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Pro Life / Pro Choice Debate

Wrangor said:
I appreciate your thoughtful sentiment, but will just have to respectfully disagree that abortion is a true alternative to taking responsibility for a child that you conceived (again - not discussing the standard exceptions, but instead addressing the elective abortions that make up the vast, vast majority...around 95%).
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This is what the pro-life movement is really about. It's not about human rights or speaking for those with no voice to speak for themselves. It's about imposing one's own views about sexual morality and personal responsibility onto the rest of society.

The actions of the pro-life movement suggest that having sex outside of marriage is just as bad as killing a fetus. Since pro-lifers claim to believe that a fetus is a person this means one of two things:

1. They think extra-marital sex is as bad as murder, or

2. On some level they don't actually believe that a fetus is a person.
 
Wrangor said:
Not sure who you are arguing against. I don't think Divorce and Abortion are comparable at all and tried to make that point (apparently not well).

So there, you finally pulled an answer out of me with regards to how war relates to abortion (which it doesn't). Justifiable war is possible in my opinion. When you have someone overrunning the rights of other people (Hitler for example) it is justifiable to go and fight him. In that process you are going to kill innocent people, and I can live with that based on the lives that are saved. Abortion doesn't have that same balance of life. in 95% of the cases it is the convenience of the mother/father over the life of the child. That is a human rights issue. Convenience over life is never a fair balance.
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I should have said contrasting rather than comparing. Using one difference between abortion and divorce (that life fails to go on for one of the "parties" to an abortion) is silly because even setting that difference aside the two things are not analogous.

I'm not familiar with you or Bake's position or discussion on the Iraq War. But acting like one humans rights issue (killing innocent civilians, among whom are certainly children) is not at all related to what you claim is another human rights issue (abortion) is disingenuous at best.

I also find it odd that you embrace a consequentialist theory of Just War (killing of innocents is justified by the saving of more innocents) yet reject such consequentialist views when it comes to abortion.
 
RChildress107 said:
1. Most divorces are "elective" (i.e. not someone fleeing domestic abuse).

2. Comparing divorce to abortion is stupid. Marriage is a contract entered into by two consenting adults. Like all contracts it can and sometimes should be broken. In pregnancy, you have one adult (who usually got pregnant through consensual sex) and one fetus/baby that is entirely dependent (in every sense of the word) on that adult.

To claim that the moral difference between divorce and abortion is that after an abortion one of the parties (the fetus) doesn't have the opportunity to live ignores the very fact that the opportunity for the fetus to live comes from the mother choosing the abortion.

3. GTFO with "its not a religious issue for me personally, its a human rights issue." The only reason you see it as a human rights issue is because of your religious beliefs. And if its truly a human rights issue for you then stop dodging the human rights issue you happen to be on the other side of. Its infuriating when the right suddenly cares about human rights when we are only talking about potential humans. I truly hope that you have the same passion for protecting the rights of actual humans who are already here.
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golf clap to you sir. This is my point with this guy. Wildly inconsistent opposition to killing people. that's the part that makes "weird" and want to 'pick on' poor, poor Wrangor.
 
Wrangor said:
1) but will just have to respectfully disagree that abortion is a true alternative to taking responsibility for a child that you conceived (again - not discussing the standard exceptions, but instead addressing the elective abortions that make up the vast, vast majority...around 95%).
2) When we are dealing with ending someone's life we most certainly should provide directions as a society because there is no turning back.
3)There is no reconciliation if you decide differently.
4)Abortion is not a religious issue for me personally (no matter how many times Bake or someone else tries to paint my opinion with that broad brush stroke). It is a human rights issue. And why I agree with you that people should have the right to divorce (and marry) whoever they want in this country (because that is part of who we are as a nation), I don't believe we should have the right to end the life of someone else simply because they have no voice or power to defend him or herself.
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1- I really don't see this as "taking responsibility." As others have mentioned, that you exporting your beliefs about what they "should" be doing. There are some really bad situations in which children shouldn't be brought into? I believe any situation can be redeemed, but sometimes the most responsible thing to do is to address a problem without creating further ones.
2- It's a complex debate, especially based on the question of "when," but you use the word "someone" and what I'm saying is that I think we're making too many assumptions when we grant "personhood" to a collection of cells (which may be alive and have the potential to become human). I'm not saying that I know when that collection of cells becomes a "someone," but I think we really have to be careful about framing this discussion with moral absolutes such as "killing" (which assumes personhood).
3- This is what the Gospel is all about- that all can and will be reconciled. It's the essence of eschatology.
4- The concept of "religious" vs "non-religious" perspectives is a false dualism. If faith doesn't speak to, and isn't the ground of, this (or any) issue, then we've already gone astray.

Thanks for your comments.
 
Wrangor said:
This is a side issue (I am for a more expanded safe sex program in schools), but that doesn't really have anything to do with whether abortion is justifiable as a legal option for post conception birth control.
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I think practically they are opposite sides of the same coin. I agree that it doesn't change any sort of legal or moral justification for abortion.
 
RChildress107 said:
Comparing divorce to abortion is stupid. Marriage is a contract entered into by two consenting adults. Like all contracts it can and sometimes should be broken. In pregnancy, you have one adult (who usually got pregnant through consensual sex) and one fetus/baby that is entirely dependent (in every sense of the word) on that adult.
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I disagree. I'm not saying that divorce or abortion are the same, or comparable in every situation, but for the purposes of this debate, I think there are some points of connection. For one, to assume that marriage is always entered into by two fully consenting adults just isn't true. Humans are generally broken in one way or another, sometimes a person's motives for marriage aren't quite so pure. Sure, legally they are "free" to enter into the contract, but there can be factors such as guilt, shame, loneliness, greed, etc. which may impinge on someone being a "free agent" in totality.

But more than that, I think it's a fair comparison because both are issues that the Church has historically condemned, but are cases where sometimes the most merciful and graceful thing to do is to recognize that life is more complicated than the rules that we've constructed. Most people have come to understand that, in some situations, divorce really is the best option. Doesn't make it "good," but still the best option. I think the same can be said of abortion.
 
RChildress107 said:
This is almost certainly what Rev was speaking to when he said "Would we like to have situations not be so broken that we don't need it? Yes." that prompted Wrangor's response above.

Most abortions aren't "necessary" in the strict sense that a woman can't physically have the child. They are "necessary" because women aren't given the tools to either prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place or care for the result of those pregnancies if they choose to go through with it.

If pro-lifers agree to take real action on those two fronts I'll start listening to their talk about "human rights." Until then I'm simply not buying it.
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This post is gut-wrenchingly awful in reasoning, personal responsibility and policy outcome. Move back three spaces.
 
Wrangor said:
This is a side issue (I am for a more expanded safe sex program in schools), but that doesn't really have anything to do with whether abortion is justifiable as a legal option for post conception birth control.
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No kidding.
 
"DA JHMD brings first degree murder charges against 3,467 women in North Carolina"

I can't wait for the law change.
 
RChildress107 said:
1. Most divorces are "elective" (i.e. not someone fleeing domestic abuse).

2. Comparing divorce to abortion is stupid. Marriage is a contract entered into by two consenting adults. Like all contracts it can and sometimes should be broken. In pregnancy, you have one adult (who usually got pregnant through consensual sex) and one fetus/baby that is entirely dependent (in every sense of the word) on that adult.

To claim that the moral difference between divorce and abortion is that after an abortion one of the parties (the fetus) doesn't have the opportunity to live ignores the very fact that the opportunity for the fetus to live comes from the mother choosing the abortion.

3. GTFO with "its not a religious issue for me personally, its a human rights issue." The only reason you see it as a human rights issue is because of your religious beliefs. And if its truly a human rights issue for you then stop dodging the human rights issue you happen to be on the other side of. Its infuriating when the right suddenly cares about human rights when we are only talking about potential humans. I truly hope that you have the same passion for protecting the rights of actual humans who are already here.
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So...you can't, ahem, conceive of an argument against abortion that an atheist could form?
 
jhmd2000 said:
So...you can't, ahem, conceive of an argument against abortion that an atheist could form?
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I can. I was hoping this line of discussion would happen. Good on you, sir.

The non-religious argument is that the baby in the womb is protected by the Constitution, right?
 
WakeandBake said:
I can. I was hoping this line of discussion would happen. Good on you, sir.

The non-religious argument is that the baby in the womb is protected by the Constitution, right?
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One of them, yes. There's also our buddy #'s patented "Don't be an a-hole" maxim.

I think the basic principle is pre-Constitutional.
 
The Constitution protects people from murder, so you'd have to establish that there is indeed a person in there.

This is the correct argument which I cannot argue against. If we are to assume that at the moment of conception a person/baby is formed (which I have been doing on this thread), then yes they are protected by Constitution and the mother and doctor should be prosecuted for murder.

this is the only ion-clad argument against abortion I have ever seen. But it hinges on an unprovable, so we are right back where we started. Using the Bible to prove this is asinine, it is a book of lore. Using science is asinine because it is inexact.

round and round and round we go.
 
jhmd2000 said:
One of them, yes. There's also our buddy #'s patented "Don't be an a-hole" maxim.

I think the basic principle is pre-Constitutional.
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it must take a pretty weak individual to need a codified rule to default to "not killing"
 
But keep going down that road - with the logic of it being a person at conception. Can we get life insurance on such a person? How about bereavement leave in the case of a miscarriage? How about claiming it as a dependent on taxes (after all, people may get a nursery ready)?

I'm not taking a position on any of those questions, but it opens a can of legal worms.
 
RevDeac06 said:
But keep going down that road - with the logic of it being a person at conception. Can we get life insurance on such a person? How about bereavement leave in the case of a miscarriage? How about claiming it as a dependent on taxes (after all, people may get a nursery ready)?

I'm not taking a position on any of those questions, but it opens a can of legal worms.
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All this. If a fetus is truly a person, it seems that most pro-life advocates only consider it 2/3's a person. Of the 100 times that I've heard jhmd compare a newborn to a pre-born, I've yet to hear him ascribe all the same rights and protections of one to the other.
 
Everyone remember, there can be no grey area, a life is a life from conception onward.

Sent from my SM-G935T using Tapatalk
 
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