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The All New Abortion Spin-Off Thread...
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Goduznt Xzst wrote: »Again this is where the pro-choice argument comes into it. It's really up to the parents to decide in this case. There is no right or wrong answer. If they choose to not give the baby a brain should they be charged with murder? No consciousness was ever given the baby so none was ever taken.
Then I suppose I'm back to: if this situation actually occurred I don't think you would actually say that. It's easy to talk about a hypothetical medical treatment that will almost certainly never exist and say "discard it as you see fit" but if this was an actual medical reality and the baby could be given consciousness in 48 hours I can't honestly picture anyone saying that because there is no longer conflict of rights. Basically, if there was no compelling reason to pick consciousness as the defining attribute (ie it allows you to exclude foetuses that are conflicting with the woman's rights), being a human being would do just fine. Similar to how we define animals as not having rights basically because we like to eat them but if there was a plentiful food source that was just as good as animals (like a meat tree
) but didn't involve killing there would be an awful lot more vegetarians. Just like how fur became socially unacceptable because there was no good reason for it 0 -
Jeez... why can't you type out the whole post before submitting it :rolleyes: I keep having to refresh the page to see what amendments you've made to your posts before I reply
Then I suppose I'm back to: if this situation actually occurred I don't think you would actually say that.
Then you are back to having no feet to stand on because you are making assumptions. I'm sure if I gave you the answer you wanted to hear you would of assumed I would "actually say that". If not then the question was pointless as you aren't open to answers that disagree with your viewpoint.but if there was a plentiful food source that was just as good as animals but didn't involve killing there would be an awful lot more vegetarians
But the right to eat meat would still remain. You could not impose, in a free society, the ban on killing animals for food. Thus as the right to wear fur still remains.
The whole conferring of rights is arbitrary, if a majority of humans eventually give equal rights to all animals so be it, but it doesn't mean that all humans have to agree with it.0 -
Then I suppose I'm back to: if this situation actually occurred I don't think you would actually say that. It's easy to talk about a hypothetical medical treatment that will almost certainly never exist and say "discard it as you see fit" but if this was an actual medical reality and the baby could be given consciousness in 48 hours I can't honestly picture anyone saying that because there is no longer conflict of rights. Basically, if there was no compelling reason to pick consciousness as the defining attribute (ie it allows you to exclude foetuses that are conflicting with the woman's rights), being a human being would do just fine. Similar to how we define animals as not having rights basically because we like to eat them but if there was a plentiful food source that was just as good as animals (like a meat tree) but didn't involve killing there would be an awful lot more vegetarians. Just like how fur became socially unacceptable because there was no good reason for it
My only problem with what is in bold is how do you define a human being? Just because you somehow seem vindicated in what you hold to be the definition of a human being doesn't mean we have to accept that definition and your motivations to wanting that to be the definition elude me. IMHO your definition of a human being i.e. a few cells at earlier stages of conception rather diminishes what it means to be human.
Me = human being.
Cells on the way to becoming a human being = Cells on the way to becoming a human being.
Quick google of the definition of a human being:
homo: any living or extinct member of the family Hominidae characterized by superior intelligence, articulate speech, and erect carriage.
I've never seen cells after conception with any of those characteristics. Seriously you have to accept that your definition of a human being is arbitrary as anyones.0 -
Please don't roll your eyes at me, sometimes I think of more to add after I hit submitGoduznt Xzst wrote: »Jeez... why can't you type out the whole post before submitting it :rolleyes: I keep having to refresh the page to see what amendments you've made to your posts before I reply
You see my whole point of posting in this thread is because I believe people who convince themselves that the foetus has no value are rationalising to themselves because the reality is it has some value and if the conflict of rights was taken away they would acknowledge that. I still believe that and I believe that if you were presented with such a situation in reality you would object to people discarding their baby for no good reason. It's all well and good to sit there at your computer and say "discard it as you see fit" but I just don't see it happeningGoduznt Xzst wrote: »Then you are back to having no feet to stand on because you are making assumptions. I'm sure if I gave you the answer you wanted to hear you would of assumed I would "actually say that". If not then the question was pointless as you aren't open to answers that disagree with your viewpoint.Goduznt Xzst wrote: »But the right to eat meat would still remain. You could not impose, in a free society, the ban on killing animals for food. Thus as the right to wear fur still remains.
The whole conferring of rights is arbitrary, if a majority of humans eventually give equal rights to all animals so be it, but it doesn't mean that all humans have to agree with it.
Actually you could impose a ban on killing animals for food if there was no good reason to do it. Restrictions are placed on things all the time as people decide they shouldn't be done. The right to hunt is now licensed for example, you can't just go out and kill any animal you want. You can eat a duck but if you lock it up and torture it you'd be arrested because there's no good reason to do it.
The conferral of rights is not actually arbitrary, it's done based on discrete criteria and based on necessity. For example, before the industrial revolution work was pretty damn hard so people decided that one section of society (usually black people) didn't have rights and made them do all the work. People saw no moral problems with this for an awfully long time but as slavery stopped being necessary people came around and acknowledged that they should have rights because there was no longer a good reason for people to convince themselves they shouldn't have them. And fur used to be very widespread but as synthetic and better fabrics became available people decided there was no good reason for fur anymore and now people who wear it are vilified.
Basically what I want people to acknowledge here is that you have decided it doesn't have rights because its rights conflict with someone else's and if the conflict was taken away you wouldn't object anymore. Sink and CerebralCortex have acknowledged it, can you do the same?0 -
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