Strike For Repeal?

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I have said we are likely to be safe but I have OFTEN qualified that by also saying that our certainty of that is diminished. You distort my position (willfully, and often) by only citing half of it. This is not an honest move from you, though a common one.

I REPEAT, the longer the process continues and the more the fetus develops, the more the potential there is that we are wrong about its faculty of consciousness. The weight of evidence suggests to me we ARE safe at 24 weeks, but I do not hold as much confidence as I do at 12 or 16 weeks.

So since the majority of abortion requirement is at 12 weeks I think we should ensure that any move BEYOND that point scales with the risks and potential error involved. I would be perfectly happy with 12 weeks if it were so implemented. I would myself aim for 16. I would not go beyond 16 without good argument.

Now do you care to address my ENTIRE position on this matter, or will you instead choose to continue attacking portions of my position in isolation to distort what I actually say, think, believe and espouse?



As I said I think we ARE safe there in terms of consciousness, sentience and subjective awareness but the chances that I/we are wrong in that regard are certainly higher than at 12 weeks. So while I think we are likely safe, I also think there is no justification for taking that risk when the significantly VAST proportion of requirement is in or before week 12. There simply is no significant requirement, in my view, to push the risks that far.

You seem to think it should be all or nothing. 100% certainty or nothing. Life does not work that way. There is always risks and always potential errors, no matter how small. The best we can do in the real world, rather than just the ideals in our head, is mediate our actions to account for a balance between requirement and risk. We should not offer more than is required, and certainly not if doing so does not scale justifiably with the risks.



And AGAIN as I just said twice above, I genuinely believe they are morally sound. I just believe it with a smaller level of certainty than I do at 12 weeks. You seriously seem to be struggling with the fact that I have different numbers in my head for different contexts. There is the context of what I think we are likely safe doing, the context of what I think people require, the context of what I think we should actually be offering, and the contexts of where I think certainty diminishes with time.

When I talk about any ONE of those contexts in isolation, I discuss a different number for different reasons. When I balance ALL of them together into an overall view of what I think a moral and just society should be doing however it all comes together to around 16 weeks as what I IDEALLY think we should be offering.

You go from thread to thread acting like I am somehow contradicting myself by saying different numbers at different times, but I am not. There is one number I believe in OVER ALL, and other numbers I would discuss in more specific contexts. And despite you contriving to ignore it, I have frequently explained that and made it abundantly clear.

My OVERALL position on abortion is that I think 24 is superfluous to majority requirement, and does not scale justifiably with steadily reducing certainty, I would campaign for 16 if asked to do so, but would be more than happy, and would not lose much sleep at all, over a system implemented around 12 or 20.

I genuinely do not know how to make that any clearer to you, especially as I genuinely also believe it IS clear to you but you contrive to pretend it is not in order to manufacture inconsistencies in my writing that actually are not there.



I don't. I argue for why I think 24 weeks IS ok, but I also explained pretty clearly why it is not what I argue FOR. There is a massive difference you (contrive to?) miss between what one argues IS ok, and what one argues FOR. I think 24 would likely be ok. But it is not at all what I argue FOR, and I have told you that multiple times, on multiple threads, now.

You CLEARLY get triggered highly emotionally on this subject, I get that. And your heart is in the right place. So perhaps if I make an analogous point NOT to do with abortion it might settle better with you.

Let us take marriage. During the equality referendum one comment popped up quite commonly. It was something like "Well if you are ok with changing marriage for homosexuals, why not for incest or polygamy too?"

MY response to that is I think incestuous (assuming consensual adults) and polygamous marriages ARE ok and I have nothing against them. So my position is that they are OK.

However I do not argue FOR them. My position of arguing for them is SEPARATE and DISTINCT from my position of thinking they are ok. I strongly believe that the EFFORT and COST of maintaining the institute of marriage should scale with the societies actual requirements for it. Homosexual marriage was ok because the effort of offering it to them was relatively small, and the quantity of people requiring it large. But with incest and polygamy there are more complicated requirements to offer it, and a relatively minor requirement for it (a statistical non-entity in fact).

So while I would be ok with it, I in no way argue or advocate for it. See the difference?

Now bring that back to abortion. I think 24 weeks is likely a safe zone. I would be OK with it (like I am ok with polygamy marriage). But a number of factors do NOT scale that position with actual requirements and realities so 24 is not what I argue FOR.

See now? Being OK with X and actually actively arguing FOR X are two different positions. I can debate both of them coherently and consistently without any internal contradiction in my positions or beliefs.



There most likely isn't. But as I keep saying I do not argue for it because the actual requirement for it (very very small) does not scale justifiably with the drop in moral certainty on the point.



If you feel dumb reading what I write, then so be it, but that does not mean that is how I talk to you. The tone you assign to what I write is not always the one I write in alas. But no, I am not convinced we are talking about "ACTUAL human beings". Not in the sense of human person hood I mean, which is what is important here. It is clearly human in terms oflife cycle, dna, and biology and so forth. No one appears to be denying THAT. But in terms of "Human" "person" and everything relevant to rights and moral and ethical concern...... I do not see it as being that at all.



An attribute you have not managed to show it has in any way. Certainly not by merely asserting it to be so.



I never claimed it "all" is. Certainly all the ones YOU have presented appear to be though. A researcher tried to describe what tongue movement looked like, in a way the reader would understand, and he described it as what it would look like if "someone was trying to speak" as I recall. And you were triggered by this as if he was suggesting it ACTUALLY WAS "trying to speak".

It is that kind of error to which i refer when discussing autonomic responses. You took something descriptive and responded to it like it was literal.

If you want to show some fetal movement is indicative of there being a person there, with some level of consciousness or sentience, then by all means do so. But until you do so........ I am not sure what you THINK Your point is here.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Abortion will never be treated as just a health issue between a woman and her GP because the State recognises the right to life of the unborn even if an abortion were never sought by the woman in question. The 8th amendment recognises their equal right to life, and repealing it wouldn't take away the right to life of the unborn.