"NEVER MIND THE BOLLOCKS", HERE'S THE SIMPLE TRUTH ABOUT ABORTION

[Nick_A]

"The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment." ― Malcolm Muggeridge

The question of abortion is one of these questions in which the solution is more offensive than the problem. Ethics is by nature subjective and might makes right in determining laws reflecting subjective ethical understanding.

Imagine a woman on her way to an abortion clinic attacked and the fetus within her is killed. The law would call it fetal homicide. But how can this be if the baby is on its way to being aborted? Obviously being limited to subjective values we cannot value life objectively.

Some young men and women feel the value of creating life so are very careful in choosing sex partners. Both have the power of discrimination reflecting objective values as opposed to societal values. But they are in the minority. The majority are attracted to the ultimate orgasm. The idea of sacrificing our corruption for the sake of becoming human represented by the Cross is old fashioned. The orgasm has become the greatest goal and all advertising is directed at taking advantage of this goal

So as long as we accept values being determined by societal whims there is no way to seriously discuss the value of abortion. For example is an abortion of convenience the same as an abortion of a horribly deformed fetus? If we don’t know what gives life objective value we remain limited to arguing over subjective values.

But objective standards have a universal origin so are part of a priori knowledge. A teenage girl is able to remember the value of the life process in which she becomes a part of but society does what it can to prevent remembering so it remains only a potential and she is invited to strive to become a super c-nt for fame, fortune, and influence. Naturally an abortion becomes just a part of becoming an acceptable woman.

A boy seeing a girl striving to become a super c-nt becomes anxious to help her reach her goal so forgets anything he ever sensed on the value of the life process.

Muggeridge suggested that the orgasm has replaced the Cross. He was right but there is no reason to believe it won’t remain so. Yet there is a minority of young girls who feel there is more to becoming a woman than striving for the greatest orgasm and boys who are attracted to girls who sense something more. The girl introduces the boy to "quality." It is natural since boys learn from girls about objective values when they project them. They will value the life process so will not just get drunk and get laid in the back seat leading to an abortion of convenience.

As offensive as abortion is it is more offensive to consider that the reality of what the Cross represents is greater than what the ultimate orgasm represents. It is simply intolerable

[henry quirk]

Mannie,

Jefferson shoulda stuck with 'the individual has an unassailable right to his life, his liberty, his property'.

It's a clean statement, unambiguous, and it forms a neat little circle when taken properly (self-[re]inforcing, the unassailable justfied by the unassailable [then those lil commie atheists couid bugger off]).

And: it lays the proper basis for 'law' (crime & punishment).

#

A_uk,

"Sure, welcome to the human race."

Well, I ain't runnin'. I think I'll just plunk down right here, put my feet up, sip my coffee, and have a smoke.

#

Nick,

I favor Crom, not Christ, but:

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can pursued the question:

You're onto two important things here: the issue of "status" and of the continuum of life, of which Daschund spoke. He's said a lot about the latter, so I'll ask about the former: what aspect of the foetus imparts to it a "status" above "piece of meat"?

By "the status" I meant the social status. I don't know but it's a safe assumption that all societies have regarded something with important and recognisable attributes of the living or dead human as having a higher status than other things. I don't know which societies and which individuals knew or know the early cluster of cells stages of the foetus might become a living human being.

Individuals in our individualistic society differ in their attitudes to what is more rather than less human. My four year old grand daughter was visibly appalled when I casually remarked I had put a broken garden gnome in the dustbin.

Most parents who suffer from a still birth mourn the dead baby and want a respectful funeral. I need to discover the attitude to their foetus of mothers who choose clinical abortion and you could find that out as easily as I could. My guess is that the earlier in the pregnancy the less the psychic trauma to the mother.

As nearly always a difficult moral question such as clinical abortion is best judged case by case with several important variables. There is no case of a happy clinical abortion as those are the least bad option. I suggest the variables that should be considered are :


1 the developmental stage of the foetus

2 the physiological health including the mental health of the mother

3 the social and financial health of the mother

4 society's provision if any for the nurture of unwanted offspring

5 the alternative which is usually back street abortionists.

[Belinda]

Henry Quirk wrote:

Sumthin' croppin' up in your writings & posts is the notion that folks would be 'happier' if they adhered to the principles you outline.

Seems to me: principles aren't about what makes me 'feel better' but about 'doin' right'.

St Augustine said that to love God is to feel happy doing God's will as you don't want to do anything other than what God wants you to do.

In fractured and individualistic societies such as ours God is hard to define.The arguments about clinical abortion are an example of how the good is hard to define. We have to make an important decision without a fail safe guide. The age of relativity is here and has superseded all moral codifications of right and wrong. The noise made by religious fundamentalists is evidence of their final rebellion against modernity.

[Peter Holmes]

Nick_A

You quote Muggeridge with approval: 'The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfillment.'

Perhaps this is supposed to mean that a woman should suffer on the cross of an unwanted pregnancy. The familiar bad smell of Christianity.

And you claim without justification that a moral value is or can be a fact - when that is precisely the moot point here.

[Belinda]

Nick likes the late Malcolm Muggeridge. If Muggeridge really said that soundbite Nick said he said no wonder Muggeridge was not taken seriously even during his lifetime!

[Immanuel Can]

Immanuel Can pursued the question:

You're onto two important things here: the issue of "status" and of the continuum of life, of which Daschund spoke. He's said a lot about the latter, so I'll ask about the former: what aspect of the foetus imparts to it a "status" above "piece of meat"?

By "the status" I meant the social status.

The problems with that are often discussed. If society's attitude determines the worth of an individual, then that individual has no worth society does not assign her. That means she has no recourse against dehumanization by her society. Historically, that has worked out rather badly for women, children and vulnerable minorities.

Individuals in our individualistic society differ in their attitudes to what is more rather than less human. My four year old grand daughter was visibly appalled when I casually remarked I had put a broken garden gnome in the dustbin.

It's the only place for garden gnomes.

Most parents who suffer from a still birth mourn the dead baby and want a respectful funeral.

Good point. My neighbours had one, and they still speak of the little girl as a little girl, and grieve their loss of her, though they have two other children and one on the way. Are they nuts? Or are they onto something there?

I need to discover the attitude to their foetus of mothers who choose clinical abortion and you could find that out as easily as I could.

It might depend on what the aborting woman genuinely believes about the child. But it wouldn't change the real status of the child. Whether a child is a human being is one question; whether the mother knows what she's done is another.

Perhaps that's a good argument for legislating abortion clinics to provide full medical knowledge of their procedures to potential candidates. And it makes you wonder why they refuse to. (Well, actually, it doesn't: it would cut into their business.)

[RCSaunders]

I would say the same of you.

It's fine that you disagree with my view of ethics, but unless you can tell me what you think the nature and principle of ethical principles are,...

I've started to. But we disagree on such basics that it's pretty hard to get started.

Then let's begin with one simple thing: the nature of values. Do you believe values are intrinsic (or inherint) or are they expressions of relationship; that is, are some things or acts just good or bad? Can a thing or act be good or bad if there is no objective or purpose they are good or bad in relation to?

[Peter Holmes]

Deciding on the status of the foetus doesn't solve the question of the morality of abortion.

'Abortion is wrong, because the foetus is a human being, and killing a human being is wrong.'

So one moral opinion is justified by citing another moral opinion, which begs the question. Why is killing a human being wrong? And is that a fact, or an opinion? We can keep providing reasons, but we'll always end up with a moral opinion.

And for moral objectivists and realists, this is simply intolerable. Surely it can't be true. There must be moral facts - moral truths independent of judgement, opinion or belief. Otherwise, how can we make moral judgements and maintain them against the opposed judgements of others? How can we 'know' if abortion is morally justifiable or not? There must be a fact of the matter.

Oh, and my opinion is, by coincidence, the right one. Or I'll outsource my moral opinions to a god, who is the source of moral goodness independent of opinion ... in my opinion.

It's the rage, disbelief and frustration of seeing nothing but our own, all-too-human faces in the mirror.

[Immanuel Can]

Then let's begin with one simple thing: the nature of values. Do you believe values are intrinsic (or inherint) or are they expressions of relationship; that is, are some things or acts just good or bad?

As per the Bible, good and evil are defined by the relationship between the act itself and the character of the Creator by whose creatorial act their goodness or badness is objectively defined -- not by subjective, human social arrangement.

Now, it's fair enough to say that moral epistemology is a human concern: whether or not people know good and evil, and how they come to know them, are human issues, to be sure. But moral ontology is objective, ultimate and beyond the question of what people do or do not know or believe at a given moment. Like an undiscovered country, good and evil do not depend on the discovery of human beings in order to exist.

The word "intrinsic" or "inherent" can be misleading, because it seems to suggest that good and evil are ultimate properties, relational to nothing. That would be unwarranted.

Can a thing or act be good or bad if there is no objective or purpose they are good or bad in relation to?

This would seem to be another way of trying to say "inherent."

[Immanuel Can]

Why is killing a human being wrong? And is that a fact, or an opinion?

A fact.

It's a fact because the Creator declared our performing of an act of murder to be an act incommensurate with His character.

In short, He told us "No."

[uwot]

Why is killing a human being wrong? And is that a fact, or an opinion?

A fact.

It's a fact because the Creator declared our performing of an act of murder to be an act incommensurate with His character.

In short, He told us "No."

Uh-huh. This from the god who drowned almost the entire human race, including the unborn children of pregnant women, in a fit of pique. The same god who apparently believes that torturing those of us who do not believe the above for ever and ever, is a good thing.

[RCSaunders]

As per the Bible, ...

I was not aware that your are a mystic. I'm not interested in changing your mind, even though I know there is no supernatural aspect to reality. Most people hold some kind of superstition or another, so you at least know that what you believe is popular, just as I know what I believe is not.

By the way, out of curiosity, have you studied the Bible? My experience is that those who use the Bible as authority seldom are real students of the Bible.

[Peter Holmes]

Why is killing a human being wrong? And is that a fact, or an opinion?

A fact.

It's a fact because the Creator declared our performing of an act of murder to be an act incommensurate with His character.

In short, He told us "No."

And there, in a nutshell, is the moral bankruptcy of your position.

What a god, (for the existence, nature and opinions of which there is no evidence), says is good or evil is good or evil. So if (we deludedly believe) it says infant genital mutilation is good, then it is good. And if (we deludedly believe) it says homosexuality is evil, then it is evil.

I think you should be ashamed of yourself. Moral degeneracy made manifest.

[henry quirk]

"St Augustine said that to love God is to feel happy doing God's will as you don't want to do anything other than what God wants you to do."

I'm not Christian, and I don't care what Augustine had to say.

#

"In fractured and individualistic societies such as ours God is hard to define."

Not really. Pretty sure Mannie can tell you all you wanna know about his god. I, absolutely, can tell you everything you wanna know about mine. What's hard is makin' differing conceptions jibe (and we can't so we shouldn't even try).

#

"The arguments about clinical abortion are an example of how the good is hard to define."

Nope. It's damned easy. Only a crazy person believes killing an innocent is 'good'. That history overflows with crazy persons doesn't negate this simple fact. If what a pregnant woman carries is a person, offing that innocent person is 'not good'.

#

"We have to make an important decision without a fail safe guide."

But have such a guide, B: 'err on safety's side'. If we don't know exactly what a woman carries, if we can't can't agree, based on fact, on what exactly a woman carries, we should assume she carries, for most of her pregnancy, a person.

Down the road, if we 'do', with definiteness, determine what she carries is not a person, well: no harm, no foul.

But, if we find, with definiteness, she carries a person, and we've been indulging ourselves through mass slaughter, well: significant harm, monumental foul.

#

"The age of relativity is here and has superseded all moral codifications of right and wrong."

No. The age of moral relativism (ain't nuthin' is wrong, ain't nuthin' is right, do as you like) is here: it presages oblivion.

#

"The noise made by religious fundamentalists is evidence of their final rebellion against modernity."

A clarion you won't attend to: cuz you don't like the trumpeter