Roe v Wade is on deck

[ZiprHead]

since you saw fit to butt in on an exchange you weren’t a party to.

Holy crap! You do that all the time.

Yes, I certainly do. What’s your point? Do you see me telling Elixir not to butt in?

You certainly criticized him for it.

I criticized him for butting in without first taking the trouble to read and understand the exchange up to that point, for taking my statements out of context, and for misrepresenting me as implying falsehoods I had in no way implied. If you think I did the same on one or more occasions when I butted in on other people’s discussions, feel free to point them out.

Strange how that happens to you so often, isn't it.

White knighting yourself is your stock and trade.

Not clear on what you mean by that and whether it’s supposed to be a criticism, but if this is part of your implication of hypocrisy on my part, I don’t recall ever accusing anyone else of white knighting.

""White knighting" is a derogatory internet slang term used to describe someone who rushes to the unsolicited defense of another person—typically a woman—in an argument. It implies that the behavior is performative, often done to curry favor or gain romantic attention."

Yeah, you feel the need to come rescue the damsel in distress.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

 

[Bomb#20]

since you saw fit to butt in on an exchange you weren’t a party to.

Holy crap! You do that all the time.

Yes, I certainly do. What’s your point? Do you see me telling Elixir not to butt in?

You certainly criticized him for it.

Uh huh. Tell me, do the words of mine you quoted at the beginning of this little exchange start with a capital letter?

I criticized him for butting in without first taking the trouble to read and understand the up to that point, for taking my statements out of context, and for misrepresenting me as implying falsehoods I had in no way implied. If you think I did the same on one or more occasions when I butted in on other people’s discussions, feel free to point them out.

Strange how that happens to you so often, isn't it.

Not really. Kind of goes with the whole infidel thing.

White knighting yourself is your stock and trade.

Not clear on what you mean by that and whether it’s supposed to be a criticism, but if this is part of your implication of hypocrisy on my part, I don’t recall ever accusing anyone else of white knighting.

""White knighting" is a derogatory internet slang term used to describe someone who rushes to the unsolicited defense of another person—typically a woman—in an argument. It implies that the behavior is performative, often done to curry favor or gain romantic attention."

Yeah, you feel the need to come rescue the damsel in distress.

Uh huh. Not sure how I’m supposed to get romantic attention from anyone out of it. Are you running a dating app on the side? And currying favor usually involves someone with the power to do favors for one. The people I come rescue are more apt to get banned than make policy here. Speaking of which, is it your theory that I’m rescuing damsels in distress because the gay conversion therapy finally paid off?

 

[Bomb#20]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

 

[Toni]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

Perhaps the issue does not reside with measures of complexity of a nervous system.

The issue has a lot more to do with bodily autonomy, imo.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

I bet you're not a vegan though.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

The whole problem with the left is moral purity! Also, you're not being moral enough.

 

[laughing dog]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

I said it makes little moral sense to me.
If you wish to base your moral sense on the level of nervous system development, then have at it.
But that doesn’t make your morality more right than my moral sense.

 

[Elixir]

wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second?

Not to butt in, butt iirc, you need to take that up with Emily. The very core of Emily’s arguments for intervening in 3rd trimester abortion, is/was her assertion that “at some point” prior to birth, the fetus becomes a baby and at that point, the rights and benefits of being a baby should accrue to the fetus.
Much argument ensued about blues, reds and purples, but that mythical point of babyhood was never given objective definition.
According to Ems, the “fact” that no concise definition or diagnostic procedure can pinpoint “the point”, would oblige us to go through an elaborate process of soliciting and obtaining expert opinions other than that of the woman’s primary doctor, to make sure they concur that the 3rd T fetus to be aborted is not yet a baby.
I’m pretty sure Ems would say that’s not her position, but that IS what she said it WAS and I’ve not heard if she has modified it.

 

[Bomb#20]

[

The whole problem with the left is moral purity! Also, you're not being moral enough.

Anyone who says the whole problem with the left is X is missing the forest for the X.

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

I bet you're not a vegan though.

You win! What’s your point? Should I be?

 

[Bomb#20]

wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second?

Not to butt in, butt iirc, you need to take that up with Emily. The very core of Emily’s arguments for intervening in 3rd trimester abortion, is/was her assertion that “at some point” prior to birth, the fetus becomes a baby and at that point, the rights and benefits of being a baby should accrue to the fetus.

I lost you. That sounds like Emily’s approach to this is perfectly compatible with gn’s complex nervous system argument. It’s ld’s approach that it’s incompatible with. So why would I need to take it up with her?

Much argument ensued about blues, reds and purples, but that mythical point of babyhood was never given objective definition.
According to Ems, the “fact” that no concise definition or diagnostic procedure can pinpoint “the point”, would oblige us to go through an elaborate process of soliciting and obtaining expert opinions other than that of the woman’s primary doctor, to make sure they concur that the 3rd T fetus to be aborted is not yet a baby.
I’m pretty sure Ems would say that’s not her position, but that IS what she said it WAS and I’ve not heard if she has modified it.

I’m pretty sure that’s not her position and I’m pretty sure I’d need to see a direct quote from her to that effect before I’d believe such an absurdity.

 

[Bomb#20]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

I said it makes little moral sense to me.
If you wish to base your moral sense on the level of nervous system development, then have at it.
But that doesn’t make your morality more right than my moral sense.

True. Iirc your moral sense is based on really liking dogs. So where do you rate the morality of someone showing off his skills by karate chopping a kangaroo? Same as a geranium, callous rather than cruel? They sure aren’t important to humans the way dogs are. Around here people seem to think kangaroos are pests. (Yes, I’m in Queensland at the moment, and about to lose my internet access for a few days.)

(Also, what’s callous about hurting a plant? Do you think people are callous to mow their lawns?)

 

[Bomb#20]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

Perhaps the issue does not reside with measures of complexity of a nervous system.

The issue has a lot more to do with bodily autonomy, imo.

That’s a whole separate argument. I wasn’t proposing to refute your bodily autonomy argument with nervous system complexity, only ld’s but-you-don’t-mind-early-term-abortions argument.

 

[Bomb#20]

Some abortions are medically necessary and some aren’t. That’s just a fact of reality that isn’t anyone’s fault, not even the Romans’. It will remain true whether we pay attention to it or not.

That's playing pretty fast and loose with the notion of a "fact". There is and always will be subjective judgement involved with determining what is or isn't medically necessary, even in a room full of physicians. If all medical experts firmly agreed on when abortions were necessary, this whole social debate would be simpler. The legal question would be much simpler.

Get a grip. The difficulty of drawing sharp digital lines on an analog world does not conflict with the existence of clear cases on both sides of the line. A room full of historians will never agree on which national leaders were overthrown by the US, and yet somehow it remains a fact of reality that the US overthrew Maduro and did not overthrow Richard III. If you call that playing fast and loose with the notion of a fact, you’re playing fast and loose with the notion of a notion.

If you're trying to make a law that treats those cases as different and non-overlapping, reality is going to bite you in the ass the second you try to implement it.

Yeah, and? Toni and I were talking about whether to have the categories in our mental repertoires, not how to draft a law. If you try to make a law that treats murder and self-defense as different and non-overlapping reality is going to bite you in the ass too, and room full of witnesses won’t always agree. Is that a reason not for have a word for murder in your vocabulary?

 

[laughing dog]

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

I said it makes little moral sense to me.
If you wish to base your moral sense on the level of nervous system development, then have at it.
But that doesn’t make your morality more right than my moral sense.

True. Iirc your moral sense is based on really liking dogs. So where do you rate the morality of someone showing off his skills by karate chopping a kangaroo? Same as a geranium, callous rather than cruel? They sure aren’t important to humans the way dogs are. Around here people seem to think kangaroos are pests. (Yes, I’m in Queensland at the moment, and about to lose my internet access for a few days.)

(Also, what’s callous about hurting a plant? Do you think people are callous to mow their lawns?)

I’d put kangaroos on par with dogs on the scale for karate chopping living beings.

Mowing grass may have some practical or aesthetic reason, karate chopping flowers not so much.

Enjoy Queensland.

 

[Elixir]

I’m pretty sure that’s not her position

I’m pretty sure you’re not up to reviewing her sparse “position statements”, and I know I’m not. But I recall her insistence on oversight of 3T abortions in varying degrees - whether you believe it or not.

If you were interested in clearing it up you could ask her point-blank “does it make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second?”

I too wish you the best of times in Queensland, B#20. Asking Emily questions was not really a suggestion. ENJOY!

 

[ZiprHead]

since you saw fit to butt in on an exchange you weren’t a party to.

Holy crap! You do that all the time.

Yes, I certainly do. What’s your point? Do you see me telling Elixir not to butt in?

You certainly criticized him for it.

Uh huh. Tell me, do the words of mine you quoted at the beginning of this little exchange start with a capital letter?

Technically, yes.
"And yes, you bloody well are responsible for Toni, to the extent of putting in the effort to read what she wrote and putting in the effort to grasp my counterargument to her, since you saw fit to butt in on an exchange you weren’t a party to."

I criticized him for butting in without first taking the trouble to read and understand the up to that point, for taking my statements out of context, and for misrepresenting me as implying falsehoods I had in no way implied. If you think I did the same on one or more occasions when I butted in on other people’s discussions, feel free to point them out.

Strange how that happens to you so often, isn't it.

Not really. Kind of goes with the whole infidel thing.

White knighting yourself is your stock and trade.

Not clear on what you mean by that and whether it’s supposed to be a criticism, but if this is part of your implication of hypocrisy on my part, I don’t recall ever accusing anyone else of white knighting.

""White knighting" is a derogatory internet slang term used to describe someone who rushes to the unsolicited defense of another person—typically a woman—in an argument. It implies that the behavior is performative, often done to curry favor or gain romantic attention."

Yeah, you feel the need to come rescue the damsel in distress.

Uh huh. Not sure how I’m supposed to get romantic attention from anyone out of it. Are you running a dating app on the side? And currying favor usually involves someone with the power to do favors for one. The people I come rescue are more apt to get banned than make policy here. Speaking of which, is it your theory that I’m rescuing damsels in distress because the gay conversion therapy finally paid off?

Take it up with whomever created the definition.

 

[Politesse]

Some abortions are medically necessary and some aren’t. That’s just a fact of reality that isn’t anyone’s fault, not even the Romans’. It will remain true whether we pay attention to it or not.

That's playing pretty fast and loose with the notion of a "fact". There is and always will be subjective judgement involved with determining what is or isn't medically necessary, even in a room full of physicians. If all medical experts firmly agreed on when abortions were necessary, this whole social debate would be simpler. The legal question would be much simpler.

Get a grip. The difficulty of drawing sharp digital lines on an analog world does not conflict with the existence of clear cases on both sides of the line. A room full of historians will never agree on which national leaders were overthrown by the US, and yet somehow it remains a fact of reality that the US overthrew Maduro and did not overthrow Richard III. If you call that playing fast and loose with the notion of a fact, you’re playing fast and loose with the notion of a notion.

If you're trying to make a law that treats those cases as different and non-overlapping, reality is going to bite you in the ass the second you try to implement it.

Yeah, and? Toni and I were talking about whether to have the categories in our mental repertoires, not how to draft a law. If you try to make a law that treats murder and self-defense as different and non-overlapping reality is going to bite you in the ass too, and room full of witnesses won’t always agree. Is that a reason not for have a word for murder in your vocabulary?

No, it's a reason to have a nuanced view of murder, perhaps something that works better than just hollering simplistic quips like "Some killings are murders and some aren’t, that’s just a fact of reality!"

 

[Toni]

Side bar: I’m really uncomfortable with being discussed like this.

I don’t know how it is pertinent to the topic at hand.

My position is that RvW was the best we could do at the time. As with any other policy, it was always flawed. Some states put up roadblocks wherever they could. Other states were less restrictive.

RvW was tossed out and there has been a flurry of restrictions on abortion, to the extent that that women experiencing miscarriages are denied care until they have sepsis or die, sometimes. Or they are charged with crimes.

I agree with most of RvW except that I believe that it should be the law of the land. Being able to access healthcare should not be restricted by law depending on what state you live in.

Third trimester abortions are rare and are almost exclusively because of medical necessity to preserve the health or even life of the mother and/or because of such serious fetal defect that abortion is the most compassionate course. It is likely that there are some few cases where someone seeks a late term abortion for reasons that are not related to serious medical need. I am willing to leave it to physicians and their patients to ts to determine the best course of action in such cases.

Perhaps because I am old, I am more and more convinced that I don’t know everything and certainly not enough to make such a decision in advance, codified into law about hypothetical cases involving hypothetical women and girls who find themselves somewhere in their third trimester in need of a termination. There simply are too many variables to be able to write legislation that is both just and fair. Or even simply just.

I believe that physicians are guided by medical ethics Abd organizations that help guide them when making difficult decisions and that those decisions are best made with a fully informed patient, keeping in mind the patient’s health, needs, and wishes.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

[

The whole problem with the left is moral purity! Also, you're not being moral enough.

Anyone who says the whole problem with the left is X is missing the forest for the X.

Geraniums aren't beings who have complex nervous systems. Next question which has a super obvious answer anyone who's studied philosophy would be able to answer.

That works. So does that mean you agree me then, that ld is wrong to think it doesn’t make sense to have moral issues with third trimester abortions but not first and second? A thirty week fetus’s nervous system is a lot more complex than a twenty week fetus’s.

I bet you're not a vegan though.

You win! What’s your point? Should I be?

Since other animals have complex nervous systems too? Yup! If you accept the argument that abortion is bad because complex nervous systems. Otherwise, you're just doing special pleading. Which is what you're accusing the pro-choice side of doing when it comes to first and second trimesters.