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Pro Life / Pro Choice Debate

jhmd2000 said:
What do you think about the following sentence: "Although the results are divided, most of these courts have agreed that the right of privacy, however based, is broad enough to cover the abortion decision; that the right, nonetheless, is not absolute, and is subject to some limitations; and that, at some point, the state interests as to protection of health, medical standards, and prenatal life, become dominant. We agree with this approach." (emphasis added)
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I generally agree. Not sure how that's relevant unless you don't understand the difference between rational basis and heightened scrutiny
 
RChildress107 said:
Not possible that personhood begins before being capable of supporting consciousness.
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So it's black and white issue to you? The majority opinion in Roe had something of a different characterization, in admitting that they ducked the question.

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
 
jhmd2000 said:
I'm entirely insecure in the idea that another person could look at a third trimester baby and not see human life; to me that's an intolerable position.
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Nice deflection. Your position is that all abortions should be banned, correct? Where is your tolerance for the beliefs of other that, up to a point, abortions should not be banned? Shouldn't we engage in a discussion about this issue and come to a resolution somewhere between your viewpoint and theirs?

How insecure are you?
 
jhmd2000 said:
This is the part where I know you don't believe what you are saying, and you're insecurely lashing out. You can't possibly be dumb enough to have missed the punctuation between those two different sentences (clearly marking the end of one reference to a point in time, and the beginning of a separate reference to another). You're not this dumb, but disappointingly apparently that dishonest.

Get more defensible policies, and you won't have to feign confusion so frequently to avoid defending them.
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Haha...awesome. My position is pretty defensible. A fetus is not a baby. That's my position. No confusion.
 
jhmd2000 said:
So it's black and white issue to you? The majority opinion in Roe had something of a different characterization, in admitting that they ducked the question.

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
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They didn't duck the question, they correctly determined that it wasn't relevant or at least that it wasn't necessary to reach a decision in that case. Even if the court had addressed the question and determined that life did begin at conception the decision in Roe still would have been correct.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
The major discussion issue going on here IMO is that JHMD believes pro-choicers are engaging in some ongoing attempt at euphemisms to cover up the discomfort pro-choicers are feeling. For me that's a false assumption since I don't believe that an abortion is killing a baby/person - I believe it is a fetus. I don't need to engage in euphemisms to talk about abortions and the fetus because I don't find it to be a barbaric or immoral process in the least. Therefore I have no reason to need to couch my opinions to "feel better about myself" or whatever other lines were thrown out yesterday alluding to pro-choicers feeling morally "icky." I don't feel icky about my stance in the least. I think reasonable minds can and do differ on abortion (and view abortion differently than I view same-sex marriage or a belief in evolution for instance), but I think for the most part people are just talking past each other on here.

Calling abortion the "slavery of our generation" and saying that pro-choicers are equivocating because of discomfort with their own position is not fruitful to discussion. The former is almost certainly a gross hyperbole (although kudos for consistency on viewing abortion as murder and taking everything in stride that goes along with that initial proclamation) while the latter is fallacious since many pro-choicers do not find abortion barbaric and therefore wouldn't need to equivocate over discomfort.
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Very well said. I can't speak for any others, but I feel no more "ickiness" about abortion procedures than I do a liver transplant.
 
I don't find the slave = fetus argument to be particularly persuasive since I don't view race in the same regard I view personhood. I find that to be a clear cut distinction.
 
DeaconSig said:
Nice deflection. Your position is that all abortions should be banned, correct? Where is your tolerance for the beliefs of other that, up to a point, abortions should not be banned? Shouldn't we engage in a discussion about this issue and come to a resolution somewhere between your viewpoint and theirs?

How insecure are you?
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Pretty low, frankly, given that I think most of the arguments in defense of this practice are ad hoc at best. If you argued that full citizenship is contingent on live birth, you would have a very reasonable argument and one confirmed in several aspects of our law (and contradicted by others), Even if true that does not mean a developing human (in the most defenseless state of its entire life cycle) is devoid of the State's interest in protecting it. Our government affords protection to classes of living things beneath the threshold of "a live-born human": animals, private property and Dook fans. Since when did full-citizenship become a prerequisite to protection from cruelty?

The last 5 seconds of the national championship game notwithstanding, I feel pretty good about most things. If on my death bed I look back at this issue, I won't regret opposing this practice, even if it's an unpopular position. It my position on this issue is my greatest sin, I'll take it.
 
I don't think the argument is that the State's interest in protecting a developing human is wholly "devoid," rather it is not equal to the State's interest in a person's right to choose.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
I don't find the slave = fetus argument to be particularly persuasive since I don't view race in the same regard I view personhood. I find that to be a clear cut distinction.
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Right, because human beings, of whatever race, have heart beats, a sense of hearing, pain sensations, muscle movement, sleep cycles, auditory discrimination, all kinds of good stuff.
 
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We've been round and round with this for years. That's why i introduce the other state-sanctioned baby-killing that jhmd accepts and participates in to the argument to highlight his selective compassion for human beings with heartbeats and pain sensations. jhmd's faax compassion for babies is glaring
 
jhmd2000 said:
Right, because human beings, of whatever race, have heart beats, pain sensations, muscle movement, all kinds of good stuff.
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Human beings with "personhood" status granted can survive on their own and are viable. I'm very consistent on viability as a valid cut off point, at least as far as our current scientific understanding and advancements currently stand, and if states choose to criminalize mother's getting abortions past the viability point than that's their own prerogative since it is no longer subservient to the constitutional privacy implications.
 
He doesn't care about babies at all. nowhere does he advocate for suffering babies except ones in the womb. Where is the empathy and sympathy for the immense pain and suffering of babies all over America resulting from economic conditions? nowhere
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
Human beings with "personhood" status granted can survive on their own and are viable. I'm very consistent on viability as a valid cut off point, at least as far as our current scientific understanding and advancements currently stand, and if states choose to criminalize mother's getting abortions past the viability point than that's their own prerogative since it is no longer subservient to the constitutional privacy implications.
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That is a logically consistent position to take, although I disagree with it. Is it fair to say that you disagree with our buddy RC107 in that you share my belief that life is "possible" before live birth, then?
 
WakeandBake said:
He doesn't care about babies at all. nowhere does he advocate for suffering babies except ones in the womb. Where is the empathy and sympathy for the immense pain and suffering of babies all over America resulting from economic conditions? nowhere
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If losing to Stetson at home wasn't rock bottom, then this gem of an argument surely must be it...
 
Sure anything is possible. RC107 didn't say that life isn't possible before live birth either, he said (separately) 1) that he doesn't think personhood is possible before 28/29 weeks (apparently on the basis that he finds sentience/viability as a cut off for "personhood") and 2) that there's a difference between being inside the womb and still reliant on the mother and actually being born. I don't have a strong opinion on the latter from a criminal law perspective and I'm not sure I really care because I wouldn't use birth as a legal cut off point.
 
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