ABQ 20-week abortion ban proponents: We’ll be back
I was frankly shocked to see Albuquerque’s 20-week abortion ban initiative go down. In early September the ban got overwhelming public support, according to an Albuquerque Journal poll, right.
But the initiative did go down, losing by 9,144 votes: 55%-45%, 48,042 to 38,898.
Early voting is where our side lost. There were 50,000 early and absentee ballots cast, and they went 56% against and 44% for.
Objectively speaking, how barbaric is a society that votes in favor of murdering preborn babies five months old and up, particularly who are known to feel the pain of it all? How barbaric are people to jump, clap, and shout for joy when that happens (photo above)?
Pretty barbaric.
Yet I don’t believe the vote in ABQ accurately represents societal thought. I think what it reflects is a well-oiled political machine, which included Obama’s Organizing for Action, which knows how and where to get out the vote. When I saw NARAL president Ilyse Hogue retweet this – before the final vote was known – I knew one area in which the other side focused was registering their people to vote…
There were more registered voters today than there was a month ago. Turnout was 24% compared to 20% for the Mayorial race. #abq2013
— KRQE News 13 (@krqe) November 20, 2013
I think the vote also reflects the ability of money to talk. As SBA List’s Billy Valentine noted, the other side outspent us 4:1…
No matter what happens in ABQ tonight, the prolife movement is on offense & has big abortion on the run – had to spend $1 mil + on home turf
— Billy Valentine (@valentinebilly) November 20, 2013
This is true. While the abortion industry called yesterday’s defeat of the ban “a great victory,” as an email from NARAL put it, in actuality all they really did was manage to fend off a bold offensive attack against one of their fortresses – where “Democrats [have] a sizable registration advantage,” and where Obama won by 15 points in 2012. That’s not anything great.
Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger also noted there was “widespread” voter confusion because the measure itself was “lengthy and technical,” adding, “this is an issue that can be easily corrected next time around,” meaning yes, a next time is planned.
I will say the failure of the 20-week ban exposes the impotence of our churches. We are all aware of pastors who are weak-kneed on the topic of abortion, but banning abortions at 20 weeks is something even the biggest cowards should have had no trouble getting behind. Churches were places of low-hanging fruit, where grand registration drives could have and should have been orchestrated, along with massive GOTV campaigns. There were certainly 9,000 more votes in the pews had congregants been more strongly urged, and had they received proper teaching on the sanctity of human to begin with.
But back to the positives. As Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins noted on MSNBC yesterday, “The fact that we’re on national t.v. debating about having abortions on children who can feel pain… we’re discussing the humanity of preborn children.”
Created Equal further noted in an email alert:
Although the ban did not pass, public education efforts leading up to the vote not only raised widespread discussion but also created opportunities for the victims to be seen. While late-term abortion may remain legal for now in ABQ, it has already become unthinkable to countless citizens who themselves witnessed faces of butchered children on our mobile billboards, handheld signs, or postcards.
As for the future of anti-abortion initiatives on the local level, pro-lifers have apparently stumbled on to something. Quoting NextCity.org:
[Floyd]Feeney [professor of election law at the University of California-Davis] said, “going at it at the local level would be good strategy. It’s cheaper. It’s expensive and complicated to get something on statewide ballot even in smaller states. Why spend half a million dollars when you can do it for less than that?”
… while forcing the other side to spend a million.
Kudos to Tara and Bud Shaver for launching a promising new pro-life strategy.
[Top photo via ABQJournal.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Pro-aborts must take comfort in knowing that all of that money brainwashed women spent on abortions at PP, is lining up pols pockets instead of bringing PP “clinics” up to code and modernized.
Your efforts, Jill, at exposing the conditions of these so-called ”clinics” are not going un-noticed and pro-life will have another opportunity in ABQ. We will never give up the good fight..
Come on folks, we lost. The babies lost.
Stop trying to spin this about money and voter confusion. We’re sounding a lot like our opponents who whine about “conspiracies” The Koch Brothers, and the influence of money(which is fine when it benefits them) every time they lose. In every war battles are won and there are devastating defeats. This is a devastating defeat. The war goes on.
So let’s put on our big boy/girl pants and continue the struggle.
Notice this sentence:
“Objectively speaking, how barbaric is a society that votes in favor of murdering preborn babies five months old and up, particularly who are known to feel the pain of it all?”
20 weeks is not five months. It is under 5 months. And, of course, someone will say that’s nitpicky, but perhaps honesty isn’t nitipicky.
And, there is no murder involved. Murder is an unlawful act. Legal abortion is not murder, no matter how it is spun.
It’s no wonder why much of the “prolife” argument is ignored or laughed at.
And, like with personhood in Colorado, more attempts at ludicrous ordinances in Albuquerque will meet the same fate. But keep on wasting the money.
Patrick Mahoney was prematurely celebrating victory yesterday. Very humorous.
Back when I was involved with democratic party politics, I learned how effective get-out-the-vote efforts are. I agree that a likely factor was consistent messaging to the faithful, voter reg, and GOTV.
Many readers here are probably unaware of the regular constant coordinated info campaigns happening across U.S. regularly. I get emails from Obama’s groups regularly – maybe 1/2 weeks to 3/wk. They are brief, they highlight the issue, and they ask me for $3.
All of these groups have the same typeface, graphics, and style. OFA, PP, MoveOn, OccupyWallSt, etc.
They all have a steady stream of messaging. When things are slow, I get the email to sign Biden’s or Michelle’s birthday card. It is continuous. It gives the sense of struggle, of there being a current pressing need, and an action to take.
Young adults end up on these lists and get these messages. They feel good about participating. They believe the rhetoric – us good, others evil. It makes a big difference in whether they vote or not – they are battling evil.
Money flows around. The astroturf show up for a trayvon protest, they showed up at the Texas capitol to chant ‘hail Satan,’ and they helped run Occupy Your Street. They hire people by running ads on Craigslist – for any of these movements.
This pays off. An issue comes up, and many people are already very aware of the sense of regular battle of evil. Then, same battle, but an opportunity for action: vote.
If a local referendum draws 25% more voters than a local mayor’s race, you know something is up: this was a national battleground, not a local issue.
The church vote?
What church?
Decades ago, the Marxists developed a plan to influence the social values of the organized religions. If you cannot beat them yet, join them. And they did. They gave messages that seemed innocuous, and fit in the overall value system – help the poor, etc.
Help the poor? The OT and NT have tons on this issue long before Karl Marx drafted our current, prevailing beliefs about redistribution of wealth. Christian giving is the greatest charitable force on the planet by far. helping the needy fits right in, and so they took the toe-hold.
And so, the Quakers, the Catholics, and various Protestant lines started the slow move to get in line with Marxist thought: pro-abortion, etc.
They are no longer afraid of church-goers; only certain church-goers.
It is not that churches are unwilling to get active on a political issue; it is that they AGREE with the political issue: they have adopted “compassion,” “social justice,” and so on.
The Unitarians will come right out and tell you they are pro-choice but the compromised Christian denominations will give weak-kneed answers about not wanting to get political, and so on, all the while knowing they do not have a decidedly pro-life/anti-abortion stance.
It is not a matter of unwillingness to get political; it is a matter of avoiding the issue so they can indirectly support abortion access. It is now built into the church hierarchy.
Come on folks, we lost. The babies lost.
You’re right, Mary, it’s a devastating loss, even though New Mexico is a blue state. We just can’t spin it any other way. So sad, and even sadder to see people celebrating this “victory.” I fear that this nation is rapidly losing its moral compass, if it hasn’t already. I am thinking of leaving the U.S. someday. Seriously.
The best the mighty Church of the Lord Jesus Christ can come up with is cowardice and apathy. Evil reigns and gross injustice is being executed against the most vulnerable among us and we do nothing to stop it. Innocent defenseless children, many viable, are being mercilessly and barbarically slaughtered in genocidal proportions.
If toddlers were being murdered on this scale there would be gut-wrenching mourning and outcries and demands for justice and vengeance.
But as mothers are deceived, and children are murdered, and abortion profiteers cackle with demonic glee, the mighty Church yawns in an indifferent, lukewarm, spiritual coma. She is clueless to her mission on this planet to fight evil and wickedness and prefers to live for her own comforts and pleasures.
We can’t even muster the energy, or overcome our own lazy, selfish desires and drive to the voting booth and cast a ballot.
Two words: God vomit
Well said, TheLastDemocrat. This is my take on what happened.
This morning I woke up to this headline
Albuquerque Voters Defeat Measure Banning Late-Term Abortions After 20 Weeks
I was stunned at the spiritual darkness enveloping our nation – that a community could look at what a late term abortion is and still vote to keep it available in their community. But there is nothing special about the people of Albuquerque – they are no more monstrous than we are with our abortion centers and our abortionists (many who trained at prestigious U-Mich medical school). After all, as one of them, Dr. Lisa Harris, once wrote, “There is always violence involved in a second trimester abortion…I must add, however, that I consider declining a woman’s request for abortion also to be an act of unspeakable violence.” These are our doctors and this is our community – deeply committed to a culture of death.
But still it sounds so Orwellian to say that denial of a woman’s abortion request is more unspeakably violent than sticking a needle into the skull of a baby (fetus, whatever) in the womb and injecting lethal poison or using a set of forceps to remove said baby, piece by piece while he or she is still alive during much of the “procedure”.
I can see why so many people, like “Merit” laugh at the pro-life movement. And I can understand why so many think the pro-life movement is evil (as TLD wrote). Insanity.
Correction, the Church didn’t do nothing. A remnant worked extremely hard while the majority of professing Christians either didn’t bother to vote or were so deceived they voted for the wrong side.
I didn’t intend to ignore the hard workers among us who by God’s grace see the injustice and are doing something about it.
Merit: Murder is murder, whether it is legalized or not. You may accused and convicted of a capital crime, and legally sentenced to execution. Your death would still be intentional homicide, and merely being legal wouldn’t make you any less dead. You would be just as murdered as if you were knifed on the street or butchered in the womb.
The only difference between legal murder and illegal murder is how we treat the killers. For the victims, it’s all the same.
As to ABQ: I agree with Kristan Hawkins; even when we lose elections, we win! Remember how we cried and tore our garments when Obama was elected and re-elected? Only to see the national conversation grow louder and pro-life sentiment grow stronger in spite of him. We would not have dared something as bold as the ABQ referendum during the Bush Administration.
The Abortion Industry will always have to outspend us to defeat us. It used to be 2:1. The ABQ election outspent us 4:1. Soon, it will be 10:1, and then no amount of money will be able to defeat the will of the people to defend women and children in their regions — whenever the people are allowed to decide for themselves. Look for the Abortion Industry to turn to the Courts in every effort to frustrate the people’s elections.
It is embarrassing that they can still defeat us on technical merits, like voter registration and GOTV efforts. We need to learn from this.
Huge win in the SCOTUS yesterday with national implications, compared to this small ls in a very small venue. But still it’s a loss. Hope pro life didn’t spend too much time or money on this small skirmish.
“20 weeks is not five months. It is under 5 months. And, of course, someone will say that’s nitpicky, but perhaps honesty isn’t nitipicky.”
This isn’t a matter so much of honesty or even being nitpicky as it is, all of a sudden, insisting that people write in a literalistic way. We round numbers and approximate values all the time in 21st century America. It is an extremely standard and common practice, and to somehow imply that referring to “20 weeks” as “5 months” is dishonest shows the desperation of the pro-choice crowd to find fault anyplace it can with any claim that the pro-life side makes.
I take issue with early/absentee ballots.
More often than not, this has been exploited by one particular party – Democrats.
It’s the same with dead voters, multiple votes etc.
I also think it’s remarkable how often precincts of ballots go “missing” and results will be recounted again, and again, until suddenly “oh – we found more ballots!” – the outcome changes on that account.
Our entire election system is based on God-fearing people. Absent that, we need to have an open/visible and fair election system where ballots are publicly viewed while counted, and it’s impossible to rig the system through corrupt exploits.
BTW – There are ways to provide completely anonymous voting while still maintaining the integrity of # of ballots issued and submitted.
The Canadians also count their ballot boxes very publicly – IIRC using school gymnasiums and video cameras. Very hard to pull a fast one when every aspect of the election is highly visible (with the exception of the actually ballot marking).
This is really disgusting. If ONE thing could be bi-partisan you’d think it would be not killing babies who can possibly feel pain.
I am so very happy to see the abortion ban struck down. I work in the health care setting and I have seen several late term abortions in Albuquerque. The stories these women present with are so heartbreaking. I know that Albuquerque did the right thing, that is not to get between a woman and her doctor. Many anti abortion people fail to connect to women and understand these unique situations. I welcome further city wide abortion ban initiatives. Albuquerque had record turnout because women realized that the state was going to be telling them what to do with their bodies. When you threaten a woman’s right to choose they will come to the polls, as seen in Albuquerque.
Was it a fair election? We already know the website was hacked. The election could have been hijacked as well.
Not only are they barbarians, they are cowards who can not even look at their victims. I cannot stand barbarians who try to act like they are being civilized in their killing. I have more respect for say, Saudi Arabians, who just behead their victims in front of crowds. Unlike pro-choicers, they don’t pretend to be dignified…they’re savages and they’re owning it. Hey, if you are going to do literally the most evil thing in the world–killing innocent children– why not go all out? Sell tickets and popcorn and torture the baby in creative ways while the crowd watches. If murdering a baby is ok, then nothing could possibly be distasteful.
Of course the election was fair. In fact the only unfair part of it was the antiabortion activists screaming at individuals at polling stations. How is screaming at people going to sway them? No wonder the ban was struck down by voters.
It may be murdering a baby but I hate to say it…In life there are times when death is what must happen. For example even though an individual may have a horrible illness with a treatment that costs thousands of dollars, they and their family might decide that the treatment is not worth the life the person will live. The person may decide to forgo this treatment and thus die. Death is a part of life. I think antiabortion people have a narrow mind about death.
“Many anti abortion people fail to connect to women and understand these unique situations.”
So Steven, you’re saying that if we had more interaction with the situations women face, we’d be able to make a decision based more on emotion and less on reason? After all, you’re saying that we would see the situations these women are in, sympathize with them, and see that there is an option that would take them out of that bad situation. No need to apply logic, science, or reason. We can simply see that there is a bad situation going on in a certain person’s life, recognize a proposed solution, and then embrace that proposed solution with no questions asked. Is this more or less then philosophy behind the “if you knew the situation, then you’d be pro-choice” argument?
Logic, science and reason. These lead to a conclusion that is prochoice oriented. Abortion is an option for women with unwanted pregnancy. Period. This seems logical, reasonable and scientific. I am embracing the “if you knew the situation, then you’d be pro-choice” argument because it is valid.
Is there ANY kind of murder that Steven’s 2013/11/20 at 2:22 pm comment won’t justify? It seems like the argument would prove that if one can give a plausible argument that death must happen, then murdering someone is justified. I realize that this will eventually become the norm for the pro-choice crowd, but this seems a bit premature to be embracing this philosophy already. They’re supposed to deny it for a while, and gradually descend upon the slippery slope, all the while smugly scoffing at the idea of a slippery slope, and then act brave and progressive when they are at the bottom and embrace everything they had previously denied. I guess some are enlightened earlier than others.
“Of course the election was fair. In fact the only unfair part of it was the antiabortion activists screaming at individuals at polling stations. How is screaming at people going to sway them? No wonder the ban was struck down by voters. ”
Where were people screaming at individuals at polling stations? Do you have videos of this?
“It may be murdering a baby but I hate to say it…In life there are times when death is what must happen. For example even though an individual may have a horrible illness with a treatment that costs thousands of dollars, they and their family might decide that the treatment is not worth the life the person will live. ”
You seriously don’t see anything different about deciding for yourself and with your loved ones that you don’t want cancer treatment… and being killed with no say in the matter? Those aren’t situations that can possible be compared. Death is just a part of life, true, but that doesn’t mean you can go around killing other people when they have no say in the matter.
Bobby thanks for the compliment. I would like to think of myself as enlightened. Although I would say many of my prochoice friends embrace this philosophy already. We are more enlightened on death, because it is not so clear cut as the antiabortion people make it out to be.
“Is there ANY kind of murder that Steven’s 2013/11/20 at 2:22 pm comment won’t justify?”
Bobby, death is just a part of life so I’m going to kill you for… your car. Or something. Why would you care, why don’t you have an open mind about death? Gosh, be all logical and reasonable like me. ;)
Hey Jack, regarding my comment about antiabortion activists yelling. I do not have video just my own experience. So I guess you’ll have to take my word for it. Ha! Also regarding the death without the person having a say in the matter. There are many many instances of people being pulled from life support who have no say on the matter, because they are so ill that they cannot speak. So their families make the decision that their life is not worth bankrupting or putting overwhelming burden on the family. Life is eliminated all the time, and some life is not worth as much as others. It hurts to say but it is true.
“Logic, science and reason.”
I have yet to see that in an argument. Do you actually claim that “if you knew the situation, then you’d be pro-choice” is logical, scientific, or reasonable? I demonstrated how it is emotional above. One sees someone in a situation that is not desirable, sympathizes with them, and then condones whatever course of action they wish to take without considering whether or not that action is moral. How is that logical, scientific, or reasonable?
“Abortion is an option for women with unwanted pregnancy. Period.”
I don’t know what this means. Are you simply stating a fact? Yes, abortion is an option. Any action that is logically possible for an individual to perform in given circumstances is an option. I’m not really interested in the existence of options, rather, the morality of said options.
“I am embracing the “if you knew the situation, then you’d be pro-choice” argument because it is true.”
If what determines truth is the strength of one’s emotional response to an argument, sure, I agree. I suppose this brings us back to the same question above though…
Abortion is not killing someone for a car. It may be killing someone so that they themselves can live. Or so that they can not have to have a constant reminder (a child) that they were raped. Or so that they can move onward and upward in life without the burden of caring for an unwanted child.
Bobby Baby, Just an fyi I don’t really care what you are interested in morally. I was also simply stating that abortion is an option, because many antiabortion people don’t hear it enough. :)
Or so that they can afford a new car.
“Hey Jack, regarding my comment about antiabortion activists yelling. I do not have video just my own experience. So I guess you’ll have to take my word for it. Ha!”
Lol okay then.
“There are many many instances of people being pulled from life support who have no say on the matter, because they are so ill that they cannot speak. So their families make the decision that their life is not worth bankrupting or putting overwhelming burden on the family. Life is eliminated all the time, and some life is not worth as much as others. It hurts to say but it is true.”
Allowing someone to die naturally isn’t the same thing as deliberately killing them either. Your examples work only if the family deliberately killed someone who maybe wasn’t going to die anyway, at least for a while. Like shooting Grandma if she has Alzheimers. It’s not the same thing as letting someone naturally pass away. And I don’t even believe in killing non-human animals deliberately, so it’s a tough sell to get me to believe that, hey, people die all the time, I can totally kill this other person.
“Abortion is not killing someone for a car. It may be killing someone so that they themselves can live. Or so that they can not have to have a constant reminder (a child) that they were raped. Or so that they can move onward and upward in life without the burden of caring for an unwanted child.”
For all except the mother’s life (which I’m fine with, if the mother is going to die and abortion can save her, I don’t see that as wrong at all, just really sad), the same logic can be applied to two year olds. Why shouldn’t a mother be allowed to kill her born children, if they remind her of something unpleasant, or if they are unwanted? Or if she doesn’t want a boy, or she wanted a child with blue eyes instead of brown? Or millions of other reasons. If you’re justifying the death of children based on what their parents want, I don’t know why you all bother moralizing about the reasons at all.
A car without a screaming brat in the back seat
Steven,
Life is eliminated all the time, and some life is not worth as much as others.
I’m sure the men and women who ran Buchenwald and Auschwitz couldn’t have agreed more.
Logic, science and reason.
This is what got the German death machine rolling. BTW Steven, the Nazis didn’t start the mass murder, it was the enlightened intellectuals, doctors, and health care workers, who were advocated for euthanized the “undesirables” before the Nazis came to power. Of course the Nazis weren’t about to stop it either. Enlightened souls much like you consider yourself to be.
I also work in the medical area and removing people from life support is not a decision made based on anyone’s whim or convenience. There are many considerations, plus the directives patients leave.
Steven,
Of course you were never a screaming brat.
“Or so that they can not have to have a constant reminder (a child) that they were raped.”
Suppose a woman is raped and yet decides to go on with the pregnancy. She has the baby, and the child grows up. However, when the baby boy is around 4 years old, the mother begins to see that her son resembles her rapist. As the little boy reaches his 6th birthday, he becomes the spitting image of his mother’s raper. Every time the mother sees him, she is reminded of being raped. The pain and agony of that horrible experience are now all she sees in the face of her son. The question then is: is she morally jsutified (not legally but morally) in killing her 6 year old?
Normally this thought experiment is a reductio ad absurdum to the “the fetus will remind the woman of her being raped” but with all the forward thinking we’ve been witnessing here today, I’m going to guess the answer is an unequivocal “yes.”
Ah, so the child hate comes out. I love you guys. We were all kids once dude.
I’m going to go hug one of my screaming brats now, but she’s not screaming. She drew me a picture of me and her and her brother! :)
Lol. 2edgy4me. So enlightened.
There’s really no point in having conversations with people who can’t even agree on stuff like “infanticide is bad”. So have a nice day, Steven.
There is some child hate there are too many people in the world.
So why are you one of the chosen, the worthy, the ultimate humans, who don’t have to die because there are “too many people”?
Most estimates put carrying capacity of the planet at 14 billion people. And most population experts say we’re already starting to level off, population growth-wise, and will probably settle around 10 billion. We’re fine people-wise, distribution of resources and technology for clean water and such are the issues.
Steven is the pro abortion voice perfectly revealed and distilled.
Some folks are more equal than others.
This is is, the Apocalypse (shout out to Imagine Dragons)
I am chilled to the bone by his honest comments.
Mary Mary Mary, quite contrary. I think that the Nazi argument is so overrated. Like we don’t euthanize people all the time. You should spend some time in the ICUs of your hospital.
Jack, I thought you were done talking to me.
Courtnaynay, I am the perfect abortion voice. Thanks. Has anyone ever seen that Star Trek episode called “Critical Care”? In it an alien race gives precedent for medical care to those that are more productive in society. Seems like a good example of what im talking about.
Heres a situation I would like to hear from the group about:
There is one bag of blood in a hospital. There are two patients. One patient is a 65 yo male who is homeless and an alcoholic. He has been admitted to the hospital multiple times for advanced liver failure. Another patient is a 25 yo pregnant mother who is undergoing cesarean section with complications of extreme blood loss. Both patients desperately need the blood to live. Who do you give the blood to?
Steven,
I have spent many years in ICUs that’s why I seriously doubt you even know what you’re talking about.
The Nazi arguments are overrated? Why, do you see yourself in them?
Huge win in the SCOTUS yesterday with national implications, compared to this small ls in a very small venue.
Yes, that’s good news. But the thing that many of us are shocked and saddened about is that people KNOW what happens in a second trimester abortion, and they are still okay with it.
Steve, you talk about a woman being burdened with an unwanted child. Did you ever hear of adoption? I am not saying it is easy for birth moms to make this decision, but is also an option that pro-aborts seem to ignore — it’s either have an abortion or have a kid that you don’t want that’s going to have a lousy life and not get into an Ivy League school, etc. I am an adoptive mom. I am a woman of color as is my son, so please don’t start the “no one wants black babies” argument.
“Jack, I thought you were done talking to me. ”
Meh, I got bored for a moment. I’ll indulge you once more.
Do you really not see a difference between not having enough resources to save everyone and deliberately killing them? Your scenario only works if you murder the person who doesn’t get the blood.
We’ve tried this whole “kill people based on external things, oh except for me, don’t kill me” in many different cultures based on many different things. It’s never worked out. It’s not enlightened and it’s not new thinking. What it IS is almost always ableist, almost always classist, and usually racist as well.
Steven,
Now I know you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Admitted several times for advanced liver failure? He’d be long dead.
If the mother is experiencing extreme blood loss one “bag” won’t do squat.
Mary its just a hypothetical question.
Steven,
I know, But even hypothetical questions need some basis in reality. Yours makes as much sense as asking what we should do if the sky falls tomorrow.
Ok so lets say that he is only admitted once for liver failure (to make Mary happy- cuz Shes the medical expert here) but lets say that there is still only one bag of blood, because this is theoretically possible. Blood can be very scarce in hospitals. And this one bag is enough to save either patients life (theoretically lets say this is true, it may not be completely enough blood but it will be enough to keep the patient alive till more blood is available) Now, would you like to give me your opinion on the situation?
By the way Mary, where did you get your Degree of Medicine from?
Steven, I don’t believe you really want to bring up science, as science is not on your side on this one. Logic and reason ain’t looking so hot for you right now, either.
Steven is basing his moral argument on one First Premise: The child’s life has no value.
If we accept that premise with him, then we can build a Logical case that a woman may do whatever she wants.
And science does not help us, because Science cannot determine whether the child, or the mother, or Even Steven have any Value at all. Science cannot measure things like human dignity or personal value.
But we don’t have to accept Steven’s First Principle. We can insist, as we do, that All Human Persons are Equal in Dignity and Value. Then we can press Steven to explain why he believes that Jews or Blacks or Preborn Children are less human than the rest of us.
We can let him explain how reducing the humanity of preborn children does not make him sound like a racist or a Nazi.
We can let Steven explain how killing children does not aid in the oppression and exploitation of women.
Steven is here as a guest. Let him explain his case on our ground, where all human beings are given respect, and their human right to life is protected.
I just want to raise my hand to be counted: I am very close-minded about murder. Not only do I believe that murdering adults via the death penalty is wrong, but I also believe that the murder of human offspring, at any age from conception to onward, is likewise wrong.
I know how hard it must be for pro-as-long-as-I-get-to-live-choicers to share a world with bigoted, mean people like me who just can’t condone murder. I so sorry, I know that my apology won’t really help kill all those people that are so inconvenient to you, but I hope you can manage to hold on a little longer. Fear not, pro-choicers, sooner or later all human beings die, so you’ll get your wishes… eventually.
*warning: facetious or sarcastic remarks may cause thinking, read above comment with extreme caution!!
Outlawing abortion is barbaric. Women feel pain from the morning sickness to the labor pains to the weeks of postpartum recovery. Even when wanted, it’s excruciating. Unwanted? I wouldn’t wish unwanted pregnancy on my worst enemy.
Pro-choicers have empathy and compassion for other women. Simple as that. So yeah, we jump for joy when women’s safety & freedom wins again. That’s a really good thing!
You will never, ever win. As long as you fight, we fight. Abortion needs to stay legal.
You will never win because a baby’s corpse is no victory. As Dr. N would say, “Get well soon.”
Steven,
My degree of medicine?
Your second hypothetical question makes about as much sense as your first, and that isn’t saying much.
Give it up Steven, you’re in over your head.
I just had a thought that I hope is wrong: if a pro-life vote wins now, aren’t we all fessing up to the unspoken truth and blame abortion on PC-friends? We cannot use any sort of blame for any woman’s choice, even a wrong-headed one. We must take the line that all are victims of abortion .
Nope, only the child in the womb and mothers coerced into abortion by the people around them are victims – the child the primary one, the mother a secondary one (after all, she gets to live). The rest of us are either cold-blooded killers or enablers. The vote in Albuquerque showed that the people of this generation are barbaric. My condolences to the few who advocate for the little ones. As time goes on, I have less sympathy for women who get abortions, and I am one, myself. I didn’t like it at the time I did it and I see no evidence that Americans are becoming a more humane people because of it. Except now we have the phenomena of ladies doting on their “grandpuppies”
Steven brings up a triage situation. In such a situation, one does everything they can to save as many people as possible within reason and with the limited resources they have. If there is only resources enough to save one person’s life, then a choice must be made. However, at no point may one will or directly cause the death of someone else. If someone happens to die as an unwanted but foreseen result of lack of medical attention when such medical attention was simply not possible, there is no moral culpability there. This is completely different than abortion, where one directly and willfully kills an innocent human being as a means or as an ends. The death of the fetus is the intended consequence and sole purpose of abortion (normally) in the sense that if the fetus is not dead, the abortion was not a success- unlike the blood situation where the goal is to save both lives, but one dies naturally from lack of supplies.
I suppose next on the agenda is the burning IVF clinic scenario?
Why did this fail? Why do personhood amendments fail?
The focus is wrong? They miss the point?
Abortions beyond twenty weeks are far more likely to occur due to the discovery of major abnormailties rendering post-birth survival unlikely or impossible. They are far less likely to occur for the reasons that earlier abortions do. So to ban them is an attack on what many people see as being the most justifiable abortions of all.
You place the highest value on a developing fetus, an unknown quantity. Others place a higher value on the person next to them at the bus-stop, behind them at the checkout, across from them at work, in another pew in church.
So while you run around yelling “fetus first! fetus first! fetus first!”, normal people do their best to not hear you and instead focus on the people around them.
It’s funny, most vegetarians I know eat fish. They’re vegetarian because they don’t believe cows and sheep and pigs and chickens should die so we can eat them yet…. Human thinking eh.
“It’s funny, most vegetarians I know eat fish. They’re vegetarian because they don’t believe cows and sheep and pigs and chickens should die so we can eat them yet…. Human thinking eh.”
I don’t eat fish, it’s still a living animal that was killed for consumption. And it smells disgusting, I can’t even kiss someone who just ate fish. Or shellfish. Gross.
“You place the highest value on a developing fetus, an unknown quantity.”
No we don’t. We place an equal value on them being alive. If the woman is going to die the vast majority of pro-lifers believe in removing the fetus for her life’s sake. The ones who don’t certainly aren’t “pro-life”. And fetuses are people.
Lisa says: November 20, 2013 at 5:00 pm
“Outlawing abortion is barbaric. Women feel pain from the morning sickness to the labor pains to the weeks of postpartum recovery. Even when wanted, it’s excruciating. Unwanted? I wouldn’t wish unwanted pregnancy on my worst enemy. ”
Same old non-sequitur arguments for abortion but this with a twist: morning sickness as the reason. Is this what PP “counselors” tell women?
In some cases intercourse is painful as well, so why have it Lisa? Or as always cart before the horse…
“In some cases intercourse is painful as well, so why have it Lisa? Or as always cart before the horse… ”
… If intercourse hurts you’re doing something wrong, it’s not supposed to be painful physically or emotionally.
I can’t even kiss someone who just ate fish. Or shellfish. Gross. – hear that sound Jack? That’s the sound of a million ladies hearts breaking. And possibly a handful of mens. ;-)
LOL, okay, that’s funny, Reality… but of course, also true, Jack :)
Lol well I guess the fictional people are just forewarned Reality.
Golly gosh Thomas R., golly gosh.
We place an equal value on them being alive. – by totally ignoring what impacts an unwanted pregnancy may have on a woman’s life.
If the woman is going to die the vast majority of pro-lifers believe in removing the fetus for her life’s sake. The ones who don’t certainly aren’t “pro-life”. – particularly those who claim that there are almost zero circumstances in which a woman’s life is at risk.
And fetuses are people. – are they clever? Funny? Are they good at sports? Musically talented? As I said, an unknown quanity compared to the person standing next to you.
The majority of people consider women more important than developing fetuses in some or all circumstances. You’ve seen the data.
“are they clever? Funny? Are they good at sports? Musically talented? As I said, an unknown quanity compared to the person standing next to you.”
But I don’t know any of these things about the vast majority of the world’s population either. Should I only care about those who I can see some “value” in my subjective opinion or something? Your argument makes no sense or I’m not understanding you.
“The majority of people consider women more important than developing fetuses in some or all circumstances. You’ve seen the data.”
How does that change my opinion? Most people are fine with chowing down on animals, I think that’s sick and wrong. You seem to really abide by a majority rules world.
Should I only care about those who I can see some “value” in my subjective opinion or something? Your argument makes no sense or I’m not understanding you. – I was simply explaining why things are as they are. Developing fetuses are an unknown quantity, and therefore “Others place a higher value on the person next to them at the bus-stop, behind them at the checkout, across from them at work, in another pew in church.”
How does that change my opinion? – it doesn’t have to. Again, I was explaining why this sort of law fails.
Most people are fine with chowing down on animals, I think that’s sick and wrong. – exactly.
You seem to really abide by a majority rules world. – if campaigns, delivery of information, sources of opinion etc. etc. deliver the polling and voting results they do then what term is most appropriate?
Good read here.
We do have a big problem with lack of involvement of the pastors and church congregations. Many are convinced that it’s just a political issue that they can ignore with other political issues. But, it is not a political issue. It is a human rights issue, and it is a Biblical issue. The definition of oppression is ”unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power.” And, God calls His people to stand up for those who are oppressed. See, e.g., Psalm 82, verses 3 and 4: Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. 4 Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.The church needs to be challenged to stand against oppression. There is no excuse for Christians to ignore oppression. Maybe pastors can come to see this issue as one of standing against oppression as God commands us to do.
“Steven brings up a triage situation. In such a situation, one does everything they can to save as many people as possible within reason and with the limited resources they have.”
– As all women do when they face the question of carrying a pregnancy to term.
“If there is only resources enough to save one person’s life, then a choice must be made.”
-Exactly the choice must be made. And the choice is often difficult because at the end someone dies. So tick tock who will it be? I will say that we must save the pregnant woman. She has more value than the alcoholic. No one here seems to be willing to deal with my hypothetical. But unfortunately hospitals deal with this situation all the time, doctors and hospitals make the decision. Its an ugly but true fact of life just like abortion.
Quick question to my bible scholars out there….Does the bible actually state the word “abortion” anywhere in the text?
Steven,
The alcoholic you mention is terminal, if as you say he is in liver failure. That means he’s going to die. Likely he will bleed out the blood you give him because his clotting factors are not normal. I know this because I have seen it happen. It has nothing to do with anyone’s “value”.
No one is dealing with your hypothetical because you have no clue what you’re talking about.
You really should take my advice and realize you are in over your head in this area.
Liver transplant?
Hey Mary, did you join Larry Klayman’s million marchers, er, little posse? It looked like fun.
The Bible doesn’t mention female genital mutilation either, Steven. Do you think Christians ought to condone that practice as well?
They don’t transplant current alcoholics I believe Reality, Mary might know better than I. They didn’t let my dad get on the liver transplant list before he died, but I’m not 100% that was due to his alcoholism. And plus people in liver failure die super quick sometimes.
“I was simply explaining why things are as they are. Developing fetuses are an unknown quantity, and therefore “Others place a higher value on the person next to them at the bus-stop, behind them at the checkout, across from them at work, in another pew in church.””
No, I actually agree with you. It’s a nasty part of human nature to ignore the value of those who are different than us and we don’t relate too as well. I believe that is part of the reason racism, ableism, sexist double standards, etc, exist.
You’re misunderstanding what I’m talking about. I understand perfectly well why pro-choicers devalue unborn babies. It’s just that you take that as forgone conclusion forever and always and agree with it, and I don’t.
“As all women do when they face the question of carrying a pregnancy to term.”
Oh come off it, like less than 5% of abortions are due to “triage” the life of the mother against the life of the baby. And you won’t find any reasonable pro-lifer who wouldn’t choose the mother. Stop conflating wanting to get your college degree (and apparently being incapable of doing your thing with a living baby) and other reasons that people generally get abortions for with serious health problems.
And your analogy is stupid because choosing one or the other doesn’t assign them “value”.
People in liver failure do not necessarily die. There are many causes of liver failure and many people can recover if given proper treatment. Transplanting is always an option if one can stabilize a patient for the surgery. Just because you have seen something happen doesn’t make it medicine. You never mentioned where you got that medical degree of yours? And the point I was making is that someone who is not the ideal of society will not be saved over someone who is deemed of more value. Im not way in over my head. This exact question was given to me by a doctor who had to make such a decision.
Alcoholics must abstain from alcohol for at least 6 mos before being considered for a liver transplant.
Navi Im just asking a question jeez I don’t read the thing so I was trying to figure it out. Maybe snooty comments like that are why people are so turned off to religion these days.
“Alcoholics must abstain from alcohol for at least 6 mos before being considered for a liver transplant. ”
Sounds about right, no wonder my dad couldn’t get one. Meh.
So say you have two children, Steven (even though you hate kids). They are both your children. Say they are identical twins. There’s a fire, you can only get one. Is the one you pick the one that is “worth” more? If there aren’t enough resources to help everyone, some people get left behind. Rationing limited resources doesn’t mean that people who don’t get them are valueless or worth less. Sometimes life just blows and you can’t save everyone.
This is all a distraction, though, because you can’t conflate a triage situation with deliberately killing someone for no medical reason at all (which is the vast majority of abortions). You think you’re so smart and enlightened, but you apparently don’t understand how to compare “like” with “like”.
“Stop conflating wanting to get your college degree (and apparently being incapable of doing your thing with a living baby)”
-Mmmm well actually a living baby (not like a nonliving baby….aka a fetus- you made that distinction not me) for some people is a deal breaker. Not everyone is fortunate in life and they must decide between the expenses of a baby and the expenses of college.
“-Mmmm well actually a living baby (not like a nonliving baby….aka a fetus- you made that distinction not me) for some people is a deal breaker. Not everyone is fortunate in life and they must decide between the expenses of a baby and the expenses of college.”
The “living baby” comment was about the dead baby she has if she gets the abortion. And I’m like the last person to preach to about life misfortunes. Being broke, missing out on college, poverty, whatever, it’s simply never going to be an excuse for killing other humans to reasonable people. But of course, I’m talking to the dude who thinks it’s okay to kill born infants, I don’t expect you to have any humanity.
Jack. It might all be distraction but I was making the point that some life does have higher value than other life.
For your example about twins. Well many times twins may appear as identical later in life, however when they are born many times one twin diverts more blood from the placenta and therefore is large. If that were the case I would take that one.
Now to your point about killing someone without reason. Well the women who do decide to get an abortion think that their reasons are good reasons even if it is not a medical reason. Most people do not randomly decide to get an abortion. There is a reason (just not always medical).
Really poverty isn’t a reason for someone to have an abortion? You would rather bring a child into a world where all they would experience was poverty than have them be aborted? If I had the choice of being born in a place without clean water, without electricity, without enough food or to not be born at all….I would choose the latter. Which would you choose Jack?
Well, considering I’ve been impoverished since birth (I was actually homeless for a while as a teen), and I am still impoverished… I’m gonna have to go with living. I do want to stop you people from killing those you decided are “better off”. I know what it’s like to have an awful life and be born into awful circumstances, and that’s not an excuse to go around killing people.
Reality,
Who’s Larry Klayman?
Hi Jack,
Concerning transplants. From what people who work in this area tell me they have pretty selective criteria.
Its not surprising an alcoholic would be denied as there is likely systemic disease as well, like dilated blood vessels in the esophagus, which killed my father. There’s also the concern the person will not stop drinking. Also, patients who damage their livers in suicide attempts, like that young woman I posted about who took a tyelenol overdose, will not be considered. Patients with metastatic cancer will also be ruled out.
Steven says:
November 20, 2013 at 10:47 pm
Quick question to my bible scholars out there….Does the bible actually state the word “abortion” anywhere in the text?
I don’t know why you have a curiosity about the Bible in the midst of this discuss, but…..
We understand that abortion is well-covered by the 5th Commandment, “Thou shalt not commit murder.”
There are also several specific prohibitions against the worship of Molech, to whom infant children were sacrificed.
In case anyone is wondering: When the Israelites entered the Holy Land, only certain tribes of native inhabitants were put under the ban to be utterly destroyed or driven out. Those were the peoples who worshipped Molech. The LORD permitted peaceful coexistence with those tribes who wanted peace — so long as they did not murder children. The child-killers were not granted peace under any terms.
Just because you would choose to have that life, does not mean that I would want it or for that matter a lot of other people would either. I don’t blame women for aborting based on monetary reasons. Abortion for many in poverty is so difficulty because they cannot afford the abortion and access is so limited to them. Its sad that those who need it most are denied responsible reproductive health care. Im very glad that Albuquerque will remain the late term abortion capital of America.
Aw, you disappoint me Mary. I thought he’d be on your list of favorites. Some ‘reclaim america coalition’ or something.
“He says that “patriots” are going to converge on the White House “in the millions” to tell President Obama to “put the Quran down, get up off your knees and come out with your hands up!’”
Apparently about 100 turned up and stood around in a park wondering what to do.
Maybe they could have hailed a truck from the recent ‘great blockade’?
Ok great Del, thanks for that explanation. The exact words abortion are not in the bible.
“Just because you would choose to have that life, does not mean that I would want it or for that matter a lot of other people would either.”
If they want to, they can choose to take their own lives at a later date. I don’t want them to, and I’d rather anti-poverty measures help people, but at least suicide is their choice. You don’t get to preemptively decide someone else’s life isn’t worth living. Please, stop trying to do us who were born into poverty a favor by acting like our lives were worthless before birth.
Though I’m pretty sure we’d see a lot less abortions for monetary reasons if we had a decent healthcare system. It’s still not an excuse.
It’s the people who claim to be “enlightened” who have the most old-fashioned, uncreative ideas about fixing social ills. Child abuse? Abort more at-risk babies! Poverty? Abort! Abort! Man you guys need to do some brainstorming.
And it’s ALWAYS the people who were born into middle and upper class homes who seem to think that a life in poverty isn’t worth living. It’s elitist crap.
Steven,
I will admit I have seen some amazing recoveries from liver failure, but the liver is a very durable organ that can take much abuse, though I wouldn’t recommend an acetaminophen overdose. One alcoholic bled out on us despite our best efforts, then his low blood pressure stopped his bleeding and he survived, for a while anyway. Then I believe he went into hepatic coma, from which he actually emerged.
I have also seen people die very rapidly,
Take my word for it I know what I’m talking about. I have done “harvests” retrieving organs from brain dead people for donation and if I never do another one it will be too soon.
As I pointed out to Jack people who work in the area of transplants have told me of the criteria and since an alcoholic may have other systemic disease, he/she may not be a candidate even if they quit for 6 months. That’s assuming of course they’ll stay alive that six months.
Reality,
Never heard of him.
“…but at least suicide is their choice.”
-So basically we have to have people be born and then kill themselves to help escape a very poor social class. It seems pretty silly to me.
You are probably right about less abortions if we had a better healthcare system. I think we need more birth control available to all people. I think free birth control would do more to decrease abortions than anything antiabortion people could possibly do.
Uncreative ways about solving social problems? Well I’d say that abortion is uncreative but it works.
Probably just as well Mary :-)
Jack, Im an elitist? because I prefer to live in with enough food and a place with clean water?
Mary I dont need to take your word for it because Medicine is not about trusting someone else. It is about evidence and data. Please do not condescend to me, I bet you are just some nurse who thinks she is a doctor.
“deciding between the expenses of a baby and the expenses of college?” OK, here’s the adoption option ignored as it often is, and as for those who choose parenting, I knew quite a few single moms in college, many of whom were recieving financial aid.
Steven,
LOLLLLL. Just some nurse? Aren’t we elitist.
“-So basically we have to have people be born and then kill themselves to help escape a very poor social class. It seems pretty silly to me.”
Why can no one tell when I’m not being very serious? Lol.
I’ve been poor and known poor people my entire life, and I’ve never known anyone to commit suicide for being poor. Not one. I’ve known people who have committed suicide to escape poverty-influenced problems, like drug addiction and debt and even abusive situations, but those are separate issues that do not require baby killing to improve. That’s why I think you all are really uncreative. Abortion isn’t fixing any of this. I’ve known multiple women, usually sex workers and street girls, who abort and go straight back into the same circumstances. It’s a cop-out for you magnanimous folk who’ve never been there to feel like you’re helping the poor and unfortunate.
“Jack, Im an elitist? because I prefer to live in with enough food and a place with clean water?”
No, you’re an elitist because you think people born into poverty are better served by being killed before birth. I can think of few things more elitist than that.
I knew you were a nurse. Nursing is not medicine. Please do not lecture me about medicine.
Am I ranting? I think I’m ranting. Whatever.
Jack, I think I would be better off dead than to be born into horrible situations. Even if I was killed before birth and without any choice in the matter. I think some life is worth more than others. To me a life that has more opportunity and overall happiness would be better to live than one that is crappy.
Steven,
LOLLLL.
Let’s put it this way, I’ve pulled more than a few doctor’s butts out of the fire by keeping their patients alive after their screw-ups and handled more than my share of emergent situations where my expertise was called for so don’t you lecture me as to what my role is.
Good for you Steven. If you ever become impoverished, or get raped, or whatever you decide is bad enough to die for, then your life is in your hands! Now, stop trying to take away the lives of other people who aren’t old enough to defend themselves or even have a say in the matter.
What did I say? Elitism. What say you, Reality?
Mary darling, I dont care what you have done. You are not a doctor. I don’t need to lecture you about your role because you already know what that is….changing diapers and wiping butts…as a nurse. :)
Mary, you know how some leftists complain about jobs traditionally done by women are degraded? Look no further than Steven!
In all seriousness I’ve seen people talk crap about the role of nurses all the time. Again, it’s elitism. Hospitals would fall apart without nurses and CNAs.
Hi Jack 12:35am
Not at all my friend, as always a thoughtful discussion. We may not always agree but I always respect what you have to say.
Yeah Reality tell me what an elitist I am because I want clean drinking water. Im such an aristocrat that I even have running water!
Look Im not trying to look down on people because of their situations, but I can see the reasoning behind an abortion that is motivated because people are just too poor to have a child. Yes adoption is an option MemyselfandI. But carrying a pregnancy to term is way more dangerous for the women than having an abortion. Abortion is probably one of the safest procedures that is available to women.
Steven,
LOLLLL. From you that’s quite a compliment.
People are only “too poor” to have a child because people like you have decided that it’s better they feel forced into killing their babies instead of having options. Nobody should feel like they have to abort for financial reasons. It’s always the “caring” ones who seem to think this is a good idea.
“Hospitals would fall apart without nurses and CNAs….”
Ok lets let them run the hospitals then. No need for the doctors to show up at all! In fact they can use their online 2 year degree that they got at community college to manage critically ill patients who are on the verge of death. Great idea! Jack you can go to this hospital.
Ill take my changes at the hospitals that are run by doctors with real medical training.
Um, are you joking? You have to be trolling right now. Hospitals would fall apart without nurses. Hospitals would fall apart without doctors. All medical professionals are necessary in some way.
And plus, you really obviously know nothing about nursing or the education and training needed, I’m sitting here laughing, I bet Mary is too.
What? People like me are forcing people to have abortions. Wow I wish I had that kind of power. You are so kind Jack. I don’t encourage any person to obtain medical treatment in any circumstance unless they feel it is best for them. I would encourage people to do what is best for them. I would never force any person into a medical treatment.
It’s not a theme which is central to my reasons for being pro-choice Jack. My focus is on allowing women control of their reproductive rights and ensuring that if abortions makes their life better, safer, healthier, happier, more successful etc. they have the option to do so.
I do find the comment If I had the choice of being born in a place without clean water, without electricity, without enough food or to not be born at all….I would choose the latter rather moot though.
I also believe that there isn’t a word in the bible written with abortion in mind. The purloining of the references to ‘children’ and ‘infants’ in an attempt to include fetuses in a way which involves abortion is a confection of extremely dubious merit.
The core, the real power, within and behind the republican party, that’s where elitism is born and nourished.
Is Steven saying that poor women should abort or that he understands why poor women abort?
Nurses and CNAs are important to health care but I have seen far too many nurses trying to take control of patients and almost kill them. Don’t forget who has the medical degree from a medical school. I may have exaggerated about the degree of training being online and only 2 years but nursing school is not enough training to understand medicine. I extend this thinking to the ideas of abortions….nurse practitioners and PAs should not be allowed to perform surgical abortions, as in the case in California. They are best left in experienced hands of professions.
Reality,
“I do find the comment If I had the choice of being born in a place without clean water, without electricity, without enough food or to not be born at all….I would choose the latter rather moot though.”
-For one its just my opinion, so obviously its debatable but what is your view?
It’s not a question that can be contemplated before birth. Or even for some time beyond birth. So I just don’t see the value in raising it. A woman is the only one who can decide.
Reality, I am saying that when a poor woman aborts because she does not have enough resources to care for a child, this a good reason.
Describing circumstances in which you might choose to abort is fine Steven.
Describing circumstances in which you can understand why others might choose to abort is ok too.
If a poor woman aborts because she does not have enough resources to care for a child then that is a good reason for her.
Whether it is a ‘good reason’ from my perspective or yours doesn’t really count.
You are free to agree with her but I would not deign to suggest circumstances within which a woman ‘should’ abort.
Just be clear.
“As all women do when they face the question of carrying a pregnancy to term.”
How is a pregnancy a triage situation? How are their only limited resources and a desire to save and protect both lives but one must dies of natural causes?
“Exactly the choice must be made.”
This is an equivocation with the word “choice.” When I used “choice” above, it was in the context of choosing between two goods- that is, choosing between whose life to save with the limited resources one has. When you use the term choice for abortion, it is the choice to directly and willfully take teh life of an innocent human being as a means to being your end. Again, notice the moral asymmetries. In teh triage blood situation, the goal is to save both lives and saving teh life of one is not the direct result of killing the other. In other words, the unintended but foreseen death of teh person who did not receive blood was not the cause of saving the other person’s life. This is not the case with abortion where the direct killing of the fetus is the means to the final goal, which is to not be pregnant or to have a dead child.
Just because both situations have the option of choosing between two things does not make them analogous.
“And the choice is often difficult because at the end someone dies.”
In the blood case, the death cannot be helped. If one could, one would take some course of action to save both lives. In abortion case, the very goal is to kill someone. It is not an unintended consequence, but the very goal one is trying to accomplish. We do not consider just the end situation (“a person dies in either case, thus they must be analogous”) but also the means.
“So tick tock who will it be? I will say that we must save the pregnant woman. She has more value than the alcoholic. No one here seems to be willing to deal with my hypothetical.”
I very much dealt with the thought experiment. I gave a careful analysis, showing why it isn’t even close to being analogous to pregnancy (the kidney analogy is even closer than this one). Unless one is an extreme utilitarian, more so even Peter Singer, the existence of a situation where we foresee that someone will die does not imply it is okay to kill someone in any other situation. I did not know you actually needed a particular answer rather than a meta ethical analysis of why the thought experiment proves nothing, but if so, then sure, I would give the blood to the woman. The reason is because once again, in a triage situation, you can make a choice to try and save the life of the person with teh most instrumental value. The fact that in a triage situation one uses the judgement of instrumental value says nothing about intrinsic value. In the same situation, I might choose my 6 month old over the president. That does not mean the president’s life is worth less- it simply means that I personally value and “get more out of” my 6 month old than the president. I don’t intend the president to die, and I can only save one life. It is a supererogatory work, and standard moral practices cannot be determined by supererogatory situations. This is juts as bad and sloppy as the burning IFV scenario. These thought experiments do not give a good idea about moral intuition, only instrumental value.
So I think we really need to be more careful in our justification of abortion. I realize that the good of abortion is a priori in the sense that we are emotionally driven to accept it as being a moral action because of situations we see and THEN we attempt to justify it intellectually, as the above blood thought experiment makes clear. But I hope we can at least be intellectually honest enough to realize when our justification isn’t anywhere near sufficient or compelling, and go back to the drawing board to find a more reasonable justification.
“Quick question to my bible scholars out there….Does the bible actually state the word “abortion” anywhere in the text?”
Not that I know of.
Jack, even though you may lack material goods you are rich in kindness and empathy for others. To me that’s more important than having a six figure salary.
Mary, when I had my baby the nurse — her name was also Mary, ironically — was so kind and reassuring. I will never forget her. Same when I was in a car accident. I HEART NURSES! I can’t understand people who demean the nursing profession. And as for the community college remark — from what I understand more and more hospitals and other medical facilities are requiring their nurses to have BSN’s. My alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, has an excellent nursing program and their graduates are in very high demand.
Steve, just because someone is born into poverty doesn’t mean they have to stay there. Did you ever here of an organization called Heifer International? They provide gifts of lifestock to people in the U.S. and around the world. Sometimes something simple like a flock of chickens or a beehive can lift a family out of poverty and provide them with a better future.
http://www.heifer.org/
The U.S. has a fairly high abortion rate, yet more people are living in poverty than ever. If abortion is a way to “solve” our social problems, it isn’t working very well.
Reality & Steven,
is it OK for pregnant woman to make a CHOICE that is unfair/unjust for and about another HUMAN BEING (not yet a person), like projecting the worst possible scenario for him/her? Why so? Note: a human is a him or a her, but according to Reality is not a person. This is NOT a requirement of belonging to our species
Empathy doesn’t pay the bills Miss Philly.
Ok so instead of an abortion we should give someone a cow? Hmmm i’d just take the abortion thanks.
Mr. McDonell, yep a woman can make a decision regarding what is growing in her body. If she wants it gone, even if its a human, then she can choose to get rid of it. Just as she would try to rid her body of cancer. Cancer cells are human cells just as a fetus is human cells.
Hi phillymiss,
Thank You!!
sorry Steven ‘being gone’ is not ‘being dead’. It is illusive thinking …’oh, my mistake, I wasn’t really pregnant, not really a Mother .. besides he/she will be poor/sickly’. Cancer can be in most plant or animal species and these cells are very much alive, even called immortal cells’ but all are also of one person only and her cells, not another’s cells. Surgeons will remove all cancer cells that have not metastasized, or the cancer will grow back. A fetus(young one) is DEAD never to return.
Steven, its like working in a food-stores produce department ,,, “we jut got in a load of rotten apples, guess we’d best throw out the oranges, too!”
Ha! Mr. McDonell, when you remove the cells from the body they die. Cancer can be in plant and animal species but what does that have to do with anything? I know what immortal cells are, yes all cancer cells are from one person but that does not mean they are genetically identical to the person. Just as a fetus has some genetic material from the mother, some genetic material is not hers but the fathers and is not identical to the host. Sometimes surgeons can remove cancer and sometimes the cancer does not recur and is cured. It can come back yes, but not always. A fetus can come back also, when the person has sexual intercourse.
Mary, no problem. You and Jack have good hearts.
The point I was trying to make about groups like Heifer International is that people need long-term solutions to lift themselves out of poverty. Yes, if you are destitute and can’t feed your family, the gift of a cow, a water buffalo, or a well for your village can transform your life.
I work with some people that have had pretty tragic llives, and I’ve yet to hear any one of them say “Gee, I wish I would have been aborted.”
Thanks phillymiss.
“The point I was trying to make about groups like Heifer International is that people need long-term solutions to lift themselves out of poverty. ”
Yup. This is why I consider people like Steven elitists. Mostly because they lack understanding about what it’s really like to be poor, and offer up “solutions” that seem to imply that your life is worth less because you have less or have dealt with bad stuff in your life. And it’s pretty offensive to act like death is better than leading the lives that millions of people on the planet lead, poor people are still human and most of us don’t wish that we were dead instead!
I guess you are in need of some very basic biology. Cancer IS a growth with a DNA structure identical to the host. It has a shortened piece of telemerase. AN INFANT HAS TWO SETS OF DNA IN ITS CELL STRUCTURE, one set, the same stuff that determines your eye color, your fingerprints, and even your temperament, stems from A FUSION oF DNA material rom both male and female, making one whole never-seen-before-nor-ever-AGAIN brand new DNA – why we are unique individuals.
Within most cells we have organelles called mitochondria and these have an m-DNA sequence, that has been passed on from generation to generation along maternal lines.
Steven wrote, in reply to John McDonell:
Sometimes surgeons can remove cancer and sometimes the cancer does not recur and is cured. It can come back yes, but not always. A fetus can come back also, when the person has sexual intercourse.
(?) You must be joshing, here. Even if one embraces the absurd position that a human fetus (Latin for “small boy”–as opposed to the dehumanising implication which abortion-tolerant folk are wont to give it; did you miss John’s reference to that effect?) is not a person worthy of life, surely you see the basic (and even bizarre) error in your statement? When a woman has sexual intercourse which results in fertilisation of the egg, ANOTHER fetus arrives; the first one does not. Please tell me you see that, at least?
“Cancer IS a growth with a DNA structure identical to the host.”
-The structure may be made up of the same base molecules, however cancer is not usually the same sequence as the host. The cancer often mutates, some cancer cells can have many more chromosomes than normal cells, more than 46. The genetic material is there from the host but the exact sequence is not the same as the original person. Just as there is genetic recombination involved in sexual reporduction. Half of the mothers DNA is in the womb but it is not the same as the mothers it has been altered. As well as half the DNA from the father, which is not identical to him either.
Jack, even though you may lack material goods you are rich in kindness and empathy for others. To me that’s more important than having a six figure salary – well said phillymiss!
is it OK for pregnant woman to make a CHOICE that is unfair/unjust for and about another HUMAN BEING (not yet a person), like projecting the worst possible scenario for him/her? – come on John. That’s a statement of opinion poorly disguised as a question.
Bobby,
Technically, the word “abortion” does not appear in Jewish Bible nor the Christian New Testament. Miscarriage does appear. Every now and then, some abortion advocate gets the idea to pretend that abortion has always been around. It has not. Before the 1860’s, even the most minor surgical procedure could result in death by infection. Before the 1900’s, any substance that a woman drank or ate to cause miscarriage was also likely to cause the mother’s death too. So, scientifically and historically, abortion is a modern thing. If the abortion zealots were correct, surely the most famous and widely read holy scriptures in all the world would have at least MENTIONED it. It doesn’t.
Often, when people are desperate to justify abortion using Judeo-Christian scripture, they like to quote an obscure passage in Leviticus which lists punishments for crimes. The passage lists a slightly lighter punishment for causing miscarriage than for murdering an adult male. This does not prove that ancient Hebrews had no regard for pre-born children, but abortion fans like to spin it that way. Don’t be fooled; read it for yourself and observe the passage in context. Context also includes the culture at the time of the writing, the audience the writer means to address, and situation in which the writing occurred.
However, even though most of the world’s religions condemn both abortion and the murder of adults, being pro-life is not exclusively a religious view. Lots of pro-life people have scientific reasons for opposing abortion. They have science and biology on their side. Abortion advocates do not. Ultrasounds have given us quite a marvelous window to observe the development of human children, but just imagine what the technology of the near future will show us!
gek, hopefully the technology of the near future will give us better insight into horrible diseases, especially those identified by genetic testing. So that people can have a better idea of their child’s quality of life before they have it. Maybe in the future genetic testing could tell if a fetus were to contract cancer later in life or alzheimers disease. Society could benefit from that kind of knowledge.
Technically, the word “abortion” does not appear in Jewish Bible nor the Christian New Testament. Miscarriage does appear. Every now and then, some abortion advocate gets the idea to pretend that abortion has always been around.
‘pretend’?
“The written evidence of abortion reflects the interests of class and caste. Fines are listed in the Code of Hammurabi, ca. 1760 BCE, for the crime of causing a miscarriage through assault,”
“The only evidence of the death penalty being mandated for abortion in the ancient laws is found in Assyrian Law, in the Code of Assura, c. 1075 BCE;”
“Many of the methods employed in early and primitive cultures were non-surgical. Physical activities like strenuous labor, climbing, paddling, weightlifting, or diving were a common technique.”
“A Chinese record documents the number of royal concubines who had abortions in China between the years 515 and 500 BCE.”
“Much of what is known about the methods and practice of abortion in Greek and Roman history comes from early classical texts. Abortion, as a gynecological procedure, was primarily the province of women who were either midwives or well-informed laypeople.”
As I have said, humanity has sought ways to prevent and terminate pregnancies ever since we figured out how it happens.
I’m not actually kind or empathetic, I am towards certain people but I struggle to feel kind towards people I see as privileged or having had it easy.
“gek, hopefully the technology of the near future will give us better insight into horrible diseases, especially those identified by genetic testing. So that people can have a better idea of their child’s quality of life before they have it. Maybe in the future genetic testing could tell if a fetus were to contract cancer later in life or alzheimers disease. Society could benefit from that kind of knowledge. ”
This is just basically just eugenics, you know. That always has turned out great (sarcasm!). I do totally approve of genetic research and testing if used to treat and cure illnesses, but I don’t think that’s what you’re on about, based on your previous comments. Again, it’s not exactly progressive to support just killing off the problems instead of finding real fixes.
“As I have said, humanity has sought ways to prevent and terminate pregnancies ever since we figured out how it happens.”
Well yeah. But we were far more likely to kill born infants than abort in previous years because aborting was very dangerous for the woman, far more than it is now. But I find it somewhat amusing that pro-choicers claim that they are the progressive, enlightened ones, when you guys are kinda clinging to a practice that was used for millenia. Really? With our advanced civilization and millions of years of evolution giving us advanced brains and technology… the best we can come up with for women (and couples and families) in bad situations is killing the youngest family members, or disabled members, or sick members? That doesn’t seem progressive to me. If pr0-choicers joined with us pro-lifers about finding real solutions, I bet we could have almost 100% (with typical use) non-permanent birth control for both males and females, have social programs for people who need help that are actually effective and help people get out of the spot they are in, among other improvements. But instead, we waste millions and millions of dollars and countless time fighting with each other about whether it’s okay to kill unborn babies or not. It’s a huge waste. And certainly not enlightened.
re: reality: I say jump and the little doggie jumps. Ha. Nice bibliography and links too.. doh! hahaha!!!
The truth of the statement does not lye in whether it is opinion thinly-veiled, but on whether the statement (whether you like it or not) is CORRECT/VALID,
That’s a statement of opinion poorly disguised as a question. – See more at: https://www.jillstanek.com/2013/11/abq-20-week-abortion-ban-proponents-well-be-back/#comment-470351
That’s a statement of opinion poorly disguised as a question. – See more at: https://www.jillstanek.com/2013/11/abq-20-week-abortion-ban-proponents-well-be-back/#comment-470351
Happy to help you feel a little better 9ek.
A claim as outrageously inaccurate as the one you made cannot be left to misguide people.
Just type ‘history of abortion’ into your favorite search engine. You could even start with wikipedia – you can even ignore what it says itself and follow the copiuous links and references provided within it if you wish.
Now, where are the bibliography and links for the claim you made in the first place? Fallacies 101?
The truth of the statement does not lye in whether it is opinion thinly-veiled, – I said poorly disguised, not thinly-veiled John. It was about as thinly-veiled as an elephant trying to hide behind a rose.
but on whether the statement (whether you like it or not) is CORRECT/VALID, – whether the statement is CORRECT/VALID is opinion. It was a loaded question. A presumptive question.
Hi 9ek,
I have to give Reality this one.6:15PM
From what I have read the original Hippocratic oath contained a clause that prohibited physicians from inducing abortion. Hippocrates lived in the 5th century BC but the oath came out in the 4th. It isn’t certain if he wrote it, but whatever, its dates to antiquity. Apparently people in the 5th and 4th centuries BC were well aware of abortion.
Abortion is nothing new and has been practiced in various ways by various cultures since antiquity. That doesn’t make it right, rape and murder have been around since antiquity also, it just states a fact.
Hi Jack,
I struggle to feel kind toward people I see as privileged or having had it easy.
That’s called envy. I struggle the same way when I see people I think are and have everything I wish I could be and have. In fact, I think we all do.
If its any comfort remember that all that glitters is not gold. A person’s life may not be what you assume, and they may not have had it as easy as you think.
The quotes I cited Mary, are from wiki. On wiki they are embedded with numerous links to background and source materials. There are many sources apart from wiki of course.
Women seek out abortion. They seek out those who can help. Like they seek out food, protection and medical care.
They don’t generally seek out rape and murder or anyone who can provide it to them.
True Reality that question was ‘loaded’ just for you, based on your affirmations .. you have said that killing a HUMAN is OK (ratioal) with you because you have said so many times. Nowhere is it claimed that HUMAN RIGHTS depends on sentience, being a person (legally), nor any other verbal. inaccuracies. Yet you perceive (I think) that yours is the voice of reason, Where is your voice for fairies/justice? The unborn are children too = opinion backed by science.
That’s a statement of opinion poorly disguised as a question. – See more at: https://www.jillstanek.com/2013/11/abq-20-week-abortion-ban-proponents-well-be-back/#comment-470351
Reality,
No kidding, really?
I was pointing out that something being around since antiquity doesn’t make it morally acceptable. Society cannot condone or support certain activity just because its old as the human race and people who are determined to commit these acts will.
Sorry, but infanticide is the way most children were disposed of before the 20th century. Before that abortion was generally fatal to the mother as well as the child. Just because some husbands or lovers were willing to assault their women to death to induce miscarriage does not mean that “abortion” as reality knows it was in the kind of common practice that abortion fans WISH it had been. The abandonment of children was known as “exposure.” I find it interesting, though, that abortion fans who cry that pro-lifers want to take women back to the ‘middle ages’ are actually trying to take women back to BC. *snort*
And as far as using Wiki as a source: It is to laugh. There’s not a professor on this campus that would accept it. Wiki is NOT a reliable source, but it can be useful in leading people to other websites.
Oh and Reality,
I beg to differ that no one seeks out murder or those who provide such “service”. People make their living as professional killers. You want someone dead badly enough, it can be arranged, or you’ll do it yourself.
Hi 9ek,
Google “Hippocratic oath”. Abortion has been around since antiquity. Yes children were abandoned, but that may have been because attempts at aborting were unsuccessful or the child was “imperfect”, the “wrong” sex, unwanted, or the parents were just unable to care for him/her.
Also, who reported abortion? The point to having the abortion was so no one would know the woman was pregnant. In the book “The Mother” by Pearl Buck, she describes a Chinese peasant woman having an abortion when she is pregnant by an illicit affair. The reader didn’t get the impression abortion had just been invented, but rather that it was a centuries old “remedy” that she got from a village woman.
In Germany was elected Hitler, today why wonder of it? Many people are without ethical values. The humanity is almost disappearance.
I was pointing out that something being around since antiquity doesn’t make it morally acceptable. Society cannot condone or support certain activity just because its old as the human race and people who are determined to commit these acts will. – No kidding, really? Let’s see, what else shall we decide to apply that to? Rape and murder are almost universally abhorred. Abortion isn’t.
I beg to differ that no one seeks out murder or those who provide such “service”. People make their living as professional killers. You want someone dead badly enough, it can be arranged, or you’ll do it yourself. – ah, such sweet sophistry. Women don’t generally seek out their own rapists or murderers.
Sorry, but infanticide is the way most children were disposed of before the 20th century. Before that abortion was generally fatal to the mother as well as the child. – bibliography and links?
I find it interesting, though, that abortion fans who cry that pro-lifers want to take women back to the ‘middle ages’ are actually trying to take women back to BC. *snort* – what, like breathing? And eating? And wearing clothes? It’s a continuance, not a ‘taking back’. Whereas anti-choicers wish to take women back to when they had no power or control over their own reproductive freedoms and rights.
Wiki is NOT a reliable source, but it can be useful in leading people to other websites. – exactly. That would be why I said “On wiki they are embedded with numerous links to background and source materials. There are many sources apart from wiki of course.”
Do you have any?
Where is your voice for fairies/justice? – sorry John, I don’t believe in fairies.
The unborn are children too – then why bother to have the word ‘fetus’?
Uh no Reality,
Rape and murder are universally abhorred? What planet do you live on Reality? Rape is a common weapon against women in warfare. Try to convict a rapist in some Muslim countries. Treatment of rape victims in this country is barely past the Neanderthal age. Murder universally abhorred? You can’t be serious.
No people don’t seek their own murderers. Aborted children don’t seek their own abortionists. These decisions are made by others.
‘fetus’ is Latin for young one/boy Chien is French for ‘dog’. I don’t know too many languages, so translation is ‘iffy’. But, if I was trying to hide my reasoning prowess behind the facts, I might say ‘infanticide’ or ‘exposure’. These words do not seem as harsh as child-murder, no?
And it should have said ‘fairness’ instead of ‘fairies’, but I think you knew that! Obviate and nit-pic, eh? … seems to be your rendition of justice.
Rape being used as a weapon in war means it is liked?
It is misogyny which makes rape convictions difficult in some muslim countries, not an approval of rape itself.
The polls shown this site tell us that the majority approve of abortion in some or all instances. Do you think polls on rape and murder would achieve similar numbers?
Nah, I just thought it a shame that the sort of error we all make was in this instance, left on something so significant.
So, where is my voice for fairness/justice? It is here John. And anywhere else I feel it is needed.
“Sorry, but infanticide is the way most children were disposed of before the 20th century. Before that abortion was generally fatal to the mother as well as the child. Just because some husbands or lovers were willing to assault their women to death to induce miscarriage does not mean that “abortion” as reality knows it was in the kind of common practice that abortion fans WISH it had been. The abandonment of children was known as “exposure.” I find it interesting, though, that abortion fans who cry that pro-lifers want to take women back to the ‘middle ages’ are actually trying to take women back to BC. “
-How are prochoice people trying to take women back to BC? We are trying to prevent this stuff by keeping abortions safe and legal. A mother should not have to kill her own live baby because she does not want it. She should just get an abortion.
Reality, let’s try something quite common like ‘incest’. Where do you stand on it? Does your moral stance change on how close the familial-relationship is? What about consenting brother and sister? What are YOUR views?
Reality,
I never said it was liked, I said there is no universal disapproval of it as you say there is.
You apparently didn’t hear about the Muslim woman in Pakistan who was gang raped with official sanction because of something her brother did. So much for rape not being approved of in some societies.
Also, our own society has hardly been any bastion of enlightenment when it comes to the treatment of rape victims.
Polls show any number of things, depending on how a question is asked. The ones I have seen show Americans approve of abortion in “hard” cases, which account for a very small percentage of abortions.
The fact people don’t “approve” of murder and rape does nothing to stop these crimes so its hardly relevant. People who commit them don’t give a crap who approves. The victim, if alive, finds little consolation in the fact most people don’t approve. She/he is no less raped. A murdered loved one is no less dead.
Steven,
We have had 40 years of legal abortion and the abuse, abandonment, and killing of children is not a thing of the past. People do not always do what we assume to be the logical thing and these issues are considerably more complex than just using a suction aspirator.
The abused and abandoned child may well have been a planned and wanted pregnancy. A marriage may have failed, mental illness may be involved. alcohol and drug use may develop. Life is not planned and perfect and parenthood may not be what one fantasized about.
Why John? Where do you stand on mens hair length?
I never said it was liked, I said there is no universal disapproval of it as you say there is. – how very pointless of you to say. Do you seriously claim that rape and murder are as accepted as abortion is? As in my question on polling.
You apparently didn’t hear about the Muslim woman in Pakistan who was gang raped with official sanction because of something her brother did. So much for rape not being approved of in some societies. – yes I did, and other similar cases. ‘official’ sanction’? Maybe some quasi religious or cultural sanction. Rape is illegal in Pakistan. This was decided by some local tribal clan who likely also kill girls for going to school and set fire to women when the dowry falls a bit short. This isn’t about any society approving of rape, it’s about certain cultures approving of the abuse of women. Power and the patriarchy. What happened to the group of men who raped a woman on a bus and caused her death recently?
Also, our own society has hardly been any bastion of enlightenment when it comes to the treatment of rape victims. – yes. And again, that’s not because rape is approved of. It’s a ploy to stop men being punished, because they are ‘worth more’. Patriarchy. Like everyone moaning about local sports heroes ‘having their lives ruined’ for being found to have raped girls and shown it on social media. Power and patriarchy.
Polls show any number of things, depending on how a question is asked. The ones I have seen show Americans approve of abortion in “hard” cases, which account for a very small percentage of abortions. – link? It still falls into the ‘some or all’ category, not ‘never’.
The fact people don’t “approve” of murder and rape does nothing to stop these crimes so its hardly relevant. People who commit them don’t give a crap who approves. The victim, if alive, finds little consolation in the fact most people don’t approve. She/he is no less raped. A murdered loved one is no less dead. – I don’t know of any countries where murder and rape are legal. I do know of many where abortion is.
“Reality, let’s try something quite common like ‘incest’. Where do you stand on it? Does your moral stance change on how close the familial-relationship is? What about consenting brother and sister? What are YOUR views?”
Incest is very, very rarely consensual. Even “consensual” adult incestuous relationships often start with the older/more “in charge” person grooming the other from childhood. People think that because it often lasts longer than other types of sexual abuse that people were consenting but usually there’s violence or emotional manipulation keeping people from leaving or telling.
“And again, that’s not because rape is approved of. It’s a ploy to stop men being punished, because they are ‘worth more’. Patriarchy.”
That doesn’t make sense. Male victims are treated like utter garbage most of the time, just as much as female victims are, whether their rapist was male or female. And male victims of rape or domestic violence and such don’t have even a fraction of the rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters and support groups and other help dedicated to helping them like female victims do (not saying it’s bad that women and girls get that support, they deserve and need it, but when 1 in 6 or more boys are sexually abused and many adult men are raped or domestically abused as well, some even estimate that happens as much as it does to women, males could use some support and healing as well).
And female abusers are given much lighter sentences and are much less reviled by society than male abusers. People make a lot of excuses for abusive women, just as much if not more than they do for abusive men. I don’t think your hypothesis holds water at all.
Reality,
What isn’t registering with you? Rape is not universally disapproved of, got it? There are societies that punish the rape victim or make it virtually impossible for her to prosecute, even if it is illegal. And no I’m not just talking about some tribe in Pakistan but what went on for years here in the United States.
Legal or not these crimes go on, so obviously there are people with no qualms about committing them. There is no universal disapproval. Yes attempts are made, in some societies, to stop it, but the crimes go on.
Women caught in warfare continue to be brutally raped. In WW2 Japanese soldiers had “comfort women” who were forced against their wills to provided sexual services to Japanese soldiers. Adults visit Asian countries to rape children held as sex slaves. In our own country numerous stings have nabbed child sexual predators, i.e. rapists, who try to lure children on the internet.
There may be laws Reality but by no stretch of the imagination is there universal disapproval of either rape or murder.
If you compare the countries/cultures where abortion is legal with the countries/cultures where abortion is illegal it clearly illustrates that the more advanced and enlightened countries/cultures have the capacity to discern the difference between abortion and things such as murder and rape.
Not the point Reality.
Not to mention male rape victims are basically completely erased in discussions of rape, as if because it probably happens less to males that they don’t deserve any attention to their pain. Like (no offense Mary I know you didn’t mean to be exclusionary, everyone does this) people bring up rape as a war crime against women, or rape in the US military against women, when men make up over half of the estimated rapes in the military and are often sexually assaulted or abused when POWs or in wartorn countries. Especially when they are young. So I don’t think your hypothesis that rape isn’t taken seriously because women aren’t taken seriously is backed up by evidence.
In the case you mention in Pakistan, they didn’t rape the girl for pleasure. They did so because it would render her valueless for marriage and thus a shameful burden on her family.
Women caught in warfare are raped. And non-combatants are murdered. In the former Yugoslavia women were raped with the intention of getting them pregnant as a means of religious hatred.
Adults visit Asian countries to rape children held as sex slaves. In our own country numerous stings have nabbed child sexual predators, i.e. rapists, who try to lure children on the internet. – and these things are all legal are they? ‘Officially’ sanctioned?
There may be laws Reality but by no stretch of the imagination is there universal disapproval of either rape or murder. – desperately clinging to the exactitude of the application of ‘universal disapproval’ doesn’t extinguish the fact that the difference between the level of societal approval of abortion and that of matters such as murder and rape are vast.
Reality,
Oh of course. What self sacrifice those disgusting lechers made in raping that girl. My heart bleeds for them.
Of course rapists in Yugoslavia, were motivated only by their desire to fertilize these women, certainly not because they enjoyed it or any desire to demean and humiliate their victims.
No the rape of Asian children isn’t officially sanctioned. I’m sure that offers great comfort to these children and keeps the predators away. Officially sanctioned? Well obviously no one is stopping them. Draw your own conclusions
Reality, you are beginning to make me ill.
Mary, earlier you said Society cannot condone or support certain activity just because its old as the human race and people who are determined to commit these acts will. – and that’s true enough. Yet we see abortion being legal in many places, unlike rape and murder. Can you explain why abortion is legal and rape and murder aren’t? The majority of people think abortion should be legal in some or all cases. Do you think the majority would answer that murder and rape should be legal in some or all cases? If you are going to put abortion in the same basket as murder and rape you may as well toss in homosexuality and pre-marital sex while you’re at it.
Hi Jack,
I thought I mentioned male as well as female in some of my examples. I stand corrected for not stressing that BOTH genders are victims. I just mentioned the example of the Pakistani woman and the fact our own society was less than enlightened in the treatment of rape victims, which it was and as far as I’m concerned, still is. This definitely includes both genders. Also, the child rape I mentioned certainly involves both genders.
That was never my hypothesis Jack. I said there is no universal disapproval of rape, and there isn’t. There may be laws, but not universal disapproval.
Of course rapists in Yugoslavia, were motivated only by their desire to fertilize these women, certainly not because they enjoyed it or any desire to demean and humiliate their victims. – it was done exactly to demean and humiliate them! That’s the point. Giving birth to a child fathered by the opposing religion.
No the rape of Asian children isn’t officially sanctioned. I’m sure that offers great comfort to these children and keeps the predators away. – so you’re not aware of the investigations, exposures and arrests which occur. The work of various government and charitable organisations?
Officially sanctioned? Well obviously no one is stopping them. Draw your own conclusions – some get away with it, many don’t. Some countries now have laws against their citizens travelling to other countries for child sexual exploitation purposes.
“The late 1990s saw Glitter’s image become irreparably tarnished, following his 1997 arrest and 1999 conviction in the United Kingdom for possession of thousands of items of child pornography. Later, Glitter faced criminal charges and deportation across several countries including Vietnam and Cambodia and the UK connected with actual and suspected child sexual abuse, after a Vietnamese court found him guilty of obscene acts with minors in 2006; he had been living in Vietnam since deportation from Cambodia on suspected child sexual abuse charges in 2002. Glitter was deported from Vietnam back to Britain at the end of his sentence, where he was placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for life.”
Obviously no one is stopping them?
Reality, you are beginning to make me ill. – is it your bed time?
Oh I was just specifically talking about rape in wartime when I mentioned you Mary, most people think it’s a weapon of war used pretty much exclusively against women and girls. The reality is quite a bit different, I have done some reading on it.
Reality’s hypothesis is that people in the US blame and shame rape victims because they think men are worth more. I disagree with his hypothesis. If this was true, male victims would enjoy support and care instead of ridicule, blame, and erasure. And female perpetrators (who generally have male victims) would not be excused or joked about and given lighter sentences.
Reality,
You said there is universal disapproval for rape and murder. Laws may exist, universal disapproval does not. I can’t make it more simple than that.
Hi Jack.
Thank you for the clarification. My apologies if I was abrupt with you.
Reality,
Oh yes Glitter. Well it shows that predators don’t give much of a hoot about laws, doesn’t it?
That’s my point. Laws may exist, they may be enforced or difficult to enforce, how do you know the reason someone is travelling to another country, but the fact remains there is no universal disapproval.
Reality,
As for the Yugoslav women, as with any rape victim male or female, the purpose is to control, denigrate and humiliate the victim. Were the Yugoslav women and girls who didn’t become pregnant any less denigrated and traumatized?
That’s my point. Laws may exist, but they exist against abortion a whole lot less than against rape and murder.
It’s ok Mary, I’m happy for you to maintain that rape and murder are generally no more disapproved of than abortion is.
Jack, there have been recent instances where high school ‘sports stars’ or boys from the ‘right families’ have lured girls into becoming highly intoxicated and then sexually assaulting them. In some cases they place video evidence of their deeds on social media. If the victim lays a complaint they are attacked on social media using all sorts of names and threats. Some of the adults surrounding the perpetrators say “oh, but if this proceeds it’ll ruin his whole life!”. In a couple of cases the victims have suicided.
When it comes to male on male rape I think homophobia plays a part. From what I have read, the victim might hear something like “but do you really want to announce in public that another man was able to shove his …. up your … ?”
In the case of female on male rape I think that the old “boys always want sex and girls don’t so how is he harmed” thinking is in play.
Female genital mutilation has been practised for thousands of years. It’s also not universally condemned – it is legal and has approval ratings in the high 90s in some countries (which exceeds the level of support for abortion in hard cases in countries like the US).
I don’t see how that would make it any less harmful or barbaric.
Neither do I Navi.
Can you tell me the countries where rape and murder are legal and have approval ratings in the high 90’s?
Not to bang the “male victims are ignored” drum too hard but male genital mutilation is legal in almost every country. And yes I know most forms of FGM are much worse than MGM, but worse things existing doesn’t make it okay. And in some countries MGM is practiced ritually on older boys without cleanliness or anesthetic. Even in developed countries over 100 boys die from it a year, and another percentage are permanently injured. All genital mutilation of children is wrong. And both forms are disturbingly accepted throughout the world, just like abortion is.
Reality yes there were cases of those girls being blamed and people rallying around the perpetrators. There are cases of that happening to boys as well. Recently a former NFL cheerleader was arrested for assaulting a 12 year old boy in a bathroom at his own parents house. She received 18 months probation for assaulting a child sexually, and the consensus in our “males are worth more” culture is she was doing the kid a favor, he was a lucky kid because she was hot, and that he must have wanted it. This is not rare. Men who speak up about their assaults are called homophobic slurs, or told they should have fought their attackers off, or told they wanted it, or told they aren’t real men. Male rape jokes are present in media and no one raises a stink (Wedding Crashers, a comedy, has a scene where a male character is tied to a bed and raped by a female. It’s played off as hilarious, I didn’t find it funny. There are several other movies that have similar scenes, and of course prison rape jokes are common and not seen as problematic.). The level of blame and shame that male victims endure is just as bad as what’s thrown at women, and there are not many groups and organizations standing up for us. It really upsets me that people shrug off this issue because of the blame I’ve received and every male victim I know has. Where do you think I get my massive inferiority complex? And it’s not jut in regards to rape, male victims are blamed for other types of violence against themselves just like women are, and women get lighter sentences. Domestic violence against men is definitely not taken seriously at all, and people even blame male children for being beaten by their parents (yes they blame female children too).
Males in our society are only valued if they fit a specific gender role. And even then, men are still the ones expected to die to protect everyone else, and are the ones deemed disposable in war. I don’t think we value men more than women. I think our society only values men or women who fit their prescribed gender roles. If you’re a man who was abused or doesn’t act masculine, or a woman who doesn’t act traditionally feminine, you are not valued.
I don’t know what my original point was, sorry for derailing. I jus think this insistence by people that men are privileged and valued has very negative effects, because then people ignore crimes against males or think it can’t be that bad.
Well said Jack. You make it quite clear.
I don’t consider that you are guilty of any derailing.
Can you tell me the countries where rape and murder are legal and have approval ratings in the high 90?s?
I’m not aware of any, though I know that for the longest time rape was in the same category as denting someone’s car rather than a direct assault on a person (which made certain forms of rape, such as marital rape, essentially legal).
At any rate, my point was that appealing to tradition and lack of universal abhorrence does nothing to justify a given practice.
And as far as using Wiki as a source: It is to laugh. There’s not a professor on this campus that would accept it. Wiki is NOT a reliable source, but it can be useful in leading people to other websites.
Wikipedia is a great source. You know for sure that the information is correct because if it’s ever wrong, anybody can fix it ;)
And my point, despite Mary desperately clinging to the perfect application of ‘universal disapproval’ like a drowning person clings to flotsam, is that there is a vast chasm between the extent to which abortion is considered acceptable and the extent to which murder and rape are considered acceptable. It is considered a justifiable practice by a whole lot more folk than rape and murder are. How many countries are rape and murder legal in? How many are FGM legal in? And abortion?
Wiki, yes, 9ek and I agreed. It can lead to useful sources and materials.
The anti-virus/security system I use won’t let me access conservapedia. It seems to think I’m trying to access something dreadfully naughty :-)
Perhaps there is a problem here between Jack, Mary and Reality. Many do not recognize its existence, but imo there is a ‘distancing’ or movement away from trauma/emotion-filled ‘personal events’ to a more-formal thought. This movement is necessary for folks like Reality, legal-buffs and politicians who think naming something ‘controls’ it. In abortion someone dies {but because of formalizing that/my ‘b*st*rd becomes only a statistic/number}, so only a HUMAN (not-a-person) is killed. This formalizing on something so very personal, means being-raped twice … some professionals get-their-jollies by re-victimizing …. note this penchant among abortionists … oh, it was merely-a-bunch-of-cells. There is no ‘merely’ to the one killed. Laws do not protect squat, nor do dollars – nor insurance. Because laws do NOT prevent all personal events (like rape, murder, and abortion). The formality of laws does not cut-it as a replacement for love/caring.
(*sigh*) Reality, do we really need to go over the logical and moral futility of moral relativism, again? You’ve made four rather consistent errors (aside from using snide comments) in this thread alone:
1) As Mary (and others) have already mentioned: the consensus of a plurality or a majority does not equate to moral liceity; as an illustration of that point, you might be surprised to find “appeal to consensus” in all major and canonical lists of fallacies. The most cursory examination of history shows that many abominable things were once accepted by large majorities of various nations/peoples/tribes (e.g. treating women as chattel, torturing prisoners of war to death, etc.–and those two examples have the tactical advantage of being on your own PERSONAL list of “immoral things”–unless I’m badly mistaken?).
2) If you insist on clinging to moral relativism, you’ll have no basis (aside from personal tastes/whims) for objecting to anything at all on “moral grounds”–you’ll have emptied the word “moral” of all meaning whatever, save for the ephemeral idea of “I really don’t like it”.
3) You’re practising, rather consistently, some of the most egregious reductionism. In at least two of Mary’s examples, you asserted that (e.g. in the Yugoslavian rape cases) they were done “because [x]”… with the clear implication that they were done ONLY because of [x], and/or that “[x] was the ONLY significant factor/motivation to consider”–and that’s simply silly (and utterly illogical). It was also quite beside the point: even if one were to grant your reductionist premises, the fact remains that the culture in question tolerates (whether officially or unofficially) things which you find to be morally reprehensible… and therein was Mary’s point (i.e. that morality is not decided by official or unofficial consensus of the population… and Mary’s examples were a “reductio ad absurdum” way of showing the absurdity of that idea of yours).
4) Morality is not determined by legislation. Even the most cursory examination of history (have I not said this before?) shows the contrary; not only have there been cases where the official law of the land condoned a moral evil (you might look up “Dred Scott v. Sanford, when you get a moment; you may be interested to know that the Dred Scott decision was decided by the same SCOTUS proportion as was Roe. v. Wade–7 to 2), but there are myriads of examples where evils were “unofficially” condoned (e.g. the rape and murder of Jews under the Nazis), and where the will of the dictator/tyrant (who tolerated or even encouraged such atrocities) was the true law of the land.
[this is a follow-up to my post above] In some strange way, I’m happy that Roe v Wade exists because it FORCES us to ‘care’. Do you wish to live in a more legal society, or a more ‘caring’ one? And it is moot whether ‘we show we care by passing laws, or getting-out-the-vote’; that kind of thinking is prevalent on this site and is wrong wrong, wrong! People do not become freer by having more laws; taking more responsibility – yes; more laws – no. [Laws are the lazy way of doing human business!]
So our main battle is changing-attitude (my-attitude) and not on defeating demoRATS. [It is like people who believe Christianity is about fearing-the-devil and not mainly about loving God, nor neighbor (certainly not those involved in abortion).]
“… If intercourse hurts you’re doing something wrong, it’s not supposed to be painful physically or emotionally. ”
Unfortunately Jack, sexual disorders exist. And many just keep it taboo. That what I was referring to. In all other cases, just do it…
You feigned surprise to God “reality.” What?
Being ‘raped twice’ John, is being forced to endure an unwanted pregnancy and childbirth due to having been the victim of rape.
It feels a trifle odd Paladin, to be lectured on the supposed perils of moral relativism by someone who tells us they can’t decide for themselves whether death or dinner is the more significant.
I haven’t been particularly discussing whose determination of the moral rights and wrongs of the items under discussion are right or wrong.
What I have been discussing is the extent various things are approved of or disapproved of around the planet. The point being that rape and murder have much higher levels of disapproval than do abortion. Or homosexuality. Pre-marital sex. Wearing make-up. Eating meat.
Or do you consider that all these items, and more, have exactly the same levels of approval and disapproval as each other all around the planet?
What are you on about “thomas r.”?
‘being raped twice’ is a notion that the trauma was revisiting a victim upon cross-examination by someone who didn’t care – usually an authority figure like a policeman or a lawyer and n some cases a doctor or nurse. I’ll grant you that this is a scenario ripe with the possibility. Alas, I have not heard even a single firsthand account that such an effect actually occurs … I guess its a dreamed-up illusion, eh Reality.
From what I’ve read of peoples first hand experiences John, it is being cross-examined in court where they feel like they are being raped again. Not so much dealing with police, doctors and nurses. What makes you say such? Do you not trust police, doctors and nurses?
Alas, I have not heard even a single firsthand account that such an effect actually occurs … I guess its a dreamed-up illusion, eh Reality. – Why would you think that?
Er… Reality, my dear fellow: I’m not sure whether you’re simply in a bad mood, or whether your memory retention and/or reading comprehension skills have suffered in the past week or so, but: you’re talking arrant nonsense, here.
My original point on the other thread (to which your–*ahem*–“paraphrase” seems to be referring, at least vaguely) was that YOU, as a moral relativist, were in no position to condemn any human action, no matter how foul, above and beyond your own personal tastes, whims and idiosyncratic preferences; a moral relativist, who can only appeal to the strength of an emotional reaction (whether of himself, or of a collective of persons in society) when judging an action, has no more of a basis for condemning rape, for example, above and beyond his basis for rejecting a food he hates with a passion. I, and others who have not embraced the absurdity of moral relativism, have no such disadvantage. I’m afraid you’ve misidentified the one who has distinguishing problems between morals and mushrooms, friend. :)
Re: the extent to which various things are condemned about the world, and to what extent… perhaps I might drive my point home with a simple question: WHAT OF IT? That’s not a rhetorical question; I truly want to know why you consider that so important, given the world’s track-record of giving evil things widespread approval (e.g. human sacrifice, torture of enemies for information, treating women as objects or brute animals, approving and profiting from slavery, etc.). Whyever would any consensus anywhere give any relevant information about morality, in your view? Why bring up at at all, if it’s nothing but irrelevant trivia?
Merit: ”Notice this sentence: “Objectively speaking, how barbaric is a society that votes in favor of murdering preborn babies five months old and up, particularly who are known to feel the pain of it all?”
Right, it’s not objective at all.
Reality: The twice-raped does not come from the trial, but from the physical procedures necessary to collect the evidence for said trial. hence: the police, doctors, or EMERG-nurses. One thing forbidden (as it destroys all evidence) is taking a shower immediately. And why the majority of rapes remain unreported.
Palldin’s remarks are a subtle reminder that you do have influence, whether or not you know beforehand your errors. [ you already know this, or you would not bother blogging.] She is far too civil. A more robust way to phrase this is ” Reality shadup already!”
In case a few people may be confused by the many philosophical words we use, let’s make this simple:
The earth is flat or it isn’t (classical thinking). According to Reality there is a more-modern/enlightened approach that says … ‘Unfair. Science knows(and can prove) that our world is ROUND.’ All human knowledge has an either-or quality to it, except in the area we call morality where there is ‘relativism’. If you look at the earth it is so large that it appears to be flat. However, we now believe the photography of space-travelers and understand that the earth is round/not-flat.
I find two things interesting that in ALL of science a thing is or it isn’t … and morality too [except if you are Reality, Bill Clinton … enlightened! I guess thinking the earth flat is ‘enlightened’. It is also intriguing that Reality returns to historical societies that believed 100%, that the earth was flat::: all that belief didn’t make it so, nor does the fantasy called relativism.]
It would appear that you have read my comments on this thread Paladin. It would also appear that you either didn’t understand what I was saying or you chose to ignore it.
I wasn’t talking about whether you, or I , or anyone else considered any of these things moral or immoral or to what extent.
My point is, and has been, that murder and rape have a much higher level of disapproval around the planet than does abortion. That’s all. If you disagree with this I’d be interested to hear why.
There is a plethora of pro-choice and anti-choice sites. Do you think there are many sites specifically for pro-murder or anti-murder debate? How about pro-rape and anti-rape?
The majority of people in the US approve of abortion in some or all circumstances. Do you think that polling on murder or rape would achieve similar results?
In regard to morals or moral codes, what you overlook is that you and I derive them in exactly the same manner. If I am a moral relativist, everyone is.
The twice-raped does not come from the trial, but from the physical procedures necessary to collect the evidence for said trial. hence: the police, doctors, or EMERG-nurses. – as I said earlier John, from all the first-hand accounts I have read, it is the trial and the cross-examination which causes women to feel like they have been raped all over again. The physical procedures certainly aren’t nice, but they are not the major impact. What do you have against doctors and nurses?
Let me see if I can unpick this confused tangle of yours.
The earth is flat or it isn’t (classical thinking). – are you a flat-earther? - According to Reality there is a more-modern/enlightened approach that says … ‘Unfair. Science knows(and can prove) that our world is ROUND.’ – enlightened yes, modern not so much.
All human knowledge has an either-or quality to it, except in the area we call morality where there is ‘relativism’. – ‘all human knowledge’, do you think so?
If you look at the earth it is so large that it appears to be flat. However, we now believe the photography of space-travelers and understand that the earth is round/not-flat. – ‘now’? It was realised a looong time before photography was around let alone getting cameras into space John. People were stating it is round in BC times.
I find two things interesting that in ALL of science a thing is or it isn’t … and morality too [except if you are Reality, Bill Clinton … enlightened! – you don’t think that what is considered moral or immoral has ever changed? Differs between cultures? Between churches even?
I guess thinking the earth flat is ‘enlightened’. – so you are a flat-earther!
It is also intriguing that Reality returns to historical societies that believed 100%, that the earth was flat::: – did they? You’d better define ‘historical’, exactly – all that belief didn’t make it so – that has a familar ring to it - nor does the fantasy called relativism.] – compared to?
Reality wrote, in reply to my comment:
It would appear that you have read my comments on this thread Paladin.
I did.
It would also appear that you either didn’t understand what I was saying or you chose to ignore it.
None of the above, actually. I know, full well, what you said and [ostensibly] meant (since I agree with your paraphrase below, and I said as much in my previous comment; perhaps you missed it?); I merely question your candour and self-knowledge, here. More on that, below.
I wasn’t talking about whether you, or I , or anyone else considered any of these things moral or immoral or to what extent.
Here’s the crux of our disagreement, I think. You claim that you were not speaking of any moral gradient re: the things mentioned; well and good, so far. But then you go on to put great emphasis on the fact that there seems to be a great deal of consensus on the points of “rape is held to be bad”, “murder is held in very low esteem”, and the like… as if it were somehow very relevant to the topic at hand (whatever you take the topic to be). Now, please do answer me clearly: in my reading, you seemed very much to be appealing to the idea of “since, as a global whole, these things [such as rape and murder] are always and everywhere disapproved and have a preponderance of laws against them (as opposed to abortion, in modern times), it must be the case that they are much less worthy of approval than is abortion”… and that most certainly is a suggestion pertaining to morality (i.e. what should and should not be done). If that was NOT the point you were making (see esp. your comment from November 21, 2013 at 11:48 pm, 1st paragraph), then could you please clarify what you DID intend to propose? I assume you weren’t trying the rather cowardly and disingenuous trick of throwing a comment out in the hopes of influencing opinion, while pretending neutrality for it and ducking away with a coy “Just sayin’, guys!”… and I also assume you didn’t bring it up for no reason at all (a bit like online Tourette’s Syndrome)!
My point is, and has been, that murder and rape have a much higher level of disapproval around the planet than does abortion. That’s all.
And you introduce this as an utterly irrelevant bit of trivia–much like you might introduce the average density per cubic centimetre of Brie cheese? Or were you hoping to put forth some sort of IMPLICATION from that statement of yours which might–just might–pertain to the topic at hand (i.e. whether abortion is justifiable)?
If you disagree with this I’d be interested to hear why.
The reasons are almost as numerous as are the people who use them… but I can hazard a few guesses, if you wish:
1) the murder of an unborn child is very quiet, and it can be hidden rather efficiently from public view by tucking it away in a nice and clean (or–more often than many would care to admit–in a coarse and filthy) “clinic”. Out of sight, out of mind, as the saying goes. This is in rather stark contrast to rape, where numerous victims are still left alive to lament, complain, rage, plead for help, and the like. As for murder of those who are already born… well… isn’t that rather a matter of definition? If one knowingly and willfully kills an unborn human child, that is murder, is it not? (Now, if you’re going to resort to the silly idea of “it’s only murder if it’s against the civil law”, then that particular argument of yours dissolves into dust–and your talk of “why are there so many laws against murder?” becomes a meaningless tautology: i.e. “why are there so many things which violate the law which are considered illegal?”–whereas those unprotected by the law, e.g. Jews in Nazi Germany, blacks in the USA’s slave era, unborn children in our era, etc., are only “killed”, not “murdered”, since the law doesn’t proscribe their deaths.)
2) For whatever reason (I’m curious as to what reasons you would attribute to it), many humans tend–in the heat of passion–to want very few restrictions on their sexual behaviour. In the West, especially, sex has become something of a “ubiquitous commodity” (“sex sells”, as the advertisers say), and advertisers take keen advantage of the fact that males of the human species are sexually stimulated especially by visual sexual stimuli (e.g. formal pornography, or even sexually suggestive images) to sell their wares. Combine this with the fact that sexual euphoria acts exactly like a drug (which it is–the combination of testosterone and adrenaline has been shown to be at least as addictive, with as ferocious a withdrawal, as crack cocaine [do an internet search for “pornography addiction Cambridge” for one reputable study among many])–typified by an ever-increasing desire for more stimulation (which is usually accompanied by a DECREASED reluctance to violate moral and/or legal boundaries)–and you get a society which is flooded with sex addicts who are more willing to do whatever it takes to secure the “unholy grail” of hedonistic society: “sex without boundaries or limits or restrictions”. As one of the commenters on here (was it 9ek? I forget…) has said, re: the reason for the wide-spread tolerance of abortion in our culture: “because the sex must continue!” Well said.
There are more possibilities, to be sure; but that should do, for now.
There is a plethora of pro-choice and anti-choice sites. Do you think there are many sites specifically for pro-murder or anti-murder debate?
Hm. EGV might think so, if he considers “websites which support the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.” to be “pro-murder”. Do you? And as for “anti-murder”… my dear fellow, whatever do you think “JillStanek.com” is, if not an anti-murder site? And what do you think pro-legal-abortion sites are, if not “pro-legal-murder” sites? The only thing separating “abortion” from “murder” is an artificial distinction in your imagination–and anything to the contrary would be a circular argument on your part (i.e. defining “abortion” to be separate from “murder”).
How about pro-rape and anti-rape?
See above. And again: why do you bring this up at all? What does it matter? (That’s not a rhetorical question, as I said before; did you miss my last paragraph? You seem to have ignored it, at least.)
The majority of people in the US approve of abortion in some or all circumstances.
All right. And what do you see as the implications of that fact (assuming it to be true, for the sake of argument–and that’s not at all certain, depending on the wording of the surveys in question)? Or is it, in the words of Arthur Dent, a “badger-sputumly inconsequential bit of trivia”? :)
Do you think that polling on murder or rape would achieve similar results?
Probably not. See above for possible reasons (e.g. sexual license, voiceless victim, etc.). See above also for my repeated question of “what’s your point?”
In regard to morals or moral codes, what you overlook is that you and I derive them in exactly the same manner. If I am a moral relativist, everyone is.
And I answered this already, several times over, on multiple threads: you’re talking complete nonsense, here, and you’re using self-sealing (i.e. fallacious) definitions in order to make the attempt.
No tricks Paladin. There are things which, while people may consider them immoral, they don’t feel it necessary to make any attempt to prevent others from doing them or in punishing them for it. Things such as abortion, homosexuality and pre-marital sex. All to varying degrees and also varying across cultures and times of course.
And you introduce this as an utterly irrelevant bit of trivia – did you read all my comments on this thread?
1) what about homosexuality and pre-marital sex?
2) typified by an ever-increasing desire for more stimulation (which is usually accompanied by a DECREASED reluctance to violate moral and/or legal boundaries) – I disagree. The only thing which has really changed is the reduction of hypocrisy-driven secrecy.
EGV might think so, if he considers “websites which support the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.” to be “pro-murder”. Do you? – no. Do you? Do many others here?
whatever do you think “JillStanek.com” is, if not an anti-murder site? – anti-choice, anti certain forms of contraception, anti-democrat?, anti-atheist. I don’t seee many articles on murder.
The only thing separating “abortion” from “murder” is an artificial distinction in your imagination – and I feel exactly the same way about your imagining that abortion is tantamount to murder.
See above. – I don’t see the comparison.
And again: why do you bring this up at all? – I thought you said you got the point?
And what do you see as the implications of that fact – that some don’t consider abortion immoral, some do consider it immoral, some consider it a bit immoral, some consider it immoral but not enough to tell others they shouldn’t do it and some consider it so immoral they should do all they can to prevent others from having them. Do you think murder is seen in the same light or with the same variability?
And I answered this already, several times over, on multiple threads: you’re talking complete nonsense, here, and you’re using self-sealing (i.e. fallacious) definitions in order to make the attempt. – no, you haven’t. You’ve made certain unsubstantiated claims.
You and I have both derived our moral sets through the same means.
Apologies for the delay; I found this e-mail alert under a pile of spam-like messages…
Reality wrote, in reply to my comment:
No tricks Paladin. There are things which, while people may consider them immoral, they don’t feel it necessary to make any attempt to prevent others from doing them or in punishing them for it.
Sincere question: if a culture *did* make laws against those sorts of things (and punish the offenders), would you consider such laws and enforcement to be unjust? Or would you merely “not care for them”, as you might despise your least favourite food?
Things such as abortion, homosexuality and pre-marital sex.
…and slavery, and non-citizenship of women, and extermination of Jews, and torture of prisoners of war, etc… many of which (or similar immoral acts) were almost ubiquitous, until more recent times. I see.
I’m not quite sure if you’ve thought this through, yet. You seem to have an unshakeable (and rather naive, if you’ll forgive me for saying so) assumption that “modern democracy = best possible way to run things” (I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with that, at present) and “modern democracy = only rational way to set up a society” (ditto my previous parenthetical remark); but most cultures have not embraced such an idea until rather recently (and at least 1/6 of the world’s population rejects it, viz. China, North Korea, countries under Sharia Law, etc.). Why do you think that “what we have now” is preferable to “what we had then”? (Please do not waste time asking distraction-laden, gallery-playing questions such as “Paladin, so you want to go back to the days of slavery/female chattel/tribal totems?” Of course not.) How could you possibly arrive at the conclusion that a society which “treats women, Jews, blacks, etc. with compassion and equity” is preferable to an earlier one which did not, unless you had (mirabile dictu!) an objective standard against which you compared both of them?
You have two choices, friend: you can decide that your entire moral system is nothing more than a collection of personal tastes, whims and preferences, or you can decide that there is an objective standard by which one can judge things to be “better” or “worse”.
All to varying degrees and also varying across cultures and times of course.
So… you’re convinced of the rightness of your view, HOW, exactly?
did you read all my comments on this thread?
Yes, I did.
1) what about homosexuality and pre-marital sex?
What of them? Both were forbidden for centuries, until lately; orthodox Christianity and Islam still forbid them, even though myriads of individual Christians and Muslims fail to live up to those standards. Why do you suddenly think these are now “good and allowable”? By what standard (apart from the mere accident that you happen to live in this century) do you judge that the allowance of such things is now good and wholesome?
[Paladin]
2) typified by an ever-increasing desire for more stimulation (which is usually accompanied by a DECREASED reluctance to violate moral and/or legal boundaries)
[Reality]
I disagree. The only thing which has really changed is the reduction of hypocrisy-driven secrecy.
…and your reasoning for this view is…? I trust you’re not requiring me to take this on faith.
As for my own view, Google “sex addict” or “pornography addict” or “testosterone effects on brain”, etc., for a small sample of evidence.
[Paladin]
EGV might think [that “pro-murder” websites exist], if he considers “websites which support the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.” to be “pro-murder”. Do you?
[Reality]
no. Do you?
I do not; but then again: I’m not under the impression that “war” is always and everywhere equivalent to “murder”. You asked. Perhaps you might ask EGV, if you see him again on one of these threads; I used him only as an example of a fellow who (so far as I can understand him) might find “pro-murder” websites more plentiful than you do. I’m not at all sure (and it wouldn’t devastate me if he didn’t); but again: you asked.
Do many others here?
Not many, I’d wager. Most here (at least on the pro-life side) would see a clear difference between “waging a war in which innocent civilians are unintentionally killed” and “knowingly and intentionally targetting a fellow human being for death”.
[Paladin]
whatever do you think “JillStanek.com” is, if not an anti-murder site?
[Reality]
anti-choice, anti certain forms of contraception, anti-democrat?, anti-atheist. I don’t seee many articles on murder.
As a simple experiment: please poll the pro-lifers on this forum, and ask them if they believe abortion to be murder. If they do, then you admit to being blind to the copious articles on murder; if not, then come and tell me.
(Side note: “anti-choice” is a political bumper-sticker which glosses over the fact that the “choice” being denied is the intentional killing [i.e. murder] of an unborn child; in a sane society, no one would find a denial of that “choice” to be strange. For myself, I am anti-all forms of artificial contraception, anti-the current Democrat platform re: life issues, and anti-atheISM [not anti-atheist–critical difference, there; there are atheists whom I love dearly].)
[Paladin]
The only thing separating “abortion” from “murder” is an artificial distinction in your imagination
[Reality]
and I feel exactly the same way about your imagining that abortion is tantamount to murder.
First: I was not talking about “feelings” (i.e. emotions/passions); I was speaking of definitions of terms. Second: “murder” is when a free moral agent knowingly and willfully chooses and brings about the death of another human person. Unborn children are human persons. A direct, willed, procured abortion (as opposed to spontaneous abortion–i.e. miscarriage) is a case where one or more free moral agents knowingly and willfully choose to bring about the death of that unborn child. Therefore, a direct, willed, procured abortion is an example of murder.
[Paladin]
And again: why do you bring this up at all?
[Reality]
I thought you said you got the point?
I said that I read all your comments; and I said that I “got” (to the extent that there was a point to get) your OSTENSIBLE point. But I followed that with the observation that your stated point was at cross-purposes to the rest of your comments (i.e. you were making a good deal of fuss about the fact that a plurality/majority of our culture doesn’t currently seem to condemn abortion), and was therefore suspect. I then gave you an opportunity to distance yourself from the “appeal to consensus” fallacy. Are you now taking me up on that offer?
[Paladin]
And what do you see as the implications of that fact [that a large portion of our culture doesn’t seem to condemn abortion]?
[Reality]
that some don’t consider abortion immoral, some do consider it immoral, some consider it a bit immoral, some consider it immoral but not enough to tell others they shouldn’t do it and some consider it so immoral they should do all they can to prevent others from having them.
You do realise that this is painfully close to a tautology, don’t you? (“I’m only saying that this whole number must be either even or odd… that’s all!”)
Do you think murder is seen in the same light or with the same variability?
That depends on the definition of several terms (for which I’d be grateful to have your definitions!)…
“murder”: do you mean this as a strictly legal term (i.e. if there are no civil laws against it, then it’s not murder), or as a general moral term (i.e. knowingly and intentionally willing and causing the death of another human person)? If you mean the former, then your question is nonsensical and vacuous, since no examples of it can possibly exist; if you mean the latter, then yes, I do [in the sense of all cultures of all times].
“same light”: your example gives no consistent light at all, I’m afraid. The fact that a multiplicity of views exists on [x] does not mean that the individuals are somehow ambivalent about [x], that they are without firm convictions on [x], or that the allowability of [x] is somehow “up for grabs”.
“variability”: do you confine this to the modern day, or are previous cultures “allowed to play”, as well? And do you restrict the victims to nondescript citizens, or would you allow consideration of hated enemies of the state/society (e.g. Jews, in the eyes of many Muslims and of the Nazis; Christians, in the eyes of many Muslims and Hindus and Communist heads of state, etc.)?
[Paladin]
And I answered this already, several times over, on multiple threads: you’re talking complete nonsense, here, and you’re using self-sealing (i.e. fallacious) definitions in order to make the attempt.
[Reality]
no, you haven’t. You’ve made certain unsubstantiated claims.
Oh, heavens, man! Go back and read my previous comments, and give me examples, if you’re so certain of that (and I think I can let the reader decide between us, on that point, as well)! I really don’t have the time or energy to type them all in again. And I do wonder at your talk of “unsubstantiated” claims; how am I to trust your definition of the term, given that you have littered your own writings with them?
“The only thing which has really changed is the reduction of hypocrisy-driven secrecy.”
“I feel exactly the same way about your imagining that abortion is tantamount to murder.”
“anti-choice, anti certain forms of contraception, anti-democrat?, anti-atheist.”
You and I have both derived our moral sets through the same means.
You really do need to work in a clear and thorough explanation of that idea, since I see no evidence for it at all which doesn’t rest on provably self-sealing definitions.
would you consider such laws and enforcement to be unjust? Or would you merely “not care for them” – like yourself and everyone else, it would depend what it was and how strongly I felt about it. Do you think that that pre-marital sex should attract the same punishment as murder?
You would equate pre-marital sex with slavery, and non-citizenship of women, and extermination of Jews, and torture of prisoners of war, etc?
How could you possibly arrive at the conclusion that a society which “treats women, Jews, blacks, etc. with compassion and equity” is preferable to an earlier one which did not, unless you had (mirabile dictu!) an objective standard against which you compared both of them? – through my subjective standards. The same way that everyone else does. In the same way that those who may prefer not to treat women, jews, blacks etc. with compassion and equity.
You think homosexuality is immoral. I don’t. You claim this is because you have a ‘god-given’ moral code. Yet there are other theists who also claim to have a ‘god-given’ moral code who don’t consider homosexuality immoral. There is no objective basis on which you can claim that your position is any ‘better’/’right’/correct’/whatever than mine or anyone else’s. Nor I yours. It’s a subjective debate.
you can decide that your entire moral system is nothing more than a collection of personal tastes, whims and preferences, or you can decide that there is an objective standard by which one can judge things to be “better” or “worse”. – not quite. To claim that because morals are subjective they are endowed with no greater significance than food preferences is not supportable. Athesists do support laws against murder and rape, but not laws against certain types of food which we may not personally like. Our morals are formulated by experience, observation, contemplation and a bit of influence within our family/society/culture. If there were an objective standard where is it? Which one? Whose? There are too many to choose from! Why would it be yours?
So… you’re convinced of the rightness of your view, HOW, exactly? – history, anthropology.
Both were forbidden for centuries, until lately; – not entirely.
orthodox Christianity and Islam still forbid them, – I don’t know enough about Islam but which ‘orthodox’ christianity? You mean yours.
even though myriads of individual Christians and Muslims fail to live up to those standards. – or are you failing to live up to theirs?
Why do you suddenly think these are now “good and allowable”? – I’ve never felt there was anything wrong with hmosexuality or pre-marital sex. And I am of the opinion that they were only considered immoral by so many in the past because of the same factors which delivered racism and sexism. People have become, and are becoming, more enlightened.
…and your reasoning for this view is…? I trust you’re not requiring me to take this on faith. – ‘take this on faith’, that’s funny. No, you can take it as opinion. Subjective.
I’m not under the impression that “war” is always and everywhere equivalent to “murder”. – me neither. I doubt many others do either.
might find “pro-murder” websites more plentiful than you do. – maybe, but I doubt anyone could turn up a fraction of the number of pro and anti choice websites that exist.
As a simple experiment: please poll the pro-lifers on this forum, and ask them if they believe abortion to be murder. If they do, then you admit to being blind to the copious articles on murder; if not, then come and tell me. – anti-choicers on an anti-choice website might do that? Really? That’s their subjective opinion. Pro-choicers , and the law, says it is not murder.
I was not talking about “feelings” (i.e. emotions/passions); I was speaking of definitions of terms. – so was I.
Second: “murder” is when a free moral agent knowingly and willfully chooses and brings about the death of another human person. – murder is the unlawful killing of another person. Applying your definition renders executioners as murderers. And possibly soldiers.
you were making a good deal of fuss about the fact that a plurality/majority of our culture doesn’t currently seem to condemn abortion), and was therefore suspect. – “suspect’? So the polling tells us. Do you have an alternative source?
I then gave you an opportunity to distance yourself from the “appeal to consensus” fallacy. Are you now taking me up on that offer? – no, I’m reinforcing it. Or will you claim that as many people condemn abortion, homosexuality and pre-marital sex as do murder and rape?
You do realise that this is painfully close to a tautology, don’t you? – no, I consider it fact. It’s patently obvious, otherwise abortion wouldn’t be legal, to any extent. On what basis do you disagree with it?
“murder”, “same light”, “variability” – and you come up with ‘duck’, ‘weave’ and ‘dodge’. Use any of your preferred definitions of murder (you consider that there is a legal term for murder nonsensical and vacuous?). You dispute that rape and murder are condemned by more people than homosexuality and pre-marital sex are?
Go back and read my previous comments, and give me examples, if you’re so certain of that – Your circular reasoning that because you are claiming that something is objective means your argument for such is objective is a path to insanity. Your claim that something is objective is simply subjective, as are the arguments you mount for your claim.
You really do need to work in a clear and thorough explanation of that idea, since I see no evidence for it at all which doesn’t rest on provably self-sealing definitions.
You say your moral code has been given to you by your god. Does that mean you are one of those who claims that without god you’d be out there doing all manner of horrid things?
Even within the abrahamic faiths there are differences in what is considered moral and immoral, and to what extent.
Then we can look to the variances between catholics and protestants.
The unitarians and the baptists perhaps.
Your congregation and the one down the street.
You and the person in the pew across the aisle.
And that’s without mentioning changes over time.
So who got god’s true set of moral codes? Why? If different people have differing moral codes yet so many claim to have received them from god, what’s going on?
The truth is that you adhere to a particular set of ‘god’s moral code’ which suits you and what you feel it ought to be.
You claim to possess an objective moral code when what you actually have is Paladin’s moral code.
Do you think the punishment for consensual homosexual acts should be the same as for murder? Pre-marital sex the same as for rape? Surely they’re either moral or they’re not. Anything else would smack of relativism wouldn’t it.
I found this quote recently. It caught my attention because it pretty much matches what I have previously said about the roots of morals.
“Okay, you’re on your own, with no bible or knowledge of any ‘god’, just your intelligence to guide you. You’re looking for a place to settle down with your family and your flocks. Assume that the cities you might move to have signs outside their gates, telling you the rules. One says: “Murder is okay with us!” Another says: “Welcome, and we’ll rape your women!” Yet another says: “No private property here. We’ll take all your stuff!” Do you need to consult Genesis before you to decide to avoid those places? You’ll choose a city with a sign saying “No murder, rape, or theft,” as will most people. Those are the successful societies.”
“Do you think the punishment for consensual homosexual acts should be the same as for murder? Pre-marital sex the same as for rape? Surely they’re either moral or they’re not. Anything else would smack of relativism wouldn’t it.”
Remember, Paladin is Catholic. Catholics don’t classify all sins as exactly the same, it’s really in depth. There’s the difference between mortal and venial sins, for one. Gay acts and murder are both mortal sins, but I don’t know if the catechism spells out that they should be punished the same way, I’m obviously not Catholic. But I don’t think that it’s hypocritical or relativism if they don’t believe that some things should be punished the same way. That’s all I have to say on the relativism conversation lol.
It doesn’t matter whether Paladin is catholic, buddhist or atheist Jack, the claim that morals are objective, that there is one particular objective set or code and that Paladin is the one who is in possession of it, well…..
My point was that objective morality = all ‘sins’ the same = equal punishment is not a necessarily true logical progression. I don’t think it’s a logical criticism of objective morality. It’s just as logical that their God set it up so sins differ in severity and deserve different punishments. Though I think it’s weird that masturbation, agnosticism, and presumption are considered mortal sins along with rape, murder, and other very damaging things.
Jack, there is a vast chasm between what different groups/cultures/faiths consider moral or immoral to start with. I’m not criticizing ‘objective morality’ itself, I’m criticizing the claim that it exists at all – because it doesn’t.
I see. I do think it’s ridiculous when people claim things like “homosexuality and birth control have been universally condemned until the sixties” lol.
Before anyone jumps on me that was a deliberate exaggeration and a joke.
Jack: I don’t eat fish, it’s still a living animal that was killed for consumption. And it smells disgusting, I can’t even kiss someone who just ate fish. Or shellfish. Gross.
Just curious – Jack, have you always felt that way? And how many times have people eaten fish and then tried to kiss you within a short time?
No cheeseburgers as a kid? Never had that smoked salmon that was so good it changed your life? Scallops to die for, magnificent ribeye steaks….
http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/5372/8t5a.png
I don’t think I’ve ever liked meat. I especially hate the way it smells. Especially fish and seafood, makes me gag. My oldest sister (thirteen years older than me) told me even as a toddler it was harder to get me to eat meat and such than it was to get me to eat vegetables or fruits or carb type stuff. And the only meat I remember thinking was tasty was bacon for some reason, but even that I was pretty meh about. My mom made me eat meat until I was like twelve i think, when she stopped forcing the issue I just quit eating it. I also found out meat was made from animals when I was like five or six and I found that horrifying, because I liked animals way more than most humans lol.
Oh and about the seafood kissing thing, my ex wife LOVES salmon, and loves shrimp. I’m not much of a kisser anyway, don’t really enjoy it, but right after eating those nasty-smelling things? Let’s just say that if you want a quick way to make your wife angry be obviously grossed out by her breath during a kiss, even if you try to hide it. But we were even, I was a smoker and she hates the smell of tobacco. :/
So, we are in agreement – let the fish go smoke their own cigarettes.