is just as pointless, prejudiced, navel-gazing and self-serving as arguing about who the best ‘80s hair-metal band is, or who would win in a fight between Kirk and Picard.
So if you want to redefine the word “rational” to mean something like “a complete waste of time and effort for everyone involved,” more power to you, but most of the rest of us probably aren’t going to participate.
But more important, he employs the typical strategy of ignoring the salient point. The open minded among us will note that no one ever said that (AR) was rational.
Well, no one except for you (to quote: “There are rational arguments for all kinds of nonsense. Don’t believe me? Read some Ayn Rand."). Maybe I was just being silly, but I assumed that it was OK to take your words at face value, instead of taking them as something completely different, which is what you are now claiming you intended.
You know, it’s bad enough to lie about what someone else says in order to avoid taking responsibility for what you’ve claimed, but if you have to lie about what you yourself said when you’re called out for being a moron, you probably didn’t really have a valid point to begin with.
(And ironically, you yourself “ignore the salient point” when you attempt to make an argument based on “when life begins.” It matters not a whit “when life begins.” The salient point is that of when legal personhood begins. That’s the trouble with mixing ancient tribal moralities with the law. Ultimately, the law must win, because the law must bow to practicality. Morality has no such requirements, and can appeal to sentimentality or prejudice all it likes.)
The construction was more to the effect that (AR) makes a lot of logical (l), and ultimately wrong (w), arguments, therefore logic is not the same as truth.
Out here in the real world, you can make logical (l) but wrong (w) arguments until your heart explodes from the sheer unrestrained glee of being a preening, pompous jackass. That unfortunately doesn’t make you rational, which is the claim that you’re now desperately attempting to back away from.
To counter that argument, one would need to show that few or none of (AR’s) arguments are logical. Good luck with that. Her ultra-logical approach is what people with a fundamentalist mindset find so appealing about her. Never mind her conclusions are a crock of shit (CoS).
It’s not her conclusions that are a crock of shit. Assuming that her premises are true, her conclusions are perfectly valid. That’s how logic works. The problem with Rand is that her premises are almost exclusively false, and often obviously so. The useful distinction here, which you have obviously missed, is that between validity and soundness. In order to be logical, all you need is validity. In order to be rational, however, you need both validity and soundness.
You also need consistency and intellectual honesty, which are the other things you appear to lack.
Again, when looking Rands followers, we see that the inability to understand that logic does not necessarily equal truth is one of the marks of the fundamentalist mindset. You’re not as intellectually far away from the Randians as you think, Dan.
It’s funny you should say so, since of all the people involved in this thread, you’re the only one who seems to have trouble distinguishing between logic and rationality. The word “projection” comes immediately to mind.
If you volunteer to donate a kidney and then change your mind as they’re wheeling you into the operating room, they have to stop. So why is the uterus the one and only organ that cannot be un-volunteered?
Yes, I would still be against abortion in the case of rape.
Then shut the fuck up about a woman putting an embryo in her uterus by her own consent. Even if that were true, you obviously don’t care if it was forced on her.
James, how did you feel about the war? Is it murder to order a soldier into battle? What about executing criminals? If all life is precious, you should be consistent.
“James, how did you feel about the war? Is it murder to order a soldier into battle? What about executing criminals? If all life is precious, you should be consistent.”
OK, I’ll bite.
There are two time when it is morally righteous to kill another human being. In the course of a Just War (and there’s some centuries of philosophic thought about when that is. Which we do not need to repeat here) and in immediate self-defence.
As above, I have no problem with the idea that killing a fetus, an embryo, a child (mix and match to taste) to save the life of the one carrying it (I deliberately do not use the emotionally loaded word “mother") is morally just.
Executing criminals isn’t just under these strictures. Nor is killing another human being because “I don’t want a child right now”. Which brings us right back to the definition of a human being, Which , again, as above, there is an entirely humanist, no religion involved, possible definition of.
Tim, you are correct, there is: A Person is self aware, and able to survive outside of its growth medium. I am assuming every self-aware person has a basic human right to body autonomy.
Since you have no problem with killing people regarding war, in what significant way is a soldier killing another soldier (when arguably they are morally equivalent to eachother--neither is morally superior), in other words one person taking another’s life, different than a mother getting an abortion? Are fetuses somehow more pure? Or...? I don’t see the difference.
I’m really glad to hear that you got away (hopefully safely), LadyH. Good to hear also that you’ve found someone who respects you! Thank you for sharing your story.
asdf
Thanks asdf. Yes I did make it out, but not before he raped me (kinda showed me what his real nature was) and I’ve been trying to come to grips with it since, but that doesn’t mean I can’t see the good in life I didn’t know what it was like to be respected until I met my man, now I dont’ know how I lived without it.
The real question is not when life begins, but rather when personhood begins, and science doesn’t speak to that.
Well, science sort of does speak to when “personhood” exists in the form of the Turing Test. Once an embryo is capable of passing the Turing Test, then there is little reason to deny calling it a person.
Of course, similar to a point made above, that would mean that some chat bots ought to be legally protected from being aborted.
“James, how did you feel about the war? Is it murder to order a soldier into battle? What about executing criminals? If all life is precious, you should be consistent. “
I feel the war is just. Evil/terrorism must be defeated at all costs.
...
ah, you libs are something....comparing inncocent unborn children to convicted death-row criminals..cruel.
again, why do liberals hate children so much? Is there a name for child hatred? You know how you libs use mysogny for women hatred, what is the fancy word for child hatred?
Well, science sort of does speak to when “personhood” exists in the form of the Turing Test. Once an embryo is capable of passing the Turing Test, then there is little reason to deny calling it a person.
Not really. That requires a prior assumption that intelligence or capacity for intelligence (in the cognition sense, please) is what makes an entity a person. I think this is a generally good assumption, but science alone doesn’t determine personhood in the sense that people mean when they say “any scientist will tell you the zygote is alive.” Which, I’ll repeat because it bears repeating, is a useless and intellectually dishonest statement.
I think you’re intellectually consistent (in this alone), even though I disagree with your position. Given that you wouldn’t allow abortion in cases where the embryo is present without the woman’s having consented to sex, I’ll ask you again to shut up about the woman consenting to sex, since it is irrelevant to your position as expressed by you.
I feel the war is just. Evil/terrorism must be defeated at all costs.
Even though the war has killed thousands upon thousands of civilians? Don’t they have a right to life?
ah, you libs are something....comparing inncocent unborn children to convicted death-row criminals..cruel.
And what other crimes will lose someone the right to life in your ideal world? Do you think denelian is a criminal worthy of death? She’s said above that she will die if she gets pregnant and cannot abort. Period. How many people are you willing to kill to enforce your belief that sex for fun is wrong?
i went away and was sick for a number of hours.
i came back.
did James really just post that I am a STRAWMAN???
i have accute intermitent porphyria. pregnancy WILL kill me, and WEEKS before any result of pregnancy could live without me.
fuck. off. and. die.
when YOU are risking YOUR life to carry a PARASITE we can talk
it is NOT made better by bringing up self defense in a later post, and at THAT point saying abortion is ok “for the life of the mother” on the principle of self defense. if i kill a guy trying to rape me, it is still self defense. and the point stands that your FIRST reaction was to save whatever hypothetical baby there might be (somehow. you said “save both mother and child") even though i specifically said PREGNANCY WILL KILL ME.
ya know what? i get to emotionally engaged with James. he is just a troll, spouting propoganda. this is my fault. should not let him get to me this way. he is hateful, but that doesn’t mean i have to buy the hate.
denelian, if it makes you feel any better, James probably doesn’t specifically want you dead; he just doesn’t care if you live or die, because the only lives that matter to him are the ones he’s told by his keepers to care about. That, and his brain can’t follow your argument all the way from the position he’s defending to your death.
Denelian, (not that I want you to have a baby), but I thought there was some new research that showed pregnancy might not be as dangerous for some women with AIP as was previously thought. Did I mis-remember that, or is your case particularly severe? Not to pry, but I’m a science writer and like to know stuff.
And continuing with the science theme, until the age of viability, the fetus does not meet the scientific standard for an independent life. And 40 states and DC have laws preventing abortion after that time (between 22 to 26 weeks, but generally 24), except for the life and health of the mother, or fatal birth defect in the fetus. So while one can make any personal, philosophical argument that one wishes against abortion, it is just that: personal. There is not sufficient evidence that abortion prior to the age of viability ends a life. Science may change its mind (that’s doubtful, but whatever), but as for right now, there is no rational argument for suspending abortion rights.
Liz -
it’s not prying or rather, it is not prying that bothers me
i have also read that it might not be *as* dangerous - but i do know that the one time i was pregnant i almost died, was actually in fact almost dead at the hospital and in ICU, and had an emergency DNC. i should have been 11-12 weeks pregnant (at least. it had been a bit longer than that for teh sex), but dead fetus at around 9 weeks. it was incredibly tramatic (as i am sure you can understand), and i was sick for… 4 months? something like. i know that i do have a very severe case, comparatively, and that may be what the problem is, as opposed to the research being flat-out wrong. i also know a woman who has a relative who had AIP for years, and woke up one day, no symptoms, and has had 2 kids. while i don’t want kids… spontaneous remission is possible?!?! oh please oh please!
i am always skeptical on porphyria research, because so often the researchers are going after, say, hepatic, but it gets applied to, say, chronic (it’s very strange to me, how the different forms which are not really related are conflated by, not the researchers, but doctors...)
junk science - i am just self-centered enough to kinda mind that it’s not personal (joking!) but i appreciate the thought, it is very kind of you. i need to just not engage James, he makes me too angry and i take it all personally, which i should not do. i have no clue why he is getting so far under my skin. but it helps that everyone else thinks he’s an ass, too. thank you.
ah, you libs are something....comparing inncocent unborn children to convicted death-row criminals..cruel.
So basically what you’re saying is that all life is sacred, except when it’s not, and that the only real way to tell the difference is to ask you. Well, to ask whoever told you what to think, anyway. I doubt even you really believe that you’ve ever had an original thought in your life.
again, why do liberals hate children so much? Is there a name for child hatred? You know how you libs use mysogny for women hatred, what is the fancy word for child hatred?
The word “strawman” springs immediately to mind. Because that’s what you get when you start making shit up as you go along in an effort to keep your self-serving, jury-rigged, pre-fab worldview from collapsing in on its own gibbering fanaticism.
denelian:
i have no clue why he is getting so far under my skin.
It’s probably because he’s not even really trying all that hard to hide the fact that he wants you dead and would prefer that you suffer along the way.
Nobody is saying the mothers should die, of course not.
again, lets get back to 98% of abortions that happen for matters of convienance, where no medical conditions are present. Of course you people don’t want to talk about the 98%. You want irresponsible sex with no consquences.....you want the power to kill the most inncocent.
save the enviroment
save the whales
kill the babies
I don’t want you to die. Can you point to some literature that says you have to kill your unborn child?
Hmm, let’s see. Is it you that has been hospitalized and almost died due to this condition? No? I didn’t think so.
Tell me, are you actually aware of how fetal development works? Take a guess at the bare minimum age of viability, and see if it’s anywhere near the 11-12 weeks when denelian had to go to the emergency room.
Nobody is saying the mothers should die, of course not.
Except you, John McCain, and everyone who thinks like you.
again, lets get back to 98% of abortions that happen for matters of convienance, where no medical conditions are present. Of course you people don’t want to talk about the 98%. You want irresponsible sex with no consquences.....you want the power to kill the most inncocent.
We’re talking here about an actual, specific person. An actual poster on this thread will die if she gets pregnant and cannot abort. Why do you want her to die?
denelian, if you can, just don’t read any of James’ post. He is here for one reason only, to get a rise out of us. He’s going after you in particular because he knows he can get to you.
Me? I’m quite willing to talk about this 98% you speak of. Because I don’t think anyone has a right to live inside the body of a person without their consent. You, on the other hand, seem distinctly unwilling to talka bout why you want denelian to die. Is it because she’s committed the horrible crime of having sex, or just because she’s a woman?
Roe v Wade, which invented a ‘right’
*cracks up* Well, I guess you wouldn’t be a fundie troll if you actually knew anythng. Such as, that abortion was legal for one reason or another in twenty states prior to roe.
Sorry James, the task was to prove the rightness of banning abortions, without relying on religion. So far no one here has been able to. Furthermore your belief system is internally inconsistent. All murder is bad, even in extreme cases like a rape victim, but other murder, like war, is A-OK. In other words Fundamentalist Christianity even fails the requirements to be good Sci-Fi. Pffffft.
James, if you’d read the entire article that you linked to, you’d see that AIP is a highly idiopathic disease. At the beginning, they reference the majority of carriers who have very few attacks throughout their lifetimes. Denelian is clearly not one of these people, and hormone fluctuations DO bring on attacks, which can lead to brain damage and death. If she’s in the hospital at 11 weeks, she could never bring a fetus to term. It’s likely that both she and the fetus would die.
Don’t you people understand how evil abortion is? >45 million of our brothers and sisters missing.
What about all of our “brothers and sisters” who are “missing” because their parents didn’t have sex at the right time to conceive them? Do you have any idea how many trillions of people would be alive today if their parents had just had sex at the right time? Why aren’t you pretending to care about them? You can cry glycerin tears for a zygote or a clump of a hundred cells so tiny you can’t see it, so why aren’t you raising hypocritical hell about those spilled sperm and rotted eggs?
Religion just has no equal for taking the slow-witted and turning them into sucking holes of hate and stupidity. I will grudgingly give it its due.
Quite easily, and with a clear conscience. More to the point, the question before us is not “how could I”; that’s a personal decision and even less of your business than whether or not I should be allowed to, which is the real question.
one cannot consent, then unconsent. That would be murder.
Wrong. Try again.
(See McFall v. Shimp - that’s the highest organ donation caselaw there is. It’s never gone higher than that, because the idea that no one should have to donate their organs against their will is so obvious when those people aren’t women.)
Rebecca,
Are you a Christian?
I should say not!
You’ve neglected to answer a few questions, James. Why is it OK to murder Iraqi children who aren’t hurting anyone, but not OK to stop anyone from violating a woman’s rights? What crimes lose a person the right to life, since criminals aren’t “innocent”? Why is sex a crime worthy of death when making use of someone’s body against her will - essentially, assaulting her - is not? And why do you want denelian to die?
This has been a pretty interesting thread, notwithstanding the slow-witted trolls and the incessant claims of a hypothetical rational anti-choice argument without ever actually producing one.
Were I attempting to demonstrate that there is no rational anti-abortion argument, I’d probably focus on bodily autonomy both as the central reason that no rational anti-abortion argument is possible and additionally as the quickest way to demonstrate the implicit misogyny in any attempt to construct one.
In essence, any rational argument that does not reject the premise of bodily autonomy cannot then hold that a fetus, regardless of any chosen definition of “life”, is thereby entitled to violate the bodily autonomy of an full adult human woman. Bodily autonomy necessarily requires that a person cannot be compelled to use their body to sustain the life of another. As many have already pointed out in this thread, a person cannot be compelled to make an organ donation or to give a blood transfusion to sustain the life of another person under any circumstances. To then say that solely in the case of pregnancy does the right to life of a “person” trump the right to bodily autonomy of the woman carrying the pregnancy is therefore necessarily misogynistic because it simply and directly denies solely women the right to bodily autonomy extended to persons in all other cases except pregnancy.
Therefore, to even attempt to construct a rational argument against abortion necessarily would require rejecting the principle of bodily autonomy, unless someone would care to demonstrate a case other than pregnancy where we compel persons to sustain the life of another with their body? Of course any classical liberal (i.e. libertarian) or modern liberal is necessarily excluded from making such an argument as bodily autonomy is considered a natural right in both philosophical systems.
will you stop that nonsense, no one wants Denelian to die.
“Quite easily, and with a clear conscience.”
I don’t believe you.
“More to the point, the question before us is not “how could I”; that’s a personal decision and even less of your business than whether or not I should be allowed to, which is the real question. “
Oh yes it is my business, once you start murdering humans, it is my business, you are reeking havoc on society.
“Why is it OK to murder Iraqi children who aren’t hurting anyone, but not OK to stop anyone from violating a woman’s rights? “
It’s not ok to murder Iraqi children. Who murdered them Rebecca? what side was hiding out in mosques, in hospitals, in homes, in schools? it wasn’t American troops. The people who murdred them were Islamic terrorists…
again Rebecca, why do hate liberals hate children?
It’s not ok to murder Iraqi children. Who murdered them Rebecca? what side was hiding out in mosques, in hospitals, in homes, in schools? it wasn’t American troops. The people who murdred them were Islamic terrorists…
As fun as this conversation is, I’ll invoke the stick rule on this quote.
Which brings us right back to the definition of a human being, Which , again, as above, there is an entirely humanist, no religion involved, possible definition of.
You are a real asshole, Tim Worstall.
But your major fuck up is this: insisting that there is some “entirely rational argument” for giving actual current rights to potential future people, without even hinting at what that rational argument might be. You didn’t even try. You just waved your hand and said “let there be rights.”
And you’re still doing it. I can only conclude that you have no respect for the other commenters here, and are here only to impress yourself.
You’re speaking to people who know our own hearts and minds, James, and we know that we don’t hate children. Telling us otherwise isn’t going to constitute an argument, no matter how many times you repeat yourself.
Somewhat more interesting to me is this: do you really think that we hate children, or do you wonder if maybe there’s something else going on that you don’t fully understand?
Long-time lurker, first time poster. Just wanted to say that I’m scratching my head over James’s “2 wrongs don’t make a right comment”, even though he says the war is just.
One person kills another person = 1 wrong
So, in retaliation, another person kills another person = 1 wrong
1 wrong + 1 wrong = 2 wrongs
Just because their killing is in the context of war doesn’t make it any better. You can’t possibly use the argument “2 wrongs don’t make a right” when you think it’s okay to hurt others because they hurt you first.
.... In fact, that sounds like the excuse first graders give the teacher when caught fighting. “It’s not my fault! He started it!”
So for the sake of consistent arguments, I highly recommend you refrain from using that phrase to go against abortion. Thank you.
Rebecca, Liz, Dan, D (and anyone i missed) thank you. you all rock and are awesome.
i avoided this thread for a while, because i was too upset and engaged. and you all argued my point better than i could have.
from now on, i am going to do what i should have done and ignore James. except to make fun of him. i’m old enough to know better (hell, i’m probably over twice his age, the way he acts). i shouldn’t have engaged, but you (and everyone else) danced around my faux pas perfectly, and even improved on the original. my fault, but your win.
Just because their killing is in the context of war doesn’t make it any better. You can’t possibly use the argument “2 wrongs don’t make a right” when you think it’s okay to hurt others because they hurt you first.
I’m almost a little worried about engaging on this topic, though I’m grateful to Auguste for pointing out that the Raving Atheist finally completed his conversion 2 and a half years after I said that he would have to or the cognitive dissonance would break him down. Ever since I wrote that post, he’s been violently angry at me, to the point where it’s scary, so it’s worrisome to pay attention and feed his super-narcissism. But this isn’t and has never been about the sad little dweeb who was giving online atheism a bad name. This is about the relationship between atheism and feminism, or more specifically, between humanism and feminism, with the understanding that most atheists are humanists and rationalists. (Raving Atheist, however, appeared to be an assholist.) I tend to think that a science-and-reason-based worldview will slowly but surely chip away at sexism. A lot of feminists would no doubt violently disagree, pointing out all the historical examples of science-based sexism, but my argument is that the way to push back against science that’s based in prejudice-justification instead of actual evidence and reason is to apply evidence and reason. No one is saying that science comes up with perfect solutions right out of the box, but that’s no reason to abandon it. The history of science is chock full of sexist blathering, but it’s just as chock full of examples of people bravely putting reason before sexism and prevailing.
2 things:
1st, a fetus is a potential person, so it should have some rights. Not as much as the, you know, actual person who is bearing it, but some. And that is the difference between a zygote and some other lump of cells, or cancer. What rights those should be can be rationally worked out in a secular society, and I think Roe gets it roughly right (i.e. restrict abortion in late pregnancy), although it should never outweigh the actual person (never forbid abortion completely no matter what stage of pregnancy).
2nd, a secular reason to want to reduce the amount of abortion is that abortion (at least the non-chemical version) is minor surgery. This ties in with health care expenses. Prevention, in this case contraception, is much, much cheaper. So if we want to lower health care costs, we should be working to reduce abortion. Although that is reduction in the number, not banning, so many that isn’t a great argument.