Pro Life / Pro Choice Debate

[Wrangor]

Removed

 

[Wrangor]

Removed

 

[RChildress107]

Regardless of the level of discomfort you have with the choices a woman makes about her body, it doesn't give you the right to take that choice away from someone else without their permission. Hopefully that is clear.

FIFY.

 

[wakephan09]

Classic diversion tactic. Make it personal instead of just discussing the issue.

Oh please, tell me from what exactly I'm diverging. You are a man: you will never, nor could ever, carry a child. Therefore, it is fucked up as shit for you to even "imagine" what a woman might feel about the situation. If that's making it personal, than so be it.

 

[TuffaloDeac10]

Oh please, tell me from what exactly I'm diverging. You are a man: you will never, nor could ever, carry a child. Therefore, it is fucked up as shit for you to even "imagine" what a woman might feel about the situation. If that's making it personal, than so be it.

 

[WFFaithful]

I don't think the private sector was built to handle adoptions on the mass scale that we truly need. I think it has to be a partnership. I would like to see massive tax incentives towards families that adopt American children. The largest hindrance to adoption is the financial cost of doing so. I would have probably seriously considered it at this point without the financial burden. It is a huge cost.

This is a huge myth. Private adoption is very expensive. In North Carolina, adopting through DSS is absolutely free, you get a monthly stipend until the kid's 18th birthday, and if you adopt a child who is 13-18, they get to attend any public university for free.

 

[RChildress107]

So if in 150 years science has progressed to the point where viability occurs at conception, you think states should be permitted to completely prohibit abortion?

Yes

 

[RChildress107]

No you don't. If you did, you'd be in favor of prohibiting abortion.

making something illegal and avoiding it at all costs are two very different things.

Most pro-life advocates are not in favor of avoiding abortion at all costs.

 

[TWDeac]

And it's okay for you to tell him he can't even imagine because you have a vagina?

I can confirm that wp09 does not have a vagina. Doesn't make his point any less correct, though.

 

[RChildress107]

The former is subsumed within the latter. If you avoid something at all costs then you permit it in no circumstances. If you permit it in some instances, you are talking about avoidance at *some* costs, not *all* of them.

No its not. You do not need to prohibit something to avoid it.

 

[RChildress107]

I never said they were. That would be a dumb thing to say, because it would include things like no exceptions for the life of the mother, imposing the death penalty for women who have abortions, etc.

Yet you and Townie continue to claim -- incorrectly -- that you think abortion should be avoided at all costs.

That would be a dumb way to try and avoid abortion. In quoting Townie I should have qualified with all reasonable costs, my bad.

 

[TuffaloDeac10]

I find this to be a very strange position. Not uncommon, of course, after Roe, but strange in its reasoning insofar as you are acknowledging that it is possible that a fetus is a human being/person/whatever but saying that it is only worthy of protection vis a vis the life of the mother once human science has progressed to the point it could be kept alive outside the womb. I find that to be an odd trigger date, considering (1) you acknowledge that what you think is okay to kill now should be protected in 150 years despite the fact it is no more or less a human being/person/whatever in 150 years and (2) the counterfactual that assumes the human being/person/whatever magically pops from inside the womb to outside of it without great burden on the mother.

Since human life trumps autonomy over one's body, should there be mandatory organ compatibility testing and forced organ donations? What about blood? Giving blood is less inconvenient than pregnancy.

 

[RChildress107]

I find this to be a very strange position. Not uncommon, of course, after Roe, but strange in its reasoning insofar as you are acknowledging that it is possible that a fetus is a human being/person/whatever but saying that it is only worthy of protection vis a vis the life of the mother once human science has progressed to the point it could be kept alive outside the womb. I find that to be an odd trigger date, considering (1) you acknowledge that what you think is okay to kill now should be protected in 150 years despite the fact it is no more or less a human being/person/whatever in 150 years and (2) the counterfactual that assumes the human being/person/whatever magically pops from inside the womb to outside of it without great burden on the mother.

Not sure why that is so strange. I'm not tying my analysis to my view on when a fetus obtains personhood (IMO this happens at 27-28 weeks at the very earliest).

I view it almost as a jurisdictional issue. A state cannot claim an interest in protecting an individual they are unable to independently protect. Upon viability, in theory, the state could remove the fetus from the mother's womb and care for it itself. It is this theoretical power, combined with the state's significant interest in protecting something well on its way to becoming a person, that allows the state to overcome the mother's substantial interest in bodily autonomy.

Given that this latter interest grows as the fetus does, I suppose I could be convinced that a fetus shortly after conception is so unlike a person that even though it could survive outside of the womb (in your 150 years scenario) the state's interest in protecting the fetus would not be great enough to impose on a woman the burden of carrying the fetus to term.

If science progresses to that point then maybe we will still be around to debate that question.

 

[jhmd2000]

Since human life trumps autonomy over one's body, should there be mandatory health insurance, enforced by sanctions imposed by the Internal Revenue Service.

Welcome to 2015.

 

[RChildress107]

Welcome to 2015.

Of all the valid criticisms of mandating health insurance, this is not one of them. Mandating health insurance does not in any way violate bodily autonomy.

 

[TuffaloDeac10]

Welcome to 2015.

I'm pretty sure my insurance card isn't part of my body

 

[TuffaloDeac10]

Neither, for that matter, is my bank balance. This is a very strange take on the alienation of labor, but I'm intrigued.

Maybe we should have a separate thread on jhmd's taek on the theory of alienation since it has nothing to do with abortion

 

[jhmd2000]

Of all the valid criticisms of mandating health insurance, this is not one of them. Mandating health insurance does not in any way violate bodily autonomy.

"Get your laws off of my body"

 

[Deacfreak07]

Since human life trumps autonomy over one's body, should there be mandatory organ compatibility testing and forced organ donations? What about blood? Giving blood is less inconvenient than pregnancy.

This is an interesting rebuttal. I'm surprised I've never heard it before.

 

[RChildress107]

I find that to be an odd trigger date, considering (1) you acknowledge that what you think is okay to kill now should be protected in 150 years despite the fact it is no more or less a human being/person/whatever in 150 years and .

This objection reiterates my point about other positions most "pro-life" advocates hold being decidedly not "pro-life". Advocates of the death penalty and war are basically saying that it is now OK to kill a person despite the fact that he/she is no less a person because of a change of circumstances.

If you are comfortable taking that position for individuals whose personhood is beyond debate, then why is it strange for me to take such a position for an individual that I reasonably believe is not a person?