Redux: Rape, Abortion, and "Personhood"

Discussion in 'Ethics, Morality, & Justice' started by Tiassa, Nov 1, 2012.

?

Do I support the proposition? (see post #2)

Poll closed Nov 11, 2013.
  1. Anti-abortion: Yes

    22.2%
  2. Anti-abortion: No

    5.6%
  3. Pro-choice: Yes

    44.4%
  4. Pro-choice: No

    16.7%
  5. Other (Please explain below)

    11.1%
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  1. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    So are you suggesting that even after birth it can be killed at the women's leisure? I could see that as ethically acceptable in some cases, children simply do not have rights as full people, of course we would also need to grant fathers the same rights as well, and why not nothing would keep a child in line like stating that you have the legal right to kill it.

    But you do relies that a women in the 3rd term could give it up for adoption, I mean she made it through two terms already, why not, now that it can live independently of her body if she wants it removed does she still have the right to have it killed?
     
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  3. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    Why Bother With a Hopeless Liar?

    Notice that he opened his rebuttal with another lie, misrepresenting the record of the conversation in order to justify the tantrum that takes up the rest of the paragraph.

    We owe him no more attention. He's had his chance, and chose instead to piss away his credibility, all over the corpse of his character.

    Besides, look at his presumption of stupidity:

    "Does viability count as a 'dirty foot', if it could live independently but is not birthed, can it still be aborted/killed?"

    To the one, I don't understand what's unclear about the policy.

    To the other, though, he apparently thinks pro-choice people are so stupid that they've never thought about these things.

    Sure, we might consider these things even when we post, but that doesn't matter. He wants to believe the people he disagrees with are that fucking stupid, so that's the only thing he'll accept is true.
     
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  5. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I think you being rather presumptuous, even 'lying' as I've stated (do you want me to quote my self) that I would like to learn from the the ethical rational of others, if I assumed stupidity on your part that would make no sense. I was honestly hoping you would present such rational, but no all I get are ad hominems, by all means please don't reply, ignore me.
     
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  7. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    The point of the question wasn’t if it were possible (which technically it would be) or likely, or that a full term fetus’s survival would or should be given priority over that of the mother, but whether it should be denied any right of survival simply because of its location.

    This dry foot policy should be analogous to its immigration namesake in that an immigrant may gain additional rights upon setting foot in a specific territory, but failing to do so wouldn’t negate the human rights recognized prior to arrival.

    If personhood is deemed to be at some midpoint in pregnancy, then like a postnatal mother, the prenatal mother should bare some reasonable responsibility for the welfare of the developing fetus. If women aren’t willing to take on such responsibility, they have the option to preempt or terminate a non-viable pregnancy.

    And it would be just as illegal to arbitrarily terminate a full term fetus. As for stuffing the person back in the box, I had in mind the more technically plausible scenario of a reverse C-section, but given your version, planning surgical procedures doesn’t seem to be your forte.

    Because there’s nothing potentially arbitrary about scheduling delivery, or by your logic granting personhood.

    Elective Labor Induction
    Elective caesarean section
     
  8. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    The cervix is not designed to have something large shoved into it from the outside, so while technically you may be able to take a baby, re-attach its umbilical cord and shove it back into the mother's vagina and push it up into the uterus, you would kill both the mother and the baby. So perhaps you understand why your proposition, or question, is ridiculous in the first place?

    It has the right to exist because the mother allows it to exist there. If it has equal rights or is deemed a "person" by law, then how would you equate a mother's freedom and rights when you consider that she has a person inhabiting her body? Also, at what point would you allow personhood and thus, deny women freedom over her own body? Lets say the law decides to give personhood from 24 weeks (the point of viability). From that point on, the mother's behaviour, actions, her lifestyle, must all be determined to ensure the safety of the person living inside her.

    Let me give you an example. Lets say you are driving and your wife is with you in the car. She is 25 weeks pregnant. You are doing 5 miles over the speed limit. The police pull you over and what would otherwise be a ticket, you are dragged out of the car, arrested and charged with child endangerment. The prosecutor goes for maximum penalty, lets say it is 10 years.

    Migrants who attempt to enter the United States or other countries illegally are people. They are not connected via a tube to another person, eating and breathing through that other person's body.

    There is a reason why the courts never assigned personhood to the foetus in Roe vs Wade. Because to do so would infringe on the mother's human rights and freedoms and her right to privacy. Unless of course you think a developing foetus should have the rights of any "person" and sue the mother or anyone other person for endangering it while in utero? You do realise something like this is already happening and doctors are going to the courts and having women arrested and lawyers are appointed for the foetus because some women are opting for home births or natural births, yes? Or the one where a father sued his ex girl friend, who was pregnant with his child, because she had opted to move interstate to study and lawyers were appointed for the foetus she was carrying and it was initially held that she was acting irresponsibly by traveling interstate to study at university when she was 7 months pregnant and endangering the foetus. Is this acceptable, in your opinion? Because this is assigning personhood to a foetus still inside the mother's uterus. This is the reality of assigning personhood to a foetus.

    Bare responsibility how? Maintaining a diet that ensures foetal growth? Doing certain hours of exercise per week, drinking sufficient amounts of water and cutting out anything that could be deemed harmful to a child based on whoever's say so? What about wine as a prime example? Some maintain that alcohol should never be consumed while pregnant, but recently some researches have come out and said that some wine every day is not harmful? Which one would you ascribe to? What about if a car breaks down and she has to walk to a phone down a busy street? To take reasonable responsibility would mean that every single movement she made, from how she slept to how and where she walked, if she wore high heels which could increase the potential that she could fall down, all of this would be deemed illegal because it could harm the "person" she is carrying. But why are you starting it so early? Reasonable responsibility and ensuring a higher chance for a foetus is to actually start prior to falling pregnant, increasing one's intake of folate, for example. Does that mean if a baby is born with birth defects, then the mother's actions would need to be investigated to make sure she was not irresponsible and causing injury to a person.


    Very few do. It's like less than 1% of abortions are in the 3rd trimester. And the greater majority of those are because there is something wrong with the foetus or the mother. I have a friend who was in such a position. She and her husband decided to abort than to grow a foetus that was suffering pain and would not likely live through the birth. Would you say what she did was illegal? Should she be sent to prison for "murder"? Should she be criminally investigated to make sure that she did not do anything prior to and through her pregnancy that could damage a foetus?

    Because a woman would deliver a child naturally and then have her stomach cut open to re-insert the baby back into it?

    You think this is plausible?


    And sometimes they are born at 24 weeks and are persons. Emphasis added, because well, you know.. It's kind of essential apparently..
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    This Post Has No Title

    One of these things that annoys me about these discussions, and yes, it can be a cumulative effect, which is why I'm mentioning it to you—notwithstanding that some others wouldn't pay attention, anyway—is that it almost doesn't matter what I or someone in my position says.

    As I noted previously:

    I mean, really, think about the part you're skipping. Regardless of anyone else's assignment of personhood at any earlier point, the child outside the womb, removed from its maternal feeding tube is unquestionably a person.​

    Simply because of its location? That's entirely yours.

    Look, it isn't hard to understand that people disagree with me, but the one confounding thing about that disagreement is that people want to change the terms.

    For instance, I am no longer attending anything one of our neighbors has to say in this thread. It's fine with me if people disagree, but when they disagree without actually paying attention to what I say, what use is it? Our neighbor's offense is falsely complaining that an argument isn't there. When examples of that argument he complained wasn't there were presented to him, demonstrating that they did, in fact, exist in this thread, he changed the criteria, which, incidentally, invalidated his own haughty example.

    I know, it sounds like a farce. In what rational debate is this behavior acceptable?

    In this case, it's not just about location. To the one, there would have been better statements of mine to extract for that purpose; to the other, the answer would have been the same because the sum of all those statements would cover the difference.

    I get that our neighbor disagrees with me about some things, but he won't tell me why. And while that's annoying in and of itself, the bonus multiplier is that this is pretty much what we expect from that side of the argument.

    To bring this to you, I would simply point out that you started with a statement about the umbilical attachment, which by the time you responded to Bells had been transformed into "simply because of its location".

    For background, I would note that this, at least, is a bit more creative than pretending one cannot tell the difference between a zygote implanted in the uterine wall and a twenty-four year-old living in his parents' house. Over the course of the last six years at least, the only answer I can get is that there is no difference. Wait, wait, I take that back. Some people have asserted that pregnancy and conjoinment are analogous. You know, because your twin grows out of your armpit only because you had that wild fling in a motel once upon a time.

    It would be one thing if people acknowledged the limits of their analogies; to wit, there is a difference between the "tumor" analogy as it was presented here, once upon a time—and I'm not certain it's that great of an analogy to begin with—and Ken Buck's comparison of his cancer treatment to pregnancy and abortion.

    But they don't. I even tried a wild analogy, comparing a zygote to a vampire, in order to illustrate the difference I see. That is to say, I think there is a difference between using my teeth to puncture your neck and draw sustenance from your blood and being attached to the inside of you, where I completely reside, by a biologically-generated feeding tube that draws sustenance from your blood.

    And no, apparently there is no difference. (That the response was nearly incomprehensible is beside the point, though the bit about Count von Count was, at least, somewhat creative.)

    The thing is that nobody will tell me why there is no difference. In the end, one ends up asking questions that seem ridiculous.

    Here's one exchange from six years ago:

    DLN: "Explain to me the qualities a new born baby has that an unborn baby doesn't?"

    T: Independent existence.

    DLN: "I'm 24 and I'd say I'm just starting to reach the level of independent existence now, not completely just yet, let's not get carried away, but soon enough."

    T: Am I to believe that you really, sincerely, can't tell the difference?

    DLN: "Am I to gather that you truely, seriously, can't explain the difference?"

    T: Are you still physically attached to your mother?

    DLN: "And congratulations, that couldn't be more arbitrary."

    You'll notice that people have tried that bit about being unable to tell the difference between their navel and an umbilical cord in this thread, as well.

    It's kind of stupid; I get that some think the difference arbitrary. But why?

    In that six year-old discussion, part of the issue was that the other wanted me to answer a question about deserving to die, which was his own invocation. In other words, he wanted his question answered in a context presupposing personhood. You know, the classic argument: We can have a rational discussion just as soon as you concede the argument we're going to discuss.

    And I get it; we see similar processes in international diplomacy: Give us everything we want, and then we'll negotiate.

    But it is very problematic, insofar as it really stalls any progress in the discussion, when people ask us to answer for their own perspectives.

    I can't answer you on the point of location; that's not my argument. And I'm pretty damn sure it's not Bells', either.

    I get that people object to the umbilical cord point. But the only answer I've encountered over the years that doesn't seek to change the context of the proposition is that no, one cannot tell the difference between himself, in his mid-twenties, working off his student debt or whatever, and a fetus attached to the inside of another person's body by a biologically-generated feeding tube.

    In the real world, outside of Sciforums, the subject occasionally comes up socially, depending on the company and occasion; I just don't encounter this answer.

    No, really. This is something that it seems people try on the internet because they don't have to look anyone in the eye and keep a straight face while saying it.

    I mean, I really don't believe our troll from six years ago, or our lying neighbor in the current thread, are really so stupid that they can't tell the difference.

    Or maybe they are.

    But no, it's not simply about location. That's entirely yours.

    Doesn't that presuppose personhood by presuming and assigning rights in the first place? And wouldn't that simply negate the dry-foot policy?

    As a matter of law, yes. I'm not sure what your point is. Even in the days of coathangers and back-alley potions, women weren't waiting until week thirty-five to have their underground abortions unless some specific circumstance compelled it.

    I mean, to the one, sure, it would be just as illegal. To the other, that's almost a straw man, as Kermit Gosnell demonstrated; as much as some would have society believe his practice is par for the course, he is an extreme deviation.

    To the one, it's true I haven't gone to medical school. To the other, my name isn't Heiter.

    Like I said, gold standard.

    Tell it to the young lady who was born last year at one in the morning on I-405 in Los Angeles.

    Or, at least, explain to me how obstetric scheduling fits in there.

    My point being that obstetric scheduling really has nothing to do with it. The example I noted earlier? My daughter, you know, being a "person in utero" decided to disrespect the obstetric scheduling, refusing to be born on her due date, and offering up a big fuck you by deciding it was time to put on a show before the newly-scheduled time.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    Em says .... Got no umbilical cords on me!

    (Sorry, I can't resist that one when the chance arises. I so adore that photo.)

    Haven't you heard?

    Policies restricting nonmedically indicated labor inductions are now in place in the majority of hospitals in the United States, and early signs are that they have the desired effect, according to several new studies.

    "The national movement to eliminate non-medically indicated delivery at less than 39 weeks of gestation has prompted many hospitals to adopt specific policies against this practice," reported Nathaniel DeNicola, MD, from the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia.

    His survey, presented here at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) 61st Annual Clinical Meeting, found that nearly two thirds of more than 2600 hospitals are on the bandwagon.

    The majority, 67%, have a formal policy against nonmedically indicated labor induction, and among those without a formal policy, just over half said it was against their standard of care.

    Dr. DeNicola found that 69% of formal hospital policies were hard-stop, meaning strictly enforced, as opposed to soft-stop or strongly discouraged.


    (Johnson)

    I would note that Dr. Healy also explained, "Something we didn't even anticipate as a benefit of this policy, but was a delightful surprise to see, was a decreased admission rate to the neonatal intensive care unit."

    This is actually a somewhat important consideration:

    It's a cliche, that "pro-life" policies only apply to the unborn. But it's a cliche with a foundation of truth. And so here we are, WBIR reporting that, as a result of Governor Haslam's telling departments they need to make more cuts to their budgets, TennCare is talking about cutting its $2.25 million perinatal grant (which is then matched by Medicaid) that helps support NICUs across the state.

    "Babies who are born anywhere between 23 and 25 weeks can be anywhere from $500,000 to a $1 million baby. So if we were to prevent four or five of those across the state, we would save the money for this grant. So it's money well spent," Dr. [Mark Gaylord, medical director for the UT Medical Center Neonatal Intensive Care Unit] said.

    Tennessee ranks as one of the worst states for infant mortality. According to Dr. Gaylord, those numbers are improving but about 13 percent of babies in the state are still born premature.​

    (Phillips)

    I used the editorial version because I wanted that bite about pro-life until you're born to make the point: In this case, you're recommending a problematic practice that doctors and hospitals are phasing out.

    In ths case, it's an interesting proposition. Mothers undergoing Caesarean section deliveries experience a host of issues; see Willams Cosentino for some of the details. Naturally, vaginal birth brings its own set of challenges, too. But you do realize that, once again, the mother's wellbeing is absent from the pro-life proposition?

    No, really, as the article notes:

    [T]he practice of elective cesareans is controversial among healthcare providers. The debate spilled into the public eye in 2003 when the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued a statement essentially approving elective c-sections. In a bow to patient autonomy, the ACOG took the position that doctors may ethically perform an elective cesarean that's medically unnecessary as long as they feel it's "in the best interest of the patient."

    I will leave what pregnancy is like for women to describe; after all, I've never been pregnant, and never will be. But Tig always turns to me, when telling the story of our daughter's birth, to explain the first trip to the O.R. That is, the pregnancy is all hers, but she refers to me for that part of the story because I'm the one who witnessed it; she was out cold. And, yeah, it's a good thing she was out cold. A Caesarean is brutal surgery.

    And oh, yeah. I said the first trip to the O.R.

    The doctors followed the proper procedures based on the patient, but there was a problem. At one point, a nurse came into the room for a routine post-procedure check on the Caesarean wound. I was standing to her left. As she pulled up the bandage, her eyes darted to me; it was too late—I saw it, too. Tig was herniating through her sutures. I just nodded, knowing my place, and didn't say anything. The nurse said, quietly and calmly, "Just a moment," and I knew what was coming next. I said nothing to Tig in order to not stress her out. Of course, that was futile because the immediate flood of medical personnel into the room to rush her back into surgery to pull the busted sutures and apply new ones certainly freaked her out. (The anesthesiologist dropping her breathing tube as they were putting her down certainly didn't help, but that's a random accident and beside the point. Still, though, the last thing you want to hear as you're going out is your anesthesiologist saying, "Oh, shit!")

    Like I said, the doctors followed the proper procedures based on the patient; that is, they will use heavier sutures for heavier women, but based on the standard they used the right ones for Tig. She was just stronger than they expected when she came out of surgery, and somehow actually busted the line. It blew everyone's mind, was the talk of the medical center that day.

    This was a medically indicated C-section. And, sure, it's just one case, and anecdotal at that.

    However, you're suggesting major elective surgery.

    And underlying your attempt to tie personhood to obstetric scheduling is of problematic relevance in application. The abortions that take place, in which "obstetric scheduling" becomes an issue as you have suggested, are late-term, and only performed (A) under medically necessary circumstances, or (B) by an unscrupulous doctor who shouldn't have a theatre, or even a license, anywhere in the world.

    In the end, then, what you're looking at is either a crisis that is going to kill the mother, or a fatal birth defect that will result in extreme suffering before the birthed child dies.

    And obstetric scheduling won't change that.

    Your twist of personhood by obstetric scheduling is an interesting thought exercise, but not applicable.

    Meanwhile, I would simply note the irony that in the nine hundred sixty-five posts in this thread, we have yet to discuss the topic of what happens to women under LACP, and now we're onto why women should have Caesarean section surgery. It's ... an interesting contrast, to say the least.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    Johnson, Kate. "Elective Labor Induction May Soon Be Medical History". Medscape Medical News. May 23, 2013. Medscape.com. January 31, 2014. http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/804700

    Phillips, Betsy. "Tennessee: Pro-life, Until You're Born". Pith in the Wind. January 13, 2014. NashvilleScene.com. January 31, 2014. http://www.nashvillescene.com/pitw/archives/2014/01/13/tennessee-pro-life-until-youre-born

    Williams Cosentino, Barbra. "Elective cesarean: Is it for you?" BabyCenter. (n.d.) January 31, 2014. http://www.babycenter.com/0_elective-cesarean-is-it-for-you_1498696.bc
     
  10. Capracus Valued Senior Member

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    1,324
    Like I mentioned earlier, it was meant to illustrate the absurdity of declaring a full term fetus in the womb as somehow less deserving of life than if it were on the outside. The needless surgical implantation of a full term fetus back into a womb is as nonsensical as the needless killing of it before surgical removal.

    Personhood doesn’t necessarily imply full acquisition of rights, only a specified minimum. Conditions of citizenship, age, sex, race, wealth, social affiliation, physical ability and intelligence all factor into an individual’s actual quantified rights. Most in our society seem to be inclined to place a viable fetus somewhere in that pecking order.

    Like I said before, the responsibility would be that which would be reasonably expected of a postnatal mother. So in the case you describe, it would be akin to having a child passenger, and the minor speed violation would result in at most a mere citation rather than prison time.

    These immigrants do have material, social and legal tethers to their counties of origin. Like the fetus, they owe their development to the sustenance provided by their native society. So in the same way we make legal provisions for these expected migrants, why not do the same for the qualified migrant fetus.

    Mothers are already shackled with a degree of responsibility by the state in regards to child rearing. The state could conceivably micromanage parental behavior regarding children, but it has yet to go there in the extreme. I would expect the state if so inclined, to approach maternity in a similar way and require some reasonable health standard for a mother during pregnancy. After all these are future citizens, and the state does have a vested interest in maximizing their potential. Since the state requires licensing for most childcare related occupations, an argument could be made for licensing mothers wanting to engage in pregnancy as well.

    I understand that legal late term abortions are rare. In Canada for example, where there is no legal restriction on the time of abortion, the actual occurrence of late term abortions is extremely rare due to professional and personal ethical restrictions alone.
    .
    24 or 39 weeks, they’re both technically viable and should be given legal and ethical consideration regarding some basic rights of survival.
     
  11. Bells Staff Member

    Messages:
    24,270
    Oh no, your comment was absurd on its own.

    Because women often kill a full term foetus for fun?

    What about if it is a "brain dead full term baby"?


    There seems to be this belief that a woman just changes her mind one day and enters into an abortion clinic and aborts a full term foetus. In reality it does not work that way at all. To clear up a misconception, here is an interview with one of the very few (I think it's about 4) doctors in the US who perform late term abortions:

    I read an interview with you recently where you talked about Aron Ralston, the mountain climber who cut off his hand in order to escape being trapped underneath a boulder. You said that women having third-trimester abortions need them the way that Aron needed to cut off his hand. Can you tell me more about that? What's the difference between how people perceive late abortions and what you see at your clinic?

    I think that the public perceives first of all that late abortion could be completely eliminated if people would only get their act together and have their abortions earlier, which is completely untrue.

    I also think that people assume that women do this casually—that they've known they were pregnant for thirty weeks and then were on their way down to the hair salon and they saw the abortion clinic and they decided to just walk in to avoid the inconveniences of motherhood. That also is completely untrue. No matter how available birth control and first-trimester and second-trimester abortion is, you are always going to have the need for later abortions. A woman would never do this casually. The procedure lasts three or four days, and is fairly disagreeable.

    [HR][/HR]

    So how do you draw lines in the case of a healthy fetus?

    It's hard. Essentially I have to say to myself, "Is this a very compelling story?" And I feel very bad about that because who am I to say, "Well, it's compelling because you're 11," and then I see a similar case when the girl's 14 and I think, okay… but then, what if you're 15, what if you're 16? How do we draw these lines? What is the ethical difference between doing an abortion at 29 and 32 weeks? Is there a meaningful ethical difference? Can I justify it? Will I have to justify it, and to whom?

    It comes down to a question of safety, many times. If I feel that there is a likelihood that there will be complications, and I won’t be able to finish the procedure in the office—and we’re an office, not a surgery center—I will only do the procedure if there is a fetal anomaly. Not for elective procedures. And I say “elective” as if the woman is choosing between pairs of shoes, and it’s not like that, not even close, but I will turn that patient down. For example, in the movie, I had a patient from France and she just desperately did not want to be pregnant—but she was 35 weeks, and gestational age is plus or minus three weeks, so she could've been at 38 weeks, and that’s just too far along. It wouldn’t be safe.

    [HR][/HR]

    How do you see reproductive rights in the political arena right now?

    I see things moving crazily to the right. I think that the extreme, right-wing, misogynist religious fanatics have basically hijacked the Republican party and are moving toward being able to hijack the Democrats too. I'm appalled at the hubris of these legislators who, one after another, think they can make more sensible decisions about a woman's personal, private reproductive decisions than the woman herself. They know nothing about these situations. They don't know a thing about later abortions, or why women seek them out, and yet they presume that they should be making these decisions.

    I don't think this belongs in the legislature at all. The decision on abortion belongs to the woman, to her family, to her clergy person if she has one, to her doctor. Women don't ever need legislators telling them what to do with the contents of their uterus.

    What do you hope people come away with after seeing the film, or reading this?

    I really hope that they'll understand that these late abortion decisions are carefully made by these women. They have been thought out, wrestled with, agonized over. They are never casual. And the need for late-term abortions will never go away.



    Now do you understand why your question was absurd to begin with?


    I'm sorry, no. You don't get to assign personhood and then limit it. If you assign personhood, then that person is equal under the law and it has human rights that must be protected absolutely.


    I would love for you to explain to me how an unborn foetus is able to fit into any of those. Citizenship is not given until it is born and usually registered in its country of birth or elsewhere if born overseas. Age, sex and race.. What of it? How does that fit into an unborn foetus personhood or even limited rights? Are you going to assign rights by age, sex and/or race? Hmm, I seem to recall a period in history where this was used to assign rights and remove rights and personhood. I could suggest you ask a black person how they feel about assigning rights and personhood based on race and see how you go. As a person of mixed race with black ancestors who were owned by other people, I don't think the reception to such a question will be welcoming. Wealth and social affiliation... How do you define or assign either of these to someone who is not born yet, and does not know anyone or associate with anyone..

    Physical ability.. Is it less of a person if it is disabled? Intelligence? Can it count to 100 in the womb by tapping against the mother's belly?

    As a parent, at no time did I place my kids in such a pecking order, nor would I ever accept or allow anyone to limit or assign their rights based off any of the ones you listed.


    Why do you figure that? If you are going to assign personhood to an unborn foetus, then it has fully recognised rights and if you endanger it, then the State can send you to prison if they so wish. Just ask the pregnant women who were arrested for suspected drug use (one wasn't even a drug user) or the mother who was charged with murder when she delivered a stillbirth and the State assumed she had ingested something illegal, it was quite a while after she was found guilty and imprisoned that they realised she had taken the medicine prescribed to her by her doctor. This is what happens with personhood for a foetus that is still in the womb of its mother.

    I'm sorry, what? Are you going to claim that a 40 year old man, for example, who is trying to enter into a country illegal is the same as a 30 week old foetus because he has ties to his native society that helped him to develop and provided him with sustenance?

    *Chortle*..

    Wow, that's a new one.

    Tell me, are you still tethered to your mother's uterus? After all, you had a social, legal and biological tether to her womb, not to mention the fact that she provided you with society in the 9 months you spent there and all of your sustenance.


    Nope. A mother can give her child up for adoption without ever laying eyes on it. She can take the baby and leave it in front of someone's doorstep. She can have someone else raise her child. No one can force a person to "parent" or be responsible for their children. If you could, then there would not be over 400,000 children in the foster care system and certainly not over 100,000 children up for adoption in the US.

    Tell that to the women arrested, detained and those who had c-sections without their consent so the State could take custody of their children. One woman in Italy is still trying to get her daughter back because she had a panic attack while visiting the UK for business and they sedated her, performed major surgery on her without her consent and took her baby then drove her to the airport and sent her home.

    In Texas, they kept a dead woman alive on a machine to grow a baby in her uterus without her consent or her family's consent. And you think it has yet to go there in the extreme? Really?


    As one of the 4 doctors who performs such procedures in the US commented, they are rare and all of the reasons she is given are valid, because these are not decisions that are taken lightly or done without much thought, most of it agonising, and she won't perform them when they are full term.
     
  12. Syne Sine qua non Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,515
    What part of "I do not know what specifics they may be advocating" do you not understand? Now if you wish to provide some specific example, I would happily tell you how triage would likely apply to it. I am not necessarily advocating a triage model, only stating what should be fairly obvious about applying one.

    No, only whole arguments

    I do not advocate personhood at conception. As Capracus, who has actually read this thread, points out, I advocate personhood at about 8 weeks, when brain activity commences.

    You make the completely erroneous and hasty generalization that all pro-lifers believe, as Tiassa puts it, LACP. Again, why should anyone defend a position they do not hold?

    Well, it is clear you have missed portions of this discussion. What is not self-explanatory about a woman being able to opt out of an unwanted pregnancy but a man having no such option and being held financially responsible (upon the decision of the woman)? This is sexism, plain and simple. The whole question of abortion is one of rights, so why should the sperm donor's rights be expressly excluded?

    An anecephalic fetus has no cerebrum, which is the criteria for cerebral death. At about 8 weeks a normal fetus has a cerebrum.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2014
  13. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330
    Just to assist you with your information assimilation issues ...

    Did he mention that they did it "*for fun*"?
    Why did he declare it as "*equally nonsensical*" and seek to draw a comparison in the first place?

    Note : to answer these questions, it involves *reading what other people say*, and maybe even quoting them, as opposed to imagining stuff that they say for the sake of having them fill in the roles for one's pre-conceived arguments.
     
  14. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Still not answering the question LG? What makes it a "person"?

    Carrying on..

    My comment was meant to demonstrate just how absurd his example was. In other words, women do not abort for fun, just as no one has ever "stuffed" a full term foetus back into the uterus after it has been born.
     
  15. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330
    funnily enough, Capracus was discussing precisely that when you intervened with your patented disjunctive questioning techniques

    So once again, who said they "*did it for fun*"?
    What exactly was he talking about when he brought this subject to your attention?

    :shrug:
     
  16. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Stop dodging and answer the question. What, in your opinion, makes it a "person"? From what point is it a person? Can you please provide the reason it is a person? These should not be difficult questions for someone who has been supportive of it being declared as a "person" for how many years now?

    For the exact same reason that he said a full term baby could have its umbilical cord re-attached and "stuffed back into" the uterus. In other words, just so we are clear, both are absurd in their own right. No woman has an abortion for fun, just as no full term born person will ever have its umbilical cord re-attached and "stuffed" back into the womb. Do you understand now why both are equally absurd? Or are you just going to keep being dishonest and avoiding the question?
     
  17. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    37,884
    Sandwich Game

    Hey, Bells ...

    ... when you were a kid, or perhaps in raising your children, did you ever play the vegemite sandwich game? (We use peanut butter in the States, but still ....)

    It's just that as I was pulling bits and pieces from around the thread, I noticed #961 in response to you. There's a bizarre question leading the post: "So are you suggesting that even after birth it can be killed at the women's leisure?"

    It seems to me this is getting to be like the sandwich game.
     
  18. lightgigantic Banned Banned

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    16,330
    when you throw questions to derail such answers (or the criticism/discussion of such answers), how is it that I am dodging?


    and what subject was under discussion that warranted him bringing the example up?
    Was it reasons why women have an abortion?

    Who suggested that they did?
    Is it anyone you are arguing against at the moment?
    Or are you simply attempting to fast track the discussion to somewhere other than where it was currently headed?

    Did he suggest that just as "*women have abortions for fun*" is absurd, so is reattaching the umbilical cord and stuffing it back int he womb?
    :scratchin:
     
  19. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Oh I'm sorry, how dare I actually ask you to answer a question that you have dodged for how many years now, when it comes to issues of abortion. Poor baby *pat*. Why are you incapable of showing even an ounce of honesty and answer the question?

    Why don't you ask him why he felt asking if stuffing a new born baby back into its mother's uterus was warranted?
    Nope. It was simply one absurd statement to explain the absolute absurdity of his statement. Is that a problem for you? I have to ask since you have latched onto this to once again avoid answering the question.

    Says he who spends 3/4 of his time here trolling and avoiding answering a question, you really have a cheek to make any such accusation.

    I have explained why my absurd comment was made to point out the absurdity of his comment. Everyone else gets it, why don't you? Oh wait, I know why. It's because you are a dishonest troll who is just looking for yet another way to avoid answering a very simple question. And instead of answering the question, you have decided to once again troll and try to insert yourself into a discussion that does not concern you at all.

    I don't know LG. Did anyone here suggest that a child loses its personhood if it's stuffed back into the uterus after it's born when he made that ridiculous comment?
     
  20. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    Sorry, I'm still baffling over the Turducken.
     
  21. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
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    Turkey Shoot

    And now I'm thinking of the NASA/Boeing turkey story. I suppose that was inevitable.

    Still, though, I wouldn't want to clean the kitchen after this sandwich is made.
     
  22. lightgigantic Banned Banned

    Messages:
    16,330
    Asking questions with your eyes closed and your fingers in your ears makes you look stupid, deary ...


    actually I am asking why you think he thinks it is warranted, since it seems plainly obvious to me that not only he says it isn't, but he was actually using it as a response to this so-called elusive question that you are apparently not having a lot of success being answered ....

    And the question is, what was the statement made in relation to?
    The reasons women have an abortion .... or something else?


    The irony is that you are complaining about people not answering your questions, while being caught in the act of derailing such an answer.
    Why would someone behave in such a manner?
    Maybe because they are a troll?
    Maybe because they are intellectually dishonest?
    ... or any of the standard ad homs you like to dish out to people who problematize your radical fanatic take on the subject





    I do vaguely recall someone suggesting that the reverse of the process grants personhood in some sort of magical fashion however ... I can't see anything about women having abortions for fun .... at least not by anyone except you.

    :scratchin:
     
  23. Bells Staff Member

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    24,270
    *Yawn*

    More dodging and trolling.

    Answer the question or GTFO.

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