The 8th amendment(Mod warning in op)

Call me Al

JDD wrote: »

Are you honestly suggesting I shouldn't have sex with my husband from now until I go through the menopause? Are you honestly suggesting that? I'd love you to stand in front of my husband and say that, and say y'know, that its for the greater good.

Well a poster on here brought up the concept of original sin and indicated that the purpose of heterosexual sex is procreation, so I think for many of these save the 8r's the idea that a woman must be prepared for an unplanned pregnancy each and every time they have sex is an actual belief.
I mean even Ceausescu was ok with women over 40 (initially 45) being permitted an abortion, and we all know the diabolical person he was.

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Billy86

JDD wrote: »

Are you honestly suggesting I shouldn't have sex with my husband from now until I go through the menopause? Are you honestly suggesting that? I'd love you to stand in front of my husband and say that, and say y'know, that its for the greater good.

Wait... you're not ashamed of having sex with your husband for purposes other than procreation?

Consonata

Billy86 wrote:

Wait... you're not ashamed of having sex with your husband for purposes other than procreation?

Why should they be?

January

Billy86 wrote: »

Wait... you're not ashamed of having sex with your husband for purposes other than procreation?

Imagine that... :cool:

amdublin

Consonata wrote: »

Why should they be?

I think it was sarcasm! At least I hope so

_Roz_

Edward M wrote: »

The language isn't as important as the thought process involved. Same as the ivf case being given no rights. Legal support of anything doesent always have my approval.
The fact that a human who is pregnant or anyone supporting abortion on demand can give as little thought to aborting a pregnancy as they would to swatting a fly is what I find hard to accept.

I kind of agree with this a bit.

I will never understand how people can say it's more okay to break up a clump of cells than to have a late-term abortion, when they're stages in the same cycle and the outcome is the same (preventing a life). Obviously, it's more okay in terms of if you're gonna do it, do it when it's too undeveloped to feel pain etc, but outside of that - I'm pro-choice, but I find the very real disregard for the potential of life to be callous and heartless. I would at least recognise the destruction of a clump of cells in my womb to be the prevention of a life that would have been lived had it not been for me putting myself first. I would never feel inherently entitled to do it, and therefore would feel terrible if it happened. I would put myself first, because I do think the living person is more important and frankly I'm selfish, but I don't think that prevention of a developing life has no moral importance at all. And I would acknowledge I prevented a life to further my own as I saw fit.

amdublin

Sex is ok folks!

It's a good thing. The human touch and connection is a good thing for the soul.

pilly

Ismisejack wrote: »

Pro choice yee call yeerselfs?? The ultimate choice is the choice one has over whether they life or die and by aborting a baby ur denying it it’s choice as to whether it can live or not, surely if yee were about choice yee wouldn’t deny a baby the choice of whether it lives or is murdered. Abortion Denys a child it’s only life, abortion is murder. If an abortion doesn’t take place a child has a life whereas abortion takes that child’s life, it’s only life. Yee talk about the woman having the child but that isn’t a matter of life or death, unlike in the babies case

Did you copy and paste that crap from Facebook? :rolleyes:

Charmeleon

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

And as I said in the post you skipped over above, it is actually the complete opposite. It is not degrading humanity, it is identifying "humanity" very specifically and elevating it to being all important.

The moment sentience and consciousness comes on line, the moment the fetus therefore has become an actual member of what I believe the set "humanity" actually means...... then I afford it all the love, respect, and moral and ethical concern I would afford to YOU or even to MYSELF or my own children.

Consciousness and Sentience (the core attributes of what it means to be Humanity really) are paramount to me and I am not degrading it at all, but being SPECIFIC about it. And when an entity lacks those things, it is not morally or ethically important to me. At all.

Nothing I am saying is soulless or a mockery of human existence. It is actually a celebration of human existence, while being ABSOLUTELY specific about what it is I am celebrating and why and when.

So you are ok with keeping comatose people alive and harvesting their organs, then disposing of them?

The thing you don’t seem to get is that the very proposition that human life has to pass your test of worthiness is morally highly suspect from the get-go. What gives you or anyone else the right to set the bar? And if we go down the rabbit hole, there’s nothing to say the lines can’t be re-drawn when social circumstances and norms change. I’m a non-religious atheist, but at least the religious are consistent, you don’t have the moral authority or justification for defining a worthy or unworthy life. It is worthy of moral rights by its own existence.

And it doesn’t have to be about rights, it’s also about values. We prosecute people for animal cruelty if they abuse pets or livestock, we ban gorse burning and hedge cutting at certain times of year because it would interfere with the reproduction of small birds and animals. We guard yellow metal mined from the ground with walls, barbed wire and armed police.

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ohnonotgmail

pilly wrote: »

Did you copy and paste that crap from Facebook? :rolleyes:

Chapter 1, page 1 of the Iona playbook.

Consonata

Charmeleon wrote: »

So you are ok with keeping comatose people alive and harvesting their organs, then disposing of them?

Theres a difference between "having had sentience" and not yet having it at all. Its a completely seperate case from abortion.

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Charmeleon

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Or: We need to provide basic healthcare to people with organ failure, that includes organ harvesting from comatose patients. So we set a bar, if you are comatose for 12 weeks we start with a kidney.

January

What the actual f*** has what you're saying got to do with abortion?

Charmeleon

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What about a baby about to become sentient and conscious within a few weeks?

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Charmeleon

January wrote: »

What the actual f*** has what you're saying got to do with abortion?

It’s about the moral relativism involved in the utilitarian argument for abortion. So you don’t want to think about it, more thoughtful people do.

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Charmeleon

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So the prospect of gaining sentience is the guiding principle. Interesting.

January

Charmeleon wrote: »

What about a baby about to become sentient and conscious within a few weeks?

The fact remains that people who have abortions after week 20, when the baby is about to become sentient, are having them for tragic reasons, either the baby has a severe abnormality or the pregnant person's health has been compromised.

If there's a chance that the baby can be born (i.e. they are viable) alive then every chance will be taken to make sure that happens. Termination of pregnancy. Not termination of fetus.

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January

Charmeleon wrote: »

It’s about the moral relativism involved in the utilitarian argument for abortion. So you don’t want to think about it, more thoughtful people do.

It's a completely separate debate to be had, it holds no relevance to the abortion debate whatsoever.

Charmeleon

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How do you know a person in a coma won’t have heart failure? Might as well kill them now. No guarantees in this life.

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Charmeleon

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I was replying to the poster who said sentience is the only thing that holds value. Dead bodies don’t have sentience but we are appalled at mass graves, desecration and defilement of a body etc. So clearly we value human life and human bodies far beyond the artificial excuses for making a fetus worth nothing.

pilly

Charmeleon wrote: »

So the prospect of gaining sentience is the guiding principle. Interesting.

No, I think you're confused Charmelon, a person in a coma already has sentience.

pilly

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Chapter 1, page 1 of the Iona playbook.

I should have known to check the join date before I even bothered replying. There'll be plenty more of these shills by May.

Charmeleon

pilly wrote: »

No, I think you're confused Charmelon, a person in a coma already has sentience.

Had. A person in a coma is not sentient, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a coma. There may be brain activity but they do not sense and do not respond, hold no fear of harm or suffering. Similarly a fetus may have plenty of brain activity before it becomes sentient.

nozzferrahhtoo

Charmeleon wrote: »

So you are ok with keeping comatose people alive and harvesting their organs, then disposing of them?

It is a completely off topic question (not that I have a problem with that myself) and my answer to it is LONG. Very long. And people already complain about the length of my posts. So I will give a relatively short answer, but with a lot of trepidation that answering is not the right thing to do. But I do not like to ignore or dodge questions as many other users do.

The answer is yes AND no.

The yes comes from the fact I think I would very much like to live in a society populated by a species that are ok with organ donation being an opt OUT rather than opt IN structure. There is no intellectually rational reason to treat the empty shell of an otherwise dead person with any real moral and ethical concern. It is essentially a pile of organs and nothing more.

The no comes from realizing we do NOT live in that society. The empty shell of our loved ones has meaning to us. And the moral and ethical concern we show for dead bodies is not actually solely moral and ethical concern for the dead (though even when dead we do tend to respect the rights retrospectively which is different from a fetus who has never yet attained them, but Consonata already pointed that out above). No, it is for the living. And until that dynamic is changed, and I feel it should be changed, I could not put my name to the system you describe.... even though in principle I have nothing at all against it...... nor can I see any reason why I should.

Charmeleon wrote: »

The thing you don’t seem to get is that the very proposition that human life has to pass your test of worthiness is morally highly suspect from the get-go. What gives you or anyone else the right to set the bar?

The simple answer there is I am not setting the bar, I am discussing the bar. And that is what morality and ethics means to me. It is not a thing, it is a conversation. Morality and Ethics are basically the result that comes from our discourse as a species. And my arguments, inputs, ideas and positions are just MY input into that discourse. I am not setting the bar, I am discussing it with my fellow humans so that WE ALL set that bar together. That is what discourse and democracy mean to me. And I hold human discourse over pretty much everything else in our world.

And when you say "the lines can’t be re-drawn when social circumstances and norms change" I think that is how it SHOULD be even though the way you write it suggests you think it a bad thing and somehow consistency is better. I can not see why you would want that or think that.

Morality and Ethics, outside the realms of religion that is, should not be something set in stone for all time. It should evolve with us and along side us. As we as a species evolve, get new knowledge, new technologies, and new insights our morality and ethics should evolve in response.

If for example my "side" goes on to "win" this election, I would not want the "no" side to go away and shut up. I would want them to keep talking, keep finding arguments and evidence and reasoning, and keep trying to change the new social norms BACK to what they want.

Because whether I win or lose in any election I do not think the conversation stops. It should ALWAYS go on. And win or lose any election on abortion, I will always continue to gladly have the debate. And hope the rest of society does too.

Charmeleon wrote: »

It is worthy of moral rights by its own existence.

But is it? Is life worth moral rights just by virtue of existence? The millions of bacteria or viruses you killed last time you took medication would beg to differ. The trees dead last time you wrote on paper would suggest otherwise. The animals and plants dead in the last meal you might have eaten containing meat or vegetables too. Not to mention any fly you ever swatted and killed in irritation, or the insects killed en masse by pesticides for your last salad.

It is quite clear that right, specifically the right to life, was not afforded those billions of life forms merely by virtue of their being life forms or existence. So clearly something else is in play if and when we DO consider a life form worthy of such concerns. So it is not me "setting the bar" as you put it, so much as me merely making explicit what it is everyone is pretty much doing all the time anyway.

Charmeleon wrote: »

Had. A person in a coma is not sentient, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a coma. There may be brain activity but they do not sense and do not respond, hold no fear of harm or suffering. Similarly a fetus may have plenty of brain activity before it becomes sentient.

I think you are conflating two things that absolutely should not be conflated. They are the state of BEING conscious, and the stage of HAVING The faculty of consciousness.

They are two entirely different things and it is from the LATTER that I think we mediate moral and ethical concern. A coma patient, rather than a brain dead person, is an example of an entity with the faculty of human consciousness. It might not be active in this given moment, but they have it. And they should be treated as an entity that has it.

A fetus at 0-16 weeks however not only does NOT have it, they even lack many of the pre-requisites of having it. It is like looking for radio waves not only when there is no radio waves, but in fact the broadcasting tower has not even been built yet.

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Edward M

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You clearly havent had any experience with people in comas.

They do sense and they do respond. Vigorously at times.

And they often remember conversations that happened around them while they were comatose.

Being unconsciousness is not the same thing as not having sentience.

You would hardly say you had no sentience because you were asleep would you?

A fetus has no brain activity before 16 weeks or so.

https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/fetal-development/fetal-brain-nervous-system/

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Charmeleon

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Memory and instinctual responses to a stimulus are not the same as sentience, the functions of the ancient areas of the brain can continue when the pre-frontal cortex is shut down. There is no executive functioning or emotional drives, the basics of human sentience as distinct from simple organisms.

nozzferrahhtoo

Edward M wrote: »

https://www.whattoexpect.com/pregnancy/fetal-development/fetal-brain-nervous-system/

Since you merely pasted and link and left it hanging, it is not clear what your point is. However the user you are replying to has made the claim there is no activity in the brain at 16 weeks.

The only mention of the word "activity" in your link is " At 28 weeks, fetal brainwave activity features sleep cycles" which is well beyond 16 weeks.

Now in isolation what the user said IS an over simplification. This is true. But given the context in which he said it, I do not see anything in your hit-and-run linking here that is relevant. Could you elaborate? Assuming elaborate is the right word to use when you have not actually said anything here that is.

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Charmeleon

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You suggested that comatose patients have sentience: ‘being unconscious is not the same as thing as not having sentience’.

I’m laying out the implications of defining the value of life as a measure of sentience. I know it makes people squirm and uncomfortable when it means looking harder at arbitrary moral judgements but it can’t be simply ignored.

Seems to be the standard reply when uncomfortable with discussions around drawing a line in the sand on human worth.

nozzferrahhtoo

Yet it makes me neither squirm nor uncomfortable nor compelled to ignore anything, and the implications you suggest are either A) Not that relevant or not actually that bad anyway.

You will find me MORE than willing and capable of having the "uncomfortable" conversations on this subject if they are discussions you actually want to have.

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Zubeneschamali

Charmeleon wrote: »

What gives you or anyone else the right to set the bar?

It is a practical necessity that some bar is set in law.

Consonata

Charmeleon wrote: »

Had. A person in a coma is not sentient, otherwise they wouldn’t be in a coma. There may be brain activity but they do not sense and do not respond, hold no fear of harm or suffering. Similarly a fetus may have plenty of brain activity before it becomes sentient.

pleas advice

^I don't think that means what you think it means...

Ismisejack

Everyone is forgetting the person most affected by an abortion, the child killed, with that in mind in considering starting a new forum as there is two people affected here, the mother and the child, and this forum clearly has no interest discussing the child

Fred Swanson

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Charmeleon

....... wrote: »

There is nothing uncomfortable about it at all.

But you are conflating two entirely different things and making sweeping statements that cover both.

Comatose patients are not the same as fetuses for many reasons - not just because of sentience.

There is no meaningful comparison to be made between someone in a coma and a fetus despite your best attempts to link them.

Human worth doesnt apply to fetuses that are 12 weeks old.

Let's not get confused, the point was made that sentience was the defining characteristic of what makes a life valuable. We can argue over other things but don't make it out like I am making sweeping statements just because I'm not addressing your own views in every single post.

Charmeleon

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yet it makes me neither squirm nor uncomfortable nor compelled to ignore anything, and the implications you suggest are either A) Not that relevant or not actually that bad anyway.

You will find me MORE than willing and capable of having the "uncomfortable" conversations on this subject if they are discussions you actually want to have.

How many times has this rationalisation been repeated to excuse atrocities I wonder. It doesn't bother me, therefore it must be morally justified.

Ismisejack

Ismisejack wrote: »

Everyone is forgetting the person most affected by an abortion, the child killed, with that in mind in considering starting a new forum as there is two people affected here, the mother and the child, and this forum clearly has no interest discussing the child

It's not a person & it's not a child.
Most rational thinking people just believe that a living breathing woman is more important than a foetus.

Charmeleon

bubblypop wrote: »

It's not a person & it's not a child.
Most rational thinking people just believe that a living breathing woman is more important than a foetus.

I think everyone agrees with that. The disagreement is over the proposition that the foetus is as important as a batch of out of date bread. My children are infinitely more important than my pets, I don't treat the animals like walking medical waste though.