I think "personhood" is a property that a human doesn't gain until a certain level of development. What that level is exactly is unclear, but I do believe that there is a period of early pregnancy when an embryo is not yet a person. Like I said in my original post, I don't believe that simply being inside a uterus makes you fair game for abortion; however, very early on, a fetus is no more sophisticated an organism than a fly. Now, if one wants to make the argument that one should never kill any life, fetus or fly, well, okay. That's a difficult standard to live by, but not impossible, and it's certainly laudable. However, I think it's within reason not to hold some kind of mystical reverence for "life", just because it's "alive".
Argh. I can't believe I'm arguing about abortion. I remember clearly promising myself that I would never do it.
Well, I think its an interesting ethical issue. I don't mind arguing about it because it doesn't make me emotional, as its not a cosmic spiritual matter.
AlexMax wrote:So you have no problems with legislating your own twisted morality on those with different morals than you.
...Hey. I'm not asking it to be made a law or anyhting. I also don't go around telling people it's evil either. It's just part of my own moral complex, nothing more. If I was trying to convince people of it, then perhaps your point would be justified. But that was not my intent. I just wanted to state my opinion on the matter. I am allowed to have my own opinion, right?
@ everyone else who replied to me: *shrugs and spreads his arms wide* What can I say? I'm still a virgin, ya know (hell, I still can't find a girl I like that's not taken). Maybe my opinion will change after I experience it, but until then, I'm just talking out of my ignorance (like a lot of people on the internet).
*AHEM!* Now back to the actualy topic here....
Somehting that's always bugged me aobut the "contraceptives are a sin" argument is this: If using birth control is a sin...then every time you have a wet dream, it's genocide. By that logic, we should spend our entire lives plugged into a member of the opposite sex.
.......That seems incredibly innefficient.
It's so much easier to define personhood if you believe in the concept of a soul. Myself, I have always seen personhood as an extension of the mind. I dunno, maybe I'm wrong about that, but it seems to me that one can only experience anything as a product of the mind. *shrug*
EDIT: Oh, and Aegix, thanks for reminding me of a little song that I think is appropriate here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8
...without even clicking the link, I know, I know that that's Monty Python's "Every Sperm is Sacred" song...
EDIT:Well, whatdya know, I was right.
Eh, I'm personally not going to say a lot on this issue, as I don't feel I have enough information to form a valid opinion. Anything I feel uninformed on, I take an agnostic stance towards.
Archibaldo wrote:Don't have sex, or else you will get pregnant and you will die.
Not quite:
"You're NOT supposed to enjoy having sex. No condoms, no abortions, no sex before marriage, no nothing. Oh, and do us a favor, when you actually have the kid, stay off welfare, because once he's actually born we don't actually give a shit about him anymore."
At the very least this threads proves that only a small minority of AGN is actually downright evil. Of the entire thread, only russadwan and phattonez have exposed themselves to be totally morally reprehensible.
Amaster42 wrote:Eh, I'm personally not going to say a lot on this issue, as I don't feel I have enough information to form a valid opinion. Anything I feel uninformed on, I take an agnostic stance towards.
Do all of us a favor. Next time you want to post in one of my threads essentially saying nothing but 'I have nothing to say on the subject but LOL YOUTUBE', just.....don't.
For me, the issue of abortion is "Whose rights are more important? The mother's, or the unborn child's?"
You can disagree with me all you want on this, but a young girl shouldn't have her life destroyed over a stupid mistake. The option should be there.
Alex makes an interesting point how theres so much fuss over abortions, but once the kid is actually born, people don't care about him. There is so little being done about making sure the kid grows up in a good home. Personally I think abortions are okay. See my previous post about how kids brought into a world not fit for a child has a relation with kids turning into criminals. Essentially, the choice of abortion is prevent a crime spike. Get rid of that and there will be a sky rocketing number of kids being born in broken homes and then growing up to be criminals.
Brings up the question, would you kill one man if it meant saving the lives of two? On one hand it is still murder, but on the other some one is going to die no matter what. Might as well be only one person and that person be a criminal.
Also, I don't believe a human is a human until they've had their first breath. But I still think you shouldn't wait until the last minute to get the abortion. Procrastination is not an option in this scenario.
Beldaran wrote:
I could make the argument that a 1 year old child cannot survive on its own, is not fully developed, and doesn't even have a moral sense of its own existence. We find it gross to kill 1 year old children. I find it gross to kill 1 month old children.
A one year old child can survive outside the womb, and 1 month old baby cannot. There are no machines that would allow it to. Yes, a one year old requires care, feeding, etc, but it has the ability to communicate, breath, eliminate wastes, and a functioning immune system. A month old baby has none of these.
Trevelyan_06 wrote:A one year old child can survive outside the womb,
Explain the magical properties of the womb that cause one to not be a human being if one is located inside of it.
1 year old children die if they are not fed and cared for.
1 month old fetuses die if they are not fed and cared for.
What is the moral difference between killing a helpless person that is on the outside of a vagina, and killing a helpless person that is on the inside of a vagina?
A vagina is not a magic portal of moral virtue. It is just a vagina. For the first 9 months of their lives, human beings live on the inside of vaginas. For the rest of their lives they live on the outside. Killing them on either side is wrong, in my opinion.
What makes a one-month-old embryo a person? It's a largely undifferentiated mass of tissue that happens to have a unique genetic makeup. It has no brain; it cannot think, and it cannot feel. It may be alive in the strictest sense, but it does not yet represent an individual.
AlexMax wrote:Do all of us a favor. Next time you want to post in one of my threads essentially saying nothing but 'I have nothing to say on the subject but LOL YOUTUBE', just.....don't.
I didn't say "I have nothing to say", I said "I have very little to say", and with good reason.
Are any of us a woman whose had an abortion?
Are any of us doctors who have recommended abortions even though we didn't like it?
My guess is no.
None of us have any firsthand experience or knowledge.
What right do we have to dictate on something we know nothing about?
Would you ask an Alaskan for the best cactus farming techniques?
rock_nog wrote:What makes a one-month-old embryo a person?
It's just a very young person. Your personal disapproval of its mental ability and level of physical development does not make it a non-person. Shall we kill anyone you don't think is well developed enough?
Beldaran wrote:It's just a very young person. Your personal disapproval of its mental ability and level of physical development does not make it a non-person. Shall we kill anyone you don't think is well developed enough?
But how can you say something without a brain at all is a person?
rock_nog wrote:But how can you say something without a brain at all is a person?
A fetus is not "without a brain". It's brain hasn't developed yet, but it exists as a series of encoded instructions; source code if you will.
When a 1 year old baby dies suddenly, are we morning the death of a drooling poop machine that isn't intelligent enough to know anything about the world? No, we grieve the individual it was on its way to becoming. We grieve the experiences it will never have. We grieve the death of a developing human.
A twenty-minute old fetus is a human being in the earliest stages of its development. All of its body parts, all of its life and potential, exist as coded instructions for future events, just like with a 12 month old infant.
By condoning abortion, you are making the argument that children who have not reached a level of physical development that you have personally deemed acceptable, may be arbitrarily killed if they become any sort of inconvenience.
How is it that you are the god who gets decide how developed a person must be before they are entitled to their lives?
Don't have sex, or else you will get pregnant and you will die.
This is a bit off topic, but this reminds me of something my 10th grade English teacher said: "Touching either leads to fighting, or babies". Dunno why o-o'
Look, I'm just saying, without a brain, there is no individual to lament the loss of life. The consciousness has not yet come into being - isn't it the consciousness whose loss we mourn?
rock_nog wrote: The consciousness has not yet come into being - isn't it the consciousness whose loss we mourn?
How much direct knowledge do you have about the consciousness level of a 1 month old infant? (a born infant, outside the womb). Is a 1 month old baby conscious? Do you have any memory of being 1 month old? If a 1 month old baby dies, do we feel sad because an interesting person we knew well died? No.
We feel sad because a developing human died. We have no relationship with 1 month old infant. It's brain and mind haven't developed enough to have conversations, to interact with us in a meaningful way.
By your logic, it is perfectly acceptable to kill newborn babies because they haven't developed the ability to demonstrate rational consciousness.
Try asking a newborn if it wants to live. See how many of them say "Yes please, I'd like to live."
We don't kill newborns because we cherish human life. We do kill newly conceived people because we find them inconvenient sometimes.
Beldaran wrote:Explain the magical properties of the womb that cause one to not be a human being if one is located inside of it.1 year old children die if they are not fed and cared for.
1 month old fetuses die if they are not fed and cared for.
The magical property of the womb is that it is in fact a life support system for the fetus. The fetus CAN NOT survive outside the womb up until around 6 or 7 months I believe. Even then, when born prematurely the baby needs massive amounts of life support and may never fully develop. This was the point I was trying to make earlier.
I'm interested in knowing if you are against ALL abortion or just what you consider "capricious" abortion.
Trevelyan_06 wrote:
I'm interested in knowing if you are against ALL abortion or just what you consider "capricious" abortion.
I think women should have the right to an abortion if they are raped, with the caveat that the rapist be charged with murder and get life in prison or the death penalty.
They should also be able to choose abortion if the pregnancy threatens their life or long term health.
All other cases, they need to learn some personal responsibility and live with the consequences of their actions. Killing humans is not a safety valve for stupid behavior.
If abortions were only legal for people that were raped, wouldn't everyone just lie?
With Obama as president women will continue to have the right to an Abortion. There are many doctors who will gladly give them the necessary information and perform the procedure.
I think its foolish and unnecessary to force Doctors and Nurses into something they consider immoral. Doctors have rights too-- including the right to decide for themselves whether they'd like to destroy human fetuses. :shrug:
Beldaran, I still feel that you are not adequately justifying your definition for personhood any more than simply saying "Because I said so." You are, obviously, entitled to your views, but I feel it's philosophically disingenuous to claim that your definition is the only possible definition and that anyone whose opinion is different from yours is inherently wrong.
We can obviously argue this until the end of time, but my issue is with your apparent claim that anyone who believes differently than you do is not only wrong under your moral system, but wrong under any moral system.
It's like - some people argue that the destruction of a fertilized egg is wrong because they believe in the concept of the soul. Obviously, because I don't believe in souls, under my philosophical views, this argument would be wrong. However, at the same time, I still acknowledge that for someone who believed in souls, this argument would be correct.
rock nog -
Read Beldaran's posts again. There is a lot more substance than "Because I said so".
I think your posts would be a lot less flaky if you directly responded to previous posts instead of overgeneralizing. That would at least make it seem like you were thinking about the issue.
gdorf wrote:rock nog - Read Beldaran's posts again. There is a lot more substance than "Because I said so".
I think your posts would be a lot less flaky if you directly responded to previous posts instead of overgeneralizing. That would at least make it seem like you were thinking about the issue.
No, I understand his views. I simply disagree with the assumptions upon which those rules are based, and I disagree with his apparent attitude that those assumptions must be held by everyone.
Now, if you want to get back to the issue, I've got to ask - am I the only one here bothered by the complete lack of necessity of this rule? Forget your stance on abortion or whatever for a moment. Doctors AREN'T forced to perform procedures they don't feel comfortable with. So what purpose does this rule have, other than to stir up controversy? What next? A rule saying that doctors don't have to perform procedures on which they haven't been properly trained?
Remind me to never 'ever' start a thread on this sort of subject outside of General Bitching again. About half of you idiots need a good verbal ripping into, but the last time I stated the obvious I got banned.
fake edit: Looking over this post I'll probably at the very least get warned for it, which means a pretty long vacation at this point. Oh well.
gdorf wrote:With Obama as president women will continue to have the right to an Abortion. There are many doctors who will gladly give them the necessary information and perform the procedure.
I'm willing to bet that you've never had something seriously wrong with you that required going to a couple different doctors to finally get a straight answer. It's bad enough when all you have to chalk up to it is incompetence, now you're telling me that people now have to guess if their doctor is telling them the truth too? Fuck you.
You also obviously don't pay for your own medical care or health insurance or else you wouldn't have allowed yourself to type something so stupid either, because when you start traveling around to different doctors enough eventually it starts becoming very expensive.
And this doesn't even begin to cover people who work hard and live in bum-fuck nowhere and have to take time off of work and travel a couple of hours to get to their nearest doctor. But hey, it's okay if their doctor just says no, right, because their patient can totally afford to keep visiting doctors that are further and further away until they find out the truth, right? Right?
I think its foolish and unnecessary to force Doctors and Nurses into something they consider immoral. Doctors have rights too-- including the right to decide for themselves whether they'd like to destroy human fetuses. :shrug:
There should never be any room for 'moral judgments' when it comes to medical care; you come to your doctor with a problem and you expect 100% factual information out of him or her. Period. End of discussion.
You just wait until you or someone you love has something wrong with them that's hard to figure out. You'll expect 100% factual information out of them. You'll trust them. The absolute last thing you'll want to do is ask yourself "Hrm, now is he /she lying because of some retarded moral objection to one thing or another?"
You think it'll never come back to bite you in the ass, and then it turns out that your doctor is a member of PETA and won't prescribe you anything that was tested on animals by the big pharmaceuticals or something equally stupid.
THINK!
EDIT: Hahaha. What if the doctor had said "I have a moral objection to bringing another one of you kids into the world.
AlexMax wrote: you come to your doctor with a problem and you expect 100% factual information out of him or her. Period. End of discussion.
If a person goes to the doctor, and they think they might be pregnant, and they've never heard of abortion, then your argument would be valid. Unfortunately for you, everyone who has sex knows what an abortion is and they are welcome to find a doctor who is willing to violate the Hippocratic Oath in order to give them one.
But why do we need a special rule for this? Why does the government need to intervene? It seems like an idiotic waste of time to me. Do you seriously believe doctors are currently being forced to perform abortions against their will? The only possible consequence I can see from this is setting the stage for a bunch of lawsuits made by lazy hospital staff who are suddenly going to claim that mopping up the vomit in the hallway violates their moral code.
Alex makes a very valid point. Abortion aside, what if some kid comes into the emergency room because he's been shot in a gang shooting or something? The kid happens to be black. The doctor happens to hate black people. With this law he's legally allowed to refuse to save the kid's life because he morally objects saving black people. So now the black kid doesn't deserve to live? I think he deserves to live a hell of a lot more than an undeveloped fetus.
Also, with out abortions, we wind up with people like Pryme8. Think about it.
Beldaran wrote:If a person goes to the doctor, and they think they might be pregnant, and they've never heard of abortion, then your argument would be valid. Unfortunately for you, everyone who has sex knows what an abortion is and they are welcome to find a doctor who is willing to violate the Hippocratic Oath in order to give them one.
Just because you know about abortion does not mean that you know how to go about getting an abortion. Nor does it mean that you are familiar with all that goes along with said procedure.
Also, abortions violating the Hippocratic Oath is just your opinion, not the opinion of all. Really if you think about it one can argue that cosmetic surgery is against the Hippocratic Oath. They are proscribing something that has no medical necessity.