*Thread and text to be subjected to formatting for readability / basic "clean-up."
Warning heeded. Hence, my thread, not the watching polls and smoking hopium thread. In the fine tradition of the massive Second Amendment brouhaha thread I made once upon a time, here we go.
Intro
This is a widely divisive political issue, and it's one I'm in the minority on around here.
Been subject to a mutual banning from arguing this topic before, got heated and the ad homs flew.
Opinions get pretty strong, and things can get personal; general rule: respect people, disrespect ideologies; use words carefully.
State your beliefs, respond to others, yadda, yadda, yadda. Ask the mods if this is where you're supposed to talk about what political candidates said about abortion - beats me, but they don't want this topic in the main PoliGaf thread.
* * *
JayDub's Stance / Opening Argument:
In the spirit of folks like Locke & Jefferson, every human being possesses certain unalienable rights, amongst these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness / property / rational self-interest (and the way they're worded in various sources, these things all logically flow together). It makes no difference whether or not you buy in, as Locke did, into the notion of these rights being inherent to man via divine creation, or they are things you personally believe in and consider man's innate characteristics to be worthy of.
Some people obviously refute the premise, but my counterpoint is ever the same: without certain bedrock, universal notions of rights, there is no grounds for labeling or judging the actions of other societies, under any circumstances. How do you prosecute "genocide" if those doing the human culling do so under their own legal authority and those being butchered are declared to have no rights or to not be human? Perhaps that ties too neatly into the overall topic here.
I'm not a religious person, I'm a science geek. As a science geek, I have little patience for irrationality or ignorance. My views on abortion are informed entirely by rationality and knowledge of embryological science. The notion that science doesn't answer when life begins is preposterous hooey perpetuated by those that benefit from continued moral ambiguity.
I find the notion of legal personhood, as it has been used historically, to be absolutely repugnant. It is used not defensively, to protect the rights of human beings, but offensively, to say who is expendable. Whether we're talking about slaves or non-citizen detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the notion that it's okay to do bad things to those human beings but not these is what this legal jargon is all about.
Legal jargon sums it up pretty well. Ethical philosophy and law; subjective, political, open to interpretation. Versus cold, hard, scientific fact.
There is a stable, working definition of "life" in the first chapter of every Biology textbook. It is a series of characteristics, a checklist, by which we can determine that salt crystal is not alive but that bacterium is.
As for "human," that is simply a common use term. A human being is a member of the species Homo sapiens. A member of the species Homo sapiens is a human being. A = B, B = A.
For all rational purposes, we have a basis for "human" and "life."
I say that "personhood" should not exclude any living human being. I further say that any society that does exclude living human beings from personhood is guilty of human rights abuse.
FAQ / Common Misconceptions / Follow-up "Debate" Points
"What about animals?"
What about them? This is a human rights issue. A position on the rights of other animals is mostly immaterial. One could be a card-carrying member of PETA and oppose abortion (indeed, that would be rational and consistent). One could just as easily be an avid hunter and still not have a moral conundrum on their hands if they opposed legal abortion.
"But a fetus doesn't have sentience / sapience!"
The unconsciousness of a child in utero is a transitory and physiologically normal state; the continuation of normal biological processes would result in the brain development viewed as so intrinsic to some re: the value of a entity. This is not the equivalent to being "brain dead" and on life support, because that refers to a pathophysiological, permanent state that occurs at the end of someone's life.
"I just jacked off, am I guilty of mass murder? HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR."
Slap yourself in the face for being retarded. Do it. Right now.
I've lost count of how many times I've gotten this one.
A sperm cell is one cell, not unlike your neurons, your muscle cells, your skin cells, or whatever. Until you eject it at rapid velocity, it's just another part of you; the major differences being that as a fully differentiated adult cell, a sperm cell only contains half the normal amount of DNA (which is how the whole sexual reproduction thing, you know, works).
A human child in utero is a distinct, living human organism, no matter what stage of biological development it is in. Your sperm is just one cell.
* * *
And now, a response to posts in a thread I cannot post responses of such a manner in.
By whose argument, with what evidence?
Beats me, I just missed these 90+ minutes worth of argument.
Malthusians are frustrating. Predominantly because they're unwilling or unable to lead the way in reducing the population. They want the population to go down, but its usually the brown people's children they want to go away.
Pro and anti abortion are much more accurate titles than the common nomenclature.
I suppose that's where we'd differ. The "clump of cells" is a distinct, entire human organism, and human beings are entities invested with legal rights that warrant protection.
Everyone that hires an abortionist, every parent denied any reasonable joint authority over the decision to destroy the body of their child, and of course, the children themselves.
I've answered this before;"How many people were affected by slavery?" Technically, the slave trader made a profit, the slave owner has some useful property until it dies, and otherwise no people were affected. Because personhood isn't afforded to those that are classified as slaves. Were it so simple, as a simple matter of classification and wording, you can whitewash any sin away.
Yes. Legal abortion, like legal slavery, is a human rights abuse. It lowers our entire society.
Vennt said:
Warning heeded. Hence, my thread, not the watching polls and smoking hopium thread. In the fine tradition of the massive Second Amendment brouhaha thread I made once upon a time, here we go.
Intro
This is a widely divisive political issue, and it's one I'm in the minority on around here.
Been subject to a mutual banning from arguing this topic before, got heated and the ad homs flew.
Opinions get pretty strong, and things can get personal; general rule: respect people, disrespect ideologies; use words carefully.
State your beliefs, respond to others, yadda, yadda, yadda. Ask the mods if this is where you're supposed to talk about what political candidates said about abortion - beats me, but they don't want this topic in the main PoliGaf thread.
* * *
JayDub's Stance / Opening Argument:
In the spirit of folks like Locke & Jefferson, every human being possesses certain unalienable rights, amongst these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness / property / rational self-interest (and the way they're worded in various sources, these things all logically flow together). It makes no difference whether or not you buy in, as Locke did, into the notion of these rights being inherent to man via divine creation, or they are things you personally believe in and consider man's innate characteristics to be worthy of.
Some people obviously refute the premise, but my counterpoint is ever the same: without certain bedrock, universal notions of rights, there is no grounds for labeling or judging the actions of other societies, under any circumstances. How do you prosecute "genocide" if those doing the human culling do so under their own legal authority and those being butchered are declared to have no rights or to not be human? Perhaps that ties too neatly into the overall topic here.
I'm not a religious person, I'm a science geek. As a science geek, I have little patience for irrationality or ignorance. My views on abortion are informed entirely by rationality and knowledge of embryological science. The notion that science doesn't answer when life begins is preposterous hooey perpetuated by those that benefit from continued moral ambiguity.
I find the notion of legal personhood, as it has been used historically, to be absolutely repugnant. It is used not defensively, to protect the rights of human beings, but offensively, to say who is expendable. Whether we're talking about slaves or non-citizen detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the notion that it's okay to do bad things to those human beings but not these is what this legal jargon is all about.
Legal jargon sums it up pretty well. Ethical philosophy and law; subjective, political, open to interpretation. Versus cold, hard, scientific fact.
There is a stable, working definition of "life" in the first chapter of every Biology textbook. It is a series of characteristics, a checklist, by which we can determine that salt crystal is not alive but that bacterium is.
As for "human," that is simply a common use term. A human being is a member of the species Homo sapiens. A member of the species Homo sapiens is a human being. A = B, B = A.
For all rational purposes, we have a basis for "human" and "life."
I say that "personhood" should not exclude any living human being. I further say that any society that does exclude living human beings from personhood is guilty of human rights abuse.
FAQ / Common Misconceptions / Follow-up "Debate" Points
"What about animals?"
What about them? This is a human rights issue. A position on the rights of other animals is mostly immaterial. One could be a card-carrying member of PETA and oppose abortion (indeed, that would be rational and consistent). One could just as easily be an avid hunter and still not have a moral conundrum on their hands if they opposed legal abortion.
"But a fetus doesn't have sentience / sapience!"
The unconsciousness of a child in utero is a transitory and physiologically normal state; the continuation of normal biological processes would result in the brain development viewed as so intrinsic to some re: the value of a entity. This is not the equivalent to being "brain dead" and on life support, because that refers to a pathophysiological, permanent state that occurs at the end of someone's life.
"I just jacked off, am I guilty of mass murder? HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR."
Slap yourself in the face for being retarded. Do it. Right now.
I've lost count of how many times I've gotten this one.
A sperm cell is one cell, not unlike your neurons, your muscle cells, your skin cells, or whatever. Until you eject it at rapid velocity, it's just another part of you; the major differences being that as a fully differentiated adult cell, a sperm cell only contains half the normal amount of DNA (which is how the whole sexual reproduction thing, you know, works).
A human child in utero is a distinct, living human organism, no matter what stage of biological development it is in. Your sperm is just one cell.
* * *
And now, a response to posts in a thread I cannot post responses of such a manner in.
Fragamemnon said:
By whose argument, with what evidence?
Jonm1010 said:
Beats me, I just missed these 90+ minutes worth of argument.
The Lamonster said:
Malthusians are frustrating. Predominantly because they're unwilling or unable to lead the way in reducing the population. They want the population to go down, but its usually the brown people's children they want to go away.
Saint Gregory said:
Pro and anti abortion are much more accurate titles than the common nomenclature.
Stridone said:
I suppose that's where we'd differ. The "clump of cells" is a distinct, entire human organism, and human beings are entities invested with legal rights that warrant protection.
RubxQub said:
Everyone that hires an abortionist, every parent denied any reasonable joint authority over the decision to destroy the body of their child, and of course, the children themselves.
I've answered this before;"How many people were affected by slavery?" Technically, the slave trader made a profit, the slave owner has some useful property until it dies, and otherwise no people were affected. Because personhood isn't afforded to those that are classified as slaves. Were it so simple, as a simple matter of classification and wording, you can whitewash any sin away.
RubxQub said:
Yes. Legal abortion, like legal slavery, is a human rights abuse. It lowers our entire society.
