Abortion

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The reason I did not use circumcision is because that is a loaded term in this society, loaded to mean acceptable and understandable.

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The point is that you took a commonly used and understood term and called it something less understood in order to exploit it for purpose of rhetoric.THAT aside, you blindsided me with it and you deserve credit for that. Props!However, is circumcision important enough to force the government into family's lives, assuming medical neglect is? I don't think a jury would believe that it is...that's about where the line is. Sometimes the line moves...in another generation circumcision may warrant abuse.It reminds me of something I said in this thread a while back: in ancient Rome a father could sell a child into slavery or kill him and it would be fine.Or as you just said:

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Rather it is societal expectations of how children should be raised in a "normal" way.

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I don't think anybody can really prove otherwise. I should have kept that in mind here.This is not to say that I necessarily agree with you. But it's a tough thing to prove. Ultimately society decides. It shouldn't be that way, we should agree on absolute ideas of right and wrong. But it's an imperfect world.

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It is neither right nor wrong. Indeed such concepts are irrelevant. It is illegal.

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So it's okay to deny others of their rights? I don't understand.

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Before you start acting like I am being disengenuous please understand that I really do operate using a moral system with no concepts of right and wrong as you just used them. This is not a joke.

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Sounds interesting.This message has been edited by gene90, 11-03-2005 06:48 PM

If you mean hyperbolic rhetoric then you are wrong. If you mean to argue a position well, by removing terminology which allowed for deception, you are correct.I stated why I used that term. I was being clinical. This is correct and what I am trying to reveal. Appeals to protecting children and children's rights are simply smokescreens for what is really going on. We either grant parents the rights to raise children and thus potentially abuse them (or not depending on what society says at the time), or the state to raise and thus potentially abuse them (or not depending on what society says later).I am for parents making the tough choices, because in the long run they will do less harm than the state. Or at the very least I can raise my kids and you can raise yours in the way you deem is best despite whatever the population at large might get into their head for a while. They are our kids and so the mistakes should be at our level. In a perfect world? Maybe, though that doesn't have to be the case. We could also understand that there is no such thing as absolute rights and wrongs, and there doesn't have to be for people to get along. Heheheh... that's one of the funny things I get. I explicitly say there is no RIGHT or wrong, and the person immediately suggests I must be saying it is RIGHT to do something they consider wrong.No it is not "okay" to deny others their rights. It is not okay with the person because they do not like their rights trampled. It is not okay with the state because it is an illegal act.However it is NEITHER okay or not okay in a moral sense to deny such rights. Such moral statements are meaningless. Well what they really mean is "I don't like it". I've laid it out a couple times at EvC over the years. Its not very popular at this time since most of the world has been influenced/dominated by Abrahamic principles (mainly Xian and Islamic). Before the rise of both, my moral system was the common one and can still be found in some smaller cultures.Its supposed to be making a small comeback but it is hard given that most preconceptions and language are based on the moral system of rights and wrongs.I believe (and hope) one day it'll come back in use, though I am realistic to know it won't be in my or my kids' lifetime. As a system its a bit more naturalistic, and does not force one into silly black/white dilemmas. Its also nice in that it escapes the problem of having to claim objective standards for moral conclusions.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Actually I have problems with blanket prohibitions of smoking. On the other hand I do think those who indulge need to fully support the habit by paying a tax that covers all the medical costs associated with it (rather than drive up insurance costs for all). Kind of like a ... what's that conservative term ... oh yeah, user fee. Personal responsibility eh?The flexibility comes down to where the rights of others are infringed, and abuse of anyone, be it young, old, poor or ignorant, is still abuse whether it is for economic gain or not. As far as labor laws go, the view here should be the platimum rule: threat others in the manner you would like to be treated.

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I was going to look up this thread because of a news story I saw recently that talked about parental decision and child care:see
Judge: Parents can decide on teen's care (click)and
Sick Texas girl to be reunited with family (click)Apparently the girl was removed from the parents house because they were refusing to continue her treated for Hodkin's disease (deadly lymphoma). Because of legal battles between the parents and the State's Child Protective Services the girl was not getting any treatments, and has now only a 20% chance of survival versus the 80% before. The parents want to pursue alternative treatement in Kansas.There is no mention of religious beliefs being involved, just a battle over who gets to decide what treatment the girl will get.Doesn't look like state involvement has helped the situation.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

So, do you think that people's healthcare should be determined mainly by profit-motive?That's what HMO's and insurance companies' motivations are right now.Why not make them non-profit but still not run by the central government?

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Would a jury in the United States likely rule that circumcision is child abuse?

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Probably not, in the same way that 40 years ago, "marital rape" didn't exist as a concept.Women aren't considered the property of their husbands or male relatives any more, and hopefully we are moving in the direction that children are not the property of their parents.

Gene, you do know that infants die every year from complications from circumcision, and others are rendered disfigured because their penis is cut off or otherwise badly damaged by botched operations, don't you?

I don't have an answer. It would depend on the content of the jury, which would depend on the skill of the counselors during voir dire. It would depend on their culture and background.I don't think that even an attourney going into that case would be able to tell you. I'm sure that you think that they wouldn't, but I don't understand how you can simply predict the reaction of every single possible jury. I think that it's possible that they would rule that way, and also possible that they wouldn't. How could I possibly know? I don't see the relevance of the question. Can you explain it to me?

Do you ski? Climb? Hang glide? Live in a mugger-prone neighborhood? Like red meat or single malt scotch?Pay up, sir.Beware of risk-based user fees, IMHO. That way lies the dictatorship of the cocooned mundane.Also, teasing out risk differentials, and allowing insurers to cherry-pick the safer folk, is one of the ways by which the neocons look to destroy Social Security.

Add white water rafting, kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, and cycling to work.I also happily employ all current safety gear to help ensure that any minor mishaps do not become major ones.Part of personal responsibility is taking the consequences of your actions upon yourself and not trying to slough them off on others.Insurance is for the variables in the system, the ones you cannot protect yourself from by reasonable prudent behavior.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Yet I find many of your adventure activities unreasonably imprudent--and those people who jump out of perfectly good planes!If you should not have to pay the additional costs incurred by smokers, I shouldn't have to pay the additional cost you introduce to the insurance system via your inherently reckless behaviors (relative to, say, bowling or billiards).I do not think it likely that you have calculated the risks of your activities, compared them to the risks of smoking (or drinking, or eating wantonly, or having many sexual partners, or trekking in Central America), and then decided your activities are acceptably safe while these others are not.Rather, you decided what you wished to do, then did it as safely as you could manage while not destroying the pleasure you take from the activity.Whatever moral/ethical gloss you apply, or how many helmets you wear, the fact remains that your activities subject you to risks beyond those who eschew those activities. If we are going to risk-audit insurance payers and charge smokers higher premiums, you should pay more as well.Which I oppose, of course.

ROFLOLIt's still certainly better than outlawing all such behavior, and that was the point eh? and you can get horrid splinters playing billiards ... and don't even think about dropping that bowling ball on your foot ... not in those shoes ....

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

Indeed.Also, I fear the Auditors...

and the bean countersthat seem to run big business these days. make me think of the jeeves images in the ad boxes working away in their cubicles and then whisk off to alaska ("before you die") for a quickie vacation, same expression.

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.

I have not joined in this topic before now because I believed the topic as more relevant to US posters than us in the UK.However a couple of points occurred to me while browsing through this topic. Someone mentioned (Iano, I think) that the UK is rethinking the term limits on abortion. In mentioning this he concluded with a throwaway, unchallenged remark that, at the current limit, premature babies MORE OFTEN THAN NOT survive. (my emphasis) Please back this up. I do not know the stats for this, but this does seem a stretch considering lung development in 28 week foetuses.My second point originates from the same poster. He has a friend who was told that their unborn child would have Downs syndrome, along with other complications, yet when born had no complications (other than minor hearing loss). My own personal experience is that no doctor will give a definite yes/no answer to this or any medical question. They will give probabilities, percentages of this or that outcome.My wife was over 35 when confirmed pregnant, and as there was also history of Downs in my family, we were advised to take the amniocentesis test to determine the presence of Downs in our baby. The doctor advised us after the test that there was only a small chance that the baby would have Downs. He would not give a definitive yes/no. We then were to make our own choice, whether to continue the pregnancy to term or not. The point I'm making is that this one story of a diagnostic error (of which I am not convinced), proves nothing other than the (possible) poor medical support that the couple received.On a slightly different note, my aunt had Downs syndrome and lived for 40+ years, lived with severe epilepsy (1-2 minor fits a day, 2-3 major fits requiring hospitalisation a year - epilepsy is common in people with Downs syndrome), learning difficulties, eating difficulties (spoon fed for 40+ years), weight problems due to lack of mobility which led to her death at 42 of a heart attack brought on by obesity. She outlived her father, my grandad, and my grandmother lived for a year after her death, having looked after her for 24 hours a day for 42 years, including full toilet duties. (try imagining a 65 year old woman carrying a 20+ stone woman to the toilet at 3 in the morning and removing any obstructions to bowel movements by hand). My aunt was born in 1941, and no diagnostic tools had been developed in determining the possibility of Downs syndrome. We, fortunately, have a test. I have no doubt, knowing just a small fraction of what I know about living with Downs, that if the possiblity of my child having Downs was high enough I would agree to a termination WHATEVER THE TERM. The thought that people knowing (again I am not convinced of the absoluteness of this) that their child will have Downs and continuing a pregnancy to term frightens me, not just for the parents, but for the child.Anyway, enough pontificating.On the actual topic in hand I find that legality and morality are two separate things and when laws are used to favour one morality over another they cease to be just and fair. Abortion, as one option, should be legal and available to all, however distateful some may believe it to be.

Absolutely not.I was trying to suggest that HMOs and privatized insurance is just the same as socialized health care, only with less money going to healthcare in general, less money coming back to you in specific for coverage, and no control of the consumer over their medical care.It is absurd when Reps argue that they hate socialized medicine and then champion HMOs. Surreal. Profit is not the only problem, though that doesn't help. Not for profit does not mean that people cannot use an organization to make money for themselves rather than using most of the money on what its supposedly going to.And this would not change the underlying problem of splintered coverage which means inefficiency and waste (at the very least on advertising and lawyers and agents to police the organizations), or denial of coverage.The only system that makes sense is a govt dept of health services (much like the military) which covers all medical health needs. These could be state or even city operated, but the higher the level the better. It does not have to be extravagant, for example including plastic surgery for other than reconstructive purposes.Indeed I think independent private health care should also be available (allowed), even for routine health needs which would already be covered by the health dept.That way people can choose what they want, though something is there just in case they are in a situation where they don't have an ability to choose.It has the added benefit of coordinating emergency health care during natural or manmade disasters.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)