MightyMandarin wrote: » But how is that placing them below their rights? I would argue that it's merely applying the same value to them, in which case, it is perfectly rationaland reasonable.
kylith wrote: » Lets say I was pregnant. I don't want to be pregnant; maybe I live in poverty, maybe I already have 6 children, maybe my partner is abusive, maybe I'm 16 years old, maybe I was raped. I do not have the right to bodily autonomy while I am pregnant. I have lost that right simply because I am pregnant. I cannot terminate the pregnancy even if I require medical treatment, in fact, I cannot even receive medical treatment if it would harm the fetus unless my life is in immediate danger (i.e. I have to be in the process of dying). Some of my human rights are suspended because I am pregnant, whether or not I want to be.
Grayson wrote: » You're doing it without a rational justification. Do you think that terminations should be allowed at an earlier stage? How about 6 or 8 weeks? If not why? And please don't start with the assumption that the embryo has the same rights. Demonstrate that it should.
MightyMandarin wrote: » Those arguments are compelling, but they still do not provide justification for taking the life of an unborn person imo. You, and others, may believe that a woman's choice is superior to the unborn's right to live, but I simply do not. Unless we're talking about specific circumstances which I've already mentioned, I just cannot justify it ethically.
kylith wrote: » I do not view the fetus as being alive until it has a functioning brain, and until that point I do not see that it can have a right to a life that (IMO) does not exist. You can disagree, of course, and I have no problem with you doing so. If you see a fetus as alive I wold obviously support your right NOT to have an abortion. However in insisting that the fetus is alive and a person you are denying my right to my beliefs and imposing on me a law which I see is unjust and unfair.
MightyMandarin wrote: » How is it irrational? To me, if there's nothing to say that an embryo won't develop into a living, breathing human, then what justification is there for saying that they should not live? How early we terminate a pregnancy makes no difference to me; it's still morally repugnant to the ethics of a just society. Obviously contraception is legal, yet effectively does the same thing, but I think compromise at some point must be achieved between both sides, and I accept its legality. After it's effects are made redundant however, I see no reason why a pregnancy should be terminated in ordinary circumstances.
MightyMandarin wrote: » The problem is that while that's a valid argument, I'm advocating on behalf of the unborn child, who would have their right to life denied and a law imposed on them which is unjust and unfair. I've said before, the debate is about rights and interests; some might view the mother's choice as more important, while others believe the right to live must be protected at all costs.
Grayson wrote: » You're doing it without a rational justification. Do you think that terminations should be allowed at an earlier stage? How about 6 or 8 weeks? If not why?And please don't start with the assumption that the embryo has the same rights. Demonstrate that it should.
One eyed Jack wrote: » Yeah, because that would be ignoring the current reality that an implanted embryo has an equal right to life as the woman under current Irish law. Isn't that the whole point of the 8th amendment? The onus is on you then, to demonstrate why it shouldn't, if you actually hope to have the 8th amendment repealed.
Shenshen wrote: » Imagine a fertility clinic went on fire. Imagine that, by some weird coincidence, you find yourself as the only person inside and you suddenly face a choice : in the room to your right, there's a baby crying. in the room to your left, there are the freezers with hundreds of frozen embryos. You can either grab the baby, or get 200 embryos out of the building and safe them from distraction. Would you honestly go for the embryos?
Shenshen wrote: » It's a bit of an old hat in these abortion debates, but I think it might be worth considering nevertheless : Imagine a fertility clinic went on fire. Imagine that, by some weird coincidence, you find yourself as the only person inside and you suddenly face a choice : in the room to your right, there's a baby crying. in the room to your left, there are the freezers with hundreds of frozen embryos. You can either grab the baby, or get 200 embryos out of the building and safe them from distraction. Would you honestly go for the embryos?
Grayson wrote: » There's two things wrong there. Firstly you're saying that something that possibly will happen is the same as something actually happening. It's like saying that once you have placed a bet on a horse you have won the money. Alternatively you can look backwards and say that each step beforehand is just as necessary. So stopping someone from having sex is the same as an abortion since you are removing one stage of what is technically an infinite regress. That sort of reasoning gets messy. None of these are actually real, they're just hypothetical and so you're saying that a potential hypothetical child in the future has the same rights as someone who exists right now. Secondly, you mentioned compromise. You actually said that contraception is technically the same thing but you're willing to compromise. How, if you believe abortion is murder, and you believe that contraception is the same as abortion, can you think contraception should be legal? The problem with potentiality is that it doesn't exist right now. If you want to believe that potentiality should have the same legal status as actuality then you're going down a slippery slope. Should people charged with murder be charged with the murder of all the potential offspring the victim could have had. And their offspring's children and so on? As you see, it's messy. It's a convoluted argument with loads of holes in it. You're best sticking with an argument that involves actuality. Why the actual embryo has the same rights. Do you have any argument/reasons for use to believe that.
Grayson wrote: » Err. No. This is a discussion about whether or not the law should be there. The poster I was replying to said that it should, I asked why. This isn't a court of law. I'm not challenging a legal case. I'm not challenging the state in a legal case. This is boards.ie. I'm challenging the beliefs of another person who stated those beliefs.
One eyed Jack wrote: » So... ignore reality and work from a scenario that suits your own argument. Well, I must say, that sounds all sorts of rational, reasonable, and incredibly convenient.
farmchoice wrote: » in fairness this thread is about repealing the 8th so one eyed jacks position is a very reasonable one. the repeal movement are the one looking to change the status quo, so they have to provide the compelling case for change
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » And as usual a distortion of my position. What I actually say is that the arguments I offer become grayer and LESS safe as time goes on and certainly around the area of 24 weeks.
What I MOST often say is that the VAST majority of abortions...
We can never be 100% certain at ANY point. So it is incumbent upon us to scale higher cut offs coherently and justifiably with reducing certainty.
I genuinely do not argue for 24 weeks or see it as a good target.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » And I find that what we DO know keeps us very safe indeed up to 24 weeks...
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » ...even at the UKs 24 weeks there are genuine reasons to be sure enough we are still on safe ground....
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » ...if Ireland came in with a 24 week law tomorrow I would likely not argue against it.
nozzferrahhtoo wrote: » I therefore have absolutely no humanism moral or ethical qualms about abortion up to 24 weeks...
I understand that seeing something with little fingers and toes lights up every emotional area of your brain. It does for me too.
I just have the additional ability to push further and deeper than that and realize that no matter what an entity LOOKS like......... my moral and ethical concern for it is mediated SOLELY by it's capacity for consciousness, sentience and subjective awareness. And if a little baby shaped thing lacks it, then I have no moral or ethical concern for it......... whereas if something was installed into a toaster that DID have this faculty...... I would.
I get that that does not parse for you. I get that when music illicits a response in a fetus and a researcher describing the motions it causes as looking LIKE "something trying to speak" you get triggered. I do not, and I have explained in a calm, measured, and considered way why I do not. You just personally do not LIKE the explanation. Which is hardly my problem really, now is it?
Babies Don't Feel Pain: A Century of Denial in Medicine During the 20th Century, when medicine rose to dominate childbirth in developed countries, it brought with it a denial of infant pain based on ancient prejudices and 'scientific' dogmas that can no longer be supported. Babies have had a difficult time getting us to accept them as real people with real feelings having real experiences. Deep prejudices have shadowed them for centuries: babies were sub-human, prehuman, or as Luis de Granada, a 16th- century authority put it, "a lower animal in human form." In the Age of Science, babies have not necessarily fared better. It may shock you to consider how many ways they have fared worse. In the last hundred years, scientific authorities robbed babies of their cries by calling them "random sound;" robbed them of their smiles by calling them "muscle spasms" or "gas;" robbed them of their memories by calling them "fantasies" and robbed them of their pain by calling it a "reflex." Against a back of general (scientific) ignorance of infant behavior, experiments were undertaken as early as 1917 at Johns Hopkins University to observe newborn tears, smiles, reactions to having blood drawn, infections lanced, and to a series of pin-pricks on the wrist during sleep. In these experiments (the first of many), infants reacted defensively. When blood was taken from the big toe, the opposite foot would go up at once with a pushing motion against the other ankle. Lancing produced exaggerated crying, and pin-pricks during sleep roused half the babies to move the hand and forearm. This line of investigation continued in a series of experiments at Northwestern University and Chicago's Lying-In Hospital in which newborns were stuck with needles on the cheeks, thighs, and calves. Virtually all infants reacted during the first hours and first day after birth, but the trend, the researchers noted, was toward more reaction to less stimulation from day one through day twelve. As a physiologic finding, this suggested that, at birth, newborns were not very sensitive, but became so gradually. However, they failed to tell us (and apparently overlooked the possible consequences) that all the mothers had received anesthetic drugs during labor and delivery! The Shermans discovered infants would cry in reaction to hunger, to being dropped two to three feet (and caught), to having their heads restrained with firm pressure, or to someone pressing on their chins for 30 seconds. Babies tried to escape and made defensive movements of the arms and legs, including striking at the object to push it away. Today, we would see these behaviors as "self-management," an example of "kinesthetic intelligence," but in those days, experts were arguing about whether the head or tail end of a human baby was more sensitive. To physicians, McGraw's work seemed thoroughly scientific and justified the continuation of painful encounters between physicians and newborns. In retrospect, the conclusion that infants were somehow not yet sensitive to pain was a prejudiced interpretation, which fit comfortably into the traditional view expressed in medical journals reaching back into the 19th Century. It seems perfectly obvious now, but for a long time, experts were informing the public that infants cries were only "random" sounds, not genuine communications. It took a quarter century of cry research to prove otherwise.
mahamageehad wrote: » Ah except we also have abortion on demand here.... Abortion on demand in the first trimester with mandatory counseling and later for medical emergencies.
Grayson wrote: » So according to you, if someone says I think X is morally right, the correct response is always to build an argument as to why they are wrong. It's not acceptable to say "Why?". In fact asking why is ignoring reality.
Grayson wrote: » And if X happens to be the law, then it has to accepted and not defended? You're the one making up rules.
pumpkin4life wrote: » The strike has been a resounding failure by the looks of things. Remember most lads will vote based on how a topic makes them feel, rather than the actual outcome itself. Persuasion lads. I was passing through Dublin last night during the worst of it. What I saw was a bunch of angry looking wans dressed in black with weird shìte in their hair; shouting and pushing their way aggressively through crowds of people. They don't know it yet, but they just shot themselves in the foot with this whole march in March. One of the reasons people voted for the gay lads to get married was because the marketing/persuasion was all bright colors and happy feelings about love and equality and virtue signalling to your best buddy cùnts. People felt happy/good talking about it. Now, when people think about abortion, they're more likely to think of some arrogant, fat, short haired, fascist yelling, one dressed in black shouting MY BODY MY RULES YOU SEXIST at you, when all you wanted was to ask directions to the nearest bar. That's going to be a confirmation bias that will be hard to shake off. Normal people don't want that association; it makes them feel down and depressed. They're getting tired of this crap; this minority of people ruining the party for everyone cause feelings. This might be part of the backlash, which seems to already be starting. Congratulations. You just knocked 5% at the least off the pro choice vote.
kylith wrote: » Yes, that is how democracy works, and now a lot of the women who did not get the chance to democratically vote in 1983 (i.e. every single one of childbearing age), would like the opportunity to vote on the issue. Why should they be denied that? Repealing the 8th just opens the issue to a vote, it does not bring in abortion overnight. We would all get the opportunity to have our say. Hopefully the ballot paper would give options to vote on rather than a yes/no question. Could you share those arguments with us? I'd be interested to hear them.
bubblypop wrote: » It's not reasonable to me, that a few weeks old embryo is equal to me, in the states eyes. That very embryo could stop me receiving medical treatment.
