Abortion

I'm sorry, but if anything less than 100% prevention is regarded as culpable and so choice a part of the decision, then getting pregnant through rape (adult, not child) is just as much a lifestyle choice as any other pregnancy.After all if you don't want to get pregnant through rape, you can choose to be sterilized, or abstain from all human contact where rape is a greater than 0% possibility.I guess this is to say that when accidents occur, it seems to me that choice is missing from those incidents as well. So does that make you culpable if people planted a bomb on your motorcycle, or set traps on a road, or sabotaged your brakes in a way you could not have known beforehand?There are normal risks, and then there are the risks you could not foresee. And some have impacts beyond yourself.As it is, you motorcycle analogy is all bluster. If you crash I am pretty certain you will avail yourself to modern medicine to save yourself. The same goes for people that get pregnant. And before you reply with something about your crash not requiring surgery that would kill someone else, you need to imagine a much larger scenario.To risk one's life in a pregnancy which has become medically challenging is to risk more than just one's own well being. The loss of your own life could impact your family. In that case you must make decisions which are fateful.If you were involved in a crash with your family and saving an unborn "child" would mean risking the mother, would that choice be as obvious? Heck, sometimes one is forced to choose (based on time available and nature of wounds) between saving a living child and a parent.You can go into a pregnancy understanding the risks and "accepting" them. But "accepting" those risks, more often than not means if things go bad the unborn child will be sacrificed to save the parent and so not affect the family as it currently stands. Most versions of the pill, among other methods, will prevent a fertilized egg from successfully becoming/staying implanted. Thus if your line is conception, the pill may very well destroy "persons".

---

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

See that's where I knew you'd end up. That was in direct reference to lifestyle choice. To equate the above, with someone who sincerely tried not to get pregnant, and an accident occured, and on top of that a medical risk later became evident... your definition is just too damn broad.

---

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

heheheh... the fact that you feel "spelling it out" is an answer to my argument, shows how little you appreciate your actual position. Hey I'm up on all the possible ways to avoid pregnancy and still get off. And yes you can reach 100% with certain techniques (mainly no reproductive sexual acts).My argument is only against your equivocation between anyone doing something that allows for slightly less than 100% protection, with making a lifestyle choice with credible risk such that it leaves them culpable for any and all outcomes. You can't think of any way to avoid unwanted rape and, even more so, unwanted pregnancy through rape, than suicide? Who is being disengenuous, now? You yourself mentioned sterilization as an option, why is that not proper here? And there are of course other physical ways of making rape impossible.Just as with wanted sex, one does know that just stepping out the door or being alone with a man allows for the chance of rape, and therefore the chance of pregnancy through rape. How come allowing that probability to exist (less than 100% protection) does not leave one culpable in this instance? They do. One of the consequences is having to then weigh the life of the fetus against that of the mother. What's great is that you answered this to a quote which specifically told you not to answer this because I was moving to a different argument. Did you feel better saying this totally pointless thing? Whoaaaaaaaaaa, nelly! See, now we circled right back around to the beginning. You care to support the above assertion?But anyway, you can't simply remove an analogy and its implications by stating "at the moment it's..."I just stated your motorcycle analogy was not complete as you were making it. For ease of analogy I am going to make it a car, though it could just as easily be you and your wife on a bike. The actual analogy to having sex is everytime you decide to get into a car with your family. Every instance is a risk to the whole family, including the unborn.Do you advocate abstinence from driving, or once crashed no hospital service at all? Or if you allow hospital service, if medical treatment forces a decision on who should live, the adult's lives are automatically forfeit because they took the risk?Here, let me spell it out for you...Adults having sex are like you getting on a bike, or into a car, with your wife and kids. They take precautions to avoid accidents, but they know full well accidents can happen despite all the best precautions. If an accident occurs they do (or should) accept the risk they took, and then must decide how to deal with the medical issues/risks they face due to the accident. The immediate and logical answer is not "the adults must pay any and all costs no matter what it means for the family, because they chose to X". The answer is that they will weigh the risks and decide for themselves what is tolerable risk, and when it is intolerable such that a child must be lost rather then the adult.I doubt, if you have a family, you will refuse to drive anywhere just to avoid facing those consequences, though they will always be there. Same with sex. You avoid what you can responsibly.

---

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

It isn't common knowledge. Indeed current state of data itself is questioned within your link. Oh by the way I should warn you, when someone cites something, I actually go and read what is cited. Thus its a good idea for you to do the same before citing something to me.Since you have cited this study, and so I assume you have read it, I will simply state here that the author questions manipulation of studies, and indeed points to the limitations of the statistics due to the nature of their collection. If you want me to pull up the quotes I will.So I repeat again, I do not know, because as far as I know there is no common knowledge on the subject, which makes your comments simple ad hominem blather.Now let's assume for a moment that the stats presented in this citation are nonproblematic and wholly representative. I will do that for sake of moving this debate along. You have conveniently built a strawman of my position. My argument was not just rape/incest (indeed I excluded incest)/and imminent known medical issues. I have openly discussed as reasons social/economic concerns and risks posed by pregnancy itself. One does not have to know there is a specific medical problem to be concerned with the risk of pregnancy which means that problems may develop down the line. When a person knows they have a greater chance dying from childbirth complications than abortion complications, the risks of continuing with childbirth are something which that person may want to avoid in general.If you look throughout that article you will find stats from different states as well as the AGI survey. Some support the AGI survey, and some do not. I notice you did not bother to mention the other results and what they might mean.In any case, let's just take the AGI survey results... just for argument's sake. The reds are what you strictly define as r/i/m =7%
The yellows are what I was discussing as real issues which can go into determining whether to continue the pregnancy, and may arise after pregnancy occurs = 53%
The purples may or may not include issues I am talking about = 28%
Unknown = 3%
Which leaves the other parts which could be called wholly (undisputed) lifestyle = 9%Now lets assume the greens and unknowns are purely lifestyle decisions then the total is 40%. That is at best, the majority is not "lifestyle". I can cut you ten percent of the rest and it still doesn't give you a way to claim "most" abortions are about lifestyle. The pollsters didn't put it that way, whoever put this piece together (and it does look like it is biased) did. In any case, the following look like good concerns to me, and may involve estimate of risk... ... and that is at lowest 65%.If the argument was that rape and immediate known physical issues make up the smallest amount in total, I would agree and the stats definitely support that. My issue has been the equivocation of all remaining reasons as independent of general health and social concern, and just being a case of neglectful sexual behavior or callous disregard (example: abortion for sex of the child). You don't seem to understand data. Just because 46% did not use conception, does not mean that they did not have good reason to abort at a later time. Yes, rape did not account for much of the issue, but the rest may have thought it was okay and indeed may have initially been trying for a child, only to realize pregnancy would not be a good idea.But for sake of argument lets say the 46% were all people just winging things, knowing full well they were taking a risk (wonder how many were using the rhythm/withdrawal methods you suggested). That clearly does not allow you the ability to claim most were making a lifestyle choice which involved great risk.Nearly 17% were inherently identified as victims of an accident beyond their control, and the other portion (making up the clear majority) tried to prevent pregnancy and had it fail for unidentifiable reasons. If you want to complain about the stupidity of someone who doesn't know how to use contraceptives properly, that is a whole other issue. Yes it must given your insistence on reading beyond numbers to impose rather strong stereotypes on others. I can only assume you are not a practicing Xian? What % was that, and where did you get that total. Please be explicit on how you read past the generic, sometimes vague, and inconsistent self-reporting tallies to generate the above position.I especially love the specifics regarding no concerns about trimesters. Do you know what the data is on when most abortions are performed? As a hint, it is floating around EvC somewhere and it doesn't suggest the irrationality you just portrayed. First of all my main two points were to call you on the fact that we don't (and certainly you don't seem) to have accurate knowledge on what goes into the decision making process for most abortions and to attack your broad definition of "lifestyle choice" which as has already been shown you have chosen it to create a guilt by association argument. I was not trying to defend abortion, just criticize the nature of your argument.Second, in defending abortion rights, I didn't say anything about humanitarianism nor a woman's body is her own. My position is different than most I suppose, but if you are going to criticize me you better get my position right first.And why you keep harping on rape and incest I'll never know. Point to where I addressed either as an argument for why women are having or should have abortions.The only herrings appear to be coming from you. Is it the conversation, or the amount of beer you were drinking while trying to put together your shamble of a response? Next time try it sober.This message has been edited by holmes, 08-31-2005 05:03 PM

---

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

That's fine. That almost reminded me of the scene in Good Will Hunting, where Affleck told Damon he kept hoping that one day Damon just wouldn't be there (at home) anymore, and that was a sign of what a good friend Affleck was.I wish conditions were such that my desire to pop on as much as I do would get overridden by cool things going on in real life. Sometimes prospects come up, but then they disappear. My guess is when I finally get my resident's permit I'll actually start getting a real life... or when the weather is nice here for more than three days in any two month period. Honestly, I think we had a month straight of rain.

---

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

I'm not sure, it seems that most so called conservatives these days are merely liberals with a different social agenda. This is where you should be spotting the irony. Here you are arguing that the State should be an advocate for children's rights over those of the parents. Yet is not the point of families a recognition that there are parents who should have control over the rights of their offspring? Replacing parents with the state based on an idea that the state will know better is pretty dangerous.If children really do have rights, then what can parents do at all? How can they teach their children a religion by forcing them to go to church (that violates many rights), set curfews, limit the friends they can see, use corporal punishments, limit what they can read, forcing them to go to school, etc?Now you may answer the above points by stating that the parents have a reason for doing such things. They are doing so (violating the rights of the child) in order to improve the child. But isn't that also what motivates the parents to do those other things that you do not like? With perhaps the exception of forced slavery for simple profit of the parents, all other things are generally the parents looking out of the interests of their children. In the case of denying medical treatment, that would be to save the child's spiritual well being.If your answer is that while parents may believe they are helping the child they may only violate rights if the state also agrees with those reasons, then parents become simple caretakers for the state.I would also find it interesting to hear that you would deny that there is a spiritual realm, or that the State may know that saving the temporal corporal life through medical procedures CANNOT harm the permanent spiritual life of the child. That would be an interesting development for legal precedents.And of course this discussion of rights of children to GET things is also interesting. They have a right to education and medical services? Then why are we shifting toward privatized schooling and as yet have no socialized medical system. If the state can say the parents MUST provide X because receiving X is the right of the child, then is the State not compelled in the same fashion, especially when it can abrogate the rights of parents in that name?This message has been edited by holmes, 10-20-2005 05:21 AM

---

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

I had pretty well forgotten about this thread. Kind of not interested anymore. However there are statements you make which I feel the need to correct as they imply a misunderstanding of my argument (as well as some aspects of the law). Whenever the state forces a parent to do something because the state knows better, that is replacing parents with the state. Only by imagining that to mean in all aspects does it become actual hyperbole as no nation will want to spend the money to actually take care of children, even if it straps parents down with rules on how children must be raised. Notice the above is a contradiction. You start correctly enough. The state exists to protect certain rights of people from other people. But then that does not mean that the state knows better than anyone. It is the others that desire protection and so create the state to supply the protections, not the state choosing it for them.That certainly can be done, but it is not how this nation was founded. State Paternalism was odious to the founding fathers. And this entirely begs the question. Who can best determine what is in the "best interest" of a child? Where are these "obligations placed upon" parents coming from? The State? Society? God? Who?And the fact that something is made criminal, does not at all justify the fact that it was made criminal or that the state knows better. Yes, it probably depends on the services. Therein lies the hypocrisy. Those not fitting with the norm will be judged abusive, no matter what actually happens to a child physically or mentally. Those fitting with the norm, will be judged not abusive, no matter what happens to a child physically or mentally.As soon as we begin to let the state usurp the rights of the parents, we are simply dictating that whatever the popular cultural trend is for child rearing is enforced. It is breaking down the freedom of religion and speech by using the backdoor scare tactic of "children". Those parents who deny medical treatment to their children are in many cases not "neglecting" their children at all. They believe that they are doing exactly what must be done for their children. It would be gross neglect for their eternal wellbeing, to submit to a transitory medical aid.I understand a state wishing to take care of children where the parents simply do not wish to care. The question is what happens when the parents absolutely do care, but their idea of proper care is in direct conflict with that assumed by the majority of the population?Can the state really take a side and say there is no such thing as an eternal soul, or that there is and it knows that the parent's version of reality and religion is incorrect? Just because it "has been ruled" does not make it consistent, nor correct. All the above says is that there is a judicial track record of denying the possibility of spiritual reality when it comes to parents and kids, if/when what parents want conflicts with the norm. It of course has nothing to do with actual health of kids.Innoculations do cause death in children. It is demonstrable that children do and will die of innoculations. A parents choice to do this, or not, has a real world effect on the physical well being of the child. So if a parent chooses not to have it done because of religious, rather than practical concerns, there is a difference?Reconstructive surgery on a child is purely aesthetic, and completely puts the child's life at risk. Yet parents are allowed that choice, if a child's looks do not meet the norm and so society feels okay with that choice.Deciding not to breast feed actually has a measurable effect on the health of children, including intelligence (iirc). Yet some do not because of religious reasons, yet this is "understood" because of cultural acceptance that the body (especially sex organs like breasts) are "bad" and "dirty", even among agnosts and atheists. Indeed over breast feeding (for a long time) and taking pleasure from it is criticized and in some cases punished, despite no indication that there is any harm done.Circumcision, while not necessarily a health hazard (as in it would be rare to die from), is purely ritual genital mutilation. It is allowed, despite its direct consequence to general health... it is mutilation.How about foot binding? Or neck stretching? That's funny. No, there are plenty of kids that go without food and medicine within the US and because the parents are trying to provide, they are not taken away and cared for. Of course the better solution would be not to take them away and simply provide the caring family with a means to properly care for them.You have avoided my point with a joke. If the state has a duty to secure rights of children , and things like education and medicine is a right that children have, then the state is most certainly NOT fulfilling its duties, and indeed is walking away from such duties.

---

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

We seem to be arguing past each other. Let's get this straight right now, I personally do not know of a spiritual realm, and have serious doubts that receiving temporal medical aid could endanger a person's spiritual health. Thus I am not arguing my position because I believe that it is reasonable to want to deny such aid and that asking for such aid is "bizarre".I am trying to make a very real point here, and that has much to do with the fact that we have not accurately defined what children are or what rights they hold, as well as when a state should be able to negate first amendment rights and deny individual citizen's beliefs.You may argue what the practice has been, but that is begging the question. Up until the Civil War the practice of the courts had been slavery supportive and the definition of a class of people as property. Indeed even up through the 20th century entire groups had been considered less than holders of full rights with that being upheld in courts.I want to move away from arguments which rely on precedent or "normalcy" as justification. That is what was used for slavery and hunting down witches, as well as oppression of minorities outside of overt persecution like those two cases.What are children? If they are not equals to adults, and parents are in fact the legal guardians allowed to impress upon them their own ideals, and not just those of society, then there is a line where state's cannot cross.The argument so far has been recognition of welfare (health) of the children is where the line (if any exists) evaporates. But what I have just got done doing is showing the rather arbitrary nature of that concept. It is based on contemporary norms, and not actual judgements of harm.Yes in the case of parents denying aid to their children where they might immediately die, we are talking about real harm. But then they are not simply neglecting the children, but rather disagreeing with the actual degree of harm done given their worldview as well as the degree of aid recieved. And as we see with things like innoculations, breast feeding, and circumcision, we do allow similar degrees of harm to befall children as long as it is culturally accepted... which the former types simply do not have. Courts DO NOT judge right and wrong. I have no idea where you got that idea. We take onto ourselves rights for ourselves and create a system to protect those rights. Whoever invents a system to decided what is best for themselves is an idiot, and soon a slave. That goes much faster if they endow that system with the "ability" to judge right and wrong.In secular law, citizens decide how to protect the rights that they have. Those that violate the rights of others come into conflict with the system. They are merely judged guilty or not guilty of the transgression, and an action is taken against the transgressor.The question is whether parents have rights over the children, or if children have their own rights. If so how are they endowed and protected? So far it seems rather arbitrary and rather an excuse for the state (the majority) to intrude on a family in order to micromanage parenting. Again this begs the question. You cannot answer a question of who can best determine best interests, by saying that parents do not when they fail in their duties.Okay, where is this list of duties? Who made them up? Why do spiritual needs which are not popular have no merit in them? And conversely why do spiritual or moral needs which are popular have merit despite evidence that they harm children? I'm sorry but we allow ritual genital mutilation on a mass scale as well as sexual deprivation and hatred of the body which leads to psychological problems later in life including (sometimes) further mutilation of the body. But as long as it is Xian and Jewish I guess that is okay. Whereas if it includes physical or sexual pleasure (which abrahamists despise as well as most western cultures having been influenced by them) their rituals would be shut down asap.Thus we are not concerned with actual harm, only harm that society perceives based on cultural expectations.But let's address theology. Wouldn't it be a concern if the theology taught was that medical help should be denied? How about starvation to cleanse the soul? Exorcism? Early marriage or sexual contacts? Polygamy? Then how do you explain their upholding moral's laws? Those are patently based on nonnatural concepts, and wholly on spiritual or "psychological" (very loosely used) issues.Furthermore, what you are arguing in practice is a denial of religious beliefs of the parents, and perhaps the child. That is saying that as far as the state is concerned, all parties are wrong and the state does in fact reject spiritual health as a valid concern. Despite not believing in such a thing myself, I do find it disturbing that the state should be able to say such a thing to an individual, including a parent.And indeed I have yet to get to the issues of whether the child wants it or not. That's interesting though I don't believe much will be found of him supporting states using the power he says was relegated to them.Interestingly I do know that you could get many quotes from him and other founding fathers blasting the idea that the govt should pay for things like medical treatments. Thus I know I will end up in conflict with them on some social welfare issues.

---

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

So I've heard. However nonemergency healthcare can and does get denied, thus pushing the poor into positions where they are faced with the worst cases, rather than preventative medicine which could have removed all risk.Second the poor do not necessarily have easy access to this "free" medical care. And when they finally get it are faced with long waits with others that are poor. I had a friend waiting hours in a bad situation, because she was poor. Here's the deal, there is simply no way of justifying full socialized medicine at this point in time. As medicine is now practiced, very high tech and very high education (which means money), costs are beyond anybody but the wealthy and can even destroy the financial well being of a wealthy person if the problem is dire enough. That situation is no good for society as well as the individual.Right now we have insurance schemes, HMOs. All that is is socialized medicine, with the downside of costing more, getting less coverage, and still leaving people out in the cold.In other words everyone at this point in time, even hard core Reps, are for socialized medicine. The only question is where they want the money and control to go, the people getting covered, or corporate entities.

---

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

??? I was being clinical, objective.Are circumcisions ritual gender mutilation or not? If not what do you describe them as? In any other culture that is exactly what they would be classified as.Xians and Jews are Abrahamists, right? What is wrong with this classification for both?Also, you are denying that Xian and Jewish concepts are NOT part of our laws? Perhaps you can explain our marriage laws, and up until very recently our anti gay laws. What they consider wrong often gets treated as harmful, whereas what other cultures consider wrong are not considered harmful. So yes, Abrahamic religious concepts get special treatment.Yes, most Abrahamic traditions teach sexual deprivation and hatred of the body. Where am I wrong in that assertion? Having grown up in a rather liberal Xian denomination the teachings were still quite body and sex negative. Unlike other cultures, there is an emphasis on teaching the flesh as being sinful and sex as dirty, unless placed within very rigid ritual confines.And yes, such things do lead to psychological problems later in life. Sexual deprivation, and hatred of sexuality, has been shown to have a very great negative impact on people. Do you need studies on this? I believe I have already posted them elsewhere at EvC.What I find interesting is that you picked up on that instead of the greater points being argued.

---

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

A woman having her labia and sometimes clitoris clipped off is correctly termed circumcision. In this nation it would be referred to as ritual genital mutilation.A woman with her feet bound so as to be tiny, would not be called "binding" but ritual mutilation.That is of course what both are and that is a clinical term, not rhetoric. The reason I did not use circumcision is because that is a loaded term in this society, loaded to mean acceptable and understandable. You are actually arguing that I should use loaded terms rather than clinical ones which have a negative connotation due to their accuracy. It is neither right nor wrong. Indeed such concepts are irrelevant. It is illegal. There is a world of difference between morality and legality. Or at least there was supposed to be.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. In some areas yes, and in some no. In Western society it is mostly no, and that simply underscores what I am pointing out.That society can look at a patently physically harmful act and declare it not harmful, while insisting that another harmful act must be stopped because they agree it is, shows the arbitrary and hypcritical nature of our current system.It is imperfect to be sure. And worse than that it uses ethnocentrism to justify its conclusions as well as damn conclusions of others. And worse still, it uses claims that it is doing what it does in the name of children and children's rights in order to get justification, when it can be shown rather conclusively that these are not actually what is being protected. Rather it is societal expectations of how children should be raised in a "normal" way.Its not so much the imperfection that I hate, but the selfdeception I'm expected to swallow for how and why it renders the judgements it does.

---

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

Crash got there first and he got it right. The nature of your dodging is becoming more apparent. What jury in the MidEast would rule female circumcision as child abuse?What does appealing to the norm of a society being upheld by a system mean, when the argument you are facing is a criticism that a system is simply upholding norms? Who are you trying to kid? First of all I didn't even say religious, though crash certainly was correct in mentioning the religious aspects. At this point in time it is RITUAL, which can be just as much secular as religious. Foot binding in China was ritual and had nothing to do with religion.Okay but what about circumcision. Without question it is ritual, and its basis is in religious ritual. That it has become societal ritual over time does not change anything.And yes many times it is still done in the name of religion. There is no legal health ordnance that children must be circumcized for some valid purpose. Parents must choose. Jews are generally not choosing it just to go with the flow. It is part of their religious heritage, as it is for many Xians.Do you need me to quote the Bible on this?Now, Crashfrog, if circumcision is bad what do you call denial of medical treatment? Do you think that an American jury would tend to treat these two as exactly the same?[/qs]The point is that if an American jury's reason for making a decision were in upholding children's rights, specifically those of health, they would judge them both the same. Other than degree, what is the difference?By the way, can you tell me when an infant has given their consent to have that pointless operation? We currently jail people for touching an infant sexually, even just once. Yet cut it up and that is right because an infant can't consent? How does that make sense?This message has been edited by holmes, 11-03-2005 06:51 PM

---

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

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.

---

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

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.

---

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

Why? What does casual sex have to do with lack of respect and responsibility?Not to mention what does casual sex lack such that it is inherently less meaningful as a sexual interaction?People in relationships can have more irresponsible, disrespectful and meaningless sex with their partner than those who have an honest sexual encounter with someone else that desires them and yet they have no further emotional entanglements.Deluding children into believing sex should have something to do with strong bonding emotions and have a great impact on their life is just as mistaken as claiming abstinence is the answer. Its all phony.

---

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