Pro-life but not pro-mask, and other dichotomies

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Sorry about missing the sprouting acorn part from before in your comments. I mean to address the issue with even a sprouted oak but forgot. The difference is in the nuance of tree having connotations of adulthood. We typically wouldn't call a sprouted acorn a tree because the word tree has connotations of maturity. I do think we could very rationally call it an oak and call it alive just like we would call an infant an infant human and alive but not an adult. So, no, I wouldn't call a sprouted acorn an oak tree, but I certainly would say it's an oak and it's alive.

There is at least some irony in you making the point above in the same comment that you call an embryo a child.

Fair enough, you caught me. I intentionally used the phrase unborn human every time instead of anything else (as best as I can remember) and in this one particular time out of probably 50 I accidentally used the term unborn child. Please replace it in your mind with unborn human. Then there will be no irony as I see it.

Edited to fix quotes.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Sorry about missing the sprouting acorn part from before in your comments. I mean to address the issue with even a sprouted oak but forgot. The difference is in the nuance of tree having connotations of adulthood. We typically wouldn't call a sprouted acorn a tree because the word tree has connotations of maturity. I do think we could very rationally call it an oak and call it alive just like we would call an infant an infant human and alive but not an adult. So, no, I wouldn't call a sprouted acorn an oak tree, but I certainly would say it's an oak and it's alive.

Thanks for the explanation. I believe I see how I was unclear and chose poorly in my wording. I would say this, there is absolutely nothing inarguable philosophically - that's kind of the point :-), but there are certain things that we are on pretty solid ground scientifically. Inarguable even on a scientific standpoint is probably a poor term because science tries to continually improve and learn, so even previous thought certainties can be deemed incorrect. So, inarguable or irrefutable were poor choices to begin with.

Hopefully, this will make my point clearer. To break down human life, human would mean of the species of homo sapien. It would seem hard to argue scientifically that an unborn child is not of our species. It would seem to me that by all scientific definitions of what life is that I have seen, an unborn human meets them all. It is growing, takes in energy, self repairing, etc. So, yes, science can answer the question of at which point human life begins - with the caveat that it can only do it scientifically in scientific terms - but it can answer it, if not inarguably :-), then at least on pretty solid ground.

What it means to be really human is also a philosophical question, and that's what is debatable and has been discussed in everything from science fiction books about programmed robots to any number of other things. Science cannot speak to this. This is what I was alluding to about what rationally be debated - whether or not an unborn human is a "worthwhile" life or of "what caliber" of human life it is, and so on. That's debatable because that's philosophy.

The reason this issue is so much on my mind is because I feel that when people argue against calling an unborn human - human life or when they are adamant in arguing against pro-lifers who say that abortion is ending a human life, it's because, ultimately, they want to distance themselves from unborn humans. They want to make them an "other." Not worthy or worthwhile - and history has shown it's much easier to do that when you try to dehumanize the person first. Numerous atrocities have occurred because a certain group of people have been made out to be "other than me," and, as I see it, unborn humans have been put into that category to make things easier. If the topic of abortion is discussed rationally and thought about, I can't fathom how it can't at least be a gut-wrenching decision on whichever side you come on. Pro-life people often do a poor job of empathizing with the mother. They tend to focus on consequences of having sex and all that, but I do know that I can only imagine how terrifying it must be to be in many situations that surround abortions. On the flip side, pro-choicers, in my view, often do a poor job of realizing the seriousness of the allowance that a mother can end a human life. It's treated with a cliche her body her choice, which is an oversimplification because of the very thing we're talking about. It's her body yes, but it's her body in that it's supporting another human life, distinct from her. I think the wording and avoiding the concept of the unborn human being an actual, real, human life is done to make it easier to wash one's hands of the seriousness of the issue.

You seem to be breaking the definition of "living human" into two distinct parts.  The "living" and the "human".

I agree, "alive" has an arguably pretty clear definition most would agree on.  So a sprouted acorn would definitely meet most people's definition of "alive" and so would a fetus I think.

So you are on pretty clear and solid ground with the "living" part I think.

Considering the "human" part you address the sprouted acorn analogy by stating "tree" has a certain connotation of maturity.  So I would agree that a sprouted acorn would not normally be called an "oak tree" by many people.

On the other hand "human" also has certain connotations.  Your suggestion that "human" simply means anything that has a complete set of distinct human DNA I think is an attempt to simply ignore the connotations the word has.  I think it is disingenuous to consider the connotations of "tree" and ignore the connotations of "human" when convenient.

I don't know of anyone who would consider a severed hand a "human" yet it contains a complete set of human DNA.  So why should a single cell of distinct human DNA be considered a "human"?   

If you want accuracy of terms, particularly when talking in scientific terms as you seem to be suggesting people do, I think perhaps you should use the actual scientific terms already in use.  Such words as zygote (a single cell of uniquely distinct human DNA), embryo (early multi-cell stage of uniquely distinct human DNA), and fetus (embryo that has reached the 11th week of gestation).

Further, I don't know of any pro-choice person on this board that has argued an "unborn human" is less worthy of rights or less "calibre" of a human or is not a "worthwhile" life.  In fact many of specifically stated there is no reason at all to give any fewer rights to an "unborn human" or to treat them any differently.  They have simply argued that the "unborn human" not be given any more rights, or be considered more worthy, or considered a higher calibre human than anyone else.

It's true that there are other scientific terms that are specific for the process, but you're the one claiming I'm breaking it into two distinct parts - living and human, and you follow that up by using an analogy that separates the two in terms of a human hand not being a human because it's separated and not alive. The joining of the two together does have applicability in that analogy. You can describe the unborn as something else in specific terms. I don't have to say my child is a human; I can say my child is a preschooler. It's more specific but doesn't render the other part innacurate. There are certain connotations of human, yes, but I think it's reasonable to use the term human because it's pretty generically applied in other situations where other humans have limitations placed on them but are still labeled as human: infants that are totally dependent on people taking care of them, people with severe mental disabilities that can't walk, talk, or likely process much of anything at all, shoot even people in vegetative states are not denied the label of human. You may say I'm ignoring the connotations of human and being disingenuous. I think pro-choicers that want to argue against the unborn being declared as human are being disingenuous when pretty much every reason you can come up with (except that unborn are physically inside of someone else) as a reason why the unborn are not human is ignored in other situations.

I don't think it's nearly as simple as what you're saying. We have a conflict of two rights. On the one hand, we have the right of the mother to not go through with the pregnancy. It's no small thing to go through pregnancy, and there are most certainly risks with it. However, there is a 100% chance of death for the unborn in this conflict of rights. So I don't think it's accurate to say that no one on this board is arguing that the unborn have less rights than other humans. Certainly, it's a unique issue, and as the important analogy has been made, there are parallels to being required to give someone a kidney, that come into play here. It's still not an open and shut case as you seem to say of pro-choice people just wanting the unborn to only have no more rights than other humans.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

On the flip side, pro-choicers, in my view, often do a poor job of realizing the seriousness of the allowance that a mother can end a human life. It's treated with a cliche her body her choice, which is an oversimplification because of the very thing we're talking about. It's her body yes, but it's her body in that it's supporting another human life, distinct from her. I think the wording and avoiding the concept of the unborn human being an actual, real, human life is done to make it easier to wash one's hands of the seriousness of the issue.

A woman opting to have an abortion is the only "pro-choice" person who matter - right? Have you ever met any such woman who does not display any care or connection in the world for the fetus in her?

I think I mentioned upthread about a colleague who had to undergo late term partial birth abortion for her dead fetus - a "boy" for who she already had the nursery ready - and that she went into depression and dropped out of her (rather lucrative and very well-paying) career for 4-5 years. Is it your position that a random "pro-life" bible-thumping weirdo would empathize more with her dead fetus and should have more of a say on what medical procedure she may or may not be able to undergo?

I am sure psychopathic women exist, even those who can overcome their biological urges and feel no connection to the fetus they may be carrying. Is it your intention to use those examples to restrict the basic human rights of all women?

No sire! I don't think you are thinking this through. The lack of human empathy among the pro-life people is the ONLY real problem we are dealing with here!

You say "A woman opting to have an abortion is the only "pro-choice" person who matter - right?" Clearly that is not the case, as there are people who make laws that also matter if we're talking about restricting something. If the process was restricted, then more people would come into play. Your question is contingent on the decision of it not being restricted in any way already being decided. Any person in any situation may do all kinds of rash things. We may empathize with them, may even bemoan the fact that we restrict their choice from doing so - we restrict a person from chasing down and beating a person who hurt their child into a pulp as a society although we can totally empathize with their desire to do so. The whole premise of laws is that we are restricting people who are in the situation from doing something because society deems it worthwhile in restricting them. So yes, I am sure that the majority of women, vast majority, etc. who are about to have an abortion don't take it lightly. I am also sure that some do. There's no way to know how many, but what I'm talking about is a discussion by people about whether or not something is morally acceptable.

And yes, I would definitely make the claim that someone who is pro-life can show more empathy, at least at times, for the unborn than women who abort their unborn. The very action of a woman aborting a viable life inside of them (when it is viable) for any number of reasons beyond the health and safety of the unborn or of herself is evidence enough to me that to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn. At other times, they may think they're placing the unborn's welfare ahead (end their life because the mother can't take adequate care of them or whatnot), but that doesn't mean that their perspective is accurate and/or that the unborn if it wasn't aborted would agree with the mother's perspective when grown.

I want to pause and say you seem to make significant leaps well beyond what I actually say into my intentions and/or inner thoughts and also have a tendency to get insulting. Look, I get it, you have a friend that had a terrible experience, and many more people have had bad experiences as well. It would just improve the conversation if you didn't make these jumps seemingly (from my side) out of your anger and frustration or throw out pejoratives like Bible thumping weirdo and so on and so forth. Feel free to continue to do so, but in my mind, you're reducing your case by showing a lack of objectivity and civility.

Case in point, you go off on a tangent and ask "Is it your intention to use those examples (of a woman without empathy for their unborn) to restrict the basic human rights of all women?" I did not say that we need to restrict abortions because of a lack of empathy on the pro-choice side - mother or random internet stranger. What I did say is that I believe that some (maybe not even you as I mentioned) of pro-choice people change verbiage to use their words to distance themselves from the reality of what is actually occurring and to place the unborn into the category of "other" and dehumanize them in the way that many populations have been dehumanized in the past. I also said that some people on here do a good job of not doing that and called out GuitarStv. The whole point of that thread of thought is that I believe that both sides have blind spots and that it hinders dialogue on a difficult topic.

[PKFFW]

It's true that there are other scientific terms that are specific for the process, but you're the one claiming I'm breaking it into two distinct parts - living and human, and you follow that up by using an analogy that separates the two in terms of a human hand not being a human because it's separated and not alive. The joining of the two together does have applicability in that analogy. You can describe the unborn as something else in specific terms. I don't have to say my child is a human; I can say my child is a preschooler. It's more specific but doesn't render the other part innacurate. There are certain connotations of human, yes, but I think it's reasonable to use the term human because it's pretty generically applied in other situations where other humans have limitations placed on them but are still labeled as human: infants that are totally dependent on people taking care of them, people with severe mental disabilities that can't walk, talk, or likely process much of anything at all, shoot even people in vegetative states are not denied the label of human. You may say I'm ignoring the connotations of human and being disingenuous. I think pro-choicers that want to argue against the unborn being declared as human are being disingenuous when pretty much every reason you can come up with (except that unborn are physically inside of someone else) as a reason why the unborn are not human is ignored in other situations.

My apologies if I've misrepresented your viewpoint.  However, you were the one who was stating from a scientific viewpoint a zygote is a "living human" because it is both active in the process of life and a complete and uniquely distinct set of human DNA.  So it seemed to me you were clearly outlining the dual aspect of your own argument.  I was agreeing that you seemed to be on very solid ground when it comes to living.

My example of a severed hand was to make it clear that a complete and distinct set of human DNA is not sufficient on its own to qualify as the "human" part of your phrase.  Even if a severed hand could be kept alive, it would never be referred to as a "living human" or even as a "human" simply because it is both active in the process of life and a complete and distinct set of human DNA.  Human cells are regularly grown in labs now.  They are both active in the process of life and a complete and distinct set of human DNA and no one refers to those cells as "living humans".  So simply being alive and a complete and distinct set of human DNA is not a very solid basis for claiming the status of "living human" and is nowhere near as beyond debate as you claim.

So to get back to the acorn analogy.  Yes "tree" has connotations and one might instead choose to call a sprouted acorn a sprout or a "living oak" or "seedling" or some such other word. However, just like your example of calling your child a preschooler not rendering the term human inaccurate, calling a sprouted acorn an oak tree is not inaccurate either.  It is in fact an oak tree from the moment it sprouts.  What stage of "tree" it is can be called many things such as sprout, seedling, sapling, etc but none of those terms make the nomenclature "tree" inaccurate. 

"Human" also has connotations and if you want to negate one argument because of connotations, you should, if you wish to discuss in good faith at any rate, negate the other argument for the same reasons.

I don't think it's nearly as simple as what you're saying. We have a conflict of two rights. On the one hand, we have the right of the mother to not go through with the pregnancy. It's no small thing to go through pregnancy, and there are most certainly risks with it. However, there is a 100% chance of death for the unborn in this conflict of rights. So I don't think it's accurate to say that no one on this board is arguing that the unborn have less rights than other humans. Certainly, it's a unique issue, and as the important analogy has been made, there are parallels to being required to give someone a kidney, that come into play here. It's still not an open and shut case as you seem to say of pro-choice people just wanting the unborn to only have no more rights than other humans.

Sure, it's not a simple question to answer, I totally agree with you there.  Thought experiment to consider....do you believe someone should be able to legally force you to give medical treatment up to and including endangering your own life if they ever need it?  If not, then you are suggesting an "unborn human" be given greater rights than that person who needs to legally force your compliance.

[PKFFW]

The very action of a woman aborting a viable life inside of them (when it is viable) for any number of reasons beyond the health and safety of the unborn or of herself is evidence enough to me that to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn. At other times, they may think they're placing the unborn's welfare ahead (end their life because the mother can't take adequate care of them or whatnot), but that doesn't mean that their perspective is accurate and/or that the unborn if it wasn't aborted would agree with the mother's perspective when grown.

I don't recall ever hearing of a woman who has waited until the "unborn human" inside them is viable before deciding to abort it based on either of your premises.  I would think women who either simply want to place their own rights and preferences ahead of the "unborn human" or who can't take adequate care of them or "whatnot", make the decision to abort long, long before the "unborn human" is viable.

Besides perhaps some extraordinarily rare cases of psychopathy, do you have any evidence of women choosing to abort a viable "unborn human" for such reasons and not due to valid concerns regarding the health and safety of either herself or of the "unborn human"?

[nereo]

I see a couple people who appear to be arguing not in good faith (see sealioning) so I will refrain from commenting.

I had never heard the term “sealioning” before.  Now I have a word for it.

[ctuser1]

And yes, I would definitely make the claim that someone who is pro-life can show more empathy, at least at times, for the unborn than women who abort their unborn. The very action of a woman aborting a viable life inside of them (when it is viable) for any number of reasons beyond the health and safety of the unborn or of herself is evidence enough to me that to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn. At other times, they may think they're placing the unborn's welfare ahead (end their life because the mother can't take adequate care of them or whatnot), but that doesn't mean that their perspective is accurate and/or that the unborn if it wasn't aborted would agree with the mother's perspective when grown.

How do you know that the bolded portion happens at all?

Let me take the case of CT, which I am most familiar with. CT does not allow abortion past fetal viability, like a VAST majority of other states, "except where necessary to preserve a woman's life or health":
https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/state-indicator/gestational-limit-abortions/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

Other than the above very reasonable restriction, CT otherwise has very liberal abortion laws.
2018 live births: 36155 (https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/Health-Information-Systems--Reporting/Hisrhome/Vital-Statistics-Registration-Reports)
2018 abortions after 21 weeks: 89 (https://lozierinstitute.org/late-term-abortion-stats/)

In how many of these 89 cases, do you think, the doctors and nurses broke the law to abort a viable fetus just because, and a woman carried a fetus in her womb for months with all the related physical discomfort and then suddenly decided to kill it one fine morning?

So if I understand correctly, you are trying to use, e.g. 89 potentially extremely unfortunate cases in CT of women who likely suffered horribly, allege that there are doctors and nurses breaking state law that does not permit optional abortions past fetal viability, and use that to argue that "to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn".

See, I did not put a single word in your mouth. I just used your own quotes, added real world data and statistics to explain the implications of what you posted here. Are you with me so far? Or is there some other data/statistic that indicates that there is an epidemic of illegal-in-most-states abortion of viable fetuses?

FWIW - I have heard absolutely zero concern among the wokest of the woke people about the limits on abortion of a viable fetus.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

The very action of a woman aborting a viable life inside of them (when it is viable) for any number of reasons beyond the health and safety of the unborn or of herself is evidence enough to me that to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn. At other times, they may think they're placing the unborn's welfare ahead (end their life because the mother can't take adequate care of them or whatnot), but that doesn't mean that their perspective is accurate and/or that the unborn if it wasn't aborted would agree with the mother's perspective when grown.

I don't recall ever hearing of a woman who has waited until the "unborn human" inside them is viable before deciding to abort it based on either of your premises.  I would think women who either simply want to place their own rights and preferences ahead of the "unborn human" or who can't take adequate care of them or "whatnot", make the decision to abort long, long before the "unborn human" is viable.

Besides perhaps some extraordinarily rare cases of psychopathy, do you have any evidence of women choosing to abort a viable "unborn human" for such reasons and not due to valid concerns regarding the health and safety of either herself or of the "unborn human"?

Apologies. I used an incorrect term of viability. What I meant by it was - alive and growing. If a mother has an alive and growing unborn inside of them and ends its life, I feel fairly confident in saying that they're putting their rights ahead of the unborn's rights. By saying this, I'm meaning that they're not saying, oh, the unborn is already dead - it's not going to continue to grow or the unborn is so severely hurt/has such bad defects/etc. that it'll die at birth, etc. Those could be considered to be looking at the unborn's perspective and trying to alleviate pain for them. However, if the unborn is growing with no reason to think there are any issues and the mother ends their life, then no, in most cases, as I see it, the mother is objectively putting their rights ahead of the unborn and the fullness of life with all that could have been.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

And yes, I would definitely make the claim that someone who is pro-life can show more empathy, at least at times, for the unborn than women who abort their unborn. The very action of a woman aborting a viable life inside of them (when it is viable) for any number of reasons beyond the health and safety of the unborn or of herself is evidence enough to me that to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn. At other times, they may think they're placing the unborn's welfare ahead (end their life because the mother can't take adequate care of them or whatnot), but that doesn't mean that their perspective is accurate and/or that the unborn if it wasn't aborted would agree with the mother's perspective when grown.

How do you know that the bolded portion happens at all?

Let me take the case of CT, which I am most familiar with. CT does not allow abortion past fetal viability, like a VAST majority of other states, "except where necessary to preserve a woman's life or health":
https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/state-indicator/gestational-limit-abortions/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

Other than the above very reasonable restriction, CT otherwise has very liberal abortion laws.
2018 live births: 36155 (https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/Health-Information-Systems--Reporting/Hisrhome/Vital-Statistics-Registration-Reports)
2018 abortions after 21 weeks: 89 (https://lozierinstitute.org/late-term-abortion-stats/)

In how many of these 89 cases, do you think, the doctors and nurses broke the law to abort a viable fetus just because, and a woman carried a fetus in her womb for months with all the related physical discomfort and then suddenly decided to kill it one fine morning?

So if I understand correctly, you are trying to use, e.g. 89 potentially extremely unfortunate cases in CT of women who likely suffered horribly, allege that there are doctors and nurses breaking state law that does not permit optional abortions past fetal viability, and use that to argue that "to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn".

See, I did not put a single word in your mouth. I just used your own quotes, added real world data and statistics to explain the implications of what you posted here. Are you with me so far? Or is there some other data/statistic that indicates that there is an epidemic of illegal-in-most-states abortion of viable fetuses?

FWIW - I have heard absolutely zero concern among the wokest of the woke people about the limits on abortion of a viable fetus.

As I mentioned above to PKFFW, this was entirely my fault with my incorrect usage of the term viability. If you'd like to respond to my post given my clarification of what I meant above, please do so.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

It's true that there are other scientific terms that are specific for the process, but you're the one claiming I'm breaking it into two distinct parts - living and human, and you follow that up by using an analogy that separates the two in terms of a human hand not being a human because it's separated and not alive. The joining of the two together does have applicability in that analogy. You can describe the unborn as something else in specific terms. I don't have to say my child is a human; I can say my child is a preschooler. It's more specific but doesn't render the other part innacurate. There are certain connotations of human, yes, but I think it's reasonable to use the term human because it's pretty generically applied in other situations where other humans have limitations placed on them but are still labeled as human: infants that are totally dependent on people taking care of them, people with severe mental disabilities that can't walk, talk, or likely process much of anything at all, shoot even people in vegetative states are not denied the label of human. You may say I'm ignoring the connotations of human and being disingenuous. I think pro-choicers that want to argue against the unborn being declared as human are being disingenuous when pretty much every reason you can come up with (except that unborn are physically inside of someone else) as a reason why the unborn are not human is ignored in other situations.

My apologies if I've misrepresented your viewpoint.  However, you were the one who was stating from a scientific viewpoint a zygote is a "living human" because it is both active in the process of life and a complete and uniquely distinct set of human DNA.  So it seemed to me you were clearly outlining the dual aspect of your own argument.  I was agreeing that you seemed to be on very solid ground when it comes to living.

My example of a severed hand was to make it clear that a complete and distinct set of human DNA is not sufficient on its own to qualify as the "human" part of your phrase.  Even if a severed hand could be kept alive, it would never be referred to as a "living human" or even as a "human" simply because it is both active in the process of life and a complete and distinct set of human DNA.  Human cells are regularly grown in labs now.  They are both active in the process of life and a complete and distinct set of human DNA and no one refers to those cells as "living humans".  So simply being alive and a complete and distinct set of human DNA is not a very solid basis for claiming the status of "living human" and is nowhere near as beyond debate as you claim.

So to get back to the acorn analogy.  Yes "tree" has connotations and one might instead choose to call a sprouted acorn a sprout or a "living oak" or "seedling" or some such other word. However, just like your example of calling your child a preschooler not rendering the term human inaccurate, calling a sprouted acorn an oak tree is not inaccurate either.  It is in fact an oak tree from the moment it sprouts.  What stage of "tree" it is can be called many things such as sprout, seedling, sapling, etc but none of those terms make the nomenclature "tree" inaccurate. 

"Human" also has connotations and if you want to negate one argument because of connotations, you should, if you wish to discuss in good faith at any rate, negate the other argument for the same reasons.

I don't think it's nearly as simple as what you're saying. We have a conflict of two rights. On the one hand, we have the right of the mother to not go through with the pregnancy. It's no small thing to go through pregnancy, and there are most certainly risks with it. However, there is a 100% chance of death for the unborn in this conflict of rights. So I don't think it's accurate to say that no one on this board is arguing that the unborn have less rights than other humans. Certainly, it's a unique issue, and as the important analogy has been made, there are parallels to being required to give someone a kidney, that come into play here. It's still not an open and shut case as you seem to say of pro-choice people just wanting the unborn to only have no more rights than other humans.

Sure, it's not a simple question to answer, I totally agree with you there.  Thought experiment to consider....do you believe someone should be able to legally force you to give medical treatment up to and including endangering your own life if they ever need it?  If not, then you are suggesting an "unborn human" be given greater rights than that person who needs to legally force your compliance.

First, I'll say, I still feel that tree is an imprecise analogy because, again, tree itself has connotations (I'll get into connotations for human down below) of maturity. It really is akin to the phrase adult in most people's minds, which is why it's not really getting to the heart of our discussion.

I don't think that you misrepresented my viewpoint. Instead, after thinking about your comment, you are absolutely right that I did not get to the entire heart of what I was trying to say. I think that breaking them apart is part of it - I feel I can confidently declare that apart: human and life both describe an unborn. To distinguish from your analogy, though, you're right that there has to be some combination thereof to avoid the severed hand artificially kept from rotting by nutrients or whatnot to allow it to repair itself. By that, I would say there is one connotation that I use that combines the human and life part together, and I don't feel disingenuous about using it because it's pretty universally agreed except for unborn, which again, I think is because people want to distance themselves from the reality or controversy or whatnot. That point is that it's somewhere along the life cycle. It's distinct with its DNA - a new individual. It's alive and growing. And it's somewhere along the life cycle of growth. By this I mean without artificial intervention to end it (or natural of disease, defect, or whatever that happens at some point), it will continue on to develop and grow, reaching infancy, childhood, adulthood, and finally death. To put an artificial construct and limitation of birth to reduce this perspective is to do it with a philosophical mindset because an unborn meets all of the other criteria and is actively on the same growth cycle as an infant - just as an infant, with all of their dependencies on adults and 100% chance of dying without support is on the growth cycle to self-sufficiency and adulthood.

For the last part, we are absolutely at the crux of the differences of opinion. I admit that my view here does border on the hypocritical (and you will probably say it is hypocritical, and that's fine) by wanting to not allow a mother to end the life of the unborn in violation of the thought experiment. I justify it to myself for a variety of reasons.

Pregnancy is unique from that experiment and just in general in a number of ways.

First, unlike the generic medical treatment idea (or kidney donation as was mentioned before), in pregnancy, there is only one person who can help keep the other person alive. That alone provides some distinguishment, uniqueness, and extra moral imperative to help.

There's also the fullness of the potential of life. In general, most people choose to save the young in emergency situations. In fact, I know of emergency services where this is taught when there are roughly equal chances of survival to treat a 5-year-old before a 40-year-old because of this potential in life. So that's part of it.

Some of it is consequences of action and responsibility. In all cases except rape, a conscious decision was made to have sex, and even if precautions were taken the potential for something happening was there. A choice at some point was made, except the unborn was put into this situation without any choice in the matter whatsoever. That requires some reassessment of generic rights because one party was forced into the situation, and the other part had at least some hand in it. We address this somewhat as a society with forced child support from a father who made the choice to have sex even if their intent was not to have a child. So we've already, as a society, declared that we can put responsibility (albeit not life-threatening, although certainly life-altering) responsibility on a person regardless of the circumstances or his desire - let's say he even wore a condom that was ineffective or whatever. The circumstances around it were moot - all that matters (and should matter, in my opinion. I'm not arguing against this practice) is the father was a party responsible and should have some responsibility. Part of the difference, to me, is a responsibility.

And, I'll end by saying, I'm not going to lie and pretend there's not, there's an emotional aspect of a difference to me. I love kids. Always have, and always will. So, I'll be upfront and say that that certainly plays a part in my mind as well.

I don't know if that answers your question or not or explains why, despite that example, which is a solid example, I still feel that abortion should be restricted, but it's what I've got. For what it's worth, through my own personal wrestling with this topic, it's changed my perspective, how I vote, etc. because I do feel that the more we can eliminate the mother's incentive to get an abortion the better. The government legislating it is the least desirable way to do it.

[ctuser1]

And yes, I would definitely make the claim that someone who is pro-life can show more empathy, at least at times, for the unborn than women who abort their unborn. The very action of a woman aborting a viable life inside of them (when it is viable) for any number of reasons beyond the health and safety of the unborn or of herself is evidence enough to me that to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn. At other times, they may think they're placing the unborn's welfare ahead (end their life because the mother can't take adequate care of them or whatnot), but that doesn't mean that their perspective is accurate and/or that the unborn if it wasn't aborted would agree with the mother's perspective when grown.

How do you know that the bolded portion happens at all?

Let me take the case of CT, which I am most familiar with. CT does not allow abortion past fetal viability, like a VAST majority of other states, "except where necessary to preserve a woman's life or health":
https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/state-indicator/gestational-limit-abortions/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

Other than the above very reasonable restriction, CT otherwise has very liberal abortion laws.
2018 live births: 36155 (https://portal.ct.gov/DPH/Health-Information-Systems--Reporting/Hisrhome/Vital-Statistics-Registration-Reports)
2018 abortions after 21 weeks: 89 (https://lozierinstitute.org/late-term-abortion-stats/)

In how many of these 89 cases, do you think, the doctors and nurses broke the law to abort a viable fetus just because, and a woman carried a fetus in her womb for months with all the related physical discomfort and then suddenly decided to kill it one fine morning?

So if I understand correctly, you are trying to use, e.g. 89 potentially extremely unfortunate cases in CT of women who likely suffered horribly, allege that there are doctors and nurses breaking state law that does not permit optional abortions past fetal viability, and use that to argue that "to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn".

See, I did not put a single word in your mouth. I just used your own quotes, added real world data and statistics to explain the implications of what you posted here. Are you with me so far? Or is there some other data/statistic that indicates that there is an epidemic of illegal-in-most-states abortion of viable fetuses?

FWIW - I have heard absolutely zero concern among the wokest of the woke people about the limits on abortion of a viable fetus.

As I mentioned above to PKFFW, this was entirely my fault with my incorrect usage of the term viability. If you'd like to respond to my post given my clarification of what I meant above, please do so.

Before we dive into the crux of your argument (and I see you are engaging in that in a very detailed manner with others already - so the additional value I can add in that topic is likely small), can we first define and clarify the domain of the problem?

We have (A) early term abortions, and (B) late term abortions.

Can we agree that #B, late term abortions deserve almost no remediation at this point - given how illegal it is past viability, how rare it is in general, and how extremely rare it is past viability. If the remedy being sought is instituting Gestational limits on abortion in the 6 states (Alaska, CO, NJ, NJ, NM, OR) + DC where it is alleged to still not be in effect - I doubt you are going to find any objections from anyone.

But that is NOT how (B) is used. It is used like MoseyingAlong did upthread (and you chimed in support) where such an extremely rare and mostly illegal event is used to imply a logically flawed general point, with zero concern shown for the suffering that the mother had to go through in probably all such instances. This is also part of the same context where the conservatives have a general tendency of using human suffering to further political points (=trolling of Sandy Hook parents, and active shooting survivor schoolchildren by sitting GOP lawmakers).

So can we please first agree that any use of (B) for political point scoring is at best ignorant, and at worst sociopathic? Given the massive scale of big-money conservative brainwashing institutions that train "pro-life" foot-soldiers, most conservative pro-life foot soldiers would likely be trained sociopaths who have been instructed at the art of ignoring human suffering and counter it by using disingenuous talking points - but we can treat any individual raising those points with the benefit of the doubt that they are merely ignorant.

Once we agree on this basic point that seems a slam dunk to me then we can have a discussion why and how you think a stranger would have more connection/claim/empathy for the unborn < 21weeks old, not viable fetus than the mother that is carrying it.

While we are trying to limit the domain of the discussion, we should also agree that there are linguistic and other implications of limiting the discussion to A. Terms like "baby", "child" etc. should be off limits. Such sociopathic usage of misleading terminology, imagery and such, with an aim to manipulate and emotionally harm vulnerable people going through a traumatic experience is quite a bit ways beyond "insulting" in my opinion compared to how you found my rather mile invectives in comparison, like "bible thumping weirdo".
 

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

Before we dive into the crux of your argument (and I see you are engaging in that in a very detailed manner with others already - so the additional value I can add in that topic is likely small), can we first define and clarify the domain of the problem?

We have (A) early term abortions, and (B) late term abortions.

Can we agree that #B, late term abortions deserve almost no remediation at this point - given how illegal it is past viability, how rare it is in general, and how extremely rare it is past viability. If the remedy being sought is instituting Gestational limits on abortion in the 6 states (Alaska, CO, NJ, NJ, NM, OR) + DC where it is alleged to still not be in effect - I doubt you are going to find any objections from anyone.

But that is NOT how (B) is used. It is used like MoseyingAlong did upthread (and you chimed in support) where such an extremely rare and mostly illegal event is used to imply a logically flawed general point, with zero concern shown for the suffering that the mother had to go through in probably all such instances. This is also part of the same context where the conservatives have a general tendency of using human suffering to further political points (=trolling of Sandy Hook parents, and active shooting survivor schoolchildren by sitting GOP lawmakers).

So can we please first agree that any use of (B) for political point scoring is at best ignorant, and at worst sociopathic? Given the massive scale of big-money conservative brainwashing institutions that train "pro-life" foot-soldiers, most conservative pro-life foot soldiers would likely be trained sociopaths who have been instructed at the art of ignoring human suffering and counter it by using disingenuous talking points - but we can treat any individual raising those points with the benefit of the doubt that they are merely ignorant.

Once we agree on this basic point that seems a slam dunk to me then we can have a discussion why and how you think a stranger would have more connection/claim/empathy for the unborn < 21weeks old, not viable fetus than the mother that is carrying it.

While we are trying to limit the domain of the discussion, we should also agree that there are linguistic and other implications of limiting the discussion to A. Terms like "baby", "child" etc. should be off limits. Such sociopathic usage of misleading terminology, imagery and such, with an aim to manipulate and emotionally harm vulnerable people going through a traumatic experience is quite a bit ways beyond "insulting" in my opinion compared to how you found my rather mile invectives in comparison, like "bible thumping weirdo".

If we're going to be technical, then you should really represent my points correctly. I chimed in support for MoseyAlong being able to represent their one specific situation without it being disregarded or from my perspective openly mocked. Some people have and do use the concept of late term abortion aggressively and inaccurately, but I saw nothing to illustrate that that post represented this.

If we're going to get down to rules of debate, I think that the thing that you consistently do that tends to derail the conversation is to make blanket applications of your assessment of a group's perspective and use or misuse of facts and attribute it to whomever you're arguing with. Yes, some people misuse terms and misconstrue facts. I try to not assume that anyone I'm talking to is going to do that until they do.

You, on the other hand, have consistently attributed the worst intentions and worst impulses to others and even made assumptions of what other people have and have not actually physically done with people who are having a discussion. It's almost always inaccurate. For example, no, I have not donated money to any organizations as you assumed I had and on the other hand, have actually taken physical actions to back up my stance against abortion that you'll have to just take my word for it would be universally agreed are putting my money where my mouth is but that I won't go into because they're none of your business. Suffice it to say, in every way, your assumption about me was flat out wrong. Yet you make these assumptions, which are not only insulting and rude but go against your claim of striving for logic and what I can only assume is an honest attempt to have a meaningful dialogue - because they keep meaningful dialogue from happening!

Again, you can continue to do it, and I'll continue to talk with you, at least until I get tired of the insults and insinuations, but it's frankly just not helpful.

I would request that you stop it and look at yourself as to why you keep going down these roads and making these assumptions. I feel I am at least as passionate about this kind of stuff as you are for a variety of reasons, some very personal that I won't get into, but I'm making an honest effort to not attribute all of the illogical, inane, inconsiderate, cold-hearted arguments I have heard from pro-abortion people to you or to assume that you are guided by whatever impulses guided them. Throwing those assumptions you keep making in with your insults that you minimize (that's great that you don't find the phrase "Bible thumping weirdo" as that insulting, so go ahead please pat yourself on the back for your subjective assessment and then realize that it is actually still insulting). You, out of all of the people debating me on this are the only one not conducting yourself in the same manner I have worked to do.

I have given late term abortion some study, but to be frank, I've found it so full of intensity, emotion, and as best as I can tell disinformation or at least aggression from both sides that I do not feel like it's worth having a discussion on it as a specific point.

To that point, I haven't brought it up as a reason for the government to intervene on abortions. On that note, I have been extremely diligent to already not use the terms that you're referring to (the one time I did and someone did a "gotcha" *eye roll, congratulations* I promptly apologized), which you would have realized if you hadn't already assumed the worst in me. Or maybe you realized it and you want me to apologize for other people, which I won't do because I'm not them nor do I expect you to do so for everyone who might share your viewpoint. I don't see any reason for you to bring any of this up now except it allows you to feel superior and sit on your high horse and look down at what you see as others being sociopaths (a word you really use quite a bit for being a random person on the internet assessing another random person's perspective and mental state). So yes, I will continue to discuss as I have been discussing this whole time, with respect, and already following all of the items you laid out, with decorum and the desire to evaluate other's perspectives and change my own as I feel is called for.

[ctuser1]

There is a massive amount of detail to unpack here - which is not surprising given you have some foundational assumptions that are different from mine. It will be very time consuming to address all of the places where miscommunication exists (and I can only speak for where I see I intended something and your understanding was something else. I am pretty certain there is an equal or more amount in the other direction.). But let me try at least the more important ones I see.

The technical points take less effort. So let me start with one and then I will hopefully ramble onto more substantive points later.

You, on the other hand, have consistently attributed the worst intentions and worst impulses to others and even made assumptions of what other people have and have not actually physically done with people who are having a discussion.

A few months ago, when you and I had a couple of other "discussions", if you remember, I would almost always address questions like "do you think women are chattel" etc. directly to you. In this thread, if you notice, I have done that only one - in the instance of contemplating which organizations you may have donated to.

I use the "aggressive" behavior in this specific context to preempt what I have sometimes termed "arrogance of the religious". [FYI - In any modern workplace where you need to achieve things fast and under stress- it is an extremely useful tool to counter Dunning Kruger effect. Amazon empoloyees are nicknamed "Amaholes" in Seattle. Microsoft had a particularly toxic kind of aggressive workplace, that Nadella allegedly did a great job of amending positively while not losing the innovative spirit].

You did display what appeared to be instances of this "arrogance of the religious" in the earlier discussion. You have not in this thread (at least I have not seen any). Given this, the one instance where I have speculated which organizations you may have donated to was wrong on my part. A more "generic" aggressive posture towards "generic" pro-life people would not be amiss (given majority of then display this "arrogance of the religious"), but the specific targeting of "specific you" in this thread was inappropriate.

What is the "arrogance of the religious"? Simply, it is the assumption religious people carry that they are morally superior where it can be empirically demonstrated that is not the case. I will just cite one example: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/10/19/has-trump-caused-white-evangelicals-to-change-their-tune-on-morality/. A read through this data driven article will immediately show that the majority of evangelical Christians think the word "morality" means something that gives them political advantage. Any time you see a groupthink mindset in any ideological movement (even those that don't fashion themselves as "religion"), this specific type of "arrogance" arise. This is not meant to be a specific knock against Evangelical Christianity. Harriet Beecher Stowe was born < 40 minutes drive away from where I am, and she used her Evangelical Christianity to help cause massive degree of positive social change (while the Southern Baptist churches were playing a similar role to what Evangelicals play today).

I am quite curious about the other instance where you have taken a direct allegation seriously. When you say "To that point, I haven't brought it up as a reason for the government to intervene on abortions." - I am curious. I did not think of this to be controversial when I levelled this - what you definitely took to be a negative allegation. What else is the goal you seek? When the "pro-life" groups are not busy in their homophobic activities, all I see/hear them do is to influence different state legislature to game Roe v Wade, or roadside billboards to shame women. Both of these appear to be quite questionable activities to me.

If we're going to be technical, then you should really represent my points correctly. I chimed in support for MoseyAlong being able to represent their one specific situation without it being disregarded or from my perspective openly mocked. Some people have and do use the concept of late term abortion aggressively and inaccurately, but I saw nothing to illustrate that that post represented this.

There is a spectrum on which you can interpret what MoseyAlong posted. As a nurse it's unlikely he/she would not know that abortion after viability is prohibited in most states, that late term abortion is exceedingly rare (I posted numbers for CT from 2018 upthread), that in almost all such cases the reasons are likely some complications (too many things don't make sense otherwise. Why would doctors do something illegal? Why would the woman in question let it prolong her physical discomfort)? His/her speculation, in this instance, is curiously supportive of one particular stance that happens to agree with the pro-life orthodoxy, and happens to suppress the suffering of the women involved. It is possible his/her stance was not in bad faith, but I am not sure being mocked for it is so bad when compared to the suffering of the women involved in this situation who tend to not have any voice here.

And then, when you jumped in the debate, somehow you also missed these extremely pertinent facts. These facts are quite well known and easily verifiable. They frame the entire discussion in a completely different light. And yet, a second "pro-life" poster failed to mention any of them while supporting a post that use late term abortion in a misleading and callous manner - like is so common of the entire movement.

What do you think can explain that? Other than groupthink? It is much worse than it might appear to you at first. Notice how failing to dig up these pertinent facts makes you indirectly victimize the tiny number of women having late term abortion who are likely already suffering and are already stigmatized by every other pro-life politicians. Do you think perhaps some empathy towards these victimized women is warranted more than MoseyAlong's bruised sensibilities, especially when they suffered a lot more than hurt sensibilities?

-----------

You take exception to my use of the word "sociopathic". Firstly, it was not aimed at the specific you. If you want to see who it was aimed at, see this youtube video of big money at work to create pro-life sociopaths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7y1tnf8Yw0

Please notice how they are brainwashed using imagery and rhetoric that constantly references late-term abortions, without ever giving voice to the women suffering here.

I am not a psychiatrist. But here is a list of symptoms from mayo clinic - https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353928. How many of these symptoms do you think the participants would check? Do you think they will perhaps show "Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others" - especially w.r.t. any stupid woman who happens to require a partial birth abortion (they actually show a video of it in thier propaganda) of a dead fetus to save her own life? Or perhaps would they display "Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them"?

which you would have realized if you hadn't already assumed the worst in me.

Do you still think I am making assuming the worst of specific "you" after the clarification above that my aggressive behavior is not always aimed at specific "you", but also for the generic "pro-life" dude who may be someday reading through.

Am I incorrect assuming the things I do for the big-money-created pro-lifers like the ones in the youtube video above?

with decorum and the desire to evaluate other's perspectives and change my own as I feel is called for.

Desire to evaluate other's perspectives is a great idea. Why do you think decorum is such a nice thing, however?

Bernie have been railing against the Reganomics Supply-Side political orthodoxy for decades, with significant support from professional economists. He has been doing so with decorum, and with polite mannerisms. It however took a bull-in-china-shop Trump to break the grip of that orthodoxy partially. Thank god for many things, but in this context the fact that Trump was born and brought up in NYC is a godsend, else he would be a totally useless trust fund baby. I think there is a chance that in hindsight, his character might prove to be the perfect balance incompetence and "bull in china shop" mentality, with an added dose of p**y grabbing to boot. Any more competence and he would have toppled democracy on Jan-6th. 

But I digress. Why do you (and this is the generic "you" - standing in for any random Southerner, or even Midwesterner) value "decorum" so much? Decorum almost always hides people's real opinions and hinders the second goal you mention - that "desire to evaluate other's perspectives" thingy.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

You're right, there is a lot to unpack here. I'll try to do it in your posts below.

There is a massive amount of detail to unpack here - which is not surprising given you have some foundational assumptions that are different from mine. It will be very time consuming to address all of the places where miscommunication exists (and I can only speak for where I see I intended something and your understanding was something else. I am pretty certain there is an equal or more amount in the other direction.). But let me try at least the more important ones I see.

The technical points take less effort. So let me start with one and then I will hopefully ramble onto more substantive points later.

You, on the other hand, have consistently attributed the worst intentions and worst impulses to others and even made assumptions of what other people have and have not actually physically done with people who are having a discussion.

A few months ago, when you and I had a couple of other "discussions", if you remember, I would almost always address questions like "do you think women are chattel" etc. directly to you. In this thread, if you notice, I have done that only one - in the instance of contemplating which organizations you may have donated to.

I use the "aggressive" behavior in this specific context to preempt what I have sometimes termed "arrogance of the religious". [FYI - In any modern workplace where you need to achieve things fast and under stress- it is an extremely useful tool to counter Dunning Kruger effect. Amazon empoloyees are nicknamed "Amaholes" in Seattle. Microsoft had a particularly toxic kind of aggressive workplace, that Nadella allegedly did a great job of amending positively while not losing the innovative spirit].

You did display what appeared to be instances of this "arrogance of the religious" in the earlier discussion. You have not in this thread (at least I have not seen any). Given this, the one instance where I have speculated which organizations you may have donated to was wrong on my part. A more "generic" aggressive posture towards "generic" pro-life people would not be amiss (given majority of then display this "arrogance of the religious"), but the specific targeting of "specific you" in this thread was inappropriate.

What is the "arrogance of the religious"? Simply, it is the assumption religious people carry that they are morally superior where it can be empirically demonstrated that is not the case. I will just cite one example: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/10/19/has-trump-caused-white-evangelicals-to-change-their-tune-on-morality/. A read through this data driven article will immediately show that the majority of evangelical Christians think the word "morality" means something that gives them political advantage. Any time you see a groupthink mindset in any ideological movement (even those that don't fashion themselves as "religion"), this specific type of "arrogance" arise. This is not meant to be a specific knock against Evangelical Christianity. Harriet Beecher Stowe was born < 40 minutes drive away from where I am, and she used her Evangelical Christianity to help cause massive degree of positive social change (while the Southern Baptist churches were playing a similar role to what Evangelicals play today).

I am quite curious about the other instance where you have taken a direct allegation seriously. When you say "To that point, I haven't brought it up as a reason for the government to intervene on abortions." - I am curious. I did not think of this to be controversial when I levelled this - what you definitely took to be a negative allegation. What else is the goal you seek? When the "pro-life" groups are not busy in their homophobic activities, all I see/hear them do is to influence different state legislature to game Roe v Wade, or roadside billboards to shame women. Both of these appear to be quite questionable activities to me.

I'm not even going to get into the previous conversation because I would just get frustrated again. The fact is, I don't need to.

You use the phrase arrogance of religion, and it's so ironic, because of the arrogance you've displayed in just your post before this. That's the arrogance, as I said, of having your preconceived notions of what people think and putting them on others before they actually do anything to merit it.

If we're going to be technical, then you should really represent my points correctly. I chimed in support for MoseyAlong being able to represent their one specific situation without it being disregarded or from my perspective openly mocked. Some people have and do use the concept of late term abortion aggressively and inaccurately, but I saw nothing to illustrate that that post represented this.

There is a spectrum on which you can interpret what MoseyAlong posted. As a nurse it's unlikely he/she would not know that abortion after viability is prohibited in most states, that late term abortion is exceedingly rare (I posted numbers for CT from 2018 upthread), that in almost all such cases the reasons are likely some complications (too many things don't make sense otherwise. Why would doctors do something illegal? Why would the woman in question let it prolong her physical discomfort)? His/her speculation, in this instance, is curiously supportive of one particular stance that happens to agree with the pro-life orthodoxy, and happens to suppress the suffering of the women involved. It is possible his/her stance was not in bad faith, but I am not sure being mocked for it is so bad when compared to the suffering of the women involved in this situation who tend to not have any voice here.

And then, when you jumped in the debate, somehow you also missed these extremely pertinent facts. These facts are quite well known and easily verifiable. They frame the entire discussion in a completely different light. And yet, a second "pro-life" poster failed to mention any of them while supporting a post that use late term abortion in a misleading and callous manner - like is so common of the entire movement.

What do you think can explain that? Other than groupthink? It is much worse than it might appear to you at first. Notice how failing to dig up these pertinent facts makes you indirectly victimize the tiny number of women having late term abortion who are likely already suffering and are already stigmatized by every other pro-life politicians. Do you think perhaps some empathy towards these victimized women is warranted more than MoseyAlong's bruised sensibilities, especially when they suffered a lot more than hurt sensibilities?

-----------

Let's take the post from MoseyAlong and your corresponding comment on it. You commented: "But that is NOT how (B) is used. It is used like MoseyingAlong did upthread (and you chimed in support) where such an extremely rare and mostly illegal event is used to imply a logically flawed general point, with zero concern shown for the suffering that the mother had to go through in probably all such instances."

That post was one person providing one anecdotal point that was informative as to their subjective experience on a situation that happened. Before you were done, it was somehow implying a logically flawed general point showing zero concern for a mother. Then you doubled down on it calling out not just her but me. I simply said, let's not mock someone for an experience they themselves actually had and how they felt about it, and you think the rational conclusion is "Notice how failing to dig up these pertinent facts makes you indirectly victimize the tiny number of women having late term abortion who are likely already suffering and are already stigmatized by every other pro-life politicians."

So, somehow by me asking someone not to be mocked I'm victimizing women who have late term abortion. That is such a stretch of logic that it is flat out incoherent. Do you want to somehow link my defending of someone from being mocked to anything else? Maybe it was somehow code for me denying the Holocoust? Who knows? You don't know that MoseyAlong is even pro-life. You are displaying a shocking arrogance of assumption on why they posted what they posted, allowing you to act like a simple post on a random internet finance forum is akin to abortion protestors screaming expletives at women going into an abortion clinic (at least that seems to be the case with the words you used of victimization). This wasn't some Facebook post that had a graphic picture of what was assumed to be a late term abortion intended to shame everyone who has had an abortion. It was a single post about a person's experience, and the only thing that could remotely justify you coming to these conclusion is the arrogance of assuming that you knew things you didn't. You just knew that the post was intended to shame women who had late term abortion or were sure enough that you immediately jump into mockery of it and feel the need to double down on it and accuse others of victimization of women for Pete's sake. Shoot you just know that MoseyAlong is pro-life, which has not been confirmed at all, but yet you assume. You assume. You assume. You create a narrative and then you assume.

Let's continue this theme. In your post, you continued to list out all of these things, like late term abortions shouldn't come into context when talking about banning abortions to me. Again, I never once used it that way. I simply asked people to not mock another person. If that means I used late term abortions to talk about abortion bans, then you must be a psychic of the highest order to read my mind or a logical contortionist worthy of performing at Cirque Du Soleil.

Moving on, and something you didn't address in this is the arrogance to say, "oh, let's agree on some ground rules of what we will or won't call an unborn," when I have in fact been doing that already. The arrogance is solidly on display here. You are not a professor at Oxford to be lecturing me like I need educating on Socratic dialogue. I was already doing this. It's only your arrogance that makes you want to, again, take umbrage at what other pro-lifers have done, get snooty about it, and then assign blame or at least responsibility for it to me.

And yes, your assumptions that I've donated money to an organization you disagree with accompanying it with an accusation that I've increased human misery in the world is icing on the cake.

In summary, it's really tiring having discussions with you in part because all of these things I mentioned before are wrong. No, I don't use late term abortions as a reason for restricting abortions. No, I did not use terms that I knew to be disagreeable. No, I have not donated money to organizations you would find questionable. Wrong, wrong, wrong. You are assuming consistently, and you are consistently wrong.


So again, it's really tiring having discussions with you - not because you're challenging me. Partgypsy, PFKKW, GuitarStv, etc. challenge me, but don't tire me. It's tiring having discussions with you because I'm just waiting for the shoe to drop when I get lectured for something from a standpoint of how morally superior you are or when you will assume I meant something I didn't say and I get to defend myself for what I actually did say. So yes, please get off your high horse, stop assuming you know what people are thinking because you heard someone else think that at one point and time. That's elementary school logic. It's childish. All I ask is that you discuss with me based on what I've actually said, not what you think I might think because someone else you knew thought that way. If nothing else, you've been wrong enough, that alone should stop you from doing it hopefully. If you think I said something in a way that reminded you of some other poor logic, ask about it. Don't assume. Again, it's basic discourse to do these things.

You take exception to my use of the word "sociopathic". Firstly, it was not aimed at the specific you. If you want to see who it was aimed at, see this youtube video of big money at work to create pro-life sociopaths: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7y1tnf8Yw0

Please notice how they are brainwashed using imagery and rhetoric that constantly references late-term abortions, without ever giving voice to the women suffering here.

I am not a psychiatrist. But here is a list of symptoms from mayo clinic - https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353928. How many of these symptoms do you think the participants would check? Do you think they will perhaps show "Lack of empathy for others and lack of remorse about harming others" - especially w.r.t. any stupid woman who happens to require a partial birth abortion (they actually show a video of it in thier propaganda) of a dead fetus to save her own life? Or perhaps would they display "Failure to consider the negative consequences of behavior or learn from them"?

I didn't take exception to you using sociopathic. I just mentioned that you tend to use it a lot. Again, compared to other any other poster I've seen posting on any topic, you're the only one who seems to use a term like that often (admittedly outside of discussing Donald Trump, but I think we can all agree he's a special case). Just commenting because if you're the only one doing something like that, it might be worth considering why you're so willing to use it.

which you would have realized if you hadn't already assumed the worst in me.

Do you still think I am making assuming the worst of specific "you" after the clarification above that my aggressive behavior is not always aimed at specific "you", but also for the generic "pro-life" dude who may be someday reading through.

Am I incorrect assuming the things I do for the big-money-created pro-lifers like the ones in the youtube video above?

I am not a generic pro-life dude. Again, that's your problem. You keep acting like I am. There's not a generic pro-life dude any more than there would be a generic pro-choice dude. We're all just people, and as soon as you can get that truth deep down inside you, you might be able to have better discussions. If I was a random pro-life dude who was someday reading through and I was in any way amenable to change, your aggressive discourse, you're assumptions that you know what I'm thinking, your attempts at lecturing would all make me much less likely to want to change my opinion.

with decorum and the desire to evaluate other's perspectives and change my own as I feel is called for.

Desire to evaluate other's perspectives is a great idea. Why do you think decorum is such a nice thing, however?

Bernie have been railing against the Reganomics Supply-Side political orthodoxy for decades, with significant support from professional economists. He has been doing so with decorum, and with polite mannerisms. It however took a bull-in-china-shop Trump to break the grip of that orthodoxy partially. Thank god for many things, but in this context the fact that Trump was born and brought up in NYC is a godsend, else he would be a totally useless trust fund baby. I think there is a chance that in hindsight, his character might prove to be the perfect balance incompetence and "bull in china shop" mentality, with an added dose of p**y grabbing to boot. Any more competence and he would have toppled democracy on Jan-6th. 

But I digress. Why do you (and this is the generic "you" - standing in for any random Southerner, or even Midwesterner) value "decorum" so much? Decorum almost always hides people's real opinions and hinders the second goal you mention - that "desire to evaluate other's perspectives" thingy.

You apparently have a low opinion of decorum as well. That's fine. I'm not meaning by decorum that I say "bless your heart" and really mean you buffoon. I'm just meaning the very basics of decorum of not throwing out insults at each other. I could say, yeah, those pro-choicers...a bunch of arrogant, cold-hearted bastards they are ETA: I am not saying this is true, just an example... It wouldn't really be helpful to the dialogue and believe it or not, I can have a dialogue and fully express my feelings without saying that. I think you can do the same without insults. Maybe I'm wrong...

[ctuser1]

>> That post was one person providing one anecdotal point that was informative as to their subjective experience on a situation that happened.

Someone tells us that late term abortions are horribly brutal and hence bad. The implication was quite clear, as was the absence of other pertinent information that would have highlighted the suffering of the party who is almost surely suffering the most in this case (as, in some of these cases of complication the fetus can likely not be saved in any case, and it depends on your viewpoint if and when the fetus can be ascribed personhood - so it is not a done deal).

I don't know. It seems like a parallel situation would be where a old guy walking his disabled dog is having a heart attack on the sidewalk, and someone else (=MoseyingAlong) seems blind to the heart attack patient but shows a lot of concern for the poor, disabled dog barking. The poor dog will almost certainly be put down if/when it reaches the shelter - most are. When that person is mocked for this, another bystander (=you) rush into his defense and continue acting all hoity-toity EVEN AFTER the primary medical situation is pointed out to him.

To me at least MoseyingAlong's bruised ego at being mocked seems to be of little relevance where we have a case of likely far bigger suffering being consistently ignored even after it is pointed out to you.

>> If I was a random pro-life dude who was someday reading through and I was in any way amenable to change, your aggressive discourse, you're assumptions that you know what I'm thinking, your attempts at lecturing would all make me much less likely to want to change my opinion.
Then this generic "you" would be declaring your own bruised ego to be more important than logic and truth. Of course, any random "you" have every right to do so, that is just not how I operate, and I have a low opinion of people who operate that way.

>>Just commenting because if you're the only one doing something like that, it might be worth considering why you're so willing to use it.
I don't remember using sociopathic outside the pro-life context (I may have - just forgot). Many/most (?)/almost-all(?) pro-life people, and certainly the trained foot soldiers display lack of empathy for the women involved. I don't see similar lack of empathy for the fetus involved from any "pro-choice" people in real life - else same label could have been used if an ideological component was added to their "pro-choice" position.

>>There's not a generic pro-life dude any more than there would be a generic pro-choice dude. We're all just people, and as soon as you can get that truth deep down inside you, you might be able to have better discussions.

There exists a set of high cardinality, of trained foot soldiers adept at parroting talking points (e.g. verbiage/imagery related to late term abortions), surgically inserted anecdotes etc. etc. etc.

Want proof? Just watch the youtube video I posted where they are being trained, and count how many times the canard of late term abortions pop up in any abortion discussion.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

>> That post was one person providing one anecdotal point that was informative as to their subjective experience on a situation that happened.

Someone tells us that late term abortions are horribly brutal and hence bad. The implication was quite clear, as was the absence of other pertinent information that would have highlighted the suffering of the party who is almost surely suffering the most in this case (as, in some of these cases of complication the fetus can likely not be saved in any case, and it depends on your viewpoint if and when the fetus can be ascribed personhood - so it is not a done deal).

I don't know. It seems like a parallel situation would be where a old guy walking his disabled dog is having a heart attack on the sidewalk, and someone else (=MoseyingAlong) seems blind to the heart attack patient but shows a lot of concern for the poor, disabled dog barking. The poor dog will almost certainly be put down if/when it reaches the shelter - most are. When that person is mocked for this, another bystander (=you) rush into his defense and continue acting all hoity-toity EVEN AFTER the primary medical situation is pointed out to him.

To me at least MoseyingAlong's bruised ego at being mocked seems to be of little relevance where we have a case of likely far bigger suffering being consistently ignored even after it is pointed out to you.

>> If I was a random pro-life dude who was someday reading through and I was in any way amenable to change, your aggressive discourse, you're assumptions that you know what I'm thinking, your attempts at lecturing would all make me much less likely to want to change my opinion.
Then this generic "you" would be declaring your own bruised ego to be more important than logic and truth. Of course, any random "you" have every right to do so, that is just not how I operate, and I have a low opinion of people who operate that way.

>>Just commenting because if you're the only one doing something like that, it might be worth considering why you're so willing to use it.
I don't remember using sociopathic outside the pro-life context (I may have - just forgot). Many/most (?)/almost-all(?) pro-life people, and certainly the trained foot soldiers display lack of empathy for the women involved. I don't see similar lack of empathy for the fetus involved from any "pro-choice" people in real life - else same label could have been used if an ideological component was added to their "pro-choice" position.

>>There's not a generic pro-life dude any more than there would be a generic pro-choice dude. We're all just people, and as soon as you can get that truth deep down inside you, you might be able to have better discussions.

There exists a set of high cardinality, of trained foot soldiers adept at parroting talking points (e.g. verbiage/imagery related to late term abortions), surgically inserted anecdotes etc. etc. etc.

Want proof? Just watch the youtube video I posted where they are being trained, and count how many times the canard of late term abortions pop up in any abortion discussion.

Lol, whatever dude. If you can't see your arrogance at your continued assumptions even in the face of it being proven wrong like the donation thing, of your high brow practice of hurling insults while demeaning discourse, of your pattern of lecturing someone who is already doing what you're lecturing them about then you'll probably never see it.

Discussion is about learning and being willing to grow. You've shown very little willingness to do either. I apologize quickly when someone points out I'm wrong for something. You double down or barely acknowledge your failures.

Not talking like a pompous jerk is not worrying about bruising someone's ego, it's about talking to them like they are not a child and you want to actually talk not score talking points with cheap insults or lecture them as if they're not already doing what you're saying they should do. You've proven you're not up for that in either case. All I can say is I hope you don't throw out cheap insults, lecture people like they're children, and make assumptions about what people are doing because you just know people who think like this do that, and if you do an are proven wrong, please for Pete's sake actually apologize.

You claim you're trying to set out a record for pro-life people who might come by here and look at this later on. I am a pro-life person. My opinion has been changed because of positive discourse from posters on here. As such, I have a bit more credentials on being a pro-life person going through this very discussion :-), and I'm telling you (anecdote of 1) that the way you're acting and continue to act is certainly not going to change hearts and minds if that's what you're going for.

You've shown no willingness to actually discuss what's wrong with your posts, I'm ending that part of the discussion from my end. Respond to this if you'd like, and I'll respond to posts you make about the actual topics I've brought up as long, again, until I get tired of defending myself from points I didn't make, getting lectured on things I'm already doing, or getting insulted.

[ctuser1]

Lol, whatever dude. If you can't see your arrogance at your continued assumptions even in the face of it being proven wrong like the donation thing, of your high brow practice of hurling insults while demeaning discourse, of your pattern of lecturing someone who is already doing what you're lecturing them about then you'll probably never see it.

Discussion is about learning and being willing to grow. You've shown very little willingness to do either. I apologize quickly when someone points out I'm wrong for something. You double down or barely acknowledge your failures.

Not talking like a pompous jerk is not worrying about bruising someone's ego, it's about talking to them like they are not a child and you want to actually talk not score talking points with cheap insults or lecture them as if they're not already doing what you're saying they should do. You've proven you're not up for that in either case. All I can say is I hope you don't throw out cheap insults, lecture people like they're children, and make assumptions about what people are doing because you just know people who think like this do that, and if you do an are proven wrong, please for Pete's sake actually apologize.

You claim you're trying to set out a record for pro-life people who might come by here and look at this later on. I am a pro-life person. My opinion has been changed because of positive discourse from posters on here. As such, I have a bit more credentials on being a pro-life person going through this very discussion :-), and I'm telling you (anecdote of 1) that the way you're acting and continue to act is certainly not going to change hearts and minds if that's what you're going for.

You've shown no willingness to actually discuss what's wrong with your posts, I'm ending that part of the discussion from my end. Respond to this if you'd like, and I'll respond to posts you make about the actual topics I've brought up as long, again, until I get tired of defending myself from points I didn't make, getting lectured on things I'm already doing, or getting insulted.

Dude - I am so insulted by your glowing assessment of me. Now my feelings are hurt! Wont you show a care?

Seriously though, The basic differences involve how morality is derived by people from different persuasions. Most people in the pro-life camp derive their morality from external inputs - what god/religion supposed says, what "constitution" says. Let's call this the "conservative" morality.

Most liberals, on the other hand, focus on inward driven morality. I personally feel the later is superior (this is one aspect I strongly agree with liberalism) although there are some videos of Jonathan Haidt very capably arguing against this liberal conceit. So at this point I have to say I don't *know* definitively that the inward driven morality is always superior in all circumstances.

It is quite simple and trivial to show numerous examples of problems with conservative morality. I posted a link above that show how the meaning/relevance of "morality" has changed for Evangelical Christians have changed from 2000's to today. This is not an isolated incident. The crusaders and jihadi's slaughtered innocent bystanders by thousands as they considered it "moral" - of course prescribed by the external input they relied on in absence of a well-developed moral compass of their own.

In the present day and age, to me, the same lack of moral compass seems to be in play. The religious institutions tell the followers that life starts at conception, so that drowns out all other human considerations - like the suffering of the woman involved AND any possible accommodation of a different viewpoint. Constitution tells us that my right to own a gun is sacrosanct - so that drowns out the agony of the Sandy Hook kids.

When the basic disconnect is as fundamental as how the moral compass is to be constructed, bruised egos and frustrations are par for the course in my book. And your insistence on working on the logic on the edges is valiant - I just don't share your optimism that leads anywhere and to anything productive in any reasonable amount of time relevant for the human timescales. So when I see pernicious effects of the "religious morality" (e.g. persistent lack of empathy for the woman involved, e.g. difference between my and your take on MoseyingAlong's anecdote and that of any random "late term abortion" story) show up, I am not posting to convert a generic "pro-life" poster. I don't arrogate unto myself the ability to do that. If someone (you?) like that decides he will get independent of his institutionally mandated morality, and grow a moral compass of his/her own - then kudos. If I can be the person who provides even the smallest possible help in that almost impossible journey - then I will feel happy and humbled.

So what am I doing when I post (mockingly sometimes) in these situations where I see gaps in morality? I am just making sure another POV is presented, with sometimes some added entertainment for spice, for any onlooker.

[ender]

I am just making sure another POV is presented, with sometimes some added entertainment for spice, for any onlooker.

Trolling and intentionally being a jerk won't result in the impact you're looking to see here being meaningful. That's the outcome I took away from what you are saying, along with seeing the clear arguing from bad faith.

If you in any way are serious about wanting "another POV presented" you should do some deep introspection about whether doing so in such a poor manner is actually resulting in what you want to see.

Entertainment is in the eye of the beholder, not the poster. You're not entertaining, you come across as someone intent on presenting a viewpoint in such a poor/trollish way I'm almost convinced your goal is presenting a strawman so bad people are compelled to believe the opposite is true.

[MoseyingAlong]

Except abortion is NOT "simply removing" life support.
I won't go into graphic detail but mid-late term abortion is brutal. I am still haunted by the one abortion I was a part of as a nurse.
I have also been there when artificial life support is removed from an organ donor. I am not haunted by those memories. It's very different and I don't think it's wise to sugar coat reality.

No sugar coating necessary.  A non-viable patient (for want of a better term) is removed from life support.  That is the plain, simple reality without the emotion everyone very naturally attaches to the situation.  The "brutality" is, I would argue, nothing more than a reaction to the knowledge of what is taking place (poor little baby, never had a chance, being snuffed out before its time) than to any inherent brutality of the actions involved.  Perfectly natural but totally dependent on the viewpoint of the person making the judgement and having the emotional reaction, not objective truth.

Have you been part of a knee replacement surgery? They get hammers, saws, and drills out and go to town.  Blood flowing, bones getting sawed and drilled and bits of metal screwed into place.  Nothing soft and delicate about it.  Now that's brutal! (at least imho and from my viewpoint)

Warning: slightly graphic description of my experience.

@PKFFW Ortho cases can be amazingly bloody and brutal in their own way. But they don't bother me. When I started this job, amputations did. I've gotten used to them. (Side note: Anyone with diabetes, please do what you can to control it.)

Most of my nursing experience has been at Level 1 trauma centers and honestly, I enjoy the big traumas. Bloody, messy, running for hours. Even when the outcomes are poor, we tried. They don't haunt me.

Ectopic pregnancies. D&C after incomplete miscarriage/spontaneous abortion. Sad if the patient is sad but they don't haunt me.

That one abortion haunts me. After my first post in this thread, I had a couple more bad nights. And I wouldn't say I'm sensitive, in fact quite a few people would probably say I'm rather insensitive. But watching the docs inventory the body parts to make sure they got them all and then taking the "specimen" to pathology knowing there were babies in NICU who weighed less...yeah, that haunts me.

The case sounds like a "pro-life" scare story but it's simply what was. There was nothing wrong with the fetus that anyone knew of. This was second trimester, not full-term by any stretch. This was simply the patient's form of birth control. It was not my role to explore her options with her; just to confirm what her planned procedure was. The OB/GYN docs expressed quite a bit of frustration that she kept refusing other forms of birth control when they saw her in clinic. I don't know what was going on in her life or why she was deciding as she was. She may have had very logical reasons.

You wrote "The "brutality" is, I would argue, nothing more than a reaction to the knowledge of what is taking place (poor little baby, never had a chance, being snuffed out before its time) than to any inherent brutality of the actions involved." This I disagree with. Tearing a body apart and then inventorying it was just plain brutal. It would be brutal if done to an adult, if done to any animal.

[MoseyingAlong]

I really don't want to speak for MoseyingAlong's perspective because I truly don't know what they think. I just felt that a person who offers up their perspective, when they're much more a subject matter expert than any of the people commenting (myself included), shouldn't have their perspective be so easily dismissed. Doing so would have been roundly criticized on any number of issues that are often discussed on this forum (climate change, Covid, etc.), and it should be criticized when done in this instance as well.

In terms of the rest, some pro-life people, including politicians who are, of course, very visible, act in a manner that is extremely frustrating to me and in a way that does reflect a consistent pro-life perspective.

Thanks @Wolfpack Mustachian
It was difficult to bring that memory back and I kinda wish I hadn't but I thought adding some of the harsh reality to this discussion might be worthwhile. There can be a big disconnect between theory and reality.

I'm glad I've been super busy and haven't kept up on this thread because the responses were very dismissive of my lived experience. I was speaking for myself, not anyone else. Just relaying MY experience because I thought it might add another dimension to the discussion. So tough to read/hear that it was wrong, not actually what I experienced or didn't matter because it's rare.

I came back to this thread today because I saw @ctuser1 post on the recent posts and was flabbergasted by their interpretation of what I or my post meant. Amazing how off-base someone can be.

And what may surprise some it that I'm not 100% anti-abortion. But I do think there is a point beyond which a fetus should be delivered and surrendered if the pregnant person does not want to continue the pregnancy as opposed to an abortion. Where that point is is the sticking point for me.

[ctuser1]

First, I'd like to apologize to you (and you only) for posting some uncharitable interpretations of your story with zero actual proof it was posted in bad faith. I hope you can recognize the constant bad faith abuse of rare "late term abortions" by pro-life people with an aim to take away basic human rights from women who are already suffering, and why that would leave someone like me a little jittery and trigger happy at times.

I have some questions, however. Please clarify if you feel like it.

Abortion after viability is already prohibited in 44 of 50 states. Was it a different state than the 44 where it is prohibited (NJ, NH, Alaska, CO etc. - and a couple of others)? I happen to have delved into this topic in the context of two separate states - CT and PA. In both of these, in theory, you should not be allowed to get an abortion after the fetus is viable (typically after 24 weeks) unless there are some complications. Or is it that such laws are routinely flouted even in the states where it is prohibited?

As staunchly pro-choice as I am, I don't think abortion of a viable fetus is justified for "birth control".  If such gaps exist and are widely abused, perhaps that represents a scope for a joint effort by pro-choice and pro-life people to close it and save some lives.

The data that I can dig up tells me that such late term procedures are extremely rare. In CT, in 2018, 88 late term (i.e. > 21 weeks) abortions compared to 36000+ live births. My reaction to the numbers is "88 unfortunate women who got horrible complications". Am I missing anything big in the data that you can clarify from the vantage point as a healthcare worker (which I am not).

[PKFFW]

First, I'll say, I still feel that tree is an imprecise analogy because, again, tree itself has connotations (I'll get into connotations for human down below) of maturity. It really is akin to the phrase adult in most people's minds, which is why it's not really getting to the heart of our discussion.

You never did go into the connotations for the word human.

Before you do, I'll try to make myself more clear and I'll dispense with the severed hand analogy. 

The word "human" has connotations.  If I say the word "human" to you I doubt very very very much the image that comes to your mind is a single cell organism wholly dependent upon some form of life support to remain alive.  I would lay any odds you care to name that if you are honest you will admit that the image that comes to mind is that of something that at least resembles a developed body and perhaps with some form of consciousness/awareness/personality (whether intact and undamaged or not....for example a "human" who is in a vegetative state).  Maybe two arms, two legs, a head, body, smiling face, etc etc.  That's because the word "human" has connotations.

So I will agree with you that the sprouted acorn is a flawed analogy because the word "tree" comes with connotations.  I'm willing to toss that analogy out the window because "connotations". 

In doing so however, I also expect you to be consistent and admit that the word human has connotations.  Therefore you should, if you want to be consistent and discuss in good faith, admit that describing a single cell organism as a "living human" has connotations as well and is a deliberate attempt to describe something in way that is not accurate at all when considering the "connotations" that come with the description.

[PKFFW]

Warning: slightly graphic description of my experience.

@PKFFW Ortho cases can be amazingly bloody and brutal in their own way. But they don't bother me. When I started this job, amputations did. I've gotten used to them. (Side note: Anyone with diabetes, please do what you can to control it.)

Most of my nursing experience has been at Level 1 trauma centers and honestly, I enjoy the big traumas. Bloody, messy, running for hours. Even when the outcomes are poor, we tried. They don't haunt me.

Ectopic pregnancies. D&C after incomplete miscarriage/spontaneous abortion. Sad if the patient is sad but they don't haunt me.

That one abortion haunts me. After my first post in this thread, I had a couple more bad nights. And I wouldn't say I'm sensitive, in fact quite a few people would probably say I'm rather insensitive. But watching the docs inventory the body parts to make sure they got them all and then taking the "specimen" to pathology knowing there were babies in NICU who weighed less...yeah, that haunts me.

The case sounds like a "pro-life" scare story but it's simply what was. There was nothing wrong with the fetus that anyone knew of. This was second trimester, not full-term by any stretch. This was simply the patient's form of birth control. It was not my role to explore her options with her; just to confirm what her planned procedure was. The OB/GYN docs expressed quite a bit of frustration that she kept refusing other forms of birth control when they saw her in clinic. I don't know what was going on in her life or why she was deciding as she was. She may have had very logical reasons.

You wrote "The "brutality" is, I would argue, nothing more than a reaction to the knowledge of what is taking place (poor little baby, never had a chance, being snuffed out before its time) than to any inherent brutality of the actions involved." This I disagree with. Tearing a body apart and then inventorying it was just plain brutal. It would be brutal if done to an adult, if done to any animal.

I apologise if my comment seemed to be trying to tell you that your experience was "wrong, not actually what [you] experienced or didn't matter because it's rare".  I did not mean to dismiss your feelings about or experience of the incident.  As I have posted previously, I did not comment on your feeling haunted or attempt to negate that feeling at all.  Working in the emergency services I know that things can affect people in different ways and an incident that seems perfectly run of the mill to one person may have a severe impact on their colleague standing right next to them.  So again, my sincere apologies for not being clearer and for giving the impression I was dismissing your personal feelings and experience of the incident.

However, I stand by my point that describing the procedure as brutal is a matter of interpretation and personal opinion.  To be clear, your opinion that it is brutal is perfectly valid for you.  I disagree that it is the only valid opinion.  That is what I was commenting on.

[ctuser1]

I am just making sure another POV is presented, with sometimes some added entertainment for spice, for any onlooker.

Trolling and intentionally being a jerk won't result in the impact you're looking to see here being meaningful. That's the outcome I took away from what you are saying, along with seeing the clear arguing from bad faith.

If you in any way are serious about wanting "another POV presented" you should do some deep introspection about whether doing so in such a poor manner is actually resulting in what you want to see.

Entertainment is in the eye of the beholder, not the poster. You're not entertaining, you come across as someone intent on presenting a viewpoint in such a poor/trollish way I'm almost convinced your goal is presenting a strawman so bad people are compelled to believe the opposite is true.

I thought about your post. The obvious stupidity of it aside, you do have a point. When I read my responses now, they read as gut reactions more than coherent logical treatise. So I will try to extract a single instance of the gazillions of problems I was reacting to.

Wolfpack M. writes:

You say "A woman opting to have an abortion is the only "pro-choice" person who matter - right?" Clearly that is not the case, as there are people who make laws that also matter if we're talking about restricting something. If the process was restricted, then more people would come into play. Your question is contingent on the decision of it not being restricted in any way already being decided.

And why is he contemplating the future where the humanity (=ability to do as they please with their body) of all mothers is in question? Well, that is cleared up in the same post:

We may empathize with them, may even bemoan the fact that we restrict their choice from doing so - we restrict a person from chasing down and beating a person who hurt their child into a pulp as a society although we can totally empathize with their desire to do so. The whole premise of laws is that we are restricting people who are in the situation from doing something because society deems it worthwhile in restricting them.

Ah-huh. I see - mothers are like someone about to commit a crime ("beating a person"), minority report style, and hence all mothers now need to be put on trial and treated as a criminal.

Further patriarchal nonsense follows where a woman needs to be judged as a criminal till proven innocent:

The very action of a woman aborting a viable life inside of them (when it is viable) for any number of reasons beyond the health and safety of the unborn or of herself is evidence enough to me that to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn. At other times, they may think they're placing the unborn's welfare ahead (end their life because the mother can't take adequate care of them or whatnot), but that doesn't mean that their perspective is accurate and/or that the unborn if it wasn't aborted would agree with the mother's perspective when grown.

(I took the liberty to cross out the words/phrases that he later explained was used in error).

Notice how I am using his own words and explaining the implications here. He thinks his "institutional morality" gives him the right to sit in judgement of the humanity of someone like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar. In the Terri Schiavo case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case), as heart-wrenching as that was and as much you feel for the position of the parents, even the red-state courts correctly decided that their mandate is limited to deciding custody and not wade into figuring out the humanity of the husband or the parents. And to think we have people who arrogate unto themselves the supposed "right" to judge the humanity of all mothers everywhere.

-------------------

Coming back to the problems with your post. If any passerby (or you) can't make up your mind if you want to allow a government or a patriarchy or a church or whatever institution-de-jure to sit in judgement of basic human freedoms of all mothers everywhere for no crime other than carrying a child (and likely having sex while woman - of course), then the issue is with the moral compass. It is frightening and flattering to see you speculate on my ability to influence anyone on this positively or negatively - but no, I don't have a messianic complex. If you happen to have this issue - where you are not sure if you have the right to sit in judgement of a woman undergoing birth complications and is at risk of losing her life - then I, or my posts, or any logical debates on the edges won't be able to help you. Sorry! This is a far deeper issue that has to come from your gut to make any sense whatever - else you will just rationalize away all contradictory evidence.
 

[ericrugiero]

Wolfpack M. writes:

You say "A woman opting to have an abortion is the only "pro-choice" person who matter - right?" Clearly that is not the case, as there are people who make laws that also matter if we're talking about restricting something. If the process was restricted, then more people would come into play. Your question is contingent on the decision of it not being restricted in any way already being decided.

And why is he contemplating the future where the humanity (=ability to do as they please with their body) of all mothers is in question? Well, that is cleared up in the same post:

We may empathize with them, may even bemoan the fact that we restrict their choice from doing so - we restrict a person from chasing down and beating a person who hurt their child into a pulp as a society although we can totally empathize with their desire to do so. The whole premise of laws is that we are restricting people who are in the situation from doing something because society deems it worthwhile in restricting them.

Ah-huh. I see - mothers are like someone about to commit a crime ("beating a person"), minority report style, and hence all mothers now need to be put on trial and treated as a criminal.

Further patriarchal nonsense follows where a woman needs to be judged as a criminal till proven innocent:

The very action of a woman aborting a viable life inside of them (when it is viable) for any number of reasons beyond the health and safety of the unborn or of herself is evidence enough to me that to at least some degree, women at times are placing their rights and preferences ahead of the unborn. At other times, they may think they're placing the unborn's welfare ahead (end their life because the mother can't take adequate care of them or whatnot), but that doesn't mean that their perspective is accurate and/or that the unborn if it wasn't aborted would agree with the mother's perspective when grown.

(I took the liberty to cross out the words/phrases that he later explained was used in error).

Notice how I am using his own words and explaining the implications here. He thinks his "institutional morality" gives him the right to sit in judgement of the humanity of someone like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar. In the Terri Schiavo case (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terri_Schiavo_case), as heart-wrenching as that was and as much you feel for the position of the parents, even the red-state courts correctly decided that their mandate is limited to deciding custody and not wade into figuring out the humanity of the husband or the parents. And to think we have people who arrogate unto themselves the supposed "right" to judge the humanity of all mothers everywhere.

-------------------

Coming back to the problems with your post. If any passerby (or you) can't make up your mind if you want to allow a government or a patriarchy or a church or whatever institution-de-jure to sit in judgement of basic human freedoms of all mothers everywhere for no crime other than carrying a child (and likely having sex while woman - of course), then the issue is with the moral compass. It is frightening and flattering to see you speculate on my ability to influence anyone on this positively or negatively - but no, I don't have a messianic complex. If you happen to have this issue - where you are not sure if you have the right to sit in judgement of a woman undergoing birth complications and is at risk of losing her life - then I, or my posts, or any logical debates on the edges won't be able to help you. Sorry! This is a far deeper issue that has to come from your gut to make any sense whatever - else you will just rationalize away all contradictory evidence.

I don't see anywhere that Wolfpack Mustachian is "putting all mothers on trial" for a crime.  He clearly believes abortion is wrong (as I do) but I don't see him accusing all women or all mothers of that crime.  I also believe mass shootings are wrong (which are typically committed by men) but that doesn't mean all men should accused.  It DOES mean that mass shootings should be illegal for all men (and punished accordingly). 

You are saying that we as a society don't have the right to judge whether it's OK for a woman to have an abortion.  It's her body, her choice, her ethics and we (society) don't have the right to say if her choice is right or wrong.  By that same logic, how can we have any laws?  How can we judge a robber, rapist, terrorist, mass murderer, drunk driver, speeder, etc.  Those are all individual decisions that someone makes.  How can we impose our morality on that person?  Logically, we can either impose our morality on others (as a society) or we can't punish ANY crime.  If we say we can punish crimes, then we are back to judging the morality of an action.  That's something we (as a society) have done in many instances, not just abortion.  If we stop, we will have no punishments and the strong will just take what they want from the weak.  This doesn't mean that society has to say abortion is wrong.  It's just saying that if we have any laws, we are implying that society has the right to determine some standard of right and wrong.  That applies to everything from speeding to abortion, rape, murder etc.

You have said that pro-life people judge others for "having sex while woman".  It's definitely true that many pro-life people believe sex outside of marriage is wrong.  It's NOT true (in general) that they think it's OK for men to have sex outside of marriage and wrong for women.  For the vast majority of pro-life people, the physical consequences might be different (women are ones who get pregnant and could be more likely to get STD's) but the morality isn't any different. 

[ctuser1]

I don't see anywhere that Wolfpack Mustachian is "putting all mothers on trial" for a crime.

How else do you restrict someone's bodily autonomy without putting them in trial? If you want to put someone in jail - you need a trial. If you want to restrict someone from doing something to her body against her consent - that looks like a valid analogy to me.

I clearly quoted where Wolfpack Mustachian talks about restrictions etc in response to my "the only pro-choice person who matters is the mother - right?" question.

I don't see anywhere that Wolfpack Mustachian is "putting all mothers on trial" for a crime.  He clearly believes abortion is wrong (as I do) but I don't see him accusing all women or all mothers of that crime. 

I almost agree with you - but would shy away from using the word "wrong". Abortion is clearly a major failure somewhere, and something that makes me want to pray even though I have never been religious, don't believe in a personal god that Christians do, and was not brought up in a religious household. I just don't arrogate unto myself the right to try to assign blame for that failure on the parties involved, however - because the failure could be in many places and the parties involved (definitely the mother and sometimes even the dad) are usually (i.e. the norm, with some exceptions) intensely suffering.

I will leave aside the mass shooting analogy because many, many things are different here that makes it not comparable.

You are saying that we as a society don't have the right to judge whether it's OK for a woman to have an abortion.  It's her body, her choice, her ethics and we (society) don't have the right to say if her choice is right or wrong. 

Correct - specifically for abortion.

By that same logic, how can we have any laws?  How can we judge a robber, rapist, terrorist, mass murderer, drunk driver, speeder, etc.  Those are all individual decisions that someone makes.  How can we impose our morality on that person?  Logically, we can either impose our morality on others (as a society) or we can't punish ANY crime.  If we say we can punish crimes, then we are back to judging the morality of an action.  That's something we (as a society) have done in many instances, not just abortion.  If we stop, we will have no punishments and the strong will just take what they want from the weak.  This doesn't mean that society has to say abortion is wrong.  It's just saying that if we have any laws, we are implying that society has the right to determine some standard of right and wrong.  That applies to everything from speeding to abortion, rape, murder etc.

First, change the focus from abortion to the step before.

Is pregnancy a crime? When a person commits a crime we throw the law at them and restrict their bodily autonomy (jail etc). What crime allows you to restrict a pregnant woman's right to do what she pleases with her body? Note that this freedom (medical care as needed/opted for) is not denied even to incarcerated criminals. The ONLY situation where actual, physical harm is intentionally done to a criminal's body is in capital punishment.

Are we saying that pregnancy is worse than ALL crimes save for those requiring capital punishment?

Second, Abortion happens, i.e. the woman removes a part of her body.
That part - the fetus does not survive as our technology has not developed sufficiently to let it grow ex-utero.

Is that a crime? For who? The mother? Why? And please think/respond from a legal point of view here - not moral, because I suspect your answer to this from a moral point of view is something I will probably agree with 90% of the way - and is totally irrelevant for this situation.

You have said that pro-life people judge others for "having sex while woman".  It's definitely true that many pro-life people believe sex outside of marriage is wrong.  It's NOT true (in general) that they think it's OK for men to have sex outside of marriage and wrong for women. 

You just need to go back a few posts to see Wolfpack Mustachian arguing that the fetus has "more rights" because it was put in this position of losing it's life due to an act (=sex) by the mother. He was using the logic couched in a way as to make it seem logical - the implications however, are scary.

Note that it is never the man's fault in this situation!

[GuitarStv]

It's definitely true that many pro-life people believe sex outside of marriage is wrong.  It's NOT true (in general) that they think it's OK for men to have sex outside of marriage and wrong for women.  For the vast majority of pro-life people, the physical consequences might be different (women are ones who get pregnant and could be more likely to get STD's) but the morality isn't any different.

I'm not sure that this is a valid point.

Sex outside of marriage by men vs women is treated very differently by all of our society.  While I've heard many verbal platitudes spoken about sex/marriage by religious folks who also back the pro-life cause, there's little data I've been able to find to support any difference regarding actions taken regarding sex between pro-life and pro-choice people.  Quite a few politicians with a hard pro-life stand have secretly ordered abortions.  Scott Lloyd, Elliot Broidy, Tim Murphy, and Scott DesJarlais all come to mind . . . and there are dozens if not hundreds of pro-life politicians who have had extramarital affairs.  My point is not to accuse these people of anything, but to point out that extramarital affairs seem to be a strong human desire for a large portion of the population - regardless of political/religious affiliation or stance on abortion.

A large amount of objection to abortion is religious based.  There seems to be little correlation between extramarital sex and religion:



Interestingly enough, agnostics seem to have the lowest rates of extramarital sex and atheists the highest:
  The religious are somewhere in between these two groups.

[Metalcat]

Folks can debate when life starts and the morality of abortion as much as they want, but it's not really relevant to the actual outcomes of how many women get abortions.

It's entirely rational to be anti-abortion and pro legal abortion because the stats show to a STARTLING degree that areas with the most liberal abortion laws have the lowest rate of abortion.

Prohibition has never worked, regardless of the ostensible moral positions behind it.

So truly pro-life people would do best to support practical laws, which are proven to dramatically lower the number of terminated pregnancies, because making it illegal has been shown again, and again, and again, and again to result in increased abortions.

I, for one, am staunchly anti-alcohol, but I would never ever promote prohibition. I do think that there should be stricter laws on marketing and media portrayal of alcohol, especially to minors, the same way there is with cigarettes. I too would like a world with fewer abortions, I just know, factually, that making reproductive education and healthcare *more* accessible, including abortion, is the best way to accomplish that that we know of so far.

So, rather ironically, the policies that would best suit the side that wants to protect a women's right to protect her bodily autonomy, and the side that wants to prevent as many abortions happening as possible are the SAME policies.

[ericrugiero]

It's definitely true that many pro-life people believe sex outside of marriage is wrong.  It's NOT true (in general) that they think it's OK for men to have sex outside of marriage and wrong for women.  For the vast majority of pro-life people, the physical consequences might be different (women are ones who get pregnant and could be more likely to get STD's) but the morality isn't any different.

I'm not sure that this is a valid point.

Sex outside of marriage by men vs women is treated very differently by all of our society. 

Yes, pretty much all of our society tends to look at sex outside of marriage differently between men and women.  The difference between how a "stud" and "slut" is perceived is dramatic (by Christians, Atheists, or pretty much any group).  However, most Christians would view the "morality" the same regardless of gender.  I personally think the difference in perception is unfortunate and unfair.     

While I've heard many verbal platitudes spoken about sex/marriage by religious folks who also back the pro-life cause, there's little data I've been able to find to support any difference regarding actions taken regarding sex between pro-life and pro-choice people.  Quite a few politicians with a hard pro-life stand have secretly ordered abortions.  Scott Lloyd, Elliot Broidy, Tim Murphy, and Scott DesJarlais all come to mind . . . and there are dozens if not hundreds of pro-life politicians who have had extramarital affairs.  My point is not to accuse these people of anything, but to point out that extramarital affairs seem to be a strong human desire for a large portion of the population - regardless of political/religious affiliation or stance on abortion.

A large amount of objection to abortion is religious based.  There seems to be little correlation between extramarital sex and religion:



Interestingly enough, agnostics seem to have the lowest rates of extramarital sex and atheists the highest:
  The religious are somewhere in between these two groups.

Most marriages start with a promise to be monogamous and many of those promises aren't kept.  No religion is immune to this.  I would argue that it doesn't matter to this discussion because what's right is still right.  It just shows that none of us is perfect and we can all fail.  In some cases, those who have set themselves up as religious leaders have more to lose and will go to greater lengths to hide their faults.  That is why I'm glad my faith is in a perfect God and not in any human(s). 

[GuitarStv]

Folks can debate when life starts and the morality of abortion as much as they want, but it's not really relevant to the actual outcomes of how many women get abortions.

It's entirely rational to be anti-abortion and pro legal abortion because the stats show to a STARTLING degree that areas with the most liberal abortion laws have the lowest rate of abortion.

Prohibition has never worked, regardless of the ostensible moral positions behind it.

So truly pro-life people would do best to support practical laws, which are proven to dramatically lower the number of terminated pregnancies, because making it illegal has been shown again, and again, and again, and again to result in increased abortions.

I, for one, am staunchly anti-alcohol, but I would never ever promote prohibition. I do think that there should be stricter laws on marketing and media portrayal of alcohol, especially to minors, the same way there is with cigarettes. I too would like a world with fewer abortions, I just know, factually, that making reproductive education and healthcare *more* accessible, including abortion, is the best way to accomplish that that we know of so far.

So, rather ironically, the policies that would best suit the side that wants to protect a women's right to protect her bodily autonomy, and the side that wants to prevent as many abortions happening as possible are the SAME policies.

This is an interesting concept, and one that I'd really like to be true, so I did a little digging to see what kind of research supports it.


https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/styles/1800_x_1440/public/images/aww-unintended-preg-f2-31453.png?itok=PjIYAOkk
This graphic shows that places where abortions are allowed have fewer abortions, but doesn't seem to take into account socio-economic and cultural differences between places.
 - https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide


This study of Spain indicates little change in abortion rate pre/post legalization:
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/2133730?seq=1
"During the study period, approximately 240,000 Spanish
women obtained abortions in England and Wales and
The Netherlands, presumably travelling there for that
purpose. Since 1974 the growth in abortion rates in
Spanish women has been constant. There was no
difference in the increasing of die total abortion rate
when comparing the trends before and after the abortion
law was passed in Spain"
- https://watermark.silverchair.com/11-2-190.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAqUwggKhBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggKSMIICjgIBADCCAocGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMCyu4ucmVoqDumSKpAgEQgIICWFfjHBjKpPKw5Uv4ztVeboAEc9eVPASTHufLmOGDhJRuHsexSJDxty6aTXzFmgEvlNxpthBlXo9u3jGcbryDrrAFWsd_owR9MiDlTTXtSyUrzCAagXdSGjdKQCgsOUkGEPxZ80-8evR1s-qbR6hDDj0qltlvTXOcz1RSvgdNFt1eNy16WWXImJqyBCXDleiV6jmzJ5OA7EY7HvkGSA91e-SS2cK2sccw506Y1KHkHZ7k-SwCLQ2SgdK6D6BiHtx97EC-Zn8vAoHMhfAW13PQGhqjAAsyjEfj8kDIC5LzyxygiBf7eqb8kXttyGNdOaJ0yNcAHfQumJRAQtM61QxNmWbdxPbKGGiKS1DPfVCibZHiFFlqLFNdT8nzddk1rNJNX3k0_EEv3wdEb_0j6roA6XTHTxngUsoBiKYFEVel4zXlhRLBqRXEd45y-P7z_MlDwtMnrYjdEHv9kpIctqrsvbjk9Hlf_zpbnJZQKuif2ULw52OOzKkAC3wmLTHum-rIJu4kKEnuZBae9HUWPXor6Yk-00LYcUd3bKvoF3s82CK-E2SJBvZ1tq0dW0SDjhxXSnB0lzWpwhNFo9vCk3CMRblWQxZabYKAT2MyadcsWfkENMFZSDsb8LN35N6H7Xo_9T5oeePKKAk7XQ8ETtTotOp_8EyHysPrRdJ_Y7sqzUtXSN9GZt4h2hi5feqoTSOCW3GqlDB5kzg8ZIsbQf7RrxWBUSz1z3EEJr_BWa6cAs4IttvEE9zKGTWDsMNjiYXYE7xl6zO11pelWbD4sRHQTfhFYa0MllskAA


However, this European study seems to indicate that legalized abortion increases abortion rate:
"The  first  four  columns  of  this  table  display  our  estimates  for  models  of the abortion rate and differentiate between estimates from models using all available abortion data and estimates from models only using those countries whose abortion data is considered to be of high quality. The results provide strong  evidence  that  the  status  of  abortion  laws  has  a  large  impact  on  the abortion rate. For instance, on the basis of all available abortion data, countries in which abortion is legal only to save the mother’s life or for specific medical reasons have abortion rates that are only about 5 percent of the level observed in countries in which abortion is legal on request.22 Unfortunately, we cannot identify this parameter in models with the more limited, complete abortion data."

"Restrictive  abortion laws in which abortion is available only to save the mother’s life or for other specific medical reasons increase the birth rate by 9–17 percent relative to that  in  a  regime  where  abortion  is  available  on  request."
- https://repository.wellesley.edu/object/ir105



I think that the results are a bit mixed, and that it's not entirely accurate to say access to abortion conclusively lowers abortion rates.

[GuitarStv]

Most marriages start with a promise to be monogamous and many of those promises aren't kept.  No religion is immune to this.  I would argue that it doesn't matter to this discussion because what's right is still right.  It just shows that none of us is perfect and we can all fail.  In some cases, those who have set themselves up as religious leaders have more to lose and will go to greater lengths to hide their faults.  That is why I'm glad my faith is in a perfect God and not in any human(s).

I think that this point does matter to the discussion . . . and that's why it was earlier mentioned in the post I responded to.  The idea that religious people are more likely to do the right thing, and that irreligious people will do the wrong thing is a flawed concept that doesn't appear to be borne out in the data.

If none of us are perfect and we can all fail - regardless of religious status, then we need to stop with the idea that religious status has any real 'moralizing' impact on the lives of it's followers.  There's no need for abstract mental concepts of perfection that can never be lived up to if one is capable of self-reflection, empathy, and logical thinking.

( Said as an agnostic who is vehemently against extramarital affairs - for purely non-religious moral reasons. )

[ericrugiero]

I don't see anywhere that Wolfpack Mustachian is "putting all mothers on trial" for a crime.

How else do you restrict someone's bodily autonomy without putting them in trial? If you want to put someone in jail - you need a trial. If you want to restrict someone from doing something to her body against her consent - that looks like a valid analogy to me.

I clearly quoted where Wolfpack Mustachian talks about restrictions etc in response to my "the only pro-choice person who matters is the mother - right?" question.

I'm restricted from speeding without being put on trial.  I'm only put on trial if there is a law in place that I violate. 

Second, Abortion happens, i.e. the woman removes a part of her body.
That part - the fetus does not survive as our technology has not developed sufficiently to let it grow ex-utero.

Is that a crime? For who? The mother? Why? And please think/respond from a legal point of view here - not moral, because I suspect your answer to this from a moral point of view is something I will probably agree with 90% of the way - and is totally irrelevant for this situation.

From a legal point of view, it's not crime currently.  If the law was changed, it could be a crime for the mother and/or father and doctor.  The same type of standards would apply as an accomplice in a robbery or murder.  The only way the law would be changed is if society as a whole decided that abortion isn't moral.  That's how we typically get our laws. 

You have said that pro-life people judge others for "having sex while woman".  It's definitely true that many pro-life people believe sex outside of marriage is wrong.  It's NOT true (in general) that they think it's OK for men to have sex outside of marriage and wrong for women. 

You just need to go back a few posts to see Wolfpack Mustachian arguing that the fetus has "more rights" because it was put in this position of losing it's life due to an act (=sex) by the mother. He was using the logic couched in a way as to make it seem logical - the implications however, are scary.

Note that it is never the man's fault in this situation!

I won't try to say for sure what Wolfpack Mustachian meant.  I'm just saying that I (and I believe most pro-life people) would say the mother and father are equally "at fault" for the unwanted pregnancy (except for rape of course).  However, the mother is frequently the focus because it's her decision whether to have an abortion and she is typically affected more by the decision.  Whether the father meant to have a pregnancy is immaterial if the mother is making the decision on her own. 

[ericrugiero]

Most marriages start with a promise to be monogamous and many of those promises aren't kept.  No religion is immune to this.  I would argue that it doesn't matter to this discussion because what's right is still right.  It just shows that none of us is perfect and we can all fail.  In some cases, those who have set themselves up as religious leaders have more to lose and will go to greater lengths to hide their faults.  That is why I'm glad my faith is in a perfect God and not in any human(s).

I think that this point does matter to the discussion . . . and that's why it was earlier mentioned in the post I responded to.  The idea that religious people are more likely to do the right thing, and that irreligious people will do the wrong thing is a flawed concept that doesn't appear to be borne out in the data.

If none of us are perfect and we can all fail - regardless of religious status, then we need to stop with the idea that religious status has any real 'moralizing' impact on the lives of it's followers.  There's no need for abstract mental concepts of perfection that can never be lived up to if one is capable of self-reflection, empathy, and logical thinking.

( Said as an agnostic who is vehemently against extramarital affairs - for purely non-religious moral reasons. )

Here is my personal belief regarding your statement (as a Christian). 

There is a God who is perfect and the standard for right and wrong comes from Him.  We are all sinners (Romans 3:23).  I've done just as much wrong as anyone else and that's why I deserve to be punished in hell (Romans 6:23).  Therefore, I should not look down on others for their sin.  My salvation comes from Jesus dying on the cross for my sin so that I can be restored to a relationship with God (Romans 5:8).  Even though I have trusted God and am trying to turn away from my sin, I still mess up.  But, God is still there to love me and accept me. 

Because the standard for right and wrong comes from God, it is not affected by how I (or others) behave.  This doesn't mean that I should not try to behave the right way.  It's just that my behavior doesn't change right and wrong. 

(Sorry, I didn't really mean for this to get so preachy.  It's hard for me to explain all the reasoning for my beliefs without including some of that.)

[ctuser1]

I'm restricted from speeding without being put on trial.  I'm only put on trial if there is a law in place that I violate. 

Does speeding sound similar to getting your appendix removed? Are you ever, under any condition, restricted from removing your appendix assuming it can endanger your life? How about some surgery for extreme cirrhosis that you yourself caused by some reason? Retroviral treatment for AIDS perhaps?

Besides, nobody granted you a fundamental right to drive on roads owned by the society. You choose to drive on it by accepting the responsibilities placed on you by the society. By all means please create a private arena/field/land (subject to appropriate zoning and permitting laws etc) and speed there F1 style and I am not sure enyone would mind.

If this comparison did not come from you (who, after many interactions, I do konw as someone who does not argue in bad faith) I would have suspected lack of sincerity here. Are you seriously not able to see the difference between different types of curtailment of freedoms here? To me right to life (=capital punishment) > right to bodily autonomy (=being jailed, right to medical procedure is never restricted to my knowledge) > right to property (=taxes, eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture) etc. AFAIK, the present day civil/criminal law holds such a semblance of hierarchy in a roundabout way. e.g. you may be prosecuted for a crime, not be jailed if the evidence did not meet the standards required - and yet be held liable for property forfeiture in civil/tort lawsuit.

When you have a conflict between these rights (like it is the case for many/most of the supreme court cases), you have to sometimes sacrifice some right in order to retain another. Please show me examples where a persons right to medical treatment from some life-threatening "condition" is denied and we can compare.

From a legal point of view, it's not crime currently.  If the law was changed, it could be a crime for the mother and/or father and doctor.  The same type of standards would apply as an accomplice in a robbery or murder.  The only way the law would be changed is if society as a whole decided that abortion isn't moral.  That's how we typically get our laws. 

We already have some laws that make abortion after viability illegal - in 44 out of 50 states. I would be happy to pledge to contribute $100 if you know of any effort to extend laws similar to this based on templates from the more liberal states like CT/NY/MA/CA etc to the six missing states (which allegedly includes the red state of Alaska).

Morality/immorality has only a tenuous relationship to law, especially criminal law. I consider cheating to be immoral - it is not illegal. I will use a fantastic example Wolfpack used earlier - beating up someone who hurt my kids - I would consider it moral but unfortunately it is quite illegal. So I can do immoral things while not get in trouble with the law, and at the same time do eminently moral things and get in trouble with the law. At a larget scale - civil disobedience (e.g. the peaceful parts of the BLM protests) has got lots of people in trouble with the law - while being one of the most moral things I can think of. If I know my neighbour needs blood transfusion, I am a match, it would be minor inconvenience for me to donate and yet I choose not to - is very very immoral in my book, and yet completely legal.

To institute a law for prosecuting criminality of abortion, you have to decide not just the morality of abortion a certain way (far from a done thing), you also have to jump through the personhood question while the USC is quite explicit in the other direction, attribute blame AND show that the culpability rises to the criminal level and not just a matter tort law. Are you sure you can just through ANY single one of them - let alone all that would be required to make it a law?

I won't try to say for sure what Wolfpack Mustachian meant.  I'm just saying that I (and I believe most pro-life people) would say the mother and father are equally "at fault" for the unwanted pregnancy (except for rape of course).  However, the mother is frequently the focus because it's her decision whether to have an abortion and she is typically affected more by the decision.  Whether the father meant to have a pregnancy is immaterial if the mother is making the decision on her own.

It is the implication of what he was saying that made it scary. His point was that the fetus deserves more right than any other human beings because it was put in this position through no choice of it's own.
Great - I have no issues there.

But then he argued (or maybe implied, or just let it be known - too lazy right now to look up exact words) that somehow that extra right for the fetus means loss in rights for the mother in as fundamental a matter as what medical procedure she can opt for. Doesn't your right stop where mine begin - even elevated ones that the fetus supposedly have? And If he was looking to address the supposed culpability of the mother (you had sex and so my life is at risk) - does it really rise to a level where her medical options are curtailed? Can you show me any other crime for which we do that - save for the ones where capital punishment is awarded? That is retributive justice, like - you konw - in Saudi Arabia and Iran where they chop off your hands and stuff. And for what? A crime that stemmed from nothing more than having sex while woman?

[GuitarStv]

At the risk of derailing the abortion derailment . . .

Because the standard for right and wrong comes from God

While I disagree with many of the other points of your faith (in my view there's absolutely no need for a God to love and accept a person, true love and acceptance can only come from within), I only really take issue with this one.  Two immediate objections spring to mind, the first being the most concerning to me.

If the standard for right and wrong comes from a God, then it would seem to be impossible for a person who doesn't believe in that God or follow that particular faith to live a moral life.  If we take the biggest religion in the world (Christianity), only 30% of people practice that faith - leaving about 70% of the world incapable of really being moral.

Next, if the standard for right and wrong comes from a God, then how does one resolve complex issues that are not actually covered in the ancient religious tomes and teachings that define the religion?  The first example that springs to mind would be intellectual property rights - the bible doesn't cover this case as they were largely invented in the last couple hundred years.  IP infringement is not at all similar to stealing.  In biblical terms, large portions of the Old Testament were IP infringements from ancient Sumerian writings - so I think a strong case could be made that IP infringement is tacitly supported by Christianity.  It would seem impossible to get any clear answer without a level of interpretation that allows for whatever answer a person wants to find.  This is all very unconvincing when pitted against the twin stars of empathy and logic as a guide for morality.


I've attended a great number of different Christian churches for a sizable chunk of my life, and certainly take no offense at your comments - they are part and parcel of the way Christians are told to think.  I hope however, that I can bring to light some reasons others might find the dismissive and absolutist style of thought mildly abrasive (if not entirely absurd) though.

[Metalcat]

At the risk of derailing the abortion derailment . . .

Because the standard for right and wrong comes from God

While I disagree with many of the other points of your faith (in my view there's absolutely no need for a God to love and accept a person, true love and acceptance can only come from within), I only really take issue with this one.  Two immediate objections spring to mind, the first being the most concerning to me.

If the standard for right and wrong comes from a God, then it would seem to be impossible for a person who doesn't believe in that God or follow that particular faith to live a moral life.  If we take the biggest religion in the world (Christianity), only 30% of people practice that faith - leaving about 70% of the world incapable of really being moral.

Next, if the standard for right and wrong comes from a God, then how does one resolve complex issues that are not actually covered in the ancient religious tomes and teachings that define the religion?  The first example that springs to mind would be intellectual property rights - the bible doesn't cover this case as they were largely invented in the last couple hundred years.  IP infringement is not at all similar to stealing.  In biblical terms, large portions of the Old Testament were IP infringements from ancient Sumerian writings - so I think a strong case could be made that IP infringement is tacitly supported by Christianity.  It would seem impossible to get any clear answer without a level of interpretation that allows for whatever answer a person wants to find.  This is all very unconvincing when pitted against the twin stars of empathy and logic as a guide for morality.


I've attended a great number of different Christian churches for a sizable chunk of my life, and certainly take no offense at your comments - they are part and parcel of the way Christians are told to think.  I hope however, that I can bring to light some reasons others might find the dismissive and absolutist style of thought mildly abrasive (if not entirely absurd) though.

That, and different religions, different denominations, different organizations, and different religious leaders all have different takes on what "God" thinks.

The only thing someone can say about it is "my particular version of faith includes a reality where God holds this opinion", but that particular set of beliefs is a choice.

[Kris]

I have sure had a lot of Christians tell me that the standard for right and wrong comes from God.

I get that the standard for right and wrong for them comes from God.

But I find it absolutely mind-boggling (and frankly offensive) that they think that my standard for right and wrong has to come from God.

Because it absolutely does not.

[ericrugiero]

I'm restricted from speeding without being put on trial.  I'm only put on trial if there is a law in place that I violate. 

Does speeding sound similar to getting your appendix removed? Are you ever, under any condition, restricted from removing your appendix assuming it can endanger your life? How about some surgery for extreme cirrhosis that you yourself caused by some reason? Retroviral treatment for AIDS perhaps?

Besides, nobody granted you a fundamental right to drive on roads owned by the society. You choose to drive on it by accepting the responsibilities placed on you by the society. By all means please create a private arena/field/land (subject to appropriate zoning and permitting laws etc) and speed there F1 style and I am not sure enyone would mind.

If this comparison did not come from you (who, after many interactions, I do konw as someone who does not argue in bad faith) I would have suspected lack of sincerity here. Are you seriously not able to see the difference between different types of curtailment of freedoms here? To me right to life (=capital punishment) > right to bodily autonomy (=being jailed, right to medical procedure is never restricted to my knowledge) > right to property (=taxes, eminent domain, civil asset forfeiture) etc. AFAIK, the present day civil/criminal law holds such a semblance of hierarchy in a roundabout way. e.g. you may be prosecuted for a crime, not be jailed if the evidence did not meet the standards required - and yet be held liable for property forfeiture in civil/tort lawsuit.

You are right that speeding and abortion are very different.  My point was not the similarity of the acts (or the freedom involved), it was that the trial takes place after the illegal act.  So, it's not accurate to say someone would be put on trial for abortion simply for being a woman (since in many cases they haven't had an abortion)

[OtherJen]

At the risk of derailing the abortion derailment . . .

Because the standard for right and wrong comes from God

While I disagree with many of the other points of your faith (in my view there's absolutely no need for a God to love and accept a person, true love and acceptance can only come from within), I only really take issue with this one.  Two immediate objections spring to mind, the first being the most concerning to me.

If the standard for right and wrong comes from a God, then it would seem to be impossible for a person who doesn't believe in that God or follow that particular faith to live a moral life.  If we take the biggest religion in the world (Christianity), only 30% of people practice that faith - leaving about 70% of the world incapable of really being moral.

Next, if the standard for right and wrong comes from a God, then how does one resolve complex issues that are not actually covered in the ancient religious tomes and teachings that define the religion?  The first example that springs to mind would be intellectual property rights - the bible doesn't cover this case as they were largely invented in the last couple hundred years.  IP infringement is not at all similar to stealing.  In biblical terms, large portions of the Old Testament were IP infringements from ancient Sumerian writings - so I think a strong case could be made that IP infringement is tacitly supported by Christianity.  It would seem impossible to get any clear answer without a level of interpretation that allows for whatever answer a person wants to find.  This is all very unconvincing when pitted against the twin stars of empathy and logic as a guide for morality.


I've attended a great number of different Christian churches for a sizable chunk of my life, and certainly take no offense at your comments - they are part and parcel of the way Christians are told to think.  I hope however, that I can bring to light some reasons others might find the dismissive and absolutist style of thought mildly abrasive (if not entirely absurd) though.

That, and different religions, different denominations, different organizations, and different religious leaders all have different takes on what "God" thinks.

The only thing someone can say about it is "my particular version of faith includes a reality where God holds this opinion", but that particular set of beliefs is a choice.

Yes to both of these. Well stated.

[ericrugiero]

At the risk of derailing the abortion derailment . . .

Because the standard for right and wrong comes from God

While I disagree with many of the other points of your faith (in my view there's absolutely no need for a God to love and accept a person, true love and acceptance can only come from within), I only really take issue with this one.  Two immediate objections spring to mind, the first being the most concerning to me.

If the standard for right and wrong comes from a God, then it would seem to be impossible for a person who doesn't believe in that God or follow that particular faith to live a moral life.  If we take the biggest religion in the world (Christianity), only 30% of people practice that faith - leaving about 70% of the world incapable of really being moral.

I believe that 0% of the world is capable of really being moral.  As pointed out above, there are many instances of Christians (or any other group) doing things that most of us would consider immoral.  I know I try to live the right way but I fail frequently.  That's why Jesus died on the cross.  He took the punishment for my sins because I can't do it myself. 

Next, if the standard for right and wrong comes from a God, then how does one resolve complex issues that are not actually covered in the ancient religious tomes and teachings that define the religion?  The first example that springs to mind would be intellectual property rights - the bible doesn't cover this case as they were largely invented in the last couple hundred years.  IP infringement is not at all similar to stealing.  In biblical terms, large portions of the Old Testament were IP infringements from ancient Sumerian writings - so I think a strong case could be made that IP infringement is tacitly supported by Christianity.  It would seem impossible to get any clear answer without a level of interpretation that allows for whatever answer a person wants to find.  This is all very unconvincing when pitted against the twin stars of empathy and logic as a guide for morality.

The Bible has many specific rules and some of them (in the old testament) don't apply any more (after Jesus).  Some rules are very clear and others are more difficult to interpret.  But, there are general guidelines that certainly apply.  Jesus said the two greatest commandments are to Love God and Love your neighbor.  All the other commandments are based on those.  For anything the Bible isn't specific about, we have some freedom to interpret within those guidelines.  Your twin stars of empathy and logic don't conflict with the Bible's great commandments and would be very useful when the Bible doesn't give specific guidance. 

[PKFFW]

Yes, pretty much all of our society tends to look at sex outside of marriage differently between men and women.  The difference between how a "stud" and "slut" is perceived is dramatic (by Christians, Atheists, or pretty much any group).  However, most Christians would view the "morality" the same regardless of gender.  I personally think the difference in perception is unfortunate and unfair.

What's the old saying?  "The truth is in the pudding".  Appearances can be deceiving, the truth is only found when you eat the pudding.

Most Christians claim they view the morality the same.  The way they talk about and treat men compared to the way they talk about and treat women who perform the same allegedly immoral act proves that they do not actually believe the morality is the same.

The truth is in their actions, not in their words.

[ctuser1]

You are right that speeding and abortion are very different.  My point was not the similarity of the acts (or the freedom involved), it was that the trial takes place after the illegal act.  So, it's not accurate to say someone would be put on trial for abortion simply for being a woman (since in many cases they haven't had an abortion)

It is actually an understatement as an analogy. In this case the proposal was to restrict the women's freedom to avail of a medical procedure to rid themselves of a potentially life-threatening condition.

This is never done in a criminal trial as a sentence of a crime - as far as I know. The sentences are generally restriction of movement when they are jailed. So this restriction being proposed is worse than the sentence for ANY crime short of when they get the death penalty.

Was that your point? That "women put on trial" is way too mild and too much of an understatement? So perhaps we should have said "all pregnant women are being sentenced without trial for crimes worse than manslaughter/rape/<insert favorite crime short of the ones that attract death penalty>.

Pregnancy is extremely taxing and risky on the woman involved (part of which they tend to then transfer on their hapless and clueless partner who typically never knows what hit him the first time - ask how I know). The level of physical discomfort and problems they face even during the mildest of pregnancies are - for the duration that they last - worse than just being physically put in a jail cell by my estimation (assuming no abuse or anything else is involved when in jail). Anyone proposing to restrict the freedoms of the women going through this should actually consider talking to pregnant women actually going through pregnancy.

[GuitarStv]

I believe that 0% of the world is capable of really being moral.  As pointed out above, there are many instances of Christians (or any other group) doing things that most of us would consider immoral.  I know I try to live the right way but I fail frequently.  That's why Jesus died on the cross.  He took the punishment for my sins because I can't do it myself.

This outlook - that a person is destined to always be immoral and will always suck no matter how hard they try - is honestly hard for me to understand.  Glad it works for you, but for me that would simply sap motivation to even try (which would merely be compounded by a literally perfect example of God/Jesus).  But that too is fundamental to my beliefs - that there exist very few (no?) absolutes with this stuff.  There are a bunch of approaches to morality/religion and some seem to work better for some people - but no one size fits all.

When people focus their belief on absolutes that often seems to be the inflection point where things change and problems arise.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

First, I'd like to apologize to you (and you only) for posting some uncharitable interpretations of your story with zero actual proof it was posted in bad faith. I hope you can recognize the constant bad faith abuse of rare "late term abortions" by pro-life people with an aim to take away basic human rights from women who are already suffering, and why that would leave someone like me a little jittery and trigger happy at times.

I have some questions, however. Please clarify if you feel like it.

Abortion after viability is already prohibited in 44 of 50 states. Was it a different state than the 44 where it is prohibited (NJ, NH, Alaska, CO etc. - and a couple of others)? I happen to have delved into this topic in the context of two separate states - CT and PA. In both of these, in theory, you should not be allowed to get an abortion after the fetus is viable (typically after 24 weeks) unless there are some complications. Or is it that such laws are routinely flouted even in the states where it is prohibited?

As staunchly pro-choice as I am, I don't think abortion of a viable fetus is justified for "birth control".  If such gaps exist and are widely abused, perhaps that represents a scope for a joint effort by pro-choice and pro-life people to close it and save some lives.

The data that I can dig up tells me that such late term procedures are extremely rare. In CT, in 2018, 88 late term (i.e. > 21 weeks) abortions compared to 36000+ live births. My reaction to the numbers is "88 unfortunate women who got horrible complications". Am I missing anything big in the data that you can clarify from the vantage point as a healthcare worker (which I am not).

Thanks for providing the final push for me on this - yet another barb thrown for no particular reason. I've tried really hard to discuss things with you, and I've realized that one of the overriding reasons I've done so is to convince you that my motivation (and probably a little bit for other pro-life people as well) aren't so abhorrent as you seem to think. I'm clearly never going to convince you of this, so *queue the dramatic music* I've decided to put you on my ignore list to the cheers of the general silent majority, who I'm sure are tired of our back and forth :-). I've spent way too much time filled with frustration over you not actually listening to me and wanting to assume the worst of me. You've made it perfectly clear that your opinion is never going to change.

I truly wish you the best in life and everything, and I hope that one day you can realize that people who disagree with you on this topic are not the monsters that you seem to think we are.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

From this background and vantage point - you may be missing the second part of the logical jigsaw puzzle leading to progressive intransigence on this one point:
The pro-life demand is to abrogate a basic human right - the right to choose what one does with his/her body.

If it was just about property rights (like the "slavery" question, from the slave owner's perspective) - then the stakes are lower, and the weightage attached to the liberty question is much lower.

Calibrate your logical weightage with this principle that basic human rights trump other types of rights (e.g. property rights), and the perceived "progressive hypocrisy" on this topic goes away.

Ok, but ignoring the property rights examples, the freedom to practice one's religion (not as far as passing laws, but simply as far as how one's own conduct is guided) is also considered a basic human right with very high stakes, and progressives often seem pretty comfortable with abrogating that where it contradicts their own morality.

Practicing one’s religion is one thing. Trying to impose it on someone else is another.

You practice your religion. That in no way should affect my decisions.

Several people have espoused this point, but yours has been the most succinct.

If you would, can you please tell me what the difference is to you between someone being motivated by their religion to pass something into law restricting it, and someone being motivated by their conscious or whatnot to pass a different law restricting something? This is assuming we're not talking about imposing someone's religion in terms of dictating that they come to church on Sunday morning and worship but instead that they are guided by ethics that come from a religious standpoint to see something as immoral whereas others would be guided by their conscious/upbringing/whatever else to see something else is immoral or to disagree about morality. If you would prefer to not answer and/or others would, that's great. I'm just curious as to the line of reasoning.

[Kris]

From this background and vantage point - you may be missing the second part of the logical jigsaw puzzle leading to progressive intransigence on this one point:
The pro-life demand is to abrogate a basic human right - the right to choose what one does with his/her body.

If it was just about property rights (like the "slavery" question, from the slave owner's perspective) - then the stakes are lower, and the weightage attached to the liberty question is much lower.

Calibrate your logical weightage with this principle that basic human rights trump other types of rights (e.g. property rights), and the perceived "progressive hypocrisy" on this topic goes away.

Ok, but ignoring the property rights examples, the freedom to practice one's religion (not as far as passing laws, but simply as far as how one's own conduct is guided) is also considered a basic human right with very high stakes, and progressives often seem pretty comfortable with abrogating that where it contradicts their own morality.

Practicing one’s religion is one thing. Trying to impose it on someone else is another.

You practice your religion. That in no way should affect my decisions.

Several people have espoused this point, but yours has been the most succinct.

If you would, can you please tell me what the difference is to you between someone being motivated by their religion to pass something into law restricting it, and someone being motivated by their conscious or whatnot to pass a different law restricting something? This is assuming we're not talking about imposing someone's religion in terms of dictating that they come to church on Sunday morning and worship but instead that they are guided by ethics that come from a religious standpoint to see something as immoral whereas others would be guided by their conscious/upbringing/whatever else to see something else is immoral or to disagree about morality. If you would prefer to not answer and/or others would, that's great. I'm just curious as to the line of reasoning.

The “life begins at conception” idea is not supported by science. It is supported by a religion (recent right-leaning Christianity).

Your (general sense) belief in this should not impact my decision. Or my body.

[GuitarStv]

From this background and vantage point - you may be missing the second part of the logical jigsaw puzzle leading to progressive intransigence on this one point:
The pro-life demand is to abrogate a basic human right - the right to choose what one does with his/her body.

If it was just about property rights (like the "slavery" question, from the slave owner's perspective) - then the stakes are lower, and the weightage attached to the liberty question is much lower.

Calibrate your logical weightage with this principle that basic human rights trump other types of rights (e.g. property rights), and the perceived "progressive hypocrisy" on this topic goes away.

Ok, but ignoring the property rights examples, the freedom to practice one's religion (not as far as passing laws, but simply as far as how one's own conduct is guided) is also considered a basic human right with very high stakes, and progressives often seem pretty comfortable with abrogating that where it contradicts their own morality.

Practicing one’s religion is one thing. Trying to impose it on someone else is another.

You practice your religion. That in no way should affect my decisions.

Several people have espoused this point, but yours has been the most succinct.

If you would, can you please tell me what the difference is to you between someone being motivated by their religion to pass something into law restricting it, and someone being motivated by their conscious or whatnot to pass a different law restricting something? This is assuming we're not talking about imposing someone's religion in terms of dictating that they come to church on Sunday morning and worship but instead that they are guided by ethics that come from a religious standpoint to see something as immoral whereas others would be guided by their conscious/upbringing/whatever else to see something else is immoral or to disagree about morality. If you would prefer to not answer and/or others would, that's great. I'm just curious as to the line of reasoning.

The “life begins at conception” idea is not supported by science. It is supported by a religion (recent right-leaning Christianity).

Your (general sense) belief in this should not impact my decision. Or my body.

Science indicates that life begins well before conception.  Sperm and ova are alive by every measurement I'm aware of.

Therefore the concept of 'when life begins' is somewhat of a red herring.  What we care about (when discussing abortion) is when the collection of cells/fetus/child becomes a human being with rights.  This is a moral call, not a scientific one.  To be fair to Wolfpack, I'd actually argue that it's an appropriate place to apply the religion or philosophy that you follow.

That's why I prefer to focus on the issue of the woman's right to autonomy of person.  It sidesteps the sticky moral question of the definition of human entirely.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

From this background and vantage point - you may be missing the second part of the logical jigsaw puzzle leading to progressive intransigence on this one point:
The pro-life demand is to abrogate a basic human right - the right to choose what one does with his/her body.

If it was just about property rights (like the "slavery" question, from the slave owner's perspective) - then the stakes are lower, and the weightage attached to the liberty question is much lower.

Calibrate your logical weightage with this principle that basic human rights trump other types of rights (e.g. property rights), and the perceived "progressive hypocrisy" on this topic goes away.

Ok, but ignoring the property rights examples, the freedom to practice one's religion (not as far as passing laws, but simply as far as how one's own conduct is guided) is also considered a basic human right with very high stakes, and progressives often seem pretty comfortable with abrogating that where it contradicts their own morality.

Practicing one’s religion is one thing. Trying to impose it on someone else is another.

You practice your religion. That in no way should affect my decisions.

Several people have espoused this point, but yours has been the most succinct.

If you would, can you please tell me what the difference is to you between someone being motivated by their religion to pass something into law restricting it, and someone being motivated by their conscious or whatnot to pass a different law restricting something? This is assuming we're not talking about imposing someone's religion in terms of dictating that they come to church on Sunday morning and worship but instead that they are guided by ethics that come from a religious standpoint to see something as immoral whereas others would be guided by their conscious/upbringing/whatever else to see something else is immoral or to disagree about morality. If you would prefer to not answer and/or others would, that's great. I'm just curious as to the line of reasoning.

The “life begins at conception” idea is not supported by science. It is supported by a religion (recent right-leaning Christianity).

Your (general sense) belief in this should not impact my decision. Or my body.

I guess what I'm getting at is, there's a lot of things science doesn't support one way or the other. Pretty much every ethical issue science doesn't really support. It doesn't support that theft is bad or someone doesn't have the right to impose their will on someone else. That's where ethics come in, and aren't all of our ethics guided by something one way or the other? I've always had a hard time seeing the distinction between an ethical point guided by religion and an ethical point guided by, well, not religion.

[Kris]

From this background and vantage point - you may be missing the second part of the logical jigsaw puzzle leading to progressive intransigence on this one point:
The pro-life demand is to abrogate a basic human right - the right to choose what one does with his/her body.

If it was just about property rights (like the "slavery" question, from the slave owner's perspective) - then the stakes are lower, and the weightage attached to the liberty question is much lower.

Calibrate your logical weightage with this principle that basic human rights trump other types of rights (e.g. property rights), and the perceived "progressive hypocrisy" on this topic goes away.

Ok, but ignoring the property rights examples, the freedom to practice one's religion (not as far as passing laws, but simply as far as how one's own conduct is guided) is also considered a basic human right with very high stakes, and progressives often seem pretty comfortable with abrogating that where it contradicts their own morality.

Practicing one’s religion is one thing. Trying to impose it on someone else is another.

You practice your religion. That in no way should affect my decisions.

Several people have espoused this point, but yours has been the most succinct.

If you would, can you please tell me what the difference is to you between someone being motivated by their religion to pass something into law restricting it, and someone being motivated by their conscious or whatnot to pass a different law restricting something? This is assuming we're not talking about imposing someone's religion in terms of dictating that they come to church on Sunday morning and worship but instead that they are guided by ethics that come from a religious standpoint to see something as immoral whereas others would be guided by their conscious/upbringing/whatever else to see something else is immoral or to disagree about morality. If you would prefer to not answer and/or others would, that's great. I'm just curious as to the line of reasoning.

The “life begins at conception” idea is not supported by science. It is supported by a religion (recent right-leaning Christianity).

Your (general sense) belief in this should not impact my decision. Or my body.

I guess what I'm getting at is, there's a lot of things science doesn't support one way or the other. Pretty much every ethical issue science doesn't really support. It doesn't support that theft is bad or someone doesn't have the right to impose their will on someone else. That's where ethics come in, and aren't all of our ethics guided by something one way or the other? I've always had a hard time seeing the distinction between an ethical point guided by religion and an ethical point guided by, well, not religion.

Not every issue claims to have a scientific basis, though.

Ethics are guided by something, yes. But we have separation of church and state. So no, ethical points almost exclusively guided by one person or group’s religion are not valid.

[Wolfpack Mustachian]

First, I'll say, I still feel that tree is an imprecise analogy because, again, tree itself has connotations (I'll get into connotations for human down below) of maturity. It really is akin to the phrase adult in most people's minds, which is why it's not really getting to the heart of our discussion.

You never did go into the connotations for the word human.

Before you do, I'll try to make myself more clear and I'll dispense with the severed hand analogy. 

The word "human" has connotations.  If I say the word "human" to you I doubt very very very much the image that comes to your mind is a single cell organism wholly dependent upon some form of life support to remain alive.  I would lay any odds you care to name that if you are honest you will admit that the image that comes to mind is that of something that at least resembles a developed body and perhaps with some form of consciousness/awareness/personality (whether intact and undamaged or not....for example a "human" who is in a vegetative state).  Maybe two arms, two legs, a head, body, smiling face, etc etc.  That's because the word "human" has connotations.

So I will agree with you that the sprouted acorn is a flawed analogy because the word "tree" comes with connotations.  I'm willing to toss that analogy out the window because "connotations". 

In doing so however, I also expect you to be consistent and admit that the word human has connotations.  Therefore you should, if you want to be consistent and discuss in good faith, admit that describing a single cell organism as a "living human" has connotations as well and is a deliberate attempt to describe something in way that is not accurate at all when considering the "connotations" that come with the description.

That's a good point. I would disagree with it because of a few of things.  One is, an issue I wasn't able to articulate until I thought about it, is that the analogy is adding the term tree onto oak. Oak is a good tie-in to human. Tree by definition is added separately, so it truly is as if you are saying adult human or human child - it's an additional adjective. That's the biggest reason, I would say, why that analogy doesn't work, and it doesn't really rely on connotation - it relies on the fact that you're literally treating one word "oak" differently from the other word, "human" because you're adding something in one instance but not in the other.

Those are not my main concern though. Overall, I would agree that yes, the word human definitely does have connotations. My first point is that we don't need to use connotations - it meets the definitions of human and life. There are connotations for a crap ton of things that may or may not apply to the conversation. I can say, I believe (because of what I've mentioned before about the words human life and because of other stuff I've thought of that differentiate this with the severed hand analogy that we can get into if you'd like) that human life in a fairly context-free situation fits unborn.

Second, you call out that there is the context for the word human. I don't disagree with this, but I very glad you brought up your examples, because it's a perfect illustration of the problems of connotation! You say "I would lay any odds you care to name that if you are honest you will admit that the image that comes to mind is that of something that at least resembles a developed body and perhaps with some form of consciousness/awareness/personality.  Maybe two arms, two legs, a head, body, smiling face, etc etc.  That's because the word "human" has connotations." Yes! You're absolutely right. The general human connotation does probably engender an average dude, 2 arms, 2 legs, a head, body, smiling, etc. But that's kind of my whole point. In any other context, connotations like that would be rightfully frowned upon; I mean, right? 2 arms, 2 legs, etc. aren't required to be a human. What about awareness or personality? Are we declaring people with severe mental disabilities as not human because a lack of some of this other "connotation" of being human? The connotation doesn't make the point. In other situations, it may not be as distasteful as labeling of someone as not a human who is disfigured or whatever; it may be simply a connotation of awareness/personality when someone is in a vegetative state. In that point, again, I doubt if push came to shove, people would say that they were not human because of it.

You've said that you feel like I need to take context into account in discussing in good faith. I feel like that is a very poor argument literally because of the very examples you gave. Yes, I am insisting on declaring the unborn human life because the connotations are crap. Best case, they are poorly thought out (thinking of a human in terms of their consciousness when most people would still call a human in a vegetative state as human); worst case it's really a very disturbing and repugnant connotation to take (2 arms, 2 legs, a certain level of consciousness/intellect). As I've mentioned before, these "connotations" and following through with the dehumanizing nature of them have lead to discrimination and loathsome behaviors.

I think it's in completely good faith to insist on calling unborn human life because it's very easy to defend calling the unborn that in a contextless environment with base definitions and yes, at least some scientific backing. So it's easy to defend it without context, and with context, well, that context is worthy of being disputed and fought against. There are a ton of things about the unborn that go aginst the connotations of humans that most people have, but those connotations range from: at best a simplistic check box because we don't need to think fully through the word human every time we use it to at worst, inappropriate biases that lead us to look down on others who are different from us, of which I would include the unborn in that category.