Fertilization-Assigned Personhood [FAP]

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, May 11, 2014.

  1. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Questions, questions

    Incredible fact, isn't it? I have easily as much personality as you have a corporeal home life, I would guess.

    The factual one will do, thank you.

    Well, you keep going back and forth, you see: DF is a real deadline, DF isn't, a rhetorical construct is a (reified) turdurcken, then it isn't. I'm not sure you yourself know what it is you're meant to be discussing; that or you're engaging in wide intellectual dishonesty by pretending it's one or the other. Why don't you start with something we're all forced to start with, which is a premise, and go from there? And then, instead of throwing a tantrum because the critics won't subscribe to your narrow conception of the argument, we could actually discuss it? And then you wouldn't have to go bomb-throwing, invoking Geoff like a demon on a Free Souls Day in August - or creating bizarre and unrealistic counters to extremist pro-life sentiments which you rightfully despise.

    Can you possibly be serious? See below.

    Honesty; fair debate; intellectual obligation; the list goes on. Still, all that does have what you and Tiassa might call a subjective moral basis. Is that why you two are so deep into denial here?

    Is this more pretension along a different axis? I will explain your bodyguard's OP precept and succeeding and preceding philosophy to you, his mindless devotee, once again. You will not, however, pretend yet again that you really don't know what's being discussed here.

    Tiassa's proposition is that personhood assigned during fertilisation is coming and is dangerous. "In assigning personhood to any preborn human organism, one invokes the equal protection conflict that arises when one "person" exists inside another," he spouts. Based on his other work, we are meant to conclude that only DF will save women. The ethical importance of killing unborn fetuses is nil, because, he asserts, one cannot know whether a baby exists until one can see a baby (which ranges well beyond the most absurd of pleas to hysterical mysticism) and/or because he adheres to a kind of freakish new Republicanism in which "stand your womb" is the clearest and brightest of all precepts. (Please keep in mind that some of this is indeed a little hyperbolic; however, it's also a very comedic description of a very poorly conceived idea.) The 'Publicans is a-coming, he cries, and so we must choose between PAF on the one hand, or FAP sliding inevitably towards PAF, and DF, which equivocates to the absolute right of the woman to choose abortion, which he seems to think runs up to birth and which you sometimes claim doesn't.

    Now, no one supports the pro-lifer position on PAF, because it's ridiculous - I suspect this is an implicit appreciation of the biological realities underlying development. I just want to highlight this part: do you understand this? Because it's important. You and Tiassa keep clinging to the OP as if it were some kind of lifeboat or really, really magic straw while shrieking "answer the OP! don't have a go at the derivation of our concepts or their underlying issues or how our argument has developed or the false equivocations we've been making! just answer the OP!" Well, if you hadn't noticed, we've already addressed the OP. Many, many, many times. We have discussed it from realistic and rhetorical and philosophical and logical perspectives, but neither one of you take notice because that would, you know, fuck up your unrealistic agenda. Clearly the pro-life proposition is not realistic or ethical, and must be strongly opposed. And, clearly, DF is is not realistic or ethical and must be strongly opposed, as a real deadline or even an arguing point, because it's simply ridiculous. Is it that you propose that as a devil-advocate counter to take on the forces of pro-lifedom, which seemingly do not exist on SF? Then why such protectionism? Why do you incorporate it in your argument? Why does every proposition of a more intermediate - which is not "centrist" - deadline provoke such expressions of rage in your responses? Why does Tiassa attempt to tack my proposition of a reasoned biological deadline up beside PAF/FAP in post #4, and then proclaim that the selection of any point other than DF demands personhood, being again no different to PAF/FAP. This is ridiculous. Can you locate any personhood provisions in current legislation on abortion? No? Then in what possible sense is anyone obligated to take up the proposition of personhood, either as law stands now or in any modification of same along (I egotistically propose; which is the first actual instance of this in the discussion) a biological guideline.

    I mean, it's sort of blatantly obvious what you're trying to do here, which is why you just avoid and avoid and avoid; this is followed up with the most ridiculous assertions about ego, then bouts of avoidance, false dilemma, false equivocation, reification, and on and on. We've seen several major and at least one fairly esoteric logical fallacy paraded around the thread (and at least one other); I think it's entirely possible that as you circle the argument you might trip over all of them. I await the next fallacy in all eagerness.

    I suppose you'll just pretend this is more obfuscation, but if that's going to the sum of your next post, please just post it to here:

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    I think such a response would better serve public interest as passive intellectual fertiliser than in being thrown as a weapon.
     
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  3. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Roe v Wade - stated that the rights of the fetus increase after viability, and thus states can make abortion illegal after that point
    Gonzales v. Carhart - upheld the right to prohibit late term abortions AFTER viability (confirming that increase in rights)

    That statement speaks volumes about your worldview.

    Again, you may believe that you understand the Constitution better than the US Supreme Court. However, I will go with them, and will continue to believe that fetuses gradually gain personhood as they develop. If that upsets you or makes you think flaccid thoughts - can't help you there.
     
    Last edited: May 29, 2014
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  5. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Methinks the Blind Man Stabbing Himself in the Eyes Doth Complain Too Much

    As Clear as Can Be for One Not Blinding Himself for the Sake of Wailing About His Disability

    As to your point in post #4, it would probably help if there was actually a point in there for you to refer to.

    "It's weird that one is being demanded to confront the OP... when in fact, the OP has nothing to do with the limitations being discussed. How could it? Is there anyone on SF that would back the issue of contention in the OP? If so, speak up now. If not, we kind of have to conclude that its a trolling thread designed to showcase the comments the OPer doesn't like from the second post in the thread. Not hugely ethical, that; but in pursuit of the solution, I guess any kind of damnation will have to do. " (#121)

    "Except that that is not what any person is arguing here, and that granting personhood to a fetus on virtue of having attained one stage, by definition does not apply to earlier stages. By definition." (#136)

    "As in: no one is arguing that the mother's health is not of first concern, nor that it should not override fetal rights.

    "Maybe now this will be noticed. For a few posts, anyway. "
    (#202)

    As I said, Geoff, this is real. It doesn't really matter if "that is not what any person is arguing here"; this is a real issue in the world. If you want to have a discussion about your own standards, go start one. But don't insist that we all look away from a real issue just because you want us to.

    Your determined focus to distract from this real issue has the appearance of giving it cover.

    That I do not believe torture is acceptable, or that I reject the proposition that the United States has the Constitutional authority to exclude Gitmo prisoners from federal Due Process guarantees under Amendment V, does not preclude me from considering the implications of what just happened under the George W. Bush administration.

    I would ask you, then, to consider reality. In Oklahoma, the State Supreme Court struck down a personhood ballot measure before Election Day on the grounds that the law people were being asked to vote on was facially unconstitutional if implemented. The state legislature has subsequently taken up the measure and is attempting to pass it into law. In South Carolina, there is a personhood bill in committee. Colorado faces a ballot measure. We've seen attempts in Mississippi and Michigan, and even Ohio.

    And I would also ask you to consider the reality that in order to do this, states are attempting to redefine pregnancy, because, you know, the state knows better than doctors.

    Where does all this go? Well, one of these laws will get passed, hauled into court, and eviscerated. At that point, we cannot expect that FAP advocates won't aim for a federal constitutional amendment; various FAP advocacy groups are already promoting the idea.

    The idea that you purport to not support FAP, and therefore everyone else needs to be polite and stop talking about it, is absolute excrement.

    And the question remains: What do we do about the resulting conflict of equally protected rights when one person must necessarily assert authority over another person's body?

    Your magickal removal of a fetus from the womb at the point of viability is not an appropriate answer.

    I would also remind that analogies and metaphors have limited value. To wit, Capracus declaring ovarian personhood in his rental contract analogy. Or, in your case, it really was a cute cartoon, but also demonstrates the misogyny.

    After all, the Fister Furbush trade did not anyone being cut open surgically in order to accomplish the trade. So, while it's a cute appeal to emotion, it also entirely ignores the mother, who would be cut open surgically in order to effect the "trade".

    As a side note, do you know what abortion was called in the American colonies? Taking the trade.

    If Sarah Grosvenor's life is a cautionary tale in any sense for us in the late twentieth century, it is as a reminder of the historically distinctive ways in which socialized gender roles, community and class solidarity, and legal culture combine in each set of generations to excuse or make invisible certain abuses and crimes against women. The form in which Sarah Grosvenor's death became local history reminds us of how the excuses and erasures of one generation not unwittingly become embedded in the narratives and memories of the next cultural era.

    (Hughes Dayton)
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Hughes Dayton, Cornelia. "Taking the Trade: Abortion and Gender Relations in an Eighteenth-Century New England Village". William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 48, No. 1. January, 1991. MissDaigle.Weebly.com. May 28, 2014. http://missdaigle.weebly.com/uploads/5/0/1/8/5018919/dayton_article.pdf
     
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  7. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

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    Real choices

    Well, unfortunately, you have goose-stepped briskly away from such a stance, if that was ever a point you occupied. Why else are my comments, and presumably those of whom you and Bells took briefly as 'centrist' (until that wallowed) equivocated to PAF? But let me explain it to you once again in the larger context of the five or six other people left on this forum and still following this debate.

    To an idiot, maybe. Sorry: was it me that tacked up the implicit false equivocation between my viewpoint - which I suspect resembles those of the others you and Bells have been industriously tarnishing for pages now - and PAF? Was it I that erected this false dilemma on which all your propositions/standards/rhetorical devices (whatever they are as of this post) stand? Was it me that demanded a resolution of personhood in favour of DF to counter that of the extremist pro-lifers? But it's me that's covering for them. Oh, sure. You know, as fundamentally fucked up as your prospects in this discussion are, we're about at the point where I should be asking you if you're trying to carry water for the right wing by purposefully creating an untenable selection.

    Well, you might have insightfully selected support from within my 'centrist' view to bolster the crusade against the hordes of South Carolinian radical pro-lifers that aren't actually on this forum: you know, those people in the real world that you're really trying to reach on the inter-tubes with these real arguments that aren't logical fallacies.

    I imagine the state likes to think it knows better than a lot of experts on a lot of subjects. I didn't invent lawyers, either.

    And I would fight bitterly against such stupidity. But- oh! -

    Aw, and you've lost me again. I support reasoned, logical limits on abortion. Tiassa does not. Therefore, Geoff supports PAF. Sure. 'Say, y'ever heared tell of a shoggoth Venn diagram?' So I support PAF en passant because I don't buy into your contrast.

    The same thing we did yesterday, Pinky: obviate personhood from the legal discourse. Or, specific to this case: too derivative, do not want. It's irrelevant. Unless - and I could swear I wrote this earlier - present limitations invoke personhood? Hmm? Even then, it's juuust a bit of a stretch.

    Awwws I knew posting in your little kingdom would piss you off.

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    Took that poster in the Tiassa Preserve kinda hard, huh? Well, don't worry about it: from me, it comes with the unspoken addendum within reasoned limits. Don't be too quick to snatch just 'cause you need straw to stuff things with.

    You mistake me. Did I say "cut it out"? What does the whole concept of reasoned limitations to abortion circle around, Tiassa? What's that central feature? A deadline, isn't it?

    Thanks for the historical note: so noted. I'd say you're singing for the choir, but it seems we're not really singing for the same choir, now are we?
     
  8. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Only in your imaginings.

    The factual one has been explained repeatedly. Discussed repeatedly. What part of it do you still have issues understanding?

    Ummm.. You are the only one going back and forth braying like an ass that people are trying to discuss reality and ignoring a ridiculous devil's advocate claim that is not based on reality.

    Did you even read the OP? I know you were too busy thinking it was about you, but did you actually read it? Click on any of the links in this thread which were posted in regards to the question in the OP?


    Of which you have clearly proven you are incapable of being or providing within the context of this thread.

    For example, the OP clearly states that it is designed to discuss personhood being assigned from the point of fertilisation. There have been a plethora of Bills, ballot amendments and other measures being employed in hospitals which are attempting to state that personhood commences at the point the sperm enters the egg. Most can understand why this would be an issue for women's rights, because it would restrict her use of contraceptives, IUD's, what she consumes (legally or illegally) and how even a miscarriage earlier on in the pregnancy could result in murder charges because she may have done something (even unknowingly) that harmed and murdered the "person" inside her (the person that may not have even implanted in her uterus first). In short, personhood at fertilisation criminalises the wombs of women every time she has sex near her ovulation every month. This is fact and this is reality. We know this because of the numerous attempts and actual attempts to implement this (such as the horrific case of Michelle Marie Greenup).

    What is actually happening is that even though personhood laws have been soundly rejected and defeated each time they have attempted to make them into law, many States are bypassing it by using other laws and applying it in a roundabout fashion, resulting in the imprisonment of hundreds of women who may miscarry or deliver stillbirths or even attempt to discuss abortions with their doctors or others when they find out they are pregnant (and I am talking first trimester pregnancy).

    Prosecutors, judges, and hospital counsel argued that the legal authority for their actions came directly or indirectly from feticide statutes that treat the unborn as legally separate from pregnant women, state abortion laws that include language similar to personhood measures, and Roe v. Wade, misrepresented as holding that fetuses, after viability, may be treated as separate persons.


    This is the reality of applying personhood to the unborn.

    And it is these measures that the OP touches on.

    What was your response to reality?

    Not only do you miss the whole point of the OP and how it is based on real life experiences of hundreds of women in the US alone and thousands upon thousands around the world, you also decide to try to change the subject and make it about you and your obsession with the DF policy which you have repeatedly misrepresented because you stupidly took it and threw a fit about it because you were caught up in a devil's advocate argument made by others..

    So you will excuse me that I find your whining to be dishonest in the extreme. You are incapable of honesty, fair debate or intellectual obligation. And you have proven that repeatedly. Perhaps you actually do not understand what the OP wished to discuss, but the fact that you were reminded of it repeatedly sort of blows that theory out of the water. So you are either being dishonest or you aren't that bright. Which is it?

    Considering you are still to understand what the OP was about and you are still under the delusion that it is about you, I find this latest insult to be further proof of your inherent dishonesty.

    Once again, a clear misrepresentation of what the DF is actually about. Why do you keep doing this? Do you actually have that many issues discussing the thread topic that you have to try to change the subject because widdle GeoffP cannot be left out of a discussion that he false believes is about him?

    The dry foot policy stands that it is up to the woman to decide because it is her body. And that assigning personhood to a fetus in her body will infringe on her rights (we have hundreds of examples of this when it is applied). This is fact. At no time has he claimed that one cannot know whether a baby exists until one can see a baby. You and Capracus and Billvon are the only ones making that argument based solely on a stupid devil's advocate hypothetical in another thread. Really, how many times does this have to be explained to you?

    You have consistently misrepresented what this thread is actually about and what it is discussing and this is just the latest version of that misrepresentation. You have repeatedly ignored and misrepresented real life situations that women are facing because of personhood measures being applied by others to the contents of her womb. Instead of discussing these actual real life issues as it applies to the OP, you change the subject, whine that it's really about you and then declare that it's not really happening and now try to bray about a political argument... Is there no end to your hysterics?

    The hundreds of women and the thousands of people attempting to force the personhood at fertilisation measures through States in the US would disagree with you. So would most of the countries that have personhood at fertilisation laws in place in South America (and Ireland for that matter).. So no, it's not that no one supports it because it is ridiculous. It is that men and women are having to fight this battle repeatedly in the courts to try and stop such measures from being applied in the US. Why are you still incapable of recognising that.

    No one gives a shit that you think it's ridiculous. What you think is not what is actually happening in the real world GeoffP.

    No, you haven't actually.

    Because you don't actually understand what the OP is attempting to address. Why? How do we know this? Because you seem to believe that you are King Shit and that your word is 'da law' and that because you think the personhood at conception is ridiculous and instead want to focus on the "DF policy" misrepresentation, that it somehow renders the hundreds of measures that have been employed to apply personhood at conception moot, so you keep changing the subject. For example:

    Changing the subject, yet again.

    At this point I have to ask if you are doing this merely to troll?

    You want to change the subject, then start a thread that discusses the subject you want to discuss. Just stop trolling this one.

    No, see, I am actually trying to discuss the subject of this thread. All you have done is troll it repeatedly because you want to whine and change the subject because you object to the Staff.

    The fact that you belittle what is happening to women in the US and around the world speaks more about you than you may wish you had conveyed.

    So I repeat, either discuss the subject of this thread as per the OP or get the fuck out of this thread and start one of your own to discuss what you want to discuss. Is that clear enough for you? Or do you need pictures for you to retain it in your brain?
     
  9. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Reading is required

    I'm going to rifle this sucker down a little. Sorry sister: it's not worth the full fisk. Market forces, you know.

    And equates any limitation on abortion rights, as I, billvon, Capracus and a few others propose. You and Tiassa have been shrieking for pages now that because we consider temporal limitations unconnected to women's health, then our stance is no different to:

    - which is total bullshit. Is this how the discussion has to go? I restate your case in each post, and then I refute it, and then you re-refer me to the OP?

    See, I don't think you do. I don't think you understand how it would do any of those things.

    You're really not in a position to be asking me that.

    You're now calling this a devil's advocate position? Please. You and Tiassa have argued again and again that any limitation to abortion rights is equivalent to PAF. Then you demand again and again to "respect tha OP!" while forgetting that your derived argument is an objection to any temporal limits outside the mother's call, which directly involves my position. Honest representation or walk away. What you are doing is actually trolling. I've made both positions clear again and again.

    Oh, so now a "little political twist of the knife" isn't acceptable? Tiassa calling rational determination of viability "magical" is okay, but my characterisation of his position as "see a baby" isn't? Well, well: you don't like the sensation that you've been misrepresented, as you've been doing to me the entirety of the thread. Awww, poor Bells! You know, it's not my fault you can't understand this. I've explained it to you repeatedly. And it sounds like from below that you just intend to start abusing your position:

    I've been discussing exactly that: your and Tiassa's failed juxtaposition of any limitations on abortion as being a slippery slope to FAP. You and he include my positions both explicitly - in post #4, and then repeatedly throughout the thread - and implicitly, so my rationale for arguing here is pretty damn clear. So, no: you can try to argue your position... or you can keep on with this crap, actually. There's seemingly little that can be done to prevent you from trolling whatever you want, and deliberately misrepresenting whatever you like while you actually pretend that the other person isn't on-topic. Amazingly, you do these things in the same post. You can't simultaneously claim that I'm not on the topic and then involve limitations prior to DF and say I'm not involved, Bells. It doesn't wash. Since you've chosen to go this way, I think I'll be kicking this up to administration: your language makes your next planned step pretty damn clear.
     
  10. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    And who are you again?

    You are still trying to change the subject. I don't give a hoot what you and your merry band of buddies propose. That is not the subject of this thread. Is it really that hard to understand?

    The question is simple.. You have yet to answer it..

    'What happens to a woman's rights when personhood is applied from the point of fertilization?'..

    Why can't you answer what happens to her rights? Can you support your answer with studies, case studies, etc? Or are you going to stand there and bray that we are not taking your continued attempt to change the subject, even after repeated attempts to get you to stop changing the subject?

    This is where you are trolling. I have provided case after case of what happens and attempts by politicians to change the laws and how Catholic hospitals are applying personhood and even banning emergency contraception because of possible personhood. I have provided numerous links. And you decide to troll this thread and now you claim you don't think I understand any of those things?

    Are you going to mansplain birth control to me now?

    Oh, believe me, I am. And right now, you are treading a very very fine line.

    It was referred to that by those who made the devil's advocate argument. It was always referred to as that. If you have a problem with it, then take it up with Capracus.

    I am going to warn you now GeoffP. It is not the time to trifle with me. If you cannot discuss the topic as per the OP, then get out of this thread. Consider that a fair warning. You have been asked repeatedly, 15 pages or so of requests to discuss the topic of the thread as per the OP. You are still to do so and you keep maintaining a position where you believe you should change the subject because you can't answer the question posed in this thread. You have been asked nicely and not so nicely. Consider this a warning now. Because you have gone far beyond what is acceptable now. Understand?

    And your continued assertion is to deny the issues that resulted in the start of the OP..

    So here is the question again..

    What happens when one person must assert equal protection that grants authority over another equally protected person's body?

    Either answer the question and support your position from reputable sources or stop trolling. Have I made myself clear now?
     
  11. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Well she's dead and can't say no..

    I will assume most of us remember the case of Munoz, who collapsed in her home and died in the 14th week of her pregnancy, where she was found and resuscitated after about an hour or so of her brain starved of oxygen, where she was then pronounced brain dead. Mrs Munoz had left direct instructions with her husband and her parents that she was not to remain on life support. The hospital refused to turn off her life support because she was 14 weeks pregnant, and so they kept her on life support, against her direct instructions and the wishes and instructions of her husband and parents, to grow the fetus until such a time as they could remove it from her body.. In short, the hospital took it upon itself to declare the 14 week old fetus a person. Despite repeated requests, pleas and demands that she be allowed to die with some dignity, the hospital refused and the husband took them to court. The judge ruled in his favour and by now, Mrs Munoz was 24 weeks pregnant, scans had showed the fetus was severely deformed due to the hour or so it went without oxygen and tests also showed Munoz's body was deteriorating.. In short, they were trying to grow a baby in a deteriorating corpse until viability and beyond (the hospital had hinted at trying to go to full term).. So after weeks of this horrific ordeal, the hospital finally allowed her to die with dignity.

    You would have thought no one would dare want to try to force the issue again. Sadly that may not be the case. Louisiana has reared its ugly head when it comes to women's rights, yet again..

    After emotional testimony given by opponents of a bill that would allow the state of Louisiana to invalidate any advance directives when a patient is pregnant, regardless of the viability of the fetus, a committee voted to pass the bill and send it to the full senate. If passed by the senate and signed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, the bill would make it legal for the state to prohibit a family from directing physicians to remove mechanical support from a brain-dead pregnant woman.

    You read right.. From any point in the pregnancy. Even from the first trimester.

    Think about that for a moment..

    For all who argue that women have rights and are not mere incubators, one State is trying to create a law that would render her into an incubator and any advance directives she may have in regards to her care would be rendered moot if she is pregnant.

    We all expect, when we have advance directives, that our wishes about what is to happen to us would be respected, hence the need for such directives.

    In short, they are trying to pass a law that would allow them to grow a baby inside a dead woman for as long as they can, without her consent or the consent of her next of kin, regardless of how far along she is in her pregnancy.

    The disgusting irony of this law is that it is illegal to tamper with or rape a corpse, but it won't be illegal to grow a baby in it.

    Fetal personhood.. what a grand grand thing..
     
  12. quinnsong Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,621
    Pretty damn disgusting!

    I have taken the advice given earlier in this thread to step back and think about my position, which I have done. I do not have the time right at the moment (traveling) to give this important topic the time it deserves, but I fully intend to do so soon.

    @ Trooper
    Thank you for those links you provided and I will respond to your question when I have more time, as well.
     
  13. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    My mother's response on hearing about this was "is nothing left sacred?".. Here is a woman who is very much pro-life, very Catholic and religious, but she is also a woman who has had a bit of a hard time of it health wise in the last year and the last couple of weeks, well, she is a broken woman. She has been broken. Her notions of safety and happiness is an illusion and she is watching a horror show.. unfold in front of her. And in the past year, she has had some time to write out and tell us of what she wants in the event where she is brain dead with no chance of waking up, or if she were to end up in a vegetative State. She has detailed it out, from what to do in such situations, to her funeral plans, right down to directions of who will pick her clothes for the viewing in the casket (she does not trust my father's fashion sense apparently).. The fact that a person can be in that situation and a complete stranger can demand she be kept alive to grow a baby in her body while she is lying there in that state is abhorrent to her. She told me yesterday, that as pro-life as she is, there are some things that are so private and sacred to the person. And this is it. And it upset here. This is not what pro life is meant to be for her. It is meant to be about respecting life for her. Not perverting it to the point where you use a corpse in such a way for however long it takes.

    This constant chipping away to the point where even in death, they can still try and claim ownership over a woman's body. The madness continues and there is no end in sight.
     
  14. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Warnings

    And this has what to do with the argument? Ah, I see: I'm not possessed of your power on the forum.

    How? Because I disagree that liberal limits on abortion are not the same as PAF? You realise that Tiassa was the one that dragged that in on the first page? And that all along the two of you have been arguing for DF or absolute rights at all points ('laissez terminer') to the woman, which is a conflict with even liberal threshold setting? Tiassa dismisses a more meaningful deadline as 'magical' (how, we are never meant to know, clearly), you attack anything that seems like less than full abortion rights irrespective of ontogeny and you're going to pretend that what I am discussing has nothing to do with your propositions? Please:

    Their reproductive rights would be abrogated, obviously. And? Who the heck is pushing PAF in this debate?

    Case studies of my proposition that isn't yet law or even yet seriously proposed to anyone as law? Which are meant to counterbalance case studies of yours in which the spirit of the existing law is being violated by pro-life advocates. Well, that makes a lot of sense. What's the point of you citing violations of existing legislation? That it's prone to abuse? So fill the holes. There's no point advocating one kind of extremism to combat another.

    You certainly don't understand the realities of what you're proposing. Placing full decision in the hands of the mother at all developmental categories is not the solution to 'some states in the US are trying personhood propositions in the courts'.

    Ah - my opinion is invalid because I'm male. Got it. This is what, the second or third time you've tossed this one at me? And you're a model for the forum by reason of your position, is that right?

    Wrong; and no. Tiassa calls DF a 'bright line' for the ending of abortion rights. If your position actually differs from this, then state your position openly, as I have done, instead of constant obfuscation.

    I have not exceeded any such imaginary limit of yours and I have been entirely topical, unless you're now trying to tell me that the entirety of the OP is as follows:

    No possible debate can be had from the above: it would limit women's reproductive rights beyond all reasonability. And? Who exactly is presenting the opinion that PAF would actually be a good thing? Do you seriously mean to pretend that this is the full extent of your consideration of this subject? That could be expressed in a single post without any need to tie in all those considering any limits as being no different to PAF. Answer the question: do you or do you not see a difference between PAF and present or proposed ontogenetic limits to abortion?

    That, as written, is a lie. I have never denied the fact that PAF advocates are trying to make PAF law, and you know it full well. Neither have I denied that a woman's rights would be abrogated by PAF: that's why I don't support it.

    I've been exceedingly fair about this circling of your arguments again and again in a bid to advance your agenda; and doing so in a way so narrow as to ignore a proposition that would make abortion rights even more liberal, besides being rational. Now, so far even from that, you are threatening abuse of your current powers because you don't like the answers you're given. There is a laundry list a mile long of your violations of SF rules in this thread, and in the previous one. You are the one trolling here, period. Not even Tiassa is trolling, so far as I recall.
     
  15. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    Parody and Parity

    On Society

    You know, when there are twisted political stories going on with weird implications, I'll crack the line about staying the hell out of wherever. And to a certain degree that sort of joke can make the point about whatever is going on in wherever the hell.

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    There comes a point, though, at which taking such a notion seriously has devastating implications for a society. Whether it's the infamous John Edwards and his otherwise brilliant "Two Americas" speech in 2004, or our simple pledge of one nation indivisible, really that only works for some people in our nation.

    We have made great strides in recent decades when it comes to things like racism, or religious tolerance between Christian sects, but for everyone else? I mean, it's true that Washington state has a castle doctrine/stand your ground circumstance in its laws, but unlike Florida, we don't have racial standards for applying the law. Black people in Washington are generally safe in our state, west of the Cascades, and though there is a hard-edged emotional rivalry between Cascadia and the Columbia Plateau, it would be an unfair dig to suggest that a black person's safety declines that much as they drive down the east face of the mountains.

    Women, though? Start in my beloved Evergreen state. To the south is Oregon, and beyond that California. In terms of the continental west coast, women are relatively safe. Sure, we have some oddball cops and prosecutors out here, but it's not like we're Indiana or something.

    But look what happens as you travel east. A woman's safety declines. East of the Cascades, sure. But cross that border into Idaho and it's a whole other world.

    Nevada? Well, the upshot is that it ain't Utah.

    Arizona? Yeah, it's Arizona.

    Montana? Rape advocacy. Wyoming? Conscience clauses for medical professionals seeking to refuse care to women. Colorado? Rape advocacy in effect, and hopes of fertilization-assigned personhood. Utah? Yeah, the state where children are more likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia than childhood diseases such as chicken pox?

    New Mexico? Hey! We got one! Well, on the abortion front. Much of the anti-abortion structure in the Land of Enchantment is obsolete, unrepaired since Roe. While there was, of course, the bizarre evidence-tampering bill last year, it appropriately failed, which should provide women at least a modicum of comfort.

    Still, though, think about that. If my daughter wishes to travel eastward from our vaunted sunset coast? Look at that area between the west coast and the Great Lakes. New Mexico is "safe". Minnesota is dangerous; I have no idea what that line running through Iowa is supposed to be, but I really wish I'd noticed it before I uploaded this particular map. Michigan? Holy shit, ladies, stay the hell out of Michigan. Illinois is pretty good; the functional problem my daughter would face there is that only eight percent of counties in the Prairie State have facilities offering women the full range of relevant reproductive health care.

    Do we really want to take this consideration east of the Lakes? Or maybe down South? There is a cluster of states in the northeast where the political, legal, and juristic outlook isn't dangerously misogynistic, but at some point, the trend should emerge clearly.

    I can make all the jokes about the Pelican State I want, but there comes a point where the list of places people need to stay the hell out of for whatever reason gets a bit ridiculous. And for women, it's a lot more dangerous than it is for men. I mean, for me it's like, stay out of East Baton Rouge, where cops hit on gay men in order to arrest them. Or stay out of certain places where people have extraordinarily dangerous ideas about responsible gun use. But this?

    And in the context of the "stay the hell out of someplace" jokes, women are down to a couple of safe clusters on the coasts, and a couple islands of refuge in between.

    One nation, indivisible?

    Perhaps one nominal nation, allegedly indivisible.
     
  16. Capracus Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,324
    A woman would be in a similar position that she is now in regards to abortion regulation, only without the option of a period of unrestricted termination. Why does this simple fact have to be explained to you? It’s inherent in the comparative examinations of abortion policy made over and over throughout this thread. I know that FAP puts further limits on current abortion policy, and I don’t know of anyone in this discussion who has argued that it doesn’t, or is in favor of its implementation. It makes no sense to keep droning on about the OP being ignored because of discussion of abortion policy at all stages of pregnancy, especially when such discussion is necessary to put FAP in meaningful perspective. To make it clear for you. FAP bad. DF bad. Something between the two better. Get it.
     
  17. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    Entertaining Excrement

    Do you have any clue what you're talking about? I mean, if you're going to go with, "Why does this simple fact have to be explained to you?", it would behoove you to recall that said "simple fact" is, in fact, an incorrect assertion of fact.

    That would be a no.

    Yes, we get it. You think some nebulous sentimental standard disregarding a woman's human rights—in other words, what we have now—is better than even discussing the idea of what will happen under legislation designed to erase that nebulous, sentimental middle ground. Or so it seems. But given the first sentence of your post, and its idiotic accompaniment in the second sentence, God only knows what you're actually on about. And, given God's absence in human endeavors, that divine secret will remain in whatever oblivion in which it currently exists.

    And, really, by the time you're looking to count oocytizens in order to make your point, invoking ovarian pershonhood, just how seriously do you expect people to take you?

    As it is, perhaps you should be thankful people are still willing to pretend you're making a sincere argument instead of acknowledging the obvious trolling.
     
  18. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Only that she is not..

    So what now?

    Oh, I got that. Years ago. However, why are you incapable of recognising that each time someone applies personhood at any point of the pregnancy, women lose their rights and autonomy? No, really, why is that? You pretend it does not happen. Why do you do that? You have been shown study after study, case after case of it happening and you pretend that it is not happening and keep parroting the 'a woman would be in a similar position', when it is clear she is not.

    Okay..

    And?

    It still does not apply to what is actually happening to women right now. There is no middle ground for them. Just as the magical middle ground you advocate does not exist in reality.

    It is as if you are a fireman, entering a house to put out a fire and going to the room you believe should be on fire, while ignoring the whole house as it burns around you. Open your eyes, Capracus, women today are losing all of their rights when they are pregnant and your "something between the two better" does not actually exist. Do you get that yet? Or are you choosing to ignore it because it does not fit into what you personally believe? Or perhaps you are just that kind of guy who praises measures that force women into having abortions if there is a chance they might not be 'proper mothers', just as you are for measures that restrict the right kind of mother from being able to access one? You already showed you were that type of guy who believes that perhaps men should be in charge of women's birth control and forcing them to have pregnancy tests every month, while desperately reminding us that you have female relatives and friends, so perhaps you really are, that kind of guy.

    You are so obsessed with the "DF policy", because you seem to believe that women will be having abortions during labour.. You have consistently refused to even acknowledge the limits already in place for 3rd trimester abortions or the fact that the so called "DF policy" is based on the reality of what a woman's rights should be within a realistic sense - in other words, show me one woman who is at full term and requesting that it be aborted.. You have yet to support your belief or assertion about your interpretation of the "DF policy" with any proof or evidence. Instead, you have determined that how it was presented in a devil's advocate argument is how it actually is, despite repeated advice and evidence that you are absolutely wrong. That is grossly dishonest.
     
  19. GeoffP Caput gerat lupinum Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    22,087
    Maybe you should check the post directly above yours, and what it entails. If you want to be taken seriously on this subject state your interpretation of "DF" unambiguously and without redirection. I've asked for this many, many times already.

    Edit
    Oh, and this:

    Current laws embrace neither absolute choice on the part of the woman, nor absolute restriction.

    In short: such laws exist, absolutely. This is simple fact, and it is striking that you seem to be claiming you're not aware of it. If you want to debate whether they're better, that is a different question and should be framed as such, again unambiguously.
     
  20. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    You keep claiming that your position is the correct one without any evidence to back up your claims and based solely on your say so. So who are you again?

    Because regardless of your say so, what you claim is not representative of what is actually happening in the real world. So I'll ask again, who are you again and why does your claim of what is correct need to simply be taken at face value?

    As a supposed scientist, you should be fully aware that you need to have some sort of evidence to back you up. You have provided none, you have ignored what is actually happening to women and instead, you just keep telling us how you think it is, despite a mountain of evidence that you are absolutely wrong.

    Perhaps because your magical deadline does not exist? Perhaps because your magical deadline that you think exists is not real and you have no evidence to support your claim that it should be the correct one? Or are you being dismissed because you are still dishonest enough to keep trying to change the subject?

    So you have no issues with women's rights being abrogated?

    Ermm...

    Have you failed to notice the many, MANY personhood measures trying to be implemented by States around the US?

    You do realise that the OP is actually discussing reality, yes?

    In other words, you are making unsupported claims of what you think it is without proof and you have nothing to support your side of the argument except for 'because GeoffP says so'..

    There is a plethora of studies out there regarding the issue. Put in some effort. Find something that supports your argument.

    No, placing the decision of what happens inside the mother's body with the mother kind of makes sense instead of referring to men who are wholly unrelated to her to determine her reproductive and medical decisions for her.

    No, your opinion is invalid because you are gormless, because you have refused to acknowledge evidence and reality and because you have been incapable of supporting your position with any factual evidence and because you have trolled this thread for 16 pages now trying to change the subject.

    My position is that it is up to the woman to decide. That is my so called "bright line". Clear enough for you?

    Just because you are incapable of answering the question honestly does not mean that no possible debate can be had about it. The issue with personhood at fertilisation or at any point of a pregnancy for that matter is that no one has been able to explain how exactly the competing interests of the "person" inside the mother will affect the mother. Instead, all just ignore the mother entirely, they claim that of course some of her interests will be limited, but they are incapable of answering how and why her interests over her own body should be limited. In other words, why is it acceptable to limit a woman's human rights because she is pregnant while giving superior rights to the unborn? What makes the unborn more of a "person" with rights than the mother?

    Instead, you have repeatedly asserted that it does not matter and you have repeatedly tried to change the subject because you are incapable of addressing the OP.

    Oh, believe me, my threat is not an abuse of power. I think anyone would agree that 16 pages worth of requests that you stop trolling and stop trying to change the subject and leave the thread if you are incapable of discussing the subject of the thread is too much leeway for you. If you have a problem with that, then you can complain to Tiassa.
     
  21. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Around 400 women in prison, several dead and the women being tied down to operating tables because their doctors imposed personhood on their fetus, forcing vaginal ultrasounds on women (even rape victims) so they can look "at their baby", admitting privileges, denying women treatment for miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy and risking their lives because the hospital believe in personhood... would disagree with you.
     
  22. billvon Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    21,634
    A simple and elegant summary of your extremism.
     
  23. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,882
    The Obvious Question

    What I don't understand about people like you is just what the hell it is you think you're doing. I mean, the hatred is just so damned apparent, and the pattern so bloody consistent that it's nearly impossible to keep ignoring the obvious.

    You remember that time you walked into a rape discussion, picked a side before you knew what was going on, and then were puzzled by the accusations of misogyny that came flying your way? Well, this time there really is no question about whether you're making some innocent, numbnutted mistake. You have been at this for eighteen months.

    To that end, at least you're capable of recognizing the issue, which does put you a step above your fellows. But, no, it is not a rational solution to simply ignore the Constitution. And no, you cannot rely on extant law to speculate what happens when the question pertains to what happens when that law is changed.

    Meanwhile, I still want an explanation about how viability removes the conflict. Not how you think it changes the equation according to your subjective sentiments, but how that works objectively. Because unless you and Geoff are proposing to remove those fetuses at viability, that viable fetus still exists inside another person. This should not be hard for you to figure out.

    So, to the one, we've got Billvon's ignore the constitution argument.

    To another, we've got Balerion's vague, subjective, inexplicable "moral duty" to curtail abortion access.

    To yet another, we have Geoff's bizarre beam-me-out-Scotty argument about viability mysteriously altering the reality of a fetus existing inside another person.

    And now we've got Captain Turducken over there with the absolute crowning jewel:

    • What happens to a woman's rights when personhood is applied from the point of fertilization?

    "A woman would be in a similar position that she is now in regards to abortion regulation, only without the option of a period of unrestricted termination. Why does this simple fact have to be explained to you?"

    I would love to see that explanation, but coherent explanations aren't something this crowd goes in for. Otherwise, Balerion could have tried explaining the authority charging his abstract and subjective moral duty, Geoff could explain just how viability means the fetus doesn't exist inside another person, Capracus could explain the apparent legalistic quirk he's discovered that the anti-abortion FAP advocates have missed—to the effect that FAP won't do anything at all if applied with constitutional force—and you could stop ignoring the reality of equal protection and due process guarantees while suggesting that extant law which will be overridden by the FAP outcome will ... do ... I don't know, something.

    I will note that one thing you've successfully made clear in your arguments is that FAP specifically, and anti-abortion arguments in general, aren't really about the unborn.

    The only real extremism here is the hatred of women evident in the swindle. Why you continue to work so hard to give those people cover is beyond me, but therein lies the question: What the hell is it you think you're accomplishing?
     

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