We can add Alabama to the growing list of states heaping more and more restrictions on abortion – though their proposal is especially stringent. Three bills (introduced by a Republican, of course) are attempting to “redefine “person” as “any human being from the moment of fertilization or the functional equivalent thereof” — and require that all uses of the word “person” in the state constitution be accompanied by “all humans from the moment of fertilization.”
You know, maybe these people have a point. Maybe being ejected from a womb is an arbitrary cutoff point for where life begins. Maybe we do have to take it back to the zygote – the initial cell formed after fertilization. After all, that zygote has the potential to eventually become a human being!
Just like how every egg has the potential to become a zygote, which is why all girls now must constantly attempt to become pregnant after their first period, and any subsequent period will be tried as murder.
And how every sperm has the potential to become a zygote, which is why now all ejaculation except for procreational purposes will be tried as mass murder (though we can downgrade wet dreams to involuntary manslaughter).
And how every ovary and testis has the potential to produce gametes, which is why now any accidents that damage them will be tried as involuntary manslaughter, but voluntary sterilization will be tried as murder.
And how every stem cell has the potential to become a gonad, which is why now all stem cell research will stop immediately, even that done on lab derived adult stem cells.
And how every nutrient you eat has the potential to become a part stem cells, which is why now eating will be illegal. Look, we solved the national obesity epidemic too!
And how many inorganic molecules have the potential to become a nutrient, which is why now moving will be illegal, lest we disturb the fate of an atom to become incorporated into a particularly delicious carbohydrate (which you can’t eat, sorry).
And how stars have the potential to produce different elements, which is why… well, I’m not sure if we can do anything about supernovas, so we may have to let that slide for practical reasons.
I know pro-zygoters aren’t the best at science, so hopefully this helped them understand their logic a little better. I’m a horrible human being who cares more about adult women than cells and atoms, so I’m going to keep destroying all of these potential humans and looking at photos of supernovas with awe instead of horror.
But good luck to all the pro-zygoters out there in their lifestyle! I know I had a hard time eating less junk food, let alone giving up eating and all mobility. Be sure to let us know how that goes.
You’re being irrational.Girls’ first periods are murder too.
Man…Genghis Khan had nothing on me in Jr. High.
Why isn’t more of the left out there screaming? If the left was trying to restrict church or something you know EVERY republican in the country would be up in arms and there would be bill presented in both houses condemning it. We are mostly a bunch of ball-less weasels. Shit, we had 60 senators and a large majority in the house and we still couldn’t pass anything. That’s why I voted for and support Hillery. I wish she would challenge Obama in the primary.
“which is why now all ejaculation except for procreational purposes will be tried as mass murder (though we can downgrade wet dreams to involuntary manslaughter).”This made me LOL very hard.
Every sperm is sacred,Every sperm is great,If a sperm is wasted,God gets quite irate!So I guess the takeaway is that I’m going to need to plan a respectful mass funeral for every used condom? That’ll get tedious pretty quickly.
Yeek. And I’ll have to have a funeral for the hangnail I just trimmed off, since we’ll probably be able to return skin cells to a totipotent state pretty soon. (Or can we already? Clearly I’m not following this line of news closely enough.) Ditto the epithelial cells I lose in every sneeze. Ditto every time I shave….If you want me, I’ll be huddled in a corner, trying not to touch anything.
It’s a shame people had to get all activist about abortion and start passing laws and issuing judicial opinions and all that. We should just repeal all of it and go back to the common law definition that served us well since the Middle Ages.Namely, abortion is legal until the moment of quickening—the first time the mother feels movement in the womb.How’s that for conservative?(That really was the law before American Christians started trying to ban abortions in the 1830s or so. Judges are fairly sensible people, it turns out.)
This rant is a little bit silly. Nothing coming out of a man (including words) will ever be illegal. Only those coming out of women.Only eggs (and any other female only cells – biology is not my subject) are sacred.
Come on, you know ‘potential’ has nothing to do with this. Their reason to put the beginning of a person in the zygote is because they believe that’s when Jeeziz puts a soul in it. That’s what it is. Theocratic America at its finest.If you don’t stop this, soon they will be telling women how to dress and lessening the punishment for rape, because that’s part of their religion, too.
Quite correct. In order to ensure that that never happens, all females must receive daily ejaculations starting at the age of eight. After all, one never knows when her first ovulation will occur.
Imagine if senators (or whatever they’re called – I’m not familiar with US political terminolgy) put as much energy into other areas like education or the justice system. The USA would be unstoppable! I find it all very strange. Abortion is a non-issue in the UK. People have their opinions and their debates (mainly depending on what the latest storyline is on tv soap operas), but we don’t elect politicians based solely on it, and it rarely comes up in parliament. I suppose we feel like we need to concentrate on looking after people already in existence rather than in potentia.
Screw that. They want to base the laws on the Bible? Fine, then they should be happy to agree that abortion is not murder.Exodus 21:22-25 makes it clear that, if a man strikes a woman and she miscarries, “yet no mischief follows”, she is to be punished “according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him, and he shall pay as the judges determine”; but it’s only if “other mischief follow” (e.g. the woman is harmed in another way) that “thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,” etc. The mere death of the fetus does not qualify as murder under Biblical law.Furthermore, Leviticus 27 contains an enumeration of the monetary value of human beings of different sexes and ages: different values are given for the ranges of one month to five years, between five and twenty years, between twenty and sixty years, and sixty years or greater. Less than a month old, a person is considered to have no worth. (And, of course, being the Bible, women are considered to be only one-half to two-thirds of what men are worth, but that’s another matter.)
The whole anti-abortion thing has nothing to do with the soul, sacred life, or any other holeyer than thou crap. Its about males (not men as they are a different animal) using law (religious or secular) to keep control of their own women and brainwashing them into submission then using their women as a larger voting block to get laws in place to control all women. These males are totally jealous of women for being the true g0d-creators in that they do create life. And they are also pissed at women because the women are responsible for bringing the males into this life of pain and misery. So they take out all the subconscious self-hate and women-hate and place it onto control and derogation of women.The above is a loose paraphrasing of 5 parts of the Joseph Campbell videos.So it is an argument from authority. But it seems right.
Between Lieberman and the red-on-the-inside Blue Dog scum, we never had anything close to 60 senators. Traitors gonna trait, man…traitors gonna trait.
Jen, you usually make good sense to me, but not this time. A fertilized egg is going to be a human, not so with the ingredients. I am strongly pro-choice, but I don’t think your kind of reasoning is going to shake any anti-abortionist’s views.
So the distinction between abortion and, say, abstinence is that both deny a potential future person of the chance to be a person, but abortion does it by an action while abstinence does it by inaction. I think there is some truth to this, but I don’t see a profound moral distinction resulting. And what about birth control? This is an action which denies those ingredients of the chance to mix, without it in many cases a person would (eventually) result. Does this mean that abortion and sex with birth control morally equivalent? In fact, I even have trouble classifying abstinence as a true inaction. I think for many people (teenagers especially), the act of abstinence is in fact a profoundly strenuous action, like swimming against a river. But I agree that none of these arguments would make any difference to anti-choice people.
Also, there is the possibility of spontaneous abortion, or the chance that the zygote doesn’t implant properly, among other things. Not every fertilized egg is going to become a human.
If we had had Hillary as President, we would have passed even less than we did under Obama. The right HATES Hillary and her being president would have only fed fuel to the fire. If you think the Tea Party was bad with Obama as President, imagine the fury that would have exploded if Hillary had tried to pass health care. At least under Obama the bill passed finally. Now, Hillary’s approval rating has gone up since she became Secretary of State. If she can keep that popularity, she might be able to win in 2016 if she runs. But if the right goes back to their hatred of her as a strong woman, then it may doom the Democratic ticket.
But nowhere in the Bible does it say that a soul enters at conception. It could enter earlier or later. Thus the whole “life begins at conception” doesn’t hold up.I think if the pro-choice side wants to win, the HAVE to start arguing that a fertilized egg isn’t yet a person. As long as people believe that a fertilized egg is the same thing as a baby, abortion rights will continue to be assaulted.
Jen: ” After all, that zygote has the potential to eventually become a human being!” My point is only that there is no potential human being coming from either an egg or a sperm. Therefore her argument fails.Catholics equate abortion and birth control. Both are sinful and in some cases birth control equals the killing of the zygote. Well, that is their problem.Abstinence results pretty well sooner or later in masturbation which is also considered sinful. You can’t win if you are a Catholic – you are going to hell one way or another.:)
Fertilized eggs can avoid becoming a human in a number of ways… miscarriage, failed implantation, stillbirth, even spontaneous loss of an embryo before it’s really an embryo, so no ‘miscarriage’ would be noticed. It’s all potential – it’s a question of the right circumstances.
I think Jen makes a very good point though. What are the pro-lifers going to tell the kids? “I knew that your fertilized egg was going to be you, so I protected it. I also knew that your unfertilized egg could be you too if I fertilized it, but I don’t really care enough about your future life to go to the trouble of fertilizing the egg. You only really exist by accident.”If a fertilized egg is worth the same as a child, why does lacking fertilization (something very easy to get) somehow make them suddenly worthless? Personally, I think that personhood should be defined by consciousness, something a fertilized egg does not have.
You shouldn’t be using much of your language, it might be read by somebody in Florida under the age of 21.
Unfortunately, the line between Democrat and Republican doesn’t meet at the same place as the line between religious and nonreligious, or the gray area between “pro-life” and pro-choice
Uh…..I think my right hand is going to prison for a long time…
Supernova = potential for trillions of lives at least, but since we as of yet know of no way to prevent a supernova (nor a means of approaching a supernova, I don’t think it’s an issue at this time. And considering how well the religious are holding back scientific discovery, I don’t expect it to ever be an issue.
Agreed, while I am pro-choice, there is a gap in the argument. And birth *is* arbitrary as a cut off, it just happens to be a very convenient time point. We just don’t deal well with fuzzy grey definitions of what it is to be human. Dawkins said in an interview (and various others have no doubt expressed similar views) that “a one-year-old child is more human than an embryo but less human than an adult in all sorts of ways,” which is true for certain definitions of human – but it doesn’t reflect the way we feel about our children, so it may not be the most appropriate definition to use. And we can’t rely on our empathy to make such decisions, as we’ve seen human willingness to treat others who are different as less than human.
“start” arguing? Isn’t exactly that -that an embryo isn’t a person- what was established as common wisdom and in the law until these religious extremists showed up?
Not in the current political debate. In pro-choice ads today, you never hear them say “abortion should be legal because a fertilized egg is not a person”. What you hear is “abortion should be legal because, regardless of when personhood begins, a woman should be able to have the choice to abort and control her reproduction.” The problem is that most people don’t believe that a woman should be allowed to abort a person because they equate that with killing. If the pro-choice side would say “It isn’t killing because it isn’t a person because it isn’t conscious” then they could sooth this fear and more people would support pro-choice policies. I don’t see the pro-choice side gaining much more traction than it has now unless it starts making these arguments specifically in its ads.
So what I’m wondering, is what happens if the zygote splits into twins? Do they share a soul? Is that how they have that creepy twin ESP? IS THAT WHAT YOU REALLY WANT, JEEBUS?
Many pro-life organizations do equate using birth control to having an abortion.I read a book called How The Pro-Choice Movement Saved America, and it discusses at length the attack against birth control. It’s simplistic, but interesting.
So wait… does that mean for every zygote that slips past the uterine lining or has a week 1 division error that freezes the entire system or has a single cell decay (or all of the hilariously large amt of zygote but not embryo) issues arise….. if that happens, do we need to open up a murder investigation? What about if a woman has a positive test at home but a few days later she shows negative. Is that a missing person? Is it fraud for saying that Person existed and now doesn’t? If the woman gets malaria on vacation without even having the time to test? Was that negligence, manslaughter? Where does Second Degree Murder come in to play?
Oh, thanks for catching me up. At this side of the ocean, the debate is all about when do we draw the line. In my country, the limit is set at week 14 by default, and at week 22 in cases of lethal fetal anomalies or danger for the mother. Nobody says anything about fertilized eggs, that’s why I had a wrong perception of the problem.
*Millions* have died at my hands… or, rather, hand *ahem*.
I know your post was written in jest, but I wanted to point out that birth is decidedly not an arbitrary cutoff point. It is when the offspring stops being dependent on the mother’s body for survival. In the US and elsewhere, we recognize the right to control your own body to the exclusion of someone else’s right to live. For instance, you can’t be forced to donate blood or bone marrow to save someone else’s life, even if you’re that person’s only chance for life. In fact, we routinely extend this right to bodily integrity past death. You can’t be forced to donate organs postmortem, even though we know it will save lives. Medical ethics takes the right to control your own body very seriously.That is, it is routine to protect the right to control your own body except for pregnant women. They are expected to use their bodies to gestate a fetus, even if the fetus does not have status as a human.
just don’t end up starting a new government policy with this post please.
In a just universe, this would be the last word on the matter.Alas.
No… mass murders don’t usually hold respectful funerals for their victims.
While this is true as is, clearly I meant mass murderers. Stupid comment system that makes you proofread before posting ;)
I’m pretty sure “red matter” has been proposed as a solution for supernovae. Not sure that research was peer reviewed, though.
Regardless of spelling, that’s a good point—it should save me considerable time, too!
Well, at least the Catholic Priesthood will be on board with this policy…
Again, combating a ridiculously extreme position by another ridiculously extreme position is not helping anyone in this debate.Where do you draw the line?Even if you don’t agree with the opponent’s position, it doesn’t help to caricature it as something it isn’t.
If consciousness is the criteria even adults could be killed. A person who has fainted could be “aborted”. That person is in a similar situation of the unborn child – it is human life which will most likely gain consciousness in the near future.
It’s telling that scientifically minded persons can not understand that fertilization is the start of human life. Before that there is organism with a set of DNA like a human being. After fertilization there’s no stage that transformes us into humans – it’s just growth and development.And making consciousness a criteria for abortion essentially says that human life can be taken as long as it is unconscious – like someone who is asleep or has fainted.
And there is no potential human being coming from either a zygote or nourishment.
The point about ejaculation is imprecise. Contrary to common belief, sperm cannot simply be “saved” indefinitely.
The opponents position is that the potential trumps the actual.
As a variant on “failed implantation”, partly in jest, fertilized eggs can avoid becoming a human by being left alone.
Well, I’d count subconscious as a type of consciousness. So you’d still have a subconscious while sleeping even though you aren’t awake. To further the definition, a person could be counted as someone who either has a consciousness or who has had one in the past and will in all likelyhood in the future. If there has been no consciousness in the past and only the possibility of one in the future, such as a fertilized egg, that would not count as a person. Similarly, if you had consciousness in the past but won’t again in the future, such as a dead person, that also would not count as a person any longer.
Though you could make the same argument supporting people’s right to abandon their 1 year old child in the woods without food. After all, you didn’t kill them, you could say it’s the child’s fault for not finding food themselves. It’s basically the same argument as used for late term abortion. I’m not sure how I feel about the law that says that you can refuse to give blood even if it is needed to save another’s life, but I DO feel that parents have special obligation to care for their children. Refusing support for a child, knowing that it is almost certain that the child will die, is child abuse whether it happens outside the womb or within. My dividing line, as I stated in posts above, is consciousness. With consciousness, you are a person entitled to all the protections of the state. Without consciousness you have no rights (since there would be no ‘you’).
I draw the line at consciousness.
Couldn’t you define fertilization as simply a form of growth and development? After all, adding sperm can be seen as a form of growth, since it increases the amount of material in an egg and provides the basis for growing more. Similarly, any time the fetus created a new body part, you could say that that is a unique event since it wasn’t there to “grow or develop” before. It’s all semantics.For the reason why I still favor consciousness, see my reply to you higher on the thread.
I understand the intent here, but you’re doing absolutely nothing to move the discussion forward. If you can’t see that there is a perfectly valid slippery slope argument to be made (on both sides), why post this? All you’re doing is demonstrating your inability to engage the problem. And if you can see that there is a troubling aspect to abortion, then why respond to it with this kind of sarcasm? Are you feeling a wee bit defensive, because maybe you realize that people who think abortion is indeed a kind of killing might have a point?Not to mention the other major logical inconsistency in the pro-choice crowd.
So, “fetuses” can be aborted up until they start talking? Grim.
No, it’s not semantics. It’s human life or not human life. And organism with a complete human genome is a human. The point where this occurs is ferilization; that’s the tranformation as opposed to the later growth and development. A new body part is also growth rather than transformation because it is inherent in the DNA.
talking is not the same thing as consciousness. One can be conscious before they learn to talk. Rule of thumb: if they don’t have a brain, they aren’t conscious.
But if you took an unfertilized egg, doubled its DNA through mitosis, and let it grow, it would be a DIFFERENT person than the mother since half of the mother’s alleles wouldn’t be present in the daughter (since the daughter would simply have two copies of half of the mother’s alleles). The daughter would be genetically different from the mother and thus, by your definition, a different person. Now why would a pro-lifer consider aborting a fertilized egg to be murder but consider an unfertilized egg, which can be turning into a person either by fertilization or by doubling its DNA through mitosis, to be worthless? Seems hypocritical to me.
If you admit that there is a valid slippery slope argument to be made on both sides, then why are you criticizing Jen for making one part of that argument? I think she does move the discussion forward. Do you see any major Pro-life organization admitting both sides of the slippery slope argument? Why not hold them to the same standard?
If you create a human organism with a complete genome it’s a human. That’s normally by fertilization, but if you do it artificially it will still be a human. The egg itself, however, will still be just an egg.
Can we please give “Every Sperm is Sacred” a goddamn rest? It’s SO predictable.
Call them by their real name: “Forced birthers”.
Jesus fucking christ. A blastocyst is not a human, and the sooner it’s eliminated, the clearer that is.Everything else is just line drawing.
She’s not making an argument. In fact, she’s running like hell from any kind of discussion.How do you know I don’t hold pro-life people/organizations to the same standard? I think it’s pretty obvious from what I wrote that I do.
How is she running from a discussion if she points out a valid point? Saying that an unfertilized egg is basically worthless but a fertilized egg must be protected like a baby, like pro-lifers argue, is a ridiculously large jump in value just based on a little bit of easily gathered sperm. This is an excellent point. If fertilized eggs are so valuable, then why not ask men to donate more sperm so that you can make more of these fertilized eggs? Why just allow the unfertilized eggs to be thrown away like they are nothing? I think that Jen is showing a flaw in the pro-life argument. Do pro-choicers have their own flaws in their arguments? Sure, but you shouldn’t reject everything Jen says just because she isn’t focusing on late term abortions here.
A fertilized egg can develop into a person, but it is not a person immediately after fertilization. You can take any skin cell off of a person and theoretically make a clone of that person by using the DNA to grow a whole other person. But that doesn’t mean that each dead skin cell equals a dead person. Using a skin cell or using a fertilized egg still results eventually in a person (though I don’t think either is a person to begin with). Just because one is more “natural” than the other doesn’t mean that they are fundamentally different. In each case there is a cell with a full set of DNA. A dead body has its own unique DNA, but that doesn’t mean it should be treated the same as a living person. Similarly a fertilized egg has its own DNA, but is obviously not the same as a baby.
You say that what Jen jokes about is extreme. I say that what the pro-lifers are serious about is also extreme. A fertilized egg can develop into a person but it doesn’t magically become a baby at the moment of fertilization. That’s just make believe.
The Powers That Be have the economy in such a state that all most folks really want from the government is jobs. That distracts the populace from everything else. And everyone knows that the way to more jobs is to cut taxes for the rich so that they’ll invest or spend or however the wealth is supposed to “trickle down”. [See? now you’re not thinking about that little women’s issue of abortion anymore.]
Let me put it to you this way: if a pro-life person read this, would they be interested in engaging in further dialogue with the writer?And if your response is anything along the lines of “Well, pro-lifers wouldn’t engage in any kind of rational dialogue anyway” then you’ve excluded yourself from the group of people interested in engaging in good-faith dialogue with the other side.I’ll tell you my answer: no. A pro-lifer [which I’m not, by the way, just in case there’s some confusion on this point] would see this argument for what it is: a reductio parody of what is to pro-lifers the essence (and the moral center) of their position. It’s intended to insult by making fun of their position. Insulting the other side is the opposite of good faith.inb4 stealth pro-lifer trying to stir shit up
“In humans, the clearest visible indication of consciousness is the ability to use language. Medical assessments of consciousness rely heavily on an ability to respond to questions and commands, and in scientific studies of consciousness, the usual criterion for awareness is verbal report (that is, subjects are deemed to be aware if they say that they are). Thus there is a strong connection between consciousness and language.”Some people think it is, though. If your rule became law, then we’d be able to abort fetuses up until about one year of extra utero existence.
That’s from the wiki entry on “consciousness.”
Left alone it does.
Why does the right have to hate her for being a strong woman? Ann Coulter is a strong woman and the right loves her. Can’t the right hate her for being a big goverment CFR socialist and not make it about her XX chromosones?
Jen is 100% right here, where life begins is an arbitrary line that has to be drawn somewhere; birth, fertilization, development of speach, holding a job for more than 6 months, somewhere. Why do all 50 states have to draw the line at the same spot?I am neither a pro lifer or a pro choicer, I am a states righter. IMHO Roe vs Wade should be overturned and let the several states choose thier own paths. As a Texan, if an ammendment to the State constitution came up to ban elective abortions (life of the mother, rape, incest not included) I would vote for it. But if someone wants to go to CA and get it done there, that should be thier right/choice.
It’s not up to the states to take away the rights of women.
Well, I think those people are wrong. It is obvious that dogs are conscious but they don’t have language like we do. If we want to know what is conscious and what, for example, can feel pain, we can look at the neural connections that cause a sensation of pain in an adult human. You will find a similar process in dogs, but you won’t find it in fertilized eggs because they haven’t diversified enough to form any such neural connections.
Well, yes, it is true that people are willing to be more accepting of women on their own side. But when it comes to the other side, as can be seen with Hillary and Palin, people are often far more nasty toward those enemies who are women than the ones who are men.A socialist is someone who gives all ownership of businesses over to the government and outlaws private businesses. Every bill Hillary ever voted for and every policy she ever supported allowed for private business. Those who scream “socialist” are liars, plain and simple.The people who believe the conspiracy theories about the CFR are the same ones who believe the conspiracy theories about the Masons or the Illuminati or that the Government planned 9/11 or that there are aliens in Area 51. I won’t waste my time with this issue except to say that those people who think mere membership in a group equals world conquest are being ridiculously paranoid.
Yeah, that’s why you should have the abortion early in the pregnancy before the baby forms. “will be” a baby is not the same as “is”. Eventually everyone will die. That doesn’t mean that everyone is dead now. The same principle applies to pregnancy.
Language includes body language. babies use and understand this language from the moment they are born.
“Clearest indicator” =/= “Only indicator”Nor is it equivalent to “definitive indicator.”On a sidenote, while Wikipedia is awesome and a great starting point for learning about a given topic, if you want to define consciousness, I’d suggest reading psychology texts, or reputable sites dedicated to information on psychology and/or consciousness.
But in politics, the goal is never to convince your opponent. Most of the time, they are already so dedicated to their position that nothing could change their mind. That’s just human nature unfortunately. The real goal, in politics, is to convince the silent moderate who is watching this debate go on. Elections are always won and lost over the middle of the political spectrum. And I think that Jen’s post could resonate with some with them.
Actually, according to my physiological psychology course this semester, you’re not “unconscious” when you’re asleep. You are still capable of responding to external stimuli.
Protip: Not everything written on a topic has to be written as an overture to proponents of the other view.
The states take away the rights of women everyday. The right to keep what you earn, the right to own military grade weapons, the right to drive 71 MPH, the right to use a naturaly growing plant in any fashion that you choose, the right to yell fire in a crowded theater. Every law that is passed is taking away rights of someone/all of us. So, yes, it is up to the states, and the federal goverment, and your local goverment to take away the rights of women and men with every law they pass. Otherwise everyone would be free to do everything no matter how harmful to themselves or others. A definition of a right is “That which has not been forbidden by law (yet).”If you are making the less literal argument that Abortion is a womans right and it shouldn’t be taken away by any law… Well, 150 years ago owning a slave was a right and we changed the law to take that right away. 120 years ago, hanging the guy that stole your horses was a right but the laws have changed and the rights with them. 100 years ago factory owners had the right to put as much coal smoke into the sky as they wanted but we changed the law to take that right away. 50 years ago any white person had the right to tell any black person to give up thier seat in public transportation or a buisness owner to say “we don’t serve blacks in this resturaunt” but that right changed. 10 years ago I had the right to carry my pocket knife when I flew on an airliner. Rights change with the laws and saying “this right is absolute” is in its own way naive. I believe it is a states rights issue and I’ll explain why. It has nothing to do with morality, or what is right and wrong, it has to do with the rule of law. The word abortion or medical care never appears in the constitution and the 10th ammendment is pretty clear that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Yes, some states will make the right choice and some will make the wrong choice (and I think which is which would be inverse depending on if they were asking you or me, lol) but at least it would be within the framework written into the constitution, instead of the RvW legislate from the bench, 1 law fits 50 states abberation that we have now. (and just to be clear I don’t think RvW is an abberation because it makes abortion legal in all 50 states, I would be just as upset at a decision that made it illegal in all 50 states)But you said it in your OP, the “when does this mass of cells/organs/fluids become a person is an arbitrary line” but it has to be drawn somewhere and if the two of us would draw it in diffrent places so be it. I am sure we would draw many arbitrary lines in diffrent places and that is OK. The constitution is set up to allow that. One last thing, and after this we can agree to disagree without being disagreeable, or we can contiune to express our respective points as beautifuly as we can, but the argument of “the law shouldn’t be able to tell a woman what she can do with her body” is not an honest one. The law allready says that she cannot commit suicide. This is an example of something that would only effect the womans body (directly) but it is still illegal. But you would/should have to make a diffrent argument for “abortion only effects a womans body so it should be OK” and “suicide only effects a womans body so it shouldn’t be OK.” Knowing you have been around the feminism blogs/thinktanks longer than I have a am pretty sure you have a good answer ready for this much as I have all kinds of answers about the stuff I am passionate about in my own life, but I am interested in your take on this question.Jack
This seems to be a competition between the state’s rights to set its abortion policy and the woman’s right to control her reproduction. Doesn’t the Tea Party say that they favor individual rights over state’s rights? I’m pretty sure they’d be against cap and trade even if it were offered at the state level. So if you support less government as your primary political goal then shouldn’t you be in favor of more abortion rights?
I expect you’d have the same stance on whether states should independently decide issues like absolute minimum wage or gay rights or slavery or freedom of religion as well?
And as long as we are talking about abortion, there is another issue to bring up. Under the current system, after pregnancy has occurred, there is a major gender unbalance between the options allowed for the man and the woman. The woman, in states where abortion services are widely available, can choose to end the pregnancy and not have kids if she so decides. The man, however, has no control over whether he has a child or not after the woman gets pregnant and can be forced to have kids against his will. I think this double standard is sexist. I think that if we are to have a gender neutral system, the man should have the option of an “abortion” too. He should be able to indicate that he is deciding not to have kids and doesn’t want to be forced against his will. If the woman wants to continue with the pregnancy, that is her choice, but the man will have no connection with the child if it is born. This option would only be available during the time when a woman had the ability to abort in order to be fair. If the man decided that he did want the child (or if he failed to make his decision within the given time, similar to how a woman could fail to get an abortion in time) then he would be given full visitation rights to the child that was born but also be expected to financially support it since he chose to have it. This system would allow for a more equal control of reproduction for both genders.
Quite the opposite, actually. The one year old is not necessarily dependent on your body to survive (your resources perhaps). We agree, you do have a special obligation to expend your resources to care for the child. However you do not have an obligation to use your body’s tissues to keep the child alive. You can not be forced to donate a kidney, or to undergo genetic testing, or any other medical procedure for the sake of your child, even if it is life-saving and minor.Here’s a thought experiement. A child needs a life-saving blood transfusion, and only the mother can donate. We might hope that the mother *does* donate. However legally, she can not be strapped down and forced to donate. While we may scold the mother, there is a greater problem in violating the fundamental right to control her own body. Agree or disagree with her decision, we agree it is her decision to make. However if, instead of being a child, a fetus needs a blood transfusion (which, in a manner of speaking, they all do), we somehow think it is perfectly justified to require the mother to use her body in that way. Whether you think that fetus is a person or not, at any particular stage of development, we can certainly agree does not have *more* status than the child. Your description of consciousness is a great way to decide whether you personally think having an abortion is justified. However we do have to respect that other people can choose to use their bodies in ways we disagree with.
Ok. I redact. “can’t the right hate her for being a big goverment democrat with socialist leanings and notmake it about her XX cromosone?” Believe me, all the bad things I think about her and Pelosi are the same things I think about Ried and Obama, sex doesn’t figgure into it in the slightest. The good things I think about Coulter are the same good things I think about Limbaugh. Sex doesn’t figgure into it. (to be honest I do have a few good thoughts about Anne that I don’t have about Rush, but that is more an effect of biology than politics.)
But if the 10th amendment says “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” then couldn’t abortion be put under the “or the people” part just as easily as the “to the States” part? Why assume that abortion is a State’s Rights issue rather than an individual liberty issue?My problem with too much states rights is that it can divide the country. Before the Civil War, people thought of themselves more as citizens of their states rather than citizens of their country. I think that added to the Civil War mentality and it makes us weaker as a country. If the states are fighting among each other, it makes it easier for potential future opponents, such as China, to gain the upper hand.By the way, I am in favor of having help available to people who are suicidal, but I’m not sure I favor having suicide be illegal (or rather attempted suicide since you can’t punish a person who successfully commits suicide). If a person is of sound mind, I don’t think the government should keep them alive against their will.
But it’s a classic!
If in your example a mother refused to donate blood and as a direct result of that her child died and a prosecutor chose to put her in front of a grand jury for murder… I would prolly bill it. If I were on a trial jury, I would lean heavily to a guilty vote, with just the facts we have here. The laws don’t really stop us from comiting crimes, they just punish us after we do, so they might not forcibly strap the (ficticious) mom to a table and drain blood, but they could (ought to) indict after the fact. Just sayin.
I have said much the same thing myself for years now. Glad to know I am not the only one.
I am very much a letter of the law kinda guy. To your selected issues… Fed Min Wage, not mentioned in the constitution, States right. Gay rights, 14th amendment, equal protection under the law, Federal. Slavery, 13th amendment federally outlawed, freedom of religion, 1st amendment, federal.(although to go in an unanticipated direction, technicaly straight couples don’t have a constitutionaly protected right to get married so I guess I am against any federal recognition of marridge gay or straight. ahh, thoughts for annother time and place.)Now, if you are giving me the magic wand and I get to re-write the constitution any way that I wanted… This nation would go back to a confederacy tommorow. A federal goverment that would ONLY provide national defence/intel, National Currency, International treaties, Prolly a few others I can’t think of right now, but yeah a goverment that is a fraction of the towering juggernaught of power that it is now. in 1776 we americans decided we didn’t want a towering juggernaught of power for a goverment so we took action. Someday we may decide that again. Jack’s magical wand goverment would have a federal legislature. But the only function of that legislature would be to write bills that have to be presented to the people (not the states, the individuals) who would then directly vote on the bills before being sent to the executive for veto or signature.The bill of rights would read a bit diffrent. I. The people need to have guns in case the goverment gets out of hand again. Also to protect themselves. No US military units may approach within 50 miles of the Federal capitol. No law may infringe the rights of a law abiding citizen from purchasing weapons and other tools for revolution. Laws may be enacted for the good of the governed to impose penalties for the use of these weapons and tools in the commission of crimes but the possession itself may never be a crime.II. The right to Free Speach, Assembly, Press, and Freedom is guaranteed by the US goverment so long as they don’t present a clear and present danger to public order. (also no church of the moslem faith may be built on US soil till the first christian church is built in Mecca or Rihad.)III. No person shall ever hold elected office for more than one term in one office over the course of his life and shall thereafter be prohibitted from holding elected office, earning income from goverment service/salery, goverment contractor or any position in private employ relating to any goverment agency, policy or official. The penalty for violating this is 20 years in a federal institution without the possibilty of parole. Oh, I could go on, but I have an appointment to play some City of Hero’s with some friends.Jack
Abortion, States right? Individual right? Once again we get to the point that an arbitrary line has to be drawn somewhere, lest murder and rape which are not constitutionaly defined crimes be considered “individual rights”. Some states will make it an individual right and some states would make it prohibited by state law, but in neither case does the federal goverment need to be involved.Maybe I am biased because I have been a Texan since 1999, and at some point between then and now I have started identifying myself as a Texan first and an American second. I recognize that the Fed govt does some useful things and I am greatful for them but my first loyalty is to Austin not Washington and I kinda resent the influence that legislators from “Not Texas” gets to have over Texans. When Austin tells me that I have to keep my speedometer to 70 or less resent it but I resent it less than when Pelosi passes a bill that forces me to purchase health insurance if I want it or not.I am glad we can agree on your last point, I feel the same way.
Perhaps ironically, the first person I ever heard support this theory was a girl. Maybe she was more openminded than most people of either gender.
Wow. That’s quite in the interest of freedom of religion, isn’t it. Somehow I can’t take you seriously at all when you make demands like that. (Also, an Islamic center of worship is called a mosque, not a church. Similar to how centers of worship for Judaism aren’t called churches, but synagogues.)I’m tempted to be petty and say that my “magic wand rules” would have to include something about people who can’t spell “government” not getting a say in it, but strangely enough, I maintain that such rules are poor policy. It does make me doubt how much you’ve actually read about the government, though, I have to admit.I could go on, but I have classes in the morning and would like some sleep.
Actually, the law is on the side of the mother. You can not, as a free person of sound mind, be made to undergo a medical procedure. Imagine if the law compelled donation of blood… would it also compel donation of bone marrow? or a kidney? The rule, fundamentally, is that you can control what happens with your body. That includes drawing blood (which is exceedingly minor compared to pregnancy, something that can carry significant risks and consequences). Take organ donation. We *know* donated organs will save lives, yet we will not harvest organs after your death without consent. That’s how seriously we take your right to control what happens with your body.
I feel this would be a fair policy, provided that the father’s desire to have a child (should he wish to do so) would not be understood to supersede the mother’s right to sovereignty over her own body, and that the mother be kept advised of the father’s objection to having children, should he object within the prescribed time period.
A woman supporting men’s rights is no more ironic than a man supporting women’s rights. Just wanted to point that out.
Yes, agreed. However, the reaction to an illogical, extreme position should not be an illogical, extreme position on the other side of the opinion, but rather rationality.Also, not all pro-lifers have the same motivation (and not all pro-choicers have the same motivation).Also, I don’t think she is joking.
Way to go, turning this from a discussion on the role of federal government vs states rights and making it into a spelling bee and the semantics of what one calls a moslem church. Go you.
Although come to think of it, I am pretty sure some would argue that part of the definition of having a sound mind would include not having suicidal tendancies.
All I needed was to show that some people do indeed think that.
But you’re just skirting the issue again. Left alone, neither eggs nor sperm will lead to life. So at what point does a fetus become a baby in your view? The point isn’t your answer. It’s that you have a view of what that line is, and you’ve presumably reached that view through some kind of thought process that you can share with others. And the other side does, too. Dismissing it out of hand because you disagree with it (which is essentially what Jen is doing) is intellectually dishonest.
Shorter Rollingforest: SCREAM LOUDER!!Nice strategy. And it’s been so successful.
aka self-congratulatory choir-preaching
smh
I’ve never understood why liberals don’t embrace States’ Rights more than they do. They bitch and moan as much as conservatives about all sorts of things, but conservatives, to their credit, at least realize that they can change things on the state level and generally leave others well enough alone. Liberals, for some reason, want to have everyone follow the same laws, all over the country. Don’t they see they could turn Oregon* (or wherever) into their liberal utopia by moving there and voting there?In other words, why are liberals so strongly Federalist? Why are they so gung-ho about forcing everyone else to be like them?This is a simplification, of course, and there are plenty of conservatives who equally try to impose their well through Federal laws, but as a general trend I think it holds true, and it doesn’t make sense to me.*which is currently fighting to keep an innocent man in jail (google “Lee v. Lampert”)
One thing you have to know is that just mention the constitution and you’ll get labeled a teabagger conservatard nazi.
So if you faint? Will that suffice?
I’ve covered this in the next post, so anyone interested can look there.
Maybe you are completely equal in your dislike of Hillary and Obama, but I don’t think that that is true of Conservatives as a whole, at least not subconsciously. Some Conservatives say that Ann Coulter and Sarah Palin are attractive, but I don’t see it. I will admit, though, that Christine O’Donnell and Michelle Malkin are hot and I’ll watch them on TV if the volume is off.
But you weren’t responding to “some people”. You were responding to me. It is unfair to twist my views into something they aren’t and then try to claim that you beat my argument. That’s called a strawman fallacy and it doesn’t help the conversation.
Yes, and left alone a baby will starve to death. I don’t see how you can claim that the addition of a small thing like sperm means that an egg goes from worthless to intensely valuable. Conception is just another step in the road toward babyhood. Consciousness, however, gets right to the center of why we consider something to have moral value: because it can feel pain and we believe we have a moral responsibility toward stopping that pain.Jen isn’t dismissing their argument, just mocking it, which is a different thing. She feels that their argument isn’t rational and she is using humor to show that.
Jen is being rational. She is pointing out the flaws in the pro-life argument by taking it to its logical conclusion. You can’t say that a fertilized egg is worth the same as a baby because it can turn into a baby and then say that an unfertilized egg is worthless because it lacks something as easy to get as sperm. It doesn’t make sense. That’s like saying “You are a person if you can talk, otherwise you aren’t and we can kill you”. These are just arbitrary lines that don’t fit the reality of what separates a person from a nonperson. I believe that consciousness, on the other hand, gets right to the point about what it is to be a person.Jen might be just answering the arguments of some pro-lifers then because there are certainly those who believe that a fertilized egg is the same as a baby morally.
Thanks for completely ignoring what I said. If you had read my post honestly, you would see that I’m simply making the observation that moderates are more open minded than those on the partisan barricades. The problem isn’t the argument. The problem is that some pro-lifers and pro-choicers are going to stick with their opinions no matter what you say and you should focus on the people you can actually convince. Please, if you are going to have a discussion with me, be serious. Don’t lie about what I wrote.
It is true that most people who commit suicide do it because they are depressed and wouldn’t make the same choice if they were of clearer mind. But I do believe that if you are in extreme pain all of the time and have no serious chance of lessening that pain, suicide can be the rational choice.
You want to maybe expand on that just a little?
Yeah, I don’t see Conservatives being so supportive of states rights when it comes to abortion policy or gay marriage. For those and other social issues they are perfectly willing to use the power of the Federal government to enforce their views, which I think is hypocritical of them.
Yes, you are of course correct. People are just more used to hearing issues be discussed by the people most directly affected by them. But I agree with you that morality and good policy doesn’t have to come just from the group that is hurt by the bad policy. We can care about others too.
Thanks for your comment! I was expecting hordes of people to leave angry tirades since this is a new issue that is easily misconstrued. I’m heartened by the fact that the only comments so far have been positive.
I agree that the citizens should be allowed to own guns to protect themselves against any rouge general who decides he wants to run the country (those who think this is impossible should study world history where it has happened again and again and again). However, if you keep the military 50 miles from the capitol, then that just makes all the citizens who live there easy targets for foreign militaries. We should protect all citizens from attack regardless of where they live.Why do you want to punish American Muslims for the crimes of the Saudis? The American Muslims have no control over what the Saudi Monarch does and they shouldn’t have to give up their religious freedom just because of his bad policy. If you are angry at the Saudi Monarch, punish him, not innocents in this country. It is true that incumbents in, for example, the House of Representatives get reelected far more than their voting record would suggest that they should, but that is due to gerrymandering not a lack of term limits. (by the way, the way to solve gerrymandering is to combine the requirement that all districts have the same number of people with a requirement that the total circumference of all districts added together be as small as possible. This will make districts more round and harder to gerrymander). I think that if we get rid of gerrymandering then we make the people’s wishes more represented. Just putting term limits without dealing with gerrymandering will just replace one corrupt politician with another corrupt politician.
It is of note that people who are severely depressed are actually less likely to commit suicide than those who are more mildly depressed. Furthermore, being “of sound mind” is a legal concept, decided by the courts, and is not generally based on actual psychological or psychiatric assessment.
Way to go, ignoring the fact that I questioned your completely biased view of freedom of religion, and instead focused on the fact that I called you out for some other things as well. I am astounded at your ability to notice which things are important in a response.My main problem here is the fact that you demand something of another government in order to allow basic freedom of religion. This is inexcusable bias. Your spelling errors and apparent lack of knowledge about religions other than Christianity simply make me less likely to respect your opinions on related subjects.
Given those points, I can’t object too much either. There are two separate points here – while the embryo is ‘part’ of the mother’s body, her sovereignty over it in terms of actual biological consequence is morally absolute, to me. However, The father should have some say over whether they can be held responsible for that child.What, though, about the case where the father wasn’t aware of the pregnancy in the time allowed to disclaim?
Strangely enough, I didn’t call him any of those things. I don’t see any other posts accusing him of such, either. Assuming that I’m labeling him in this way simply because I disagree with his opinion is disingenuous of you.
So delete the thing about Saudi and you would have no other bias against those 3 parts of the new bill of rights? What are you feelings about Direct Democracy for all bills drafted by the legislature? And yes, I know it’s a mosque, a koran, a prayer rug, no pork, no booze… I read up on alot of terrorist orginizations and the religions that they use as cover.
Just less common in feminism-friendly places, IMO largely because of the craziness that sometimes gets said in the name of men’s rights
An unconscious person has the biological hardware and software for consciousness, and a set of memories and behavior patterns which form a personal identity, which is what the consciousness is expressing. A fetus doesn’t have any of that.In order for an adult to be comparable to a fetus in terms of conscious personhood, they’d have to suffer severe brain damage.
I’ve had similar thoughts before. Only rarely actually mentioned it.I can see two options, though. One would be leaving it entirely up to the woman as to whether to have the child, but doing away with forcing child support for a decision fathers were not involved in.And the other option being something like you suggested. Of course, with the health risks and such being born by the mother you’d have to build in sufficient protections for their health. But allowing fathers some say in whether or not to have children.
Fine, I’ll respond to your entire post. Honestly, I felt more like doing one issue at a time — I felt it would lend itself better to an actual discussion of the topics you brought up — but as you can’t seem to defend your own words anyways…First off, your whole “we Americans decided” thing is ill informed. “We” Americans didn’t decide anything. Rich, white, landowning, influential men decided some stuff, much of which is ill-suited to present-day life.While a true democracy would be good in some ways, it is A) not what was intended by the founding fathers (which I don’t have a problem with, but I somehow suspect that you hold them just a step down in reverence from god), and B) would not protect the rights of minority groups (though somehow I doubt you’d care). Furthermore, such a government would be terribly inefficient.While I disapprove on a personal basis of gun ownership because access to firearms has been linked to increased rates of both lethal violent crime (specifically if said crime was unplanned) as well as suicide, I don’t know enough about the issue to definitively say that gun ownership should be restricted by the government much beyond current regulations. I do believe that gun ownership should be tracked, and that current restrictions on things like automatic weapons are reasonable.Restricting the military from approaching within 50 miles of the Capitol is ridiculous. I believe that Rollingforest covered this already.I have no problem whatsoever with the freedoms of speech, assembly, or the press.I do, however, have a very large problem with your very obvious religious bias. Please see my previous comments; I think I made it very clear.While I disapprove of your proposed restrictions on holding public office, I don’t know that it would really do much good, and I don’t really see why holding office once would have to disqualify one from holding office ever again, even in another capacity. I understand the problem of career politicians, but I can’t see this solving it adequately.I’m glad that you are so diligent in your study of terrorists that you know that Islam is only a cover for terrorist activities. I’m glad that you can’t be bothered to use the proper terms for aspects of religions that you haven’t been brought up in, even if you know the terms. I do have to wonder how many terrorist organizations you’ve read up on that have no link to Islam (or even — gasp — links to other religions) though, as I’m sure that one with your clearly vast understanding of this subject has had no time to study anything else.Including spelling and proper capitalization. Or just how to use spellcheck.
That IS why the right hates her.
We’re discussing the definition of when life starts and only your opinion counts? Introducing the views of other on the same topic is perfectly valid, and not at all a straw man argument.
The restrictions on public office I would put there to eliminate re-election campaign donations as a way of inflencing office holders. When a represenative enters his office and knows beyond all doubt that he doesn’t have to worry about fundraising, or re-election he can (hopefully) focus on 1. living up to his campaign promises and 2. doing the right thing (as opposed to the thing that will get him re-elected). Also I like the idea that after holding public office now these guys have to go get real jobs in the private sector. I like the idea that the guy who is passing legislation that affects buisness actually has ran a company, or a farm or a Dr.s office, rather than just running for election/re-election and nothing else.Right now Islam is a cover for so many terrorist organizations it is hard to count. The famous ones, Al-queda, Hezbolla, Hamas, the PLO(dated) [Seriously, pick a number and i’ll give you that many islamic terrorist organizations, 10? 100? 500?]. Believe me, if there were multiple organizations using the baptists as a means to cover for terrorism operations and recruitment I would be all about getting all hostile on the American Baptist Council or whatever they are calling it nowdays. But aside from some KKK afiliation the baptists are pretty quiet while every major act of anti-US terrorism for the past 20 years (except OKC) has been muslim based. And back in the day, before the PIRA stacked arms, I was reading up on them, the Jappenese Red Army, the KKK, The Black Panthers, and any group I came accross that was using violence against civilians as a means to bring political ends. But right now, all the big players in the terrorism game are muslims and anybody who pretends otherwise is deluding themeslves in an attempt to be PC holier than thou.Direct Democracy. Well, what I propose isn’t true Direct Democracy but it is closer than our current system. The FF were afraid of DD back in the day with good reason but in our more enlightend time where literacy is 99% (according to the CIA Factbook) and electronic communication is mass and instant I think we are ready to put a little bit more of the power into the hands of the people.Spelling and caps? If I were writing to get published, yeah, if I were gonna submit this to my teacher or supervisor, if I was getting paid to do this, spell check for sure, but this is for fun and intrest and when you start having to put work into your fun, you are missing on a fundamental idea of fun. Some people enjoy the anal retentativeness of being grammer nazi’s and go them, but in an informal setting like this I would rather judge a position on its merits rather than weather the proponet of the position used “There, Thier and They’re” properly. If you can’t communicate clearly enough to get your point accross, yes, that is a problem but picking nits isn’t my thing and I am not going to put effort into mineuta [sic] when ideas and ideals are the topic.
Thanks to biology, however, mothers don’t generally let infants die. Fetuses, too, generally come to term without problems. I don’t get the mocking-but-not-dismissing thing. My brain doesn’t do contortions. Could you unpack that?
Moderates are indeed more open-minded. That’s why they (we) are moderates. The things people scream from the partisan barricades (like Jen’s post) are exactly the kind of thing moderates deplore, because it’s just partisan screaming.Notice how she doesn’t respond to any substantive discussion? She’s not interested in it. She wants to stand on top of her barricade and scream.
“It’s not up to the states to take away the rights of women.”This one sentence betrays such a wide-ranging ignorance of how laws work in the US that it’s almost impossible to respond to except maybe by pointing to http://www.amazon.com/U-S-Cons… or something.Again, I’m not calling Jen stupid. She doesn’t seem to be stupid.
You’re right. My bad. Call it a conditioned reflex, I’ve seen it so often. Your post was in a similar vein, though. Who cares about spelling? He was making a point; you didn’t respond to it.
Well said. This has been brought up before, especially in light of cases where Mansfield’s Rule is applied. (http://dontmarry.wordpress.com…Essentially, a man has to raise any child his wife bears even if it is proven to be another man’s (through an extramarital affair).A SC lawyer, Melanie McCulley (yes, a woman), has argued exactly what you’re arguing. http://reason.com/archives/200…It’s a tricky issue, and you’re right that 99% of the time the reaction is horror if you suggest that maybe the situation isn’t fair.
Keeping the military 50 miles out of the DC would foster revolution, without leaving the area vulnerable to foreign militaries. No military on the planet has the ability to approach 100 miles of our coastline if we didn’t allow them to, not by land, sea, sub-sea, air or space. We are a super power, THE super-power at the moment. We can keep a 50 mile perimiter.My Anti-muslim bias is from the staggering ammounts of terrorism that is muslim based; the muslim anti female, anti anything but muslim precepts inherent to islam; and the fact that muslims are allowed to proslytize here but non muslims are not allowed to proslytize in muslim countries. Do you really think that is fair? And I am all for punishing King Saud, but stopping the spread into our culture has to start somewhere or in (x) generations our culture will be cutting of bits of little girls, decapitating adulterous women, requring head scarves, taxing every religion but islam, cutting off the hands of thieves… I think getting rid of gerrymandering would be a huge step but by itself not enough. There is an old saw about a bought politician staying bought. Politicians stay bought now because of thier re-election campaigns or the promises of cushy lobbiest/consulting jobs after they “retire”, if you eliminate the term re-election from our lexicon, the moment the newly elected represenative enters his office he owes nothing to no-one. He is Free. No one can get him re-elected, no one can give him a cushy job as a lobbiest or a consultant. He might vote on legislation that has large effects on the private sector, and in gratitude some company (without government contracts) gives him a cushy job, but I don’t really see a way to eliminate that 100% so I am willing to say “1 elected office, ever; no government job or related job thereafter as a way of REDUCING (not eliminating) corruption.
Make it like the organ donor system?
It’s a straw man argument because you acted like I was the one supporting that idea. You disproved the other person’s idea. Great. Good job. But that still doesn’t relieve you of answering my objections just so you can focus on your victory over others. You need to give my ideas a fair shot because I’m the one you are talking to.
Why does it matter that fetuses generally come to term? Two dogs of opposite gender, if left alone, generally produce puppies. Puppies may be great, but we don’t want more than we can support. So we neuter and spay the dogs. Similarly, fetuses, if left alone, produce a baby. Babies may be great, but we don’t want more than we can support. So we terminate the fertilized egg. In either case the puppies and the baby never existed even though they would have been if you hadn’t stepped in. Dismissing is when you ignore what someone says. Mocking is where you answer someone’s objection but in a sarcastic way.
Jen doesn’t respond to much to any of her posts and neither do most of the other blogs writers I read. The reason is that there are just too many commenters and if Jen spent her time arguing with them then she would never get anything else done. It can be frustrating to have people write things that you know are wrong, but you sometimes you just have to let it go because there are only so many hours in the day.
The blog post is correct that, before DNA testing was generally available, the Lord Mansfield law used to be the law in all 50 states. He makes some claims that I’m not sure about however. He states that only 5 states have overturned it and that 10% to 20% of pregnancies are due to affairs. I’ve heard much higher numbers for the first stat and much lower numbers for the second stat ( at 2% rather than 20%). I’m not saying that we should ignore it just because it is less, but we should try and get an accurate scientific picture of the situation. I’ll have to do more research to ort out all of the claims made by websites on this topic. My Dad, a lawyer, says that in some states, such as Virginia, if a person can prove that the child isn’t his, then child support payments are shifted over to the biological father. There have been some states, like Georgia, that made this change within the last few years, but I don’t know about all of them. For example, here is a website that says that Michigan overturned the Lord Mansfield law in 1976.http://definitions.uslegal.com…
In my personal view, the father should get a certain amount of time to decide about whether he wants to have the child or not. This would motivate the woman to tell him early so that he would have to decide during a period in which she could still abort if necessary. There is various ways to handle this, however, and I’m open to different ideas.
Well, I suppose that the generals taking over the Federal government could trip up the United States because there would be a question of who was in control. But the generals would need to use their power outside of Washington or else the Governors of the states would pretty quickly oppose them and, if they had loyal armies, force them out. But I suppose that you do have a point that if the generals took over half of the United States, it is better for America if they took over the half without Washington because it would be easier to assemble a resistance if our central government was intact. I agree that Fundamentalist Islam is a problem, but it is a problem because it is Fundamentalist, not because it is Islamic. The fact is that Christianity used to be the same way 400 years ago. We had absolute kings who ruled by Christian decree, we had witch trials where women were accused and put to death over superstition, we had religious wars that massacred the population (the worst of which was probably the 30 years war where 1/3rd of the German civilian population was slaughtered), we had Crusades where the Christians invaded Jerusalem and killed every Muslim and Jew inside, both men women and children. We had Christians running an international slave trade. We had Christians exterminating Native Americans in North America and using the natives as slave labor in South America. We had Christians executing other Christians who didn’t fit their religious beliefs (in America, for example, there are cases of people being executed in Massachusetts and Virginia for the “crime” of being Catholic). I look at all of this and can see that what makes the West advanced is not Christianity, but rather the Enlightenment values that we learned in the 17th and 18th Centuries. While it is true that there is a problem with Fundamentalist Islam in Europe, most American Muslims are, to my understanding, assimilated to Western culture. There are two Muslims in Congress, both Democrats. If you looked at their voting record you would see that it is the Fundamentalist Christians in Congress that are more similar to the Fundamentalist Muslims. The danger is Fundamentalism, not Islam. If the Muslims in America are peaceful, which I think any objective person would admit that the grand majority of them are, then they should be allowed to proselytize. If Christianity or Atheism or whatever is so great, it should be able to stand up to Islam. Religion should be a personal choice, not based on what country you live in. We need to punish Saudi Arabia rather than becoming like them. Hmm, maybe you have a point on the whole idea of not allowing reelection. Lobbyists might use money to get a congressman elected, but if that Congressman can’t get reelected then the control that those Lobbyists have over him is greatly reduced.
Yeah, when you compare Men’s Rights Associations and Feminist organizations, MRAs seem to have a lower truth/bullshit ratio. Which is sad because, while women suffer more discrimination than men, I think all genders could benefit from getting rid of gender roles.
I’ve been thinking about this more, and there is one big issue – you can’t make it too easy for men to escape consequences of their actions. Absent some good reason why they shouldn’t be held responsible for the conception, men have to have some inescapable consequence, just as the woman. Once a woman is pregnant, they can’t avoid the consequences – just choose which one is least bad.Light on details here, but that’s a principle that can’t be ignored, IMO.
I think that if both the man and the woman agree that there should be an abortion, then the man should be required to pay for half the cost of the abortion. I think that can be defined as an “inescapable consequence”.I have further beliefs on this topic that I think would make reproductive rights even more equal between the genders, but I know that many people on this thread will not agree with me on these last points. I think it is important to push for the agreement that we reached above rather than for me to sink the whole ship in order to get the full package.
There is a consequence of this. Having a child to term isn’t simply done after birth. I would not mind counselling for the couple who wanted this, because maybe the woman MAY agree to carrying the child to term and “a bit more” for the father. However the issue in a lot of cases is that women aren’t ready to have children and giving a man an equal say can result in cases were women get forced and coerced into carrying to term. Having a child is a big strain on your resource and on work due to the nature of maternity leave. Women are still discriminated for that (just look at the MRM and their whinging about that!) Even after the child is born, it is best that the child remain with the mother for atleast 9 months. (I am against “on birth adoptions”. They aren’t at the best interest of the child since the child’s immunity has not yet formed and for the first 6 months the child is dependant on the mother’s milk for immunity. Human breast milk should be given as a whole for atleast 6 to 9 months after which weaning can occur.) It’s tragic, I would like the option to keep the child to be there but ultimately the decision should rest with the woman and I would advice against it due to the potential health issues in the child down the line due to the inability to acquire breast milk. I know americans have a 2 week waiting period but studies show that breast is best by a long distance.
I think the fundamental diffrence is that people are not dogs. Killing your neighbors (or a strange random dangerous) dog is sad but killing a strange random dangerous person is murder.
Have you really never encountered Reductio Ad Absurdum before?Really?
What if they confess their sins and invite Jesus into their nuclei?
The intent here is
Have a nice day.
This is an idea that’s been raised before and seems to be almost universally reviled in feminist circles, though I’m not entirely sure why. The argument that it trivializes the investment in carrying a pregnancy to term, and/or usually becoming the primary or sole caregiver of a child for the next eighteen years, by implicitly equating it with having to pay child support isn’t entirely unreasonable. But arguing this shouldn’t an option fundamentally devolves into asserting that “shoulda kept your legs together, slut” is an unjust and heartless position to take for some who’s faced with being railroaded into a loss of control of their future – unless that someone has a penis; then it’s perfectly reasonable – or that there’s some threshold level of injustice that’s okay. In other words, you pretty much have to argue “it’s okay as long as it’s happening to a man” or “it’s okay as long as it’s only moderately unjust,” and I don’t find either position defensible.Another objection is that when it comes up, it’s often in the context of the assertion that women will lie to their partners about using birth control correctly and consistently and get pregnant intentionally (or “accidentally-on-purpose” which is the same fucking thing) either in order to secure themselves financially via child and family support, or to trap the father into a relationship with them. This is usually dismissed as misogynistic paranoia, but while it’s likely that the incidence is exaggerated, it happens – my daughter and I are the victims of one instance. When this comes up, critics usually repeat “CHILD SUPPORT IS FOR THE CHILD” like something between a bumper sticker slogan and a war chant. This is supposed to be true, but I’ve never gotten a satisfactory answer on what oversight mechanisms exist to keep the mother from simply pocketing money paid as child support while providing the absolute legal minimum for the kid.No one but the most irredeemable psychopath would dispute that defrauding a partner into conceiving a child, in order to take advantage of them, is an unforgivable violation of both one’s partner and the resulting child. But that isn’t terribly informative as far as what to do about it after it happens. I’d previously concluded that not allowing the disclaiming of child support is an unfortunate necessity, since an exception allowing men who’ve been taken advantage of in this way to avoid paying would potentially be abused and in any case it would lead to the risk of a child, who has no choice or recourse, being inadequately provided for. And I’ve felt that it’s much more important to focus on remedying the (often misogyny-driven) familial and societal failures that produce women so psychologically broken that they feel that creating a child to use as a weapon to secure themselves financially and/or emotionally is acceptable or “necessary.”But while I still think the latter, the more I think about it, the more I think an appropriate respect for women’s intelligence and agency implies accepting that women are capable of being smart enough and honest-mature-adult enough to objectively and rationally consider whether their potential child can, and is likely to, be adequately cared and provided for in the circumstances into which it would be born, and moral enough to take that consideration seriously, before electing to go through and give birth to it. And I think that we SHOULD expect this, because women ARE grownups. I don’t think this should extend to breaking prior agreements, but I don’t see it as anything other than paternalism to insist that society shouldn’t allow a woman to say “I’m going to have this child alone” and actually mean she’ll be having (and committed to having) it alone.
Actually, you can be charged under the law for killing a dog that wasn’t threatening you. Also, killing a man who was threatening you is not considered a crime in many states (this is especially true in Texas).My personal view is that my dog is worth more than my sperm. My dog is also worth more than a fertilized egg, which I consider little different from my sperm. It is not until the fetus awakens, becoming conscious and thus a baby, that I consider it more important than my dog. But ultimately I can’t scientifically prove my morals. I’ve offered the reasoning behind them, but if you have different morals I can’t force you to accept mine. I think this is another example of how Sam Harris’s thesis on morality runs into trouble.
Wait, was anyone arguing that a man should be able to veto his partner’s abortion?I missed that. That’s insane.
But, to my understanding, there are millions of women who don’t breast feed their children and most of them turn out fine. Maybe it might be better to some degree to breast feed, but the experts don’t seem to be calling for the apocalypse if it doesn’t happen. See, for example, this article:http://breastfeeding.about.com…I think the right to adopt is more important than the advantages of breast feeding. Perhaps, with the right hormonal pills, the adopting mother could be caused to lactate.
There is still the issue that the woman can choose to give birth to a child if she finds herself pregnant, but the man can have a situation where every woman wants an abortion and he never is able to have his own kids. But I’ll leave that issue alone for now.
I do agree that laws need to be changed to make sure that the mother is actually spending the child support money on the child. It is the mother’s responsibility to decide whether she believes that she can care for the child or not if she decides to go it alone. If she forgoes an abortion (which is very safe and cheap in the first trimester and which I believe the law should require the man to help pay for) and goes ahead and has the child anyway, she is indicating that she is taking full responsibility for its future. I would have no problem with a man taking full responsibility for a child if he wants to and the mother doesn’t. I think each gender should be allowed to decide either to A. raise the child together, B. raise the child without the help of any other partner, or C. have an abortion. If we are going to disallow one of those options, we need to do it for both genders. In other words, if we are going to force the father to have children against his will, then it is unfair to allow the woman to choose not to and the pro-lifers prevail. My plan, detailed above, provides another option.
I’m a moderate on the issue of abortion. Since Atheists are mainly left-wing, I expected to argue with mainly pro-choicers on this issue. But I was surprised that most of my debate opponents were pro-life. Given the blogs I hang out on, I don’t get to argue that side of the issue much, so it was fun.
Actually, from what I’ve read lactation can be stimulated even without hormonal pills by persistent nipple stimulation, though the volume is usually less and I think colostrum may not be produced.
Yes, because the issue of bodily autonomy is a trump there. In principle there’s absolutely no reason a man shouldn’t be able to have a child on his own. It’s unfortunate that human bodies work that way, but if they didn’t, no one would hinder his efforts.
No, that is NOT unfair, because the effects of pregnancy are NOT equal to what men go through. See repeated references to “bodily autonomy” above.I find your apparent inability to wrap your mind around the notion that this could be an issue extremely disturbing, frankly.
“Pro-choice” IS the “moderate” position.
Saying that “killing a child one day after birth is murder but aborting a child one day before birth is okay” is NOT a moderate position. Just as saying “abortion is never okay even if the mother is about to die because of your inaction” is NOT a moderate position. The fact that anyone believes either of those is terrifying, but we see it all too often in the literature on abortion. Both the pro-life and pro-choice activists take rather extreme positions and I’m glad that most of America isn’t like that.
Okay, I was just going to glaze over this issue, but since you decided to become judgmental, I’m going to have to respond. Yes, I realize that bodily autonomy is an issue and that it is a right, but it is not the do-all-end-all that some pro-choicers want to make it out to be. Your body is not more important than anything else. For example, I would have no problem requiring that everyone get a vaccination to prevent the spread of a deadly disease even if that infringed on someone’s bodily autonomy. Since we are talking about abortion, I think it is important to point out that the issue of personhood trumps the issue of bodily autonomy. Once it has been shown that the fetus has become a baby (as I believe happens when it becomes conscious in the second trimester) then that baby’s right not to be killed trumps the woman’s right to bodily autonomy. Saying “I’ll let this child die because I don’t feel like caring for it anymore” is evil and we should point that out.
I believe reproductive rights trump bodily autonomy. Most of the time these two are the same, but not always. Saying “that’s just too bad” isn’t good enough.
I think that is a problem, actually. If we know that donated organs can save lives and yet the wishes of a dead person over ride saving living people, I think we’ve made a mistake. We can debate about bodily autonomy while a person is alive, but after dead, the living should take precedent.
You really don’t see how having a living organism inside your body, hooked up to all of your organ systems and through various not-rare-enough pregnancy complications capable of turning almost any of them into a time bomb at a moment’s notice, skimming off your nutrient intake and pumping its own waste products into your bloodstream, stretching out some organs and shoving others aside to the point where your intestines are basically wadded up just under your breasts, stretching out your skin, softening and deforming joints throughout your body due to hormonal effects evolved to offer your pelvis at least a tiny modicum of protection from what’s coming, dramatically increasing your risk for incontinence later in life and changing your body in numerous other ways where it will NEVER go fully back to “normal,” putting an agonizing strain on your back and making simple movement awkward by screwing with your center of gravity so much, usually leaving you puking randomly for the first three months, sometimes dramatically affecting your mental and emotional state due to the massive doses of circulating hormones, having to be removed from you either by having your abdomen sliced open while you’re awake and conscious or being shoved through an opening that’s well-equipped to handle objects up to about half its size and so prone to being ripped by this that doctors tend to preemptively cut the side so it doesn’t tear in the worst places, requiring weeks of healing afterwards that usually require taking time off work which can torpedo your chances of serious career advancement in many industries due to anti-family and (somewhat more covertly) anti-woman policies and attitudes, leaving you with as much as a 25% risk of severe, crippling depression for months after it’s removed, and on top of all that, advertising your condition to absolutely everyone who due to the sexist culture you live in feels entitled to walk up and handle your belly, subject you to intrusive questions and conflicting lectures, and judge, judge, judge you if the circumstance under which you wound up in this state aren’t to your liking, to the point where people had to sue to not be overtly fired for getting or being in this state…compared to being expected sleep on the wet spot…might unbalance things…JUST A LITTLE?
“Aborting” a child one day before birth would take the form of a premature delivery. And if you ever thought about your positions you would probably conclude, rightly, that at that point there’s absolutely no reason for it to come out *dead* if it would be capable of surviving in the first place. Which, you know, no one disputes to my knowledge. This is a strawman, and a stupid one.Further, the majority of people who identify as “pro-choice” support [EDIT]or at least accept[/EDIT] restrictions on abortion later in the pregnancy. Has the anti-choice side actually metastasized to lying about this?
No, it doesn’t. No born adult can use your body, even to keep him or herself alive, without your consent, and that consent can be withdrawn at any time it is practical to do so. Even if a fetus is a person, a woman has absolutely no obligation to allow it to de facto parasitize her unless she is willing to be de facto parasitized.
Let’s put it another way. Forcing the above on a woman without her consent, for any reason whatsoever, is effectively slavery. You do not, under any circumstances, have the right to use slave labor to accomplish something, even if that something is, in and of itself, something you have a general right to do.And if the only way you could actually something done that you want to do, that you have a general right to do, is by slave labor, then in every other circumstance “that’s just too bad” is indeed good enough. There’s nothing special about this one such that it shouldn’t apply.Find a way for a man to have a child he wants, that no woman is willing to gestate for him, without having to enslave another human being, and it’s all yours.
Heh!Then they have stubbornly disregarded and escaped the perfect justice, making them quite evil, and Jesus an enabler of evil.
I would agree that that is an injustice, but it’s one that comes from nature, not from society. Yes, justice would best be served with development of ectogenesis. Uterine Replicators FTW.While it’s a good-ol’fashioned pregnancy, the pregnant one has the final say on biological decisions.
Most of the pro lifers I know would allow for abortion in cases of rape/incest, life of the mother and some of them in case of birth defects. What they are against is abortion as a form of birth control. Just like the extreem pro choice movement is all about defending late term abortion and abortion on demand without question or notification, the extreem pro life movement is all about abolishing every abortion no matter the circumstances. The moderate position IS… up to debate. Once again an arbitrary line gets drawn somewhere.
I agree with you that fundamentalism is a problem in every religion, but lets play the numbers game here. How many christian fundies have shot abortion doctors, blowed up clinics, Shot a couple BATF agents? 2 or 3 a year? How many planes get crashed into buildings, busses blowed up, insurgencies, rocket attacks, beheaded captured soldiers ect by muslim fundies? 1 or 2 a week? They are both wrong but I am willing to put ALOT more effort into stopping the latter than the former. I would love to see a day when two good athiests say to each other “Remember back when those nutty mohammadans used to strap C4 to themeselves, ha ha ha, whacky days. So what are we gonna do about those homicidal baptist bastards and papeist pedafphiles?” In the immortal words of Sinead O’Conner “Fight the real enemy.”
Not true. If a woman (or man) was to abandon their 2 year old child in the woods, letting her die, and then defend themselves by saying that they had bodily autonomy and the child had no right to parasitize off of the work of their body, this wouldn’t stop them from being charged with child abuse and manslaughter if not murder. As a parent, you are legally obligated to care for your children. Cutting off assistance to them base on “bodily autonomy” and the fact that they are “parasites” isn’t going to get you anywhere legally or morally.
The argument you use above is the exact same argument some libertarians use for show why all federal taxes are “theft”. While your post immediately above this one makes some good points, the whole “you can’t make a person do what they don’t want to do” is anarchist and not going to help you in the minds of most people.
Fine. You make some good points. I’ll have to take what you said into account when considering my position.
I can see the points that you are making. I’ll have to take them into account.
But many pro-choicers feel that the woman should have the right to end a pregnancy any time before birth regardless of circumstance. You never hear them say “a woman has the right to end a pregnancy any time before birth UNLESS the child would be harmed or killed by this action”. No, they feel that the child can be thrust aside without any consideration for their wellbeing. Even Jen herself says in this very post that she believes that a baby can’t be considered life it is ejected from the womb (yes, the quote in question jokingly says the opposite, but the entire post is supposed to be sarcastic and we are supposed to realize that Jen supports the opposite of what she says in the post). If a baby isn’t even considered alive until it leaves the womb, then what’s to stop people from doing all sorts of nasty things that would be considered horrible crimes if only the child was moved two feet away out of the womb? The law currently protects viable children ONLY because the more extreme pro-choice theorists (who aren’t as rare as most would like) don’t have the political power to force their views.
I have been concerned about Europe letting in too many Fundamentalist Islamists. The fact that Britain lets them set up Sharia court is disturbing. National law should take precedent and national law in Britain promotes, for example, gender equality which many Sharia courts do not. Thus any Sharia decision which does not abide by gender equality should be automatically over ruled. It worries me to hear reports that Britain might not be doing this. That being said, we need to figure out a way to differentiate between Fundamentalist Muslims and the more modernist brand. Religion is, unfortunately, a personal identification for most people. It would be unfair to say to Muslims “you can’t build Mosques in America because Christians can’t build churches in Saudi Arabia” just as it is unfair to say to Atheists “you can’t have Secular organizations in America because China doesn’t allow Christians free exercise of their religion.” American Atheists shouldn’t be punished for the actions of China and American Muslims shouldn’t be punished for the actions of Saudi Arabia. We HAVE to figure out a way to punish Fundamentalists alone.