Abortion Discussion, Part Trois

antiskeptic

recedite wrote: »

Not only that, but you ignore the only genuine racist angle to this. The whole concept that people in future will be able to selectively abort foetuses based on racial characteristics such as eye colour or skin colour.

What a wonderful world is in store. It'll be the societal equivalent of those folk who go to town on plastic surgery.

recedite

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Sorry that for rhetorical purposes I had to envision you as dead, then an obese benefits fraudster, and finally a paedophile Nothing untoward intended by any of that

No offence taken

I agree that race selective abortion is probably not yet a thing, unlike sex selective abortion. But things move fast.

And while I have failed to convince you that a 10 week old foetus is a human being, you have failed to convince me that it is not.
The only thing that has changed is that the Yes side won the referendum.
But that does not prove you are right. Bear in mind that if there was a referendum next week on the proposition "God is watching you" (answer Yes or No) then Yes would most likely win that too.

nozzferrahhtoo

recedite wrote: »

I agree that race selective abortion is probably not yet a thing, unlike sex selective abortion.

And again I am not seeing that as a valid move to make in indicting X with the crimes of Y. If we have an issue of sexism or racism at the level of society then we need to address that directly, not curtail the rights and choices of the innocent by indicting them indirectly with a crime they did not commit.

Stamping out little fires and ignoring the main blaze helps no one. And attacking abortion on the basis of racists is a pretty good example of it.

If we started banning or ending things on the basis some racist or sexist might abuse it..... I find myself wondering what would NOT fall under that hammer. But thankfully no one seems to want to go that way, they just selectively cherry pick the issues they want to apply that thinking to, and then disregard that same thinking where it personally suits them to.

recedite wrote: »

And while I have failed to convince you that a 10 week old foetus is a human being, you have failed to convince me that it is not.

Which as I keep saying is just theist speak, and a dodge of where the burden of proof actually lies. Theists come here and fail to convince us there is a god, and we fail to convince them there is not a god. But only one of those two groups are parsing the burden of proof correctly. They are not doing it correctly there, you are not doing it correctly here.

That said though..........

recedite wrote: »

But that does not prove you are right.

........ you are parsing this in terms of there BEING a right and wrong. There is not. "Human Being" is a word and we as a species give that word meaning. This is not objective rights and wrong, truths and falsehoods. The definition of words can not be proven true or false objectively, they are DECIDED by us as a species. So if you are waiting for proof, you will be waiting.

The issue for your position is that I am yet to see a coherent or common definition of what it means to be a human person that is not heavily or in fact entirely reliant on the very characteristics the fetus at 10 weeks lacks. Not slightly lacks. ENTIRELY lacks to the point it even entirely lacks many of the pre-requisites for the things it entirely lacks.

Nor are you seemingly compelled to offer such a definition yourself. Which is telling.

antiskeptic

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

That is not parsing for me on two levels.

The first is that an ability can not be racist. My likely ability, given my training, to kill you is not itself a murderous ability. I would actually have to kill you before it was murder. The ability itself is not. The ability to identify a racial trait and decide to terminate the fetus on that basis is similarly not itself a racist ability.

What people are ABLE to do and what people ACTUALLY do are two very different things.

The second however is on the basis of relevance. We have failed to find, much less on this thread, a single moral or ethical argument indicting the morality of terminating a 10 week old fetus. As such the REASON a person has for doing so is pretty much irrelevant. You can of course judge peoples reasons for doing it, but that says nothing about their right to do it, or the morality of doing it. Indicting one with the other is a false move.

I also believe in your right to eat fattening and unhealthy foods. If I found out you were eating lots of it with the intention of getting disability benefits in some way I could of course judge your reasons for eating that food..... and maybe we should even legally prosecute you for fraud of a benefits scheme........ But that would be VERY different to judging your right to eat it. The motivation and the act itself are two distinct things.

Another example is I believe in your right to go and sit on the beach. If you were a pedophile and you were going there to look at under age girls then that might bother me, but so the hell what? Your motivation for going there, assuming you do not commit any actual crime (and being a pedophile is quite rightly not a crime) then you have every right to go there.

Some sensible line in the sand has to exist between the right to an action, and the motivation for taking that action. Even when and where it makes us uncomfortable.

Sorry that for rhetorical purposes I had to envision you as dead, then an obese benefits fraudster, and finally a paedophile Nothing untoward intended by any of that

An interesting chapter in the process of evolution is in store. The age at which man discovered the 'Confers Advantage' toolbox and decided he'd try his hand at DIY.


Hang on to your seats - stormfront coming!

nozzferrahhtoo

I am sure that meant something to you, but I am afraid whatever the point was of it / in it is not coming across.

recedite

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

And again I am not seeing that as a valid move to make in indicting X with the crimes of Y. If we have an issue of sexism or racism at the level of society then we need to address that directly, not curtail the rights and choices of the innocent by indicting them indirectly with a crime they did not commit.

How can we address it when we have just legalised it? No questions asked abortion is what you wanted, remember? Full choice. Trust the motives of the parent. Nobody else's business and all that.


Also your choice of words "curtailing the rights of the innocent by indicting them indirectly with a crime they did not commit" seems like an apt description for those foetuses who fail to make the grade. Presumably the brown-eyed females.

recedite

antiskeptic wrote: »

An interesting chapter in the process of evolution is in store. The age at which man discovered the 'Confers Advantage' toolbox and decided he'd try his hand at DIY.
Hang on to your seats - stormfront coming!

Selective abortion is only the start.
Genetic engineering is where it will really be at, eventually.

alaimacerc

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

The issue for your position is that I am yet to see a coherent or common definition of what it means to be a human person that is not heavily or in fact entirely reliant on the very characteristics the fetus at 10 weeks lacks. Not slightly lacks. ENTIRELY lacks to the point it even entirely lacks many of the pre-requisites for the things it entirely lacks.

Nor are you seemingly compelled to offer such a definition yourself. Which is telling.

I'm sure with a little bit of coaching, they'll eventually be able to manage "life begins at conception!" and "... by life, I mean, 'that property that conception brings about'."

nozzferrahhtoo

recedite wrote: »

How can we address it when we have just legalised it? No questions asked abortion is what you wanted, remember? Full choice. Trust the motives of the parent. Nobody else's business and all that.

Exactly my point. If we can not come up with a single argument.... and you have not..... as to why it is morally problematic to terminate a 10 week old fetus..... then the specific REASONS one particular person has for seeking one is really no one else's business.

Of course people like them a high horse, so if we find out that someone aborted a fetus because it's skin was black, then by all means go and judge them. But it says nothing about the morality or ethics of abortion.

recedite wrote: »

Also your choice of words "curtailing the rights of the innocent by indicting them indirectly with a crime they did not commit" seems like an apt description for those foetuses who fail to make the grade. Presumably the brown-eyed females.

Except it is not "apt" at all because words like "innocent" presuppose attributes that the fetus does not have. Hell even a wasp is more sentient than a 10 week old fetus but we do not debate it's "guilt" or "innocence" when it stings us because we realise it's level of sentience is not even compatible with application of such concepts. Yet an entity ENTIRELY devoid of sentience, with no more of it than a rock, and you try to wedge those concepts in. That is just narrative driven bias and little more.

recedite wrote: »

Selective abortion is only the start.
Genetic engineering is where it will really be at, eventually.

Which also in and of itself is not a bad thing. In fact no ability or discovery is in and of itself a bad thing. It entirely comes down to what we do with it. When we discover nuclear physics for example, it is humans that decided whether to use that to provide energy for all.... or use it to build a bomb. Neither choice confers guilt or innocence on the initial ability and discovery however. We tend only to pretend that when we have a narrative to prop up.

alaimacerc

recedite wrote: »

Selective abortion is only the start.
Genetic engineering is where it will really be at, eventually.

If genetic engineering is your actual concern, what's this even doing in the abortion thread? Other than a clumsy attempt to link the two, while mumbling "something, something, racism". (I'm guessing the next rhetorical move will involve something along the lines of "culture of life".)

recedite

Alexis Cooper and her inappropriately named mother, Chastity.
Both were "less sentient than a wasp".

antiskeptic

recedite wrote: »

Selective abortion is only the start.
Genetic engineering is where it will really be at, eventually.

Where there is a will..

Selective abortion seen as the Wright brothers are now, someday.

recedite

alaimacerc wrote: »

If genetic engineering is your actual concern, what's this even doing in the abortion thread?

Relax, it just gets a passing mention.

nozzferrahhtoo

recedite wrote: »

Alexis Cooper and her inappropriately named mother, Chastity.
Both were "less sentient than a wasp".

Well no, the mother in question was a sentient human being. An instance of human sentience. While in a coma your sentience is turned down / off but it is there. It exists. Just like you are still a sentient human being when you are asleep.

This is the classic error people like yourself make when the sentience argument comes up. I have corrected that error so many times. Often multiple times in the same person.

When we are talking about a 10 week old fetus we are NOT talking about a human sentience that is somehow turned down, turned off, lessened, curtailed, damaged, incomplete, or subdued.

We ARE talking about it being entirely absent as a faculty itself, it does not have that faculty, it has never had that faculty, and it is a distinct period of time away from getting it.

So one can equivocate between varying degrees of operational statuses of one given instance of human sentience over another......... but that is to simply talk ENTIRELY past the actual argument being made which is a distinction between the COMPLETE absence of that faculty, and not.

recedite

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Well no, the mother in question was a sentient human being. An instance of human sentience. While in a coma your sentience is turned down / off but it is there. It exists. Just like you are still a sentient human being when you are asleep.

This is the classic error people like yourself make when the sentience argument comes up. I have corrected that error so many times. Often multiple times in the same person.

When we are talking about a 10 week old fetus we are NOT talking about a human sentience that is somehow turned down, turned off, lessened, curtailed, damaged, incomplete, or subdued.

We ARE talking about it being entirely absent as a faculty itself, it does not have that faculty, it has never had that faculty, and it is a distinct period of time away from getting it.

So one can equivocate between varying degrees of operational statuses of one given instance of human sentience over another......... but that is to simply talk ENTIRELY past the actual argument being made which is a distinction between the COMPLETE absence of that faculty, and not.

Again, you fail to convince me, and I fail to convince you.

nozzferrahhtoo

And again I am happy to keep trying and keep presenting arguments and keep engaging in discourse, while you either ignore my points and posts entirely without rebuttal, or throw a one liner out which is as good as. This difference is telling.

Also you assume falsely that my goal on debates is to convince anyone of anything. That is never my goal.

robindch

recedite wrote: »

If not, just GTFO.

That kind of language is not appropriate in A+A - as you well know.

alaimacerc

recedite wrote: »

Relax, it just gets a passing mention.

More like one strand in a veritable basketwork of vague guilt-by-association insinuations, none of which you deign to even attempt to stand up with followup argument.

robindch

More for reference than anything else, but if woman has sex with a man other than her husband, or if her husband suspects she has had sex with another man, then the Old Testament (Numbers 5) prescribes that the woman should consume what appears to be an abortifact and be prepared to have the foetus aborted. Additionally, even if the husband is simply suspicious, the bible prescribes that it's the fault of the woman alone.

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+5&version=NIV&interface=amp

Numbers 5 wrote:

If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him [...] and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure, then he is to take his wife to the priest. The priest shall [...] take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. [...] the priest [...] holds the bitter water that brings a curse [...] and the priest shall [...] say to her:

“If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband [...] may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”

Then the woman is to say, “Amen. So be it.”

This, then, is the law of jealousy when a woman goes astray and makes herself impure while married to her husband, or when feelings of jealousy come over a man because he suspects his wife. The priest is to have her stand before the Lord and is to apply this entire law to her. The husband will be innocent of any wrongdoing, but the woman will bear the consequences of her sin.

alaimacerc

recedite wrote: »

I don't particularly like the term "fully formed" myself, because IMO the human body is in a constant state of change from conception right through to old age and death.

In biological terms, more like a highly variable state of change. To even describe a zygote -- a single cell -- as a "human body" is quite the stretch. Was it a "human body" immediately prior to conception too? That addition of some extra genetic material is hardly the most dramatic of those changes.

However in this context, if we take that to mean "a recognisable human" possessing all the usual human organs etc.. then

That's two very different criteria right there, even before we get to the "etc". If the PLC or YD had slapped the early foetal form of any other primate up on their billboards, would you even have noticed the difference? (And I don't mean in the "of All Ireland", either!)

Pills only work in the early stages.

Handy, then, that's when most abortions are sought, and that's the primary basis on which it's proposed to legislate. But this is very simplistic talk of "pills". There's both early and late medical abortion, and likewise with surgical abortion.

I'd be very surprised if private abortion clinics don't set up here. Somebody like Peter Boylan is now in a prime position to make a financial killing by setting up his own clinic and calling it "the gold standard in abortion".

Aside from the wild speculation and, as others have noted, pretty casual attitude to the good name of that person, this seems like the usual anti-abortion tactic of hoping -- or indeed ensuring -- that there's no integrated or public provision of terminations, and then pantomiming shock when there's separate or private provision. "OMG abortion industry!"

King Mob

recedite wrote: »

No it is not propaganda. And no I did not say "we should not allow abortions based on the presumed actions of some foreigners".

Then why does this idea have any baring on the discussion?
If it's not a reason to oppose the legalisation of abortion, then what is the point of bringing it up?
Why point out that it's foreign people? Why not just point to the supposed less than noble reasons good old Irish people might want an abortion for?

The reason is pretty obvious.

recedite wrote: »

You insinuated that such a thing would never happen, and anyone suggesting it must be a racist.

You're welcome to show where I did either of these things.

recedite wrote: »

Heres the link again.
Article by a respected British Asian journalist. Is she a racist too?

First, never called anyone a racist, just that the argument is a racist one.
So no, she's not a racist.
The way you are using the ideas and figures (taken at face value) she talks however makes it a racist argument.

recedite wrote: »

Yours is the lazy, ignorant tactic of stifling a debate you don't like by shouting "racist".

Well I had to ask 3 times to find out which group of foreigners we were talking about. Then it took another 3-4 to actually see something resembling evidence. Then my points were ignored and I was told to GTFO.

So not really the one stifling debate here...
You can use your racist argument all you like, but I also get to point out that it is racist.
But remember, you guys lost, so maybe don't use silly, dishonest arguments that undercut your credibility and drive people away from your position.

recedite wrote: »

Its the same kind of mentality that allowed the muslim rape gangs to flourish in Rotherham and other cities in the UK. Authorities and social workers reluctant to intervene for fear of being labelled racists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_exploitation_scandal

Not helping your case there...

storker

end of the road wrote: »

no it's abortion on demand up to 12 weeks with a higher time limit for serious cases. choice is a misnomer given we don't give people the choice to end another's life until now.

It *is* a choice for the entity that counts most: a living breathing, born person, which the other isn't and is very far from being. And that's as far as I'm going to get involved in re-running the debate. It's done. The people decided. They agree. The old approach wasn't achieving the desired result anyway, so if you're going to keep on about it, don't forget to campaign against the right to travel and the morning after pill too.

Mark Hamill

For all the people decrying abortions because of the supposed existence of sex selective abortions, are you also against adoptions because there could be sex selective adoptions? (both people giving up babies because they aren't the desired sex and people selecting orphan babies because they are the desired one).

SusieBlue

Speaking of sex-selection preference, of the couples I know who are expecting babies, particularly the woman, most of them have a preference to have daughters.
Not for a minute suggesting any of them want to abort their sons or anything like that before the accusations come flying in
Just something that I noticed that I found interesting, seeing as culturally we are a society who would have preferred sons. It doesn't seem to be that way any more.

Cabaal

SusieBlue wrote: »

Speaking of sex-selection preference, of the couples I know who are expecting babies, particularly the woman, most of them have a preference to have daughters.
Not for a minute suggesting any of them want to abort their sons or anything like that before the accusations come flying in
Just something that I noticed that I found interesting, seeing as culturally we are a society who would have preferred sons. It doesn't seem to be that way any more.

A lot of the son preference was to do with dowry's, even when my mother got married this was a thing. Thankfully its outdated and not a thing anymore.

The only people I know that really seem to prefer boys over girls still are farmers and even then thats certainly changing. With farmers its all about who gets the farm,

Cabaal

storker wrote: »

It *is* a choice for the entity that counts most: a living breathing, born person, which the other isn't and is very far from being. And that's as far as I'm going to get involved in re-running the debate. It's done. The people decided. They agree. The old approach wasn't achieving the desired result anyway, so if you're going to keep on about it, don't forget to campaign against the right to travel and the morning after pill too.

This,completely agree.

Seriously, when will some people in this thread get it through their heads that the vast majority of people of Ireland has spoken n the matter, They simply do not see a fetus as equal to a born baby.

The 8th will now be repealed and legislation will be passed.

Those in this thread can claim a fetus is equal to a women all you want, our laws will not support this and the majority of the country simply doesn't believe it. IN addition the vast majority of countrys in the world do not agree with this viewpoint either. The public saw through your lies, scaremongering and misinformation and they instead voted to support women.

Now build a bridge and get over it,

ohnonotgmail

Cabaal wrote: »

This,completely agree.

Seriously, when will some people in this thread get it through their heads that the vast majority of people of Ireland has spoken n the matter, They simply do not see a fetus as equal to a born baby.

The 8th will now be repealed and legislation will be passed.

Those in this thread can claim a fetus is equal to a women all you want, our laws will not support this and the majority of the country simply doesn't believe it. The public saw through your lies, scaremongering and misinformation and they instead voted to support women.

and more importantly it will no longer negatively affect the healthcare of women in this country.

recedite

Mark Hamill wrote: »

For all the people decrying abortions because of the supposed existence of sex selective abortions, are you also against adoptions because there could be sex selective adoptions? (both people giving up babies because they aren't the desired sex and people selecting orphan babies because they are the desired one).

Personally I'd frown upon the former, but would have no problem with the latter.
Neither involves culling the undesirables, so not directly comparable with selective abortion anyway.

SusieBlue wrote: »

Speaking of sex-selection preference, of the couples I know who are expecting babies, particularly the woman, most of them have a preference to have daughters.
Not for a minute suggesting any of them want to abort their sons or anything like that before the accusations come flying in
Just something that I noticed that I found interesting, seeing as culturally we are a society who would have preferred sons. It doesn't seem to be that way any more.

Who is this "we" you speak of?
Better be careful now, or King Mob will have you strung up for being a racist.

King Mob

recedite wrote: »

Who is this "we" you speak of?
Better be careful now, or King Mob will have you strung up for being a racist.

Again, never called anyone a racist.
Just pointing out that you are using a racist argument. I think you are doing so without full appreciating how it's racist, or particularly caring that it is.
And that's it's because of your use of arguments like that, you lost.

end of the road

Cabaal wrote: »

This,The public saw through your lies, scaremongering and misinformation and they instead voted to support women.

the public didn't see through anything as there was nothing to see through. there were no lies misinformation or scaremongering from our side, just facts, truth and reality. no voters voted to support both women and unborn, so we voted to support women as well.