Politics: A new beginning

[Diane_Keaton]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
As much time as we waste here, we are apparently not the edge of time wasting. here's a page full of remixes of the Dean speech.
http://home.comcast.net/~cozdemir226/index.html

Ooh! This one's the best. http://home.comcast.net/~cozdemir226...razytrain.mp3.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Not Me
I am always left scratching, inter alia my head when I hear (or in this case read) people say things like that. Either you believe the fetus is a human being or you don't. There is no middle ground, hence the reason that people are in your words "extreme" about this issue. If you believe the fetus is a human being, you cannot tolerate abortion except to save the mother's life. If you don't, then the mother's right to control her own body is preeminent.

You see, this is why the abortion debate is quickly pushed to all or nothing arguments from two sides. Guess what -- do that, your side loses.

OK, let me give you some positions I feel comfortable with. An embryo is not, in my mind, a human being. A fully developed fetus is. The mother is.

Somewhere there is a transition. You absolutists will say at the point of conception, and will lose most people there. Hint: focus the debate elsewhere and you won't.

Frankly, I'm not ready to tolerate abortion at whim - we protect animals from cruelty, a fetus conceived of voluntarilly by people who just thought the birth control would work or who didn't think at all strikes me as still deserving of some level of protection here.

RvW split the baby (no pun intended). And not in a good way.

And here's another way you'll lose this debate. Hint: treat all life with reverence, don't make jokes on this one.

So are you saying that taking "a little pill that prevents growth beyond an embryo" is NOT an abortion? Are you talking about contraceptive pills or an RU486-type pill? 'Cuz if it is RU486, that's an abortion.

I'm less concerned with a very early stage abortion. Remember, I don't buy the abortion is murder position that you being by assuming, so saying "it's an abortion" doesn't end the inquiry for me.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by bilmore
Thomas Dew wrote a good book outlining this thought process. It's a social utility argument.

Social utility being that slippery slope leading to bilmore's mouth filled with old people. I got it. Thanks.

But wait, I am still a bit unclear on how that 24 week old baby in the NICU hooked up to the ECMO has more social utility than the 24 week old fetus still in the womb. Unless spending $600,000 for ECMO provides hospital workers jobs. Ok, I do get it. Thanks again.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

And here's another way you'll lose this debate. Hint: treat all life with reverence, don't make jokes on this one.

Note to self: Add this to the list of things that are not allowed on this board.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Not Me
So if they are human, WHY does viability change their legal status? That is the question I have never heard a satisfactory answer to. I am all ears.

Sperm is (often) human, and we (non-Catholics) don't get upset when it's spilt on the dusty ground instead of used to inseminate (human) eggs. As Burger said, conception is just another line. As the Larry Davis Experience said ... ah, fuck it, I probably just agree with him, so I incorporate his posts by reference and give him my proxy.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Note to self: Add this to the list of things that are not allowed on this board.

I wasn't taking personal offense. Go ahead and do it on the board if you like. But I'm just convinced jokes about abortion will never go over.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Note to self: Add this to the list of things that are not allowed on this board.

I don't recall any censorship. There are many words one can use on this board, and many of them will predictably draw responses. With maturity comes responsibility. Or so bilmore tells his Duff-loving daughter. That's Hillary, not the beer.

[Montecore]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
But I'm just convinced jokes about abortion will never go over.

Oy vey. There goes my "2 fetuses walk into a bar" bit.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
You see, this is why the abortion debate is quickly pushed to all or nothing arguments from two sides.

Yes, I know. That was my point regarding why this debate is between two groups arguing extremes with no middle ground.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Guess what -- do that, your side loses.

Abortion will NEVER be outlawed in every state in the US. Maybe in Mississippi If RvW is overturned, but no where else.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
OK, let me give you some positions I feel comfortable with. An embryo is not, in my mind, a human being. A fully developed fetus is. The mother is.

What is a human being? Note I did not ask you at what point an embryo becomes a human being. I am asking you to DEFINE what you mean when you use the term "human being."

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Somewhere there is a transition.

Now I am asking you to tell me at what point that transition occurs.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
You absolutists will say at the point of conception, and will lose most people there. Hint: focus the debate elsewhere and you won't.

But if the absolutists focus the debate elsewhere, they will lose, too. See my point above that abortion will never be outlawed in all 50 states. It's not going to happen.

Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
Frankly, I'm not ready to tolerate abortion at whim - we protect animals from cruelty, a fetus conceived of voluntarilly by people who just thought the birth control would work or who didn't think at all strikes me as still deserving of some level of protection here.

I think 20 years ago, people were more likely to tolerate abortion at whim and that the pro-life efforts have changed minds on this point. Not saying that they changed any pro-choice person's mind about first trimester abortions. But I do think that them keeping this issue at the forefront of the political debate has helped to switch many pro-choice people's mantra from "a woman's right to choose" to "safe, legal, and rare." And that's progress.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Or so bilmore tells his Duff-loving daughter. That's Hillary, not the beer.

These are not mutually exclusive, I fear.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Sperm is (often) human, and we (non-Catholics) don't get upset when it's spilt on the dusty ground* instead of used to inseminate (human) eggs. As Burger said, conception is just another line. As the Larry Davis Experience said ... ah, fuck it, I probably just agree with him, so I incorporate his posts by reference and give him my proxy.

Sperm is a living cell from a human, but sperm is not a human being. A kidney is not a human being, either in case you were confused about that, too.

*I hope you used a towel to wipe it off the dusty ground.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Not Me
I know WHAT it is that you think. You think at the point of viability the fetus' right to life outweighs the mothers right to choose. What I don't get is WHY you think that. WHY do rights vest at viability....

Fine but how does the viability of the fetus change any of that? If those factors are so important to determining whether abortion should be available, do any of those factors change once the fetus becomes viable.

Looks like Ty was heading this way anyway, but if I have his proxy then I'd better live up to it.

I just don't find the viability test to be vastly more intellectually suspect than conception. There could be another person (for simplicity's sake, you can call him the Pope) who says that all sex has the potential to create life and so we should ban all birth control and nonprocreative sex. They could see conception as an arbitrary line and in doing so call you "intellectually dishonest" for supporting the denial of life to all of the little potential fetuses who are so insensitively captured in a latex baggie and thrown in the garbage .

(btw, if you are indeed against birth control and nonprocreative sex, then I salute your intellectual honesty and will humbly depart the field in the knowledge that some things my intellect simply can't overcome.)

In other words, I feel that your choice of conception as the dividing line is not as logically inevitable as you are making it out to be. Therefore, since we are dwelling in shades of gray (some grayer than most) I look to "those factors", as well as to my belief in a woman's rights with respect to her own body and health, to inform my analysis of where the line should be drawn.

[eating lunch so I am letting myself be sucked back in despite my "embarrassing" losses earlier today. be gentle.]

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Not Me
Sperm is a living cell from a human, but sperm is not a human being.

But a sperm is, given the right situation, a potential life. So is a fetus between conception and viability. Once it is viable, then I see it as a human being. Is that illogical?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Not Me
Social utility being that slippery slope leading to bilmore's mouth filled with old people. I got it. Thanks.

But wait, I am still a bit unclear on how that 24 week old baby in the NICU hooked up to the ECMO has more social utility than the 24 week old fetus still in the womb. Unless spending $600,000 for ECMO provides hospital workers jobs. Ok, I do get it. Thanks again.

Social utility can't be the answer, because then you could abort up until about age 10, when they can start to work on the farm. And dogs are cuddlier before then.

Is your point that the only logically coherent bright line is conception? And are you therefore taking the position that an IUD, which prevents implanation after conception, should/could be otulawed?

The problem with the conception-as-bright-line test is that it ignores altogether that there is, in fact, a mother attached to the fetus. And that, legally, that mother has some interests independent of that conceptus. Put aside the "potential human" question--because when you call a fetus human only confuses the issue. The sole question is when do whatever rights we accord the fetal matter supercede the rights of the mother containing that matter.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by Tyrone_Slothrop
Or so bilmore tells his Duff-loving daughter. That's Hillary, not the beer.

I always figured they were a Fudd family.