Against abortion and against person-hood?

[Town Heretic]

Then the risk of abrogation is as easily dismissed as not....it's a subjective valuation.

The risk isn't a subjective valuation. It's an established fact. The certainty isn't knowable, which also isn't subjective, only indeterminate. The only danger and presumption is found in the action of allowing an abortion, a thing we should only allow where there is a certainty that the act isn't a miscarriage of justice and an abrogation of right, to which we are not entitled and which we simply can't know.

 

[Crucible]

Pro-lifers are obsessed with these unborn babies and the fact that they are "murdered".

Nah
While the political pro-life crowd is inherently contradictory in their standing, they do not rebuke women as murderers. That's rather something of more special folk,
like here

 

[TomO]

It's been a long discussion, and you haven't read all the posts. So, of course, you haven't seen what you weren't looking for. But then, you aren't really interested in any logical objections, anyway, are you.

I'll tell you what Skippy....When one of you weak-sauced, excuse-making, apologists can tell me what exactly happens in a birth-canal to magically transform a "cluster-of-cells" into a person all your talk about "logical", just amounts to a pile of ureX: hypocrisy....

Just sayin' :e4e:

 

[PureX]

No, it's an argument from reason. What's absolutist about it aside from your rhetoric?

What is absolutist is your conviction that your opinion is an "argument from reason" when in fact it is an argument from ignorance even though it's a reasoned opinion. I'm saying that the reasoning is flawed, and that the reasoning of the opposing opinion is just as reasonable as yours is, and is equally assailable, logically.

It is your inability/refusal to acknowledge this that is 'absolutist'.

I suppose you could say that I believe you have an absolute right to your life absent actions by you that abrogate it.

I find it both interesting and telling that the only ideal greater than the right to life is the right to ignore that ideal whenever it's deemed appropriate, by you.

Why do you assume that it's you and your reasoning that should be determining when and how this "abrogation of the right to life" occurs? And no one else? Because there are other people, and they have their own reasoning. And their reasoning is no more or less logical than yours.

The absolutism I was referring to is the absoluteness of your own presumed righteousness. Not the absoluteness of your opinion regarding the right to life.

I recognize that all sorts of things are relative and many a thing certain. Your problem is that all you see is relativism. It's what leads you into hypocritical declarations and positions, as it did with Roe.

You presume that what you see to be certain IS CERTAIN simply because you see it that way. That is the absolutist's mind-set. Certainty and righteousness become one and the same phenomena, for the absolutist. And it makes them impervious to error or correction regarding most things, most of the time.

Rather, I set the argument entirely to invite discourse and objection, to test it. Years later I'm mostly getting kill the messenger attempts like yours. That tells me I had at least one thing right as an atheist that remains true in my faithfulness.

Everything about your posts indicate otherwise. You stoop to surprisingly low means to dismiss any and every objection that confronts you. That is not the mind-set of someone seeking discourse and objection. That's the mind-set of someone looking only to validate the righteousness of their own opinion, by any means that comes to hand.

 

[PureX]

I'll tell you what Skippy....When one of you weak-sauced, excuse-making, apologists can tell me what exactly happens in a birth-canal to magically transform a "cluster-of-cells" into a person all your talk about "logical", just amounts to a pile of ureX: hypocrisy....

Just sayin' :e4e:

When you have to jump immediately to name-calling, and to this kind of 'argument from ignorance' to defend your own need to be right, it becomes clear to me that your opinion and your craving for self-righteousness have coalesced into one visceral reaction.

I'm not here to debate with your ego. When you can muster up some logical reasoning, and can express it with civility, come on back and we'll chat.

 

[TomO]

When you have to jump immediately to name-calling, and to this kind of 'argument from ignorance' to defend your own need to be right, it becomes clear to me that your opinion and your craving for self-righteousness have coalesced into one visceral reaction.

I'm not here to debate with your ego. When you can muster up some logical reasoning, and can express it with civility, come on back and we'll chat.

Yeah....I figured as much. :yawn:

ureX:

 

[Rusha]

When you have to jump immediately to name-calling, and to this kind of 'argument from ignorance' to defend your own need to be right, it becomes clear to me that your opinion and your craving for self-righteousness have coalesced into one visceral reaction.

I'm not here to debate with your ego. When you can muster up some logical reasoning, and can express it with civility, come on back and we'll chat.

Uh huh. So you aren't really name-calling or insulting with your above choice of words? Your dismissal of your own hypocrisy is noted. lain:

 

[PureX]

… tell me what exactly happens in a birth-canal to magically transform a "cluster-of-cells" into a person ...

You first, buddy.

This is what I meant by the "argument from ignorance". The anti-abortion argument is based on the fact that no one can do this. Just as the pro-choice argument is based on the fact that no one ELSE can justify their doing this, for us.

 

[ok doser]

You first, buddy.

This is what I meant by the "argument from ignorance". The anti-abortion argument is based on the fact that no one can do this. Just as the pro-choice argument is based on the fact that no one ELSE can justify their doing this, for us.

it would be nice to see if you could even agree with this:

at conception, a genetically unique human organism is created

 

[Crucible]

I'll tell you what Skippy....When one of you weak-sauced, excuse-making, apologists can tell me what exactly happens in a birth-canal to magically transform a "cluster-of-cells" into a person

 

[patrick jane]

I'll tell you what Skippy....When one of you weak-sauced, excuse-making, apologists can tell me what exactly happens in a birth-canal to magically transform a "cluster-of-cells" into a person all your talk about "logical", just amounts to a pile of ureX: hypocrisy....

Just sayin' :e4e:

C'mon man. The fertilized egg implants into the uterus wall - Bam, a new person

 

[TomO]

This is what I meant by the "argument from ignorance". The anti-abortion argument is based on the fact that no one can do this. Just as the pro-choice argument is based on the fact that no one ELSE can justify their doing this, for us.

:doh: No, the anti-abortion argument being used here is not an "argument from ignorance"...You cannot "do this" because there is no difference save "location". The only justification for such thinking (that there is a difference on opposite ends of the birth canal) are all pretty much centered on appeals to tradition.

The fact is that humans are in a state of constant development from the point of conception until death. More than just physical development takes place in the womb, as well as beyond.If you doubt this then try this book: Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots of Violence (It's got nothing to do with abortion).

To this date the only person who has ever made me give pause to my view that abortions are monstrous mistakes in the vast majority of instances was a person who used to post here (Haven't seen her around in awhile) that the development of "person-hood" did not actually begin until the development of the cerebral cortex (about 22-ish weeks)being as how this was the "seat" of human consciousness (for lack of a better term). I'm not sure I fully agree with the concept but it's an honest argument worthy of consideration. Further, when I proposed a moratorium on all abortions post the 22nd week she didn't balk, but was mostly concerned with the accuracy of the developmental assessment.

I know what you mean by argument from ignorance. The problem is that your insistence in framing the question as such is that it turns the baby into some kind of bizarre Schrodinger's Cat experiment....And an intellectually dishonest one at that.

 

[PureX]

C'mon man. The fertilized egg implants into the uterus wall - Bam, a new person

A fertilized egg is only a blueprint of a new person surrounded by a bio-physical envelope that could allow the blueprint to begin actualizing. But it can't be actualized if it can't implant and draw it's sustenance from a 'host human'.

None of this connotes a "new person", yet. It only connotes the potentiality of new person. And a 'potential' person is not the same as an actual person.

It's not that difficult to understand this if one is willing.

 

[ok doser]

A fertilized egg is only a blueprint of a new person...

in the same way that a newborn is a blueprint of the adult

 

[TomO]

in the same way that a newborn is a blueprint of the adult

Hmmm....How 'bout that? lain:

 

[PureX]

No, the anti-abortion argument being used here is not an "argument from ignorance"...You cannot "do this" because there is no difference save "location". The only justification for such thinking (that there is a difference on opposite ends of the birth canal) are all pretty much centered on appeals to tradition.

Well, that would appear to be a very 'blinkered' argument, it seems to me, since there is a great deal of difference between a fertilized human embryonic cell and an actual human person. (see my pervious post)

The fact is that humans are in a state of constant development from the point of conception until death. More than just physical development takes place in the womb, as well as beyond.

Yes, and physical developments continue to take place after we are dead and placed in our graves. Yet, at some point we need to define a perceptual (and legal) beginning and ending of our lives. And since we are not omniscient, we have to do that according to our best reckoning. And it is that reckoning that is at issue, here.

To this date the only person who has ever made me give pause to my view that abortions are monstrous mistakes in the vast majority of instances was a person who used to post here (Haven't seen her around in awhile) that the development of "person-hood" did not actually begin until the development of the cerebral cortex (about 22-ish weeks)being as how this was the "seat" of human consciousness (for lack of a better term). I'm not sure I fully agree with the concept but it's an honest argument worthy of consideration. Further, when I proposed a moratorium on all abortions post the 22nd week she didn't balk, but was mostly concerned with the accuracy of the developmental assessment.

Very interesting, in that the 22nd - 24th week of development is the CURRENT cut-off point for a legal abortion. Although it is not based on cerebral cortex development, but on the fetus' ability to survive as an autonomous life form outside of the mother's body, if necessary, at that point in it's development.

I know what you mean by argument from ignorance. The problem is that your insistence in framing the question as such is that it turns the baby into some kind of bizarre Schrodinger's Cat experiment....And an intellectually dishonest one at that.

But that IS the reality of it. We humans do not possess the sophistication needed to determine at what exact point we become a living human being, nor at what exact point we cease to be a living human being, because there is NO EXACT POINT. And yet we need to be able to respond to these different states of being logically and reasonably. So the question becomes who's reasoning is the more logical, who gets to determine this, and by what criteria? That's the heart and soul of the abortion debate (as well debates about euthanasia, suicide, and voluntary body disfigurement).

And this concept of "personhood" seems to be at the heart of all of these issues. How do we define it? When does it occur? When can we ignore it's right to self-expression? Who is going to decide this? And upon what basis does their authority rest?

 

[ok doser]

... at some point we need to define a perceptual (and legal) beginning and ending of our lives. ...

the ending is easy - regardless of what you call "physical developments" after death, they only occur after death

so i think most sane people can agree that the end of life comes with the end of life



for the beginning, see:

at conception a genetically unique human organism is created

 

[TomO]

Well....I guess decay could be seen as a "development" in a weird sort of "laws of thermodynamics" way.

 

[The Horn]

Abortionists have been "killing" babies for who knows how long, and they were very common in America long before Roe v Wade. And before Roe, most of these abortionists were NOT properly trained medical personnel but dangerous back-alley ones, and who knows how many poor women died or nearly died because of them.
But since Roe v Wade, only a tiny handful of women have died because of LEGAL abortions .Far fewer than die every year from botched heart surgery or other medical procedures .
Anti-choicers have been in denial from the beginning. They never acknowledge the awful reality of life for poor women before abortion became safe and legal in America . And those dangerous, incompetent , untrained back-alley amateurs will become active all over America if our government makes abortion illegal again .
It's better for a pill to prevent a pregnancy than for poor women to have abortions . And women's bodies routinely eject fertilized cells anyway . A cell is NOT a person, and personhood laws are extremely dangerous because not only will they do NOTHING to stop abortion, they will INCREASE the abortion rate . These stupid "personhood" laws could make certain contraceptives illegal .
You can't have it both ways . If you are opposed to abortion, you have NO RIGHT to be opposed to contraceptives .And having our government provide them for poor women .

 

[TomO]

You can't have it both ways . If you are opposed to abortion, you have NO RIGHT to be opposed to contraceptives .And having our government provide them for poor women .

I'm not...Will you stop wringing your hands and go away now? lain: