I see. What do you mean the birth/abortion ratio is around 2? That for every two births there is one abortion? Yeah that seems ridiculous. However what has brought this situation about, is I think another thing we'd disagree on, and a discussion for another time.

And then there is this:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0968808008313718
Second Trimester Medical Abortion with Mifepristone–Misoprostol and Misoprostol Alone: A Review of Methods and Management
Reproductive Health Matters
Volume 16, Issue 31, Supplement, May 2008, Pages 162-172

Kristina Gemzell-Danielssona, E-mail The Corresponding Author, Sujata Lalitkumarb

''Feticide before abortion after 21 weeks of pregnancy
When medical abortion is chosen, in many settings, clinicians are legally required to ensure that the fetus is dead at the time of abortion. According to the RCOG, a legal abortion must not be allowed to result in a live birth, and at terminations after 21 weeks, the method chosen should ensure that the fetus is not alive. This is especially important for late terminations (with or without fetal malformation) if policy requires the provider to resuscitate if the fetus is born alive.

Agents used for feticide are hypertonic saline, 1% lidocaine and potassium chloride or intra-amniotic digoxin (1–1.5 mg). [65] , [66] , [67] and [68] Up through 21 weeks of pregnancy, the contractions induced by PG make feticide unnecessary.''

What do you mean the birth/abortion ratio is around 2?

Yes.

"What you describe as footnotes the scientific community tend to describe citations/references (perhaps it is different in other subjects, I am not sure)"

Footnote is a format of citation/reference, as opposed to endnote or in-text citation. And actually the citations were in endnote form. But you're just playing your little condescending (anti-social science) games again as opposed to addressing the point.

You cite a journal article that says live births occur (without investigating sources of this information) and take that as proof positive that abortion clinics are routinely having live births and you happily allege that the live born babies are neglected so that they die, when you're not endorsing reports that doctors routinely actively kill the unintended live born babies.

I guess this is what counts for respectable academic behavior in whatever field you're involved with. Gee I'm glad I'm part of the inferior social sciences.

better sex ed might help.

now i know some people may claim that 'if you have sex you should be ready for the consequences' or something to imply that the choice to have sex is a choice to have a child.

IT is clear the sex has positive health effects,,, must get food, i think i'll return to this thought later.

"And then there is this:"

And you misattributed four reports to this article which were not contained within them. None of this says anything about actual reports of live births. You assume live births are routine because the report discusses these precautions. This kind of misdirection counts as legitimate research?

Mafia I have enjoyed the debate and I apologise if I have got a little hot under the collar with you at times. I do hope that you will think again about your view on the no-limit stance for abortion, both in terms of time and justification. In any case I do hope at least that it has given you pause for thought. You have certainly caused me to think about my ideas on the matter. Thank you.

Are you going to admit that you lied about live birth "abortions"?

@Mafialligator,

"But you're ok with arbitrary moral absolutes based on just a general sense of distaste?"

No, I'm not.... and I'm afraid I've lost track of the thread enough not to know what this is referring to anymore. (Redheads? The laws I referred to? FWIW, I agree with you about several of those laws. I meant to mention so before).

@orathaic: "They are: Causing me suffering is wrong - i believe other people/animals are like me enough that they can suffer too (empathy), thus causing them to suffer is wrong.

"Now, it is entirely possible to derive many different things from this and HOW we go about deriving them may differ, but i don't think anyone here disagrees with this first principle. "

That depends what you mean. Like most people, I don't disagree with that first principle _as a statement_. I do agree with it as a first principle, though. And so do most people; typically people would go beyond causing pain to causing harm to a human, or something equivalent, which is the kind of reason why your "It's fine to kill babies" stance would be so immensely unpopular.

'Oh, and thug is a racial slur, just so you are aware. '

ROFL Draug. Well played sir.

'That depends what you mean.'

To disagree with 'They are: Causing me suffering is wrong - i believe other people/animals are like me enough that they can suffer too (empathy), thus causing them to suffer is wrong.'

Would mean you think causing suffering is right. (either to yourself or to others)

That doesn't mean you have to derive your morality from this principle, as i try to. But it is something i hope we agree on.

As for my "it's ok to kill babies" stance. I believe infanticide was common in cultures which were heavily stressed and unable to feed the young. Having had a baby could risk the rest of the families life, especially in a rough winter, thus it became an acceptable practice.

However, i believe my stance was not in favour of killing babies without need.

"That doesn't mean you have to derive your morality from this principle, as i try to. But it is something i hope we agree on."

I already said I agreed with it, just not as a first principle.

"
As for my "it's ok to kill babies" stance. I believe infanticide was common in cultures which were heavily stressed and unable to feed the young. Having had a baby could risk the rest of the families life, especially in a rough winter, thus it became an acceptable practice."

I'm sure enough reasons suggest themselves to you why I might not want to base morality on what various cultures in the past may have thought was OK that I don't have to enumerate them for you.

"Despite it's URL that website's pro-choice credentials are EXTREMELY SUSPECT. I call shenanigans. It's quite clearly aimed to discourage women from getting abortions. A few choice quotes to illustrate my point:"

This is the kind of duplicity that pro-lifers (and Fulham in particular) can't seem to help but engage in. This is why there are thousands of "crisis centers" that pretend like they're helping women with pregnancy only to later find out their sole purpose is to mislead and misinform. It is truly breathtaking how pro-lifers are fighting laws requiring women to be properly informed about their medical options. Yet Fulham has the audacity to say that abortion providers are "afraid of the truth".

@ Putin, absolutely no admission that I lied on live birth abortions. Just the cotrary it is you who lied and obfuscated.
Res ipsa loquitur

Have a nice day and fuck off.

Except you did lie. Just like you lied about a website being pro-choice.

You claimed that doctors killing live born babies was a "common practice". You later insinuated that doctors neglect unintended live born babies so that they die. All you provided to claim that this practice was "common" was a doctor who was not present in the room when an unintended birth occurred and a clinic that was operating entirely outside the law in a state that banned late-term abortions.

Have a nice day indeed.

"Well, God can know the future as well as the past, but that does not change the analysis. What matters is who gets to decide something, not who knows it when."

I overlooked this side discussion.

The breakfast analogy doesn't work. A known event cannot be changed. I cannot "choose" what I had for breakfast yesterday. It already happened. If a future event is known to occur, then it already happened. No change is possible. There is no autonomy, there is no choice. It is pre-determined. It's equivalent to setting up a maze for mouse to run and allowing them only one "correct" path which would enable them to escape the maze and then saying "aha, see, they 'chose' this outcome". This god already set up every individual's "maze" and knows the outcomes beforehand.

The whole idea of a timeless being having knowledge ordered by time is a logical absurdity. If god is timeless he cannot 'experience' time, so he has no knowledge of time. In order to 'know' time you have to know different things at different times. If the content of god's knowledge changes, then god changes. If god changes, god cannot be timeless.

I suggest that you write to the authors of this peer reviewed paper and question their references and let me know what they say. In the meantime I will take them at their word.
I also suggest you reread the reference on the Phily doctor who is charged with killing live births by severing their spinal cord with scissors.
Now, as ever, I will leave you to wallow in your sociopathic denial.

@Putin, as for "a known event cannot be changed," you're wrong. The breakfast analogy _does_ work. You _yesterday_ were able to choose what you had for breakfast, even though you _now_ know what you chose. So the event is known (by you now) but could be changed (by you then).

Though this is the past, there is no good argument for why the future could not work just as well.

Indeed: suppose your wife was going to visit her friend, Edith. Somebody calls you while she's on her way and says, "I just got the worst news! Edith is talking about killing herself!" You might respond, "Oh no! Well my wife is on her way over, and she will know what to do. She will not let Edith kill herself."

Now, you are talking about a future event, yet you claim knowledge of what your wife would do. (Incidentally, I'm not trying to presume about you, your wife, or Edith. Take all three as fictitious since I know very little about you or your wife). Does this mean you are limiting your wife's freedom? No, it means you know her very well. You have, as it were, sufficient knowledge to know what her actions will be.

Well, God has perfect knowledge of everybody and everybody's actions, but it is no more limiting of their freedom than that would be.

"The whole idea of a timeless being having knowledge ordered by time is a logical absurdity."

Why? If you read a book, you have knowledge of the entire stories of the people in the book, all at once. Indeed, that's how we know history. I really don't follow your point here at all.

Congrats, fullhamish, for joining me in my crusade to force people to quote valid resources when they present 'facts.' Careful though, I bet Putin is clever and motivated enough to actually find something relevant (unlike some others we know).

He's a bit delusional, but a blowhard he is not :P

i'd just like to point out, Obiwan started this thread and hasn't contributed much. I think it was a scam to distract us from what he's really up to :)

"The breakfast analogy _does_ work. You _yesterday_ were able to choose what you had for breakfast, even though you _now_ know what you chose. So the event is known (by you now) but could be changed (by you then)."

At the time of the choice, I did not know what I chose. I had still had autonomy. I do not have autonomy over actions which occurred in the past and cannot change the past, yet I know what happened. If god knows what happened in the future, then there can be no choice. Outcomes have to be uncertain for choice to exist.

"Though this is the past, there is no good argument for why the future could not work just as well."

There is plenty good argument. You cannot change what is a known outcome. You never responded to the point that I cannot change what breakfast I ate in the past, but I know what I ate. Choice & Certainty cannot co-exist. You can only have knowledge in time about has already occurred, not what has not yet occurred.

"Now, you are talking about a future event, yet you claim knowledge of what your wife would do. "

*Would* do. The key term there is *would*, which is conditional. It does not express certainty. I do not know for *certain* what my wife will *likely* do about Edith. I am making an assumption/prediction based on my assessment of how my wife tends to behave. Predictions are different than knowledge, which I think every wannabe NFL prognosticator would agree with.

Surely you're not saying that the level of knowledge god has about the future is on par with assumptions and educated guesses? You're say god knows *exactly* what will happen, am I right? His knowledge the future is on par with our knowledge of what we ate for breakfast in the past.

"but it is no more limiting of their freedom than that would be."

But certainty is a whole lot more limiting than an educated guess. My wife could always surprise me about her future actions. God cannot be surprised.

"Why? If you read a book, you have knowledge of the entire stories of the people in the book, all at once. Indeed, that's how we know history."

Our knowledge of said book differs at different times. What we know after reading 100 pages is different than what we know after reading 200 pages. But a book is different than knowledge in time since time is continuously changing and is 'dynamic' knowledge so to speak whereas a book is 'static' knowledge, it's not going to change. What is written is what is written. What we know today is different than what we knew yesterday. How can god know what occurred 'today' or what occurred 'yesterday' is if he has no experiential knowledge of time and cannot know different things at different times?

God cannot know timed knowledge for the same reason that your god cannot know suffering or anything which material beings experience, because god is not a material being (according to most theistic depictions). God cannot have experiential knowledge of things it cannot experience due to the nature of god as a being.

"I suggest that you write to the authors of this peer reviewed paper and question their references and let me know what they say. In the meantime I will take them at their word."

No, you distorted this information for your own cynical purposes. You invoked a professional journal paper which referenced four citations which you did not bother to investigate talking about unintended live births. You had previously said that it was 'common practice' for doctors to kill unintended live born babies, which is a criminal act obviously since in the two oddball cases of this occurring, the people in question were charged with murder. You insinuated that in the paper and endnotes you referenced and told me 'look up myself', that you assumed that the doctors simply allowed the live born babies to do and did not give them any care, which would again be a criminal act.

You drew warped conclusions that you had no basis for drawing and which the information you provided gave you no basis to draw (your idea of good research). You deliberately misinformed people in order to advance your anti-choice political agenda, while cynically and hypocritically accusing the "pro-choice lobby" of doing such things.

The authors of the peer reviewed article are not going to write me back telling me that it's "common practice" for doctors to negligently allow live born babies to die when there are unintended live births, which is what you said. Nor are they going to tell me that it t's common practice to kill them outright, which is what you said earlier.

"I also suggest you reread the reference on the Phily doctor who is charged with killing live births by severing their spinal cord with scissors."

Which of course you earlier incorrectly said they died of suffocation. It's quite clear you don't even bother to read the propaganda you spout off here. The case of Philadelphia was already addressed. PA is a state which banned late-term abortions. It was operating illegally. So your goal of banning late-term abortion would have no effect on this. You used this case as a bludgeon to demonize all abortion providers and claim that it was "common practice" for doctors to engage in infanticide, when that's clearly not true. You're a liar. What you did was on par with pointing to a case of mentally ill mother drowning her child in a bathtub and then concluding that it is *common practice for mothers to drown their babies in the bathtub*.

*to die and not get any care

in fairness to the mentally ill, many mothers suffer from post-partum depression, member of my own family have, and before there was decent anti-depressants they have taken their own lives.

It is not like there is a special subset of humans who are classed as 'mentally ill' - It is the case the hormonal changes in the body associated with pregnancy cause behavioural changes in women (along with chemical imbalances in the brain)

"At the time of the choice, I did not know what I chose"

Nor do you in this case. God knows, but you do not. That is sufficient to keep your autonomy.

If time travel were invented, and you sent yesterday's breakfast menu into the past (say using neutrinos) to a distant planet, there would be no paradox, no compromise of your freedom, unless the distant planet then told YOU BEFORE yesterday what you were going to have for breakfast.

Along similar lines, the famous time travel paradoxes have had to do with such things as going back and killing (or talking to) your grandfather. Going back in time and hiding out in a cave in the Himalayas and just being there, knowing the future but not impacting it, would create no paradoxes at all, and no problems for freedom.

"You cannot change what is a known outcome."

What is known to YOU. But if somebody ELSE knows it, and they know it BECAUSE it is what you will / do do, then there is no problem.

See Newcomb's paradox. Key is to realize that nobody has ever actually shown that it is a paradox.

"*Would* do. The key term there is *would*, which is conditional. It does not express certainty. I do not know for *certain* what my wife will *likely* do about Edith."

No, but your knowledge is not perfect, like God's is.

"God cannot know timed knowledge for the same reason that your god cannot know suffering or anything which material beings experience, because god is not a material being (according to most theistic depictions)."

Well, physical suffering anyway. We don't have a good argument that (for example) mental anguish would require a body, if you once accept that minds can exist without bodies.

But that's a minor point compared to the obbvious one, namely, that's part of why we have an incarnation.

@ Orathaic, fair point. I was just trying to make the point that Fulham paints everybody with the broad brush of one or two extreme isolated cases of lawbreaking.