Pro-aborts pull out stops opposing Stupak Amendment in healthcare – Wait a minute, that can’t be right! We were told all along — including by the President himself — that the health care bill wouldn’t cover abortions, so any amendments would be unnecessary.
Oh, right, they were all lying.
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Shocking: AP does more fact-checking (actually it is op-ed masquerading as reporting) of Palin’s book before it has been released than they did with Obama’s long-published books, not to mention investigating the rest of his background and associates.
For those of you who voted for Obama, can you tell me what his college grades were? How about SAT scores? LSAT scores? Or can you even give an explanation as to why he hasn’t released them? Or why the media never pushed on these issues?
I’ll wait here. [Crickets chirping]
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A nice summary of highlights from our President’s “America Sucks!” tour. Yep, groveling is a great way to win respect.
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Even Liberals can see what a huge mistake the 9/11 trial location is.
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Enjoy this ironic pro-abortion cartoon. He meant to lampoon the alleged inconsistency of pro-lifers, but if you pay attention you’ll see that we are consistently pro-life: Protecting all human beings from being killed against their will.
It is also amusing for him to imply that we only oppose abortion on religious grounds. Even many atheists can see the immorality of crushing and dismembering innocent human beings.
I wonder if he rails against the religious folks who (falsely) claim that Jesus would support the health care package in general and the pro-abortion part in particular? Or is he hypocritical in only targeting religious people who disagree with him?
Hat tip: Jill Stanek
Filed under: Weekly roundup | Tagged: abortion, book, christianity, current events, obama, Politics, Pro-life, religion, sarah palin
I looked at the cartoon before reading your comment (pointing out the irony), and I admit I was confused by it. Then I worried that maybe I’m A) just dense or B) sleep-deprived.
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who went “huh?”
Protecting all human beings from being killed against their will.
It’s amazing how up-front and consistent pro-lifers are about women, in their eyes, not being human beings who deserve any protection.
Can you expand on that? How does opposing abortion say that women aren’t human beings deserving of protection? Abortion is the ultimate misogyny. Women were sold the lie that they had to be able (and willing?) to destroy their children to “prove” that they were equal with men. Pretty twisted stuff.
Post-abortion trauma is real. We want to protect women from that as well.
Do you vehemently oppose gender selection abortions? Because virtually all of them destroy female human beings for the sole reason that they are female.
Post abortion trauma is not caused by abortion, it’s caused by the guilt put upon women who choose to end a pregnancy. You can’t pretend it’s a side effect of the procedure.
And I’ll answer that I vehemently oppose gender selection abortions.
Nobody thinks babies should be killed. We just disagree on the point at which a baby exists.
Then why do 70% of post-abortive Japanese women, who don’t live in a pro-life country nor with the Christian tradition, regret their abortions?
Riddle me this: if evolution is the way things happened, with no divine interference, wouldn’t women be evolved to want to fight for their unborn babies with everything in them? In the scale of human evolution, antibiotics are new; we are evolved to avoid miscarriage, which could cause raging infections. Blood transfusions are new, too; our DNA hasn’t caught up there, but is still stuck in an era in which haemorrhaging from a miscarriage was a death sentence. Even non-deadly miscarriages could result in future infertility; women who miscarried less would thus outbreed their peers. Finally, human beings are not fruitflies: we treasure all of our offspring and invest tremendous resources (both nutritional, as for a pregnant and nursing women, and time) in our offspring.
Your logic only makes sense if we assume that human beings do not care about their babies, or can miscarry away without any effect on health or future fertility, even absent modern medicine. Personally , I find that to be a laughable assumption.
You make good points. I was too hasty with my statement. Yes, we have evolved the desire to produce offspring (nothing is more central to evolution), and yes, I can see that it can be traumatic for a women after an abortion, and that a woman (or a man) could regret it. I think this trauma, though is far more related to the choice of terminating a pregnancy than the procedure itself.
Just to clarify, in an ideal world, I would prefer that there never be an abortion.
You should vote pro-life then, that is if you really mean it. Abortion, like other kinds of muder can be outlawed and reduced that way you know.
I would be in favour of outlawing abortions after a certain period, and that would be fairly early in the pregnancy. However, given that the pro-life crowd considers any amount of fertilized cells “a baby” and a legal entity, I cannot lend my support.
Thanks for a perfectly meaningless comment. We’d be glad to take that compromise for now, but you withdrew your “support” in the next sentence. You don’t really believe what you are saying. You are the typical pro-abort who doesn’t want to admit he’s a pro-abort. You wring your hands over gender selection and late term abortions but do nothing to stop them. Yeah, Obama will tell you the same things, even though he thinks you can let babies die outside the womb if the abortion is “botched” and the baby comes out alive.
Sure, Ryan. But Jer is putting pressure on me to feel guilty for being a pro-lifer. Watch it not work. Hey, I must be a sociopath! I’m immune to the MSM and the Ryans and the Jers of the world telling me how anti-woman I am for saying it is wrong to crush and dismember innocent human beings.
And the women having their children destroyed have so many folks like you cheering them on, so wouldn’t that balance out the guilt? Maybe you need to be more vocal with your “abortions are super fun!” (hat tip: Stephen Crowder) message so they won’t feel guilty.
You are equivocating. Abortion kills an innocent human being. You just play your “personhood” game to rationalize their destruction. Some people disagree on whether blacks or Jews were fully human, too.
Glad you are wildly inconsistent and oppose gender selection abortions. But if they aren’t persons yet, how can they be female “non-persons?”
Jinx!
Oh, that is sweet!
I never said or thought that you were anti-woman.
Is there no middle ground for you on this? Just because I don’t want to make it illegal, that means I love the idea of abortions? I don’t think there should be any abortions. Zero would be the right amount.
You place the creation of a person at conception. I place it further along. If it is so cut and dry that a life is created at conception, at what point does that one life become two lives in the case of identical twins?
The reason we do things has much to do with the morality of the situation, even if the act is the same.
Because their gender potential is evident.
But you are already on record with your faulty personhood argument in saying that potential is no reason to prevent a human being’s destruction. That fails on two levels.
My “personhood” argument is the basis for my opinion, and I don’t consider it faulty. If you can convince my that a zygote is a person, you’d change my mind.
Your personhood argument is ridiculous. You pick Ryan’s arbitrary criteria of who qualifies as a person and when (hey, it worked great for the Nazi’s and the slave owners!). Human beings who don’t meet your elusive criteria are fair game for destruction.
Oh, you’ll tut-tut over gender selection abortions cause those are sort of a bad motive (whereas killing them for convenience, education, money, etc. are no problemo).
But wait — you don’t lift a finger to do anything about those that do meet your personhood criteria, either! So you’re whole hand wringing thing is a big fraud.
The zygote in question is a human zygote. And of course, most abortions don’t destroy zygotes, so you are trying to shift the goal posts to rationalize your position.
My apologies, I should have been 17% less direct with that comment.
BTW, here’s a guy who murdered his unborn child — http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2009/11/shock_tmz_headl.html . Not sure if the unborn human being was a person yet, so we can’t say if it was immoral.
Your personhood argument is ridiculous. You pick Ryan’s arbitrary criteria of who qualifies as a person and when (hey, it worked great for the Nazi’s and the slave owners!). Human beings who don’t meet your elusive criteria are fair game for destruction.
Cute.
But Jer is putting pressure on me to feel guilty for being a pro-lifer. Watch it not work. Hey, I must be a sociopath!
Well, yeah. Anyone who can dismiss tens of thousands of women dying – and more losing their ability to have more children – with a comment like “they’re not innocent” – is either sociopathic or playing one really well.
If you’re referring to the tens of thousands of women who died as a result of “back-alley abortions” before Roe v Wade, forget it. They didn’t exist. There are no such numbers verifiable on any level.
Also, losing the ability to have children is a poor excuse as one has no idea regarding future ability until a child is born. If you were referring again to illegal abortions pre Roe, that’s on the mothers taking foolish chances, not on those standing up for the lives those women would end.
Agree with Marshall re: the absolute absurdity of killing one child and then complaining that you can’t have more.
If you want to discuss the innocence of people involved in this, Jesurgislac, don’t throw a fit when someone points out that your darling baby killers don’t qualify for the label.
If you want to stop discussing innocence and start discussing abortion and health, let’s go for it! Given the choice between abortion and either child birth or not getting pregnant in the first place, the former is clearly less safe – even when legal. Up to 10% of women who get medical abortions need follow-up care. Women are at a higher risk of suicide. Most of them end their relationships shortly after the abortion — so much for helping women to have a fruitful and fulfilling sex life, huh? Abortion ruins the cervix and has been demonstrated to radically increase a woman’s chance of miscarriage. Finally, the abortion-breast cancer link is well-established.
If abortion were illegal, women with any iota of common sense would just not get pregnant in the first place. Given the ridiculous amount of birth control available, they just don’t have any excuse. Accidental pregnancy in the 21st century is like accidental starvation at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
Be sure to study this site for all the damage done to women by “safe and legal” abortions — http://realchoice.blogspot.com/ .
Also note that most of the illegal abortions were done in doctor’s offices (“Uh, you’re late . . . better do a D&C . . . “).
And women who harm themselves with self-induced abortions often do so even if abortion is legal. They have other issues.
I know the back alley / coat hanger bit is useful to manipulate women but it is largely a lie.
How does opposing abortion say that women aren’t human beings deserving of protection?
Well, if you regard women as human beings, women have the basic human right of getting to decide how, when, and why to risk their health and their life: women have the basic human right of deciding whether, when, and if to allow the use of their body.
Where abortion is illegal, women are denied those human rights – and the result is that while illegal abortions take place at about the same rate as legal abortions, more women die. (Seventy thousand women die each year because pro-lifers successfully denied those women access to safe, legal abortion: about half the number that it’s estimated die in childbirth.)
Pro-lifers who claim to oppose abortion because they want to protect human beings are either being completely hypocritical about why they oppose abortion – or don’t regard women as human beings.
Post-abortion trauma is real. We want to protect women from that as well.
It’s not up to anyone but the woman who is pregnant to decide what she wants to be “protected” from. (“Post-abortion trauma”, as a syndrome, has never been shown to exist: but pregnancy and childbirth have both been shown to cause mental trauma as well as physical.)
Do you vehemently oppose gender selection abortions?
I oppose forced abortion as consistently as I do forced pregnancy. Both are wrong, for the same reason.
Major question begging there. As with nearly all pro-abortion arguments, you assume what you should be proving: That another human being isn’t in the equation, and that abortion doesn’t destroy her.
You also play the silly game of pretending that we have no idea how the baby got there to begin with. Actions have consequences.
Lies. Just because you bought them doesn’t mean I will. Abortion went up dramatically after RvW. And the women who died from abortions were in the double digits in the last year the CDC kept records. Your “coat hanger” scare tactics were made up to manipulate women.
Re. “safe” abortions: Question begging, again. You forgot about the human being who dies — http://tinyurl.com/yzjq4l
Question begging. What about the females (and males) who get killed?
Let’s see . . . either all the studies I’ve seen and all the women I’ve met who had it are lying or you, the one advancing legal destruction of human beings, is lying. I think it is you.
You dodged or misunderstood the question. I asked about gender selection abortions, not forced abortions (though those are extremely common — pressure from boyfriends and/or parents can be quite severe).
And you are twisting words to say you are against forced pregnancy. That would just mean you opposed all abortions except those involving rape. But you consider any unwanted pregnancy to be forced, again betraying the obvious actions that resulted in the pregnancy.
Neil, you’re also ignoring the fact that Jer would not mind a woman aborting her viable baby if she found out that it would be gay, because that is her choice. In the pro-abort world, any reason that a woman comes up with is morally acceptable, even if the same reason, from a man or in any other situation, would be morally abominable.
I totally disagree. I believe abortion should be legal in early stages of pregnancy, but I also believe that aborting based on certain traits, including gender, is morally wrong.
If we could detect gender, intelligence, obesity, and homosexuality earlier in pregnancy (say, at 6 weeks), would you oppose abortion for those reasons at that point?
Or do you only condone abortion if it’s done for the “right” reasons?
Furthermore, if it’s not a human baby… how can it be a male or a female? potentially obese? innately homosexual? Either you’re killing a potential female baby (not bad), or you are ending the life of a female baby (bad, regardless of the reason).
If we could detect gender, intelligence, obesity, and homosexuality earlier in pregnancy (say, at 6 weeks), would you oppose abortion for those reasons at that point?
I was asked by a gay guy, a close friend, when we were reading the latest Sunday supplement about “the gay gene” (which I consider to be scientific nonsense) if I would support a homophobic women deciding to have an abortion because she had had her fetus tested and it had come up positive for “the gay gene”.
I thought about it, because I think that would be as absurd a reason for wanting an abortion as because the fetus is female, or Deaf, or dwarfish, or Black, or White, or … any of the normal range of human variation.
And then I decided: No, I support a woman’s right to choose, to decide for herself whether to terminate or continue the pregnancy. (Taking a newborn infant away from the mother is a major emotional trauma not to be self-inflicted without serious consideration, a fact not much considered by advocates of “just have the baby adopted”.)
I may disagree with a woman’s reasoning. I may disagree with her choices. I will disagree with the bigotry that leads to aborting a fetus because the fetus is gay, or female, or Black, or Deaf…
But forcing a woman to continue her pregnancy against her will is a greater wrong. And writing laws that require a woman to endure forced pregnancy because some women may have wrong reasons for having an abortion, is collective punishment on all women for the bigotry of a few: it would be as wrong as forcing abortion – or adoption – on a woman because outsiders have decided she will be an unfit parent.
Nonsense. She didn’t get pregnant against her will. A new human being has been created. She has already used her “reproductive freedom” to reproduce. Your continued use of fallacious concepts like “forced pregnancy” just demonstrate your disingenuous approach.
I find it odd that pro-aborts concede the trauma of adoption but not abortion. I submit that the trauma of giving up a child for adoption will be far less than that derived from paying a stranger to destroy the child in utero.
Glad you realize the “gay gene” bit is nonsense.
Well, if you are making up your own set of rules about when you can kill innocent human beings then I guess consistency isn’t that important.
I’m amazed that you think killing for certain traits like gender is really bad — regardless of your previously sacrosanct and elusive “personhood” criteria — while killing for the generic “trait” of being an unwanted human being is OK. Regardless of why someone kills you, you’re still dead.
I’m pretty familiar with the science. Much of the genetic information that contributed to the gender, sexuality and intelligence does happen at conception. I think that aborting based on certain traits (other than terrible disorders) amounts to genetic modification of one’s offspring, and I oppose that for many reasons.
I condone abortion if it is performed very early, and if it’s done because the person is truly not ready or able to raise a child.
Since I don’t believe in the concept of “souls”, I don’t believe that a baby is a “baby” at conception. Is it a “human”? Sure it is – so is an Egyptian mummy.
We’ll never agree on this, I just wish I wasn’t painted as a murderer, or baby killer, when you all know that I value life to no end. Can you not see this from my side for once? I see your side.
Ryan, you really lose your senses when rationalizing abortion. Equating a mummy with a living human being in a womb? C’mon.
I didn’t say you were a murderer or baby killer, just that you think it should be legal. Please don’t advocate abortion the way you do then insist that you value life to no end.
I think I do “see your side” in the sense of properly characterizing your views. Again, you think gender selection abortions are bad, but they usually occur before you have deemed them to be persons. So what is so wrong with that? I’m just highlighting your inconsistencies with the hopes that it will make you see the light.
I think gender selection abortions are bad because it denigrates one gender, and it interrupts the natural balance of our diversity. Same goes for most other “selective” abortions.
I’m trying to point out to you that a clump of four or eight cells is an much a human being as a fingernail clipping. Yes, the potential is there, and that is the only difference, but one could extrapolate back to a sperm, and say there is potential there too. Many things need to happen for that clump of cells to become a person.
And I do value life to no end.
Oh, so it isn’t the destruction of the female human being just because she is female that is bad, it is because someone’s preference for a son over a daughter is bad.
Pure B.S. Really, Ryan, you are better to sit quietly and rationalize how abortion just kills non-persons than you are to say things like that. Nice try with the sperm argument, but that isn’t a unique human being. You are deliberately ignoring your beloved science.
Saying you value life to no end while rationalizing its destruction and comparing it to mummies and fingernails is a bit incongruous.
“I’m trying to point out to you that a clump of four or eight cells is an much a human being as a fingernail clipping. ”
Utter nonsense. Under no circumstances will that fingernail clipping develop into a fully-grown human being.
That you would even make such a specious argument just shows how intellectually bankrupt your position is.
What if the person isn’t ready to raise the child but wants to keep the baby? Do you propose forced abortions? If not, then why would that justify the abortion to begin with?
Why oppose genetic modification of one’s offspring? Now you’re being a bad Darwinist
.
That’s a good point. I think there are plenty of people that have babies for the wrong reasons, and are not fit to raise a child. It’s a problem. What do you think about it? I certainly don’t support preventing people from having children.
I resent that. I am a good Darwinist. I oppose almost all genetic modification, especially in our food. Artificial selection is generally a bad thing in my opinion. Evolution is something that happens – it’s not something that I strive to support. Believing that the theory of evolution is true does not make one want to help it occur.
It also provides zero grounding for saying there is anything wrong with making it occur, but let’s get back on topic.
Neil-Theo tag team, Part II:
Herein lies the pro-abort Waterloo. If birth control actually prevents abortions, then why has the abortion rate held steady (or increased) since the 1960s? Either there are simply some women who, no matter what, will not care to exercise some personal responsibility and will then act like it’s a human rights violation to not be able to suction the brains out of their own children (beyond parody, but it’s disgusting, really), or women could avoid abortion if they used birth control. If it’s the former, then abortion should be illegal: laws are put in place to stop sociopaths. If it’s the latter, then why not make abortion illegal, knowing that women will just be more responsible?
Abortions rates climbed in the 60s because they were legal, and were then accessible and recorded. Rates have been declining fairly steadily in the past 30 years (based on a few minutes of quick research – let me know if you have data to suggest otherwise).
Right here: http://www.moralityindex.com/abortion.jpg
There is a slight decline, but nothing remotely proportional to the radical change in access to birth control, flex-time at work, paid maternity leave, guaranteed medical care, Medicaid for pregnant women, and the like.
A small percentage of women will either be more responsible or will take the opportunities to raise their children. The other million-plus are simply being irresponsible.
You also play the silly game of pretending that we have no idea how the baby got there to begin with. Actions have consequences.
The state of development is zygote > blastocyst > fetus, by the way. “The baby” doesn’t exist as a biological entity till birth – and the embryo inside the placental sac that develops out of the blastocyst does not reach fetal development till 8 weeks. (The vast majority of abortions in the US take place well before 8 weeks.)
But in any case: even if you were able to claim that the blastocyst is a “baby”: the idea that babies can be dehumanized into “consequences” and treated as a punishment for having sex rather than a joyous choice, is as sociopathic as dismissing the deaths of women denied access to safe legal abortion as irrelevant because they are “not innocent”.
And you are twisting words to say you are against forced pregnancy.
Not at all. A woman denied an abortion is suffering a forced pregnancy.
I’ve already corrected you on that. It is a human zygote ==> human blastocyst ==> human fetus ==> human baby ==> etc. All abortions kill an innocent human beings at a particular stage of development. You just try to dehumanize them. I’m too pro-science to be pro-choice.
We don’t dehumanize them by saying that they are a consequence of sex. That is a simple fact, unless you are arguing that the gov’t “forced” women to have in vitro fertilizations.
Sociopathic is rationalizing the killing the innocent because of the preferences of the killers. You have no right to ask for special protections so you can commit an immoral act more safely.
Keep it up, thanks! I love when middle grounders can see the unmasked desperation of the pro-aborts.
Absolutely true, but that doesn’t get you to abortion on demand.
First of all, any woman who is not raped but gets pregnant in 2009 has no one to blame but herself. In an era of $10/month birth control and free condoms, any girl who gets pregnant and doesn’t want to be can cry me a river – then do the adult thing and have the baby that she willfully conceived.
Yes, Jer, women are not children need to be patted on the head and protected from the logical results of their actions like some mental patient who gets off on the insanity defence; they are adults who are more than capable of realising that unprotected (or insufficiently protected) sex creates unique human life.
As for this “women dying from illegal abortion” b.s.: it’s like the bank robber holding a gun to his own head, saying, “Hand over the cash or I’ll shoot!” Somehow, people who don’t kill their unborn children don’t seem to have this problem.
Great points, and love the bank robber illustration! Jer loves to use the “you must hate women if you oppose abortion” meme.
On the personal responsibility note, I totally agree. There is NO excuse for irresponsible sex, and if there were not a baby involved, I would say sure, make the person live with the responsibility of having a child. This would be just fine if we were not forcing a child to grow up with a potentially unfit parent.
Ryan, please consider how you just changed the subject and made some wild assumptions. Lots of pregnancies weren’t planned. It doesn’t mean the parents are automatically unfit. And of course we wouldn’t consider killing kids outside the womb with unfit parents.
Remember, unless you favor forced abortions — and I know you don’t — then you are for the “choice” of these parents to destroy or raise the child or give her up for adoption. Parenting abilities are a non sequitor.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to change the subject.
I was just replying to a certain point, and in a certain circumstance. Of course there are many unplanned pregnancies for fit parents. I also don’t think any people have any idea if they would be a good parent. I do support their right to end that pregnancy, but would encourage them to go through with it if they are able, or to give it up for adoption if they are not.
So it’s better to kill your baby rather than to let it have a potentially imperfect, non-Leave it to Beaver, childhood?
Huh?
If you think that is what I mean then you aren’t listening. I have great respect for you and your arguments on this issue, but I’m not interested in discussing it when you keep accusing me of wanting to “kill babies”. Cut the hyperbole.
Doesn’t matter what you call them. You are complicit in the killing, and I have no problem calling it murder, of innocent people in the earliest stages of their development. It is what it is and that’s EXACTLY what it is. Denying facts don’t change them.
First of all, any woman who is not raped but gets pregnant in 2009 has no one to blame but herself. In an era of $10/month birth control and free condoms, any girl who gets pregnant and doesn’t want to be can cry me a river – then do the adult thing and have the baby that she willfully conceived.
What, you too regard babies as a punishment for having sex? Geeze, I’d hate to be the child of a pro-lifer and know how much my parents hate me!
I’m glad my mother was pro-choice: I know I was a wanted baby, and I know she never regarded me as her punishment.
Children of pro-lifers must have all kinds of screw-ups knowing they were never wanted and their parents regard them as a “consequence”, not a choice.
Do you take yourself seriously? You trot out the typical false and hopeless Liberal stasis where nothing ever changes — wanted kids are always wanted, unwanted kids are always unwanted, poor will always be poor. And the the pro-abort “better dead than unwanted” philosophy is just creepy.
You are the one who put words in Theobromophile’s mouth with the “punishment” bit. I know that is part of your script, but you could at least make it your own argument instead of creating a straw man.
Many abused children were “wanted.” What if your Mom changed her mind and didn’t want you anymore? Can she kill you then?
What do you tell women who change their minds after having their offspring destroyed? If they decide later that they want the child, what now?
Neil, you’ve made clear you’re a pro-murder sociopath, I really don’t have anything more to say to you.
LOL. It is ironic that someone who tries to be so precise when rationalizing away the scientific fact of the humanity of the unborn (zyogte! blatocyst! fetus!) could dispense such beyond-parody hyberbole. I’m a pro-murder sociopath because I think this is morally wrong – http://tinyurl.com/yzjq4lv ? Uh, sure.
I’m a pro-murder sociopath
Because you think it’s acceptable for 70,000 women to die each year because they are “not innocent”.
I don’t think they should die. I think they should value life and not attempt abortions. Maybe if folks like you didn’t cheer them on to kill their offspring they wouldn’t die. The fact that they hurt themselves while trying to kill their unborn does not make me guilty of anything.
I think they should value life and not attempt abortions.
But you don’t value their lives.
Sure we do. I think they should value the lives of themselves and their children. I’m no more responsible for them getting hurt than for robbers who get hurt while commiting a crime.
Is it good for women if you hide statutory rape so you can make money off abortions? http://tinyurl.com/ybp5ocm
I didn’t use the word punishment – probably because I have respect for human life. It’s not surprising, though, that the only people to bring “humans are punishments” into this discussion are the ones who want to kill them.
Incidentally, my older sister was not planned and was conceived out of wedlock; unlike the sociopath that you are, though, I happen to be very happy that she is alive. All the people who know her – and the four-legged animals that she’s adopted – are thrilled that my parents decided that teenage pregnancies weren’t the worst thing to happen.
But, in your world, my sister should be dead. Is “screw you and your holier-than-thou baby killing agenda” an inappropriate response?
Who’s calling it punishment but people like yourself who are all too willing to put these developing people to death? WE’RE calling it FACING THE CONSEQUENCES OF ONE’S ACTIONS AND DOING THE RESPONSIBLE THING. People who engage in intercourse are inviting into existence another human being and they damned well need to face it and act accordingly. That does NOT include murdering the person.
But here are your other choices that you haven’t considered:
1. Don’t have sex until you are ready to raise the child and emotionally, physically and financially capable of doing so.
2. Get yourself sterilized.
3. Masturbate. If you can’t control your urges, you aren’t fit to call yourself an adult. Stop pretending you care about your sex partner since you don’t understand the nature of what you’re doing or take it seriously enough to make appropriate decisions.
Frankly, I’m more than tired of people for whom sex is so important that they’ll minimize the impact their actions have on kids. I don’t much care how badly an adult suffers who has hurt a child. If they suffer physical damage or death trying to abort, they brought it upon themselves and seems a just outcome for the harm done to the unborn. If they are jailed for aborting a child, they simply lost on the gamble of getting an abortion where it was outlawed. Too freakin’ bad.
Another question, Jesur: if you think that pregnancy is a punishment (something upon which we do not agree, for the record), do you think that forcing men to pay child support is a punishment for sex?
Logically, if one is a punishment, the other certainly is. The only difference is that one is a biologically created situation (and is thus not a “punishment” under any rational definition), while the other is imposed by society in response to a volitional act.
Under your morality, then, we shouldn’t punish men with child support, even if it would mean that the man’s child would starve for lack of food.
Good point about “forcing” someone to be a dad.
Unless Jesur responds with an apology and a real answer to why PP’s hiding of statutory rape is pro-women, he won’t be back. He has been even more unhinged than usual today.
jesurgislac, if I may interject a question, you want women to have the right to choose an abortion, would the father involved have any choice?
Suppose the woman decided to keep the baby, but the father wanted an abortion. Who would pay for the support of the child?
It seems that the woman has all of the rights, but the man has half of the responsibility.
jesurgislac says-”“The baby” doesn’t exist as a biological entity till birth”
So if a normal term is 9 months for a human, then if a fetus is born 3 months prematurely, is it a baby? Or what exactly is it? You can claim that “most” abortions take place at less than 8 weeks but when did that “clump of cells” actually become human? You can’t claim humanity as a result of birth because there are far too many variables of the pregnancy term. Was I not human because I was 3 months premature? Is any premature baby actually human? Who says you are actually a human right now? Go ahead, dig your hole and try to rationalize your sin.
So if a normal term is 9 months for a human, then if a fetus is born 3 months prematurely, is it a baby?
If the fetus is born developed enough to survive, then yes, the fetus becomes a baby when born.
There are definite and irreversible biological changes that occur that change fetus to baby, and those changes happen at birth.
? You can claim that “most” abortions take place at less than 8 weeks
I don’t “claim” it: it’s a known fact. You can check it yourself by looking up CDC data.
but when did that “clump of cells” actually become human?
That’s really not important. The pregnant woman is human throughout pregnancy, so it hardly matters at what point she feels the fetus is now her baby, the human she has chosen to give birth to, if that’s what she decides. For each woman this will be different. But it’s always up to her.
But she’s pregnant with a human throughout pregnancy, a scientific fact you constantly ignore — http://tinyurl.com/yfje8lq . Definite and irreversable biological changes occur from adolescent human to teen aged human, but they don’t change the intrinsic value of the human.
So, a baby that dies in childbirth isn’t/wasn’t human? What about miscarriages?
It is vitally important when the clump of cells becomes human. If it is as you state-only after birth, then abortion is OK at any age. Go ahead with partial-birth abortions. In fact, that opens the way to killing any baby if it isn’t exactly what the mother wanted/expected at almost any age-pick a cutoff point, it’s your choice. If the baby is in reality a human at some other point in it’s development in utero, then you are murdering a person with your abortion.
Have you ever actually been a part of any abortion? Participated, had a girlfriend go through it, etc? Or if you are a woman-gone through it yourself?
So, a baby that dies in childbirth isn’t/wasn’t human?
Where did I say that?
We’re discussing human zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus… right?
It is vitally important when the clump of cells becomes human.
Only if your objective is to find an excuse for why women can’t be allowed to have abortions. As denying women access to safe legal abortion is proven to be lethal – 70,000 women die each year for exactly that cause – I see no “vital importance” in anything but ensuring that all women, no matter where they live or how poor they are, always have access to a safe, legal abortion if they decide to terminate their pregnancy.
Go ahead with partial-birth abortions.
There’s no such thing as a “partial-birth abortion”: it’s a non-medical term.
Have you ever actually been a part of any abortion?
No, I’ve never had an abortion; Have you?
Yep. All unique human beings at a particular stage of development — http://tinyurl.com/yfje8lq .
Nice attempted dodge. Then go ahead with this description: “Delivering the baby 90% out of her mother then puncturing her skull and sucking out her brains. Then deliver her. Or, if you are the President of the U.S., then just deliver her and let her die.” Like that better?
I doubt your 70,000 WW figure, but I am confident in the figure that over 3,000 innocent human beings — aka “the least of these” — will be crushed and dismemembered today in the U.S. At least half will be female. Over 90% of gender selection abortions will be female. So spare us your “pro-lifers hate women” fallacy.
Again, is it pro-women to hide statutory rape so you can make money off of abortions? http://tinyurl.com/ybp5ocm
: “Delivering the baby 90% out of her mother then puncturing her skull and sucking out her brains. Then deliver her. Or, if you are the President of the U.S., then just deliver her and let her die.”
Which President of the United States are you claiming was performing abortions? Or do you think all POTUSes do this as a sideline?
Big double FAIL for you. Ouch!
1. Obama’s lone voice opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act is well documented — http://4simpsons.wordpress.com/2008/10/22/barack-obama-pro-partial-birth-abortion-among-other-things-2/ . It is so bizarre that his followers couldn’t believe it.
2. Your oft-refuted core theme is that if we believe that 99% of abortions are immoral because the reasons given do not justify destroying an innocent human being, you point to an alleged 70,000 deaths around the world of women who get hurt while trying to kill another human being. Any middle grounder can see how transparently ridiculous your argument is.
But to make matters worse, now you pretend that if a State Legislator lobbies on behalf of a cause and votes for it then he really isn’t culpable unless he performs the abortions himself. Again, that is obviously ridiculous, but using that “logic” then you’d have to abandon your claim of indirect harm caused by pro-lifers.
I’ll answer the bit about the “Born Alive Infant Protection Act”, which Obama was very correct in voting against. That bill granted constitutional rights and protections to infants as long as they have a beating heart, or pulsation of an umbilicus. The potential of this bill, if enforced requires hospitals to maintain life support for babies born with things like anencephaly, as well as attempt to save babies born before 22 weeks, where there is no chance of survival.
No chance for survival? Who’s playing God here? In this age of medical miracles, who’s to say what is or isn’t possible. What you describe is not the situation described by Jill Stanek, who’s testimony lead to such proposed legislation.
In addition, Barry O stated that he couldn’t bring himself to consider a child who survived an abortion a person. Kind of a crappy thing for a black man to say about anyone, don’t you think? I find it unconscionable for him to ever opine on the struggle of one group for respect as persons (black people) but then deny such respect to another group (the unborn). But then, he’s such a brilliant man. *gack!*
Anencephaly means the baby has no brain. It happens, and with this bill, that baby needs to be kept alive.
There are plenty of conditions that offer no chance for survival, and being born before 22 weeks is one of them. Prior to 22 weeks, babies don’t actually have real skin yet. Putting air into their lungs destroys them for life, and increasing the oxygen content in the air causes blood vessels to grow incorrectly.
I lived for five months in a NICU. I’ve seen all of this.
Hard to believe you’re still on the side of death. These moral freaks you support are the same ones who clamor to kill kids like yours in the womb to “prevent” disabilities.
My son has no genetic disorder, and no disability not related to simply being born prematurely.
So, given that you support this bill, can I assume that you agree that children both without brains should be placed on life support and kept alive? Apparently to disagree with you on this is to be on the side of death. You constantly characterize me with attribute you know do not describe me.
Thanks for the explanation, Ryan. If I give you the brainless kids, will you allow the rest to live? To be more exact, I don’t think those are the kids that Jill Stanek was talking about, either.
Marshall, we are a lot closer on this issue than you think. Most people won’t talk to me about this issue here, and just call me a baby killer if I don’t care to protect any fertilized cell whatsoever. I also hit a brick wall here when I try to convince people that there are medical conditions which exist, where an early abortion upon detection can be considered merciful.
I value life in every sense of the word. I don’t think it begins at conception, but I welcome any evidence that it does.
Abortion is really not a “hot button” issue for me. I think it’s rarely an absolutely necessary procedure, and I do think that people need to take more care to prevent unwanted pregnancy.
Ryan, you use an extremely limited number of exceptions to justify the legal destruction of thousands of innocent human beings per day.
You just lost all credibility on this issue. I’ve given you evidence countless times. You ignore the embryology textbooks.
The embryology textbooks? The only thing from those books that you pay attention to is the fact that they refer to a fertilized egg as a “human” fertilized egg. Well, every hair on my head, on its own, is a “human” hair – that does not make it a whole “human”. The difference, you will point out, is that the human egg may turn into a human baby. I will point out that it is not one yet, for reasons outlined in the rest of the textbook.
You can’t point to science textbooks to prove your point when you laugh at me for doing the same on the topic of evolution.
Ryan,
The problem with using disease to justify abortion is the inevitable moving of the goal posts. First it’s anacelpacy (sp?), then, it’s any genetic disorder (such as breast cancer markers). Yes, the latter is already happening, and it’s heart breaking.
B.s. It was all about ensuring a dead baby.
Do you really believe that Obama voted against this bill because he wants more babies to die?
I believe he is a tool of the abortion lobby and has no respect for life.
A bill with identical language passed the Senate by a vote of 98-0. That anti-choice zealot, Barbara Boxer, supported it.
Other non-medical terms for things which are illegal: murder, rape, torture….
“So, a baby that dies in childbirth isn’t/wasn’t human?
Where did I say that?” You most assuredly implied it. You have claimed that a baby becomes human at birth. So, was it human or a clump of cells if it dies in the birth canal?
“There’s no such thing as a “partial-birth abortion”: it’s a non-medical term.” You can parse words all you like, there is such an event and you well know it. Quit playing fast and loose with words.
“No, I’ve never had an abortion; Have you?” Then keep your mouth shut about something you cannot possibly understand.
While I was still an unrepentant pagan, I participated in that evil. It is what finally brought me to realize my sin and need of a Savior. I used the same garbage arguments as you have tried. So, don’t play games with me. I’ve been there and done that. Abortion at any stage of the life cycle is murder. Get on your face before God and repent of your sin. that’s the only solution. I learned the hard way.
Jim, thanks for sharing that. Praise God that you came to know and accept his love and forgiveness.
Wow, Neil and Theo, I am learning a lot from these comments.
Next time I volunteer at Planned Parenthood, I’ll think of you and your widdle fwends, Neil. Maybe I’ll even make a donation in your name.
Fetus-cuddling asswipes.
Another classy pro-legalized abortionist, folks!
That’s a human fetus that you all destroy daily, btw.
How come none of them want to explain why it is pro-women to hide statutory rape so you can make money off of abortions? http://tinyurl.com/ybp5ocm
Or perhaps they can explain why Planned Parenthood used to be so strongly pro-life and now make hundreds of millions of $$ off of abortions — http://tinyurl.com/ykeex9e . Oh, wait, I just answered my own question.
Next time you volunteer at PP, have yourself aborted, tough guy.
Murdering scum. I think that fits you better than your description of us.
That’s for b.g. by the way.
“…Or why the media never pushed on these issues?”
The watchdogs turn a blind eye…
I don’t support the abortion of babies that have even rudimentary nervous system development. I think abortion should only be allowed in the first trimester – maybe slightly after that. I’m not trying to rationalize abortion. I have nothing invested in the legality of abortion. I really wish we could talk about this without the anger factor.
With that logic, people who believe in the theory of gravity would be opposed to airplanes and trampolines.
I’ve got a room booked in the “scientist” wing. It overlooks the courtyard where the liberal Christians meet on Sundays. Since Hell, by your definition will house possibly 95% of the people who have walked the Earth, I think I’ll be in decent company.
For those with no morals I guess. I just think it’s wrong, and pretty much every other atheist agrees with me. If the only reason you don’t murder people is God, or some social construct, then you are seriously lacking in a moral sense.
Was it moral for Hitler to authorize the killing of millions of Jews? You say no, but that is your morals, really nothing more than your opinion. Hitler and millions of Germans said yes and fought to their death to defend and advance their morals. You are using yourself as a reference point for what is moral and immoral. Well there were many in Germany then, and Iranians today who would disagree with you. What should we have or are we to say to them? It is wrong because Ryan says it is wrong?
Now I’m not one who would suggest that one believe in God just so he can have a place to hang his laws. The belief in God is both logical and reasonable. But if we reject the existence of God we are most definitely left with a socially constructed morality, and you are left with defending what you think should be right or wrong with nothing more to base it on than your own feelings and opinions derived from your life experiences with no ultimate meaning no matter what you decide. You can’t have it both ways by borrowing concepts and meaning from God while denying his existence.
You seem like a sincere enough guy and I appreciate that, but given the untold millions systematically murdered in the last century, both in and out of the womb, and the incredible suffering that man has endured at the hand of his fellow man, your optimism that man has a natural moral sense is to say the least, astounding.
Thanks for your response.
I can accept that morals are a personal and societal construct. You have good points about that being a problem when one society harbours hatred for another. That is something we need to overcome, but it does not make it untrue. Despite being a construct of collective morals, there are things that will always be wrong, and are pretty universal. Those morals usually come down “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. I think that education, specifically reasoning, history and science, is the answer to improving the morals of a society.
You’re right that it is astounding that the German people stood by as millions of people were exterminated. I find it hard to believe that many of them knew what was really going on though. Keep in mind that the majority of them were Christian (Catholic and Lutheran I believe). Those Germain soldiers fighting for Hitler were not fighting for the “killing of jews”. They were fighting because they were soldiers. I doubt very much that knew what was happening.
Please go to your local university, enroll in a WWII military history class, and ask the prof how Nazified the German population was during Hitler’s rule. I was doing a paper in above mentioned class on the morality of carpet bombing Germany by the Allies, and asked my prof what his thoughts were. His response was, and I quote, “Oh, I don’t think they killed enough Germans.” He went on to explain that most non-academic views of the period tend to shy away from just how deeply imbedded the Nazi idealology was withing German society.
This was at the University of Calgary at the Canadian Center for Military & Strategic Studies, by Prof. John Ferris.
Silly atheist argument #16. We’re just taking your worldview to its (il)logical conclusion. We used to be rebels against God. We know why we sin. We know why we know general right vs. wrong and why it gets perverted.
Ryan said “I find it hard to believe that many of them knew what was really going on though”
Please check out the information on the Milgram experiment. Basically the idea is that you could set down a Nazi concentration camp in any modern country and the workers would still send people to the gas chambers. It’s very scary… We aren’t as evolved as you would think…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
Actually, they have no awareness of self. Have you ever been under general anesthetic? Or had a relative with Alzhiemers? You can’t seriously think that self-awareness means anything. Newborns aren’t self-aware. My Grandmother, for the last 10 years of her life wasn’t self-aware. I find it extremely arrogant for you to claim by extension that neither are valuable as persons because they don’t measure up to your arbitrary stick.
Glad to know that Ryan determines when the non-definitive term ‘person’ exists and when it doesn’t, and even when it is valuable or isn’t. I was worried there for a while.
Yes, I know that, but they have had awareness of self, and they will again when they wake up. I am all too familiar with Alzheimer’s, and I agree that near the end, there is no self awareness in the psychological sense.
I wish we could argue about this with a little more respect for each other’s views. We are not arguing about the value of newborns, or the value of our grandmothers – I’m sure we agree about the value of each. It is not me that is extending my arguments to scenarios that are entirely different.
The argument is that the only reason you believe a couple of dividing cells is a person is because you believe that God gave it a soul. I don’t believe that, so I have to look at the physical attributes of the entity, and decide whether or not it can be described as a person yet.
That doesn’t properly characterize my view. Yes, I do believe God gave it a soul. But I also believe the science that demonstrates that it is a human being. Your artificial personhood distinction is one of philosophy — and bad and deadly philosophy at that.
Fair enough, but I have quite a bit of knowledge of embryo development, and there are no brain waves at all until at least week 12. That is the science. If you value the life of a pre-brain embryo as much as a newborn baby, then I can respect that, but to call those who don’t murderers is a bit much.
Can you see what I’m trying to say?
You are the one making the artificial brain wave distinction. If you don’t rip her into pieces you’ll get brain waves soon enough.
I usually avoid the “m” word as it carries legal connotations (though it is possible that I slipped — not sure if I did or not). I typically use the very specific “crushed and dismembered an innocent human being” or just “killed an innocent human being.”
Though I should point out that most states consider it murder if anyone besides Mommy contracts to have it done. Just sayin’.
Actually that is not what I believe at all. I believe it is exactly what one would expect a human being to look like at that stage of development, which is why there is no rational reason to murder it.
Right. Neil is correct. Murder is not the correct term.
Ryan,
Alzheimer’s patients will never improve. At that point, you are basing their entire worth on past conditions which will, by definition, never be attained again.
You’re entitled to your opinion. Personally, if I had to choose (although Sophie’s choices aren’t my thing) between the human who would never regain awareness and the human who has never had it but will be guaranteed to have it, I would choose the latter.
As a non-believer, I come at this from a very different place than does Neil. Nevertheless, after studying history (and being an ardent feminist), I’m convinced that there is something perniciously evil about assigning “personhood” to human beings. At one point, science told us that women were inherently inferiour to men, that African-Americans were not capable of the same level of thought, and that all sorts of atrocities were acceptable based on that. We learned with many groups, over and over, that denying them human rights based on science or some philosophy of limited allocation of personhood – and a desire to stratify human beings – lead to horrible things. I find it utterly foolish to believe that we need to go through this with each and every group that is discriminated against; it should be enough, for rational people, to see that an entity is a human being in order to grant it human rights.
After all, fundamentally, we are talking about human rights, not “person rights.”
It is not as if there is some limit on the number of “persons” that we can have on this planet; giving the label to one group does not diminish another group.
Furthermore, ask any happily pregnant woman about what she is carrying inside of her. Ask her after birth if her baby was not a person just a few moments prior. Ask her how she would feel if she were to miscarry: would it be like getting her period (i.e. the same as not conceiving), or would it be far more devastating?
I know of women who have had funeral masses and services after miscarriages. Those babies – dead because early 21st-century technology could no more save them than 19th-century technology could save a baby born in the early third trimester – were given names. Their parents held them.
Are those women mentally unbalanced enough to not know the difference between a clump of non-viable cells and a person?
If you come to your conclusions on abortion from a secular standpoint, is it your opinion that it is immoral to abort a homogenous group of cells, or that allowing people to do so leads to a system where greater harm could occur as the bar moves? If it is the latter, I can understand that, but would it not be better to place that bar at a point that we can all agree is safe? I’m not sure at which point an abortion is immoral. My own son was born in the fifth month. I think the first trimester is a good guideline.
If you aren’t sure when abortion is immoral then perhaps you should err on the side of life. The consequences are extreme and irrevocable for every mistake.
We know for a fact that every abortion kills an innocent human being.
You seem to be in conflict with yourself.
“Our awareness is what I consider to be the measuring stick that determines our value as persons”
Newborns are alive, according to your ‘nervous system’ rule, however have no value, as they are not self-aware. Am I missing something? Why do they deserve anything, if they don’t measure up to your measuring stick of value?
I keep hoping that Ryan will realize how his subjective, impossible to measure and fluid “personhood” argument is wrong and how it opens the door to others in power defining personhood their own way.
Even if his brain wave criterion was valid then it would be no big deal to have an abortion one day but an incomprehensively serious offense the next. But he has no way to draw that line. There might be an average day at which brain waves start but we don’t know the precise moment it happens and it would change from human to human.
Exactly. Lines in sand are made to be moved.
Yep. I’ve found that conception is a remarkably clear and logical line.
Adam, I’m not trying to deny that there exists a continuum. Even though there is a continuum with no absolute boundaries, that does not mean that we don’t have a pretty good idea of what exists at any given point. From my secular point of view, I cannot say that it is immoral for a woman to terminate a pregnancy at the stage where no nervous system exists yet. Why is that so hard for everybody to understand? Why does that make me a monster in your eyes?
Because it is not up to you to differentiate one human from another based on their development. Note the fact that I am not appealing to God to make this point.
No, it’s not up to me. It’s up to all of us, and I have as much right to give my input as anybody.
No one is denying your right to your opinion, and democracies are great for determining moral behavior (sarcasm). Abortion/slavery/female suffrage/alcohol is morally wrong. No, wait, it’s morally right. Crap. Well, whatever most of us think is right, is right. When we change our minds, well… what was wrong is now right and what was right is now wrong. What could possibly go wrong with that?
I never said it is easy, but deciding what we think should be moral is much better than arguing over what we think God thinks is immoral. I’m fine with you using the Bible as a guideline for your moral choices, but when turning them into law, you need to provide secular arguments anyways, so we can’t really get around that requirement either way.
Let’s be honest, we all like democracy when our opinion is in the majority. Christians seem to complain about democracy when it comes to abortion rights, but absolutely love the process when California votes about marriage.
One of the fundamental problems with democracy is the problem of the tyranny of the majority, and for this reason, I wish to err on the side of the unborn. I think I do that when I say I don’t agree with abortion after a point where all biologists agree that there is no neural connections present in an embryo.
That is wrong to say you err on the side of the inborn. A new human being is created at conception. That is a scientific fact. He timing of the neural activity is a scientific fact.
The pertinent question is a philosophical one: when can you kill these humans beings? You act like those scientists agree with you criterion for protection and that is false and irrelevant.
Well, the philosophical question is “When is it okay to kill a human being?”. If one of the answers to that question includes those who have not developed a nervous system yet (as it is for many), then we look to science to tell us when that point is.
You were conflating science and philosophy. What you never provide are rational reasons to hold your view. You just make up a fuzzy line to justify killing the unborn.
This guy is glad you weren’t his M.D.
— http://www.uncommondescent.com/neuroscience/neuroscience-puzzle-of-consciousness-man-was-conscious-but-immobile-23-years-but-who-besides-him-knew/
The way you extend your opinion of my views would be almost offensive, if I didn’t know you were good natured about it. I believe in extending the best medical care possible to anyone with even a shred of brain activity.
That was a case of utter incompetence, not any policy I would agree with. I read that story this morning. The guy had a completely normal brain scan, with full activity. The fact that nobody did such a scan is beyond me. I cannot imagine what that guy has been through.
Glad you saw that I was poking fun. I try to keep the smileys to a minimum but throw them in when the comment might get misunderstood.
Having said that, I think there is a lesson here. People can be wrong about tests. They can also be wrong about whether brain activity is the arbiter of whether it is moral to chop up living human beings. Some actions are impossible to undo. Why not err on the safe side, even if your views might be true, and let the human live?
I agree with all of that. I now sit on the board of an organization that advocates for people with very extreme disabilities, you know.
I’m all for protecting life, but I suspect your view that a zygote is an innocent human being has more to do with religious convictions rather than science.
Because you are conceding that you don’t know when abortions are immoral and because you rationalize the destruction of human life in inconsistent and arbitrary ways.
I’m conceding that there is a timespan where I’m unsure that it is immoral, and within that timespan, I think we should avoid abortions in any case where the life of the mother is not threatened.
A zygote is not a human life, and if it is, then birth control pills, and most other forms of contraception are killing people too.
Isn’t a zygote destroyed every time it fail to attach itself to the uterus, either naturally or because of contraception?
As for the bunch of stuff you quoted from textbooks, I think we’ve established that the species classification of the zygote, embryo, and foetus is homosapien. If I was feeling a little cheeky, I might ask you to flip to the evolution chapter of those books, and take in some of that science as well, as long as you are now accepting the word of science texts. But I would never say such a thing.
Serious question: Can you see the difference between (1) and (2) below? They apply whether the human being is inside the womb or outside it.
(1) A human being dies of natural causes.
(2) A human being has her skull crushed and limbs ripped off by another human being (In case it wasn’t clear, this was done against her will).
You don’t need a Bible to see the difference.
Well, I knew that, but you were the one trying to dismiss my views about the zygote based on my religious beliefs: “I suspect your view that a zygote is an innocent human being has more to do with religious convictions rather than science.” Considering that I’d pointed to that evidence about 20 times and that you now claim you believed it all along then your comment was pointless at best.
And for any oxymoronic pro-abortion Christians reading, note that the Bible is clear that life begins at conception. It is right once again, far ahead of its time.
Yes, I anticipated that response and the flaws of your reasoning. With evolution as with abortion you confuse the science with the philosophy. And you are the one who claims to care about science, but you ignore it when it comes to rationalizing the destruction of innocent human beings. You think I’m against science, so my views on it could be considered irrelevant. I could even claim that I don’t believe the science textbooks (even though I do) while questioning why you ignore them when rationalizing abortion.
Now back to this topic: Do you see the difference between (1) and (2) above? A simple yes or no will suffice.
Yes, of course I do.
Do you see the difference between a woman using the pill to deliberately prevent that zygote from living, and killing a baby a week before being full term? You’re sort of claiming there’s no difference by characterizing my support of ending an early pregnancy with “dismembering” a foetus.
Either one is murder.
Is there a general consensus on that in the Christian community, or at least with people you know? I know a lot of Christians of many denominations, and I don’t find that to be their view.
What is it like to live in a world where you think that 40% of women between the ages of 18 and 45 commit murder up to 12 times a year? Do you think that married couples should all be having 10-15 children, or just abstaining from sex unless they can afford more children?
So if someone doesn’t agree that taking a knife and stabbing an innocent person 100 times is murder, that calls the fact that it is into question?
God tells me the taking of innocent life is murder. I believe that.
And your questions are incredibly stupid.
You could be a little nicer, you know.
What did God tell you about that?
BTW, are you referring to the birth control pill? Because if you are then you are sadly mistaken. The pill prevents the release of the egg, not the fertilized egg to attach to the uterine wall.
The latter is the morning after ABORTION pill. The BC pill is not murder. The morning after pill is.
I don’t know a lot about the pill, and after a bit of research, it turns out that you are more correct than I was. I thought the primary mechanism was to prevent implantation, but you are right that it is to prevent ovulation. However, preventing the implantation after fertilization is a secondary defence provided by the pill, as the first line of defence fails in almost 10% of women (that figure seems to vary depending on the source). In those cases, the pill is indeed murdering babies, according to your definition. The morning after pill is actually the same thing as the birth control pill, just in a higher dose, to ensure that implantation does not occur.
Even still, the BC pill’s intent is to prevent fertilization, the morning after pill’s intent is to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting.
Also, the BC pill includes something that makes implantation difficult. It doesn’t guarantee lack of implantation the way the morning after pill pretty much does (nothing is failsafe).
Regardless, this is why your questions were stupid. Sorry if that was too strongly worded for you. But the pill is BIRTH CONTROL (IE prevent impregnation). The morning after pill is abortion. Plan and simple.
Agreed on all points. So as long as your intent is to prevent fertilization, it’s okay if a few innocent humans get caught in the crossfire?
Look, you guys keep saying killing a zygote is the same as killing a baby, but if you really believed that, I think you’d have to be just as strongly against birth control as you are against abortion.
I can’t speak for all pro-lifers, but I oppose abortifacients like IUDs.
I too am against abortifacients but not all IUDs are such. There are IUD types that simply prevent ovulation.
The concept of “affording more children” is interesting. People say they can’t afford kids but they sure seem to afford big screen TVs, late model cars, etc. You’d be surprised what you can afford if you get your priorities straight.
More importantly, the “abort or you’ll be poor” philosophy misses a rather obvious point: What if someone has children they thought they could afford and then they become poor? Can you kill the children then? Of course not. Then the only question is, “What is the unborn?” If a new human has been created she shouldn’t be destroyed due to affordability issues.
Amen. This is so apparent today in our materialistic society. Where parents would rather murder their children than to give up their SUV or Samsung 50″ TV. Sad.
I’m glad you see the difference. I think the misunderstandings about the pill got sorted out on separate comments. The pill typically prevents conception, though some feel that it might cause some abortions.
Some birth control methods are abortifacients (e.g., the IUD) and some are not (condoms). Regardless of whether one is pro-life or pro-legalized abortion everyone should know which is which. You don’t want to find out later that you may have destroyed a human being rather than just prevented conception.
If you kill a human zygote, a human baby one week before being full term or an 80 year old human there is one thing in common: You killed a human being. Their size, level of development, location and dependency may vary, but those don’t qualify as reasons to take away their right to life. Just because a human being doesn’t look worthy to you doesn’t mean her nature has changed.
Neil, good point. after I posted my note to your IUD I did a little digging, and I am now against any form of chemical birth control that includes abortifacients. Period. If what a women takes has the chance of causing the death of a conceived child (fertilization has taken place) then I am against it. If they have oral contraceptives that simply try to prevent ovulation or fertilization, I am fine with those. Unfortunately the current oral contraceptives seem to all include abortifacients.
Thanks for showing me the light on this subject. This is appalling to me and what is most appalling is the oral contraceptive industry is misleading women in this regard.
I know the pro-aborts like to use that disease as if it is all encompassing, but it isn’t. Most abortions aren’t related to that at all. They are just deaths of convenience.
Credibility going going gone. You are deliberately ignoring the facts. The “hair” analogy proes that. How dishonest.
Which facts am I ignoring, and how am I being dishonest? It’s my opinion.
Fact: A new human being is created at conception.
I don’t deny that a human is created, but I would not call it a human being. As far as I’m concerned, there must be at least a working nervous system to call it a “being”.
When a person loses her nervous system functions, we no longer consider that person alive, so I think it follows that they are not alive until they have those functions.
You are playing silly word games to justify abortion. Sick stuff. You rationalize them at both ends of the spectrum, as if all 3,000+ humans destroyed today didn’t have brains or nervous systems.
According to your analogy with the nervous system, a patient on an operating table getting a heart transplant isn’t technically alive either, as people without hearts aren’t considered alive. As the patient has no functioning heart, it is not alive.
From the time the patient’s heart is removed the patient is not alive and therefore not a human being. Feel free to rip it’s arms off. It is, after all, a non-human being, as human beings have hearts.
The nervous system develops about three weeks after conception: here. Given that the heart begins to beat at that time, we know that the nervous system has to be up and running; otherwise, there would be a randomly beating heart with no guidance as to how to beat and no purpose.
Who no longer considers that person alive?
Neil, don’t you get it? We are so evolved that as a species we can murder our unborn, and then make rationalizations about that act. Ryan is just being true to his evolutionist dogma.
Actually, if we were so evolved wouldn’t we be against this sort of thing? For me abortion is proof in the existence of Satan. Ryan is simply one of his minions. The sad thing is that he will have an eternity to spend with Satan.
Ryan bores me.
If we were evolved, murder in or out of the womb would be no more than a social construct subject to the whims of the king, oligarchy or majority. The pro-life argument is consistent while the opposing argument has to defend murder while asserting that it is at the same wrong to murder. Not a task I’d be willing to take on in an intellectually honest argument. Maybe that explains some of the more “classy arguments” I’ve seen here.
But they have a nervous system, and a brain with stored experiences and an awareness of self. Once that has developed, a person exists. Our awareness is what I consider to be the measuring stick that determines our value as persons
Do you realize how much of a monster this statement makes you look? According to that logic, people with serious cases of Alzhiemers, senile people, babies etc are not valuable as persons because they are not self-aware.
Good to know that you have zero legal authority over the millions of valueless people around the world with no self-awareness.
Not sure you’re listening to me very well. Newborns are just about the most valuable thing in the world to me, and the elderly deserve to be cared for with respect and dignity until their very last breath.
I’ve held the hand of a one pound premature baby taking his first breath, and of my grandfather taking his very last. I know the value of life.
That is not true at all. Nerve cells begin to form at three weeks, but any nerve firing is limited to reflex nerve-muscle actions. I believe the heart actually starts at the mother’s heart rate (I’m not sure about this). The nervous system does not actually function as a unit until the 5th month, so things like awareness, any types of thoughts, or any types of pain are not really possible. Any adult with the neural activity of a foetus prior to the 5th month would be considered dead.
“Any adult with the neural activity of a foetus prior to the 5th month would be considered dead.”
So?
Any human at 5 months old with whatever amount of development that is expected to take place by that stage would be condsidered perfectly normal. Your point is moot.
Level of development is a dead-end for determining an individual’s humanity because you will always be working with a continuum with no absolutes. My nervous system is likely more developed than yours. I can deadlift 415 pounds, which requires greater nerve stimulation than you are (likely) capable of producing. What does that mean with regards to a greater right to life? Absolutely nothing, because the number or type or amount of cells we have or conscious ability to control our bodies doesn’t determine anything about our inherent value as humans, nor does it provide a yardstick to determine who is or who is not human.
Argh, why are my replies not indented?
Great points and kudos on 415 lb. deadlifts! That’s a lot of iron.
Dismissing views due to religious convictions is mighty convenient, eh? Not to mention your sleight of hand on which humans you rationalize as being acceptable for destruction. You are wrong on the value of zygotes, but even if you weren’t, are you claiming that neary all abortions occur on them?
And what kind of a zygote is it? A human zygote.
From http://www.abort73.com/abortion/medical_testimony :
“Development begins with fertilization, the process by which the male gamete, the sperm, and the femal gamete, the oocyte, unite to give rise to a zygote.”
T.W. Sadler, Langman’s Medical Embryology, 10th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2006. p. 11.
“[The zygote], formed by the union of an oocyte and a sperm, is the beginning of a new human being.”
Keith L. Moore, Before We Are Born: Essentials of Embryology, 7th edition. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders, 2008. p. 2.
“Human embryos begin development following the fusion of definitive male and female gametes during fertilization… This moment of zygote formation may be taken as the beginning or zero time point of embryonic development.”
William J. Larsen, Essentials of Human Embryology. New York: Churchill Livingstone, 1998. pp. 1, 14.
“The term conception refers to the union of the male and female pronuclear elements of procreation from which a new living being develops.”
“The zygote thus formed represents the beginning of a new life.”
J.P. Greenhill and E.A. Friedman, Biological Principles and Modern Practice of Obstetrics. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1974. pp. 17, 23.
Thanks! It took a while to convince my sub-200 lb. body to do it, but it isn’t as hard as it was the first time. I thought I was going to die.
Sorry LWA, which comment were you referring to?