Sigh....
Jmo,
Let me try it this way. If you were at home beating your kids, the state would step in and protect your children, because they are unable to protect themselves. Some/most pro-life people have no thoughts about interfering in the life of a mother, have no desire to tell her what to do; they think about it as protecting a child, stepping in to protect someone who cannot protect themselves.

@orathaic: I do know that we are a bunch of cells, but I was outraged at the way those cells were despised by the previous poster.

@jmo - That sounds very nice and politically correct and libertarian of you, but it just won't hold. You do, in fact, think you know better than other people on how to run their lives. The mentally handicap? Children? The elderly? Where is the line?

You would obviously tell a child what they should or shouldn't do, regardless, actually, if it was your child or not. If you saw my son slapping some little girl at recess I'd like you to address the wrong (report him to me and reprimand him verbally in this case). You saying, simply, that you have no right to tell my son what to do and sitting apathetically on the sidelines would indeed make you monstrous.

@Jesus
I don't despise my cells, I quite love them in fact.
What I despise are your cells, particularly the cerebral ones.

@Persephone: "Women are able to BOTH create and destroy life. Men can only destroy it."

Erm, actually, I think you'll find that men can create life. Most people alive today were the result of a combination between a man's sperm and a woman's egg. So in what way to you conclude that those men were not involved in creating those lives?

I really don't understand how you can make that claim.

What the last 3 posters seem to have overlooked is that the difference between a fetus in utero and a child already born is the that it is no longer part of its mothers body. At that point, it is appropriate for third parties to intervene. Until then, it is attached to the mothers body and is a part of her , and what she decides to do with it is her perogative. That is just MY opinion, I am not trying to force it on anyone, as everyone else seems to be forcing theirs upon me.

And to reiterate my statements from before about killing animals for food etc and humans through war and famine, why is it ok for a stranger to blow up a mothers child in a war for example, and no one bates an eyelash, yet when it is done in a humane way before it has even developed into a fully formed human, its not?

OK, you've officially appealed to "ad hominen". I can only hope you're not like this for real and are only trolling.

An abortion is not humane. Get your facts straight.

@Jamie
Are you trying to compare the contribution of a sperm by a male to what a woman contributes in creating a life? I don't think we want to start *that* debate.

As Dignle says, you failed (an epic fail, I might add) at relaying that being hyperbole and exaggeration. Believe it or not, I'm pro-life and pro-choice. I believe there is a point where the fetus has developed enough to be a human life and worthy of all the rights and protections thereof. But where that life begins is the point of debate. Personally, if it looks like a baby, it is a life. So fingers and toes and mouth and nose and eyelids and all, make it human. Some argue it is when it feels pain, right about the first trimester, others that viability outside the womb makes it alive, and yet others at conception. Then there are the monsters who truly DO believe that you can kill it up until the umbilical cord is cut.

So that is the difference for me. Does it look like a lump of flesh or does it look like a baby...

The only time it would be acceptable for the fetus to die at the time of birth would be if it were a choice between the mother's life and the fetus'. I think the mother's life should take precedence in that instance, and if that makes me a monster, well then that's Ms. Monster to you.

@ Thucydides

>Out of curiosity why did you change your mind? Did you get weary?

There was nothing explicit that I rejected in liberalism. I was a teenager; I was changing my politics (and my religion, my planned career path, my true love, etc) every day (or more realistically, every year at least). I moved from mainstream liberalism to Marxism, from Marxism to anarchism, and I've been an anarchocommunist now for about 10 years … although some of my priorities have still changed over that time.

>Your DNA argument is honestly splitting hairs.

You're the one who brought up DNA, not me. If your only point is that DNA would be a good, mostly airtight legal definition of individual personhood, and not that it would be any better for a woman to kill her clone than to kill her natural fetus, then … well, then I'm relieved, because the latter position seemed too silly for you! (But disagree that DNA would be a good legal definition of individuality, as it has far too many loopholes; besides twinning and chimerism, you could do a reverse tooth trick and claim that you were in California —since your DNA was— when you were really only in Texas.)

I did bring up the individuality of the blastocyst, and I stand by my claim that a blastocyst is not an individual. Blastocysts can (naturally by chance, or on purpose in the laboratory) be divided into two (monozygotic twinning), and two blastocysts can be combined into one (chimerism). Whatever rights this mass of tissues (and it is a mass of tissues, no brain waves, no heart beats) may have, it doesn't work to think of it in the same way as we think of born individuals. I do think that there are moral issues in killing a fetus (even though I don't think that the state should interfere), but I don't have any qualms at all about killing a blastocyst.

>Things can communicate in other ways. For instance:
>-We know the fetus is alive and has ongoing biological processes
>-Almost every form of life with ongoing biological processes is actively attempting to prolong its life and avoid death.

This is the only thing you've said that really repulses or scares me. My body is undergoing a lot of automatic biological processes, but don't you dare take those as cues to my will and try to impose that hypothetical will on me! You've already rejected the idea that I might have the right to choose to die, but at least you rejected that on the grounds that it would hurt other people; you didn't have the gall to say that, since my body is undergoing biological process to fight off death, that I really want to live. Whenever I have sex, I take care to ensure that I don't procreate; you can bet that my physiological processes are all working the other way. In the past, I have chosen to undergo surgery; when the scalpel entered, my body started physiological processes to prevent what it naïvely believed (I say ‘believed’ metaphorically) to be a deadly assault. But *I* did not want to prevent that assault; I *wanted* it to happen (because I believed that, with proper care, it would make me stronger in the end). Don't you listen to my biological processes; listen to *me*!

I know that the case of the fetus is different, and hopefully you're willing to listen to what I say and let me override what my physiology says, whereas with the fetus you defer to the physiology only because you have no other way to communicate. But given how independent my will is from what someone would assume based on what my body does (sure, we both want to live, but sometimes that's about the only thing that we have in common), I think that it's completely inappropriate for the state to assume that a fetus (and certainly not a blastocyst, which doesn't even have a brain) wants or cares about anything.

As I mentioned above, I *do* think that there are moral issues in killing a fetus (although not a blastocyst). What you have said *should* give people pause, and make them think and perhaps be unsure whether they want to go through with such a thing. But the state needs compelling evidence to interfere, not these vague hypotheses, at least according to my political philosophy.

>It might have been you

Yes, that was me.

>It is not the same thing, though, to call a sperm or egg cell a person. You need two to fuse in order to make one person. Therefore... at best, you could call it half a person.

No, I don't agree with this. This is another symptom of what I call ‘DNA fetishism’, thinking that genes are what make a person. The difference between an unfertilised egg and a fertilised egg is a small part of genetic material; the difference between a sperm and a fertilised egg is huge. Genetic material does not define life; most biologists consider bacteria (being cells) ‘alive’ and viruses (only genetic material, possibly with a protein coating but no internal metabolism) ‘not alive’; to some extent, this is just a matter of arbitrary semantics, but there is still a big difference between these. A spermatozoon is a complete living cell, but it is a cell that is eaten by the egg, except for the DNA. It provides half of the DNA (and a tiny portion of protein and fatty acids) to the fertlised egg; the unfertilised egg provides all of the rest.

Drawing the line at fertilisation is as arbitrary as drawing the line at birth.

And I do agree that drawing the line at birth is arbitrary, as a moral matter. (Unfortunately, it's as orathaic said, the development of a new person is gradual, and there is no obvious place to draw the line.) It's not arbitrary as a legal matter, however. To prevent infanticide, you don't have to assault the mother; you just pick up the infant and leave. But to prevent abortion, you do have to assault (restrain) the mother. So birth is a good place to put the matter into law. Especially now that we have Safe Haven laws throughout the United States (I don't know about other countries), the state (if it allows all abortions, as in California) has a reasonably coherent position: you can abort a fetus or give an infant to us if you don't want it.

>You seem to rely more on the consensus of the public rather than the actual truth.

I can't imagine why you say that. I think that my views are quite unusual; they line up with the mainstream pro-choice movement on the matter of what would be a reasonable law, but not always for the same reasons. For example, I never said anything about a ‘potential person’; that's not language that I use.

>Consider this: until this whole abortion movement began, abortion was seen by all as repugnant - it was baby-killing.

And who said that baby-killing is repugnant? Most human societies in most of human history have accepted infanticide. Knowing this, I can hardly call Persephone a monster (not that you did either, I know) for allowing infanticide while the umbilical cord is attached; anyone who calls that monstrous is either ignorant of history or doesn't know what ‘monster’ means.

All right, but *our* society considers baby-killing repugnant. How about abortion, then? Until the 19th century, there were no laws against abortion in the United States or England. Before that, the common law protected a human life only from the moment of ‘quickening’ (when the fetus starts to ‘kick’), although it still did not consider abortion to be murder. This ‘whole abortion movement’ began with an *anti*-abortion movement in the 1820s, which achieved victory about a century later, and then returned with a decriminalisation movement in the 1960s. This movement was victorious (in the U.S.) in 1973, but now the pendulum is swinging the other way. Even during the decades when abortion was illegal through the U.S., there were always people underground who helped to provide it and did not consider it repugnant (although you can say that about anything that's illegal).

>I think it is important to realize that technology is a construct and does not represent the "natural" world, which is what we should base our behavior on.

In the "natural" world, infanticide is common. Not only among non-industrial human civilisations, but also among animals. In fact, I would say that it's more the norm than the exception! (Not that most individuals commite infanticide, but most societies —human or otherwise— accept it.) When considering our behaviour, we must always remember the facts, that we came from nature and are still part of nature. But we should not let that cloud our moral judgement.

>You'll probably say we should also fight over resources and fight for mates and all too, since that is also natural. Well... newsflash, we do.

I would only say that saracstically, of course. Are you saying it earnestly? Just because it's "natural"?? And you call yourself a liberal???

I understand (I think!) and agree with your last paragraph. Actually, I would say that ‘everything is real’ is not just something that might not be true, but something that is in the end meaningless. I appear to be immersed in a world, I call that world ‘reality’, and I'm not concerned with whether it might be fake at some higher level of meta-reality that I can't in fact perceive.

@Persephone
"The only time it would be acceptable for the fetus to die at the time of birth would be if it were a choice between the mother's life and the fetus'. I think the mother's life should take precedence in that instance, and if that makes me a monster, well then that's Ms. Monster to you."

Are you really so out of touch with your fellow human that you need to ask this? I can't imagine many would think you were a monster for this, though some might disagree with your choice. Its when a mother can kill a fetus for ANY reason at any time that makes you a monster.

(Or is this just a debate tactic to make you look more human by poking fun at the previous monster crack, making the monster poster less credible - I forget what the tactic is called.)

@Persephone: "Jamie Are you trying to compare the contribution of a sperm by a male to what a woman contributes in creating a life? I don't think we want to start *that* debate."

I am merely observing the fact that in the case of most babies that are born, a man was involved in creating that life. That is a fact. I'm not attempting to say that the man's contribution is more important than, or even AS important as, the woman's - I am just saying that the man does make a contribution, which means that in my view you were wrong to claim that men "can only destroy life".

Persephone said: "And to reiterate my statements from before about killing animals for food etc and humans through war and famine, why is it ok for a stranger to blow up a mothers child in a war for example, and no one bates an eyelash, yet when it is done in a humane way before it has even developed into a fully formed human, its not?"

I am in favor of animal rights, though it is a tentative field. Some of the better established "metacognitive" animals like dolphins, elephants, some primates, whales et al warrant protection. And to an extent, this has already been written into some law, animal abuse can be a crime depending on the animal. I do not think cows fit into the category though. If there was any proof they did, I would indeed rethink my practice of eating beef, and would try to reform the dairy industry. But the evidence would have to be more than circumstantial. However, I sense you are not a vegan, and are just trying to dodge a bullet by beating that dead horse of animal rights, if you'd pardon that small irony.

By the way, it is NOT ok with me "for a stranger to blow up a mothers child in a war for example." This too is a violation of human rights and should be stopped. Even though, I might add, that it would INTERFERE with somebody else's choice. The fact of the matter is, if the state did not interfere with personal choices, there would be no state. So it's up to you, anarchy or not.

Jamie said, "So, in your view, the younger a person is, the more valuable they are. Am I getting this right?"

Yes you are. The justification there is that the younger you are, the less of life you have had to experience, so the more you deserve your chance at life. This is why if I was forced to choose between saving an adult and saving a child (or a baby or a fetus), I would save the latter.

Orathaic said, "Also some libertarians (Thucydides) may believe that the right to life is a universal human right, and not something to which animals are entitled."

Hahaha I'm actually not a libertarian at all.... I recognize that a government should be small as possible... but I am no libertarian. I also support animal rights, especially as a developing field, as I have just said.

Persephone said, "My statement was as much an exaggeration to the left as the opinion that a human has full rights as soon as a zygote it formed is to the right."

I don't want to seem rude... but I feel I have not driven this home enough, or else you would not have made the slip of referring to a zygote as a human (Freudian slip perhaps?)

EVERY HUMAN HAS FULL RIGHTS!! I don't care, at ALL, WHO that human is. ANY attempt to remove define a group of humans who does NOT have full rights is equivalent to a crime against humanity.

@ Thucydides: "The justification there is that the younger you are, the less of life you have had to experience, so the more you deserve your chance at life. This is why if I was forced to choose between saving an adult and saving a child (or a baby or a fetus), I would save the latter."

Or a fetus? So, for example, faced with the choice of having to:

A) save the life of a 3-year-old child OR
B) prevent a woman in the early stages of pregnancy from having an abortion

...you would choose option B, stop the abortion, and allow the 3-year-old to die. That's what you'd do, right?

I ask this because I think the majority of people would choose option A and save the child.

By the way though, Toby Bartels, I enjoy debating with you too and you are doing more than anyone else ever has to make me rethink the conception thing....

I have a few questions for you in that light:
What is the difference between an embryo and a fetus (i.e. where is the line specifically drawn?)
I am willing to consider that an embryo may not be a person per se, given in part what you have said. But even then, unless there is incredibly compelling evidence that this embryo has no cognitive processes, I would still come down on the side of "we just don't know enough, so better to safe than sorry."

It's the same reason I oppose capital punishment, and more specifically, lethal injection. There is reason to believe that the inmate's death is not actually painless. So as long as we don't know, I oppose it. And again, even if it was painless, I would still oppose it on the grounds that we don't know where we're sending them when we kill them.

You, or someone else, had said that opposing it on the basis of a lack of knowledge about an afterlife is flimsy. This person said that when people die, they're buried or cremated or something, and they generally don't seem to care about what happens to their body, etc etc. They are saying in effect that since dead people do not communicate with the living, that is evidence enough that there is no afterlife.

This is wishful thinking. There could be any form of afterlife. Or none. And it is that basic assumption that causes people and animals and all life in general to fight for survival. Since you can't know if it will be better or worse, better to stick with where you are. It's like being in a dream, and trying to keep from waking up.

It also assumes that the only place the consciousness resides is within the body. There is no reason to believe that either. In fact, i would you to read a special issue of TIME magazine called "Your Brain, A User's Guide" and then the article on "Consciousness." It is enlightening, in the sense that you will no longer be able to believe whatever you thought you knew before reading it. What I KNOW is that I don't know, and it is on those ground that I oppose any kind of intentional killing.

Yes, and pro-choicers are in FULL AGREEMENT with that! Women are HUMAN and as such deserve FULL RIGHTS!!! You are STEALING a womans RIGHT over what to do with HER OWN BODY buy making abortion ILLEGAL. Why is that so hard to UNDERSTAND????????????

Jamie:

What you propose is a lot like a trolley problem. My logic dictates to save the fetus (if it is an embryo it may be a different matter, as I just said above), but if the child were actually present and so on, I may, if I am to be honest with you and myself, have a hard time doing that. However, if I heard about someone else choosing that, I would say, alas, that is what I should have done, but couldn't do.

And if the mother didn't want her child after it was born because I preventing her from stopping the birth I would offer to raise the child. Not that that is part of the scenario you painted but I would feel morally obligated to do that after I had killed a three year old.
Moral dilemmas are bitches lol.

No, Persephone by making abortion legal, you are removing the youngest of humans of their right to live. That is the most fundamental right of all. The right to choose whether or not to give birth is a distant second to the right to live.

Wow. A lot to respond to:

"@rlumley, type I or type II error? please explain."

Type I error is convicting an innocent person, or in this case, aborting a life, aka murder.
Type II error would be letting a guilty man free, or in this case, outlawing abortion, when it's not a life at all.
Persphone:
"@Akroma
'War is menstuation envy'. Women are able to BOTH create and destroy life. Men can only destroy it. This creates an imbalance in power, and men try to rectify that by killing more. "

Wow. Did you actually just say that? I'm shocked... I don't even know what to say.

Persphone: "@rlumley '
" An adult cow does not have the same potential intelligence that an unborn fetus has."
So now we are back to basing right to life based on potential intelligence? What happened to the retards right to life argument?"

Can you read? My next sentence was that was not a valid reason for outlawing abortion... My only conclusion based on this statement, and the one that proceeded it is that you are such an imbecile that you shouldn't even know how to turn on a computer, let alone log on on here to spout your caveman-esque opinions.

@ Persephone:
"@DJ
So it was ok for me to be referred to as monster for expressing my opinion, but not ok for orathaic to make a general statement (not referring really to anyone in particular)?"

When your opinions are as they are, yeah. I'm going to call you a monster.

@ Persphone: (Wow, you make a lot of dumb statements I have to respond to!)

"And to reiterate my statements from before about killing animals for food etc and humans through war and famine, why is it ok for a stranger to blow up a mothers child in a war for example, and no one bates an eyelash, yet when it is done in a humane way before it has even developed into a fully formed human, its not?"

Who said war is ok? As far as I know most people consider war to be monstrous and barbaric. Much like I consider you to be...

@JesusPetry:
"OK, you've officially appealed to "ad hominen". I can only hope you're not like this for real and are only trolling."

She has to be trolling. No one can ACTUALLY be that stupid...

@ Draugnar:
"Then there are the monsters who truly DO believe that you can kill it up until the umbilical cord is cut."

There are monsters who think you should be able to do it (to a certain extent) after the cord is cut. I've met them...

@ Dingle
I never suggested that abortion is a solution for ANY reason at ANY time. Obviously it is only provided to women at a certain stage of pregnancy and is preceded by intense counseling and later thorough follow up. As a health care provider I can tell you that this is not a procedure that is taken lightly by any of the parties involved, and certainly not a decision made on a whim.

@ Persphone (And again! You going for a record of most number of stupid comments in one thread?)

"Yes, and pro-choicers are in FULL AGREEMENT with that! Women are HUMAN and as such deserve FULL RIGHTS!!! You are STEALING a womans RIGHT over what to do with HER OWN BODY buy making abortion ILLEGAL. Why is that so hard to UNDERSTAND????????????"

YOU are BEGGINg THe QUeStION!!!!!1111!!!!11!!!11 PLEASE stop and MAKE a LOGICAL ARGUMENT!

(CAPSLOCKMAKEMECOOL!)

Yup, that's me Ms. Stupid Monster. I don't recall telling anyone on here my REAL name, how'd y'all guess it? LOL

my CAPS were in response to the CAPS used in the statement above mine you moronic plague.

I can see all the pro-choicers were sensible enough to leave (or not join) in this discussion. I think I shall follow suit. Thanks for the lively discussion, sadly, you lose. Abortion is legal (at least in civilized nations such as Canada), and will continue to be forevermore. Peace. I'm out.

Whether or not you personally agree or disagree with abortion, if it's not your body, why does it matter to you? I dont see many "pro-lifers" trying to stop wars, providing humanitarian aid to places in need, or even doing so little as to curb hunger in their own neighborhood.
Basically it's none of your business. if you never want to have an abortion, more power to you. if you're not a woman, you dont really have any place in this debate at all. I mean, I dont see any women trying to outlaw circumcision (or make it mandatory)

Personally, I dont agree with abortion, and my advice to anyone considering it would be strongly against it. but I'm not nearly presumptuous enough to try to force my will on other people's bodies.

@Persephone - I will recite just a small part (the second sentence actually) of the Declaration of Independence from the Continental Congress of what would become the United States of America which declares, in order of precedence, the rights of every human being, citizen of my great country or not.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

Note that the first and highest right is the right to *life*. This right, above all else, cannot be superceeded by *any* other right, including your freedom (note, a freedom, not a right) of choice. You do not have the right to end another person's life, even if it is your own conjoined twin. You do not even enjoy that freedom.

@ Draugnar: When you can't make an argument, quote someone who everyone respects and it would make you a bad person if you disagreed with. Good rhetorical strategy, even if I agree with you. :-P

@ Persephone: Good riddance. Would anyone like to have a legitimate discussion now?