lazygal wrote: » No, but have a smilie anyway.
Absolam wrote: » In fairness, you stated your position on an alternate scenario; I was asking about your position on this one. I think I probably infer it from your answer below though. You didn't give a reason though; you avoided the question and said they shouldn't be imprisoned for doing something else. You're not being asked whether you support non-consensual medical procedures being enforced by the state though. You're being asked whether someone should be held responsible for killing someone else, and your answer seems to be no, not if they've been put in a situation they don't like?
Delirium wrote: » could you ask the question more clearly because I thought I'd answered the question(s) asked by yourself.
Absolam wrote: » Sure; with the medical procedure as a given, the question is is it right to choose not to endure the consequences of that procedure, thereby ending an innocent person's life? And if so, why? Like I said, I think I can probably infer your answer from your other, later answers, but I admit I'm intrigued as to why you think it's not wrong to kill an innocent person in freeing yourself from a(n admittedly onerous) situation purely because you were placed in the situation without your consent.
Delirium wrote: » That's the question the thought experiment was putting to people.
Delirium wrote: » How do you resolve your answer with your anti-abortion position?
lazybones32 wrote: » If all I had to do to save a life was endure more frequent urinating; moodiness; cravings and pain in the hips for a few months...it sounds pretty much like old age anyway.
lazygal wrote: » Well, this has to be the most patronising and blatently incorrect depiction of pregnancy I've read on this thread. And I suppose the giving birth part is no big deal too.
lazybones32 wrote: » But being abducted and kept on a table in a medical facility for 9 months is an accurate analogy for pregnancy?
lazygal wrote: » Why don't we let Nick explain when he began using the term "life equality amendment" and why he picked Down Syndrome out of the myriad disabilities he could have chosen?
Delirium wrote: » Consent is a basic principle when it comes to medicine and law. A person can refuse to start treatment or call a halt to it at any point during the treatment. You also can't imprison someone against their will (with exceptions for example of those sentenced to time in prison or for personal safety). The person is attached to the machine which is essentially imprisoning them for 9 months.
Delirium wrote: » Do I think it's right that a person dies due to the other disconnecting from the machine, no. Do I think it's right for someone to be required to go through 9 months of a medical procedure against their will, no.
Delirium wrote: » So then it is a question of how I resolve/ with with those contradictory positions. I give priority to the person who wants to disconnect. I can't get onboard with a 'life at any cost' frame of mind or abandoning the notion of consent in medicine.
Delirium wrote: » I hope that's somewhat closer to where the answer needs to be, though it's probably still a bit away from the type of answer you're looking for. But if you can tease something out of my answer to get to where you want to get to, fire ahead.
lazygal wrote: » No, he's quite clearly trying to imply, as Youth Defence regularly does, that women and girls can't be trusted to remain pregnant once abortion is available, so all choice must be denied to them. Unless they can go abroad in which case the unborn don't really matter any more. Nearly as muddled as his use of "life equality amendment' which was never used until the marriage equality referendum passed. People see right through this though, he's fooling no one.
Nick Park wrote: » I picked Down Syndrome as it is one of the commonly stated reasons for abortion in the US and the UK. It was also the condition picked up by Richard Dawkins when he described abortion as 'the moral thing to do' when an unborn child is diagnosed. <...> Btw, it would be good if you could engage in debate on this issues without resorting to untruths as to what people's motives are, or making silly accusations about 'not trusting women and girls'.
Nick Park wrote: » It was also a response to the dishonest and misleading term 'pro-choice'.
Nick Park wrote: » I began using the term "equality of life amendment" several years ago when I first began considering the possibility of a Referendum on the 8th Amendment. It was also a response to the dishonest and misleading term 'pro-choice'. I picked Down Syndrome as it is one of the commonly stated reasons for abortion in the US and the UK. It was also the condition picked up by Richard Dawkins when he described abortion as 'the moral thing to do' when an unborn child is diagnosed. I do believe that future generations will look back on us and see that aborting unborn children because they were the 'wrong' gender of had the wrong number of chromosomes was a human rights violation. The same reasoning would apply to other conditions. For example, my own daughter, Grace, had a condition called 'familial disautonomia' which is categorised by many as a so-called 'fatal fatal abnormality'. She lived a very joyful and fulfilling life of 4 years and 10 months, something I'm grateful for. Btw, it would be good if you could engage in debate on this issues without resorting to untruths as to what people's motives are, or making silly accusations about 'not trusting women and girls'.
Absolam wrote: » Feel free to recant any time you like Lazygal.... you can even borrow my smilie for it if you like.
lazygal wrote: » No, I'll just wait for Nick to explain why he feels he can call my position dishonest and misleading while claiming his position isn't.
Absolam wrote: » Hmmm.. do you think looking for that explanation is in any way relevant to the fact that you utterly misrepresented his post, or are you just hoping to change the subject away from what you did? If it helps things along (because I'm conscious your desire to claim people are saying things they aren't kind of drags us off topic), he didn't actually call your position dishonest and misleading (though saying he did kind of is...) he said the term 'pro-choice' is dishonest and misleading.
lazygal wrote: » Once again, I'll wait for Nick to clarify his own position.
Absolam wrote: » Consent is absolutely an issue generally; though I have to point out that the thought experiment skipped the issue of consent to the treatment (I note you've switched from procedure to treatment, which may be muddying the waters somewhat but still..) by stipulating it was already given (albeit not 'true' consent). So we're talking about consenting to continuing to be hooked up to a machine (since the person in question isn't receiving treatment, or being treated, a specificity I think you're avoiding when you say a person can refuse to start treatment or call a halt to it at any point; that principle applies to a person choosing not to receive treatment, there is no such general principle in place for people being a treatment, even though we might think there ought to be. I think we'd all also agree that someone ought not to be imprisoned without justification, and that being used as an unwilling 'treatment' for someone else probably would not rate highly, if at all as a justification. And I think we can all agree that neither of those are the question that we were discussing.
And that's closer to the crux of it; we know it's generally wrong to kill someone else (and again I note you're avoiding the fact that you are killing someone by disconnecting yourself from the machine and saying 'a person dies due to the other disconnecting from the machine' which is a rather telling mental distancing from the action you're saying you would perform), and we know it's wrong to subject someone to unwarranted imprisonment and involvement in a medical procedure (and/or treatment). What I'm finding tricky is the notion that if someone is subjected to the wrong of unwarranted imprisonment and involvement in a medical procedure, then somehow it is not wrong for them to kill a person (not even the person who subjected them to the wrongs, merely one in the way of their escaping the wrongs). I can't see how you imagine those two wrongs can make another wrong right.
Well, no one is suggesting a life at any cost frame of mind to be fair, or of abandoning the notion of consent in medicine. Nor even that these are contradictory positions; as far as I can see every discreet event in the sequence is wrong, and the sum of the events are wrong. You however are saying achieving personal liberty justifies killing an innocent; I'm not even sure how you consider that giving 'priority' unless you're saying one's right to liberty obviates another's right to life. That seems to say I'm justified in killing anyone who happens to get in my way (or is placed there by villains) when I'm escaping from false imprisonment which I have to say doesn't seem at all morally (or legally) 'right' to me.
I ahve to admit, I'm not looking for a type of answer, nor is there somewhere I want to get to, other than a clearer understanding of why or how you think it's morally justifiable to kill someone who themself has done no harm, and merely stands between you and the life you feel (or are) entitled to.
Delirium wrote: » The person who wants to disconnect (end the procedure) is connected so the sick person can treat their illness. Much like direct blood transfusion can be done to treat someone who has suffered large blood loss.
Delirium wrote: » I've already stated that both outcomes are wrong, i.e. compelling someone to be part of a medical procedure to treat another person and the other of a person dying. The problem is we can't separate the two issues.
Delirium wrote: » If you don't support the idea of allowing the person to disconnect from the machine your are abandoning the notion of consent in this instance. So in the prisoner escaping their false imprisionment, if they kill somone they should face a prison sentence or remain a prisoner?
Delirium wrote: » The two people at the opening of this scenario have done no harm. I'm pretty sure most legal systems support the principle of not being compelled to take part in a medical procedure against their will.
Delirium wrote: » Is there a point, medically speaking, where you consider a procedure a step too far for the person to endure to prevent the death of the sick person?
robdonn wrote: » I'd be very interested if you could expand on this particular point. What is misleading about the term 'pro-choice'?
Nick Park wrote: » It fails to address what is really the issue at hand - abortion. Think about this for a moment. If we were discussing the issue of capital punishment, then we would label the two sides as 'pro-death penalty' or 'anti-death penalty'. That would be reasonable since it identifies the issue at hand. Imagine if the guys supporting capital punishment insisted on being called 'pro-choice' on the specious grounds that they aren't wanting the death penalty to be carried out in all cases, but only that judges have the right to choose whether or not to impose the death penalty. You wouldn't tolerate that for a moment. Would you? The current issue at hand is abortion. More specifically, it is the Amendment to our Constitution which refers to the unborn having an equal right to life. Therefore it would be reasonable to talk about the two sides as 'pro-abortion' or 'anti-abortion'. Or as 'pro equality of life' and 'anti equality of life'. Those are the issues at hand. I do think pro-life is an accurate term (at least in my case, since I am pro-life in other areas, such as opposition to capital punishment or to warfare). However, I think it is a bit unfair to portray the other side as 'anti-life' - as if they were opposed to life in general. Equally, it is wrong to portray people as 'anti-choice'.
lazygal wrote: » You're pro pregnancy Nick, you don't think abortion is ever an option, even in cases where a 14 year old rape victim might be suicidal.
Absolam wrote: » I think that's just as misleading as 'anti-choice' , 'anti-life', 'pro-abortion', etc etc. Using the same logic as has been put forward, Nick isn't saying he wants everyone to be pregnant; he's saying he wants everyone to live. Hence pro-life, not pro-pregnancy.
Nick Park wrote: » I'm also pro-contraception where couples don't want to get pregnant. So I guess that makes me both 'pro-conception' and 'pro-pregnant'. :pac:
lazygal wrote: » Still avoiding dealing with the consequences of what will happen if your plan to ban all abortion comes to fruition?
Absolam wrote: » Still avoiding owning up to your misrepresentations?
lazygal wrote: » I didn't misrepresent anything. If you've an issue with my posts either report them or put me on ignore. I've no interest in feeding into your usual multi quote obsession.
