8th amendment referendum part 3 - Mod note and FAQ in post #1

optogirl

HonestKevin wrote: »

I said people who were conceived as a result of rape or incest have been made to feel like second class citizens in this country over the last 24 months. You agreed, but went one step further and labelled these people as "victims":



I never gave any examples of "where the 8th is compounding the misery of victims". Its clear we were talking about the same thing and now you are trying to cover your back. You clearly called children who were conceived as a result of rape or incest as "victims".

Putting labels on unborn children based on how they were conceived is something Ireland did in the 1950's. It would be nice if we could stop labeling children before they even come out of the womb.

I clearly did not. Read, re-read, and read again.

gctest50

HonestKevin wrote: »

.........

And if they are made of human dna, they are entitled to human rights.

Appendixes then need someone to stand up for their rights ?

B0jangles

gctest50 wrote: »

Appendixes then need someone to stand up for their rights ?

By this poster's logic, waxing salons commit literally dozens of massacres every single day since human DNA can be extracted successfully from a single hair root.

Someone better tell the U.N.

Zubeneschamali

HonestKevin wrote: »

And if they are made of human dna, they are entitled to human rights.

My appendix is made of human DNA, but if a doctor says it has to come out, out it comes.

And the Supreme Court ruled recently that no, the unborn are not children, and have no Constitutional rights other than the equal but qualified right to life granted to them by the 8th (and 13th) amendment.

Bridge93

HonestKevin wrote: »

There is no such thing as "foetus" dna. Its only human dna. That's why aborted baby parts are so valuable. They can be used for stem cell research for humans because, guess why, unborn babies are made of human dna.

And if they are made of human dna, they are entitled to human rights.

Humans share 90% of their DNA with mice. Should mice get 90% of the human rights we get? Do bananas deserve 60% of our human rights?

Hector Savage

seamus wrote: »

Not from where I'm standing. From where I'm standing, all of the silencing tactics are coming from the pro-life side; whether that's tearing down posters or making complaints to venues to try and get pro-choice events cancelled.

Both have been at it in the past, but the pro-life side appear to have really ramped it up.

This is what it uses;
https://blocktogether.org/#details

I had considered writing a "crowdsourcing" blocking extension, and a couple of issues occurred to me - you appear to have encountered one of them. In this case, someone using the "repeal shield" has blocked you. And by extension this means that everyone using it, has blocked you.

Which is a great idea in theory for weeding out trolls and bots, but if someone using this extension blocks you for another reason, then you get filtered out too.

A better system would take multiple factors into account before auto-blocking anyone. But any road, these are personal twitter users, so their method of selecting who and why to block anyone, is entirely up to them. Nobody has a right to not be blocked.

As said above, your are not "giving" your vote to anyone. This is not about being courted by either side until you make a decision. Look at the facts and make up your own mind. Anyone who casts a vote in a referendum based on the behaviour of either side, is an idiot.

Reason it annoys me is , it just shows how fucking fragile they are if they are blocking people on their own side for fuxake !!!

If they block me because I happened to have liked a tweet that was deemed "pro life" purely because it came from a pro life account - but happened to be about football - what does it say , I don't think the pro life side are so active blocking people on social media.
Then again the average age is probably 55+ ...

Timberrrrrrrr

HonestKevin wrote: »

There is no such thing as "foetus" dna. Its only human dna. That's why aborted baby parts are so valuable. They can be used for stem cell research for humans because, guess why, unborn babies are made of human dna.

And if they are made of human dna, they are entitled to human rights.

The mole on my ass cheek is made from human DNA, Does it have the right to life or is it ok for me to have it removed?

AtomicHorror

HonestKevin wrote: »

There is no such thing as "foetus" dna. Its only human dna. That's why aborted baby parts are so valuable. They can be used for stem cell research for humans because, guess why, unborn babies are made of human dna.

There's no such thing as foetus DNA, but you don't call a child a teenager, or a neonate elderly. There are distinct, biologically meaningful stages in human development, and that includes real, meaningful distinctions between zygote, embryo, foetus, neonate, infant and child.

HonestKevin wrote: »

And if they are made of human dna, they are entitled to human rights.

That's a really bad place to draw the line.

Frozen sperm cells are "made of" human DNA. Similarly frozen embryos. Also HeLa, HEK293 and all other human culture cell lines- ie. the dishes of living human cells we use for normal lab research.

Hell, by this definition if you bleed you have to grant human rights to your poor , dying blood cells (well the white cells anyway).

You have not thought any of this through in any depth.

nozzferrahhtoo

Mousewar wrote: »

This is my first post on this thread. I've read about 1% of it in total. It just seems to me that you have bandied a particular argument around that is catching. I sought to address that.

Yea truth is catching. But what I was referring to was your "Unwilling as I am to engage you..." narrative that you were using to dodge discussing the issue with me before. And now you have shifted to just taking digs at me in the third person with others. Just think it is worth sticking a flag in that.

Mousewar wrote: »

I was just pointing out that it was their judgement and not some sort of self-evident truism as the language ("a foetus of less that 12 weeks cannot be considered as valuable as the life of an actual born person") seems to imply.

And yet none of the data sets available to us appears to give any kind of coherent basis to anyone on this thread to argue that value. So I would certainly be sympathetic with the user saying "cannot be considered" in that context. There, so far, genuinely does not seem to be any real way to do it. Other than on faith I guess. But with faith, all bets are off usually.

But I would read what the user said as a way of pointing out that there appears to be no arguments, evidence, data or reasoning on offer... least of all on this thread or by yourself.... to coherently base such a valuation on. It seems in can not be done.

Mousewar wrote: »

I don't believe we have a right to value one form of human life over another nor do I think we have the capability quite frankly.

Speak for yourself. I think there are many coherent ways to do it. As I said there is good discourse there to be had, and has been had, on valuing human life relative to another. YOU might not have the capability to have that discourse, and there is nothing at all wrong with that. I have no capability to have any meaningful discourse on football or many forms of law for example. It is not my area. But there is no "we" in play there. It is you.

Further as I said we do not have the right NOT to have that discourse. The start and end of the concept of, process of, and effects of valuation of that form lies with us. We have to have that discourse, even if people like yourself at the individual level wish to opt out of it.

Mousewar wrote: »

The basis of devaluing the life of the unborn is to appeal to its lack of x,y, or z. I think that is a flawed and morally wrong approach to the issue.

THAT you think that is clear. WHY you think it not so much, and merely repeating the things I have rebutted again is not increasing the substance behind them. AGAIN however, no one is devaluing anything here. Rather they are pointing out that your move of pretending that value is even there in the first place is an erroneous one. You seem to want to have everyone simply take it as default that that value is inherently there. And that therefore any move by someone like me has to be seen as devaluing it.

No. The reality is no one is, or has to, devalue anything. YOU have failed to substantiate the move of even considering that value to be there in the first place.

Mousewar wrote: »

Perhaps, you feel comfortable making these kinds of value judgements on human life. I do not.

Then don't. But that does not mean, as you have pretended, that the rest of us can not, or should not. We very much can. We very very much should.

Mousewar wrote: »

Yes I understand the concept. Analogies have to be sufficiently similar to merit the analogy. My point is that your analogy is not sufficiently similar with the prominent differences outweighing the similarity you are pointing out. You're saying it's not a human, it's a plan for a human. I'm saying it's not a plan for a human, it's a proto-human. A blueprint is not a proto-house. Hence, your analogy is poor.

Yet it stands on the merits it was used for, and can not be discredited on merits it never required and was never based on in the first place. Further it is a weak interlocutor that can ONLY attack the analogy rather than the point it was intended to highlight. One should do both, the latter, or neither. Doing solely the former is weak.

AGAIN the distinction being made is between the process that produces a human and the human itself. Just like a blue print is not a house, the process that produces a human is not itself a human. I know all the arguments why we should value the latter. I have yet to hear any argument lending value to the former. Least of all from you. And on other threads one user, before simply running away as he could not then defend it in any way, whole sale invented the "Right to become sentient".

Mousewar wrote: »

I don't think self-building blueprints exist so yes, if one did exist, it would be quite unique and indeed remarkable. Ah you're not talking about self-building blueprints anymore, you're talking about self-replicating life. I think it's quite remarkable in all lifeforms actually. And is unique to life itself. But we're not talking about repealing an amendment on animal or insect abortion rights so I'm not sure there's much point going into it.

The point of it is to show that when someone says some X is valueable, but then only lends value to X when it suits them to do so, is not being honest with us, themselves, or both. Your own rhetoric therefore renders this "self-replicating life" attribute irrelevant. A Red Herring but otherwise interesting rabbit hole.

The move of people against abortion is to ascribe or assign some value to the fetus that lends substance to the idea we should not terminate that life. So if they reach for an attribute that ALL life has, yet they are a-ok terminating all that other life (such as swatting a fly, eating a steak, and so forth) then clearly that is not ACTUALLY the point that is mediating the moral concerns. Rather it is a point they have grasped at retrospectively AFTER having chosen their conclusion. They are simply not being consistent.

So yes we can marvel at how a fertilized single cell can basically draw on the resources around it to construct itself into a life form. I know I do anyway. But it's relevance to the abortion debate, or why you think it suddenly lends any kind of value to the fetus that means abortion is a moral issue of concern.... still escapes me and, I am beginning to suspect, you too.

Mousewar wrote: »

As a human species we value human life above other life. That's fine. My point is not as to appropriateness of that but that appropriateness of valuing one human life over another.

The reason for that move is that we add more nuance to the phrase "Human Life". We dig in on it and work out what it is we actually value when we say "Human Life". What are the attributes that cause us to value "Human Life", especially merely individual instances of it, in ways we do not value any other life.

And the attributes we come up with lend more nuance to the phrase "Human Life". We realize that we are not just talking biology here. Clearly in terms of biology it is "Human Life" from conception. But over the course of that life different things come into, and out of, play.

So one is led to a point quite often where one realizes that it is not "Human Life" so much as "sentience and personhood" we are valuing when we discuss "Human Life". And then when we read a sentence like yours of "appropriateness of valuing one human life over another" we re-parse that as "No, what we are doing here is valuing something we feel we CAN call Human Life, over something we can not".

In other words we are not valuing one human life over another, so much as we are valuing a person over something that is not a person.

Mousewar wrote: »

I'm not sure I fully follow this but I think I disagree. I believe you use this language to dehumanise the foetus. Or, if you don't intend to, that is still the result.

If you say something is worth 1000 euro and I check online and I find that item is actually worth 10 euro, and I tell you that.... I am not devaluing the item. Rather I am showing you that the item never had the value you pretended it did.

Similarly the language and rhetoric I am using is not to, and does not, dehumanize the fetus. Rather is challenged the mere assertion (as yet unsupported by you or others OTHER than by assertion) of having humanized it in the first place. You seem to wish too much to be taken as "default" that I have yet to see validated or established at all. Rather you are taking a vague question begging term like "Human Life" and merely blanket applying it as if it sets the defaults upon which any further discussion should be had.

Mousewar wrote: »

I don't know, I'm not a scientist. My point is that you can describe something as "just x" or "just y" and make it sound thoroughly unimportant. It's just sophistry though. We're all "just something".

EXACTLY! This is a point of common ground so we can work from here. So GIVEN that everything and everyone is "Just something"..... what do you think are the attributes upon which we can begin to distinguish entities of value from entities of no value?

I think "Human life" begs that question. It is like I ask you to explain me the concept of "possession and ownership", and you point a border on a map out to me. In other words rather than explain "possession and ownership" to me, you point me to a single method of identifying it instead. Thus begging the question entirely.

Similarly "Human Life" is the "border" in this analogy. Rather than explain what is actually of value, you point to a vague attribute used in the discussion of the very thing I asked about. Thus not at all answering the question.

So if we value one "just something" and we do not value another "Just something"........ WHY is that.

Mousewar wrote: »

Yes and I value all human life. I don't break it down anymore than that and nor do I think we can or should.

And yet I can, should and HAVE. Again I think you mistake your inability or unwillingness to do something as a general attribute of us all. It really is just you.

Mousewar wrote: »

No, I reject your use of sentience as the be all and end all of determining the value of human life.

Rejection by assertion is not of much value however. Imagine a universe with no sentience at all. It would be one without value or valuation. It simply would be a concept absent from that universe. The very IDEA of value comes from the very thing that you are rejecting as being a mediation point of value.

What is morality and ethics even FOR if it is not to mediate the actions, and well being, of sentient creatures? You say it can not determine the value of human life, yet it determines the values of every ethical and moral action and philosophy we hold as a species. You can not simply dismiss it, it is the inextricable core of everything we are and do.

Further I think even a modicum of thought experiments shows your dismissal by assertion approach to be flawed. Imagine a burning building. Ask 1000 people what they would save if they could save any and only ONE of a PAIR of entities from that building. Then feed in any pair you want. A rock and a frog. A fly and a cat. A dog and a cat. A dog and a monkey. A shark or a dolphin. A great ape or a koala.

I think not only do you know, but I suspect you also know WHY, how the results will turn out. The users will almost consistently pick every time to save the entity further along the continuum of sentience and conscious awareness. Showing that innately and often explicitly we very much do mediate our moral and ethical concerns on the point you are desperate to simply dismiss out of hand.

Further that point is so strong you will find people will often save ONE instance of a higher sentience over a MULTITUDE of instances of a lower one. You will find them saving the Great Ape over any sane number of, say, cats. I know I would too. If I could save 1 Great Ape or 100 cats.... I would be taking the ape.

Further if I had a machine that looks like a toaster that I could transfer your knowledge, intellect and sentience into, including an interface to communicate with you........ and a perfect life support machine that would keep your now not sentient body alive for 50 years........... and then I offered one OR the other to your loved ones. I think we both know, and again I think we both know why, which one they would choose to take home. We know which they value and we know WHY they value it.

Mousewar wrote: »

I don't equivocate between the sentience of the child and the adult because I don't see it as a worthwhile distinction. That is my whole point. You can use that as your criteria all you like. It doesn't mean the rest of us have to.

Any my whole point is that this is a red herring and false analogy. Because when aborting a fetus we are NOT equivocating between the sentience of one entity and that of another. We are discussing a biological entity of only barely differentiated cells, that is not apparently sentient AT ALL. On any level. Even a little bit.

So your whole concern about valuing "one human life over another" is rendered somewhat incoherent.

Mousewar wrote: »

There's not really.

Except there really is. Devaluing meant to take value away from something. That is very distinct from noticing the something did not have the value assigned in the first place. Again with dismissal by assertion. Simply saying "Nuh-uh" at a point does not rebut it. Refer again to me "1000 euro 10 euro" comment above. There is, as I said, a massive difference between devaluing and CORRECTLY valuing something. I am doing the latter. You are pretending it is the former.

nozzferrahhtoo

HonestKevin wrote: »

And if they are made of human dna, they are entitled to human rights.

That is an assertion and quite a leap from the comment before the comma and the one after it. Could you lend more substance and the requisite philosophy to the leap you have made from the one to the other?

And, just to test your hypothesis too, what rights do you think the cells we create, and often destroy, in stem cell research and IVF have or should have? And how should we exercise or realize those rights?

Zubeneschamali

Hector Savage wrote: »

Reason it annoys me is , it just shows how fucking fragile they are if they are blocking people on their own side for fuxake !!!

Seriously, who cares? Someone I don't know blocks me on social media because their filters are bad - no skin off my nose.

baylah17

HonestKevin wrote: »

swampgas wrote: »

It would be nice if we stopped calling embryos and foetus "children" too.

But carry on ranting, I'm sure you think you are making some kind of point.

There is no such thing as "foetus" dna. Its only human dna. That's why aborted baby parts are so valuable. They can be used for stem cell research for humans because, guess why, unborn babies are made of human dna.

And if they are made of human dna, they are entitled to human rights.

My ****e is made of human DNA
How many human rights would you grant to my morning turd?

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiviC0uVsr8

Hannibal_Smith

HonestKevin wrote: »

Most rape victims who get pregnant don't want an abortion. Even though the pro-repeal side will tell such a woman that their unborn baby is "different", its not "respectable", most rape victims thankfully take the position that their baby is respectable. And they are 100% right. Their baby is respectable even if pro-repeal people try to say it isn't.

I have never seen a post so spectacularly miss the pro choice campaign :pac:

The clue is in the name, pro CHOICE

HonestKevin

Bridge93 wrote: »

Humans share 90% of their DNA with mice. Should mice get 90% of the human rights we get? Do bananas deserve 60% of our human rights?

This is the whole tactic of the pro-repeal side. They have to devalue human life as much as possible in order to convince themselves that abortion is ok.

.......

This post has been deleted.

robarmstrong

HonestKevin wrote: »

This is the whole tactic of the pro-repeal side. They have to devalue human life as much as possible in order to convince themselves that abortion is ok.

The way pro-life are devaluing women as much as possible in order to convince themselves that forcing someone to carry an unwanted pregnancy to birth is okay.

Am I doing this right?

AtomicHorror

HonestKevin wrote: »

This is the whole tactic of the pro-repeal side. They have to devalue human life as much as possible in order to convince themselves that abortion is ok.

No it isn't- you're willfully misunderstanding. The question asked of you is rhetorical and is supposed to highlight that you can't base the value of human life, or define "human" by DNA alone.

Also this cow is small and the ones in the field are far away.

HonestKevin

Hannibal_Smith wrote: »

The clue is in the name, pro CHOICE

So if a woman gets pregnant by a black man and she decides she doesn't want a black baby, would you support her in her choice to have an abortion solely based on the color of the babys skin?

Because that's the proposed legislation says. A woman can have an abortion for ANY reason up to 12 weeks. Apparently racism is a "choice" now. That's what is so devastating about what is being proposed. It is a complete breakdown of human rights. It facilitates discrimination against unborn children based on the color of their skin, or based on how they were conceived (ie conceived through rape or incest).

Nice to know that 2018 Ireland is proposing to allow for unborn babies to be discriminated against based on the color of their skin or how they were conceived. This is a real step forward.

kylith

Hector Savage wrote: »

Reason it annoys me is , it just shows how fucking fragile they are if they are blocking people on their own side for fuxake !!!

If they block me because I happened to have liked a tweet that was deemed "pro life" purely because it came from a pro life account - but happened to be about football - what does it say , I don't think the pro life side are so active blocking people on social media.
Then again the average age is probably 55+ ...

Why do you care? Why are you so desperate for pro-choice people to see your posts?

January

Deleted User wrote: »

lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiviC0uVsr8

lol

https://www.facebook.com/abortionrightscampaign/videos/1224728841006221/

kylith

HonestKevin wrote: »

Nice to know that 2018 Ireland is proposing to allow for unborn babies to be discriminated against based on the color of their skin or how they were conceived. This is a real step forward.

For the second time of asking, Kevin: do you think that it acceptable for a woman who is pregnant through rape to be forced to continue with the pregnancy against her will?

ELM327

HonestKevin wrote: »

So if a woman gets pregnant by a black man and she decides she doesn't want a black baby, would you support her in her choice to have an abortion solely based on the color of the babys skin?

Because that's the proposed legislation says. A woman can have an abortion for ANY reason up to 12 weeks. Apparently racism is a "choice" now. That's what is so devastating about what is being proposed. It is a complete breakdown of human rights. It facilitates discrimination against unborn children based on the color of their skin, or based on how they were conceived (ie conceived through rape or incest).

Nice to know that 2018 Ireland is proposing to allow for unborn babies to be discriminated against based on the color of their skin or how they were conceived. This is a real step forward.

If the woman decides she wants an abortion because she doesn't like the look of the bus driver that day, quite frankly it's none of my (or your) business.
If she wanted a tonsillectomy because she kissed a black man, and could find a doctor to do the operation, why do you think that you have the right to tell her no?

robarmstrong

HonestKevin wrote: »

So if a woman gets pregnant by a black man and she decides she doesn't want a black baby, would you support her in her choice to have an abortion solely based on the color of the babys skin?

Because that's the proposed legislation says. A woman can have an abortion for ANY reason up to 12 weeks. Apparently racism is a "choice" now. That's what is so devastating about what is being proposed. It is a complete breakdown of human rights. It facilitates discrimination against unborn children based on the color of their skin, or based on how they were conceived (ie conceived through rape or incest).

Nice to know that 2018 Ireland is proposing to allow for unborn babies to be discriminated against based on the color of their skin or how they were conceived. This is a real step forward.

January

Literally clutching at straws at this stage of the argument.

baylah17

HonestKevin wrote: »

Bridge93 wrote: »

Humans share 90% of their DNA with mice. Should mice get 90% of the human rights we get? Do bananas deserve 60% of our human rights?

This is the whole tactic of the pro-repeal side. They have to devalue human life as much as possible in order to convince themselves that abortion is ok.

Still waiting for you to iterate the human rights you believe my morning sh.ite is entitled too be I g it is made of human DNA

Mousewar

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yea....

Apologies but I find your writing quite impenetrable. Perhaps, it is my shortcoming. Anyway, I made my point and responded to you as, you're correct, I should have addressed you directly rather than indirectly.
The gist of our disagreement can be boiled down to this point, however:

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Similarly the language and rhetoric I am using is not to, and does not, dehumanize the fetus. Rather is challenged the mere assertion (as yet unsupported by you or others OTHER than by assertion) of having humanized it in the first place.

Yes, I have humanised a human. That is my position.

Anyway, as I said before, I understand the immense difficulties that women face when it comes to issues regarding their pregnancies and ultimately see it as their decision how they wish to proceed with their bodies and the life inside. As such, I shall vote Yes.

ELM327

baylah17 wrote: »

Still waiting for you to iterate the human rights you believe my morning sh.ite is entitled too be I g it is made of human DNA

Did you flush the toilet after?
You inhumane monster :D:D:D

robarmstrong

Mousewar wrote: »

Yes, I have humanised a human. That is my position.

Anyway, as I said before, I understand the immense difficulties that women face when it comes to issues regarding their pregnancies and ultimately see it as their decision how they wish to proceed with their bodies and the life inside. As such, I shall vote Yes.

Many pro-lifers are in your exact mindset.

They humanise the fetus (of which I'm guilty of in my partner and I's experience with miscarriages and so on so forth), understand the immense difficulties that women face when it comes to issues regarding their pregnancies but fall short of doing what you do, by seeing it as ultimately their decision on how they wish to proceed with their bodies and the life inside.

If pro-life individuals could get over that final hurdle instead of taking that decision away from women, things would be better.

So in short, thank you for having a reasonable approach to this and voting Yes.

_Dara_

Take heart, folks. HonestKev is doing a great job of making the No campaign look nonsensical. He’s trying to make the Yes campaign look bad but is failing miserably. Take heart, people.