The 8th amendment(Mod warning in op)

professore wrote: »

I find this offensive - but then again I find nuns murdering children offensive too. I also find people not crirically thinking - and I mean thinking, not just listening to ideological groups - about when life begins. It's not a clear cut thing.

They passage you replied to was a Louis CK joke. It was meant to be offensive but also kinda true.

From your posts, you seem to define human life as when something looks human.
For me, I define human life as when something can feel human (to itself)

We're just bags of meat, but our minds are what makes us human. Foetal brain development is more important than the impulsive non thinking reflexes of the human body.
A brain-dead adult can often breath and twitch by itself, but that person is dead when the mind no longer exists.

One eyed Jack wrote: »

Pro-choice but only up to a certain point implies an inherently deceptive position

One eyed Jack wrote: »

How that position is any different from pro-life/anti-choice/whoever disagrees with them... has never been explained to me by anyone.

Or, at least, you have simply ignored a lot of peoples explanations when they do not suit you, or your pretend narrative that people have not been explaining themselves.

Nor is there anything at all "deceptive" about being "pro-choice only up to a certain point". Despite your narrative to the contrary people have often been VERY clear as to why they hold that position, myself included.

But I am happy to explain it to you again so the pile of posts you simply ignore can be enlarged.

The simple fact is that many people are entirely ok with a person making ANY choice at all, up until the point the result of that choice impacts on the life, rights, or well being of another agent. The right I have to swing my arms wildly for example, without requirement of explanation or justification for my choices, ends at your face.

So the people who are "prochoice only to a point" are operating exactly on that premise. They have recognized that at many stages of fetal development, ESPECIALLY those when the VAST (well over 90%) of choice based abortions actually occur, there are no coherent arguments on offer for affording the fetus any moral or ethical concern, or rights. But they do not think that is true at EVERY stage of fetal development.

Now you might not agree with that. That is fine. You might FINALLY have come up with some counter arguments to it at last, unlike in the past. That is fine too. But the pretense that A) there is anything deceptive or unclear about that position or that it has not been explained to you in the past is just wanton dishonesty.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

The 'bundle of cells' argument is, and has always been, absurd, do we always have to have it on these threads? Technically we all just a bundle of cells.

Exactly, we are. As is every other bit of life on this planet. So when we move into discussing on things like ethics, morality and rights we have to distinguish clearly what it is we are hanging those concepts off. And I would suggest we hang it off more than "cells" or the DNA any particular cell happens to contain.......

....... and what a lot of anti-choice people do not like to acknowledge is that the results of such an inquiry tend to throw up things that the fetus, at the stages when the VAST majority of them are aborted, simply lack not just slightly, but entirely.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

A fetus has a heartbeat and brain waves. To describe them as just a bundle of cells just shows a desire to dehumanize fetuses so as to diminish the act of abortion.

The goal is not to "de-humanize" anything, but to be explicit and clear about what we mean when we use the word "human" in any given context and to ensure that something is not "Humanized" before it's due. One can not remove an attribute that is not actually there, they can just prevent people pretending it is there before it is.

So no, we are not dehumanizing anything, just preventing premature humanization of it. Much different, though this has been explained to you multiple times before.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

On one thread I find myself arguing that a man was harshly treated by receiving six years in prison for kissing and intimately touching a 15-year-old girl and yet here some of those same people, who found my opinion on the other thread so shocking, seemingly have no problem with a defenseless baby in the womb having it's body pulled apart and it's bloody remains binned.

No idea what your opinion on the other thread is, but the difference for me would be that the 15 year old girl is a real "person" and a conscious sentient agent for whom people like me hold should be afforded rights, and moral and ethical concern. A fetus at the stage when the VAST (well over 90%) majority of them are being aborted by choice however........ shows none of the pre-requisities that would warrant any such thing.

So it is not EVEN a comparison of apples and oranges you are offering here. More like Apples and WD40.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

The above is a fetus at 24 weeks

And the VAST majority of abortions by choice happen in or before week 12. Almost the totality by week 16. But you never show pictures of them, because they do not illicit the same emotional response you rely on to bypass any coherent and compelling argument that you actually lack.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Sentience, viability, ability to feel pain etc etc... are all red herrings. A fetus is a human being. They are alive.

The things you call "red herrings" are things you simply want to dismiss and ignore because they are inconvenient to you. The REAL red herring here is your wanton use of the term "alive". The entire meat industry kills things that are "alive" all the time. Much of the medication we take as humans does too either in it's production..... killing much flora and fauna......... or in it's application....... killing much bacteria. The paper you last wrote on came from dead trees. I could list deaths of "life" all day long.

We kill things that are are "alive" all day every day. So clearly merely being "alive" is not the mediation point for morality anywhere else. Yet suddenly, magically....... nay let's be honest DESPERATELY........ you pretend it should be here.

And why? Because the moment we delve into what differentiates this "life" from any other, and why we should be affording it the moral and ethical concern we do not apply anywhere else............ the result of that conversation throws up attributes that the fetus generally being aborted simply lacks.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

We declare death on the absence of a heartbeat

No. We do not. Which I have also explained to you before. It is ok to make an error as a complete lay man to biology. Nothing wrong with that. But to stick by an error when someone explains it to you, and make it again, is pretty embarrassing for you.

AGAIN: Since 1981 in the States for example, legally it is not the heart beat but brain activity that determines declaring death. This unrelated video, for example, discusses how death is determined and then called.

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

and therefore we should accept that the presence of one means a life has begun.

But again morality and ethics seems to be mediated by more than simply being "alive". No one, that I am aware of, and certainly not me.. is denying that the fetus is "alive". The disagreements stem from how important that attribute alone is, or should be.

pilly wrote: »

I have literally NEVER heard this view uttered.

It is relatively rare for sure. Just about every person I have met who identifies as "pro choice" does so with some cut off in mind. A cut off that almost invariably falls somewhere between 12 and 24 weeks of gestation.

There are a few who say that want to allow it any ANY stage of gestation without restriction however. Their arguments for this are pretty poor however. In one thread when I discussed it with a poster the only argument he really offered was that he felt Hilary Clinton agrees with him.

Other than that their position appears to be that somehow a fetus acquires rights on the trip down the birth canal. Like the Monopoly moral equivalent of "passing go and collecting $200". But I have not yet understood any arguments as to how this is doing anything but pretending rights should be mediates purely on location. Why an entity has no rights at one end of the birth canal and does magically a couple hours later (ideally) at the other end........ is certainly opaque to me.

professore wrote: »

Every time i drink I consent to ingesting alcohol but I don't consent to getting drunk. Your statement is equally logical.

Well a difference there being that drinking alcohol WILL inebriate you. Having sex MIGHT make you pregnant. So not quite the same thing.

A better comparison might be that any footballer who goes out on a pitch to play soccer, consents to the possibility they might obtain an injury.

But we do not withhold medical treatment for them because they "knew what the risks were". We offer them all the options to deal with their injury whether or not we want to pretend they "consented" to obtain one or not.

I think abortion is similar. Someone having sex is consenting not to get pregnant, but to take the risk of getting pregnant. And that they knew the risks is not relevant to whether or not they should be precluded from dealing with their pregnancy should one occur.

pilly wrote: »

No I think someone quoting a comedian should step away from a thread debating abortion.

Wait, is abortion NOT a hilarious topic? If Louis CK can find the humour in it, so can I.

kunst nugget wrote:

Are you just going to keep quoting comedians?

Are people just going to go round in circles in abortion debates?

thee glitz wrote: »

The CA gave poll results, statistics. You gave a potentially misleading interpretation of same. I don't know if you need a lesson in stats or not, but any useful analysis requires a closer look.

I said that 64% of the CA voted in favour of AOD. They did.

If you want to respond with comments about the caveats, I'm all good with that. I'll agree. There were non-opinions/non-voters (who won't count in a referendum either). There was AOD under different time limits. Nonetheless, 64% voted for AOD.

If you want to call it 50-something percent because of the non-voters, then be my guest. You can re-interpret the referendum result when that comes along too. Won't change the fact that referenda results are expressed in terms of who voted yes or no. The percentages presented in terms of the total yesses or nos. Not the non-voters, not the "dunnos", not the spoiled votes.

In the nit-pickers analysis, 37.4% of voters wanted to leave the EU, if you count the people who didn't vote. What does it matter? They're still leaving because that's not how you count votes in a referendum.

Which is maybe why the CA chose to count and present their results in the same way- whether people abstain, spoil or put in a ballot which expresses no opinion, they are not and cannot be counted in the total. They have ruled themselves out.

So call it 50-whatever percent in the CA. But if you're going to act like that's somehow more valid than the percentage I presented and which the CA themselves resented, I'll call horse****.

Patronise me about uncritically swallowing sources like the Indo (which I didn't)? Accuse me of (mis)interpreting the exact stat present by the source themselves? I've no time for that crap and you shouldn't either.

Now can we please cut this nit-picking crap and move on?

professore wrote: »

Your first sentence is factually incorrect. It's a distinct body with 50% of someone else's DNA not your body. By your logic you should be free to kill your adult children as "it's your body". It's as ridiculous and unscientific as the ancient Jewish belief that each sperm contained a fetish which simply grew inside the womb.

You have avoided to answer my question coming up with ridiculous argument of killing adult children which is cheap rhetorics at best.

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

There are enough strawmen in this thread to fuel Moneypoint for a year.

And more sea lions than Dublin Zoo.

infogiver wrote: »

There wont be very much left but I imagine gender quotas here, there and everywhere will be next.

No, gender quotas is a separate matter that divides all sorts of groups. It is by default an anti-liberal and anti-equality measure, but it does have some benefit when applied in limited circumstances.

Progressives don't consider it a particularly important topic.

The two big topics after abortion are the right to euthanasia, which should be an easy no-brainer, and a more rational approach to drug controls.

infogiver wrote: »

Why is euthanasia a no brainer?

if somebody is of sound mind and they want to end their life should they not be let do it with some dignity?