Abortion

[Elixir]

Science is not what it says in an elementary science textbook, nor is it what most biologists say, because textbooks and majorities are authorities, and science is not a matter of authority -- it's a matter of falsifiable theories tested against observation.

QFT.
Reminds me of when evolution denyers say "evolution says", then look at you funny when you inform them that evolution is a process, and it doesn't "say" anything.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, Tom's certainly changed my mind.

I am revising my position in support of abortion only up to the pint of....how old are you, Tom?

I'm 63.

So, you're revising your opinion in support of Salvador Ramos. I'm pretty sure that none of the people he aborted were older than I am.
Tom

But at least he wasn't pregnant because of irresponsible sex.

 

[TomC]

Well, Tom's certainly changed my mind.

I am revising my position in support of abortion only up to the pint of....how old are you, Tom?

I'm 63.

So, you're revising your opinion in support of Salvador Ramos. I'm pretty sure that none of the people he aborted were older than I am.
Tom

But at least he wasn't pregnant because of irresponsible sex.

The brilliance of your insight is an inspiration to us all.

Bless Your Heart!
Tom

 

[Bomb#20]

Precisely. But TomC does not want to get this. He prefers to stuff straw and hurl insults.

In all fairness, TomC isn't the one who started the insults and strawmen -- he was severely provoked. It would be good if everyone here would take it down a notch, refrain from demonizing the opposition, and address one another's actual arguments.

 

[Jarhyn]

Life Cycle of a Primate is elementary science.

I will assume that you are referring to human life: Most biologist say that life begins at fertilization, when a sperm penetrates and egg allowing it to form a zygote which will continue to grow and divide and differentiate--assuming that it implants properly and...

Twenty lashes with a wet noodle for you both, and a remedial reread of The Foundation Trilogy. Let's all say it together: "A circle has no end."

Science is not what it says in an elementary science textbook, nor is it what most biologists say, because textbooks and majorities are authorities, and science is not a matter of authority -- it's a matter of falsifiable theories tested against observation. The claim "Life begins at fertilization" has no observable implications different from what "Life begins at ovulation" or "Life begins at quickening" or "Life begins at puberty" imply. Therefore it is not a scientific claim. The thing to remember about a life cycle is that it's a cycle. The stages of a cycle go around and around in a circle. A circle has no end and no beginning. Claiming any particular point in a cycle is "the beginning" is an exercise in labeling, not an exercise in making a testable prediction.

The spiral does, however, and started some 3-4 billion years ago

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Well, Tom's certainly changed my mind.

I am revising my position in support of abortion only up to the pint of....how old are you, Tom?

I'm 63.

So, you're revising your opinion in support of Salvador Ramos. I'm pretty sure that none of the people he aborted were older than I am.
Tom

But at least he wasn't pregnant because of irresponsible sex.

The brilliance of your insight is an inspiration to us all.

Bless Your Heart!
Tom

*blush*

 

[Toni]

Three chemists are now unidentified ideologues?

No.
Just the ones who don't understand water.
Tom

What about posters who don’t understand the written word if it is even semi-adjacent to science?

You certainly did NOT understand even the quotes provided by pood.

 

[Toni]

Precisely. But TomC does not want to get this. He prefers to stuff straw and hurl insults.

In all fairness, TomC isn't the one who started the insults and strawmen -- he was severely provoked. It would be good if everyone here would take it down a notch, refrain from demonizing the opposition, and address one another's actual arguments.

Provoked? Not even mildly.

 

[Tigers!]

Self-autonomy isn't the right to kill human beings you find inconvenient either

How many bales of straw does it take for you to hide your religious superstitions?
NOBODY here has ever expressed any “pro-death” sentiments, or endorsed killing human beings.

A zygote is no more a human being than my fingernails are human beings. “Convenience” is your flippant term for considered choices that are not yours to make or judge.

So long as you reserve the right to define what a human being is then all is well I guess.

 

[Jarhyn]

Self-autonomy isn't the right to kill human beings you find inconvenient either

How many bales of straw does it take for you to hide your religious superstitions?
NOBODY here has ever expressed any “pro-death” sentiments, or endorsed killing human beings.

A zygote is no more a human being than my fingernails are human beings. “Convenience” is your flippant term for considered choices that are not yours to make or judge.

So long as you reserve the right to define what a human being is then all is well I guess.

The thing here is that we don't even use "human being" or any of that other slop as the consideration.

While we love everyone equally, and while I think it's good, to be encouraged, and generally looked well upon to give mercy, it can always be recognized that some mercies are beyond our capacity or will to consent to giving.

This is fundamentally, even were it a mewling instantaneous 3 year old, if it was so necessarily tethered to someone for 9 months with generally unilaterally lethal results in ending it and occasionally various forms of lethal relationships that may affect the deciding party, the decision of the person asked to give this of themselves.

That last barrier, the requirement to coexist, is being violated to potentially lethal and definitely permanent effect to the person being asked to tolerate it anyway.

As long as there is a person being asked to put up with it, that person can always say no.

I will not sacrifice them to my desire to see more mercy in the world.

 

[Bronzeage]

So, when is it okay to kill someone?

IMO it is never OK to kill somone except in self-defense.

Note that the meaning of “someone” is a person. A zygote, an embryo and a first-trimenster fetus are not “persons” under any reasonable defintion of the word.

If conception had not occurred, would the zygote or the fetus exist?

How is this relevant to the point?

You asked when it was OK to kill someone. I replied that, imo, it is never OK except in cases of self-defense (or perhaps assissted suicide for the terminally ill in great pain. There could be a few other exceptions). But I pointed out that a zygote, an embryo and a first-trimester fetus is not a “someone”if we accept the perfectly reasonable definition of “someone” as a person. So abortion is not killing “someone.”.

Reasonable only means you have a reason for thinking so and that does not presume perfection. You don't like the idea of killing a person, so you draw a line between the person and the previous non-person. If this person had not been in the state of zygoteness, there would be no person for you to refrain from killing.

There's really nothing reasonable about killing something which given time will be a person, and claiming you have not killed the person it would eventually be.

Why have you lumped justifiable homicide for self defense, assisted suicide, and abortion in the same category? What do they have in common?

 

[pood]

There's really nothing reasonable about killing something which given time will be a person, and claiming you have not killed the person it would eventually be.

Why have you lumped justifiable homicide for self defense, assisted suicide, and abortion in the same category? What do they have in common?

A zygote, embryo or first-trimester fetus are indeed potential persons. A potential person is not a person.

I have not lumped homicide for self defense, assisted suicice, and abortion in the same category. Just the opposite. Self-defense homicides and assisted sucide are examples of killing someone, i.e., a person. My point is that abortion is not taking the life of someone, i.e., a person, so manifestly I have not lumped abortion in the same category as the other two.

There is no such thing as causing harm to a potential person (via abortion, in this case). You can’t harm a nonexistent person.

 

[pood]

If you could harm a potential person, then every time someone masturbates or uses a condom during sex that person has “harmed” untold numbers of potential persons. I think the absuridty of this speaks for itself.

 

[Elixir]

Self-autonomy isn't the right to kill human beings you find inconvenient either

How many bales of straw does it take for you to hide your religious superstitions?
NOBODY here has ever expressed any “pro-death” sentiments, or endorsed killing human beings.

A zygote is no more a human being than my fingernails are human beings. “Convenience” is your flippant term for considered choices that are not yours to make or judge.

So long as you reserve the right to define what a human being is then all is well I guess.

Y’know, the main thing is, I won’t impose my opinion of what a human being is upon another person whose life is at stake.

Personally I don’t know ANYONE* whose life I would think worthy of sacrifice to something that shows less response to its environment than a planarian. YMMV, and if you don’t approve of abortion don’t have one.
Life experiences inform my opinion of course. My mom had to make the decision when I was nine years old, to “unplug” my dad from life support when he became persistently unresponsive after a stroke. My wife had three life threatening ectopic pregnancies …
But I’m not going to tell anyone they should get an abortion or remove a spouse’s life support.


* exc maybe trump

 

[Bomb#20]

Self-autonomy isn't the right to kill human beings you find inconvenient either

How many bales of straw does it take for you to hide your religious superstitions?
NOBODY here has ever expressed any “pro-death” sentiments, or endorsed killing human beings.

prideandfall has, repeatedly, in this thread and others.

 

[Rhea]

Self-autonomy isn't the right to kill human beings you find inconvenient either

How many bales of straw does it take for you to hide your religious superstitions?
NOBODY here has ever expressed any “pro-death” sentiments, or endorsed killing human beings.

prideandfall has, repeatedly, in this thread and others.

Tom has endorsed it also.

He says that if you cause someone to need a kidney, he supports you being forced to donate one of yours. And of course organ donation always comes with risks and so, even if it means you die, Tom thinks the government should tie you down and take your kidney. Or your liver. Een forced blood donations. Tom said he was for that. Tying people down and taking their organs if Tom says it’s justified.

 

[Bomb#20]

In all fairness, TomC isn't the one who started the insults and strawmen -- he was severely provoked. It would be good if everyone here would take it down a notch, refrain from demonizing the opposition, and address one another's actual arguments.

Provoked? Not even mildly.

Well, just as an example, and hardly the most egregious in this thread...

In this case, I don't think it has much to do with a desire to control women's bodies as it does a total disregard for the woman's rights or life.

That's not a view Tom gave you any reason to impute to him; that's just demonizing the opposition. You are one of the people on both sides who need to take it down a notch.

 

[Bomb#20]

How many bales of straw does it take for you to hide your religious superstitions?
NOBODY here has ever expressed any “pro-death” sentiments, or endorsed killing human beings.

prideandfall has, repeatedly, in this thread and others.

Tom has endorsed it also.

He says that if you cause someone to need a kidney, he supports you being forced to donate one of yours. And of course organ donation always comes with risks and so, even if it means you die, Tom thinks the government should tie you down and take your kidney. Or your liver. Een forced blood donations. Tom said he was for that. Tying people down and taking their organs if Tom says it’s justified.

That's a stretch. Everything comes with risks. By that standard, if you're for trial-by-jury then you endorse killing human beings -- after all, a juror might be killed in a traffic accident on his way to the courthouse. I'm pretty sure Tom would exempt a criminal from being sentenced to forced organ donation if the doctors had reason to think he wouldn't survive it.

 

[Jarhyn]

Self-autonomy isn't the right to kill human beings you find inconvenient either

How many bales of straw does it take for you to hide your religious superstitions?
NOBODY here has ever expressed any “pro-death” sentiments, or endorsed killing human beings.

A zygote is no more a human being than my fingernails are human beings. “Convenience” is your flippant term for considered choices that are not yours to make or judge.

So long as you reserve the right to define what a human being is then all is well I guess.

Y’know, the main thing is, I won’t impose my opinion of what a human being is upon another person whose life is at stake.

Personally I don’t know ANYONE* whose life I would think worthy of sacrifice to something that shows less response to its environment than a planarian. YMMV, and if you don’t approve of abortion don’t have one.
Life experiences inform my opinion of course. My mom had to make the decision when I was nine years old, to “unplug” my dad from life support when he became persistently unresponsive after a stroke. My wife had three life threatening ectopic pregnancies …
But I’m not going to tell anyone they should get an abortion or remove a spouse’s life support.


* exc maybe trump

How many bales of straw does it take for you to hide your religious superstitions?
NOBODY here has ever expressed any “pro-death” sentiments, or endorsed killing human beings.

prideandfall has, repeatedly, in this thread and others.

Tom has endorsed it also.

He says that if you cause someone to need a kidney, he supports you being forced to donate one of yours. And of course organ donation always comes with risks and so, even if it means you die, Tom thinks the government should tie you down and take your kidney. Or your liver. Een forced blood donations. Tom said he was for that. Tying people down and taking their organs if Tom says it’s justified.

That's a stretch. Everything comes with risks. By that standard, if you're for trial-by-jury then you endorse killing human beings -- after all, a juror might be killed in a traffic accident on his way to the courthouse. I'm pretty sure Tom would exempt a criminal from being sentenced to forced organ donation if the doctors had reason to think he wouldn't survive it.

No, by that standard we recognize exactly that no human EVER gets to take the tissues of another beyond their consent.

This is as much to prevent the theft of organs through the legal system.

Are forced organ donations fungible?

If someone stabs a poor person with a failing kidney, and now they need a kidney, does their kidney get taken and then given to a rich person who is looking for a perfect match and the poor person "goes right to the top of the list" but oh, look, they still have one functioning kidney after all! Good enough I suppose.

There's a lot of room in any structure where leveraged organ transplants exists for real life horror stories to emerge.

 

[TomC]

Tom has endorsed it also.

He says that if you cause someone to need a kidney, he supports you being forced to donate one of yours. And of course organ donation always comes with risks and so, even if it means you die, Tom thinks the government should tie you down and take your kidney. Or your liver. Een forced blood donations. Tom said he was for that. Tying people down and taking their organs if Tom says it’s justified.

Well, for once you at least remembered half of my hypothetical.

Here's the other half.
Again...

If you are the sole possible donor.

Without both of those circumstances simultaneously you don't have a situation morally comparable to pregnancy.

In fact both are so rare that I doubt it's ever even been a question, unlike pregnancy. Bringing up organ donation is a smoke screen, emotional but irrelevant.
Tom