Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by bilmore
Me, I could do it if the actual life of the mother were threatened. Because then we'd be balancing two facially equal competing interests, and only one can win.

That, and cases of rape and incest, were the reasons Kerry gave for not voting to support the ban on partial-birth abortions. I guess you really can appreciate that sometimes things aren't as black and white as Mr. Bush paints them.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I give less weight to the woman's rights because she is not potentially being killed as a result of my decision. Seems logical, doesn't it?

She might be if Bush gets his way. Remember, the current drafts don't allow for abortion even where the mother's health is threatened.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Al Capone was the mayor of Boston?

It may have been quoted by any number of mayors, but the saying originated on the South Side of Chicago. Back in the USA. Back in the Bad Old Days.

Was that the night Chicago died? Brother what anight that really was.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by taxwonk
That is a good argument. However, it overlooks a more basic metaphysical argument. Is a fetus a "life" as we conceive of it in political and social terms?

Oh, I agree that this is THE argument, the one this all devolves to. Just like the slavery one - are blacks human? - determined the outcome of that controversy, this will determine how the abortion argument goes. (It became the accepted paradigm, after a bit, that, yes, blacks were human, and deserving of human value.) If, tomorrow, we all became one in our agreement that a fetus is NOT life until birth, then abortion would be an easy call. If, tomorrow, we all decided that a fetus is a human life, with all of the socially-conferred rights of everyone else, then, again, it would be an easy call.

We can throw all sorts of arguments out at each other - the rights of the mother, social utility, religion, whatever - but it's all going to hinge on how this question evolves.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by taxwonk
I submit that the proper measurement of life is a life in being.

Ass. I do TOO have worth.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by bilmore
Oh, I agree that this is THE argument, the one this all devolves to. Just like the slavery one - are blacks human? - determined the outcome of that controversy, this will determine how the abortion argument goes. (It became the accepted paradigm, after a bit, that, yes, blacks were human, and deserving of human value.) If, tomorrow, we all became one in our agreement that a fetus is NOT life until birth, then abortion would be an easy call. If, tomorrow, we all decided that a fetus is a human life, with all of the socially-conferred rights of everyone else, then, again, it would be an easy call.

We can throw all sorts of arguments out at each other - the rights of the mother, social utility, religion, whatever - but it's all going to hinge on how this question evolves.

Since you have pro-choice people on this board agreeing with you that a fetus is human life before birth, you might take that as a sign that you have not isolated the question that divides us yet. Rather, it's compressed into that "with all of the socially conferred rights of everyone else" language there.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Since you have pro-choice people on this board agreeing with you that a fetus is human life before birth, you might take that as a sign that you have not isolated the question that divides us yet. Rather, it's compressed into that "with all of the socially conferred rights of everyone else" language there.

The words I used are sort of irrelevant - if you want to read in that "with all of the socially-conferred right" language, it still works for me. I simply meant, at which point do we decide to protect as a human being.

[bilmore]

Wow. PBS is doing a Bush/Rove/Hughes hatchet job right now. And they're using my money to do it.

So much for my sympathy for Kerry with the new documentary.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
No, for the same reason I don't think slaveowners were truly evil people. That's what their society saw as the norm, at that time. That changed.

Nice moral relativism argument. What about the abolitionists? How did they know it was wrong if the others couldn't know it was wrong?

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
Nice moral relativism argument. What about the abolitionists? How did they know it was wrong if the others couldn't know it was wrong?

None of us lives in a vacuum, born with a ready moral base. We develop social morality through interaction with society. In ten thousand years, when they've developed the ability to communicate with brocolli, will they label all of us brocolli eaters as evil? I hope not.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Cite, please.

It is widely believed in scientific communities that the appearance of RNA in prebiotic earth was the watershed event that lead to the origin of life on earth. This is not incompatible with a belief in a higher being.

http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/SUA05/origin.html
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/S...gins_life.html
http://www.accessexcellence.org/WN/NM/miller.html
http://cmex-www.arc.nasa.gov/VikingC...le/Prebiot.htm
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise...y/PBearth.html
http://www.chem.duke.edu/~jds/cruise...gy/miller.html

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
This is not incompatible with a belief in a higher being.

This makes me feel . . . ratified, somehow. I spent so many years in pursuit of a higher being.

Made it a few times, too.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
None of us lives in a vacuum, born with a ready moral base. We develop social morality through interaction with society. In ten thousand years, when they've developed the ability to communicate with brocolli, will they label all of us brocolli eaters as evil? I hope not.

I disagree. Our morals are innate. Whether we choose to abide by these morals or not is influenced by environment. Slave owners knew what they were doing was wrong. They just didn't want to admit that to themselves because it was to their advantage to act that way. So they made up justifications for their behavior. Slavery is a malum in se crime.

Women who have abortions for convenience often feel tremendous regret for the rest of their lives and many eventually admit to themselves that the decision that they made was morally wrong. It isn't their environment that makes them eventually realize this. It comes from within themselves.

eta - there are people who are sociopaths who are born without these innate morals.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Not Me
I disagree. Our morals are innate. Whether we choose to abide by these morals or not is influenced by environment.

I agree that our basic moral principles are innate. Like Ayn Rand, I buy the idea that the moral is that which serves life, and I think that impulse is a natural one.

It's the application of that principle that we need to learn.

An immoral act has to be an intentional one. A mistake can't define immorality. If I don't understand that brocolli is a sentient being, my eating it isn't evil - it's uninformed. If I don't understand that people consider women to be actual humans, fully as worthwhile as men, than my not hiring one as my bank vice president is a mistake, not evil. When everyone around owns slaves, (and this one is a closer call, admittedly), and accepts it as natural, I think there's a strong argument for the mistake explanation. However, as the issue is discussed and fought out and the points and counterpoints made clear, one can't claim ignorance, and the mistake moves closer to being a knowing one.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
Doctors Without Borders

They already won (1999), but as proof that the Nobel Committee is too internationalist and faggoty to award the Prize to 43, they awarded it to "Médecins Sans Frontières."