Does a pregnant woman carry a human being/person or just 'life'/meat?

[Lacewing]

Ah Henry, more of your dishonor and childishness on full display... misrepresenting my quote in order to distort and evade. That's just the only level you're capable of operating at, I guess.

[henry quirk]

"When examining the root causes of a war they're seldom as black and white, just or unjust as you make it out to be."

Of course not: war always has too many chefs in the kitchen, too many agendas at play, unlike abortion which is always one unjustly deciding the fate of another.

As I say: the comparison (death in war and death in the clinic) is poor and you probably shouldn't have brought it up.

#

"being "blameless" won't protect it from being dispensed with for reasons considered valid or not by whoever thinks they have a moral right and obligation to judge."

Of course not. I never said or hinted that innocence (or one's right to his own life) insulated a person from predation. Countless human beings have been rubbed out unjustly, and the murderers never got their comeuppance (not in this life, anyway). Thing is: morality isn't an exercise in practicality but a striving for what ought be.

In context: it's not about can Jane abort but ought Jane abort.

#

"What makes them so special compared to a dog or a cow?

As a deist I say it's because a human being has a soul.

As a libertarian I say it's because a human being owns himself.

#

"Owning oneself means being independent and being responsible."

A crack addict, as dependent and irresponsible as one can be, still owns himself. Self-ownership means 'you' are your first, best property and you ought not be used or discarded as though you belong to another.

[henry quirk]

Yeah, ain't I a stinker?

[Lacewing]

If you read some of her posts there's no doubt that she's "off with the pixies". My guess is that she' thinks she's still living in 1969, dropping acid during "The Summer of Love"; either that or she's smoking too much skunk for her own good.

Such assessments and conclusions are so shallow and stupid. They simply show how thick and childish you are. This is probably why you and Henry have "hit it off". Two stupid men agreeing with each other about people and things they have no clue of.

[henry quirk]

Yeah, ain't Dachshund a stinker?

[I Like Sushu]

I eat baby sheep. They’re delicious!

I haven’t trued human babies ... yet

[Dubious]

Of course not: war always has too many chefs in the kitchen, too many agendas at play, unlike abortion which is always one unjustly deciding the fate of another.

Again, you are not in a position to decide what is unjust since you're not in the position of one who must decide or any of that person's circumstances.

Your modus on this subject is to proceed by an absolute moral verdict that abortion is evil based on the innocence of a fetus which isn't yet a child. This, and it couldn't be clearer, is a gross contradiction since "innocence" has no connection to any natural biological event.

Such as you and IC can only rationalize it that way by imposing a strict moral rule to justify your opinion which is all it is. But moralities are solely our constructions; when they interfere with realities such as imposed by biology, it should be clear (to most people) which takes precedence.

As I say: the comparison (death in war and death in the clinic) is poor and you probably shouldn't have brought it up.

...a convenient dichotomy deserving further examination.

The consequences of death in war is far worse than death in a clinic. Why? Because in the former it's the husband, the father who is lost to a family. In the latter it simply defaults in never getting to know a preempted possibility. I believe the upshot of this calculation should be obvious to most.

In context: it's not about can Jane abort but ought Jane abort.

Absolutely if it grows uninvited. Blackmailing her with the innocence of the child and suchlike crap is what I find disgusting.

Me:

"What makes them so special compared to a dog or a cow?

You:

As a deist I say it's because a human being has a soul.

...and there's the crux! Remove the concept of soul, which as most other abstractions can only be expressed by imagination, and what remains is a small piece of meat growing in a larger one. Brutal, I know, but that's life or nature as we really know it. Humans are more fastidious because it puts them squarely in the animal kingdom which doesn't conform well with how they wish to perceive themselves. You're an example of that. Animals are only there to find a home in your belly. Ain't that so?

If it's impossible to describe what a soul is without going theistic than how can you possibly know you have one but animals remain exempt? Since biology doesn't create souls, who gave you one? God! who couldn't give a crap as to how many of the innocent and blameless get aborted or how many have died after two or three years of life when the loss is most painful! If god who gave you a soul isn't concerned then why this silly moralizing over abortions by people like you and IC?

I wonder in what far-off year all this theistic BS will flush itself never to appear again.

As a libertarian I say it's because a human being owns himself.

You're a little premature on this libertarian or not. If a fetus doesn't even know it exists how can it own itself? Its owner is clearly its host. If not, then who does it belong to? You keep conflating a developed human with its beginnings in the mother. They're not the same. One is a known entity; the other unknown.

Nature doesn't ask under what circumstances a woman gets pregnant. It proceeds mechanically according to biology. Ergo, it's up to her to decide whether abortion is thoroughly justified in getting rid of something which shouldn't have happened to her in the first place without any judgemental presupposition of innocence or guilt which is nothing more than a ludicrous concept when applied to the creation of ANY biological entity. That it should have anything to do with you or "feelings" on the matter is nothing more than sanctimonious bullshit.

Abortion as a process is perfectly justified and not in the least immoral when that growing in a person took root involuntarily and especially so if induced by force. It's natural to want to get rid of something you didn't invite and nothing wrong with doing so.

[henry quirk]

"you are not in a position to decide what is unjust since you're not in the position of one who must decide or any of that person's circumstances."

So: 'judgement' is never about an 'objective' standard and always about 'subjective' experience.

Never judge till you've walked a mile in the other guy's shoes, yeah?

Well, I've never engaged in pedophilia, so I guess I can't judge the child raper. After all: Chester the Molester, I'm sure, has all manner of 'good reasons' for his actions, just as Abby the Aborting has all manner of 'good reasons' for hers.

#

"Your modus on this subject is to proceed by an absolute moral verdict that abortion is evil based on the innocence of a fetus which isn't yet a child."

No. I simply say it's wrong to kill a person (in or out of the womb) who's commited no crime (who is innocent [or, 'not guilty' if you prefer]).

#

"moralities are solely our constructions"

Evidence, please.

#

"The consequences of death in war is far worse than death in a clinic."

Only as one weighs one death against many. The gravity of the single death isn't diminished in the comparison, no, the many deaths are simple that much more devastating.

#

"Remove the concept of soul, which as most other abstractions can only be expressed by imagination, and what remains is a small piece of meat"

No. Remove the concept of soul from the conversation and you still have a person for most of the pregnancy. From week 12 on, the biological machinery that you have, that I have, exists and functions in lil fetus person. He's complete, just underdeveloped.

I believe a person has, is, a soul, but I don't require the soul for my argument. I was clear upthread: I've been adhereing to a purely materialistic position.

#

"Animals are only there to find a home in your belly. Ain't that so?"

The day Betsy exhibits 'personhood': I stop eating beef.

#

"If a fetus doesn't even know it exists how can it own itself?

Jane, a healthy 23 year old,  gets bonked on the head. She's not brain dead. She's comatose. She doesn't know she exists. You mean to say she doesn't belong to herself?

You, in a dreamless sleep, don't own yourself?

#

"One is a known entity; the other unknown."

Yes, two distinct beings, two people.

#

"Abortion as a process is perfectly justified and not in the least immoral when that growing in a person took root involuntarily and especially so if induced by force. It's natural to want to get rid of something you didn't invite and nothing wrong with doing so."

No, abortion is (excepting some narrow, verifiable, circumstances) unjustified beyond week 12 (and probably well before). From week 12 on (and probably well before) abortion is the obliteration of a human being for no reason at all 'cept convenience. It may be natural to wanna get rid of an 'unintended consequence or result', but that don't make it right.

[Dubious]

Yapping with you turns out to be no different than yapping with IC. I had a higher opinion of you even in disagreement

Since I've written him off and his slimy ways you'll be happy to know the same goes for you. It's impossible to communicate with theists or the brain-dead which you would have to be in asking for evidence that morality is solely our construction, etc., as if anything so obvious were still news to anyone...except theists of course. If anything, communicating with guys like you convinces me even more in the absolute legitimacy of abortions.

[henry quirk]

I knew you'd tap out...just thought you'd be more 'original'.

No, I don't believe you're outraged about my askin' for evidence that morality is nuthin' but a human construct.

I think this -- 'Remove the concept of soul from the conversation and you still have a person for most of the pregnancy. From week 12 on, the biological machinery that you have, that I have, exists and functions in lil fetus person. He's complete, just underdeveloped.' -- is what has you flummoxed.

I'd like to talk more, but you're optin' out.

As you like.









btw: for what it's worth, I'm not christian, I'm deist...not the same thing at all (Crom ain't Jehovah)

[Immanuel Can]

Since I've written him off...

Yep.

I figured you had no other way out.

Or you could answer that question about when it's in a child's best interest to be murdered instead of adopted.

Or that question about why you recognize third-term late abortions as an evil, but think other ones are just fine.

Check that: I guess I know you can't answer either question.

And that's the reason we're done, I'm thinking.

[Dubious]

What has me flummoxed as you say is that I have to repeat myself over and over again. I've given reasons for my views multiple times and I'm not going to keep repeating them. It gets boring. Your views are based on the idea that life is sacred and that morality comes from on high otherwise you wouldn't have asked me to present evidence that morality is our construct - not a new idea even to the more intelligent among the ancient Romans or Greeks. So be it. To me in summary, as you already know, abortion is a completely legit solution to prevent incubating what was caused by a transgressionary act.

Example: during the Berlin occupancy by the Soviet Army when many thousands got raped and gang raped even in hospitals and children already knew what was meant when a Russian said "Frau Komm" having heard it so often. Obviously nature, which doesn't care, took it's usual course. Were these women supposed to carry to term or get it cut out of them and dump it. Obviously you don't keep something like that inside you but remove it without sympathy or regret. With your hypocritical humanism, you guys think it should be kept because it "belongs to itself", it's innocent and blameless and it's human which makes it inviolable....which to me makes no sense at all; total garbage.

But its not your objections which get me riled, it's the way you argue and in that respect IC is still the king of slime and you not far behind. Lace was right in thinking the pair of you as disgusting hypocrits.

You deists or theists really don't give a crap and only remain superbly moral as long as it doesn't cost you anything.

[henry quirk]

You claimed you were opting out cuz I had the temerity to suggest mebbe morality isn't solely a human construct. Now you claim you opted out cuz...

"What has me flummoxed as you say is that I have to repeat myself over and over again."

Yeah, me too. I've repeated myself, you've repeated yourself. Boo hoo.

#

"I've given reasons for my views multiple times and I'm not going to keep repeating them."

No, you haven't. Here's the sum of what you've offered: it's not a child, a woman can dispose of it as she likes, you and Mannie are dicks. These are just unfounded, unsourced opinions, not reasons.

Me: I've offered actual thinking on the subject, a coherent reasoning...which you and others have mostly ignored

#

"Your views are based on the idea that life is sacred and that morality comes from on high otherwise you wouldn't have asked me to present evidence that morality is our construct"

Nope. I've never said or hinted that life sacred, never said morality comes from on high, and only asked you to back up your statement that morality is a human construct cuz you laid it out as though it were a given, which it isn't.

#

"abortion is a completely legit solution to prevent incubating what was caused by a transgressionary act."

If every abortion were performed to deal with the end result of rape, you might have a point. Most abortions, however, have nuthin' to do with ridding one's self of a rape baby, and most abortions aren't performed out of dire medical necessity. No, most abortions are done for convenience (an absolutely awful reason to rub out a human being).

Sure, war overflows with atrocity, but you know damn well, today, in most of the West, most folks aren't livin' in the midst of war.

#

"But its not your objections which get me riled, it's the way you argue"

I've been straightforward and haven't ignored any of your opinions or statements (including the curveballs you threw...can't say I hit a homerun every time but I did connect every time and advanced to next base). You, on the other hand, have been insulting, conniving, obfuscatory...you made no case for why what a pregnant woman carries is not a person, you just said 'it's not'. And when confronted with a hard fact (from 12 weeks on the baby is complete just underdeveloped) you stomp your feet and storm off.

#

"You deists or theists really don't give a crap and only remain superbly moral as long as it doesn't cost you anything."

There you go again: spewin' your opinion out as though it were fact, not understanding my position or Mannie's, not cuz you can't but cuz you don't want to.

As you like.

[Dachshund]

[


Your entire premise regarding abortion is based solely on the ridiculous and demeaning assumption that human life is sacred...note, ONLY human life. What a truly disgusting idea that is. By what holy magic did it become sacred?

Abortion ?


"Ask not for whom the bell tolls", Dubious.


Dachshund

Wow! That took a lot of effort. Any more pathetic attempts to make the incomprehensible look profound?

Dear Dubious,



I am surprised that you do not recognise the quote: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls", I think that most adults in the Western world are familiar with it. It was written in 1623 by the famous, English metaphysical poet, John Donne (1572-1631), in a passage of prose called "Meditation XVII". "Meditation XVII" was, in turn, included in a book that Donne wrote entitled: "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions." Over the years the 6th paragraph of "Meditation XVII" has acquired the status of being a short poem in its own right that is typically called: "No Man is an Island."



Before I explain anything else, you will need to read this "poem" for yourself to get a rough feel of what it is about...




NO MAN IS AN ISLAND



No man is an island entire of itself, every man

is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;

If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe

is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as

well in any manor of thy friend's or of thine

own were; any man's death diminishes me,

because I am involved in all mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom

the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.



************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

NB:



(1) promontory; a promontory is a point of high land like a cliff, for example, that juts out over the sea.

(2) clod; a clod is a lump of dirt/earth.

(3) manor; a manor is a large, privately-owned country house or mansion.


************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************



Here is how the poem is usually interpreted...( if you want to get a better idea of the themes, below, you really should read the whole of John Donne's "Meditation XVII"; remember the "poem", "No Man is an Island", is just one paragraph of the later. "Meditation XVII" is not that lengthy, BTW, so its worth taking a little bit of time out to read it, especially if you are interested in philosophy which obviously you are).



When John Donne says "No man is an island" he means that no human being/person can decide to extricate and isolate himself ( I will use himself, he and man in what follows for convenience; i.e; so that I do not need to be repeatedly writing: he/she, himself/herself, man/woman, etc.) from the rest of the living, breathing cosmic continuum and pretend to be complete of his own identity/positionality - of the integrity of his stance. t is ridiculous to imagine that one man can grow and thrive in society without the love and affection of other human beings/person such as those in his family and those who are his friends and ,more broadly speaking, his fellow citizens. Right from the outset John Done destroys the myth of individualistic self-sufficiency which has long been propagated for Western man as a master of nature as well as of the self.



But John Donne goes further than this. When he says "I am involved in ALL mankind" he means it very literally. He has discovered his relationship with ALL people, and insists that the individual is just a component of the larger mass of humanity. The last word of the poem, "thee", for instance, is intended to refer to that collective "thee" which is the entire, unified race of mankind, across all divisions and prescriptions of race/ethnicity, class, gender, age and so on. No man can be an insular, disconnected, solitary island not merely because we NEED one other as human beings/persons, and we cannot thrive and flourish if we are isolated from each other. That would be the simplistic, literal interpretaton of what the poet is saying and would likely insult him. What John Donne is proposing is that his involvement with mankind is a politically-charged commitment to ALL of humanity. The person is, if you like, political, and the political is , likewise personal, and boundaries can only be sustained for so long. Because essentially, there are no boundaries between you and I - they do not really exist.




In the winter of 1623 the bubonic plague was sweeping through England with terrifying force and speed, (eventually it led to the death of 40,000 persons in London alone), and John Donne became gravely ill. The practice of tolling a bell (e.g. a cathedral or church bell) to announce a death was customary in England until the late 18th century, and as Donne lay on his sickbed he could hear the sound of bells tolling repeatedly to announce the deaths of his neighbours and fellow parishioners. In the poem, the bell which tolls in silent remembrance of the deceased is there to remind us that it is OUR loss. The tolling bell sends a ripple out into the world, and signifies not just the dead of another individual, but a collective death, because ALL human suffering impacts and affects each one of us - every member of the entire human family. When I was younger I worked as a pharmacist, and I am reminded here of a chemical substance called hexamethyl paraosaniline or"Crystal Violet" for short, because it naturally occurs as shiny, little crystals that have a very deep, dark purple colour. I'll see if I can use it (Crystal Violet) to provide an analogy for what John Donne says about the bell that tolls to announce the death of an individual person. If you imagine a swimming pool full of perfectly clear water, taking a tiny pinch of Crystal Violet,- literally between thumb and forefinger-, and dropping it into that swimming pool will very quickly turn ALL of the clear water, purple-coloured. In other words, the tiniest amount of Crystal Violet can discolour/taint a comparatively massive volume of colourless water, just as John Donne tells us that the death of one individual person can reverberate grief throughout the entire, "continent" of all humanity/mankind.




Abortion does not just concern the death (murder) of a pre-born child, it concerns every one of us. As John Donne says...




"Any man's (human being's/human person's) death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to ask for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee (i.e; all humanity).




We cannot diminish the value of any category of human life (e.g. the pre-born or the infant) without diminishing the value of ALL human life. The social acceptance, in the United States, of abortion-on-demand over the whole 9 months of pregnancy is a defiance of the long-held Western ethic of intrinsic and equal value being being recognised for every single human life regardless of its stage of development, condition or status. The right to life vouchsafed in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution would - said its drafter Congressman John A. Bingham - apply to "any human being."




Either human life is always and in all circumstances sacred, or intrinsically of no account; it is inconceivable that it should be in some cases the one, and in some cases the other.




In the 46 years since the US Supreme Court legalised abortion-on-demand throughout the whole 9 months of pregnancy, some 50 million pre-born children and infants have had their lives snuffed out. When the sanctity of life ethic is rejected by a nation - whenever any society can be misled into defining individuals as being less than human beings/persons and therefore devoid of value and respect, the cultural environment for a human holocaust is present. This happened during World War 2 and resulted in the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis. And it has been happening in America since 1973 with the murder (to date) of around 50 million pre-born children and infants. The later has been a silent holocaust; no bells have ever tolled to announce and honour the deaths of any of these innocent little human being/persons. No one was sent to ask for whom (metaphorically speaking) the bells tolled because no bells ever rang out for any one of the countless dead who were thrown out with the trash. The sheer enormity of this tragedy is inconceivable...ineffable...incommunicable.




America cannot survive as a free nation when some men are permitted to decide that that other persons are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. If the US is to be preserved as a free land, there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than the affirmation of the transcendent right to life of all human beings/persons, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.





Kindest Regards




Dachshund

[Dubious]

As you like.

I agree or better said "To each his own". If you want to get sentimental about a fetus its your right. But for me it's the mother who decides its fate first and foremost. All other expressions of opinion - depending on its sincerity and not someone's personal version of morality including all that mythical soul bullshit - may be considered by her but in the end she and ONLY SHE remains the final arbiter of its fate. In the meantime those like you and IC can keep on theorizing as much as you like. It all amounts to nothing!