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Author | Topic: Evangelical Switch from Pro-choice to Anti-abortion | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
NoNukes writes: I think your complaint's a red herring distracting from the real issue, that the point of viability cannot be objectively established.
Not a red herring. For a large number of folks in the US, we can say a lot about the available technology and about what would constitute viability of the unborn. In fact, our jurisprudence uses rough rules of thumb regarding viability, with the envelope being pushed in the states as technology improves. I keep saying I don't know. If our jurisprudence knows then obviously it knows some things I don't know. Please enlighten me and dispel my ignorance.
Yes, there is some "variability", but we have some basic and objective ways to talk about viability. You are simply incorrect about that. It's pretty hard to be incorrect about things not said. I never said there were no efforts to bring some objectivity into the determination of viability, but consensus is lacking, especially worldwide.
I've said many times that I don't *know Yes, you have said that. I maintain that there is not much doubt about the issue for which your own answer is "I don't know." It's an incongruous reality that certainty and lack of facts seem to go hand in hand. The more facts the less people feel they know. It feels to me that the certainty felt by so many reflects a lack of objective data.
Is US law based upon fact or upon feelings and opinions? Of course, there is some opinion involved. Hopefully, it is informed opinion.One thing we can say with regard to the legal definition is that it does give us an answer. Your own answer uses the term personhood. I asked you if you meant something other than the legal definition, and instead of either answering or helping me understand what you meant, you posted this question. How does that help? I don't understand all the attention being given legal opinions. Legal opinions are as capable of being wrong or uninformed or underinformed or misinformed as any other opinions. You were the one who seemed to have some awareness of the concept of personhood as a legal construct, so naturally I asked you a question. And your answer was the one I expected. To the extent that personhood is part of our legal foundation it's subjective. For my part, I doubt personhood is in any objective way entwined in our laws. Wikipedia says (bold in original):
quote: --Percy Edited by Percy, : Typo.
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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Tangle writes: Percy writes:
But you agree with the Roe verdict!! Percy doesn't know if there is. I agree with the portion of the Roe v. Wade decision that was quoted in the Abortion in the United States article you cited, and I don't agree with the layers of interpretation you piled on top of it. One thing Roe v. Wade said is:
quote: So the Supreme Court conceded that it isn't known when life begins. You reinforced this by never responding to the many times I asked you when life begins. Here's a link to Roe v. Wade. The word "harm" only appears twice and not in the context you've been using it. Many uses of the word "compelling" place it in quotes, including the first use:
quote: How does placing "compelling" in quotes affect its meaning? I don't know and the decision doesn't say.
The verdict that says it's wrong to kill a baby after x weeks. We both agree that. How can you agree and then say you don't know? The decision doesn't say that. It does take a trimester approach and says that the compelling interest is stronger in each succeeding trimester. It also says there is a compelling interest in maintaining the life of both the fetus and the mother that must be balanced. I agree with their decision that was made in the absence of objective knowledge, and the decision makes clear that they are doing the best they can without such knowledge. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: Percy writes:
Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I've said over and over again that not only do I not know when life begins but that nobody knows nor will they ever know. So the Supreme Court conceded that it isn't known when life begins. You reinforced this by never responding to the many times I asked you when life begins. Since you don't know, why do you keep asking me why I don't know?
The only thing we know for sure is that the path to a baby starts at conception. (And not when gandad says hello to grandma.) And yet if grandpa never met grandma, no baby.
Here's a link to Roe v. Wade. The word "harm" only appears twice and not in the context you've been using it. Many uses of the word "compelling" place it in quotes, including the first use: And here's what the judgement comes down to
quote: Now what possible thing can the state have a compelling interest (in quote marks, note) in protecting the potential life from? Well, the answer is from harm. The harm being to kill it. There's no other possible conclusion. A minor note about your quotation marks comment: Realize that you're not quoting from Roe v. Wade. You're quoting from the article you cited, Abortion in the United States. The phrase "compelling interest" doesn't appear between quotation marks in Roe v. Wade. There's the link, look it up. Here's a portion of Roe v. Wade addressing this issue. It runs on much much longer but is more detailed and interesting:
quote: I think if the Supreme Court had harm in mind that they would have said harm. I suspect the wording was carefully chosen.
I agree with their decision that was made in the absence of objective knowledge, and the decision makes clear that they are doing the best they can without such knowledge. So, like I say, you agree with the decision. But simultaneously claim you don't know. I'm fine with the Roe v. Wade decision, which just like me claims they don't know.
If all you're saying is that you don't know whether the baby is alive or a person or whatever before birth, well ok, that's a dumb argument but ok, but if you're saying because of that, you don't know whether it's right or wrong to kill a baby just before birth - whilst agreeing with Roe - I just don't know what to say. I think you're taking things you feel are true and mistaking them for things you know are true. Roe v. Wade clearly expressed the great amount of uncertainty. The justices had to make a decision, even in the absence of certainty. I don't have to make a decision, but I'm fine with Roe v. Wade. I do think it would be improved if this part were modified, because it's the part that allows abortion clinics to be shuttered by forcing upon them too-stringent requirements (this also appeared as part of the long quote above):
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
NoNukes writes: I don't understand all the attention being given legal opinions.
I asked you for your definition of personhood. You are the one who introduced the term into our discussion. Why would I have my own definition of personhood? I already said I'm using the one from Wikipedia. I quoted this portion back in Message 413, which says:
quote: Later in your message you talk about the legal definition of personhood, and apparently there is one here in the US. In the section under American Law it says:
quote: So obviously a fetus, having by definition not yet been born, is not a person. But does the fetus have some of the rights of personhood? That's what the Wikipedia article on human beings was commenting on that I quoted back in Message 336, that "various levels of personhood" are extended to fetuses in some jurisdictions. It doesn't say that they extend personhood to fetuses, just "various levels of personhood":
quote: I'm interpreting "levels of personhood" to refer to some of the rights of personhood, such as the right to life. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: Percy writes:
I know that it is wrong to arbitrarily kill a baby immediately before is born and if you don't then I'm at a loss to know what to say next that isn't simply offensive. I'm trying to understand why you don't realize you don't know, either. Earlier you confused two different senses of the word "alive", and now you're confusing two different senses of the word "know". There's knowing something in a factual sense, and there's knowing something in a moral sense. I've been saying I do not know in any factual sense when life begins, and you're concluding that that means I don't know in a moral sense whether murder is right or wrong. Of course murder is wrong, but murder requires taking a person's life. Is a fetus a person?
They said that because they feel it is wrong, not because they can prove it is wrong. 'They feel it's wrong'. Of course they feel that it's wrong! You can't prove that first degree murder is wrong or rape is wrong either. Or that anything is wrong for that matter. These are all moral decisions based on our feelings about harm. Scientific proofs aren't possible in forming these judgements. More clearly, they said that because they feel it is wrong, not because they can prove a fetus is a person.
But you've invented your own Roe v. Wade interpretation, which I don't agree with. I agree with the actual language of the ruling, not all the things you claim they implied. How can you agree with Roe which says it's wrong to harm babies after a given time but not agree with Roe saying that? I assume you meant to say that Roe v. Wade says it's wrong to harm fetuses, not babies. Here's another part of Roe for you to ponder:
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: Ok Percy I give up for now. I can only take so much equivocation and avoidance. Oh, okay. Too bad. I thought we were just beginning to get into enough detail to make it interesting. I could say I think withdrawing from the discussion is prudent given the type of arguments you've been able to bring to the table, and given your inability to control your emotionalism on this topic, and given the short shrift you've given detailed arguments, but I won't say anything like that. I do think it worth repeating that Roe v. Wade quote again:
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: Percy writes: In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. Could I get your permission to edit your post so it doesn't credit me with authoring this paragraph of Roe v. Wade?
Ok, I'll bite. Why do you think this matters to the question you have difficulty answering? Okay, if you're going to insist on "pissing contest" mode, why are you not able to see the obvious?
If you don't know that killing a baby just before it's born is right or wrong, I simply don't know how to respond. It's so self-evidently an enormous wrong. And yet you can only declare your position, not explain it.
It really troubles me that you're still trying to find legal/scientific definitions of words when both science and law have said that they're not possible. What should really trouble you is how you've become so confused.
We don't intellectualise crimes like murder and rape - we can't prove that they're wrong, we just know they're wrong and society as a whole has accepted it. I've said as much. Perhaps you should expend more of your effort reading what I write and less in posturing.
Meanwhile the law says that even though they can't yet give un-born babies all the protection of born babies you still can not kill a baby at that late stage because it's quite obvious to them that it's wrong. Why it's not to you is a mystery - especially when you agree with the Roe verdict. I think if you take things down an emotional notch and attempt to engage the discussion sincerely and dispassionately that you might find the understanding you claim you seek. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: Well I tried,... You tried to badger instead of discuss and persuade.
...but I'm sorry Percy, I"m no longer interested in discussing this with you,... You already weren't discussing this with me.
...we're not going to make any progress,... That would all be up to you. This is the third time you've declared you're exiting the discussion. These multiple exits feel very familiar.
...it'll just annoy both of us. I'm not annoyed. I don't mind repeating explanations, but it could be that "I don't know" is not an answer you could ever find yourself able to accept. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Tangle writes: But instead of answering what I believe ro be core questions about the issues you came back with more equivocation and avoidance. I think progress is possible if you ended all the dramatics and accusations and instead focused on sincere, good faith discussion. You seem to find disagreement with you base and a sign of immorality.
So yeh, I'm now withdrawing from discussing this with you for a while longer. I'll just keep a count of your withdrawals: that's number 4. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
Gee, the similarity is uncanny. Glad you two are besties now.
If you're just here to misrepresent then denigrate your fellow debaters maybe it would be best if you did actually finally do what you've been saying you're going to do and withdraw from the discussion. But if you'd like to constructively discuss the topic then I am here. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22500 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9
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There was some discussion up thread about Stephen Pinker's thesis that the world is on an improving trend of declining violence. Not that this isn't true, but it's an emergent property of increasing wealth. If/when wealth declines so will the trend of declining violence, along with other positive trends, such as declining wars, declining poverty, improving health and longevity, etc.
Ted Talks runs a weekly radio show of interviews and Ted Talk excerpts of people who have given Ted Talks, and this week's included Stephen Pinker talking about his book The Better Angels of Our Nature, the one that Tangle referenced up thread that sparked this side discussion. Also on the show was Paul Gilding, former Greenpeace director and a Fellow at the University of Cambridge's Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Gilding spoke about his book The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World. Gilding's thesis is that The Earth is Full (the title of his Ted Talk), and that a number of current trends are running in the wrong direction, climate change being the most significant driver of change, but sustainability of resources, food production and pollution also being important. Gilding is optimistic, believing that civilization will survive, though not without massive catastrophes first. Some conclude from Pinker's ideas that mankind is getting better, that we are learning. We are not. Evolution doesn't work that fast. We're still the violent, brutish thugs we were 200,000 years ago. Our wealth (i.e., our improving ability to take advantage of natural resources) has enabled us to evolve increasingly enlightened societies that emphasize freedom, happiness and health. But there's only one Earth, and as Earth's human population presses toward and then past 8 billion it will reach its limit of how much humanity it can sustain, particularly as we spectacularly fail to address climate change. It cannot be predicted whether this will happen as a gradual decline or as a crash. I suspect the former, but punctuated by spectacular disasters of both climate and food. But whatever the pace of this change, it will bring with it increasing violence and decreasing freedom, happiness and health as nation states battle over resources with the nuclear threat ever present. Our primary hope must be that science and technology somehow win the race against climate change, but this possibility is in the hands of politicians who in many western countries, by far the most powerful block of countries in the world, are given power by electorates too dominated by blockheads swayed by the arguments of populists, scare mongers, haters and reality show hosts. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Grammar.
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