Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by long winded fool
This is patently false. You are inventing criteria and assuming it to be a priori. Because killing a person is murder does not make personhood the criteria that must be violated for killing a life form to be murder. I have proven this. Claiming I haven't without refuting me is not logical.

The only valid justification for banning abortion is if it deserves the same rights people get--it's a person.

Both are valid and sound arguments based on axioms. Do you see that the conclusion of your argument does not logically refute mine? Do you see that I am not assuming my conclusion in my argument? Do you see that this is a fallacy of attacking a straw man? The subject of your conclusion is an adjective, while the subject of my premise is a noun.

So many of your aguments amount to "abortion is wrong because it's wrong".

You're the vocal minority. My estimate of the true pro-life people in this country is only about 10% if that. The reason you accomplish anything at all is that you have a bunch of allies who want to punish women and don't really care about the fetus.

Another straw man. The goal is not to punish women. The goal is to abolish abortion. Punishment is incidental. Not really caring about another human being does not deserve legal punishment. Destroying a human being does.

You are a true pro-lifer--part of the 10% I was referring to. I think you're only the second reasoned one I've encountered in about 20 years on discussion boards.

Where does the constitution address a fetus at all?

The Declaration of Independence, when in context with the Constitution and The Bill of Rights addresses the fetus as often as it addresses blacks.

Blacks were considered lesser people, not non-people.

Note that pre Roe vs Wade there were *NO* laws that in effect declared the fetus a person. The act of having an abortion was *NOT* punished. The only crime was performing one.

Fortunately for my argument, you don't have to kill a person to commit murder.

Killing a fetus has never been considered murder until recent laws passed in an attempt to undermine Roe vs Wade.

Since when are we required to create and enforce laws prohibiting theoretical occurrences, and how is it rational to apply such a law to something that is neither an ET nor an AI?

Remember the big debate about human cloning?

The relevance is that I'm saying that a proper law must include all cases.

Moralities may differ, but they can't contradict one another without at least one being wrong. This is simple logic.

There have been *MANY* standards of what is moral or not that have no absolute basis.

Most cultures say you shouldn't marry your sister--and for good reason . However, some permit you to marry your first cousin. Others say this is wrong but the second cousin is ok. Which standard is right?

If my morality tells me to poke you in the eye, you are going to know that either my morality is wrong, or yours is.

That example is easy to address: Would you consider it proper for someone to poke you in the eye? No? Then it's also immoral for you to do it.

As long as you are a being capable of rational thought, morality is not relative and there are such things as absolutely wrong morals, though we may differ on what exactly those are.

There are plenty of things that are absolutely wrong and most can be identified by the test given above. Beyond that, however, there's a realm of subjective things.

Is touching a strange woman's breast (outside the context of prostitution/strippers etc) immoral? There's a group in China where that's the normal form of greeting! For the stranger to touch the breast that is only supposed to be touched by friends, however, is immoral by their standards.

It may be the case that some doctors only consider a life form viable if it can survive without assistance, however this is not the definition of viable. If it is able to grow and develop normally (i.e. naturally), it is viable.

Assistance isn't the issue--viability is the point where survival outside the womb is possible.

Therefore all miscarriages would have to be investigated. An autopsy would be required. Failure to save the material would send you to jail, same as improper disposition of a corpse would.

Only if the mother is proven to be the cause of the death. Since most miscarriages are due to natural medical problems, most would not have to be investigated.

Virtually all would have to be investigated--you don't know until you investigate! Unless the doctor knew a miscarriage was expected he wouldn't sign off on it and an autopsy would be needed.
If you want to make it a person you have to accept all the negative implications as well.

I am aware that abortion would be an easy crime to get away with if it were illegal, but I am simply arguing that in order to have a strong system of law in this country, laws cannot contradict each other.

Investigate all miscarriages then.

Dr Rick

First you used the word human, and now you are using the term human being, but that does not prove anything; You have yet to present a convincing argument that a fetus is a being, human or otherwise, deserving of legal protection against being aborted. The equivocation of terms is no substitute for logic

If you want to call a fetus a human being, fine; it's a human being whose rights are not those of an adult or a child. Being human does not grant one all rights; It is reasonable and is in fact the case that adults have more rights then children who in turn have more rights then fetuses.

Assuming your conclusion and then building a strawman around it is not a rational argument. The debate is, "Should women be denied the right to abortion?" You wish to argue that fetuses have rights to support an affirmative answer to the question, but first you must show us why fetuses should have rights.

Huh?



Abortion is the pre-meditated killing of a human, and innocence has nothing to do with it. A fetus is still a being that does not have the rights of adults and children do.

Your still begging the question; you have yet to show us that the UDHR was meant to or should apply to fetuses.

The laws of this country against murder do not apply to fetuses; you have provided no arguments that they should, only definitions. Those definitions are not necessarily the ones used by the people writing the UDHR or the laws, nor are they the ones used by all those interpreting the laws. The Supreme Court Justices in Roe v Wade and the majority of Americans do not agree that dictionary definitons preclude a woman from getting an abortion, and neither do I.

A fetus does not have those rights; it's a matter of case law. You must show us that they should.

No, even though it is human, it does not have the rights of adults and children.

Strawman argument.

This argument falsely assumes that morals are or should be based upon logic.

The US constitution says that where?

Rick

long winded fool

But as Dr. Rick points out, different persons have different rights. All human beings have inalienable rights. I don't know what the exact rights of a fetus are, but as it is a human being, it must have the inalienable rights.

So many of your aguments amount to "abortion is wrong because it's wrong".

Please show an argument where I stated or implied this. My proposition was: "Abortion is wrong because murder is wrong," and then I proved this.

Blacks were considered lesser people, not non-people.

The point was to show that if "human beings" can be assumed to address black humans as well as white and female humans as well as male, then it can be assumed to address undeveloped humans as well as developed. There is no logical reason to exclude embryos.

Killing a fetus has never been considered murder until recent laws passed in an attempt to undermine Roe vs Wade.

Up until it was abolished, slavery was never considered a crime.

If my morality tells me to poke you in the eye, you are going to know that either my morality is wrong, or yours is.

That example is easy to address: Would you consider it proper for someone to poke you in the eye? No? Then it's also immoral for you to do it.

There are plenty of things that are absolutely wrong and most can be identified by the test given above. Beyond that, however, there's a realm of subjective things.

And why should we follow your morality on this? Solely because you say the golden rule is absolute? You're speaking of tolerance. We are tolerant of morality that differs. We are intolerant of morality that conflicts. Tolerance does not mean that two different moralities are equally right. We like to spread ideas of brotherhood and that everyone's entitled to their beliefs without being labeled as wrong. As author Frank Sheed once said, "Thinking is very hard and imagining is very easy and we are very lazy." Refusing to prejudge someone's morality is completely different than the inability to judge their morality. It is the difference between being impartial and indifferent. I wish that I could just use my imagination and assume everyone is right. I've discovered that some tolerable moralities which I used to think were every bit as valid as mine, (such as theism and abortion) are not very rational. This particular argument is not about morality. What we may justly claim is often different than what we want. Our moralities tell us what we want. Logic and reason and reflection on the laws of this country tell us what is just and what is right. Feelings that suggest we are right must take a back seat to evidence that shows we are wrong. I am not here to persuade, I am here to prove, and I feel I have done just that.

Is touching a strange woman's breast (outside the context of prostitution/strippers etc) immoral? There's a group in China where that's the normal form of greeting! For the stranger to touch the breast that is only supposed to be touched by friends, however, is immoral by their standards.

That is interesting. As long as their laws make sense, I wouldn't have a problem with this if I lived there. If their laws contradicted themselves and made the law of the land not something that can be understood rationally, but something that one happily obeys without question, as has become the case in the US with the legalization of abortion while maintaining of the laws protecting human rights, then I would have a problem and attempt to change this unreasonable system.

If you want to make it a person you have to accept all the negative implications as well.

Definitely true. But in this case the positive implications far outweigh the negative, if one values obeying laws based on objective logic and reason more than obeying laws based on subjective perception.

Investigate all miscarriages then.

If it were required, then so be it. Pointing out an inconvenient consequence of my conclusion does not refute it. At best you can say, "Abortion is irrational, but preferable than the undesirable burden that being rational would impose on us." Or else refute my argument that it is irrational.

I used human being from the start. "A human" is a noun. It is you who is using equivocation. The terms are clear. You are adding nebulous criteria. Not all human beings have equal rights. All human beings have inalienable rights, the primary of which is the right to life. If you are not convinced by sound arguments, then you will not be convinced.

Assuming your conclusion and then building a strawman around it is not a rational argument. The debate is, "Should women be denied the right to abortion?" You wish to argue that fetuses have rights to support an affirmative answer to the question, but first you must show us why fetuses should have rights.

The embryo is a human being because it falls under the criteria outlined in the accepted definition of human being. Murder is the willful killing of a human being under the accepted definition. In this society, the law states that all human beings are entitled to certain inalienable human rights, one of which is the right to life. Therefore the fetus must logically have the inalienable right to life, and killing it must be murder. Abortion is the killing of an embryo, therefore abortion is murder. Murder is a crime, therefore a woman's rights do not include the right to murder. Therefore a woman should be denied the right to abortion. If this is not the case, then the law does not logically follow.

Your still begging the question; you have yet to show us that the UDHR was meant to or should apply to fetuses.

It should apply to fetuses because fetuses are members of the human family. Homo sapiens sapiens.

The laws of this country against murder do not apply to fetuses; you have provided no arguments that they should, only definitions. Those definitions are not necessarily the ones used by the people writing the UDHR or the laws, nor are they the ones used by all those interpreting the laws. The Supreme Court Justices in Roe v Wade and the majority of Americans do not agree that dictionary definitions preclude a woman from getting an abortion, and neither do I.

Then by definition you are redefining humanity at your convenience. Why is this sometimes falsely considered rational and other times rightly considered bigotry? Since scientific definitions are the ruling of a majority, it is not logical to dismiss them and assume your own definitions. Especially if you like the idea of pro-choicers being in the ruling majority and performers and patients of abortion being free from murder charges.

No, even though it is human, it does not have the rights of adults and children.

This is not a valid refutation. The right to life is inalienable to all human beings. Because the fetus' rights aren't equal to children doesn't mean that it doesn't have the inalienable human rights guaranteed it by the law of this country.

This argument falsely assumes that morals are or should be based upon logic.

Then your argument falls apart completely. You base your morality on something other than logic, therefore it cannot be law. Law should always be objective and logical. When it is neither is when slavery and murder become legal because a minority with delusions of oppression demands from a government concerned with equality the right to revoke the rights of others. Since the minority has been discriminated against by laws in the past, the government deems it necessary to comply with their demands in order to facilitate an "equal rights for all" mentality, failing to realize that they've shot themselves in the foot by revoking the rights of another minority. Women ought to have equal inalienable human rights to all other human beings. This must logically include embryos, as has been clearly shown. As I said, I'm not trying to change your morality to mine, I'm simply showing you that it does not follow logically.

Dr Rick

All humans do not have inalienable rights; to wit, human fetuses don't have a right to life. You appear to be asserting that they should, but your assertions are no more valid or sound than mine.

This society does not accept your premise that the right to life extends to fetuses. The law does not assume your premise that killing a fetus is the same as killing an adult or child. The laws that make murder a crime do not extend to fetuses. Killing or murdering a fetus is not a crime, and without your premises, there is nothing illogical about it.

.

Only if we accept your premise that fetuses should have the same rights as adults and children; You do, but I don't.

No more so than you; you wish to extend human rights to fetuses, but I do not. Your position is no more convenient than mine.

Strawman

Huh?

That is an assertion.



Your shifting from morality to matters of law. Your morality is no more logical than anyone elses. Laws are derived in part from morals, but morality is not arrived upon by logic. Morals are beliefs, not logical arguments.

Agreed, but then, neither does yours.

Rick

pilaar

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long winded fool:
The embryo is a human being because it falls under the criteria outlined in the accepted definition of human being. Murder is the willful killing of a human being under the accepted definition. In this society, the law states that all human beings are entitled to certain inalienable human rights, one of which is the right to life. Therefore the fetus must logically have the inalienable right to life, and killing it must be murder. Abortion is the killing of an embryo, therefore abortion is murder. Murder is a crime, therefore a woman's rights do not include the right to murder. Therefore a woman should be denied the right to abortion. If this is not the case, then the law does not logically follow.
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Embryo is not considered a human being before the law, a woman is considered a human being before the law.
In one of your previous posts you have not agreed that there is a similarity between abortion and organ donation. I do not agree.
If one of the rights of a human being is to have ownership of ones body and it is not lawful to force that human being to donate an organ or part of an organ to preven another from dying and when the sick person does die because a dead donor has not been found and if this is not considered a murder, then abortion is also not a murder.
One has the right to refuse the use of ones own body for another and choose not to donate the needed organ. The sick person dies, or their quality of life is impeded, they may be alive only because of the machines. They can not live on their own, they can not live if one is not found who is willing to donate the organ. Why would it not be justifiable to dna list all the population, then force the suitable donor to give part of their body for the use of another? If they refuse, and the sick person dies, is this a murder?

If the conception is involuntary, the abortion is the same in this way, it involves the denial of the use of ones body to another, it expells the embryonic cells from the body. The embryo may not be killed by the process, the problem is that the embryo can not live on its own, however, to avoid activly killing the embryonic cells, they can be kept alive in the laboratory until the cells die naturally. The life of the embryonic cells could also be prolonged by the use of the machinery.
How is this situation different to the donor situation? Is it because the womans' rights to her own body are limited? Double standard.


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pilaar:
You are basically proposing that women live in a police state? And that the embryo's human rights override
the woman's human rights, even though the embryo is not even separate human being?

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long winded fool:
I proposed none of these things. If a woman commits murder, the police come and haul her away.
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Loren Pechtel:
Investigate all miscarriages then.
long winded fool:
If it were required, then so be it.
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Your stand involves double standard. By your reasoning women should live in a police state. Just by stating that by making abortion illegal will not create a police state for women does not make it so. On the one hand you say that women should be forced to carry the fetus to full term, on the other you say that women should be carried away by police after commiting the 'murder'. Contradiction.
Later you concede that all micarriages should be investigated if required. So you acknowledge to certain extent that women would be living in a police state, their rights and conditions would be diffent than mens. How are the consenqueces of the illigal abortion not placing the woman in a police state? Eg, the missing of couple of periods due to stress or such would involve the investigation, just in case it was not a misscarriage or aboriton. How is that not interfering with the womans rights? It creates a society where the women do not have the same rights as the men. They do not have same rights to privacy nor to the ownership of their body. Double standard.

You also say:

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long winded fool:
The mother has the right to do as she pleases with her body.
---------------------------------

But she does not have the right to expell and refuse the use of her body to another.

Then you say:

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long winded fool:
If my inalienable rights are being unjustly violated, I am justified in violating the rights of the individual who is violating mine until he stops.
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At the same time you are not willing to extend the same inalienable rights to the woman. The woman who does not have the right to denly the use of her body to another, does not have the same righs as yourself. Double standard.


Then you say:
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long winded fool:
Women ought to have equal inalienable human rights to all other human beings.
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If the abortion is not legal, women do not have equal inalienable righs to men, as they do not have the right to deny the use of their bodies by another.

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long winded fool:
Therefore the fetus must logically have the inalienable right to life, and killing it must be murder. Abortion is the killing of an embryo, therefore abortion is murder. Murder is a crime, therefore a woman's rights do not include the right to murder. Therefore a woman should be denied the right to abortion. If this is not the case, then the law does not logically follow.
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Abortion is denying the right of ones body to another. The embryo dies because it is not able to live on its own.


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long winded fool:
Law should always be objective and logical. When it is neither is when slavery and murder become legal because a minority with delusions of oppression demands from a government concerned with equality the right to revoke the rights of others. Since the minority has been discriminated against by laws in the past, the government deems it necessary to comply with their demands in order to facilitate an "equal rights for all" mentality, failing to realize that they've shot themselves in the foot by revoking the rights of another minority.
----------------------------

My argument is that your stand also involves double standards, contradiction and is not objective, but highly male-subjective stand. It is not objective enought to look at the situation from both male and female situations into view. Perhaps the goverment recognises that making abortion illegal in the society being the way it is, would take too many inalienable rights away from women. The government probably also recognises that as the woman is the one who is most affected by the situation and also the one who still shoulders the most responsibility in this case, it places the right of choice into her hands.

I will also say that you are the one who is living under the delusion that the male and female position in the society is already equal and that women are not discriminated against still. Many laws are still male-subjective and are not objective enough to include both male and female situations into account. Eg. Australia and USA are the only countries where paid maternaty leave is not enforced by law, in Australia it is optional for the companies. Meaning that the industrial laws are made according to the male paterns of employment and are not based on acknowledging the circumstances and responsibilities of motherhood.

Abortion is a sticky & complicated issue, it is not black and white as you present it. Legal abortion may not be the best solution, but as I said before, in the current society, a better solution has not been found, unless womens rights are erroded. I support better ways of solving this issue to lower the number of abortion. Better education on preventative measures and contraception, making the cost for the pill more accessible to all. Encouraging males to take more responsibility for contraception by use of the pill for males, changing policies which would financially enable women to carry embryos to term etc.

pilaar

idiom

Questions:

1. Why does a woman not foreit her right to not be pregnant when she chooses to become pregnant? If raped why would you punish the embryo rather than the rapist?

2. According to secular philosophy humans never gain intelligence (free will) so isn't an embryo like any other human or rock or tree in that it is just an interesting arrangement of atoms? So how can it possibly be murder?

3. Whatever happened to statutory rape? Why doesn't the state press those charges?

Luiseach

I don't agree that a woman 'forfeits her right to be not pregnant' by being pregnant, whether or not becoming pregnant involves a conscious choice. If you think that she should forfeit this right, then what are your reasons for thinking this?

Strawman of the motives behind abortion. Abortion of foetuses which result from a rape are not meant to 'punish' anybody at all.

Dr Rick

Why should she? Rights are not forfeited without reason.

Abortion is not meant to be a punishment, nor does having an abortion preclude punishing a rapist.

Not true.

How is this question related to the topic?

Rick

long winded fool

It is not a question of whether human rights ought to be extended to fetuses. It a question of why human rights are revoked from some humans and not others. The motive of women's rights does not logically permit this. The reason for abortion is illogical. "I revoke your rights to life because I'd rather not put up with you." Declaring that embryos have no rights is begging the question. I've shown that they should and you insist that they don't. The woman's right to be free from pain is outweighed by her child's right to life. The woman's right to life permits her to revoke her child's right to life if her life is actually threatened. I can't kill my son if he causes me pain, but I can if my life is in imminent danger because of him. The fact that a woman's child is inside her makes no logical difference. Sometimes we are put into inconvenient situations where another human being's life is in our hands. While it is arguable to what extent we must legally go in order to protect this human life, it is not arguable that this human life can be willfully killed solely because it is under our responsibility. I can give a baby left on my doorstep up for adoption. I can't throw it in the lake. As long as the baby is under my responsibilities, there are certain rights of mine that are revoked in order to legally force me to keep this child from harm for as long as I must endure its presence. Because I only want to take care of it for five minutes and the police won't be here for ten, doesn't mean that my personal rights allow me to violate the baby's. This logically ought to be analogous to the pregnant mother. If it isn't then we have a double standard and a logical contradiction.


pilaar
Your stand involves double standard. By your reasoning women should live in a police state. Just by stating that by making abortion illegal will not create a police state for women does not make it so. On the one hand you say that women should be forced to carry the fetus to full term, on the other you say that women should be carried away by police after commiting the 'murder'. Contradiction.
Later you concede that all micarriages should be investigated if required. So you acknowledge to certain extent that women would be living in a police state, their rights and conditions would be diffent than mens. How are the consenqueces of the illigal abortion not placing the woman in a police state? Eg, the missing of couple of periods due to stress or such would involve the investigation, just in case it was not a misscarriage or aboriton. How is that not interfering with the womans rights? It creates a society where the women do not have the same rights as the men. They do not have same rights to privacy nor to the ownership of their body. Double standard.


This is neither a double standard nor a contradiction. Both of these reside in the pro-abortion side of the argument. If I commit a murder I am taken away by police, why do women get this right if I don't? Humans are living in a police state at the moment, because the laws are unclear and contradictory. They can charge who they want and pardon who they want with no logic behind it. Making abortion illegal would actually make it less of a police state by eliminating the laws that contradict human rights. Women have always been forced to obey laws under penalty of punishment the same as men. How are the consequences of illegal infanticide not placing a woman in a police state? Answer this and you've answered your own question. Women have to do what the law tells them to do. If they don't, they commit a crime. Men are no different. If a woman can voluntarily cause a miscarriage without being charged with murder, then I can voluntarily cause a miscarriage without being charged with murder. Since this is not the case, why don't you argue that men are the ones living in the police state and have fewer rights than women?

These are all valiant attempts at appealing women's rights, however they're all red herrings. First my original argument must be disproved. You are all simply declaring my conclusion to be false, ignoring it and assuming your own conclusions. Since my conclusion was logically proven and contradicts your conclusions which are based on subjective feelings, my conclusion is what ought to be assumed in matters of law. Forbidding murder is interfering with women's rights the same as men's rights. Unfortunately, when you live in a society, you must surrender some rights for the good of the whole. Since this is a society of equality, a man's rights cannot be less than a woman's. Therefore if it is illegal for a man to commit murder, then it should be illegal for a woman to commit murder. If you make exceptions and redefine terms for one based on her personal desire and convenience, then you must make exceptions for all based on their personal desires and convenience. If you do not, then you do not live in a society that promotes or desires equality.

Loren Pechtel

Originally posted by long winded fool
Please show an argument where I stated or implied this. My proposition was: "Abortion is wrong because murder is wrong," and then I proved this.

But you were assuming it was murder.

Killing a fetus has never been considered murder until recent laws passed in an attempt to undermine Roe vs Wade.

Up until it was abolished, slavery was never considered a crime.

Slavery was always considered questionable.

And why should we follow your morality on this? Solely because you say the golden rule is absolute? You're speaking of tolerance. We are tolerant of morality that differs. We are intolerant of morality that conflicts.

True.

Tolerance does not mean that two different moralities are equally right.

In most cases they are.

Is touching a strange woman's breast (outside the context of prostitution/strippers etc) immoral? There's a group in China where that's the normal form of greeting! For the stranger to touch the breast that is only supposed to be touched by friends, however, is immoral by their standards.

That is interesting. As long as their laws make sense, I wouldn't have a problem with this if I lived there.

This was a tribe, not the whole of China. I have no idea of how big a group of people it was.

If you want to make it a person you have to accept all the negative implications as well.

Definitely true. But in this case the positive implications far outweigh the negative, if one values obeying laws based on objective logic and reason more than obeying laws based on subjective perception.

You are trying to dismiss the negatives, though.

I used human being from the start. "A human" is a noun. It is you who is using equivocation.

The problem is that "human" is used to refer to both "person" and "that which is of human origin". Trying to use a word with two relevant meanings leads to confusion.

Then by definition you are redefining humanity at your convenience.

We are defending the status quo, you are the one trying to change it. Thus you are the one redefining humanity.