Is sex-selective abortion an immoral thing to do?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

If you want to talk about 'value' then what does that mean? The people I love are 'valuable' to me, but no one but those who are close to them gives a toss about them. Clearly humans do NOT value other humans, or we wouldn't have wars, or idolise the military (professional people killers). There are far too many humans anyway, so in that sense many other animal species are far more valuable eg. those that we have slaughtered to the brink of extinction.

God, you have such a tribalistic way of thinking about things; Most people, as individuals, have not started any wars, or slaughtered any species to the brink of extinction. And no, most people do not idolize their own military.

You take these examples of human atrocities and apply them to the core of everyone's personality. It's gross.

That's shallow bullshit. If most 'individuals' were against war then we wouldn't have wars. Very few people are genuinely anti-war. Politicians never seem to be short of suckers to do their dirty work. How are you defining 'atrocity'?

What do you mean by 'tribalistic way of thinking'? Or are you just being a yank and spewing out meaningless buzzphrases?

[vegetariantaxidermy]

"We"? Who's the "we"

Anyone questioning the morality of abortion.

You surely can't be saying that "anyone questioning the morality of abortion" has the right to say who's human and who's not. If you were, that would suggest that one human's value can be determined by asking another, and that if they "question" the value, then there is none.

What "attributes"? Do you mean that if "we" don't think a person has "attributes" "we" consider "relevant" to something "we" want, then "we" get to classify them as sub or non-human and flush them into a sink after forcibly dismembering them?

Well, I assume you don't just think that humans are valuable for the reason of 'just because;' Why is it that people have value, to you?

Well, as a Christian, I believe that all human beings have a value in the eyes of God. Human judgments don't even matter on this, so...

Is it intelligence, the cultural implications, an endowed eternal soul, or an amalgamation of all the above - or so much more?

\
...the answer is "none of that list."

I think you made the point about self-defense; there seems to be things which takes that value away.

Only one thing, because it's impossible to diminish the intrinsic value of one life as against another. So the "self-defence" situation is a wash -- one person will die either way. And that provides the only possible exception to the immorality of abortion, too: when a life is going to be lost anyway, or possibly two.

But this discussion, as you have established, is about elective abortion. And genuinely life-saving abortions are not "elective." You've got no options there.

There's no line.

I think you're jumping the gun a bit. Just because you can't find exactly where the line is, doesn't mean it's not clearly there. It's something I need to do more research on, but as I said, it's self-apparent to most people that a third-trimester fetus is much different than an embryo. In fact, I'd say it's as self-apparent as the difference between the death of a toddler, and a miscarriage.

The problem is that you think it's a clear line, but it's not. Two cases: Canada has no restrictions on abortion at all. And in Virginia, the governor wants the life of a post-born baby, viable and separate from the mother, to remain relative to whether or not the "mother" wants it to live.

So if there's a "clear" line there, what do you say it is? And how do you prove to Canadian or Virginian lawmakers that you're right, and they're wrong?

Actually, abortion is nothing but infanticide

I think that's a pretty extreme position.

Not if it's true.

There's generally this consensus among them (the pro-lifers) that women aren't the ones who should be punished

That's a separate issue from the rightness or wrongness of what they did. Neither "consensus" nor the rigours of "punishment" tell us anything definitive about that.

I mean, do you have the exact same apprehension around a convicted felon who's murdered his own child, as you would a woman (or doctor, if you think that's where the blame lies) who's had an abortion? Personally, I wouldn't even want to be in the same room as the convict.

I've frequently been in the same room as convicts (no, not because I was sharing a cell; I've been involved in felon reintegration), and been totally fine with that. They've paid their due, and they've faced justice. Some of them are actually quite decent people, who only got caught in a bad situation once. But to sit in the room with an abortion doctor, and pretend what he repeatedly does for a living is okay? It's pretty clear to me which is worse.

Some of you guys probably know more about american politics than most americans.

Yeah, that's true. And it's fun to watch sometimes. But the abortion thing is a slow-motion horror show.

Anyway, the thing about the whole situation in Virginia is that the bill you're talking about didn't even present anything that new;

Actually, what's new is that the governor has come out in favour of allowing women to kill (at least by neglect) viable babies who've survived botched abortions. That's appalling.

And no, these are not babies with horrible diseases, or babies that would not have survived anyway: they are people like this... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyDdjsZut8Y

And it's no different from the same baby being killed 24 hours later. It's pure infanticide, plain and simple.
[/quote]

It's just a shame that you can't be sucked back into your mother just so you can be late-term aborted. You really are a worthless piece of hypocritical crap.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

Notice how all the anti-choice videos with their disingenuous manipulative bullshit have 'comments disabled'?
Are yank kristians the lowest pond scum in a pond of pond scum?

Less than 1% of abortions are done over the 20 week mark, and that can be for a variety of reasons (that are also none of your business). They have nothing to do with the vast majority of women who abort in the first trimester (again, none of your business).

[Belinda]

Elective abortion is always horrible and immoral . Some elective abortions are the least worst choice of evils. Elective abortion on the basis of the sex of the foetus is particularly bad and I cannot think of any possible moral justification for it

Why do you think it's 'particularly' bad, though? What differentiates the actual substance of it from any acceptable abortion? We can impute a different motive onto the person, but nothing changes about the action itself.

You could have a schizophrenic person who's genuinely convinced of a potent delusion that there are tiny, invisible men inside his toaster; That doesn't mean he's doing something immoral when he decides to pop it down, anyway.

That hypothetical schizophrenic person is nowadays judged to be deluded to the extent that their moral judgement is impaired.What the person did to the little men in the toaster is immoral only if you are judging the madman to be morally responsible.

There is at least one social reasons for abortion , child rape , which is sufficient reason to abort the foetus.

Obviously, conception control is much better than abortion , and the morning after pill is also better than abortion.

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

Well, as a Christian, I believe that all human beings have a value in the eyes of God. Human judgments don't even matter on this, so...

But God also values the fall of a sparrow! Your absolutist, fatalistic, rather punitive version of Christian morality sounds like a cop out from your responsibility as an adult capable of using his God-given reasoning faculty.

[Belinda]

Vegetarian Taxidermy commented on a phrase by SirSisterofSuck :

What do you mean by 'tribalistic way of thinking'? Or are you just being a yank and spewing out meaningless buzzphrases?

It's disappointing to read a post where the author misuses a word or phrase because they don't know what it means.

[Walker]

Notice how all the anti-choice videos with their disingenuous manipulative bullshit have 'comments disabled'?
Are yank kristians the lowest pond scum in a pond of pond scum?

Less than 1% of abortions are done over the 20 week mark, and that can be for a variety of reasons (that are also none of your business). They have nothing to do with the vast majority of women who abort in the first trimester (again, none of your business).

All life begins small and insignificant, and for that reason, smallness and insignificance of a life cannot morally be just cause to kill that life. Doestevsky explored this with Crime and Punishment.

Morally, the fact that a life is small and insignificant is not just cause to end that life.

The extraordinary steps that are taken to end a small and insignificant life are not taken because that life is small and insignificant. Purposeful attention belies the label of small and insignificant. The small life is not insignificant because it is small. It is actually a problem because change is seen as a problem. It is a problem because it is small change, and it is a problem because it will become big change.

Thus, the only moral justification for abortion is that smaller problems of uncontrollable change are easier to solve than bigger problems of uncontrollable change. In other words, the moral justification for death, is that life is a problem ... for the controller. Who is the controller, and what kind of morals are these?

To partially justify using death to solve the problem of a life, all or any aspect of the Big Three of Life (BTL) is devalued by instilling ignorance of the objective value inherent to the Big Three of Life.

What is the BTL?

Conception, Birth, Death.

What is their objective value? Look to how perception of each has been corrupted, e.g., the relative view of conception has been corrupted to mean that the result isn't even life, or part of the life cycle. Doublethink.

[Sir-Sister-of-Suck]

That's shallow bullshit. If most 'individuals' were against war then we wouldn't have wars. Very few people are genuinely anti-war. Politicians never seem to be short of suckers to do their dirty work. How are you defining 'atrocity'?

What do you mean by 'tribalistic way of thinking'? Or are you just being a yank and spewing out meaningless buzzphrases?

Oh, puhhhhhleeeeezzze. Wars never start because of a democratic vote, they happen under the leadership of a powerful few who have turned their backs to their constituents. You know this, you know how the game of politics works; People aren't voting to have declarations of war signed - there are far more people who would vote for the right to smoke weed and masturbate.

What do I mean? You take something my nation has done like the vietnam war and impute that to the conscious of every american; Well I wasn't even born when the vietnam war happened, vege. I don't have anything to do with that mess. In fact, I don't have anything to do with anything my country has ever done.

You're pulling the same crap out of your butt here. Time out.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

That's shallow bullshit. If most 'individuals' were against war then we wouldn't have wars. Very few people are genuinely anti-war. Politicians never seem to be short of suckers to do their dirty work. How are you defining 'atrocity'?

What do you mean by 'tribalistic way of thinking'? Or are you just being a yank and spewing out meaningless buzzphrases?

Oh, puhhhhhleeeeezzze. Wars never start because of a democratic vote, they happen under the leadership of a powerful few who have turned their backs to their constituents. You know this, you know how the game of politics works; People aren't voting to have declarations of war signed - there are far more people who would vote for the right to smoke weed and masturbate.

What do I mean? You take something my nation has done like the vietnam war and impute that to the conscious of every american; Well I wasn't even born when the vietnam war happened, vege. I don't have anything to do with that mess. In fact, I don't have anything to do with anything my country has ever done.

You're pulling the same crap out of your butt here. Time out.

Idiot.

[Belinda]

Walker wrote:

Conception, Birth, Death.

What is their objective value? Look to how perception of each has been corrupted, e.g., the relative view of conception has been corrupted to mean that the result isn't even life, or part of the life cycle. Doublethink.

No event has objective value: human beings evaluate events.

Some human beings influence others' evaluations. A pregnant woman is a vulnerable person and as a matter of Christian charity she should be protected from harm. Her foetus is also vulnerable but is not a person in the fullest meaning of the word 'person'. Personhood is a privilege which cannot be ascribed to anything and everything. The foetus is absolutely dependent upon the mother and therefore she has the ultimate responsibility for her foetus, her responsibility takes precedence over the responsibility of priests or other religionists. The responsibility of priests and other religionists ought to be primarily responsibility for the mother's welfare.

If priests and other religionists condemn the foetus to independent life then the said priests and religionists should also be in loco parentis for the duration of that life.

[Immanuel Can]

But God also values the fall of a sparrow!

Yes, and...?

Your absolutist, fatalistic, rather punitive version of Christian morality sounds like a cop out from your responsibility as an adult capable of using his God-given reasoning faculty.

The human faculty of reason is a wonderful thing, and can do a lot. What it can't do, though, is confer objective value on anything.

[Belinda]

But God also values the fall of a sparrow!

Yes, and...?

Your absolutist, fatalistic, rather punitive version of Christian morality sounds like a cop out from your responsibility as an adult capable of using his God-given reasoning faculty.

The human faculty of reason is a wonderful thing, and can do a lot. What it can't do, though, is confer objective value on anything.

God also values the fall of a sparrow implies that God's charity is out of this world. We are of this world, however and can only try to do our poor imitations of God. To help us in this pathetic endeavour we have to help us Jesus, and Muhammad, and Moses, depending upon which religious sect you prefer. Nothing of Jesus, Muhammad,or Moses implies not being reasoning people to the best of our abilities.


Eternal God is capable of objective evaluation: we are not. There have been men who aim for objective value, however any man who believes that he knows objective value is either a charlatan or an idolater.

[Immanuel Can]

God also values the fall of a sparrow implies that God's charity is out of this world.

Ummm...sparrows are..."out of this world"? I've never seen an extraterrestrial sparrow. But okay.

Eternal God is capable of objective evaluation: we are not.

Quite so. Now you've got it.

But it's "valuation," not "evaluation." It's the conferral of value, not the mere recognition of value, that is the issue.

[Belinda]

God also values the fall of a sparrow implies that God's charity is out of this world.

Ummm...sparrows are..."out of this world"? I've never seen an extraterrestrial sparrow. But okay.

Eternal God is capable of objective evaluation: we are not.

Quite so. Now you've got it.

But it's "valuation," not "evaluation." It's the conferral of value, not the mere recognition of value, that is the issue.

Please don't pretend to be stupid! You know that Jesus often used concrete examples from the daily lives in a rural or everyday community. A large number of sparrows were sold for a farthing.

Valuation evaluation okay whatever you prefer. However you are not using enough of your God-given reason if you insist that God wrote a book of rules.

[Immanuel Can]

A large number of sparrows were sold for a farthing.

I'm missing your point, I fear. Are you suggesting God established the valuation of sparrows at a farthing? You're really going to have to explain your point to me...I can't find it yet.

Valuation evaluation okay whatever you prefer.

It's not a matter of preference; it's a matter of speaking accurately, so as not to imply something you don't mean to imply.