Yes (I saw "Meet the Press" Sunday too ; )

Intentionally taking the life of another "human being" is murder in every single jurisdiction.

He is either stupid or lying. Or both.

Why do you give any credence to a person who is demonstrably a lapdog of the conservatives- too eager to please the jonah luciannes and their ilk?

And he talks like a little girl too.

"Unjustified" and intentional taking the life of another human being.

And don't forget that the doctor isn't the only participant in this murder. The woman is as responsible if not more so. How is a woman paying a doctor to perform an abortion any different from a wife hiring a hit man to kill her husband?

If your position is that fetuses are persons, then intentionally destroying a fetus is murder and should be punished like murder. If your position is that fetuses aren't persons, then there's no compelling reason that destroying them should be a crime at all. Fish or cut bait.

False dichotomy

Yes - intentional AND unjutified.

Serious problems in criminal law could arise if, by statute or the amendment of state constitutions, some states made fetuses legal persons and other states did not.

See, if New York refuses to investigate the murder of certain Texans, because those Texans happen not to be "persons" in New York by virtue of being -6 months of age, all sorts of worms start to pop out of ye olde canne.

"False dichotomy"

Nothing false at all. Simply a logical implication that is lost on most anti-choice folks.

Red State Mike:

Do you even know what "false dichotomy" means?

Apparently, liberals like Kevin Drum don't understand nuance. All black and white for the baby-killing crowd, isn't it?

What's wrong with using the personhood standard?

A fetus is clearly a human life.

But just as clearly, it isn't a person.

Personhood begins (IMHO) at birth.

Bob

Hawk:

A fetus, just a clearly, isn't a baby, either.

Babyhood begins at birth.

Bob

Intentionally taking the life of another "human being" is murder in every single jurisdiction.

He is either stupid or lying. Or both.

sounds like -GWB

Hawk:

It's most amusing to hear someone tout "nuance" while using a loaded phrase like "baby killing" :)

I guess it's all black-and-white for the Feto-American crowd as well, eh? :)

Bob

I guess, under the Feto-American standard, that spontaneous miscarriages would have to count as involuntary manslaughter ...

Bo

Animals are not human either. Are there no compelling reasons to refrain from destroying them?

Definition of person:

A human being not connected to another human being by an unbilical cord and a placenta.

There, problem solved, Gordian unbilical cord cut :)

Bob

Life, the human soul, is not transferred until the 6-8th week. The blastocyst or egg doesn't 'KICK'
until then.

The Quickening.

The soul, the life, doesn't happen to about 8 weeks.

Life is not a blastocyst. 'Life' is given unto the child thru thee mother.

g:

There are compelling ethical reasons not to destroy both fetuses and animals.

It's just that in either case, it's not to avoid the charge of murder.

Bob

Bob:

What's wrong with using the personhood standard?

Because there's no qualitative difference between the baby 1 second before and after birth.

I guess, under the Feto-American standard, that spontaneous miscarriages would have to count as involuntary manslaughter ...

No more so than for deaths of born persons.

A human being not connected to another human being by an unbilical cord and a placenta.

So, that means even REAL murder currently would be excused in your world as long as it is done before the cut? You understand why we won't defer to you or walrus on this?

walrus:

Too slippery. There's no hard-and-fast way to define this scientifically.

Best to stick with 'personhood' and leave 'life' and/or 'ensoulment' to one's religious beliefs or a metaphysical deduction.

Bob

Mr. Ponnuru needs to grow some cajones to have the courage of his convictions.

He writes a book titled 'Party of Death' with 'Democrats' in the subtitle, but he protests that he did not mean to call the Democratic Party the Party of Death.

He does not want to use the word 'murder' where it clearly applies if one accepts what he wants us to believe.

Mr. Ponnuru is the definition of a hack.

This guy thinks a baby is really only a foetus until it's 3 months old. Sure opens up a bunch more research options for liberal scientists.

"When the baby comes out, the true umbilical cord is cut forever yet the baby is still, in that second, a foetus.just a foetus one second older,"

"Newborns can't smile, coo, or even suck their fingers. At birth, they're really still foetuses and for the next three months they want little more than to be carried, cuddled, and made to feel like they are still in the womb," he says.

"A growing foetus in the womb develops at lightning speed. "Nevertheless, it takes most babies an additional three months to "wake up" and become active partners in the relationship".

Thomas:

Obviously I'm being provocative. But the umbilical cord standard is no more nor less arbitrary than the trimester framework and the concept of "viability."

I define it in terms of dependence. As long as a mother is physically connected and the life is wholly dependent on her for survival -- then the life is not a person.

Person is characterized by physical autonomy.

Bob

Too slippery. There's no hard-and-fast way to define this scientifically.

Then do it thinkingly, are you not yet able to see this inherent knowledge? i thought you were,perhaps a 'diver' apparently i was wrong.

"A growing foetus in the womb develops at lightning speed. "Nevertheless, it takes most babies an additional three months to "wake up" and become active partners in the relationship".
Posted by: Al

AL as usual is wrong.

walrus:

What's a "diver"?

I'm merely speaking my own mind in polemically unequivocal terms for the sake of sparking a discussion.

I realize full well that the question is intensely ambivalent and may never be answered to anyone's full satisfaction ...

Bob

HOW lame you are.
Are you divers?
or are you rotes?

ambivalent = ambiguous

Kids don't suddenly become universally adults at 18, yet the law decides adulthood arbitrarily. Nobody complains, except maybe some 17 year olds who think they're mature.

Why can't "personhood" be arbitrarily decided legally? First trimester, okay. Third trimester, not okay. Individuals states can make their own laws, and fish in the middle.

There are laws in places against killing endangered flies. That's not murder, but there are still laws against it.

I realize full well that the question is intensely ambivalent and may never be answered to anyone's full satisfaction ...

Blah blah blah,,,
you will never "git it"

Do you even know what "false dichotomy" means?
Posted by: mrjauk

Yep. Do you?

walrus:

Why? Because it appears I disagree with you?

Hey, well at least my syntax and typing will always be the clearer :)

billdean:

That's the trimester framework, based on the standard of "viability." I support it -- but it's tricky because it's slippery. The point of viability is getting earlier and earlier due to advancing technology.

I'd prefer a hard, fast, unambiguous standard. That's why I'm floating the idea of "personhood" based on physical separation from the mother.

Bob

I'm not a diver -- I'm a spaghetti puller!

Why? Because it appears I disagree with you?

Hey, well at least my syntax and typing will always be the clearer :)

such as you think..

I think meat, masturbation and menstruation are all murder, to about the same extent as the typical abortion, which is to say, not.

Even quickening is less than a sure guide to personhood, since you can get a lot of behavior out of a decorticate fetus, or even an adult.

The problem here is the soul, and it's probably a problem many have with evolution as well. (Neandertals? Homo Habilis? A. Afarensis?) If we simply cease to take it into account, the debate is considerably simplified.

walrus:

No, it appears to be objectively true ...

Bob

bad Jim:

Essentially my point.

Bob

Sadly No.
I don't do goldstein, nor is he an educated Jew, nor is he a worthy source..Nor are you here 'enlightened' if you were, and you have proved otherwise, you are not =)

Come on.

If there is not one anti-abortion person in the country with the combination of integrity and feck necessary to answer the simple hypothetical question of whether they would save an infant or a petri dish of a dozen blastocysts from a fire, how do you expect them to be honest and courageous enough to speak plainly about murder?

walrus:

That's your idea of enlightenment?

Interesting ...

Bob

Taurtles are not you

Disputo:

Word

Bob

Walrus:

Is that significant gibberish -- or is that a typo?

Bob

That's your idea of enlightenment?

That is your view of my view

Is that significant gibberish -- or is that a typo?

Bob
Neither Nor

your a big boy figger it out

walrus:

If you keep on like this I'm going think you're either *really* high or clinically insane.

Bob

f you keep on like this I'm going think you're either *really* high or clinically insane.

Think away oh wise one!

I recommend the penalty be on a sliding scale. 1 year for a blastocyst and 100 for an infant. 31 years at 3 months. 61 years at 6 months. I don't believe in the death penalty.

I recommend the penalty be on a sliding scale. 1 year for a blastocyst and 100 for an infant. 31 years at 3 months. 61 years at 6 months. I don't believe in the death penalty.
Posted by: Al

But blastocysts are fozen AL, they don't know the year.

walrus:

You know, you could actually try articulating what it is you mean ...

You know, as a well-meant suggestion.

Bob

walrus:

That was a fake parody Al.

The real Al supports the death penalty.

Bob

Al:

And 500 hours of community service for masturbation :)

Bob

I agree if it is irresponsible masturbation.

note to self: buy new freezer.

quite something and too bad

Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Rejects Rice Proposal

Forget the issue of jailing the doctor -- I'd like to see some of these anti-choice zealots answer the question of what punishment they'd like to see for the mother. After all, if there's a "murderer" here it's the mother, so what penalty should apply to her? Twenty years to life? The death penalty?

It's obvious that the "abortion = murder" argument is rhetorical, rather than factual. That's fine by me, to be honest. What I would like to know is why conservatives are not up in arms about the fact that after 10 years of Republican rule (12 by the time Bush leaves office), there has been no movement on a federal abortion ban.

Any conservative care to answer that?

enozinho:

Truthfully, I think the equation is a little deeper than mere rhetoric. I think it's precisely what drives the desire for a total ban. If abortion *wasn't* murder, why would curtailing a woman's right to control her reproductive destiny even be an issue?

Anything less is a slippery-slope argument where you slice the ethical salami until there's nothing left to slice. Right wingers want the restriction of abortion founded on a solid, immutable principle.

That it leads to a legal reductio ad absurdum just as slippery is only what happens when two sets of rights collide.

Bob

Bob wrote "that's the trimester framework, based on the standard of "viability." I support it -- but it's tricky because it's slippery. The point of viability is getting earlier and earlier due to advancing technology."
Oh really?! Last time I looked at an embryology textbook, the lungs did not start to develop until about the 20th week. Until then the fetus will die if separated from the mother's placenta. Is there a neonatalogist out there who can answer this definitively?
My point is that although more and more lower weight premmies are saved, there is a hard boundry of viability, which I believe, even with ECMO, has not been crossed. OTOH, a 32 week old fetus can be separated from the mom and have the same chances as a 37 week newborn. I'm willing to grant third trimester fetuses the same rights as a newborn (pre and post natal care would be a bonus.)

Bob:

Anything less is a slippery-slope argument where you slice the ethical salami until there's nothing left to slice

That's exactly right. But my take is that the use of the word "murder" is shorthand for "morally repugnant" or "really really bad". I'm not saying that they don't believe abortion akin to murder, or just like murder, just that the use of the word itself is rhetorical.

When conservatives say "the Constitution isn't a suicide pact.", they mean what they say, but the words they use to illustrate their point are rhetorical in nature.

gyp:

I understand your point, but I have trepidation about advancing advancing viability as a *legal* concept as far as it can go biologically ...

Viability clearly doesn't mean the same thing today as it did back in '73 -- despite the fact that strict biological viability (being incapable of even theoretically surviving outside the mother's womb) certainly hasn't changed.

I don't like the idea of granting third-trimester fetuses the status of personhood -- even if they can feel pain and have a fully developed nervous system, and can perhaps even be said to have a consciousness.

As long as the mother is physically involved, I don't believe a separate personhood is possible -- but granted I'm just batting around ways to try to concretely ground this.

I may never solve the problem to my satisfaction, of course ...

Bob

Not only a poor and muddled thinker, but a Helium abuser. Ever heard him speak? He's got to be hitting the tank before each sentence.

enozinho:

"The Constitution is not a suicide pact" is clearly metaphorical in a way that "abortion is murder" isn't -- although granted, it's more a matter of degree than kind.

I do believe that anti-choicers feel that an abortion committed by a woman who was merely irresponsible with birth control and had no compelling reason (in their eyes) not to have the child is committing a mortal sin that they would literally describe as murder.

I don't know another term that would describe the deliberate, premeditated taking of a human life ...

Bob

Kevin Drum: A fetus is a person or it's not.

Red State Mike: "False dichotomy"

Me: Boy, am I glad I didn't take logic in a red state.

FIRST OF ALL.... A NEW BABY BEGINS AT CONCEPTION... AFTER ALL A HORSE IS A HORSE, A PIG IS A PIG, AND A BABY IS A BABY.... ITS NOT FROM A DIFFERENT PLANET.... REMEMBER TO THOSE WHO ARE SHOVELING EVOLUTION DOWN OUR THROATS... NOW WHY ARE YOU ALL IN AWE LIKE A BUNCH OF QUACKING DUCKS LINED UP TO SEE A CAVE MAN THAT COULD BE 400 YEARS OLD IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE A BABY IS A BABY FROM CONCEPTION..... THEN YOU HAVE THAT TOUCY SECOND QUESTION.... IF A BABY IS NOT ALIVE... WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE..... OR WERE YOU JUST A MEMORY FROM YOUR MOTHERS LAST AFFAIR..... WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE..... DO YOU EXIST AND HOW DID YOU GET HERE.... CONCEPTION..... GOD SAID YOU WERE KNOWN BEFORE YOU WERE BORN..... THEN THAT THIRD LITTLE PROBLEM......WHEN DOES THE BABY WAKE UP.... BABIES DO NOT STAY AWAKE FOR A 24 HOUR PERIOD, THEY SLEEP , WAKE UP, SLEEP WAKE UP... AFTER ALL A DEAD BABY YOUR ARE COMPARING ISNT EXACTLY ALIVE IF ITS DEAD....... SO HOW CAN YOU COMPARE A LIVING BABY STATISTIC TO A DEAD BABY STATISTIC.......... YOU CAN.... YOU DONT KNOW... THE ONLY ONES THAT KNOW ARE THE MOTHERS WHO MISCARRY THEIR BABIES... THEY HOLD THESE LITTLE ONES ALIVE IN THEIR LAPS.... THEY KNOW AT 3 AND ONE HALF MONTHS, THIS BABY IS ALIVE.... AND THAT BIG NUMBER 4 QUESTION... DOES THAT BABY FEEL PAIN..... SURE DOES.... THEY HAVE EYES TO AND THEY CAN SEE YOU, WHEN YOU ARE KILLING THEM ABORTIONISTS.... THEY SEE YOU AND THEY CAN RECOGNISE YOU ENOUGHT TO TELL JESUS CHRIST WHO YOU ARE...... IN THE MIGHTY NAME OF JESUS CHRIST.... YOU ALL BETTER GET A GRIP.. THOSE BABIES ARE ALIVE... AND YOU ARE JUST SHOWING YOUR STUPIDITY....YOUR NOT SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS TELLING A MOTHER WHAT TO DO.... SHE IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT CHILD.... NO MAN I KNOW HAS EVER HAD A BABY.... SO SHUT THE HELL UP..... SMARTEN UP AND SAVE THE UNBORN... UNBORN.. MEANS IN WOMB...IT STILL BREATHES AIR... THREW AN UNBILICAL CORD.. SAFE FROM THE ABORTIONISTS.... SEEMS YOU VULTURES NEED TO STOP FOLLOWING THOSE MOTHERS AROUND LIKE A DOG FEEDING ON A PIECE OF RAW MEAT.... YOU ARE THE VULTURES, THE CANNIBALS AND THE HARVESTORS... YOU KNOW IT ALL... AND YOU ARE JUST A STUPID MAN.... WILL WONDERS NEVER END.....YOU ARE A BUNCH OF WRONG HEADED KNOW IT ALLS.... AND YOU CANT BE A MOTHER... SO STOP TRYING.... MOMS LOOSE THEIR BABIES EVERY DAY.... AND YOUR ARE JUST WAITING TO MAKE MONEY THE MOMENT THEY DROP OUT.... YOU ARE VULTURES AND NOT A MOM.... GOD KNEW BETTER THAN TO MAKE YOU A MOTHER...... HE IS NOT STUPID, YOU COULDNT DO IT RIGHT TO BEGIN WITH.... YOUR NOT BLESSED LIKE A MOTHER IS...... SHE IS A PEARL OF GREAT PRICE... YOUR JUST A PLAIN OLD MAN MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD WITH A SOUL... BABIES HAVE A SOUL... DID YOU FORGET THAT....ANIMALS DONT..... WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE SOULS... THEY ARE THE HEALING PART.. AND JESUS CHRIST HAS THAT... YOU LOOSE AGAIN THE UNBORN WIN.......JESUS CHRIST WINS...YOU ARE JUST GUESSING AND GRASPING AT THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH ON THE BACK OF AN UNBORN BABY HELPLESS..

well of course what they can't face is the stickier issue of jailing women who get abortions.

So far it has been avoided, simply be exonerating the women, as one would excuse a small child. By making women "not responsible" they reduce woment to infantile satus....too weak to make adequately informed judgments about their own bodies.

If Dems reallly represented progressives, they would present a bill EVERY DAMN LEGISLATIVE DAY outlawing ALL abortions and imposing criminal penalties on ALL co-conspirators, Little Nell included.

Thats the way to get these ignorant fuckers to shut the hell up about reproductive rights.

And, while on the subject, so long as the medical and pharmaceutical professions are licensed, access to treatment, etc. is RESTRICTED to licensed personnel.

I vote that henceforth, membership in such exclusive clubs will include the OBLIGATION of all stepenfetchits of the medical industry, namely PHARMACISTS, to fill every properly issued prescription, provided that the pharmacy carries the product. If there's a problem, they can just call the prscribing DOCTOR. PERIOD.

BONNIE:

Nothing like posting with capslock on and using ellipses for punctuation to assure everyone that your disconnected religious condemnations arise from the mind of a sane person :)

Bob

YOU KNOW IF GOD WOULD SPREAD AROUND SOME GALL BALDDER PROBLEMS TO SOME OF YOU MEN, AND SOME APPENICITIS.... YOU MEN MAY KNOW WHAT HAVING A BABY IS LIKE... TRY THAT FOR 36 HOURS STRAIGHT WITHOUT SURGERY...... IF YOU WANT PAIN I AM SURE GOD CAN GIVE ALL OF YOU A BAD STOMACH ACHE.. WELL HAVING A BABY IS MUCH WORSE THAN ALL OF THIS...... SO THE NEXT TIME YOU THINK OF YOURSLVES AS EXPERTS... REMEMBER... AN X IS A HAS BEEN AND A SPERT IS A LITTLE DROP OF WATER UNDER PRESSURE... EXPERT MEN....A LEAKY DRIP.... SO UNTILL GOD MAKES YOU A MOTHER, THE PAIN INCLUDED... I SUGGEST YOU LEAVE THE BABY MAKING UP TO THE MOTHERS... WHAT YOU ADD IS A LITTLE DRIP OF SPERM... THAT MOTHERS TAKES THE PAIN, THE SUFFERING AND THE KNOWLEDGE TO BE A MOTHER... YOU ARE JUST THE LEAKY PART...A LITTLE DRIP..... SO DONT THINK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE VOTING TO KILL A BABY... OR JUDGE ITS AGE...OR IF IT FEELS PAIN OR NOT... UNTILL YOU ALL GET UP AND STUB YOUR TOE ON THE END OF THE BED... AND NOW TELL ME YOU KNOW LIFE OR DEATH....AND HAVE THE RIGHT TO JUDGE IF A BABY SHOULD LIVE OR DIE...... THAT TOE IS JUST THE START OF YOUR PROBLEMS..... YOUR GREAT EGO AND THAT BIG FAT HEAD OF YOURS, IS YOUR PROBLEM.... HOW TO GET IT THREW THE DOOR AT NIGHT... KILLING A BABY, THATS JUST AN EXCUSE... SO YOU CAN GET MONEY, PAY MONEY, OR JUST KILL THAT BABY TO CURE YOUR ILLS.... A BABY ISNT GOING TO VOLUNTEER THEIR LIFE SO YOU CAN PLAY GOLF BETTER, OR CHASE WOMEN AROUND THE BLOCK FOR ANOTHER 78 YEARS OF ALTIMERS...... NO BABY NEEDS TO DIE TO HEAL YOU..... I WILL BET ALL OF YOU MEN THINK YOU HAVE HAD A BABY..... WELL YOUR WRONG... YOU ONLY WERE THERE ENJOYING YOURSELF... WOMEN DO ALL THE WORK... SO STOP TELLING A BABY.... IT HAS TO DIE TO HEAL YOUR STUPID HIDE.... THEY DESERVE TO LIVE JUST LIKE YOU DID.... BY THE WAY... WERE YOU HALF DEAD AFTER CONCEPTION.... YOU ARE SAYING THOSE BABYS ARE.... THEY ARE ALIVE.. THEY CRY... AND THEY SEE YOU...THE MINUITE THEIR EYES ARE FORMED......AT CONCEPTION.... WHO SAID A BABY CANT SEE WAS A FOOL....SEE IF THAT BABY DOES NOT STAND BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT AND TESTIFY THAT YOU WANTED IT DEAD TO HEAL YOURSELF.......YOU CANT KILL THE SOUL... AND THE BODY AND THE SOUL ARE SEPERATE...ONE SOUL, ONE BODY... MADE IN THE IMAGE OF JESUS CHRIST.... LEAVE THEM ALONE.... ITS NOT YOUR LIFE... YOU HAVE ALREADY RUINED YOURS...VOTING FOR ABORTION..THEY ARE NOT YOURS TO TAKE.... THEY BELONG TO GOD... THEY ARE HIS WITNESSES... HE IS KING.... NOT YOUR MEDICINE OR GMO FOOD SOURCE TO FEED THE POOR..... TRY DOLLARS TO FEED THE POOR.... INSTEAD OF BLOWING YOUR MONEY... GIVE IT TO THE POOR AND FOLLOW JESUS CHRIST.... DONT KILL TO FEED THEM... GENETICALY MODIFIED ORGANISMS... BABY GUTT... ITS NO GOOD FOR FOOD....ITS A BABY STUPID.. CANT TELL THE DIFFERENCE......?

YOU KNOW IF GOD WOULD SPREAD AROUND SOME GALL BALDDER PROBLEMS TO SOME OF YOU MEN, AND SOME APPENICITIS.... YOU MEN MAY KNOW WHAT HAVING A BABY IS LIKE... TRY THAT FOR 36 HOURS STRAIGHT WITHOUT SURGERY...... IF YOU WANT PAIN I AM SURE GOD CAN GIVE ALL OF YOU A BAD STOMACH ACHE.. WELL HAVING A BABY IS MUCH WORSE THAN ALL OF THIS...... SO THE NEXT TIME YOU THINK OF YOURSLVES AS EXPERTS... REMEMBER... AN X IS A HAS BEEN AND A SPERT IS A LITTLE DROP OF WATER UNDER PRESSURE... EXPERT MEN....A LEAKY DRIP.... SO UNTILL GOD MAKES YOU A MOTHER, THE PAIN INCLUDED... I SUGGEST YOU LEAVE THE BABY MAKING UP TO THE MOTHERS... WHAT YOU ADD IS A LITTLE DRIP OF SPERM... THAT MOTHERS TAKES THE PAIN, THE SUFFERING AND THE KNOWLEDGE TO BE A MOTHER... YOU ARE JUST THE LEAKY PART...A LITTLE DRIP..... SO DONT THINK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE VOTING TO KILL A BABY... OR JUDGE ITS AGE...OR IF IT FEELS PAIN OR NOT... UNTILL YOU ALL GET UP AND STUB YOUR TOE ON THE END OF THE BED... AND NOW TELL ME YOU KNOW LIFE OR DEATH....AND HAVE THE RIGHT TO JUDGE IF A BABY SHOULD LIVE OR DIE...... THAT TOE IS JUST THE START OF YOUR PROBLEMS..... YOUR GREAT EGO AND THAT BIG FAT HEAD OF YOURS, IS YOUR PROBLEM.... HOW TO GET IT THREW THE DOOR AT NIGHT... KILLING A BABY, THATS JUST AN EXCUSE... SO YOU CAN GET MONEY, PAY MONEY, OR JUST KILL THAT BABY TO CURE YOUR ILLS.... A BABY ISNT GOING TO VOLUNTEER THEIR LIFE SO YOU CAN PLAY GOLF BETTER, OR CHASE WOMEN AROUND THE BLOCK FOR ANOTHER 78 YEARS OF ALTIMERS...... NO BABY NEEDS TO DIE TO HEAL YOU..... I WILL BET ALL OF YOU MEN THINK YOU HAVE HAD A BABY..... WELL YOUR WRONG... YOU ONLY WERE THERE ENJOYING YOURSELF... WOMEN DO ALL THE WORK... SO STOP TELLING A BABY.... IT HAS TO DIE TO HEAL YOUR STUPID HIDE.... THEY DESERVE TO LIVE JUST LIKE YOU DID.... BY THE WAY... WERE YOU HALF DEAD AFTER CONCEPTION.... YOU ARE SAYING THOSE BABYS ARE.... THEY ARE ALIVE.. THEY CRY... AND THEY SEE YOU...THE MINUITE THEIR EYES ARE FORMED......AT CONCEPTION.... WHO SAID A BABY CANT SEE WAS A FOOL....SEE IF THAT BABY DOES NOT STAND BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT AND TESTIFY THAT YOU WANTED IT DEAD TO HEAL YOURSELF.......YOU CANT KILL THE SOUL... AND THE BODY AND THE SOUL ARE SEPERATE...ONE SOUL, ONE BODY... MADE IN THE IMAGE OF JESUS CHRIST.... LEAVE THEM ALONE.... ITS NOT YOUR LIFE... YOU HAVE ALREADY RUINED YOURS...VOTING FOR ABORTION..THEY ARE NOT YOURS TO TAKE.... THEY BELONG TO GOD... THEY ARE HIS WITNESSES... HE IS KING.... NOT YOUR MEDICINE OR GMO FOOD SOURCE TO FEED THE POOR..... TRY DOLLARS TO FEED THE POOR.... INSTEAD OF BLOWING YOUR MONEY... GIVE IT TO THE POOR AND FOLLOW JESUS CHRIST.... DONT KILL TO FEED THEM... GENETICALY MODIFIED ORGANISMS... BABY GUTT... ITS NO GOOD FOR FOOD....ITS A BABY STUPID.. CANT TELL THE DIFFERENCE......?

BONNIE:

I agree with you that abortion and birth are issues that men cannot truly know.

That's why I take my cues from women on being pro-choice.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think I know a single woman that I've discussed the issue with who is pro-life. And I think if more women became pro-life, I'd have to re-think my position.

Finally ... why do you think posting in all caps makes you sound more convincing?

Because I'll tell you -- the exact opposite is true.

Bob

Ponnuru may be using words like 'homicide' and 'malice' imprecisely, but I think his basic point is sound. Kevin's conclusion is a false dichotomy. It is entirely reasonable to both view a fetus as having (or deserving) personhood, yet not consider an abortion to be murder, or its moral equivalent, if the mother and doctor do not view the fetus as a person.

In that case, they do not intend to kill a human being, even if their act itself is not accidental. It is not even reckless endangerment. In their minds, and by the prevailing standards of society, they are not so much as harming a person. Even most pro-lifers do not view a fetus as having full personhood, or they would presumably not make exceptions for rape or incest, as most do.

There are no really analogous ethical issues, which is one of the things that renders words like 'murder' unsuitable. Some societies in the past though have under some circumstances treated newborn children as lacking personhood (ancient Sparta at least). I would not automatically consider parents in ancient societies to have committed murder by leaving their infants to die, if that was a societal norm. Nor do I think Thomas Jefferson, say, was as immoral for having owned slaves as I would someone who tried to do so today. Social context matters.

It's always fun to throw the whole 'black and white' moral reasoning back in the faces of religious conservatives, but ultimately it's no more valid than when they do it. Reality really is usually more nuances. The vast majority of pro-lifers (I think at least) do not view a woman who gets an abortion as being morally equivalent to a woman who murders her infant. I, for one, hope they don't start to think so...

I think Bonnie has one of those caps-only $500 computers the folks at Focus on the Family give out to their supporters.

My position on this is similar to that of Red State Mike: Kevin's is a false dichotomy. Fetuses are neither completely "persons", nor are they entirely not "persons". They're something in between. Which is why mothers, who definitely are "persons", have the right to decide how to deal with them.

Perhaps Bonnie's using an old Apple II?

brooksfoe:

That's essentially close to my thinking on the subject, although I would like to try to preseve "personhood" as a concrete legal category that can be binarily defined.

I'd say that whether the fetus is a "human life" or "has a soul" is the truly ambiguous part of the equation -- something which science is incapable of defining precisely and so is left to either religious belief or metaphysical assertion.

I definitely agree that the mother -- who is unambigiously a person and who is physically connected to and responsible for creating and incubating that potential life -- should in all cases have the right to decide what to do with it.

In a contest of rights -- Mom wins, hands down.

Bob

brooksfoe:

Or I should say at what point the fetus becomes a "human life" or "acquires a soul" is the truly ambiguous part of the equation.

Bob

Actually, now that I look at it, it's Kevin who's using 'malice' imprecisely. The definition he quotes is: "the intention or desire to cause harm to another through an unlawful or wrongful act without justification or excuse." Kevin focuses on the 'intent' part, but the kicker is the 'to another' phrase. An abortion doctor and the mother do not intend to harm another person, which is what 'another' obviously means in this usage.

They intend, I suppose, to harm a thing, but that doesn't count, anymore than it would apply to breaking a chair. Plus, there's a lot of wiggle-room in 'justification' and 'excuse' as well. I mean, if Kevin's going to get pedantic here, he should really be more careful with his own analysis.

ChiSox Fan in LA:

I don't think so; I think it's pretty binary.

If the fetus is a person, then categories like "malice," "intent" and "murder" could apply.

If a fetus is not, they don't.

The question is: Is the fetus a person?

If it is -- well then, at what point does it become a person?

*That's* the question that introduces all the ambiguities ...

Bob

Bob:

It is binary in one sense. Someone who holds the view that a fetus is a person is indeed morally obligated not to have an abortion. Someone who does not hold that view is not under that moral obligation. But a person can see something as immoral by their own beliefs, without judging the same act by another to be equally immoral. If there were some social consensus on this issue, it might be different.

Take, for example, a vegetarian who believes that an animal has the same fundamental right to life as a human being. Are they morally obligated to shun everyone who eats meat, as they would a serial killer? I'd say not. But the only other alternative under this dichotomy is to abandon their beliefs about animals' right to life! Surely there's some middle ground there? Surely one can judge another's ethical behavior by applying their standards, not necessarily one's own, on issues where there's no social consensus?

I can see the point of view that that's hypocritical, but that seems awfully fundamentalist to me. And I would guess we all violate it one one issue or another. If my nephew gets too rowdy and hits me from behind I don't consider it morally equivalent to an adult stranger doing so.

ChiSox Fan in LA:

I generally agree with that. And that's indeed the challenge -- how do we keep our moral principles from sliding down slippery slopes while practicing a tolerance for other people who might not share them?

In the interest of "moral clarity," the antiabortionists cannot do this. Fundmentalist pharmacists go so far as to deny duly doctor-authorized prescriptions to women based on their beliefs.

Strikes me that the slippery slope is less a danger than the brick wall ...

Bob

This guy thinks a baby is really only a foetus until it's 3 months old. Sure opens up a bunch more research options for liberal scientists.

Guess what, Al? That's why third-tremester abortions are illegal.

Is war murder? How about capital punishment? People who oppose the taking of human life in the case of abortion (which I believe it is) better be consistent and oppose war and capital punishment with equal fervor. Or else they are utter hypocrites...

Conservatives push the word "fetus" to conjure up the familiar picture of a small human sleeping soundly... but this blurs the fact that for many weeks the embryo resembles, at best, a grape.

Why do I think that the same people who go on about embryos as if they were sentient, spend their free time killing whatever innocent animal that blunders into range of their shotgun?

And why would I bet that those same people are cheering on Bush's enless "war on terror" as thousands of American soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent "foreigners" are killed for a grand and naive plan to rebuild the middle east?

A "fetus" is a powerful image that is being misused, much as the whole of the US government is currently being misused, by cynical power hungry Republicans.

Sorry, make that "other jerry" I'm always forgetting this.

Fine, it's not murder for that's too severe an accusation? Then why don't conservatives argue abortion is a lesser crime and begin charging thusly. Maybe negligent homicide or some reduced level of manslaughter? Be true to your convictions and write your representatives demanding such laws be passed. Otherwise STFU.

Back when it was illegal, abortion was not punished as murder. It was a lesser offense (in New York, a Class A misdemeanor).

"Abortion is murder" is just a slogan. It is not a legal argument -- just as when we liberals say, "murder of thousands", in respect to callous indifference to famine or even an unnecessary war, we don't really mean that the people at fault are guilty of premeditation, plan, motive, etc., the legal elements of murder.

>Surely there's some middle ground there? Surely one can judge another's ethical behavior by applying their standards, not necessarily one's own, on issues where there's no social consensus?

Surely Bible-thumpers can't, isn't that why we're even having this discussion?

I mean, you've just described the status quo. Despite the wingnuts whining (and a lot of the blogosphere wingnuts are total frauds, kiddie libs that as Berube put it, downloaded the entire wingnut patch) nobody likes abortion, nobody wants to have one or even be the guy whose girlfriend has got to get one.

It's one of those things that adults realize is an unpleasant necessity, like drug rehab clinics and your local sewage plant.

But we aren't dealing with adults, sadly.

I have not problem with stem cell research, but I do have a problem with Kevin's reasoning. In the following, I have changed the word fetuses to dogs. You'll see that the logic does not hold.

If your position is that dogs are persons and abortion should be outlawed, then intentionally destroying a dog is murder and should be punished like murder. If your position is that dogs aren't persons, then there's no compelling reason that destroying them should be a crime at all.

So if I go on a killing spree because I want to send a bunch of people to heaven does Ramesh think I haven't committed murder? I was just trying to bring them eternal happiness. Nothing malicious about that, obviously...

Read this.

Well, what about a person who administers the death peanalty. They certainly have intent.

Kevin, you need to work on your vocabulary. You should look up "zygote", "blastocyst", "embryo" and "fetus" before you make any more public statements on the topic. You play into right wing framing when you conflate blastocysts and fetuses. And you can lead most right wingers into arguing that a zygote has a soul, which is a way to make them look silly.

But only if you bother to know what you're talking about.

Steven Rumbalski:

Thank you.

The Fool:

See Yates, Andrea.

pbg:

The embryos "floating at sea" are just as HUMAN as Tom Hanks in that movie with a soccer ball.

IMU:

See "unjustified" above.

Ben V-L:

And, how do you know that a human zygote does NOT have a soul (or two souls, if it is destined to become twins)?

The "when does life start" question is a non-starter, and can only lead to the kind of round robin discussion we always see. So here's my advice:

STOP!

Let's take Kevin's piece to the next step. Let's stipulate (for the sake of argument) that abortion is, in fact, murder. (And killing embryos, too.)

OK? All on the same page? It's murder.

Now. Let's discuss the most appropriate legal punishment for these murders.

Death penalty for doctor and mother? Life sentences? 15-20 years for "aggravated manslaughter?" And what do you do for repeat offenders?

Let's focus on penalties to keep this discussion from spinning off into the "never-ending story."

Jack:

Same penalties as for REAL murder. If your State has special circumstances for multiple murders like for a serial killer = death penalty. Next question?

That's a nice try, but is Ponnuru seriously trying to pretend that he thinks "murder" is a poor choice of words solely because its legal definition is too slippery?

Clearly, no. As you quoted: "Second, even in ordinary parlance, the term has no stable meaning." If someone explicitly lays out two reasons, asking if they want something for solely the first of them is pretty clear evidence either that you aren't paying attention or that you are being deliberately dishonest.

This doesn't even rise to the level of decent sophistry. He would dismiss it with the contempt it deserves if a non-fetus were involved.

Arguing based on what one presumes without evidence someone else's actions would be in analogous circumstances doesn't even rise to the level of decent sophistry, Kevin.

You don't point to any flaw in the argument here, you just claim that he would reject a similar argument without showing that, indeed, he would, and act as if that is some kind of rebuttal.

The "malicious homicide" malarky is equally specious. "Malice" has several definitions, but the legal definition that applies to homicide is "the intention or desire to cause harm to another through an unlawful or wrongful act without justification or excuse."

No, actually, it is not. That's one general legal definition which, when somewhat more limited to particular types of harm (i.e., death or grievous bodily injury) is one of the ways of establishing malice for murder (murder of the "intent to kill" type). So, too, though is the second of the definitions you link to, when properly specialized, as wanton disregard for the value of human life (murder of the "depraved indifference" type).

But which legal definition applies is hardly relevant, as the "malicious homicide" comment is not made in reference to his comment on the variability of the legal definition, but the second reason for rejecting the term—its lack of clarity (as he claims) in ordinary parlance—which you have apparently completely overlooked.

It's intent that's at issue here, not evil motives. And there's no question that doctors who perform abortions or harvest stem cells have intent aplenty.

I'm not sure that's true; particularly I'm not sure if you can really have an "intent to harm others" that applies against an "other" that you don't believe exists as a independent life form for whom the word "harm" is meaningful; you'd probably be better off arguing "wanton disregard" than "intent" here.

If your position is that fetuses are persons and abortion should be outlawed, then intentionally destroying a fetus is murder and should be punished like murder.

No, if your position is that fetuses are persons and that abortion should be outlawed, than intentionally destroying a fetus is a form of criminal (becase of the "abortion should be outlawed" part of the position) homicide (because of the "fetuses are persons" part.) While one possible position consistent with that view is that (deliberate) abortion should be considered murder, treating it as a lesser form of homicide is not inconsistent with that view, either.

I knew Thomas/Cheney/Charlie wouldn't be able to resist this thread...

Gregory:

Wasn't cmdicely pro-life, and you never accused him of being Charlie/Cheney?

For all practical purposes, the abortion debate ended in 1988, immediately after a debate between GHWB and Dukakis. GHWB said something that could be taken to mean that not only abortion doctors should be punished, but the women who hired them should face some penalty as well. (This, of course, would merely follow established legal principle.) The next day, GHWB's handlers were spinning at a rate rarely seen, insisting that of course he had meant no such thing, and furthermore in his opinion women who'd had abortions should be given understanding and therapy and flowers and chocolates and vacations in Acapulco. And that was about the last that was ever heard of "abortion is murder," a line previously quite popular with the anti-choice crowd.

"If the doctor, why not the one who hired the doctor?" It's an unanswerable argument, and I really don't understand why the pro-choice crowd doesn't use it much more frequently than they do.

Wasn't cmdicely pro-life,

In the sense that term is usually used as a political label, not during the time I've been posting at Political Animal or Calpundit.

and you never accused him of being Charlie/Cheney?

Charlie/Cheney has a very distinct posting style.

Your posting style is a good match for it. Mine, not so much.

Penal Colony:

Because politics is the art of compromise. Even Lincoln did not run for President on abolition.

cmdicely:

Fine then; I will start using paragraph indentations too.

Ben V-L:

In the case of identical twins, as in the case of singletons, conception (fertilization) occurs only once, right? Assuming there is such a thing as a "soul", I think the safest bet is that each twin’s soul exists at their shared conception. Technically, however, there are 3 possibilities.

We know that, for some time after fertilization, embryos have the ability to generate all the cells and tissues of more than one person. In his presentation concerning cloning, Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, states, “The totipotentiality of a cell consists in its ability to generate all the cells and tissues of a complete organism, including (if satisfactory circumstances exist) the development of an individual. In the human, each embryonic cell remains totipotent for a few days after fertilization. Homozygous germination (the phenomenon of identical twins) is the result of an incidental embryonic fission of the totipotent cells that make up the embryo in the first stages of its development”

Science is presently unable to explain why “embryonic fission” (the division of an embryo resulting in identical twin embryos) occurs. It is important to consider both the cause itself as well as the timing of the cause.

1. At- or Pre-conception Factors: One or Two Souls May Exist at Conception

Due to presently unknown genetic or environmental factors existing prior to or at conception, the zygote (fertilized egg) is destined for embryonic fission. Therefore, when conception occurs, one of two things happens: (a) two souls exist within a single zygote, one for each embryo at embryonic fission; or (b) one soul exists, destined for “soul fission” (the division of a soul resulting in identical twin souls) - a new soul cannot come into play, as each embryo’s soul must have existed since conception, and each was conceived only once and at the same time.

2. Post-conception Factors: One Soul Exists at Conception

In this case the zygote is no different at conception than that of a singleton’s zygote because factors causing embryonic fission do not yet exist. Therefore, only one soul must exist. Later, presently unknown environmental factors cause embryonic fission and, as with theory 1(b) above, soul fission must occur.

In these first two theories, presently unknown genetic or environmental factors are the cause of embryonic fission. Whether these factors occur (1) prior to or at conception or (2) after conception is important. If they occur prior to or at conception then the zygote is destined for embryonic fission from the start so it is possible that either one or two souls exist at conception. On the other hand, if factors causing embryonic fission do not exist until after conception then the zygote is no different at conception than that of a normal singleton zygote so only one soul, later becoming two, must exist.

In our third theory, embryonic fission relies on neither genetic nor environmental factors but, rather, divine intervention.

3. Supernatural Factors: Either One or Two Souls May Exist at Conception

For reasons unknown, one of two things happens: (a) one soul exists at conception but divine intervention later causes soul fission to occur which, in turn, causes embryonic fission; or (b) divine intervention at conception causes two souls to exist within one zygote and the very existence of two souls causes embryonic fission. In either case, identical twins are a miracle.

Wasn't cmdicely pro-life, and you never accused him of being Charlie/Cheney?

How droll. Being "pro-life" isn't the criteria, Charlie; the criteria is your inability to disguise your writing style, your reflexive parroting of certain points, and of course your relentless dishonesty -- characterized, not the least, by the very post I'm responding to -- are dead giveaways.

The "Miracle of Embryonic Fission" - start with an absolute (but insubstantial) belief, confront it with an existential obstacle... et voila, a Miracle occurs. It's so easy, anyone can do it.

Ben V-L, I agree that Kevin fell into the conservative trap of blurring all developmental stages into "fetus."

I don't know if this talk about souls is very helpful. A "soul" may be a useful metaphor in some contexts, but it doesn't really have anything to do with the science of how people are conceived and born. Arguing how many souls is like arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

Like Ben V-L, I was struck that Kevin discusses fetuses with no mention of embryos or the other terms. The recent flap about using the term "murder" was about stem cell research on human embryos, not fetuses. Ponnuru may want to change the subject, but that doesn't mean we all should.

Alice has returned under the guise of Bonnie.

Let the smack-downs begin.

Alice has returned under the guise of Bonnie.

"Bonnie" does not necessarily have to be the same person as "Alice".

Let the smack-downs begin.

I can't wait.

Lovely. A bunch of men sitting in a room debating what rights women should have over their own bodies.

Sorry, but it's my body, my womb. If I were to get pregnant and wanted not to be, that is my perogative, no one's business but mine-- it's certainly not the business of a bunch of strangers. Pregnancy and birth are not something to be taken lightly, either is parenthood. Which is why abortion-- in all its forms-- is something that exists out of neccessity, like it or not. If you want to talk about preventing unwanted pregnancies, that's fine, we need more education about contraception, maybe even free contraception to everyone who wants it or needs it?

Here's a proposition-- let's have a discussion about banning or restricting abortion once all BORN children are properly cared for-- fed, housed, nurtured, loved. Does anyone here give nearly as much thought to providing basic care to all the children who are already here? Does anyone here have any experience with the foster care system?

That is the thing about this debate that sickens me the most-- we argue and argue about babies that aren't even born, whether or not women have a right to control their own bodies. But what about the children who are already born? And if we do ban abortion who is going to take care of those children that weren't wanted in the first place?

We should all spend a lot more time worrying about the children who are here and already suffering instead of the ones that don't actually exist yet.

Every insurance plan that denies coverage for contraceptoin should deny coverage for viagra and related drugs.

Thomas: Of course the argument doesn't persuade you. It simply makes you irrelevant. There's an art to that, too.

Lovely. Two women ignoring the topic question:

Is Abortion Murder?

Ramesh Ponnuru is Ann Coulter's come towel.

Is Abortion Murder?

No.

O.K., then. You can go back to your "Men-can't-discuss-banning-abortion-until-every-BORN-child-is-taken-care-of" (ergo never) debate.

From the National Center for Children in Poverty:

"Twelve million children live in families with incomes below the federal poverty level—which is about $16,000 for a family of three and $19,000 for a family of four. Perhaps more stunning is that 5 million children live in families with incomes of less than half the poverty level—and the numbers are rising. Yet research clearly shows that, on average, it takes an income of at least twice poverty to cover a family’s most basic expenses."

Yet we devote how much time and energy debating whether or not women have the right to abort children they don't want or can't provide for? What about the children that are already here, that are already suffering? Not as important, clearly.

Speak for yourself.

It does not matter if an embryo or fetus is a human being and it does not matter if killing them is murder. What is important is the well being of society, and having one out of ten babies born a crack addict, one of nine a preemie, having a substantial number of children born to parents who are abusive or even having unwanted children is not good for society. We must overturn Woe versus Wade in order to make abortion mandatory for all drug addicts and for all unplanned pregnancies. If we eliminate unwanted babies we can eliminate the crime, sorrow and hight costs they create for our modern world.

The facts:

"Each week, nearly 60,000 children in the United States are reported as abused or neglected, with nearly 900,000 confirmed abuse victims in 2004. About 520,000 of those children end up in foster care each year — double the number 25 years ago. Approximately 800,000 children every year come in contact with the foster care system."

Yet we spend all this time debating abortion. Seems like a pretty big waste of time compared to what we could be doing-- preventing unwanted pregnancies and caring for the children who are already here who need help.

Um, I wasn't talking about you personally, I obviously don't know you or what you claim to do in your RL to help needy children. The bottom line is that the abortion debate itself is a huge distraction from many of the pragmatic things that could be done to help children that already exist or to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

Eugie-- nice name, suits you, since apparently you think eugenics is a great idea.

Bob,

If abortion *wasn't* murder, why would curtailing a woman's right to control her reproductive destiny even be an issue?

zoe kentucky hints at it above. Its about control. Its about women being second class citizens. In this particular case, though, the fundamentalists have gruesome pictures with which to obfuscate their true desire to fully contral literally every aspect of a woman's life.

Thomas,

And, how do you know that a human zygote does NOT have a soul (or two souls, if it is destined to become twins)?

How do you know that a human zygote DOES have a soul?

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I don't. Only God (assuming He exists) knows, Edo, which is why the safest course is protecting human life from the moment of conception.

We must eliminate unwanted children from our society. The costs are not just monetary. Unwanted children are responsible for most crime. Unwanted children are abused and become child abusers. Male unwanted children are treated poorly by their mothers and become rapists. Unwanted children become serial murderers.

There is also a problem in our world with over population. Mandatory abortion for women who have already had one or two children is another reason to overturn Roe versus Wade. As long as reproductive rights are protected by this over reaching Supreme Court ruling, we will be unable to make laws preventing over population. Too many of the wrong kinds of babies are being born, especially here in the US, and that must be stopped with mandatory abortion laws for those so irresponsible that they have more than two children.

Apparently, liberals like Kevin Drum don't understand nuance. All black and white for the baby-killing crowd, isn't it?
Posted by: American Hawk on July 27, 2006 at 12:30 AM | PERMALINK

That is the most incoherently hillarious statement I have seen from a Right to Suffering spokes person yet.
LOL.
Anti-legal abortion fanatics as the champions of nuance????? Yea like vegitarian lions and carnivorous sheep.

Okay Thomas, you agree you don't know whether a zygote has a soul (or two or 13). What other things do you have uncertainty about their soulfullness? Do you know whether or not an unfertilized egg has a soul? Or a sperm cell? I'm truly curious about your answer.

To my question about appropriate legal penalties for abortion (stipulating that it is murder, for sake of argument), Thomas responds: "Same penalties as for REAL murder. If your State has special circumstances for multiple murders like for a serial killer = death penalty. Next question?"

I'll ignore the distinction between this discussion and "REAL murder".

Here's my next question: Are you "pro-life?"

no american currently possesses the right to parasitically live off the bodily resources of another person. the personhood of the fetus is irrelevant to the question of whether abortion is justified or not. the onus is not on the pro-choice crowd to prove that a blatocyst, embryo, or fetus does not have the right to parasitically live off a woman's body against her will. the default assumption, according to our legal system, is that no person has such a right. the onus is on the anti-choice crowd to make the case that an embryo, blatocyst, or fetus should be granted rights that are denied to all born persons.

Sheesh, what an arguement. By that logic, I could argue that my fingernail clippings have souls as well.

And you haven't addressed that fact that medical estimate holds up to 50% of zygotes fail to make it to term, either due to lack of implantation, miscarriages, or stillbirths.

So if all of them have souls from the beginning.....

Heaven's gonna be an awfully squishy place. Have fun!

Whether it is 'murder' or not is irrelevant to whether it should be illegal. The only reason laws exist is to protect the function of society, not to impose a particular morality. Therefor in the discourse about abortion or stem cells, they should be illegal if the practice harms the nation and legal if it doesn't. It should be rewarded if it is beneficial.

Murder or not? Who cares? Had murder been good for society, it would have been legal. It isn't, and it's not for a good reason, but some peoples' prejudices about morality should have nothing to do with it.

Memphistopheles

This line is particularly silly:

If your position is that fetuses aren't persons, then there's no compelling reason that destroying them should be a crime at all. Fish or cut bait.

Equivalents:

If your position is that bald eagles aren't human persons, then there's no compelling reason that destroying them should be a crime at all.

If your position is that a Rembrandt painting isn't a human person, then there's no compelling reason that destroying it should be a crime at all.

If your position is that a protected wetland isn't a human person, then there's no compelling reason that destroying it should be a crime at all.

What I'm getting at: Our law protects the continued existence of LOTS AND LOTS of things that are not human persons. Therefore it is stupid to claim that if fetuses aren't "persons," then they cannot be protected by the law at all.

I'd be happy to answer your questions, Ben V-L, as soon as you answer mine.

Jack: Yes.

Spacebaby: Pregnancy is a unique situation.

tzs: 100% of BORN humans wil die eventually -- that's still no defense to REAL murder.

Spacebaby: Pregnancy is a unique situation.

that's not an argument for giving a fetus rights that no other person has.

How do you know there is such a thing as a soul? How do you know mosquitos don't have them? How do you know Saddam Hussein wouldn't have accepted Jesus Christ as his personal savior, set everyone free from jail, and staged free and fair elections if we hadn't invaded Iraq? How did you know he had WMDs?

The safest course is to base one's actions on evidence. Mothers are human beings; they are adults (most of the time; mothers who are minors are exceptional cases, and exceptional rules may apply); they have the right to control of their own bodies. Fetuses start out as something that bears not the remotest resemblance to a human being or a person, and gradually comes to resemble a human being as it develops. The question is whether the state should invade a mother's body to decide what she can or cannot do with the fetus inside it.

I don't believe the soul exists; "Thomas's" argumentation on the point looks to me like the absurd and childish mumbo-jumbo and nonsense-manipulation of a Trekkie who thinks the show is real. And, last time I checked, neither the US constitution nor its legal code mentioned the word "soul". His bizarre calculations may have some relevance for Catholics. For the rest of us, it's just meaningless cant. Catholics commit murder just as often as the rest of the world's population, and a belief in the existence of the soul never seems to have entered into the calculations IRA, the Crusaders, or the U.S. Air Force when deciding whether or not to kill large numbers of generally innocent human beings. I have no idea what it has to do with the debate over the legality of abortion.

Every fetus would have the same right. I will agree with you, once born, that baby no longer has the right to be a "parasite", but that's because the unique situation of pregnancy is over and the State can now take physical custody to protect him / her.

Thomas answers my question about his being "pro-life" with: "Jack: Yes."

OK. So let's say we execute the doctor and the mother found guilty of abortion murder (as opposed to what he called "Real" murder).

The "pro-life" position then would be to take two lives for the one aborted fetus. OK. I get it.

My final question: Would you make these executions public?

I was not the one who brought up "souls" and, for the record, every BORN human being or person resembled an embryo 9 months before their birth.

Every fetus would have the same right. I will agree with you, once born, that baby no longer has the right to be a "parasite", but that's because the unique situation of pregnancy is over and the State can now take physical custody to protect him / her.

you have not proven that the unique nature of pregnancy justifies giving a fetus rights that no born person has. all you've done is pretend that the unique nature of pregnancy is a argment in and of itself for giving a fetus special, unique rights. all you're is making a roundabout argument that a fetus should have special rights that no born person has because it cannot survive without another person providing direct life support.

I'd be happy to answer your questions, Ben V-L, as soon as you answer mine.

You give away the game again, Charlie.

To put this another way: the best evidence that something is human is that it looks and behaves human. The attempt to outlaw abortion is the precise OPPOSITE of the campaigns against slavery or genocide. Slavery depended upon absurd ratiocination to convince white people that blacks, even though they looked, behaved, and communicated like human beings, were not actually fully human. The Nazis did the same thing with regard to Jews and other untermenschen, as did the Rwandan genocidaires with regard to Tutsi "cockroaches". Abolitionists and those few who opposed Nazi anti-Semitism asked people to simply look with their own eyes, and believe what they saw: to believe that the people they were talking to were people, that there was no hidden essence inside them that turned them into vermin.

The anti-abortion campaign is trying to convince us that what makes us human is not that we look, talk, and act like humans, but that there is some magic essence, perhaps simply our DNA, or perhaps an invisible thing called a "soul", that makes us human. (Can you say "naive Platonism"?) It's a bizarre kind of fetishism, resembling comic-book or kung-fu movie logic. I find it totally bizarre and childish, but obviously some people think it convincing.

mothers who are minors are exceptional cases, and exceptional rules may apply

Thank you for saying this so well. Minors should never be allowed to have children. They are too immature to nurture a child to productive adulthood. Most minor parents are worse than just neglectful of their children, and then those children have children when they are minors and the cycle of child abuse goes on and on. There ought to be a law requring mandatory abortion for all women under the age of 21.

Single women should have to rigorously demonstrate their competence to nurture a child before they are allowed to have children. There was a bit of a brouhaha when VP Quayle complained about the 'Murphy Brown' character's single parenthood. The character 'Murphy Brown' was at least capable of supporting a child, but so many other single women are not and society should protect itself and end all pregnancies of single women unless very high standards of the ability to raise children can be met. Actually, couples should have to meet very high standards of this ability before they are allowed to have children also.

Kevin,

Ramesh Ponnuru's rhetorical contortions on this issue are nothing compared to cmdicely's, as his response to you so clearly indicates.

cmdicely,

I'm not sure that's true; particularly I'm not sure if you can really have an "intent to harm others" that applies against an "other" that you don't believe exists as a independent life form for whom the word "harm" is meaningful; you'd probably be better off arguing "wanton disregard" than "intent" here.

Of course it's true. Legal murder doesn't require an explicit "intent to harm an 'other' that you believe exists as an independent life form." A woman who murdered her newborn baby could not immunize herself against criminal prosecution for murder by declaring "I don't believe newborn babies are independent life forms."

The bottom line is that if embryos and fetuses were included in the terms "human being" and "person" as used in state murder statutes, and the explicit exception for abortion were removed, then women who have abortions, doctors who perform abortions, couples who use IVF, doctors who perform IVF procedures, IVF clinic workers who discard unwanted embryos, scientists who perform embryo-destroying stem cell research, and others, would become liable for criminal prosecution under state murder laws.

The question which neither you nor Ramesh Ponnuru has seriously addressed is why, given your nutty Catholic beliefs that a human person begins to exist at fertilization, you do not seek such a change in the law.

While one possible position consistent with that view is that (deliberate) abortion should be considered murder, treating it as a lesser form of homicide is not inconsistent with that view, either.

Why, given your and Ponnuru's nutty Catholic beliefs about human life, should abortion be conseidered a lesser form of homicide than murder? Why, given your and Ponnuru's nutty Catholic beliefs about human life, should the destruction of embryos through IVF or stem cell research be considered a lesser form of homicide than murder?

Jack:

I don't feel strongly about executions being open to the public either way, but I will note that if the State decides that is needed for the deterrence effect, that would be fine by me. Aren't there public "witnesses" at every modern-day execution? BTW: if 2 or more people are guilty of 1 REAL murder, you don't advocate punishing only 1 murderer, do you?

spacebaby:

Well, which one is it? A) Roundabout argument, or B) No argument at all?

Gregory:

"Charlie" was not the only person deserving common courtesy.

every BORN human being or person resembled an embryo 9 months before their birth.

And 12 months before their birth, they resembled a disaggregated set of organic molecules dispersed in countless different locations. Whose side are you on, exactly?

I'm on the side of human life from the moment of conception.

For totally arbitrary reasons. Like, "because the Pope told me so".

If rightards want to insist that the unborn are living human beings, than abortion is pre-meditated murder, without any doubt. In many jurisdictions, that is a capital offense. Additionally, any miscarriage or still birth could result in involuntary manslaughter charges, if it can be demonstrated that the woman indulged in behavior that put the fetus at risk (smoking, drinking, etc).

Democrats have to be more aggressive in asserting these facts; rightards can't have it both ways. The end result should be legalized abortion (even with some restrictions) and a coherent sex education policy.

BTW: if 2 or more people are guilty of 1 REAL murder, you don't advocate punishing only 1 murderer, do you?

C'mon Charlie/Cheney/Thomas, don't be so circumspect on the issue of putting mothers to death. Let's look back at when you've spoken directly on this matter in the past:

FUCK this incrementalism shit! It's time to start sending reporters and Congressmen who leak classified information to Gitmo; federal Constitutional amendments outlawing divorce, homosexuality, and abortion; the death penalty for doctors AND mothers who abort babies; we should go ALL out and just try to IMPEACH us - what is Chief Justice Roberts going to do - side with you PINKO COMMIES?! Besides, who will be PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES if you impeach Bush?!

Posted by: Cheney on March 9, 2006 at 7:12 PM | PERMALINK

And speaking of your attitude toward mothers, there's this little gem from that same thread:

Well, then go FUCK your whore mother again, OBF!

Posted by: Cheney on March 9, 2006 at 7:29 PM | PERMALINK

Common courtesy indeed.

Kinda scary when the mask slips off....

Facts is facts: IF prostitution is the oldest profession, abortionist is the second oldest. As long as men and women get together and knock boots, unlanned pregnancies are going to occur, and abortions are going to be sought. That is part of the human condition. Try as you might you can't stamp it out, legislate it away or pray hard enough for it to finally disappear. Abortion is, was, and always will be a strand in the fabric of hu7man existence.

"..[1]YOUR NOT SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT [2] YOU HAVE NO BUSINESS TELLING A MOTHER WHAT TO DO"

Actually, Bonnie, I think any pro-choice person would completely agree with the second part of your statement - indeed, they would extend it to include other women as well as men. (We certainly don't think any woman should be made to have an abortion against here will - that's a horrible thought).

We are, however, smart enough to know this.

You seem especially concerned about the stem cell research issue. If it helps, those blastocysts were formed in a lab, did not come from any woman's womb, and (given the tiny number of couples who have so far opted to raise such "snowflake babies," combined with estimates of 500,000 blastocysts currently frozen, and who knows how many new ones each year) most likely will never get to develop inside one.

Additionally, if it matters to you, TYPING IN ALL CAPS is the online equivalent of yelling at the top of your lungs. When someone yells at you for an extended period, it generally becomes both difficult to understand, unpleasant to experience, and frankly, ineffective. The same is true for large swaths of all caps text. Not only is it difficult to read, it's ineffective - capitalizing/bolding/italicizing individual words/phrases/sentences that you wish to stress makes them stand out much better.
______

ChiSox Fan - you're making an nuanced and sophisticated argument, but I'm not sure it's relevant to the political situation. After all, abortion bans most likely wouldn't be retroactive; whatever and for whom the penalities are, parties who performed/had abortions prior to the ban would be unaffected (I assume, anyway). But after any ban was in place, it would no longer be an ambiguous/unsettled situation. The state or national legislature would be in effect saying, it doesn't matter what you think, you don't get to do this; enforced social consensus, basically. So in that context, there doesn't seem to be any reason not to legally treat abortion as murder, unless it in fact is not viewed as such. We come back to the OP starting place - pro-lifers who propose future bans which do not treat abortion as a form of doctor-assisted infanticide would seem to be either

a) implicitly admitting that abortion is not intentionally and knowingly causing the destruction of an full (if limited) person - in which case they need to explain why it should be illegal,

or

b) believing abortion is intentionally and knowingly causing the destruction of a full (if limited) person - in which case they need to explain why - on what grounds - it shouldn't be prosecuted as such.

_____

Oddly enough, under Louisiana law, in vitro fertilized human ovums can both sue and be sued.

I have a feeling that Bonnie is afraid she wouldn't know what deserves capitalization and what doesn't if she toggled the Caps Lock button. She'd wind up goin' all 17th-century on us: "The Reason why Abortion is so universally Despised, is that Liberals are in favor of Death."

So, that means even REAL murder currently would be excused in your world as long as it is done before the cut? You understand why we won't defer to you or walrus on this?
Posted by: Thomas

So, Tommy boy, you're ready to posit that a woman and her doctor should be charged as accessories to murder, a capital crime in many states, for performing an abortion? And you seriously don't see the difference between a woman having a miscarriage of an unborn child and a woman neglecting a born child? Wow.

So miscarriages and still births should be subject to involuntary manslaughter charges? Good luck getting that done.

Sadly, this kind of nonsense from Ponnuru is all it takes to bamboozle the extra few percent of voters you need to keep your corrupt team in office.

Demagogue Days in America.

if the State decides that is needed

Thank you. The State needs to protect society and one way it could do that better is prevent unwanted children and undesirable children from being born through laws requiring mandatory abortion for drug addicts and teenage pregnancies. No crack or meth addict should be allowed to have a child and no woman under 21 should be allowed to have a child. We need to protect society from children who will not be given the utmost considerations for their developemnt. The State needs to guarantee its perpetuation and preventing the birth of these types of children is a good way to prevent all of the human waste that fills our society now. We need to have Roe versus Wade thrown out so that Congress can do their job and make laws requiring abortion to protect us from all these crack babies, who are a drain on our resources and prevent us from competing with the rest of the world.

There are lots of other considerations that the state can make in determining if a woman or couple are sufficient parent material. Literacy is one. If a woman cannot read, she definitely should be prevented from having babies. Instead of mandatory abortion of durg addicts, mandatory sterilization might be a better strategy. If a crack addict becomes pregnant she definitely requires an abortion, but since she is so depraved, what prevents her from becoming pregnant again? The state might as well sterilize the addict at the same time it is aborting her abomination. Young women who are unable to pass state mandated education equivalency tests should become candidates for sterilizaion. The state could save money and sterilize the unworthy right away rather than wait for the future crack whores to become pregnant and have to track them down and give them abortions.

Eugie-- shut up already. Your devil's advocate position is adding nothing to the conversation-- I am just as opposed to forced pregnancise as I am to forced abortions. You're advocating the very opposite of what pro-choice people argue-- we don't want state interference or control in areas where the state has no business interefering. This is, fundamentally, an issue of freedom of thought, belief and choice in a free society. It has nothing to do with mandatory abortion of "undesirables."

So, kindly, piss off. No one is falling for your stupid, 10th-grade-logic game.

brooksfoe:

I'm not Catholic.

MeLoseBrain?

There is a difference between a mother neglecting her BORN child which results in death and an innocent miscarriage.

trex:

I'm not "Cheney" either.

Global Citizen:

REAL murder is, and was, always a strand in the fabric of human existence too.

The question which neither you nor Ramesh Ponnuru has seriously addressed is why, given your nutty Catholic beliefs that a human person begins to exist at fertilization, you do not seek such a change in the law.

Questions with false premises do not deserve to be seriously addressed, of course, but I have, in fact, addressed, seriously and at length, the reasons for my positions regarding the legal status of abortion, in many threads here which you have participated in under both your present handle, and your previous "Atheist" and "Don P" handles.

China has mandatory abortion now. It is ineveitable that mandatory abortion will be a part of all nation's futures. Ignoring the future will only make the transition to what is necessary that much more difficult. Reproductive rights will not be availble when the planet has 12 billion crack babies to feed and the argument about whether or not embryos have a soul will be seen as some kind of religious delusion that the world cannot afford.

I don't find myself saying this very often, but Kevin is spot on here. I would add that if abortion is murder, then we have a murder conspiracy each time one is "committed." The doctor, mother and others involved must be prosecuted. Someone call the South Dakota legislature.

Mandatory abortion
proposed in Holland
Official calls for debate to deal
with issue of unwanted children

-------------------------------------------------
Posted: February 21, 2006
11:44 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

Marianne van den Anker
A health official in the Netherlands has called for a debate on the idea of forced abortion and contraception to deal with what she sees as a crisis of unwanted children.

Alderman Marianne van den Anker of the Leefbaar Rotterdam Party wants specifically to target communities of Antilleans and Arubans where she sees the biggest problems of unwanted children.

I do not know why the alderman would want to only target immigrant communities, I do not agree with that. The state should prevent all unwanted children from being born.

Rather than read all the comments I will state this position: Abortion is the ending of a human life, full stop. But we allow all sorts of ending of human life, from the death penalty to cops shooting criminals to soldiers fighting in a war. These all all sanctioned killings, and don't rise to the level of murder. If the supporters of "choice" would recognize the fact that the a life has been terminated by the abortion, and that it is a tragedy, but it may be a necessity, I for one would consider it a moral victory. But instead we get treated to the fiction that the fetus is not human, and I'm sorry but that doesn't pass the laugh test.

"Sorry, but it's my body, my womb. If I were to get pregnant and wanted not to be, that is my perogative, no one's business but mine-- it's certainly not the business of a bunch of strangers."

And this, I think, it what links being pro-choice, supporting gay marriage, and opposing Eugie's apparently heartfelt but ultimately repulsive position (and underlying reasoning) as all being fundamentally liberal positions - it's the individual's decision, not society's.
__________
"If you want to talk about preventing unwanted pregnancies, that's fine, we need more education about contraception, maybe even free contraception to everyone who wants it or needs it?

And why pro-life organizations seem to ignore or oppose every act along these lines is a veeeery interesting question - see, for example, Christina Page.
________
Thomas: "I'm on the side of human life from the moment of conception."

You might want to be careful where you step, them because for quite some time it's very small and rather hard to . . .
[squosh]
Oh no! You stepped on it!
__________
Thomas:"And, how do you know that a human zygote does NOT have a soul (or two souls, if it is destined to become twins)?"
Edo: "How do you know that a human zygote DOES have a soul?"

As pointed out above, this is why the question of souls isn't all that useful in terms of legislation. We have no way of knowing if zygotes have souls. We have no way of knowing if, for example, animals actually have souls (contra Bonnie). Frankly, we have no way of knowing if adult humans have souls (in the sense, at least, of a non-material essence that exists after death) - if such things even exist at all. Indeed, the intangible, untestable nature of the soul means, as we see from brooksfoe's comment, that people might decide certain other born people in fact lack one, and can be exploited, abused or killed for business or pleasure.

Indeed, brooksfoe, bringing up essence does, I think, get to one important philosophical/ psychological underpinning not just for prolife beliefs in some cases, but a whole host of others, including probably creationism . . .

ChiSox Fan: " But a person can see something as immoral by their own beliefs, without judging the same act by another to be equally immoral."

The pro-choice prolifer position. Can't argue with that. Another thing we should do is stress how much of a minority the hardcore anti-abortions are, how far out of the mainstream their views actually are.

I for one would gladly accept a planet teeming with 12 billion crack babies if it meant I didn't have to listen to Eugie.

To answer your question: I don't have a proof that a zygote doesn't have a soul or 2 souls or 13 souls. The number of souls in a zygote is one of many completely uninteresting questions for which I do not have a definitive answer.

I do have a pretty decent argument for why it's a completely uninteresting question, which I was trying to present to you incrementally. But I think I'll pass: watching hubcaps rust would be more entertaining and faster paced action.

What do you think about Chinese mandatory abortion laws, Dan S.?

Who gives a fuck what that little pissant Ramesh Ponneru thinks?

I think one of the great divides between liberals and conservatives is a basic assumption about human beings.

Conservatives tend to believe that humans are inherently weak and evil and unable to control their basest impulses. This particularly seems to apply to sex. Therefore, there must be many rules and regulations to protect people from their basest impulses and to protect other people from their acting on those impulses.

Liberals tends to believe that human beings are fallible but that they are capable of improving themselves. And that life circumstances such as grinding can make improvement difficult, not impossible, but difficult. And we recognize that all humans do indeed have base impulses, but that the majority of us are capable of reining them in.

To protect us from the minority of people who are NOT capable of reining in their impulses, we have laws against murder, stealing, assault, rape, and the like, and courts and prisons to restrain and contain those who do not rein in their base impulses. And that many of people who do have trouble reining in their impulses have terrible childhoods, possibly in poverty, but almost certainly abusive to the point of damaging the impulse control portions of their brains. There are some people who seem to be born evil, but they are in a small minority.

But the majority of people ARE able to rein in those impulses. The majority of people are capable of acts of unselfishness, even acts of greatness. And that they rise above those base impulses, rather than those doing unselfish acts or acts of greatness being somehow purer or nobler than the rest of us.

This was pretty longwinded, but what I'm trying to say is that this is why I think you conservatives believe that we are barely able to rein in those evil impulses. So if abortions are legal, pretty soon infanticide will become legal. That if embryos which will be discarded otherwise, are used in stem cell research, that next there will be experiments on fetuses, and then pretty soon experiments on babies, and children and adults. Or that embryo farms will be created with women out the door and around the block waiting to undergo the painful process of IVF to willy-nilly produce embryos for research. That we humans are SO base and SO incapable of reining in those base impulses that we will go whole hog. It's the old slippery slope fallacy.

So therefore abortion MUST be made illegal, and embryos CANNOT be used for stem cell research, because all of us are so fallible that we will easily start down the slippery slope.

NO. NO. NO. We humans can rein ourselves in. Also, we liberals do believe that all born human beings have rights, and that this is true regardless of where you are born. We care about our fellow human beings. Not making war except as a last resort, support for poor, hungry, disabled, better environmental policies, etc., are ALL because we care about ALL human beings. So therefore, OF COURSE we are not going to go out and authorize infanticide because we CARE about those babies.

I don't know of a single liberal who doesn't wish that abortions never had to occur. But we also don't condemn women who are pregnant and who do not believe they can carry those babies to full term. So therefore, we want to make abortions "safe, legal, and rare" through good contraception cheap and easily available, and plentiful places for women to go if they are able to carry the babies to fullterm and to let them be adopted out.

Because we CARE for our fellow humans and wish the best for them.

Tasseled Loafer Leech,

If the supporters of "choice" would recognize the fact that the a life has been terminated by the abortion, and that it is a tragedy, but it may be a necessity, I for one would consider it a moral victory. But instead we get treated to the fiction that the fetus is not human, and I'm sorry but that doesn't pass the laugh test.

No thoughtful pro-choice advocate I've every heard or read has denied that abortion is the end of a human life. The moral question is about personhood and conflict of rights. Please cite a link to a reputable source where pro-choice advocates deny that a fetus is human.

Ben V-L:

Maybe next time then.

Wolfdaughter:

Same exact "divide" between atheists (who tend to believe that humans are capable of improving all by themselves) and Christians (who tend to believe that humans are inherently weak and evil and unable to control their basest impulses without the saving grace of Jesus). Whether you are barely able to rein in those evil impulses or are better at hiding them is irrelevant. As you pointed out with your slippery slope arguments, they are logical fallacies, no doubt, but both sides have them.

BTW: Christians CARE for our fellow humans (even unborn) and wish the best for them too.

"I think one of the great divides between liberals and conservatives is a basic assumption about human beings. . . . [through entire rest of comment]"

*applause*

I was trying to think out why the slippery slope argument didn't work in this case on some comment thread somewhere a day or two ago, but this says it much, much better.

_____

Eugie's (hopefully modest proposal-style) ramblings also help show - to go slightly OT - why stem cell research probably isn't inexorably going to lead to a Nazi-like slaughter of supposed untermenschen, even though we know that such a thing can happen. The difference in reasoning and motive between
a) 'we want to utilize embryonic stem cells - requiring us to destroy some frozen blastocysts - with the parent's permission, and that will otherwise be discarded or perhaps stored until they lose viability - to help research cures for various diseases.'
vs.
'This group or class does not deserves to reproduce because it will be a burden on the State'

is not only enormous, but historically -chillingly - pertinent. That's another liberal tendency, although I don't know if it's inherent in the position: we tend to consider history, science, etc. Reality-based, y'know. So for example, we've seen that there are things that short-circuit our ability to rein in base instincts - often because they take advantage of our better ( or at least very basic) ones. A lot of liberalism actually - instead of fretting about imaginary slippery slopes - tries to make sure people have a way to avoid this sort of thing, Thus the expansive, embracing, widening-circle approach to human rights, stressing the value of all people, not just our group/tribe/nationality/ ethnicity/sexual orientation, etc.

Jesus Christ, had this benighted era of our become a reprise of the 30s only with a better economy?

First, we have the born-again neo-nazi watcher trolling these threads.

Now we have "Eugie" (zoe, you were righter than you thought; check its email) -- a born-again old-school racial-scientistic eugenicist warning of a global epidemic of "crack babies" even as the use of crack cocaine has declined over tbe past decade and a half ...

What's next -- an unreconstructed Stalinist troll?

It's like we drive a stake through the hearts of these ideologies and they just ... won't ... ever ... completely ... die.

Bob

Edo:

You and I must be listening to and/or reading different pro-choice advocates (or, you simply don't think those arguing about "human life does not begin at conception" or the "potential life" are thoughtful enough)?

"Same exact "divide" between atheists (who tend to believe that humans are capable of improving all by themselves)"

I would say "together," but yes.

and Christians (who tend to believe that humans are inherently weak and evil and unable to control their basest impulses without the saving grace of Jesus). "

Which raises the question of what happens when you have conservative atheists, or liberal Christians. My impression is that liberal Christians generally end up acting as liberals in this sense, athough annoyingly I don't know enough about varieties of Christian thought to quite say why (and why Thomas is making too broad a claim here) without messing up. Anyone?

After all, there are a lot more liberals than even atheists and various non-Christians put together . . .

Every fetus would have the same right. I will agree with you, once born, that baby no longer has the right to be a "parasite", but that's because the unique situation of pregnancy is over and the State can now take physical custody to protect him her.

you have not proven that the unique nature of pregnancy justifies giving a fetus rights that no born person has. all you've done is pretend that the unique nature of pregnancy is a argment in and of itself for giving a fetus special, unique rights. all you're is making a roundabout argument that a fetus should have special rights that no born person has because it cannot survive without another person providing direct life support.

Thomas:

the first time you made a statement that was not an argument at all -- pregnancy is a unique circumstance. that was just a statement of fact. yes, it's quite unique, but merely remarking on it's unique nature is not an argument.

your second post was a weak attempt to intellectually flesh out an argument -- since the fetus cannot survive without remaining attached to a woman's body, it is entitled to use the woman's body as life support until it is born, at which point, it no longer has such a right just like all other born people. that's an argument and a weak one.

spacebaby:

So, it WAS an argument then?!

Thomas,

You and I must be listening to and/or reading different pro-choice advocates (or, you simply don't think those arguing about "human life does not begin at conception" or the "potential life" are thoughtful enough)?

Care to cite a source of what you are reading? Look up thread: very few if any commenters are stating that a fetus, zygote, etc. are not human life. That point is not in contention. Re-read Mr. Drum's post if necessary. He clearly states that the issue relates to whether or not fetuses are persons.

So, it WAS an argument then?!

Yes, and a weak one at that. Furthermore, one which supports the viability test in the Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision.

"Jesus Christ, had this benighted era of our become a reprise of the 30s only with a better economy?"

Plus: outrage over teaching evolution, outrage over [the wrong kind of] immigrants, impressive and growing income inequality/ concentration of wealth among a kind of super-elite . . .

I think we're trying to replay the whole first few decades of the 20th Century simultaneously. As well as metaphorically refighting Vietnam.

Crap on a stick.

Dan s.,

I don't presume to speak for other "liberal Christians", but personally I think that humans are too weak to avoid sin whether or not they have faith; mature faith is characterized by recognizing this and facilitates forgiveness of others, and acceptance that one's own sins, seriously repented, may be forgiven, both of which help to avoid being trapped in cyclical sin either through pursuit of vengeance or through despair.

I also believe, related to that, that each instance sin is (while an individual failing), occasioned by past sin and its consequences.

I'm not sure if this helps at all.

So, it WAS an argument then?!

i repeat: in your FIRST reponse to my FIRST comment, all you said was "Pregnancy is unique." that was NOT an argument for reasons i've outlined. it's not an argument because it doesn't argue for anything. it doesn't draw any conclusions about agreed upon premises.

in your SECOND response to me, you said that a fetus cannot survive outside a womb, so it should have special rights that born persons do not have. i believe i acknowledged that as an argument. i think it is a very weak one, but it is an argument.

your SECOND comment to me doesn't have anything to do pregnancy as a unique condition. in fact, it undermines your assertion that pregnancy is unique. many born persons desperately need the body parts of others for survival. therefore, pregnancy is _not_ unique in that respect. that is why the argument you made in your SECOND comment to me is a weak argument. it doesn't answer my original challenge: why should a fetus be granted rights that no born person has?

I think we're trying to replay the whole first few decades of the 20th Century simultaneously. As well as metaphorically refighting Vietnam.

Zing! Stellar observation.

I think we're trying to replay the whole first few decades of the 20th Century simultaneously. As well as metaphorically refighting Vietnam.

Zing! Stellar observation.

I am concerned with the survival of the entire human race, which will not happen if we let the worst amongst us continue having babies. Someday all pregnancies will be subject to state control. If we wait until an over population crisis or until half the population is born with fetal alcohol syndrome, then the outcome will not be to most people's advantage and race or economic status will be the overiding factors to determine if a woman is able to get approval for her pregnancy.

cmdicely,

Questions with false premises ...

Evade, evade, evade. It's your middle name. Here's the question again:

Given your nutty Catholic belief that a human person begins to exist at fertilization, why do you not seek to change the law to include the destruction of embryos and fetuses through abortion, through embryo-destroying IVF procedures, and through embryo-destroying stem cell research, in the crime of murder?

Stop evading. Answer the question.

Sorry for the repeat.

As for the question of whether or not a zygote or fetus is human, I don't think anyone can deny it is human. Of course it is, it is the beginning of a human, a potential child, although not yet a fully developed human. The moment of conception-- assuming you're referring to egg & sperm fusion-- doesn't even come close to guarenteeing that a baby will be born 40 weeks later.

The crux of the matter is this-- is it a person? No. Should a fertilized egg be considered equal to a person? No. Is it murder to destroy a fertilized egg because it is a potential human? No. Because if you follow that way of thinking to its logical conclusion you get into "every sperm is sacred" territory, as well as treating all women like they are potential babymakers. The fact is that most post-pubescent human bodies are either sperm or egg-making factories, we make far, far more than we will ever use.

So while a fertilized egg in a petri dish has the *potential* to become a person, if you put it in a womb it only has a 50% chance of survival, even less if it was frozen. Even after an egg is fertilized implantation has to happen, so does about 40 weeks of gestation. So to compare a full-formed born person to that of a fertilized egg at its moment of conception is pretty insulting to those of us that are here, isn't it?

Answer the question.

Answering the question you asked, as asked, requires pretending that a false statement is true. I will not do so.

zoe,

You are making what appears to be a circular slippery slope argument: A fetus is not a person, but only a potential person therefore if you consider a fetus as a person it must be because potential persons are persons but sperm are potential persons, too so if you accept that a fetus is a person, the logical consequence is that you should accept that sperms are people so finally it is clear that a fetus must not be considered a person.

wolfdaughter,

So therefore abortion MUST be made illegal, and embryos CANNOT be used for stem cell research, because all of us are so fallible that we will easily start down the slippery slope.

But that's not what they're saying. What Ramesh Ponnuru, cmdicely, Charlie/Cheney/Thomas and the Catholic Church are saying is not merely that legal abortion and legal stem cell research might lead, via the slippery slope, to legalized killing of innocent human beings (legal infanticide, etc.), but that abortion and stem cell research already are the legalized killing of innocent human beings. But they can't explain why they oppose treating it as murder (except for Charlie/Cheney/Thomas, who openly admits he does want abortion and stem cell research to be treated as murder).

Wait, I thought that Charlie/Cheney/Thomas = GOP?! As if Edo saying that the pro-choice side has conceded "Human life begins at conception", now, even I am getting confused . . .

Zoe,

So to compare a full-formed born person to that of a fertilized egg at its moment of conception is pretty insulting to those of us that are here, isn't it?

Absolutely right. Not only insulting, but downright unacceptable when it comes to denying unjustly the right of control over what happens to one's body for that fully-formed person.

What Ramesh Ponnuru, cmdicely, Charlie/Cheney/Thomas and the Catholic Church are saying is not merely that legal abortion and legal stem cell research might lead, via the slippery slope, to legalized killing of innocent human beings (legal infanticide, etc.), but that abortion and stem cell research already are the legalized killing of innocent human beings.

Really? Where am I saying that?

cmdicely,

Here is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, which you claim to believe in:

"Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person - among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life. ...

Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being."

Given that you share this nutty belief, why aren't you seeking to change the law so that scientists who destroy embryos in stem cell research, and couples who discard their embryos created via IVF, are liable for prosecution for the crime of murder?

As if Edo saying that the pro-choice side has conceded "Human life begins at conception", now, even I am getting confused

And where are the pro-choice advocates stating that a zygote is not a human life? citation please, links are fine.

It is OK for some people to think or believe an embryo is a human being with a soul. It should be equally OK for some people to think or believe an embryo is a cancer that needs to be cut out. As long as both types of people respect others and allow them to follow their beliefs without interference, then there is no conflict. To me, it seems like one of the groups wants to impose their belief on the other, and that creates the conlfict.

spacebaby:

Good job with Thomas. I tend to be in broad sympathy with your notion of how parasitism bestows no rights on the parasite save in pregnancy.

Ugly language, I know -- but irrefutable nonetheless.

Eugie:

You're an anti-freedom ideologue. Please take your visions of Leave It To Beaver America and go find a more sympatheic outlet for a slippery slope greased with a disgusting combination of KY jelly and amniotic fluid ...

cmdicely:

I agree that the slippery slope is a danger, which is why I don't like to debate when a fetus becomes a "human being."

I prefer a hard-and-fast legal definition of person -- even if that would ultimately amount to an ungroundable kludge all the same.

I'll settle for a reasonable social consensus for the concept of "personhood" as distinct from "human life," and I like spacebaby's arguments, which seem to imply that parasitism is fundamentally incompatible with personhood.

Just batting around ideas. YMMV. But I'd like to find a hard line that we as a society can draw.

Bob

cmdicely,

Really? Where am I saying that?

In your nutjob belief as a Catholic that "From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person" and that "Since it must be treated from conception as a person, the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for, and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being."

"BTW: Christians CARE for our fellow humans (even unborn) and wish the best for them too."

I'd say that christians' often value their self-involved "care for" other people more than the actual people... let's say they have a boundary problem, a generalized missionary pathology?

When someone imagines a concerned and sentient deity intervening in personal human events, their self-image also tends to include a belief in a superior moral perspective.

I'm saying, Edo, that you've still got me reeling from the stunning admission that all pro-choicers believe "Human life begins at conception" -- maybe I've been on the wrong side this whole time then -- let's test your theory:

Hostile:

Do you think an embryo is innocent human life?

other jerry:

How many times have YOU been to Africa feeding orphans?

Bob,

Just batting around ideas. YMMV. But I'd like to find a hard line that we as a society can draw.

Why not viability? Is it the concern for the cost to society of supporting fetuses that are removed from a woman, but not terminated?

As for personhood itself, philosophically this typically tends to revolve around the notion of self-awareness. Which is fine with me. Is a fetus demonstrably self-aware? No. Is a one-week old demonstrably self-aware? No. Does that mean its morally permissable to kill a one week old? No. The difference between a one week old baby and a fetus is that there is a conflict with another moral actor (the mother) in the latter case and no conflict in the former case (with the possible exception mentioned in my earlier guess about cost to society).

I suspect self-awareness is not a hard enough line for you, though.

Thomas,

I'm saying, Edo, that you've still got me reeling from the stunning admission that all pro-choicers believe "Human life begins at conception" -- maybe I've been on the wrong side this whole time then -- let's test your theory

Okay, setting aside your bizzare "test" of one person speaking for "all" pro-choice advocates, do you think the term "person" is literally exchangeable for the phrase "human life"? I don't; and neither do all the pro-choice advocates who think and write seriously about it. Why do you fail to acknowledge this? Re-read Mr. Drum's last paragraph. Where does "human life" appear?

Wait, I thought that Charlie/Cheney/Thomas = GOP?!

You can't even keep track of which handles are yours?

rmck1,

There is obviously a sense in which all babies are parasites: they are entirely dependent on other people to provide them with food, water, clothing and other things necessary to sustain their life. And there are obviously some babies (and adult human beings) that are even more dependent on other people--those who are sick or paralyzed and dependent on periodic blood transfusions, or dialysis, or a ventilator, or whatever else it may be, to keep them alive. These people might be considered even more "parasitical" than a newborn baby.

So do you really want to take the position that "parasitism is fundamentally incompatible with personhood?" Do you really want to say that babies and the severely disabled are not persons?

In any case, murder laws are not necessarily defined in terms of the killing of "persons." The California penal code, for example, defines murder in terms of the killing of a "human being" (and, under certain circumstances, in terms of the killing of a "fetus.").

I already said I don't know, Edo, which is why society's SAFEST course is protecting said human life from the moment of conception.

In your nutjob belief as a Catholic

Where have I endorsed the “nutjob belief” you are ascribing to me?

You can't even keep track of which handles are yours?

False premise. I only have ONE handle, so yes I can keep track of that, but someone yesterday accused me of being "GOP" as well.

Here is the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, which you claim to believe in

Please support your assertion that I claim to believe in the specific teaching you quoted.

Hostile:

Are you still around?

I prefer a hard-and-fast legal definition of person -- even if that would ultimately amount to an ungroundable kludge all the same.

I've found that binary moral categories are extraordinarily bad in lots of important cases, and that recognizing that human-imposed labels are almost always attempts to impose articial categorization on things that are continuous rather than discrete is important in almost every area of morality.

That being said, in legal rules, simple binary categories, while distorting the underlying morality, may produce better effects than fuzzy ones in certain cases where those fuzzy rules may be prone to inequitable application considering the wrong factors. In other cases, fuzzy rules are better. I'd say that practical effects are the deciding guide here.

I already said I don't know, Edo, which is why society's SAFEST course is protecting said human life from the moment of conception.

Uncertainty and a kind of principle of charity may justify an argument that the morally safest course for an adult person weighing their own self-interest against the interest of a z/e/f might be to treat the latter as if it were another life from the moment of conception, OTOH, it doesn't justify that as the morally safest course of action for a third party (and, therefore, society) in the same circumstance, since the third party is not uncertain of the personhood of the adult person.

It does not matter what I think about embryos. What matters is I do not want to impose what I think about them on others.

Thomas, do you want to impose your thoughts and/or beliefs about what an embryo is on others with state police coercive power? That is where conflict begins and where I draw the line Bob wants.

Sorry, but Edo already has already stipulated that "No thoughtful pro-choice advocate [and that certainly must include you cmdicely] has denied that abortion is the end of a human life."

To give Tweety his due (which I am usually not wont to do) he has hit right-to-lifers pretty hard on this question. What kind of penalty for the mothers ...

Hostile:

That's what I figured. Now, should it also be equally OK for some people to think or believe 3-year-old child is the devil that needs to be drown? And if another group wants to impose their belief on said people in that regard, do you similarly blame the group for "creating the conflict"? To answer your question, yes, I am part of that group you blame for creating the conflict -- can't we all just get along?

Cal Gal:

Who is Tweety?

Dan S:

"Which raises the question of what happens when you have conservative atheists, or liberal Christians. My impression is that liberal Christians generally end up acting as liberals in this sense, athough annoyingly I don't know enough about varieties of Christian thought to quite say why (and why Thomas is making too broad a claim here) without messing up. Anyone?"

Thanks for your compliment.

I cannot speak for all who consider themselves to be liberal Christians. I can speak for myself and other liberal Christians whose opinions I am familiar with. And yes, we do agree with other liberals who don’t have any particular religion, that humans are capable of improvement.

But the self-improvement is usually helped by others, through such things as parents raising their children, to act in ways that do not harm others, and to help others when they have the ability to do so. And parents can be aided by teachers and other important persons in their children's lives. And if people are practitioners of particular faiths, that churches, synagogues, and mosques can help to raise children as decent, caring human beings.

We liberals believe that we can also help fellow human beings through working for living wages for all workers, school lunches for children in need, decent health care, concern for the environment, etc. In other words, people are much more likely to be able to improve, and to get closer to realizing their full potential as human beings, if they have enough to eat and pay for basic expenses, have clear air and water, and are not beset by serious problems or (God forbid) war.

As a liberal Christian, I also believe that God can help us, but we have to be willing to ask for that help and to receive it in the way it is offered, which may not be what we would like. But I cannot prove this, so I don’t try to force this belief on others, and no laws should be passed predicated on this belief.

We also don’t believe that the majority of humans are inherently evil, act only in their own perceived self-interest, and that they are out to “get” other human beings in any way that they can. There are such people, of course, and I submit to you that our current administration has a higher share of those than most past administrations. But history is rife with instances of people doing altruistic deeds, and even of sacrificing their own lives for others’ lives.

I’m not saying that all conservatives actually believe that all others are evil or act only in their own self-interest with no regard to others. But I do believe, based upon what they say, what sorts of laws they advocate, and their actions, that conservatives have a considerably more jaundiced view of fellow humans than I do. And that my 60 years of life have taught me that most people are just struggling along, trying to live their own lives, with ideals of how they “should” behave, sometimes failing to live up to their own ideals, and at other times acting in very altruistic ways.

MeLoseBrain?
There is a difference between a mother neglecting her BORN child which results in death and an innocent miscarriage.

Under your scenario, I'm sorry, there is no difference. If the state can show that the mother was not especially diligent in caring for her unborn child, under your scenario, why wouldn't she be as culpible for the loss of the fetus as the mother who neglects her born child?

It's nice to be able to give flat, one-sentence answers, but they don't explain anything. Your position has no consistency, and the law demands consistency.

I cannot tell the difference between an embryo and a cancerous tumor, which are both globs of replicating cells. I can tell the difference between a child and a cancerous tumor, as can most people, Don.

Sophistry of the convent is not conducive to resolving conflict. Authoritarianism imposes silly notions of morality that are best left to the individual to decide for themselves.

Authoritarians want to use state power to impose silly notions of morality that are best left to the individual to decide for themselves.

Thomas,

I already said I don't know, Edo,

Falsehood. you stated you did not know if and/or when a z/e/f gets a soul.

I asked you why you persist in equating "personhood" with "human life". Why do you?

If the state can show that the mother was not especially diligent in caring for her unborn child, under your scenario, why wouldn't she be as culpible for the loss of the fetus as the mother who neglects her born child?

Great question. And Thomas, if you state that the mother should be just as culpable, could you please let us know how you believe society should enforce this? Specifics, please.

CMDicely:
“I don't presume to speak for other "liberal Christians", but personally I think that humans are too weak to avoid sin whether or not they have faith; mature faith is characterized by recognizing this and facilitates forgiveness of others, and acceptance that one's own sins, seriously repented, may be forgiven, both of which help to avoid being trapped in cyclical sin either through pursuit of vengeance or through despair.
I also believe, related to that, that each instance sin is (while an individual failing), occasioned by past sin and its consequences.”

I agree that all human beings are fallible and that we all sin. But there are sins and sins. The majority of human beings have a difficult time, if overweight or obese, for instance, in resisting that luscious piece of fudge presented temptingly on a plate. We promise to do something and then don’t follow through for whatever reason. We say nasty things to others. We strike our chldren in anger. We may lie to get out of a tight situation. Social interactions often require us to be insincere as we get along better that way with fellowhumans. There are people who have addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, or other substances.

ALL human beings will act in some of these ways, and SOME human beings do everything I’ve listed. And the list isn’t exhaustive, just intended as examples.

But MOST humans are NOT killing others (unless they are soldiers in wars, which is one of my huge reasons for opposing war). MOST humans aren’t out stealing, assaulting, raping.

I myself have and would NEVER steal, or assault someone. As a female I can’t rape someone in the usual sense of rape. I would kill ONLY if immediately threatened or to stop the killing of someone else. I don’t do these things because of laws; I don’t do them because it would violate my most deeply held principles. These things do harm to fellow human beings, who I recognize to be equal to myself. As important as me. NOT better or more important, but equal.

I cannot speak for others who do not do these things, but the demostrable facts are that the MAJORITY of humans are committing the minor peccadillos listed above and are not doing the things which demonstrably harm others. If they were always on the brink of doing these things, we would need far more enforcement than we have.

OTOH, you do see a higher percentage of people acting in demonstrably harmful ways during war, or when a group of people perceive that they are wronged and have little recourse to right their wrongs aside from sniping and homemade bombs and suicide bombs, etc. Or in some of the inner cities of the United States, a terrible indictment of our society, BTW, as conditions in our inner cities are worse than in other First World Countries. In these cases, people are STRESSED bigtime. They have trouble getting the basic wherewithal for survival, much less a decent life. They are under realistic threat of assault or even dying, so they lash out to protect themselves. But even then, not ALL of them are lashing out and assaulting and or killing others.

Wolfdaughter:

In my 67 years, I have found the same exact "divide" between atheists (who tend to believe that humans are capable of improving all by themselves) and Christians (who tend to believe that humans are inherently weak and evil and unable to control their basest impulses without the saving grace of Jesus). BTW: I believe that REAL Christians care for our fellow humans (even unborn) and wish the best for them too.

MeLoseBrain?

How can you not see a difference between a mother actively neglecting her BORN child which results in death and a mother who, through no fault of her own, experiences an innocent miscarriage? You do realize that BORN infants die every day in this country where no murder charges are brought, right?

Hostile:

Too bad for Andrea Yates she did not have you on the jury. Also, according to none other than cmdicely, "GOP" is Don P., not me.

Edo:

Because that is the safest course for society when we don't know (I thought I said that above, but if I didn't, then I profusely apologize as it was not my intent to state any falsehoods).

The notion that a fetus is a human being is a religious belief. I dont accept the framing of the argument about abortion by the religious right.

You become a human being at birth and stop being one at death. People have a right to their personal religious beliefs...but not a right to make them law.

If you believe abortion is morally wrong, then don't have one - that's what choice is all about. I'm weary of the American Religious Taliban framing and forcing the argument on those who believe different.

For a president who executed as many people as he did in Texas, who dismisses the numbers of Iraqi civilians killed by his reckless war, and who let down the victims of Katina - his notion of a culture of "life" is twisted and scary.

CMDicely:

“I don't presume to speak for other "liberal Christians", but personally I think that humans are too weak to avoid sin whether or not they have faith; mature faith is characterized by recognizing this and facilitates forgiveness of others, and acceptance that one's own sins, seriously repented, may be forgiven, both of which help to avoid being trapped in cyclical sin either through pursuit of vengeance or through despair.
I also believe, related to that, that each instance sin is (while an individual failing), occasioned by past sin and its consequences.”

I agree that all human beings are fallible and that we all sin. But there are sins and sins. The majority of human beings have a difficult time, if overweight or obese, for instance, in resisting that luscious piece of fudge presented temptingly on a plate. We promise to do something and then don’t follow through for whatever reason. We say nasty things to others. We strike our chldren in anger. We may lie to get out of a tight situation. Social interactions often require us to be insincere as we get along better that way with fellow humans. There are people who have addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, or other substances.

ALL human beings will act in some of these ways, and SOME human beings do everything I’ve listed. And the list isn’t exhaustive, just intended as examples.

But MOST humans are NOT killing others (unless they are soldiers in wars, which is one of my huge reasons for opposing war). MOST humans aren’t out stealing, assaulting, raping.

I myself have and would NEVER steal, or assault someone. As a female I can’t rape someone in the usual sense of rape. I would kill ONLY if immediately threatened or to stop the killing of someone else. I don’t do these things because of laws; I don’t do them because it would violate my most deeply held principles. These things do harm to fellow human beings, who I recognize to be equal to myself. As important as me. NOT better or more important, but equal.

I cannot speak for others who do not do these things, but in my 60 years I have personally known exactly THREE people that would carelessly murder, rape, steal, etc. And the demostrable facts are that the MAJORITY of humans are committing the minor peccadillos listed above and are not doing the things which demonstrably harm others. If they were always on the brink of doing these things, we would need far more enforcement than we have.

OTOH, you do see a higher percentage of people acting in demonstrably harmful ways during war, or when a group of people perceive that they are wronged and have little recourse to right their wrongs aside from sniping and homemade bombs and suicide bombs, etc. Or in some of the inner cities of the United States, a terrible indictment of our society, BTW, as conditions in our inner cities are worse than in other First World Countries. In these cases, people are STRESSED bigtime. They have trouble getting the basic wherewithal for survival, much less a decent life. They are under realistic threat of assault or even dying, so they lash out to protect themselves. But even then, not ALL of them are lashing out and assaulting and or killing.

CMDicely:

“I don't presume to speak for other "liberal Christians", but personally I think that humans are too weak to avoid sin whether or not they have faith; mature faith is characterized by recognizing this and facilitates forgiveness of others, and acceptance that one's own sins, seriously repented, may be forgiven, both of which help to avoid being trapped in cyclical sin either through pursuit of vengeance or through despair.
I also believe, related to that, that each instance sin is (while an individual failing), occasioned by past sin and its consequences.”

I agree that all human beings are fallible and that we all sin. But there are sins and sins. The majority of human beings have a difficult time, if overweight or obese, for instance, in resisting that luscious piece of fudge presented temptingly on a plate. We promise to do something and then don’t follow through for whatever reason. We say nasty things to others. We strike our chldren in anger. We may lie to get out of a tight situation. Social interactions often require us to be insincere as we get along better that way with fellow humans. There are people who have addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, or other substances.

ALL human beings will act in some of these ways, and SOME human beings do everything I’ve listed. And the list isn’t exhaustive, just intended as examples.

But MOST humans are NOT killing others (unless they are soldiers in wars, which is one of my huge reasons for opposing war). MOST humans aren’t out stealing, assaulting, raping.

I myself have and would NEVER steal, or assault someone. As a female I can’t rape someone in the usual sense of rape. I would kill ONLY if immediately threatened or to stop the killing of someone else. I don’t do these things because of laws; I don’t do them because it would violate my most deeply held principles. These things do harm to fellow human beings, who I recognize to be equal to myself. As important as me. NOT better or more important, but equal.

I cannot speak for others who do not do these things, but in my 60 years I have personally known exactly THREE people that would carelessly murder, rape, steal, etc. And the demonstrable facts are that the MAJORITY of humans are committing the minor peccadillos listed above and are not doing the things which demonstrably harm others. If they were always on the brink of doing these things, we would need far more enforcement than we have.

In other words, humans have a hard time resisting minor sins which are harmful only to themselves or to those most closely associated with them. Most humans don't seem to have much trouble resisting committing the major sins which cause demonstrable harm to others, though.

OTOH, you do see a higher percentage of people acting in demonstrably harmful ways during war, or when a group of people perceive that they are wronged and have little recourse to right their wrongs aside from sniping and homemade bombs and suicide bombs, etc. Or in some of the inner cities of the United States, a terrible indictment of our society, BTW, as conditions in our inner cities are worse than in other First World Countries. In these cases, people are STRESSED bigtime. They have trouble getting the basic wherewithal for survival, much less a decent life. They are under realistic threat of assault or even dying, so they lash out to protect themselves. But even then, not ALL of them are lashing out and assaulting and or killing.

"The California penal code, for example, defines murder in terms of the killing of a "human being" (and, under certain circumstances, in terms of the killing of a "fetus.")."

Which could be seem to suggest that the CA penal code assumes that a fetus is not a human being . . .

I wonder if finding clear rational lines to impose upon reality is entirely useful (although perhaps reassuring). We can kill and eat chickens, pigs, and cattle, we can't kill and eat, say, cats. However, we can kill certain cats, if they are abandoned, or if they are being used for research. It's all very confusing. At the same time, there is a commonsense, organic (in the sense of developing naturally) and sometimes even practical aspect to it.

Of course, one does need one for practical purposes, and it would be nice if it is relatively meaningful, so . . .
_____

Eugie, your support re: forced abortions for modern-day undesirables seems to be based on what's good for society. But there is no such animal. Society has no self-awareness, no needs, no wants, no desires. Rather, it is the sum total of all the people within a certain area/ geopolitical entity/ self-defined community/etc. So what this is really saying, it would seem, is that it is good and right to force certain people (who are also part of 'society') to have abortions because we - (also part of society, but being perhaps the majority, perhaps simply a powerful minority - think that to let such people choose to bear children would cause us trouble. in other words, that our rights to avoid whatever trouble we might see - correctly, incorrectly, as a self-serving justification for who knows what - trumps the right of such people to have kids if they choose.

Of course, the other way to say this is that it is potentially good and right for them (being the majority or a powerful minority) to force us to have abortions against our will because they think that letting us choose to have children will cause them trouble.

What else this is saying, it would seem, is that 'society' - that is, the majority or a powerful minority - trumps as basic a right as the individual's right to choose to have children. And what other rights beside?

I would have to question whether any 'society' which, in order to preserve itself , forces some of its (of couse, less powerful) members to have abortions against their will is, in fact, worthy of preservation.

Now, are there other solutions to the genuine - if hysterically overblown - concerns you raise? Yes. We can seek to improve living conditions and opportunities for all, so people don't have to bring up kids in crappy conditions, or have them when unprepared because there are no other obvious sources of self-worth and achievement. We can fight drug abuse (although hopefully in a saner fashion than at present) - which is to a certain degree tied in at both ends with the first aim. We can make family planning services - knowledge, birth control, and abortion - all easily available, so that all children are wanted children. We can encourage - not require - responsibility as an important part of having and caring for children. We can make all sorts of resources available to parents who are struggling. And - while financial and other security, and etc. almost certainly does something to reduce the incidence of child abuse and neglect - in the most serious cases, almost no one questions the right of the state to step in, or even remove the child, which, being an actual, born, etc., etc. being is understood to have rights of its own.

Ok, now that I've typed all this obviousness, could you please

a) spring whatever little stupid antiabortion trap you have up your sleeve (if that's what this is about)
or
b) state that you in fact are unbelievably stupid enough to genuinely support eugenics. (But first go here and here

Thomas, if you state that the mother should be just as culpable, could you please let us know how you believe society should enforce this? Specifics, please.

I don't know what State you live in to give you the specific statute, but whatever crime / penalty applies to a negligent mother who leaves a fatal dose of heroin laying around which results in the ingestion and death of her 3-year-old is the SAME EXACT crime / penalty I believe should be applied to a negligent mother who shoots up and gives her unborn child the same fatal dose. Is this "specific" enough for you:

http://www.lindesmith.org/library/darke2.cfm

BTW: do you think a pro-choice argument that points out there is no "difference between an embryo and a cancerous tumor, which are both globs of replicating cells" admits or denies said embryo is "human life"?

Few cultures have considered the fetus equivalent to a human being or considered abortion to be "murder". This is hard-wired into human nature--we naturally feel a great deal more revulsion towards the mother or father that kills their newborn than we do towards someone who has an abortion. And of course when one debates the abortion question, one should always keep in mind that there is in reality, NO slippery slope from allowing abortion to allowing infanticide. If there were such a slope, we'd have seen evidence of higher infanticide rates after our 30 plus years of Roe v. Wade. Of course, this hasn't happened.

I'm not sure, however, that this means you couldn't still make abortion a crime of some sort. I'm certainly not in favor of this, but logically I don't see why you couldn't just make up a whole new category of crime for the act of abortion. After all, we have all kinds of laws saying what someone can and can't do with their own body. Women can't show their breasts in public, for instance.

And more importantly we have laws against killing animals in certain ways as well. No one thinks that anti-animal cruelty laws are "illogical" because they don't claim that killing an animal in an illegal way is "murder". Of course, pro-life people would never want to follow this legal precedent--they're obsessed with the "full humanity" of the fetus, which I think is actually the weakest way to approach the question, because it does seem to demand a "murder or nothing" choice. You could concievably, however, create a intermediary legal category of "fetus" in the way that we have created a legal category for animals and given this category some (very limited) de facto "rights". Only a pro-choice person coming from a non-traditional Christian framework, however, would be likely to propose such a thing.

And again, I do NOT think this would be a good idea.

Dan S.:

You realize you are making the argument that a human embryo is a "life unworthy of life" too, right?

kokblok:

I think it would be a very good start.

Okay, this is the last post from me for a while. I promise! :-/

GOP:

I said:

So therefore abortion MUST be made illegal, and embryos CANNOT be used for stem cell research, because all of us are so fallible that we will easily start down the slippery slope.

You said:

“But that's not what they're saying. What Ramesh Ponnuru, cmdicely, Charlie/Cheney/Thomas and the Catholic Church are saying is not merely that legal abortion and legal stem cell research might lead, via the slippery slope, to legalized killing of innocent human beings (legal infanticide, etc.), but that abortion and stem cell research already are the legalized killing of innocent human beings. But they can't explain why they oppose treating it as murder (except for Charlie/Cheney/Thomas, who openly admits he does want abortion and stem cell research to be treated as murder). ”

I agree with you that those who oppose abortion see it as legalized infanticide. And I think you’re saying that you think there is a logical contradiction between believing that and yet not being willing to actually try and imprison doctors who perform, and women who get abortions. I agree with that as well, and would go even further. Since they generally allow exceptions for rape or incest or for the mother’s health, they aren’t truly serious with the accusations of infanticide.

But I still maintain that one of the reasons liberals and conservatives have such a hard time understanding each other is that our basic premises about human beings are different. I believe that conservatives operate from the perception that humans are inherently weak in all things and, frankly, evil, and cannot be trusted.

We liberals operate from the assumption that the majority of human beings are to be trusted with the important things like murder and rape. And that in functioning societies, those who commit these things are reined in, generally speaking by laws, courts, and prisons, and that those are there for these people. But the majority of people don’t need laws/courts/prisons, and can be TRUSTED not to kill infants while supporting women's right to choose. And while recognizing that outlawing abortion would create worse problems than keeping the current law intact.

I believe that women are not running out and having abortions all over the place for frivolous reasons, and that those who do have abortions do so because they see no other option. And that it’s an agonizing decision for them. Conservatives who accuse women of getting abortions “to fit into their prom dresses” are vastly trivializing these women and the reasons they have. To me this illustrates the basic difference in assumptions. Since I trust the majority of humans, I don’t believe that the majority act on such frivolous reasons. Not ALL, but the majority.

And I believe that many conservatives are so distrustful of their fellow humans that they actually seriously believe that there are all sorts of women out there somewhere who would get abortions for no good reason at all.

I have no idea why I italicized "kill" in my comment above - think I was going for "can" instead . . .

As to why I wasted time responding to eugie instead of to the various far more interesting discussions . . . *shrug*

Wolfdaughter:

When (if) you come back, let me know if this is one of those "sort of women" who aborted twins to avoid being seen buying the large jar of mayonaise:

http://www.dawneden.com/2004_07_01_archive.html#109100488529930172

Dan S.:

Freudian slip?

O.K., to be fair, let me know if any of these are "good reasons" by Ms. Richards:

My immediate response was, I cannot have triplets. I was not married; I lived in a five-story walk-up in the East Village; I worked freelance; and I would have to go on bed rest in March. I lecture at colleges, and my biggest months are March and April. I would have to give up my main income for the rest of the year. There was a part of me that was sure I could work around that. But it was a matter of, Do I want to?

I looked at Peter and asked the doctor: ''Is it possible to get rid of one of them? Or two of them?'' The obstetrician wasn't an expert in selective reduction, but she knew that with a shot of potassium chloride you could eliminate one or more.

Having felt physically fine up to this point, I got on the subway afterward, and all of a sudden, I felt ill. I didn't want to eat anything. What I was going through seemed like a very unnatural experience. On the subway, Peter asked, ''Shouldn't we consider having triplets?'' And I had this adverse reaction: ''This is why they say it's the woman's choice, because you think I could just carry triplets. That's easy for you to say, but I'd have to give up my life.'' Not only would I have to be on bed rest at 20 weeks, I wouldn't be able to fly after 15. I was already at eight weeks. When I found out about the triplets, I felt like: It's not the back of a pickup at 16, but now I'm going to have to move to Staten Island. I'll never leave my house because I'll have to care for these children. I'll have to start shopping only at Costco and buying big jars of mayonnaise. Even in my moments of thinking about having three, I don't think that deep down I was ever considering it.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9B07EED6113BF93BA25754C0A9629C8B63

Look, guys, there's no mystery about this "slippery slope" abortion to infanticide argument. It isn't even really a matter of opinion. The fact is we've had thirty years of abortion being legal (other countries have had it legal longer) and yet there is not one indication that this has:
A) increased the infanticide rate
B) led to pressure to legalize infanticide

This is the difference between an serious argument grounded in the real world and some bullshit made up for a debating class.

As far as "human sin" goes, well considering that humans themselves created the category of "sin" and generally feel it is best to avoid doing things that fall under that category, well I guess we can't be all that bad, now, can we?

FYI: there were 28 instances of "I" and 6 instances of "my" in those 3 little paragraphs : (

Thomas--

Some people have abortions for horribly selfish reasons.
Others have them for much better reasons.
There are many legal actions about which you could say the same thing.

If Eugie were right, and we had to have forced abortions in this country, I would vote for any further children by those those like Ms. Richards.

YOU KNOW IF GOD WOULD SPREAD AROUND SOME GALL BALDDER PROBLEMS TO SOME OF YOU MEN, AND SOME APPENICITIS.... YOU MEN MAY KNOW WHAT HAVING A BABY IS LIKE... TRY THAT FOR 36 HOURS STRAIGHT WITHOUT SURGERY...... IF YOU WANT PAIN I AM SURE GOD CAN GIVE ALL OF YOU A BAD STOMACH ACHE.. WELL HAVING A BABY IS MUCH WORSE THAN ALL OF THIS...... SO THE NEXT TIME YOU THINK OF YOURSLVES AS EXPERTS... REMEMBER... AN X IS A HAS BEEN AND A SPERT IS A LITTLE DROP OF WATER UNDER PRESSURE... EXPERT MEN....A LEAKY DRIP.... SO UNTILL GOD MAKES YOU A MOTHER, THE PAIN INCLUDED... I SUGGEST YOU LEAVE THE BABY MAKING UP TO THE MOTHERS... WHAT YOU ADD IS A LITTLE DRIP OF SPERM... THAT MOTHERS TAKES THE PAIN, THE SUFFERING AND THE KNOWLEDGE TO BE A MOTHER... YOU ARE JUST THE LEAKY PART...A LITTLE DRIP..... SO DONT TH

cmdicely,

Where have I endorsed the “nutjob belief” you are ascribing to me?

Where you identified yourself as a believing and practising Catholic. Are you now claiming you reject this teaching of the Catholic Church?

Where you identified yourself as a believing and practising Catholic.

No, that is not an endorsement of that specific statement.

Are you now claiming you reject this teaching of the Catholic Church?

I've made rather extensive statements of my specific beliefs on the matter in threads here that you have been involved in.

You've made a specific claim that I have endorsed a very specific view. Can you substantiate that claim, or are you a liar?

Which could be seem to suggest that the CA penal code assumes that a fetus is not a human being . .

Possibly. The point is that it does not define murder in terms of the killing of a person. So it would not be necessary for fetuses and embryos to qualify as "persons" in order for the killing of them to qualify as a crime of murder, even under existing California law, let alone under the law as Thomas/cmdicely/the Catholic Church would like it to be.

You're not a pro-life Republican, are you GOP?

surely the most craven part of ponnuru's post is the preceding sentence, which reads:

Last week, Tony Snow said, "The president believes strongly that for the purpose of research it's inappropriate for the federal government to finance something that many people consider murder. He's one of them." (Somehow I missed this at the time.)

note that bit in the brackets. recall what they say about people that deny accusations which haven't been made.

in other words, it only occurs to ponnuru to criticise "murder" after being told by snow that the president says "murder" is the wrong word. when we all thought the president really did mean "murder" was appropriate, well, we can't expect ponnuru to criticise the president, can we?

christ, what a shill.

I thought "(Somehow I missed this at the time.)" meant that he missed the Press Secretary's announcement at that time? Isn't that a simpler explanation than some other nefarious motive of a shill?

Because that is the safest course for society when we don't know

sigh...as "personhood" is either a philosophically determined or a societally defined construct, we can know when it occurs. Unless of course, you state that personhood = having a soul. Do you? I don't.

cmdicely,

No, that is not an endorsement of that specific statement.

It is an endorsement of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. Those teachings include the ones I just quoted stating that a human being begins to exist at conception and has the rights of a person from conception. The Church itself seems to consider these teachings to be very important, not some minor point of doctrine. Are we to assume that, in identifying yourself as a believing and practising Catholic, you do not believe any of the teachings of the Catholic Church unless you "specifically endorse" them individually? If so what the hell do you mean by even calling youself a Catholic?

I've made rather extensive statements of my specific beliefs on the matter in threads here that you have been involved in.

No you haven't. Virtually every time you are asked whether or not you assent to and/or obey a teaching of the Catholic Church, you engage in extensive exercises in evasion and rhetorical contortion of the kind that Kevin described in his post. I remember on one occasion you even explicitly refused to say whether or not you assent to and obey the Church's teachings on birth control.

"Hello, my name is cmdicely. I claim to be a believing and practising Catholic, but that doesn't mean I accept anything the Catholic Church specifically teaches, and I refuse to state whether or not I accept those teachings."

You've made a specific claim that I have endorsed a very specific view.

You claimed to be a practising and believing Catholic. Do you accept the Catholic Church's teachings on abortion, or don't you? If you don't, clearly describe which of those teachings you dissent from, and why you dissent only from those specific teachings. Unless you make your beliefs clear, I can only assume from your claim that you are a believing and practising Catholic that you assent to and obey the teachings of the Catholic Church.

cmdicely,

I've found that binary moral categories are extraordinarily bad in lots of important cases, and that recognizing that human-imposed labels are almost always attempts to impose articial categorization on things that are continuous rather than discrete is important in almost every area of morality.

So why don't you reject these "binary moral categories," and instead embrace a "continuum" of morality, on the issue of torture? Why do you believe that torture is always and everywhere immoral, regardless of circumstances?

I am beginning to suspect that GOP/Don P/cmdicely are all one in the same person too.

"Freudian slip?"

What Freud bought his mother for her birthday?

"When (if) you come back, let me know if this is one of those "sort of women" who aborted twins to avoid being seen buying the large jar of mayonaise:"

I had forgotten all about Ms. Goldstein - but Thomas, what are you talking about? I read through the whole month's posts, and if there's anything there about this, I must have missed it. However, I did notice that, despite many positive aspects to her writing and throughts (even if I might not agree with some of the specific paths)

* she has a somewhat paranoid, conspiratorial view when it comes to . . . hmm, well, gender roles, motherhood, choice - I'm too tired to get the proper blanket term here. For example,
• "The most basic way that we can register disagreement with the spirit of the age is to be chaste before marriage, marry, be faithful, and raise children. Of course the United Nations and Planned Parenthood will oppose such principled actions—by those organizations' very nature, they have to."
• "The more I examine the attitudes and approaches of these so-called advocates for Africans at risk of getting HIV, the more I fear they're not so interested in stopping AIDS as they are in destroying those people of color whom Planned ParenthoodMargaret Sanger called "human weeds."
• "That's what the homosexual-marriage campaign is about. It's not about letting a new social norm be accepted alongside the old. It's about upending the norms, so that instead of a mother and father, a child simply has Parent A and Parent B. It's about making fatherless or motherless children the rule—and not the exception."

• "Assuming the child [an 8-month fetus inside a woman, both dead and preserved as part of the Body Worlds exhibit] wasn't horribly injured—and the description doesn't say if it was—it should have been viable. There's no reason why it should still be inside the mother—unless doctors made no attempt to save it.
That's what especially chilled me as I read the story about the exhibition and its creator, ghoulish German scientist Gunther von Hagens. I can just picture him saying in German, "Let the child die—it will make a better exhibit."
And that, I believe, is the real reason why this exhibit exists—to cause people to view the human body in a detached fashion, as an object, and not as a precious creation."
• "Those words—"necessary option," "need"—I now realize are part of the vocabulary the pro-choice movement uses to make women think of the procedure as the only choice.)"

Additionally, some of her views are just . . . well:
• She responded to a quote (from Teenwire)
"We have no doubt that the moment the human race figured out that babies were the result of sex, someone began coming up with birth control and abortion."
- which is almost certainly true -
with the bizarre "Amazing. They gleefully admit the doctrine of the Fall—as if they'd invented it. "
• She imagines that " On the contrary, masturbating makes a person more interested in sex. It relieves tension in the short run, but in the long run sets one's mind on gaining more physical pleasure." [They used to have some very interesting devices and treatments to help with that, y;know - DS]
• and finally, showing how she would respond to a Teenwire question from a (presumably, given the nature of the Teenwire site) teen lesbian just coming out, appears to believe that teenage lesbians are really just "put off" by the fact that " [m]ost boys are smelly jocks or oily nerds, and a lot of them are cruel or just awkward," while girls their age "seem so poised and graceful by comparison, and [they] want to be accepted by them." However, if these poor confused girls start having sex with women, they're "making a big mistake," because they will "spend the rest of [their] life with resentments and a nagging sense of incompletion." not to mention smoking, drinking and being fat.

And it's a real shame, because she's not a bad writer, and has, among the . . . .fear of self and others? . . . a sense of sort of reaching towards the good, striving to be a good person, as she understands it

Oh crap, I'm doing it again - spending my time responding to this silliness . . .

But it does come back to what ChiSox Fan and Hostile was talking about. I'm cool, in many ways, with her taking her path, even if I don't agree with a lot of it* (indeed, there are places where I think compromise or dialogue would be good; while her concern about hypersexualizing teens comes across as a bit hysterical, I don't think she's just talking nonsense).

I'm not so sure she would extend that some regard, in many areas, to some of us.

* Of course, that's too easy - one could argue that I'm magnimoniously letting her have her little rebellion off by herself within a dominant culture (or so she sees it, I think) governed by my values, but whatever . .

cmdicely,

Uncertainty and a kind of principle of charity may justify an argument that the morally safest course for an adult person weighing their own self-interest against the interest of a z/e/f might be to treat the latter as if it were another life from the moment of conception,

Why? Why does that same "uncertainty" and "kind of principle of charity" not also justify an argument that the "morally safest" course for an adult person weighing their own self-interest against the interest of any living or plausibly living entity might be to treat the latter as if it were another life from the moment of conception?

Of course, one may fully grant that a human embryo (or a human sperm, for that matter), is a form of "life," and even a form of "human life," and also hold that those things are such primitive forms of life that their rights are trivial and, in any real-world situation in which they are in conflict with the rights of born human beings, effectively nonexistent.

Dan S.:

Was any of that 9:25 PM post intended to respond to the question I actually asked: "You realize you are making the argument that a human embryo is a 'life unworthy of life' too, right?"

Why not viability?

One reason is that viability is nowhere close to being a "hard line." It is critically dependent on the state of medical technology at a particular time and place, and on the subjective judgements of individual doctors. A fetus that is viable in a modern American hospital may not be viable in a hospital in a poor African nation. Or even in a hospital in Mexico, just a few miles away. Or even in that same American hospital 10 years ago. Given that viability is such a moving target in time and space, it seems a disturbingly arbitrary basis on which to draw hard lines either morally or legally.

I've never seen persuasive argument for abandoning the one hard line that we use now and that human societies have pretty much always used--birth.

O.K., to be fair, let me know if any of these are "good reasons" by Ms. Richards:

Yes, they're good reasons. If completing a pregnancy and having a baby would cause major and unwanted disruption to your economic situation, your marriage, your career, and other important aspects of your life, those are excellent reasons for having an abortion.

She had ONE baby, you idiot. She "selectively reduced" the twins. Is not wanting to been seen shopping at Costco enough of an "important aspect" in a woman's life to justify 2 abortions?

Ah, that's what happens when I don't refresh the little comments screen. Well, nice to know where that ah, jarring comment comes from. And because a single thought randomly flitting through this woman's mind after finding out that she's pregnant with triplets, as she recounts them, are the basis for her decision, rather than a whole host of fairly practical concerns that we can clearly see in the section you posted. And it's not even about being seen at Costco, silly, it's about Costco and big jars and Staten Island and never leaving the house standing in for a whole life. Not everybody might agree with her choice, but it's hers to make.

"there were 28 instances of "I" and 6 instances of "my" in those 3 little paragraphs : ("

What should there have been?

But you did prove Wolfdaughter right. Annoyingly, no one's asked me the famous but what if your mom had an abortion question, since I have an answer all ready (although not as good as the people who can say "she did, that's how she got to have and raise me." Basically, I could tell 'em that my mom was a kind, thoughtful, loving and plain ol' good person, and if she had made that choice, it would have been a choice she believed (quite likely correctly) to be the right one at the time. And since, as far as I can imagine, there wouldn't have been any me (although possibly someone else), not only would I have not lost anything (not being in existence to have anything to lose), I wouldn't even have anything to complain about, not being around to feel mildly cheated or whatever. Having come into existence, I'm fond of it, and glad she made that choice - but if she hadn't, that would have been her choice to make.

It's a good idea to plan ahead for the next seven generations or whatever, but that's a generic seven generations - you don't give them all names and come up with specific duties to specified individuals.
______

Oh god, of all the things for the "dd" spambot-thing to parrot, it picks Bonnie. Of course.
_______

Ms. Eden (from Thomas' link) does seem to state that abortion is murder, incidentally, but I'm not digging that bit out right now . . .

brooksfoe: I'm not Catholic.

Then, Thomas, you have not even the flimsy excuse of arbitrary clerical authority to justify your absurd and arbitrary beliefs.

I saw a movie last night on HBO Asia, "Man On Fire" starring Denzel Washington, which bears on American attitudes towards the value of human life. Denzel plays an alcoholic, PTSD'd ex-US counterinsurgency warrior hired as the bodyguard of a rich little girl in Mexico City. The rich little girl is charming and loves him, and gives him a reason to live again and kick the bottle, etc. Then she gets kidnapped and killed. Using the interrogation techniques which have become popular recently on the American right (cutting off fingers, putting bombs up people's assholes, etc.), he quickly hunts down and kills everyone associated with the kidnappers - two dozen people or so. Then it turns out the little girl is alive, and he trades his own life to the kidnapping mastermind for hers.

The lessons:

1. When a little girl has been killed, it is morally right to slaughter everyone who participated in or profited from her death, including joe schmoe security guards hired to protect those people. Corollary: the lives of little girls are worth much, much more than the lives of grown men.

2. Their deaths are just even if it turns out the little girl wasn't actually killed. (Do the metaphysics yourself.)

3. People always tell the truth when you start cutting their fingers off.

4. All the badguys are working together -- all you have to do is cut enough fingers off, and you will unmask the entire Axis of Evil.

5. Although it is possible for a guilty man with mortal sins on his conscience to repent and redeem his soul (i.e. Denzel), this is true only for Americans. Foreigners who sin become Evil Ones who must be killed.

6. Catholics believe that when you have wittingly or unwittingly participated in the death of a little girl, it is your religious duty to commit suicide. (This was a real surprise to me. Perhaps this is only true of Mexican Catholics.)

7. The reason why the judicial system is unable to dispense true justice is that its agents are not allowed to fire rocket-propelled grenades at the cars of suspects based on the testimony of a single informant, derived under torture. Also, they are not allowed to insert remotely detonated bombs into suspects' assholes. Cf. Christopher Walken: "He'll dispense more true justice in two days than you [police investigators, the press, and the judicial system] will hand out in ten years."

This drifts somewhat afield. But the point with regard to the abortion debate is clear: death is evil only in proportion to the knowable innocence of the entity that dies. Little children are worth much more than adults, adult 'good people' are worth more than adult 'bad people' (and this is knowable), and obviously fetuses, being without sin, are worth the most of all.

The Catholic church has a very different attitude than most Americans on this point: it believes that, Jesus having redeemed our souls, one may no more execute a serial killer than abort a fetus. Other Americans like death, but only for adults.

That's MY question though, Dan S. If this pregnant woman had NO OTHER concern except being a snob and not wanting to be seen in Costco, that would be her "choice" right?

"Was any of that 9:25 PM post intended to respond to the question I actually asked: "You realize you are making the argument that a human embryo is a 'life unworthy of life' too, right?""

Nope. Maybe later.

"She had ONE baby, you idiot."

Ok, so let's slightly rephrase what GOP said:
"If completing a pregnancy and having three babies would cause major and unwanted disruption to your economic situation, your marriage, your career, and other important aspects of your life, those are excellent reasons for having an selective reduction.

Why are you obsessed with focusing on the partly-imaginary being seen shopping at Costco bit (unless she goes on to say that the one and only reason why she made her choice was that she was embarrased to be seen shopping at Costco, and that this didn't stand for or represent anything else - in which case, it's a fairly crappy reason, but still, her choice.)

But this is a trap, even getting into this.

GOP - while it's not a particularly big or original observation, it is interesting that in this culture we measure age from . . .
you guessed it. Birth.

She had ONE baby, you idiot.

So what, you moron? Obviously, having twins rather than just one baby can cause a major and unwanted disruption to your life just as having a baby at all can. Are you now arguing that there is no serious difference in the burden of being pregnant and having children regardless of the number of fetuses involved in the pregnancy?

Which is why I am not a Catholic, brooksfoe. You do realize, however, that Protestants are against abortion too, right?

That's fine, Dan S. (and GOP). As long as you can at least admit that's a fairly crappy reason, notwithstanding rationalizing it, that's all I can expect.

brooksfoe,

I don't think you understood Man on Fire very well if you think the movie endorses Creesy's acts of vengeance. That's not a message I got from it, and if you listen to the DVD commentary, it's not a message the filmmakers intended to convey either.

GOP:

You are avoiding my initial question (exactly what you "accused" cmdicely of doing):

Is not wanting to been seen shopping at Costco enough of an "important aspect" in a woman's life to justify 2 abortions?

GOP - while it's not a particularly big or original observation, it is interesting that in this culture we measure age from . . .
you guessed it. Birth.

Interestingly, in Vietnam, age is measured from conception. But abortion is legal and widely practiced - the abortion rate may be the highest in the world. So I don't think this actually means much.

As long as you can at least admit that's a fairly crappy reason

As I already said, I think her stated reasons for having her abortion are good ones.

But I do love the way her article drives anti-abortion nuts like you up the wall, especially that line about Costco and jars of mayonnaise.

Stop evading. Answer MY question.

Interestingly, in Vietnam, age is measured from conception.

How do they determine the date of conception?

In Vietnam, people celebrate their "conceptionday" rather than their birthday? Seriously?

GOP:

Is not wanting to be seen shopping at Costco enough of an "important aspect" in a woman's life to justify 2 abortions?

GOP - while it's not a particularly big or original observation, it is interesting that in this culture we measure age from . . .
you guessed it. Birth.

Yes, and it's not just age, but citizenship too. Where and when you were born matters crucially in our culture and legal system, and in pretty much every culture and legal system. Where and when you were conceived hardly matters at all.

GOP:

Uncertainty and a kind of principle of charity may justify an argument that the morally safest course for an adult person weighing their own self-interest against the interest of a z/e/f might be to treat the latter as if it were another life from the moment of conception,

Why?

Could you consider taking a remedial reading class? That was a prefatory remark indicating that I wasn't disputing that it was conceivable that a valid argument could be constructed for the position described (hence the word "may"), before leading into the point of disagreement (that any such argument could, in any case, be applied to the responses of third parties, including society as a whole.)

Why does that same "uncertainty" and "kind of principle of charity" not also justify an argument that the "morally safest" course for an adult person weighing their own self-interest against the interest of any living or plausibly living entity might be to treat the latter as if it were another life from the moment of conception?

I never said it did justify an argument it any case, I said it "may". And certainly an expansive enough concept of charity combined with uncertainty might also support what you suggest, though as the uncertainty would, I would think, be far greater, the concept of charity would have to be likewise more expansive. In any case, it still wouldn't apply to third parties, which was my point.

Learn to read, please.

GOP:

Evade, evade, evade. It's your middle name. Go on, GOP, just admit that you really think even that ONE reason alone would justify 2 abortions. I know you want to.

Oh, goodie, here we go with another epic GOP/Don P./cmdicely saga. But, really, am I supposed to believe it was just an innocent coincidence that both cmdicely and GOP were gone for 3 hours, GOP posted again at 8:46 PM this evening, and cmdicely just happened to be around this thread at the very same time in order to reply 6 minutes later at 8:52 PM?

So why don't you reject these "binary moral categories," and instead embrace a "continuum" of morality, on the issue of torture?

Because there is no reason to do so.

" this pregnant woman had NO OTHER concern except being a snob and not wanting to be seen in Costco, that would be her "choice" right?"

If a pregnant woman decided on one or more abortions based on no other concern "except being a snob and not wanting to be seen in Costco" . . .

well, isn't this, in essence, suggesting that she isn't really ready to raise however many children she's deciding not to have? I mean, I don't want to wonder into eugie-territory and start rambling about how snobbish women should be forced to abort - that's not at all where I'm going - but don't things kinda work out in your imaginary little situation?

Is not wanting to been seen shopping at Costco enough of an "important aspect" in a woman's life to justify 2 abortions?

Richards didn't say that, you disgusting jerk. The Costco thing was a minor detail added on as a comic addendum to the serious concerns: the intense physical pain and stress of carrying the kids, plus the unbelievable stress of trying to raise 3 babies at the same time (do you have kids, Thomas? How much did you participate in child care up to age 3? My kids are 4 and 2. My wife is away on business; I haven't had 8 hours' sleep in a week, even though I have a full time nanny.), the end of one's career if one has one, and so on.

This column is precisely about the reasons why it's desperately important that these decisions be left to mothers. You have no fucking clue what's going on inside someone else's family, and neither do I. She weighed the decision with intense dread and a sense of deep responsibility. She didn't cavalierly decide "oh, I prefer gourmet mayo, so I guess I'll terminate two of the fetuses". You know why? Because mothers basically almost never act cavalierly towards their children. Very rarely, they attempt to take on the challenge of raising lots of kids when in fact they're not up to it, and then they wind up going nuts and murdering them. More often, they sacrifice so much of themselves for their kids that they end up filled with resentment and bitterness, and have vicious and bitter relationships with their kids for the rest of their lives. But the careless lightweight mothers aren't the ones who have abortions. They're the ones who have unprotected sex and too many kids without regard to their capacity to raise them.

No, Dan S., in my hypothetical question, she is ready, willing, and able to have triplets in every other regard -- she has NO OTHER concern than what people are going to think about her shopping at Costco -- you already said that was a fairly crappy reason, but still, her choice. I was just trying to get response now from Don P.

cmdicely,

Could you consider taking a remedial reading class?

Could you buy a brain cell?

That was a prefatory remark indicating that I wasn't disputing that it was conceivable that a valid argument could be constructed for the position described ...

Right. That's what I understood it to be.

I never said it did justify an argument it any case, I said it "may", And certainly an expansive enough concept of charity combined with uncertainty might also support what you suggest,

Billiant. So one "may" be justified, on the basis of "uncertainty" and "a kind of principle of charity," in arguing that the "morally safest" course for an adult person weighing their own self-interest against the interest of any living or plausibly living entity, "might" be to treat that thing as if it were another life from the moment of conception.

And the relevance of this claim to the issue is.....what? So what if this "may" justify an argument about what "might" be the "morally safest" course of treatment?

In any case, it still wouldn't apply to third parties, which was my point.

Huh? Why wouldn't it also apply to third parties?

Have you figured out which, if any, of the Catholic Church's teachings on abortion (or anything else, for that matter) you accept, which you reject, and why?

LOL brooksfoe -- mothers "basically almost never" act cavalierly towards their children?!

GOP:

You're just as bad as cmdicely. Evade, evade, evade . . .

cmdicely,

Because there is no reason to do so.

What reason is there to reject these "binary moral categories," and instead embrace a "continuum" of morality, on the issue of abortion and the destruction of embryos (and also, apparently, "almost every area of morality") but not on torture?

What is special or unique about torture that justifies rejecting a continuum of morality and instead embracing "binary moral categories" that you reject with respect to "almost every area of morality?"

Thomas, your point? You think mothers generally do act cavalierly towards their children? Know many mothers?

Once GOP answers the question, I'll be happy to explain my point.

It seems to me that taking the "life begins at conception and needs to be protected by the State" argument to its logical conclusion, the State's interest would necessitate regulation of any copulation that might lead to impregnation -- suggesting some kind of permitting process for intercourse -- or at the very least demanding that a woman register with a state facility the moment she found out she was pregnant and legal penalties levied against her if she failed to do so when her unregistered pregnancy was discovered.

brooksfoe,

Richards didn't say that, you disgusting jerk. The Costco thing was a minor detail added on as a comic addendum to the serious conce

We know that. And Thomas also knows that. But apparently he thinks, or at least is pretending that he thinks, that we're going to accept his absurdly dishonest characterization of Amy Richards' reasons for having her abortion as "not wanting to be seen shopping at Costco" and debate him on the basis of that ridiculous premise.

Best to ignore him unless and until he can formulate a serious argument.

Even more evasion, GOP?! I really think this means you can no longer make that complaint about cmdicely. Dan S. understood the fairly simple question and answered: "unless she goes on to say that the one and only reason why she made her choice was that she was embarrased to be seen shopping at Costco, and that this didn't stand for or represent anything else - in which case, it's a fairly crappy reason, but still, her choice." I suspect you disagree about it even being a crappy reason, but curiously, you don't want to admit it.

It seems to me that taking the "life begins at conception and needs to be protected by the State" argument to its logical conclusion, the State's interest would necessitate regulation of any copulation that might lead to impregnation -- suggesting some kind of permitting process for intercourse -- or at the very least demanding that a woman register with a state facility the moment she found out she was pregnant and legal penalties levied against her if she failed to do so when her unregistered pregnancy was discovered.

I don't know about those specific examples, but the "human beings begin to exist at conception" position does imply support for all sorts of draconian government restrictions on the liberty of pregnant women and on the treatment of embryos and fetuses. Criminalizing abortion, IVF and embryonic stem cell research would just be the thin end of the wedge.

So the question is why Ramesh Ponnuru, cmdicely, the Catholic Church, and the rest of the wingnut "human beings begin to exist at conception" crowd aren't pushing for such draconian changes in the law.

Windhorse:

The State doesn't require any of that for parents of BORN children.

Thomas, you are still evading my question about whether you have children.

I add a few more: do you shop at Costco or another big-box store, or do you prefer smaller, more gourmet outlets?

Have you adopted any of the frozen embryos currently up for adoption via the "Snowflake Chidren" program?

Have you ever been pregnant?

Answer these questions in your next post, please.

As I said, brooksfoe, I will answer your questions as soon as GOP answers mine.

The State doesn't require any of that for parents of BORN children.

Nonsense. The state requires the registration of births, which includes the names of the parents.

A good example of a country that does treat abortion as the killing of a human being, or as something close to the killing of a human being, is El Salvador. An article in The New York Times a few months ago, Pro-Life Nation, describes the horrendous social and legal conditions imposed on pregnant women in that country, and the consequences for women who have abortions:

"The penal code detailing the Crimes Against the Life of Human Beings in the First Stages of Development provides stiff penalties: the abortion provider, whether a medical doctor or a back-alley practitioner, faces 6 to 12 years in prison. The woman herself can get 2 to 8 years. Anyone who helps her can get 2 to 5 years. Additionally, judges have ruled that if the fetus was viable, a charge of aggravated homicide can be brought, and the penalty for the woman can be 30 to 50 years in prison."

The article also describes the instrumental role of the Roman Catholic Church in passing and maintaining these draconian laws, and in stigmatizing abortion and anyone involved in abortion as baby-killers.

This what America would be like if you, Ponnuru, cmdicely, the Catholic Church and the rest of the "human beings begin to exist at conception" crowd got their way.

The State doesn't require any of that for parents of BORN children.

The State doesn't forbid first trimester abortions either -- but you're pushing for them to do that.

The State doesn't pursue the death penalty for doctors and mothers who are involved in abortions -- but you're pushing for them to do that (under your "Cheney" moniker).

Why should I doubt you'd push even further for all kinds of draconian laws around conception given your fetishizing of the issue?

Care to answer my pending question, Don P.?

Come on, Don P., just admit it would not be a "crappy reason" even if that were the ONLY reason. Even if she was ready, willing, and able in every regard except this one selfish, vain, conceited reason -- just admit you have no problem with aborting 2 babies even under those circumstances -- because you would actually rejoice in their deaths, isn't that right? In fact, you are fine defending any woman's abortion, even if she had NO reason whatsoever -- that's justification straight from Mo'lech and the fiery pit of Hell, Don P., and you know it. May God have mercy on your soul!

That was my "point" brooksfoe. Now, to answer the rest of your questions (you seemed much more bothered by my short evasion than Don's): yes, not as much as you because my wife stayed home with them, yes, we do shop at Costco, no, and no.

Evade, evade, evade, Thomas.

You don't have kids, clearly. That certainly explains some of the ignorance you've displayed.

Ah, you made the deadline. Congratulations.

So your wife handled all the difficult part. Lucky guy. Maybe you'd have more awareness of how the decisionmaking works for others if you'd done your 50%.

It seems to me that taking the "life begins at conception and needs to be protected by the State" argument to its logical conclusion, the State's interest would necessitate regulation of any copulation that might lead to impregnation -- suggesting some kind of permitting process for intercourse -- or at the very least demanding that a woman register with a state facility the moment she found out she was pregnant and legal penalties levied against her if she failed to do so when her unregistered pregnancy was discovered.

No more so than what's required for BORN children.

The State doesn't forbid first trimester abortions either -- but you're pushing for them to do that.

That's right -- I don't make a distinction between BORN 1-year-olds and BORN 3-year-olds either.

The State doesn't pursue the death penalty for doctors and mothers who are involved in abortions -- but you're pushing for them to do that (under your "Cheney" moniker).

I think I already said above, no more so than for the killers of BORN people.

Why should I doubt you'd push even further for all kinds of draconian laws around conception given your fetishizing of the issue?

Because I said I would stop once equality is reached.

For the record, my short evasion to brooksfoe's diversionary questions trying to give Don P. cover (even though I made it clear repeatedly I was going to answer): 10:48 PM to 11:40 PM.

Don P.'s evasion started (and hasn't stopped yet) at 8:59 PM . . .

3 hours, and counting.

Because I said I would stop once equality is reached.

Well Cheney/Charlie/Doug M./Henry/etc, I'm not going to waste any more time arguing with someone who is as unbalanced as you and who doesn't even possess the Christian virtue to be honest about what names they have or haven't used in the past, much less reveal your real agenda on such a hot-button issue for you like abortion.

I will note that your answers confirm that you would, in fact, pursue the very nightmare scenario that I suggested is the logical conclusion of your beliefs about how and when life begins, with severe penalties for abortion that have never historically existed in the Jewish or Christian tradition, and that seem to be products of your unique pathology.

with severe penalties for abortion that have never historically existed in the Jewish or Christian tradition, and that seem to be products of your unique pathology

I'm not sure what the Christian tradition is on penalties for abortion, but the Roman Catholic Church seeks to treat abortion as the crime of murder. The typical penalties for murder in the United States are imprisonment for decades to life, and in some cases execution.

For a real-world example of how the Catholic Church seeks to treat abortion under law, see the article I linked to above about El Salvador. In that country, a woman who has a even a very early abortion gets a penalty of 2 to 8 years in jail. A woman who has a late abortion is guilty of the crime of "aggravated homicide." The minimum criminal penalty for this crime in 30 years in jail. The Catholic Church was instrumental in getting this nightmare law passed, and seeks to go even further and to treat all abortions as "aggravated homicide" regardless of how early or late in the pregnancy they are performed.

3 1/2 hours.

4 hours.

Right. That's what I understood it to be.

Clearly, you didn't and still don't understand it, since you are still trying to get into an argument with me over a point I haven't argued for, merely stated dismissively might be true in a limited case (though I didn't endorse that it was, even there), but not in the more general case for which it was being argued by the party that originally offered it.

4 1/2 hours.

Dan S., I have no trap to spring. I am in complete disagreement with people who want to ban abortion. Mostly they are hypocrites, something to do with the death penalty and war. They do not really believe in the sacredness of life but think they can trump any argument with 'it's a human being with a soul' crap in order to control people. When there is not enough to eat it is going to get crazy, and the same people who say an embryo has a soul now will say it is a trouble making eater then. I want to stop those people in the future by planning now how to limit run away reproduction rather than let the religious hypocrites use their morality to decide who has babies and who does not. It should be done in a rational way, with the best interests of the newly born and the ability to nurture them the reasons behind their birth. Resources are going to get a lot more scarce in the future. When the US has a billion people it will get necessary to limit births. We will be forced to live in a world where everyone is influenced by the acts of others, even having children, and it will have to be regulated. We won't be able to sustain a modern world whose mothers are illiterate 15 year olds.

cmdicely,

Clearly, you didn't and still don't understand it,

Clearly, you didn't understand my response.

What is the relevance of your claim to the issue of the morality of abortion? So what if one "may" be justified, on the basis of "uncertainty" and "a kind of principle of charity," in arguing that the "morally safest" course for an adult person weighing their own self-interest against the interest of any living or plausibly living entity "might" be to treat that thing as if it were another life from the moment of conception? And why wouldn't this "argument" apply to third parties?

Because there is no reason to do so.

What reason is there to reject these "binary moral categories," and instead embrace a "continuum" of morality, on the issue of abortion and the destruction of embryos (and also, apparently, "almost every area of morality") but not on torture?

What is special or unique about torture that justifies rejecting a continuum of morality and instead embracing "binary moral categories" that you reject with respect to "almost every area of morality?"

cmdicely,

Given, as a self-admitted believing and practising Catholic, your nutty Catholic beliefs about human life, why should abortion be considered a lesser form of homicide than murder? Given, as a self-admitted believing and practising Catholic, your nutty Catholic beliefs about human life, why should the destruction of embryos through IVF or stem cell research be considered a lesser form of homicide than murder?

LOL, Eugie -- so you are somehow more moral by being "consistent" in seeking forced abortions, sterilization, death penalty, war, famine, etc.? The U.S. can easily handle one billion people.

cmdicely:

You don't have to answer that.

5 hours . . .

5 1/2 hours, Don.

I weep for all the potential babies trapped as embryos in the freezers of fertility clinics. When as a nation are we going to recognize the immorality of our ways and ban the creation of embryos that will never be born.

Wow! Still no GOP? I guess that's not such a big surprise.

Oh, and Edo, I missed this last night, but the reason pro-choicers shy away from admitting an embryo is "human life" is because they would then be arguing, as Dan S. did, that said human embryo is a 'life unworthy of life' too (see above, including, of course GOP/Don P./cmdicely). Even I admit we don't know if an embryo is "human life". Notwithstanding where I think society should draw the line given no consensus, you asked separately why I persist in equating "personhood" with "human life" and one answer is because the Nazis didn't.

Eugie:

I'm a reasonable pro-choicer. I'm also a guy -- so I tend to view the issue more in terms of women's reproductive autonomy than from debate positions on the status of human life.

I'm also pro-environment, pro-sex education and believe that declining birth rates are a salutory consequence of an evolving society. (Note that many conservatives cackle at the fact that cosmopolitan liberals are being outbred by pro-family conservatives at an alarming rate.)

I think your views, rather than being progressive, are deeply pernicious to the point of being the sine qua non of reactionary.

I have no choice here but to evoke Godwin's Law: Hitler was a strong proponent of eugenics and the camps program which led to Auschwitz and Treblinka was sold to the German people on the basis of eugenics: We're only culling the old, the infirm, the feeble, from society and thus the gene pool.

Are you familiar with the concept of the slippery slope argument? Unintended consequences? Unchecked and arbitrary state power?

It really doesn't matter *how* good or pro-social your intentions are. Totalitarianisms throughout history are always chock-full of the best of pro-social intentions. Just ask Pol Pot (if he were alive).

Now forget religion. From the trailer park to Park Avenue, people have a biological imperative to reproduce. To attempt to regulate this means to make the kind of judgments on people that inevitably become arbitrary and unquantifiable, no matter how reasonably you seem to start out. And eugenicists *always* start out reasonably ...

Say there's some single mom with five kids living on public assistance. Well, clearly she can neither support her children nor control her impulses, so the state ties her tubes. But then, say, her neighbor has *two* kids, her husband works and they barely scrape by -- but her two kids are juvenile delinquents. Unfit mother, dysfunctional family -- the state ties *her* tubes. And the struggling woman artist living a bohemian lifestyle by choice in the city. She has no kids, but every relationship with a man who might support a family has ended in failure. Clearly this woman has no interest in providing future security for herself, so the state ties *her* tubes -- you know, just in case. Or the poor Orthodox Jewish couple with a history of Tay-Sachs in the family ... and so it goes.

Can, you know, performing medical experiments on the offspring of these "incorrigibles" be all that far behind? It surely wasn't in Nazi Germany ...

Before you accuse me of being hyperbolic -- consider this: Every one of these mothers is going to protest furiously to the authorities that her tubes shouldn't be tied. They're going to make arguments, provide evidence, to mitigate the state's claim that they're unfit to reproduce. Can the state really draw a hard and fast line? Maybe that artist woman will find a husband who'll provide for her someday. Maybe they'll find a cure for Tay-Sachs. Maybe those juvie kids are only going through a phase and will turn out OK. Maybe 5-kid single mom will win the lottery. Whatever ...

Now, if the state passes judgment, the verdict is going to be considered unfair and quite chilling. Poor women have taken medical clinics to court for performing involuntariy sterilization -- and alleging racist motives --- and have won, despite their circumstances which caused the state to judge them as unfit to reproduce. In order to have a significant impact on population, the state is going to have to push ahead and widen this program beyond the obvious "incorrigibles" to include borderline cases. The more it pushes ahead, the more resentment and alienation it creates.

Do you really expect women who've been put under the knife against their wills by the state to feel charitable about it? Do you really expect their families and supporters to feel the same way? Of course not -- they're going to feel furious, sullen and resentful. They're going to disrespect the law -- because the law so clearly disrespected them. They're going to become more criminal in response -- so how will the state react?

Well, by beefing up its police force. By saying -- "see, these people are criminals -- no wonder we stopped them from breeding." Not only will police repression be brought to bear, but massive waves of public prejudice against them by the responsible breeders will be unleashed, and will be encouraged and manipulated by the state, to justify its decisions. Remind you of any period of recent history?

Like zoe, I'm pro-choice because I don't believe the state has any business in people's bedrooms. That is the quintessentially liberal postion.

Your position isn't liberal. It is the gateway to Fascism, my friend.

Don't expect to find support, "Eugie," -- in the same way none of us support the neo-nazi watcher.

You two are cut from the same odious piece of red, white and black cloth.

Bob

Unfortunately for you, Bob, arguing that a "life is unworthy of life" is pretty close to Hitler too.

Bob:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_unworthy_of_life

And, BTW, you do believe the State has business in people's bedrooms, but just to enforce what YOU agree with.

All sorts of crimes, including rape, child porn / abuse, counterfeiting, prostitution, drugs, REAL murder -- not shielded by someone's bedroom.

Thomas:

Wow, Thomas, you're a really crappy debater, aren't you.

First of all, I have no clue what "a life unworthy of life" means. I've never seen the phrase before, nor am I particularly interested in what it allegedly means. I certainly don't rest my arguments on it. Don't put words in my mouth, bro.

Secondly, I believe that reproductive decisions should be made privately.

Just what part of that don't you understand?

Bob

Thomas, you're a really crappy debater, aren't you.

Nope.

First of all, I have no clue what "a life unworthy of life" means.

Which is why I provided a link to the definition.

I've never seen the phrase before, nor am I particularly interested in what it allegedly means. I certainly don't rest my arguments on it.

Considering YOU invoked Godwin's law, and the fact you are using the same argument whether you realize it or not, perhaps you should be interested.

Don't put words in my mouth, bro.

Did you not post "Personhood begins (IMHO) at birth." on July 27, 2006 at 12:31 AM?

Secondly, I believe that reproductive decisions should be made privately.

Do you also believe that rape decisions should be made in private?

Just what part of that don't you understand?

I could ask you the same question.

Thomas:

"Bederoom" in the sense in which I used it is a figure of speech, Thomas.

Bob

Thomas:

*Rape* is not a "reproductive decision" for crying in the bucket.

"Personhood" is a *legal* definition. I'm looking to find a place where the line can be drawn. I'm batting around the idea of at birth, but I also recognize that this definition has as many problems as viability.

The question of when a blastocyst becomes a human life is not, properly speaking, concretely definable.

A social consensus on the definition of "personhood" might, however, be attainable.

Bob

brooksfoe, very nice smackdown, but pretty well said overall. Sometimes I forget that these sort of seemingly obvious things aren't, always - and making this case is important, in terms of the folks who oppose or don't support reproductive rights not out of a principled (even if warped) stance, but because they've mostly seen anti-abortion propaganda, arguments, strawwomen . . .

Thomas: "because you would actually rejoice in their deaths, isn't that right?"

. . .and rhetorical strategies that serve to demonize the opposition. (Of course, I'd guess some people actually believe this nonsense, because they're unable to explain or understand prochoice motivations and responses otherwise. That's why I get a little worried about claims that pro-lifers really think this or that . . .)
_________
Thomas: "That's fine, Dan S. (and GOP). As long as you can at least admit that's a fairly crappy reason, notwithstanding rationalizing it, that's all I can expect."

I get the impression ("admit," etc.) that this is seen as some kind of concession. That's silly. In fact, this whole thing about 'reasons' points out another incoherence in the anti-abortion view.

Now, one of the reasons to even start talking about reasons is that for many people, there's this idea, this myth, that tons of women are running around having frivolous abortions because they don't want to be mildly inconvenienced. (See, for example, the anti-abortion - the terminology is an intentional thing; in some cases, that really is far a more accurate label than pro-life - blogger who blew a gasket over an article along those lines in The Onion - from what I understand, he was getting comments along the lines of 'look, I'm pro-life, but you're an idiot).

This serves to fire up righteous indignation and a sort of smug . . . gossipy, is the best I can put it, condemnation. (A more sophisticated analysis would probably tie in this idea of women making selfish, petty abortion choices with a whole larger set of conservative social concerns about women's roles and, well, place, but sadly, I'm not too sophisticated. Can't even keep my elbows off the table . . .)

But it ends up being kinda absurd, along the lines of the original post. Imagine if there was a genuine epidemic of actual infanticide here in the States. Sincere, well-meaning, useful people - whatever their beliefs or politics - would be frantically trying to figure out* why* people were killing their babies, to help stop it.

Now if you look at infanticide in general, across times and places, you find that there are really just a few general reasons.

There are maybe two or so minor ones:
• as a result of mental illness or instability
• as part of a pattern of abuse (which might be the same as above)

The main reason is terribly practical. Historically, most people were more or less living on the edge on terms of survival - even nowadays, that's still true( or close enough) for many. Also add in unreliable (at best) birth control, and very little (if any) sort of social safety net. Time after time, if circumstances pushed them a little further towards that edge - if game dwindled, after a bad harvest, in the midst of a famine, in an environment of ongoing shortages - parents were faced with a horrible choice. They could try to feed a small infant, which would very likely die, after sapping meager resources and possibly taking other family members with it, making matters much worse . . . or they could preserve the rest of the family, and hope for things to get better.

An infant that was crippled or sickly posed a similar problem, especially in cases were people were right at subsistence level. After all, the idea of the "priceless child" is to some degree a modern, Western one - children have always been cherished and loved, but they generally had to do a *lot* more than mow the lawn for an allowance, as a simple matter of family economic survival - food on the table, and a table for food. We don't want or like to think about this, but that's what life has been like for most people. Even today - there was a fuss over work an anthropologist did with desperately poor women in some South or Central American slum, where children that were failing to thrive were . . . allowed to die, might be one way to put it - not neglect exactly we think of it, and understood by the women,out of emotional necessity, as basically helping them back to heaven, but regardless . . .

Anyway (crap, what a wonderful start for the morning), people who be frantically trying to find out why people were killing their infants. And if it turned out that it was because the social safety net had collapsed, we'd do everything we could to try to fix that. But beside figuring out what to do, the reasons wouldn't matter. They could be acts of desperation, fueled by bitter necessity, but while that might evoke a sort if horrified sympathy (as opposed to simply horror if it was for a new trendy dish), nobody would be saying, oh, well, in case of bad enough circumstances . . .

Now (back to abortion) there are folks who feel the same. Rape, incest, health short of death - doesn't matter, they say, no abortions! But this is rare and insanely unpopular. We can see this in the South Dakota situation, where major organizations, instead of being all excited, are going uh-oh, did you have to go and do this?! And more and more people in SD, who were stalwartly opposed to hypothetical abortions (which would be, of course, by bad, irresponsible women), are starting to realize how this would work out in real life, whether in these extreme cases, or even less dramatic ones.

I write too much and say too little, so I'm going to skip to the next part of this point - the other way reasons don't matter. I'm not taking the overly optimistic rose-colored-glasses view here. Of all the women who have chosen to have abortions, it's unfortunately pretty likely -given that we are imperfect, limited beings with incomplete knowledge and rarely enough wisdom -that some small percentage made a mistaken decision. They would have been able to make things work; they would have been ready; they would have ended up wanting it.

A tiny percentage probably made this choice for, as I put it, really crappy reasons, reasons that everybody would yell at. There is probably nothing so stupid or absurd that somebody won't end up doing it - I just read a post about people getting high by sniffing or eating mothballs.

Likewise, people -adults - sometimes make mistaken or flat out horrible decisions. They marry people that are completely wrong for them. They pay enormous sums they can't afford for a house they'll almost immediately outgrow in a housing market that is unmistakably about to go down. They have kids when they're not ready, or because they think it will fix a troubled relationship, or that they really can't afford. They spend large sums of money buying stock in an exciting new company called Betamax (forget about the 90s . . ).

And then sometimes questionable decisions turn out ok. And there' the whole other category of decisions that make a whole lot of sense. But these are - these have to be - people's decisions to make. You can try to convince them otherwise, or try to set up conditions so they're more likely to make good decisions - but in the end, it's their decisions.

Not yours.

Unless you think that an embryo - a collection of cells which is developing, building itself up into, a human being, but unmistakably different in vast and countless ways from a full term baby, little kid, or grown up - has one way or another a claim on its mother that supercedes her rights over her body, reasons don't really matter. (Although we want people to be able to make good ones, and we'd really like a world where women have a lot less to worry about if they go ahead and have a kid! - funny that antiabortion groups don't seem to be too concerned 'bout that, eh? So in terms of making things better, reasons matter.

And if you do think an embryo has one way or another a claim on its mother that supercedes her rights over her body, reasons don't really matter (although empathy and common sense might lead one to carve out a few exceptions.

I don't think embryos are "life unworthy of life." I just think it has to be up to the woman whose body they're in whether or not they get to become babies. Worthiness doesn't really enter into it.

The point I am always trying to make in this 'debate' is that women either have reproductive rights to be free from interference from people like Thomas or Eugie or they do not. Give Thomas his ability to stop women from obtaining abortion and you open the door for other authoritarians. I want women to be free from the Thomasses and Ewwgies.

Hostile:

Is it "authoritative" to punish a mother for thinking her 3-year-old child is the devil that needs to be drown? Why isn't that just covered under "reproductive rights"? And if another group wants to impose their belief on said mother in that regard, do you similarly blame the group for "creating the conflict" instead of the mother?

Cal Gal:

Who is Tweety?

Dan S.:

I don't believe an embryo's right to life "supercedes" the mother's right to life. If I missed some specific question you had, please let me know.

Bob:

I thought you and Edo already stipulated: "when a blastocyst becomes a human life is not in debate"? At the very least, YOU said in that very same post I quoted to: "A fetus is clearly a human life." Is that where you are drawing the line?

Also, what about all those other "private" decisions (whether in the bedroom or not) that you don't have a problem with the State interfering? Did you look up that Wiki link?

rmck1,

"Personhood" is a *legal* definition. I'm looking to find a place where the line can be drawn. I'm batting around the idea of at birth, but I also recognize that this definition has as many problems as viability.

You may believe (not "recognize") that birth has "as many problems as viability" as a basis for the legal definition of personhood, but you have offered no argument to justify that belief. The fact that birth is almost universally recognized in human cultures, including our own, as the point at which a new person begins to exist, and that viability has virtually no legal significance at all, is alone strong evidence that your claim is false. I discussed one of the basic problems with appealing to viability as a hard line for legal or moral distinctions in my post of 9:37pm yesterday.

A social consensus on the definition of "personhood" might, however, be attainable.

A consensus on that question is not only attainable, it's attained. A new person begins to exist at birth.

Is it "authoritative" to punish a mother for thinking her 3-year-old child is the devil that needs to be drown? Why isn't that just covered under "reproductive rights"?

Because in the case of reproductive rights we're talking about about an organism that has the potential to grow into a human life, and in the second case we're talking about a human life.

GOP:

Is not wanting to be seen shopping at Costco enough of an "important aspect" in a woman's life to justify 2 abortions?

cmdicely (assuming you are not also "GOP"):

LOL -- I'm not sure if you just got the kiss-of-death from Ramesh Ponnuru:

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NjU4ODQ0MTcwOTFiMGE4ZjU1OTM1MGExN2U0OTQwMTI=

Because in the case of reproductive rights we're talking about about an organism that has the potential to grow into a human life, and in the second case we're talking about a human life.

Sorry, Windhorse, but Edo has already stipulated that "No thoughtful pro-choice advocate I've every heard or read has denied that abortion is the end of a human life." Next try?

Sorry, Windhorse, but Edo has already stipulated that "No thoughtful pro-choice advocate I've every heard or read has denied that abortion is the end of a human life."

What Edo thinks is immaterial to the general question you asked, and there are plenty of people who are thoughtful and believe that abortion at least at certain stages of fetal development is not the end of a human life.

LOL -- I'm not sure if you just got the kiss-of-death from Ramesh Ponnuru

Nutjob Catholic Ramesh Ponnuru agrees with nutjob Catholic cmdicely. There's a shocker.

As Kevin explained, Ponnuru's argument makes no sense. He claims to believe that abortion is homicide but rejects the belief that abortion is murder on the grounds that murder requires malice and that he does "not believe these unjust acts [abortions] to be malicious in motivation."

But whether an act of homicide involves malice is an evidentiary matter to be decided on a case-by-case basis by prosecutors, judges and juries. If abortion is homicide, as Ponnuru and cmdicely claim, then malice can be present in abortion just as it can be present in any other act of homicide. And in cases where malice is present, abortion clearly qualifies as murder given Ponnuru's and cmdicely's belief that abortion is the deliberate killing of an innocent human being. It is not difficult to imagine real-world scenarios in which a woman has malicious motives for her abortion--for example, if she became pregnant by being raped, she may abort the fetus out of malice toward the rapist or toward the fetus because it is the "rapist's child." Or she may feel malice toward the fetus if she aborts it in order to prevent her boyfriend or husband from leaving her.

Furthermore, "malice" as typically defined in murder statutes is a broad term that doesn't even require feelings of hostility or hatred toward the victim of the murder. For example, the California penal code's murder statute states that malice is present when there is merely a "deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a fellow creature." Under this broad definition of malice, virtually any abortion could qualify as murder.

Abortion is the excising of a replicating cell mass from a woman's uterus. Some say the mass has a soul and they are free to believe such nonsense. Some women say it is something they do not want growing in their uterus and go to a doctor to have it removed. These women deserve to have the same freedom as the silly soul believers do to act out their desires about their reproductive abilities.

No, I do not believe in the soul. I do think that my nitrogen returns to the nitrogen cycle after death, though.

I think there are a few things lost/overlooked in this debate so far.

1. Perhaps some of you might be conflating the religious beliefs/motivations of Ponnuru and others with the 'reasons' they give for their positions. Ponnuru's religious beliefs are immaterial to his arguments against abortion, stem cell research, and the like *as long as* the arguments themselves make no appeal to these religious beliefs. I would think this applies to the philosophical positions one is arguing from: you don't have to believe Mary was immaculately conceived to accept the Aristotelian/Thomistic line (inherited by the Church) about what 'being' is and certainly can jettison all religious dogma while hanging on to the telic nature that Thomistic ethics presents. Alasdair MacIntyre demonstrated that much. However, once *dogmatic*, instead of rational, justifications are given for these positions then they cease to be *public* reasons (to use Rawls' term) for accepting this or that position. This leads me to ...

2. For those of you who are at least somewhat pro life explain how 'personhood' of fetuses can be argued without appeal to religious dogma. The examples I usually find for a sort of rational attempt at 'personhood begins at conception' ascribe a purely *biological* nature to 'personhood' I don't think it strictly demonstrable. If it does have a purely biological nature then I would think the pro choice position is in some serious trouble. However, it strikes me as an abuse of words to think of a 2 week old fetus as a 'person'. On the other hand ...

3. The argument I've seen floated around here, namely that personhood begins at birth, also seems to ascribe a purely biological character to personhood that is also not demonstrable. Perhaps some of you could enlighten me but I don't see 'what's so damn special' about birth in terms of telling us anything about personhood especially since there isn't a one-to-one mapping between fetal development and time of birth.

The concept of 'personhood' seems to be the problem, in my opinion. Yes, it may *have* a legal definition (which we don't seem to agree upon) but that definition must be based on *something* (at least 'something other than religious dogma').

Thoughts?

Thomas:

"Tweety" is a nickname for the pundit Chris Matthews. Why, I dunno.

Criminal conspiracies are hatched in private all the time. That doesn't mean the crimes themselves are private, obviously. If you believe that a fetus has the legal status of a newborn, then a decision to abort the child leads to a non-private crime in the same way, because it was perpetrated on a being that had no say in the matter.

I see the logical trap you set, and I respond by saying that there is simply no conensus that a fetus deserves that legal status. If a fetus isn't a person, then as Kevin says -- no harm, no foul.

Now is a fetus a "human life?" Well, duh. Your arm is also human life -- does that make amputating it murder? The salient question is when that human life develops a separable individuality apart from its mother to the extent that it can be granted the same legal rights that she enjoys. There is no social consensus on that matter.

GOP:

I have not pretended to offer definitive arguments either way, but I'd like to agree with you. I think you make a good point that birth is universally recognized across cultures as the beginning of personhood -- although there can be supplemental arguments that advance that claim backwards into the womb.

In order for this answer to be fully satisfactory, though -- it has to be universally acceptible, and there are problems with it. Allow me to play devil's advocate:

First, you're wrong about viability. It, and the trimester framework that supports it, is the cornerstone of Roe v Wade. Viability, the scientific attempt to define the moment previously known as "the quickening," is a pretty universally recognized standard as to when the fetus passes from a clump of tissue to the ontological class of human being. The exact moment will never be known, but there's a general consensus about this in the medical community -- and it is in an important way independent of the developing technology that allows preemies to survive at younger and younger ages.

Now -- should this moment define the start of personhood? I'd like to argue it shouldn't, because, once again, there's no hard-and-fast way to define it for every pregnancy, and fetal development is entirely on a continuum -- without a magical heavenly "whump!" moment of ensoulment. This drives pro-lifers crazy and they go into all sorts of denial about it, ultimately having to march with their convictions all the way back to the moment of conception.

At the moment of conception, of course, the newly-formed zygote is of an entirely different ontological class as a human being. And there is the great paradox of this whole debate.

So what we're going to have to do is to look for a different set of criteria to define "personhood" than what defines "human life." Nobody would argue that a zygote isn't human life anymore than they'd argue that Thomas' arm isn't human life. The question becomes one of appropriate legal rights, not ontological status per se.

So what are the qualities of personhood? You yourself made a good set of points problematizing the initial criterion of parasitism I put forth. Infants are parasitic; so are to an only slightly lesser extent the elderly and infirm. Is it self-consciousness? Edo problematizes that, because newborns can hardly be said to possess self-consciousness. Is it consciousness in itself -- sentience? Well, here it gets tricky, because science amply demonstrates that third-trimester fetuses hardly flatline EEGs. They can experience pain, they move, perhaps they even dream (some people believe they can recover their in-utero memories).

This is why what social consensus that does exist strongly discourages third-trimester abortions (and they are outlawed in Roe v Wade except in the cases where their birth will harm the mother). But what I think we both want to do is to avoid criminalizing abortions even in the third trimester. And this is why I feel the "personhood" standard should be advanced beyond that point.

Here it gets exceedingly tricky, because it's very hard to think of criteria for personhood that a newborn possesses and a third-trimester fetus doesn't. Birth is a cross-culturally recognized standard more out of tradition and a lack of scientific knowledge than anything which can be grounded empirically or even rationally. I have no problem settling on a socially-constructed standard; birth already is for these imperfect reasons. I would, however, like to find a set of concrete reasons to make the at-birth argument more compelling for the sake of drawing up a hard-and-fast legal standard.

And my overriding interest there is to avoid criminalizing both pregnant women and their healthcare professionals.

I am more than open to suggestions on this.

Bob

The argument I've seen floated around here, namely that personhood begins at birth, also seems to ascribe a purely biological character to personhood that is also not demonstrable.

Personhood is an abstract concept, not an empirical characteristic. So it's not demonstrable, period. But given the need to distinguish persons from non-persons in law and culture, we need some empirical criterion to make that distinction. That criterion is (human) birth.

I find it plausible that the criterion for personhood may be modified or expanded in the future if we ever encounter extraterrestrial life with human-like intelligence, or invent intelligent machines, or create intelligent apes through genetic engineering.

GOP:

Is not wanting to be seen shopping at Costco enough of an "important aspect" in a woman's life to justify 2 abortions?

Edo:

What do you have to say about Windhorse and the "plenty of people who are thoughtful and believe that abortion at least at certain stages of fetal development is not the end of a human life"?

rmck1,

The Supreme Court has now rejected the trimester framework in Roe in favor of the "undue burden" standard. Justice O'Connor, the architect of this change, explicitly rejected the idea that viability provides a stable basis for the state's interest in protecting the life of the fetus (let alone in distinguishing persons from non-persons), declaring the analysis in Roe to be "on a collision course with itself" due to the fact that medical advances have pushed, and are likely to continue to push, viability back to increasingly early points in pregnancy. Additionally, viability was never a clear line even under Roe, not only because it is an inherently fuzzy criterion, but because the health "exception" guaranteed the de facto availability of legal abortion on demand even after viability. And in other countries, viability has never had even the minimal legal significance that it has had in the United States. The overwhelmingly dominant standard for distinguishing persons from non-persons is birth.

GOP:

Is not wanting to be seen shopping at Costco enough of an "important aspect" in a woman's life to justify 2 abortions?

Here it gets exceedingly tricky, because it's very hard to think of criteria for personhood that a newborn possesses and a third-trimester fetus doesn't.

Every fetus, no matter how mature, is physically connected to and enclosed within a woman's body and is uniquely dependent on that physical connection to provide the nutrition, hydration, oxygen and warmth necessary to sustain its life. It has no meaningful mental or physical interaction with the world. None of this is true of a baby. That seems to me a rather important difference.

GOP:

Is not wanting to be seen shopping at Costco enough of an "important aspect" in a woman's life to justify 2 abortions?

Windhorse,

What Edo thinks is immaterial to the general question you asked, and there are plenty of people who are thoughtful and believe that abortion at least at certain stages of fetal development is not the end of a human life.

While I agree that what I think is immaterial to your ongoing discussion with Thomas, may I ask for clarification on your view that a zygote is not human life? Clearly its living. Clearly it is of the species homo sapiens. Ergo its human life. If you disagree with this, admittedly narrow and simplistic view, please explain why.

Please do not assume that I equate "human life" with "personhood". That is an assumption that Thomas apparently is making, yet will not defend. I am more than willing to definitively state that I am taking a very strict view of "human life" to mean a) living and b) human. Cognition, demonstrable intent, self-awareness, etc. are not necessary to apply the term human life. If you disagree, please elaborate.

Here it gets exceedingly tricky, because it's very hard to think of criteria for personhood that a newborn possesses and a third-trimester fetus doesn't.

It is tricky as, at least in moral terms, a newborn is not a person. Demonstrable self-awareness and intent are key elements in determing moral personhood.

Does this mean that it is morally acceptable to terminate the life of a newborn? Not necessarily. Then why, you might ask, is it morally acceptable to terminate the life of a zygote, embryo or fetus (z/e/f)? Because the rights of the z/e/f conflict with a universally accepted person, the mother. The born baby has no conflict with another specific, unique person.

GOP said:
"Personhood is an abstract concept, not an empirical characteristic. So it's not demonstrable, period. But given the need to distinguish persons from non-persons in law and culture, we need some empirical criterion to make that distinction. That criterion is (human) birth."

Perhaps I could be clearer (and I mean no disrespect at all in what follows). I was not saying that personhood is an empirical characteristic. What I was saying is that the standard pro life position, and yours ironically, assumes a biological *character* to what personhood is as if biological processes could tell us anything, either directly or indirectly via some empirical criteria, about personhood. The standard pro choice, position, on the other hand ascribes a purely psychological character to personhood, though this position presents us with other problems. In the common use of the word a 'person' would be someone who is conscious, could reason, has free will, is a rational free agent, etc. etc. Notice the complete lack of reference to neurological processes and the like in the common description.

I don't see how either the standard pro life position, choosing the empirical criterion for personhood as the act of fertilization, or your position, choosing the empirical criterion for personhood to be birth actually have anything to do with what personhood is.

You say a fetus experiences a unique life-sustaining dependence on the physical connection to the mother via nutrition, hydration, and oxygen and has no meaingful mental or physical interaction with the world whereas a baby does. I don't buy the 'no meaningful connection' part.

Of course it has a mental or physical interaction with the world. Is the uterus 'out of this world'? The distinction you make is a very artificial one insofar as it tells us whether the fetus is experiencing anything in this 'world'. If an advanced fetus had no sensory experience at all, even the most mundane, during gestation then I could understand the 'no connection' part (though this feature still seems entirely divorced from what should matter for personhood). But a complete lack of sensory experience is not a feature, for example, of a fetus days/weeks before birth. And it's question begging to say that this experience doesn't 'count' because it's not 'meaningful' (by what standards are we defining 'meaningful'?).

Respectfully,
tdc

It is tricky as, at least in moral terms, a newborn is not a person. Demonstrable self-awareness and intent are key elements in determing moral personhood.

I think newborns are demonstrably self-aware. But you state your claim about the "key elements" of personhood as if it's a fact, when it's just an opinion.

I think that it is empirical to say before giving birth I can only observe one human being and after givng birth I can observe two human beings.

Cognition, demonstrable intent, self-awareness, etc. are not necessary to apply the term human life. If you disagree, please elaborate.

I don't disagree that a zygote is "human life" in the same sense that a skin cell or spleen is human life, and analagous to how extraterrestrial bacteria would broadly be termed "alien life."

I don't believe, however, that a zygote is a human person entitled to protection under the law, in contradistinction to Cheney Thomas's view.

I didn't mean to come off as disrespectful to you or your argument and I apologize if I did. I was simply using that phrase to that draw attention to the fact that Cheney/Thomas was avoiding the issue.

GOP:

I think it can be demonstrated that newborns are not self-aware as in having a refelctive self-consciousness (or apperception).

For a newborn, Cogito Ergo Sum is meaningless.

I don't know at what age newborns start to exibit signs of self-reflectivity, but the Terrible Twos is generally the time when babies have finally fully realized that they are not co-extensive with the world.

Bob

Thomas,

Windhorse replied to me:

I don't disagree that a zygote is "human life" in the same sense that a skin cell or spleen is human life, and analagous to how extraterrestrial bacteria would broadly be termed "alien life."

I don't believe, however, that a zygote is a human person entitled to protection under the law, in contradistinction to Cheney Thomas's view.

Windhorse and I appear to be in agreement that a z/e/f is human life. As you love to state: next question?

Bob, thanks for debunking GOPs nonsense.

What I was saying is that the standard pro life position, and yours ironically, assumes a biological *character* to what personhood is as if biological processes could tell us anything, either directly or indirectly via some empirical criteria, about personhood.

Well, all entities currently recognized as persons are biological entities, so it seems strange to deny that personhood, as currently conceived, has a "biological character."

As I said, I think it's plausible that our concept of personhood may be broadened in the future to include non-biological entities such as intelligent machines, if we ever invent or encounter them.

I don't see how either the standard pro life position, choosing the empirical criterion for personhood as the act of fertilization, or your position, choosing the empirical criterion for personhood to be birth actually have anything to do with what personhood is.

Huh? But your opinion about "what personhood is" is just that--your opinion. It's not a fact. It's not demonstrable. It's just your subjective judgement. And the social and legal consensus about personhood seems to strongly reject your subjective judgment, because as a matter of law and culture personhood is defined almost entirely in terms of birth.

You say a fetus experiences a unique life-sustaining dependence on the physical connection to the mother via nutrition, hydration, and oxygen and has no meaingful mental or physical interaction with the world whereas a baby does. I don't buy the 'no meaningful connection' part. Of course it has a mental or physical interaction with the world. Is the uterus 'out of this world'?

I'm talking about "the world" in the sense of the environment outside of its mother's body. A fetus has no meaningful interaction with that world. A baby does. That seems to me a very important difference.

The distinction you make is a very artificial one insofar as it tells us whether the fetus is experiencing anything in this 'world'.

I don't know how it's "artificial." We know as a matter of scientific fact that fetuses have little or no mental or physical interaction with the world. At most, they can perceive certain sounds occurring outside their mother's body, but that's about it. Babies, on the other hand, have the full range of sensory perception of the world--sight, sound, taste, touch and smell--and interact with the world physically using their bodies.

Windhorse,

I didn't mean to come off as disrespectful to you or your argument and I apologize if I did. I was simply using that phrase to that draw attention to the fact that Cheney/Thomas was avoiding the issue.

I was fairly certain you and I were on the same page. I agree that Cheney/Thomas/Charlie is being willingly deceitful in this matter. For the record, I agree with the following line from your prior comment and moreover would apply it to morality, not just legality:

I don't believe, however, that a zygote is a human person entitled to protection under the law, in contradistinction to Cheney Thomas's view.

GOP,

And the social and legal consensus about personhood seems to strongly reject your subjective judgment, because as a matter of law and culture personhood is defined almost entirely in terms of birth.

That may be true in terms of culture and law, but it most definately is not true in terms of morality. A baby is not a moral actor; thus morally speaking it is not a person.

Bob,

So what are the qualities of personhood? You yourself made a good set of points problematizing the initial criterion of parasitism I put forth. Infants are parasitic; so are to an only slightly lesser extent the elderly and infirm. Is it self-consciousness? Edo problematizes that, because newborns can hardly be said to possess self-consciousness.

In moral terms, I see no problem with using self-consciousness, self-awareness, demonstrable intent, etc. as defining characteristics of personhood.

rmck1,

I think it can be demonstrated that newborns are not self-aware as in having a refelctive self-consciousness (or apperception).

I guess it depends in part on what you mean by "reflective." What I mean is that even very young babies are apparently aware of themselves as a distinct entity existing apart from other entities in the world around them. Chimpanzees also seem to have this ability, and probably other animals too. But I don't think it's an important point anyway, because the presence of absence of "reflective self-consciousness" does not determine whether or not a being is a person, as far as I'm concerned. A baby born in a coma is still a person, in my view, just as an adult in a coma is a person.

Edo:

I don't think in this context we should be talking about moral personhood. Insane people who cannot cognize the difference between right and wrong, are not moral persons in this sense. Neither are people in comas. Nobody would deny either sort of person the legal category of personhood -- and I don't think we should deny it of infants, either.

Legal personhood should be a broader category, and should exclude issues like cognizant responsibility for actions.

Bob

Hope I didn't miss this in an earlier post:

What about laws which make it murder of some degree if an assault on a pregnant woman causes the death of the unborn?

From what some of the pro-choice folks say, it might depend on whether the mom--should she survive--said about wanting the kid. Suppose she's assaulted on the way to an abortion appointment. The assailant would skate? Or to a baby shower? Really hard luck for the assailant.

The thing that seems to be the elephant in the room--the invisible elephant--is what happens in an extremely late-term abortion when the kid gets all the way out. He's born. Now what? There are reports, from time to time, that the borned kid--now a genuine life according to the pro-choice folks who are not considering this situation--gets offed anyway. If you want to make certain that it remains legal that a woman who really does not want to come home with a kid does not have to, regardless of something slipping, then the definition of "life" will have to expand beyond no umbilical cord.
I can't imagine a pro-choice advocate suggesting that one of those unforeseen things happening during an abortion procedure means the mom has to take the kid home.

GOP:

I don't disagree with you there. I examined reflective self-consciousness (apperception) precisely to problematize it as a criterion for legal personhood.

Bob

A baby is not a moral actor; thus morally speaking it is not a person.

But in our culture and law it is not necessary to be a moral actor to be a person. As you say, a baby is not a moral actor. But it is a person. Perhaps you seek to change our law our culture to classify babies as non-persons unless and until they become moral actors, but if so I doubt you will be successful, and I see no good reason for making that change.

GOP:

While agreeing with your larger point, I don't think you're factually correct about infant psychology, though. I do not believe newborns are aware of themselves as distinct entities in the world.

Adult chimpanzees, yes (hell, even Bush :) Human infants, no -- at least not in the first months.

Bob

Adults in comas are not "aware" of themselves either, so I really hope that is not the direction you are headed.

rmck1,

I think we're basically on the same page. I'm not suggesting that birth perfectly satisfies our moral intuitions or intellectual reflections about the proper criterion for personhood. I don't think there is such a perfect line. But birth comes closer than any of the alternatives that have been suggested, including conception, "start of brain activity," or viability.

GOP:

Does the "undue burden" standard even comment on viability? I know Sandra Day O'Connor's "on a collision course with itself" quote about viability, but the undue burden standard doesn't comment at all on at what point an abortion would be legal, but rather how many hurdles the state can put between a woman and an abortion in the interest of getting her to re-think her decision.

Viability is certainly a different thing today than it was in 1973, to be sure. But at the same time, a 20-week old fetus without developed lungs will never be viable despite any advances in medical technology.

Fuzzy though the standard may be (and that was a point in my initial post), it's still a rule of thumb used by medical professionals.

I do believe it should be replaced with a less specifically biological standard of personhood, and on that you and I agree.

I still have questions about birth, though ...

Bob

In my house we call Chris Matthews 'Big Mouth.' And not just because of Bush's package.

I still have questions about birth, though ...

Well, when a daddy loves a mommy he puts a seed in her tummy.... ;)

Does the "undue burden" standard even comment on viability?

I'm not sure what that question means. My point is that the court has now abandoned viability as the point at which the state's interest in protecting fetal life becomes sufficiently great that it may justify prohibiting abortion. And viability never really was a meaningful line anyway, because of the health exception.

Viability is certainly a different thing today than it was in 1973, to be sure. But at the same time, a 20-week old fetus without developed lungs will never be viable despite any advances in medical technology.

You obviously don't know that. If a sufficiently advanced super-incubator (essentially, an "artificial womb") is developed it may eventually be possible to remove an embryo or fetus from a woman's body at any age or level of development and safely complete its gestation outside her body.

Fuzzy though the standard may be (and that was a point in my initial post), it's still a rule of thumb used by medical professionals.

Huh? Rule of thumb for what? Not for personhood. Not for legal abortion. Again, the "rule" for personhood is (correctly, in my view) birth. Not conception. Not "start of brain activity." Not viability. Not "start of reflective self-consciousness." But birth. I thought you agreed with this.

mkultra,

Adults in comas are not "aware" of themselves either, so I really hope that is not the direction you are headed.

In what direction do you assume I am headed?

Bob,

I don't think in this context we should be talking about moral personhood. Insane people who cannot cognize the difference between right and wrong, are not moral persons in this sense. Neither are people in comas. Nobody would deny either sort of person the legal category of personhood -- and I don't think we should deny it of infants, either.

Oh. I didn't realize this discussion was limited to the only legal categorizations. Frankly, I don't have much to add there and would gladly defer to cmdicely or possibly yourself in that context. I am primarily interested in the morality of the topic.

GOP:

Well, unfortunately you're beginning to become dogmatic in what was previously an exploratory discussion.

Viability is still the criteria by which *discretionary* third-trimester abortions are illegalized in all jurisdiction of which I'm aware. "Undue burden" refers to the test for various state restrictions on *legal* abortion (i.e. prior to at least the third trimester), so it's an entirely separate issue.

Viability is also a commonly-understood and accepted rule of thumb. Try to tell a couple seeing a sonogram of their third-trimester pregnancy, mom feeling kicks etc. that this creature is not a baby, much less a person, and in most cases you'll meet stiff resistance. Viability, though an imperfectly defined standard, is still more than relevant and we need to grapple with that if we're looking for a social consensus on a more appropriate standard.

Postulating super-incubators is a neat rhetorical trick, but it says nothing about the status quo. Pigs could fly out of my butt, too. You cannot *deliver* a 20-week-old fetus without lungs and expect it to survive, now or in the forseeable future -- though perhaps you could grow one from scratch in some kind of futuristic artificial womb.

I'd *like* to agree with you and find a way to define birth as the starting point for personhood. But we can't just *declare* it so; we need cogent reasons we can present to that couple with the sonogram and the fetal kicks, and have them accept the reasoning as well.

Postulating an ideal social consensus only works if people accept it in the real world.

Bob

GOP,

Perhaps you seek to change our law our [SIC] culture to classify babies as non-persons unless and until they become moral actors,...

I seek no such change. As mentioned previously, I'm interested in the moral/ethical dimension of the topic, not the legality.

rmck1,

Well, unfortunately you're beginning to become dogmatic in what was previously an exploratory discussion.

A typically vacuous rmck1 accusation. "Dogmatic" about what?

Viability is still the criteria by which *discretionary* third-trimester abortions are illegalized in all jurisdiction of which I'm aware.

Then you need to become more aware. First, elective (what I assume you mean by "*discretionary*") third-trimester abortion has been criminalized in only some states, and, second, and more importantly, all such laws are effectively null and void because of the expansive health exception. The health exception effectively guarantees the right to abortion on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If you doubt this, show me even one example of a successful prosecution of an illegal third-trimester abortion at any time during the 33 years since Roe was decided. To my knowledge, there hasn't been even one such prosecution, despite the fact that there are around 10,000 third-trimester abortions a year. To succeed, such a prosecution would have to prove that the abortion was not necessary to protect the pregnant woman's health, defined by the Supreme Court as "all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial and the woman's age — relevant to the well-being of the patient." Since virtually any abortion can be justified under such a broad definition of "health," it would be virtually impossible to secure a conviction. "Viability" is not now and never has been since Roe a meaningful obstacle to elective abortion in America.

Viability is also a commonly-understood and accepted rule of thumb.

I ask again: rule of thumb for what? Not for personhood. Not for legal abortion. So what is the relevance of this alleged "rule of thumb" to these issues?

Try to tell a couple seeing a sonogram of their third-trimester pregnancy, mom feeling kicks etc. that this creature is not a baby, much less a person, and in most cases you'll meet stiff resistance.

What does this claim have to do with viability? If the couple wants to complete the pregnancy and have a baby, then they'd probably respond that way to a sonogram of their recognizably human fetus regardless of whether the sonogram was taken before or after viability. So again, I have no idea what you think this has to do with your "viability = rule of thumb" claim.

Viability, though an imperfectly defined standard, is still more than relevant

"More than relevant" to what? Not to personhood. Not to legal abortion. So what is its relevance?

Postulating super-incubators is a neat rhetorical trick,

It's not a "rhetorical trick," it's a response to your claim that "a 20-week old fetus without developed lungs will never be viable despite any advances in medical technology." You simply do not know whether that's true or not. You don't know what the limits of future medical technology are.

but it says nothing about the status quo.

It wasn't intended to say anything about the status quo. As I said, it was a response to your unjustified claim that technological advances will never allow a 20-week-old fetus to be viable.

I'd *like* to agree with you and find a way to define birth as the starting point for personhood.

Well, I don't really care if you do. As matter of law and culture, we have settled on birth as the point at which a new person begins to exist.

But we can't just *declare* it so; we need cogent reasons we can present to that couple with the sonogram and the fetal kicks, and have them accept the reasoning as well.

The couple most likely already does accept the reasoning because the social and legal consensus in this country is that fetuses are not persons but babies are (whatever words a couple might use in a moment of excitement when they see a sonogram of their future baby).

Well, Edo, I'm going to have to group you with those like Windhorse and Don P. then -- I didn't know you were maintaining that a zygote is only a "human life" in the same sense that a skin cell or spleen is human life, and analagous to how extraterrestrial bacteria would broadly be termed "alien life." Good luck with that.

Bob / rmck1:

I, at least, appreciate your open mind to the whole situation. Especially if we can get the Supreme Court to magically declare one day that "person" means humans from conception, you will be able to cope with it. Others are going to immediately thrown themselves off buildings and light themselves on fire.

Well, Edo, I'm going to have to group you with those like Windhorse

Yeah, for some reason I just can't get past the stubborn belief that a single cell is not the same thing morally, legally, physically or metaphysically as a fully formed human being with differentiated cells and organs and limbs. I guess I'm just crazy that way.

Have a lot of one-celled friends, do you? That would explain some things....

Windhorse:

No, but I know some Snowflake babies.

Some people couldn't get past the stubborn belief that Jews were not the same thing morally, legally, physically or metaphysically as Nazis. I guess you're just crazy that way.

Some people couldn't get past the stubborn belief that slaves were not the same thing morally, legally, physically or metaphysically as plantation owners. I guess you're just crazy that way.

Jumping in late, after having missed about 3000 posts...

I don't believe in a soul distinct from the body. So what embodies "me" is in my noggin. And to my mind, once the fetus had a differentiated set of neurons that start pinging each other and training the old neural net, it has started on the runaway chain reaction that ends up as a human. And that's the breakpoint for me.

Some people couldn't get past the stubborn belief that women were not the same thing morally, legally, physically or metaphysically as men. I guess you're just crazy that way.

Some people couldn't get past the stubborn belief that Christians were not the same thing morally, legally, physically or metaphysically as Romans. I guess you're just crazy that way.

Some people couldn't get past the stubborn belief that Indians were not the same thing morally, legally, physically or metaphysically as settlors. I guess you're just crazy that way.

Some people couldn't get past the stubborn belief that Jews (4,000 years earlier) were not the same thing morally, legally, physically or metaphysically as Egyptians. I guess you're just crazy that way.

As a potential answer to Spacebaby's comments regarding why an unborn human has the right to a biologically parasitic lifestyle that no other human has a right to..
In the act of having willingly having sex a woman is intentionally giving one or more of her egg cells the opportunity to become a distinct living member of the human species, in a parasitic relationship to her. Very few, if any, women do not know that this is what they are doing by having sex. Even if they do not want to have children, and even if the reason they are having sex has nothing to do with a desire to get pregnant. It is not like thier unborn children spontaneously appear in their wombs without the mother's involvement. The unborn is not responsible for their parasitic situation, the mother and father are. In the case of a woman being raped, it is only the father that is responsible. For a woman to willingly have sex, and then when she finds that, lo and behold, sex has had the exact result it was designed by God/nature to perform and created a new life, and then to object that the life she created is living in her body as a parasite in the position she forced the unborn into.. seems rather.. unjust. The unborn have a right to a parasitic lifestyle because they were literally forced into that life by the actions of their parents, and have literally no alternatives available to them.

On the topic of conservative vs liberal view of human nature.. perhaps most of us can agree that mankind has a rather foul side to it's nature, and that most of us have the capacity to overcome our flaws. Leaving out extremist who would deny one of those basic points, perhaps the split is more subtle: whether, absent societal inducements, mankind will tend to overcome its flaws. Liberals seem to me to assume incentives are irrelevant or at least unnecessary.. that people will work hard even if you pay lazy layabouts as much as you pay the hardest workers, that people will use drugs responsibly if they were legal and widely available, etc. Democrats have said, for example, that they want abortion to be "safe, legal and rare", without suggesting an inducement for why people would chose not to have abortions (i.e. to make them rare) if we were to make them safer and legaller. Some possibilities include making them prohibitively expensive (though that would seem to defeat the point) or making them socially stigmatized (which the liberals/Democrats seem particularly opposed to). So.. those of you who want abortion to be safe, legal and rare.. what -would- you do to make them rare? Pay women to carry their children to term? But that would create a moral hazard if the price was high enough: women might get knocked up just to essentially sell their kids. Personally, I'm all for cheap/free easily available contraceptives to prevent the pregnancies in the first place, despite (or to my thinking because of) the fact that I am pro-life. However, people need to understand that these countermeasures, short of all out sterilization, are not infallible. Condoms break. Birth control occassionally fails. And on rare occasions a tiny little egg cell squeezes its way out of a tied tube. And every time that happens and an unintended member of the human race is created, I object to its destruction, even if I am not entirely certain it's a person. Yet.

I think I've rambled incoherently enough. You may now commense disagreement.

No, I agree with you, except to note that some contraceptives can cause abortions themselves and that an unborn child of a rape has that same right to a parasitic lifestyle because she was literally forced into that life by the action of one parent (I have no problem with the death penalty for rapists), and as you pointed out has literally no alternatives available.

Yep -- except Christians, slaves, Jews, and Indians were all clearly human. You can't even see one cell with the naked eye.

Moreover, on the spectrum of bleeding-heartism I'm waaaay past you buddy, so the cute analogies don't hold water. Plus, I'm part aboriginal, an advocate of women's rights, and hold very non-mainstream religious beliefs -- so I'm pretty sensitive to the plight of the underdog.

On the contrary, I'd bet from your comments here that you'd just as soon press a button and have everyone on earth that you deem to be a "terrorist" instantly killed -- no trial, no jury, no mercy. And probably doctors who perform abortions, and maybe even practicing homosexuals (or maybe it's ok if the sodomites just rot in jail ).

In fact, your inability to feel empathy toward "born" human beings is pretty clear, and if I were to armchair psychologize I just might suggest that you are so obsessed with the idea of protecting zygotes and embryos because in your mind they are the only clearly innocent "humans" and thereby the only ones deserving of protection.

Everybody else can just go to hell, particularly anybody who doesn't agree with your narrow political and moral views.

But I'd never armchair psychologize.

Well, that's good to hear -- you'd much rather base your law & morality on out of sight, out of mind. Which is why the ultrasound and other high-tech imaging is so important to the pro-life movement.

"Is it "authoritative" to punish a mother for thinking her 3-year-old child is the devil that needs to be drown?"

Yes.

"Why isn't that just covered under "reproductive rights"?"

No reproduction is taking taking place.

"And if another group wants to impose their belief on said mother in that regard, do you similarly blame the group for "creating the conflict" instead of the mother?"

No.

Bush is right not to use the term "murder." There are two reasons I avoid it myself in this context. First, it is a legal concept with technical definitions, and these are not uniform across jurisdictions. Second, even in ordinary parlance, the term has no stable meaning. Plainly not all homicides are "murders" either as a technical legal matter or in ordinary parlance. To the (very limited) extent that the term has a core meaning in ordinary parlance, it connotes a malicious homicide. Even those of us who oppose certain forms of stem-cell research because they involve what we regard as the unjust tak

"Postulating an ideal social consensus only works if people accept it in the real world."

Oh man, is that what I keep doing wrong?! : )
___________________

"Very few, if any, women do not know that this is what they are doing by having sex . . ."

So if I understand your comments correctly, I presume you think that no potentially fertile woman should ever have sex with a potentially fertile man unless she is willing right then to carry any resulting pregnancy to term. After all, as you point out, anything short of total sterilization has at least a small chance of resulting in pregnancy.

Would you agree?

"lo and behold, sex has had the exact result it was designed by God/nature to perform and created a new life"

Actually, given our species' fairly bizarre sexual habits (women don't go into heat, couples will have sex at any time during the woman's cycle), it's not implausible to see human sexual behavior as having evolved so as to play an additional role in terms of pair-bonding, etc.

"perhaps the split is more subtle: whether, absent societal inducements, mankind will tend to overcome its flaws."

This is an interesting distinction, and I think you're on to something . . . but not quite there, esp. in terms of liberal positions. Both think this, they just see where these inducements are diferently

"Liberals seem to me to assume incentives are irrelevant or at least unnecessary"

This isn't right. However, in some cases, liberals tend to assume that many incentives and inducements are in fact (or at least potentially) present within society and even people themselves, in their relationships, especially if we strive a just, equitable caring society - in all the things that tie us together. Sometimes they think that they have to help put these inducements in place - see below.

"that people will work hard even if you pay lazy layabouts as much as you pay the hardest workers'
I don't think this is a liberal position. (Although here we get the idea that conservative incentives, in this view, are largely financial).

" that people will use drugs responsibly if they were legal and widely available, etc"
Nor is this. Although here we get to meet negative incentives, so to speak - fines, imprisonment, social stigmitiaztion, etc.

"Democrats have said, for example, that they want abortion to be "safe, legal and rare", without suggesting an inducement for why people would chose not to have abortions (i.e. to make them rare) if we were to make them safer and legaller"

And here we get to some very interesting bits, especially considering the remark following about "women might get knocked up just to essentially sell their kids" (echoing, of course, criticisms of welfare) The image of conservative thought presented here as reflected in a distorted liberal mirror) comes across as obsessed with getting and spending, as recognizing no social ties, principles, or aims not mediated by money - or at least by a form of greed and need. It's at least a reasonable assumption that everyone's out to game the system, to grab what they can get. We get another echo of this in health insurance reforms that insist that people are tossing away money on useless health care while not taking appropriate precautions through overgenerous and cushion-y coverage, and we have to make them be responsible, and avoid this sort of moral hazard.

This all is not unlike a secularized, fairly specific, and rather dry version of Wolfdaughter's original distinction, where conservatives think people"are inherently weak and evil and unable to control their basest impulses."

Now, certainly these traits discussed above are part of human nature (and certainly economics constrains and influences people to an enormous degree - and various aspects of conservatism may be particularly adaptive in certain conditions and societies). But in this version of conservative thought, they loom particularly large, overshadowing almost all else. It's as if conservatism has never gotten over the shock of seeing (all those years ago) the last remnants of the old feudal order (and all the old verities) crumble away, to be replaced by a frantic, capitalistic, individualistic, almost atomized 19th century society. A little Miss Havisham-ish . . . (or perhaps more accurately a little Stockholm Sydrome-ish)

Liberals recognize that people have connections, ties, goals, motivations, hopes, etc. that are more complex. For example, they realize that there are situations where some people will strive to work hard despite being paid the same as someone who isn't into the whole striving thing (although they'd also know that this is specific to certain conditions, and is a disincentive that would need to be justified by some other value).

Back to that safe, legal, rare bit.
" without suggesting an inducement for why people would chose not to have abortions (i.e. to make them rare) if we were to make them safer and legaller""

The phrasing almost seems to suggest that many, many more people would be having abortions just because thet could. I assume you understand human nature enough not to think this.

But, of course, the liberal answer is multifaceted, and it would be interesting to see how you would fit it into your distinction.

One part involves working to ensure that family planning information, tools, and etc., are freely and widely available (a very liberal idea - give people information and tools to take charge of their own life - in this case, their fertility - and in general they'll try to do a good job. )
(And as you note, no form of birth control method is 100% effective, but this is a little like complaining that, say, seatbelts and airbags aren't 100% effective. Something is often better than nothing). All else being equal, more comdoms/(etc.), fewer abortions. Note that, as far as I know, most to all major 'pro-life' organizations and figures have either failed to support or actively opposed this aim. (If you feel I'm incorrect, please set me straight).

Another part involves understanding one reason many women have abortions - that women who might otherwise choose to give birth don't because they see this resulting in serious financial or other problems. Guys sometimes have a lot of trouble getting this. Not the idea that kids are expensive - although more than a few unmarried or divorced men in fact make relatively little (or no) financial contribution to their children's upbringing. The idea that having a kid means that most of their life not involved in childrearing is taking a massive, sometimes permanent hit. After all, much of society and to some uncertain (tho' almost certainly more limited than orginally assumed) degree biology is set up with the idea that (middle-class) women will be the primary caregivers of the child(ren), probably at home, while the men work. (Or nowadays, that more women work and often are primary caregivers. There is a minor variation, for the few who can afford it, of having both parents work and hiring another woman, sometimes a mother herself, to be a major caregiver). If having kids meant the mommy-track for men (in terms of both earnings and position), I'm thinking the number of abortions would go through the roof. For single moms . . . . I don't know how they do it.

So along these lines liberals would stress measures that lessen financial insecurity - like minimum wage increases, reliable and affordable health care, strong public schools and affordable, practical higher ed opportunities , etc., - a strong social safety net (welfare as such has basically been about helping poor moms), family-friendly business policies such as sensible and at least somewhat paid maternity (or parental leave), high quality, affordable healthcare. . . .etc., etc. (Chistina Page reminds us:

"Take the Family and Medical Leave Act, which is cherished by the American people. The American public doesn't understand that 90 percent of the opposition to the FMLA was from pro-lifers. The Children's Defense Fund made a list of the worst legislators for children in this country, the people who are making it harder to have a family and to raise a child by stripping Americans of their health-insurance benefits, their unemployment benefits, basically pulling the rug out from under families. A hundred percent of the people who are listed as the worst are pro-life. . . [When I was researching this book,] I was happy to make distinctions and say, Well, we do have evidence that there's a wing of the pro-life movement that supports child care. But [what I found is that] there is no wing."

And the idea that this isn't just paying women to have kids, but that many will be taking advantage of it - simply poppin' them out for the dough - is so alien to the liberal way of thinking as to seem almost delusional.
________

Certainly, these aren't airtight boxes - for example, liberals are no stranger to incentives - especially the kind where you stop your plant from dumping tons of pollution because if not, you're going to get slammed with fines and such - for powerful entities, esp, if less often people.. But interestingly enough, it certainly does sound like conservatives are more about rewards - bribes? and punishment (for people, not busines, I must add), while liberals are more about creating a society that is secure and caring enough that people can seek to realize their goals and dreams.
Sounds oddly *koff-Lakoff-koff* familair

Sorry about typos, random repeated stuff, etc. 's late . . .

Thanks for answering my questions, Hostile. Since you agree with SOME authoritative actions by the State, then I guess it's just a matter of degree. Since you don't consider BORN children part of "reproduction taking place" then you shouldn't have a problem with forced C-sections for viable infants instead of abortions, right?

Dan S.:

There are legitimate reasons for the FEDERAL government to not be involved in passing out contraceptives (before) or welfare (after).

Forced C-sections by the state would be no different than forced abortions by the state. Either forced procedure is an outcome of arbitrary authoritarianism that makes women's uteruses subject to state control. Your religion/ideology enables you to use the power of the state to mutilate women and force them to be incubators. It must make you feel immensely potent to subject women to your moral authority.

"There are legitimate reasons for the FEDERAL government to not be involved in passing out contraceptives (before) or welfare (after)."

Thomas: OT, but giving we're at ~400 comments, - what do you see these as being?

Authoritarian, not authoritative. 's different.

"Since you don't consider BORN children part of "reproduction taking place" then you shouldn't have a problem with forced C-sections for viable infants instead of abortions, right?"

I hope you have a problem with it! What a horrific idea . . .

Have either of you seen previews for a new movie with Clive Owen called "Children of Men"? It's the year 2027, in a chaotic world in which man can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of mankind. We may not be headed for something that dramatic, but who knows?

For the record, I was just seeing where Hostile would draw the line. I'd opt for forced pregnancies, not C-sections, because even just a few weeks premature, babies run a significantly higher risk of death in their first year, suggesting that inducing early labor is more dangerous than many obstetricians previously thought. A normal pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks, and babies born before 37 weeks are considered premature. The risks faced by very premature babies, those born before 32 weeks, are well documented. But over the past decade, doctors have begun using drugs to induce labor a few weeks early for convenience rather than health consideratons.

The new study on the risks of slightly premature births was published in a recent Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers, led by Dr. Michael Kramer of McGill University in Montreal, examined 4.5 million births in the United States and Canada in the 1990's and found that compared with American babies born full-term in 1995, those born at 32 weeks to 33 weeks were about six times as likely to die in their first year. Babies born closer to term, 34 to 36 weeks, were nearly three times as likely to die as full-term infants.

The causes of death included infection, breathing problems, various birth defects and sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. Which, I guess is still better than the alternative of 100% certain death via abortions.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9905E7D91F3FF935A2575BC0A9669C8B63

The BEST scenario, of course, is that a married and loving mother and father want to keep their child. As for why the FEDERAL government should not hand out contraceptives, some can actually CAUSE abortion. It is not the role of a limited FEDERAL government to get involved in that. In exchange for a ban on abortion, if a State wants to pass out contraceptives to married couples, I would have no problem with that. I think someone else above highlighted the problems with "paying" people to carry to term, but given the alternative, I wouldn't mind exploring that possibility as well.

Thomas:

> I, at least, appreciate your open mind to the whole situation.

Well I appreciate that, Thomas, but what I think you're doing
here is confusing my debating style with my position on the issue.
To the extent you're impressed that I'm having a perfectly civil,
relatively non-hyperbolic discussion with people who are otherwise
my political opponents, I take that as a compliment and I thank you.

> Especially if we can get the Supreme Court to magically declare
> one day that "person" means humans from conception, you will be
> able to cope with it. Others are going to immediately thrown
> themselves off buildings and light themselves on fire.

Well, this is pretty conclusive proof to me that you are neither
Cheney nor "Charlie" (whoever that is) nor Don P. or whoever. Abortion
threads pop up on Political Animal pretty regularly, and if you had
seen me debate the issue before you never would say such a thing.

Leaving aside the debates on where life or personhood begins,
pro-choice is one of my most strongly felt positions. If the SCOTUS
"magically" (nicely put) decides to define personhood at conception,
I'd be at street marches and rallies, writing my representatives
and LTEs furiously -- throwing myself off buildings and lighting
myself on fire right alongside the rest of the pro-choice community.

I don't believe the issue revolves around "life" at all. While there
is a small minority of religious pacifists who oppose war, abortion
and the death penalty (and whose views I completely respect), the
vast amount of the so-called pro-life community are conservatives
who believe that the answer to killing is more killing and have no
moral problem whatsoever with blowing the shit out of the Mideast.
Civilian casualties, dead babies from aerial bombardment, perpetual
civil war? -- well, stuff happens. I find this utterly contemptible.

Life, shmife. The pro-life community is about controlling women and
demonizing sexual behavior. Fervent pro-lifers tend to have Biblical
views of patriarchy and "headship," and their real agenda is keeping
women "in their place" -- barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. If
abortion was outlawed in this country, the effect on women's freedom
would be incalculable. This is why, aside from a few obviously
unhinged religious ranters like BONNIE, you see very few women
(if any at all) arguing the pro-life brief in these debates.

Bob

GOP:

>> Well, unfortunately you're beginning to become dogmatic
>> in what was previously an exploratory discussion.

> A typically vacuous rmck1 accusation. "Dogmatic" about what?

Ummm ... let's see: Clinging on to an unprovable hypothetical,
getting into an argument with me after we've thrashed through the
issue and agree about 90%, because I don't agree *100%*, lacking
the sympathetic introspection to put yourself in the shoes of
a couple viewing their "baby" in a sonogram and consider those
views relevant to the debate, factually distorting the reality of
third-trimester abortions with unsourced "info" out of pro-life
talking points, claiming a "social consensus" on birth = personhood
when no politician in America -- not even in San Francisco or the
Upper East Side of Manhattan -- would support a woman's right to
on-demand third trimester abortions, a general callousness and
lack of understanding for any position other than yours ...

Other than that, not very much :)

>> Viability is still the criteria by which *discretionary*
>> third-trimester abortions are illegalized in all
>> jurisdiction of which I'm aware.

> Then you need to become more aware. First, elective (what I
> assume you mean by "*discretionary*") third-trimester abortion
> has been criminalized in only some states, and, second, and
> more importantly, all such laws are effectively null and
> void because of the expansive health exception.

And I call bullshit.

> The health exception effectively guarantees the right to abortion
> on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If you doubt
> this, show me even one example of a successful prosecution of an
> illegal third-trimester abortion at any time during the 33 years
> since Roe was decided. To my knowledge, there hasn't been
> even one such prosecution, despite the fact that there are
> around 10,000 third-trimester abortions a year.

GOP, you pulled that nice, even figure straight out of your butt.
Apparently you don't recall the controversy over this a few years
ago with so-called "partial birth abortions." Third-trimester
abortions are a *bloody mess*. They require crushing the skull
of a fetus and vaccuuming it out. Because they're dangerous and
traumatic for the woman, these things are only performed with
valid medical reasons -- as Congressional testimony from health
professionals had amply demonstrated. And, as I recall the
debate, the number was closer to 300 a year in the US, not 10,000.

> "Viability" is not now and never has been since Roe
> a meaningful obstacle to elective abortion in America.

Elective third-trimester abortion is a pro-life myth created
by trivializing valid therapeutic reasons for having one.

>> Viability is also a commonly-understood and accepted rule of thumb.

> I ask again: rule of thumb for what? Not for personhood.
> Not for legal abortion. So what is the relevance of
> this alleged "rule of thumb" to these issues?

For legal abortion. You'd better have a damn good excuse
to abort a third-trimester fetus, considering you've been
pregnant for six months already. Do a few happen for
strictly-speaking non-therapeutic reasons and women get
away with it? Probably. But not very many, certainly.

10,000 per year? Only in the fevered nightmares of Randall Terry.

>> Try to tell a couple seeing a sonogram of their third-trimester
>> pregnancy, mom feeling kicks etc. that this creature is not a baby,
>> much less a person, and in most cases you'll meet stiff resistance.

> What does this claim have to do with viability?

Everything. Viability is the point at which it's recognized that
a former clump of undifferentiated tissue has become a human life.

> If the couple wants to complete the pregnancy and have
> a baby, then they'd probably respond that way to a sonogram
> of their recognizably human fetus regardless of whether
> the sonogram was taken before or after viability.

Are you for real? A sonogram taken prior to viability would reveal
a tiny lump of tissue, not a recognizable "baby"! That's the whole
*point* of the viability standard. And, as Thomas makes clear, the
sonogram is one of the most potent propaganda weapons in the pro-lifers'
arsenal, because they can use it to persuade women that fetuses are just
like infants. See, tiny little fingers and toes, a heartbeat, etc. ...

It distorts the debate, because by the time you can have a sonogram,
it's past the time that an elective abortion would be advisable and/or
less risky than bringing the fetus to term. And it's not just a cute
couple celebrating their wanted pregnancy -- it makes the point to
*other women* that *this* is what you're destroying with an abortion.

This is a powerful image, and it's part of why there's a social
consensus that whenever legal personhood begins, aborting a
third-trimester fetus is morally wrong. In order to argue for the
birth = personhood standard, we need a way to grapple with this.

> So again, I have no idea what you think this has
> to do with your "viability = rule of thumb" claim.

Prior to the point of viability, only people with the non-mainstream
religious belief that life begins at conception consider abortion a
moral wrong on the level with murder or homicide. Viability is the
fault line of the American social consensus on abortion's morality.

>> Viability, though an imperfectly defined
>> standard, is still more than relevant

> "More than relevant" to what? Not to personhood.
> Not to legal abortion. So what is its relevance?

The broad social and political consensus on abortion.

Polls demonstrate this time and again.

>> Postulating super-incubators is a neat rhetorical trick,

> It's not a "rhetorical trick," it's a response to your claim
> that "a 20-week old fetus without developed lungs will never
> be viable despite any advances in medical technology." You
> simply do not know whether that's true or not. You don't
> know what the limits of future medical technology are.

Neither do you, obviously, so speculating that
it *could* be true is at least as vacuous.

> but it says nothing about the status quo.

> It wasn't intended to say anything about the status quo. As I
> said, it was a response to your unjustified claim that technological
> advances will never allow a 20-week-old fetus to be viable.

Your claim that a 20-week-old fetus might be viable in the future,
pending medical advances (like an artifical placenta), is at least
as unjustifiable -- and subject to no rational check. Maybe in two
centuries hence, humans will grow gills. That's just as arguable.

>> I'd *like* to agree with you and find a way to
>> define birth as the starting point for personhood.

> Well, I don't really care if you do.

Well then, you've certainly seemed to have expended a lot of
energy on a debate which you now apparently consider pointless :)

> As matter of law and culture, we have settled on birth
> as the point at which a new person begins to exist.

If that were strictly true, there'd be no
controversy over aborting "non-persons."

> But we can't just *declare* it so; we need cogent reasons
> we can present to that couple with the sonogram and the
> fetal kicks, and have them accept the reasoning as well.

> The couple most likely already does accept the reasoning because the
> social and legal consensus in this country is that fetuses are not
> persons but babies are (whatever words a couple might use in a moment
> of excitement when they see a sonogram of their future baby).

Right. And what's the dividing line between
a fetus and a "baby" as seen in a sonogram?

Viability.

Bob

GOP:

>> Well, unfortunately you're beginning to become dogmatic
>> in what was previously an exploratory discussion.

> A typically vacuous rmck1 accusation. "Dogmatic" about what?

Ummm ... let's see: Clinging on to an unprovable hypothetical,
getting into an argument with me after we've thrashed through the
issue and agree about 90%, because I don't agree *100%*, lacking
the sympathetic introspection to put yourself in the shoes of
a couple viewing their "baby" in a sonogram and consider those
views relevant to the debate, factually distorting the reality of
third-trimester abortions with unsourced "info" out of pro-life
talking points, claiming a "social consensus" on birth = personhood
when no politician in America -- not even in San Francisco or the
Upper East Side of Manhattan -- would support a woman's right to
on-demand third trimester abortions, a general callousness and
lack of understanding for any position other than yours ...

Other than that, not very much :)

>> Viability is still the criteria by which *discretionary*
>> third-trimester abortions are illegalized in all
>> jurisdiction of which I'm aware.

> Then you need to become more aware. First, elective (what I
> assume you mean by "*discretionary*") third-trimester abortion
> has been criminalized in only some states, and, second, and
> more importantly, all such laws are effectively null and
> void because of the expansive health exception.

And I call bullshit.

> The health exception effectively guarantees the right to abortion
> on demand throughout all nine months of pregnancy. If you doubt
> this, show me even one example of a successful prosecution of an
> illegal third-trimester abortion at any time during the 33 years
> since Roe was decided. To my knowledge, there hasn't been
> even one such prosecution, despite the fact that there are
> around 10,000 third-trimester abortions a year.

GOP, you pulled that nice, even figure straight out of your butt.
Apparently you don't recall the controversy over this a few years
ago with so-called "partial birth abortions." Third-trimester
abortions are a *bloody mess*. They require crushing the skull
of a fetus and vaccuuming it out. Because they're dangerous and
traumatic for the woman, these things are only performed with
valid medical reasons -- as Congressional testimony from health
professionals had amply demonstrated. And, as I recall the
debate, the number was closer to 300 a year in the US, not 10,000.

> "Viability" is not now and never has been since Roe
> a mea