Houston clears Planned Parenthood... and indicts prolife activists instead.
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  Houston clears Planned Parenthood... and indicts prolife activists instead.
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Author Topic: Houston clears Planned Parenthood... and indicts prolife activists instead.  (Read 2642 times)
World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #50 on: January 28, 2016, 10:51:27 PM »

This is not about abortion. It's about using deception and fraud to advance your political views. I hope we can all agree that's a bad thing even if you support the views in question.

Well, yes.

So then why dump 'doesn't make it right' rather than comment on the substance of what has happened? Quite unlike you. If we're doing that I can now call you for the first time 'anti-women' Cheesy Now there's a first.

I thought I had enough pro-woman bona fides on the forum for it to be relatively evident that I didn't approve of the skulduggery. I'm not sure why I thought that, because it doesn't really follow, but I did.


wow lol
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #51 on: January 28, 2016, 11:10:55 PM »
« Edited: January 28, 2016, 11:14:48 PM by TheDeadFlagBlues »


As I said, right wingers don't understand the concepts of legal and illegal.  You don't run a country based on what each individual determines in their head is right and wrong.  That is called anarchy.  Democrats support what we call laws.

I'm very far left. I just know that abortion is wrong.

Excellent riposte!

I know that abortion is right and very good because it prevents women from having children that they do not want, which increases their autonomy, promotes gender equality and is also very good news if one enjoys casual sex. That's my rebuttal.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #52 on: January 28, 2016, 11:30:13 PM »


As I said, right wingers don't understand the concepts of legal and illegal.  You don't run a country based on what each individual determines in their head is right and wrong.  That is called anarchy.  Democrats support what we call laws.

I'm very far left. I just know that abortion is wrong.

Excellent riposte!

I know that abortion is right and very good because it prevents women from having children that they do not want, which increases their autonomy,

This is a potentially good argument for abortion in a utilitarian moral framework.

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This is indisputably a good argument for abortion in a utilitarian moral framework.

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This is a disgusting argument for abortion in practically any moral framework.
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #53 on: January 28, 2016, 11:43:22 PM »


As I said, right wingers don't understand the concepts of legal and illegal.  You don't run a country based on what each individual determines in their head is right and wrong.  That is called anarchy.  Democrats support what we call laws.

I'm very far left. I just know that abortion is wrong.

Excellent riposte!

I know that abortion is right and very good because it prevents women from having children that they do not want, which increases their autonomy,

This is a potentially good argument for abortion in a utilitarian moral framework.

Quote
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This is indisputably a good argument for abortion in a utilitarian moral framework.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

This is a disgusting argument for abortion in practically any moral framework.

I mean, it would be more congruent if you said "utilitarian moral framework" as well seeing as sex produces a lot of happiness when it's consensual but that's of little import.

Anyways, I'd argue that a fetus obviously and clearly impinges upon the autonomy of the mother. I'm not exactly breaking new ground by making this argument, of course, but it's worth re-stating that there are clear deontological grounds for abortion as a social good, which is actually the grounds for my argument. Coming from a perspective in which moral laws, set from by the self as a free/rational agent who has the capacity to choose between different conceptions of the good, are the highest form of ethics, it's not exactly hard to see why I would support "the right to choose" and why, as an individual, I might support abortion. Because I believe in family planning, the act of starting a family as an active rather than as a passive choice, I cannot condone the idea of a "unwanted" pregnancy, which flies in the face of my view of the family as a consensual arrangement freely chosen rather than as a burden imposed by someone else. The decision to have a child cannot be taken lightly and it is a choice. If it is not a choice, the child should not come into existence, that's preposterous.

To add to this, I think your argument is "fetus is a person" or something rooted in your faith, which is understandable, but I will stand for the claim that I am a utilitarian because I care more about living human beings and their capacity to live fulfilling lives crafted by their will than potential human beings. This is not to say that I do not think that the potential human beings, who have the genetic structure of a human being and who are living beings, don't have moral standing, they do, but that standing is clearly trumped by the mother's standing and both standings cannot be decoupled.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #54 on: January 28, 2016, 11:48:37 PM »
« Edited: January 28, 2016, 11:54:01 PM by Bow all your heads to our adored Mary Katherine. »

I understand the deontological argument for abortion that you're making. What I'm saying is that, within my perspective and my moral context, the points you're making would have merit if I weighted the things I value in a utilitarian way (insofar as I think that bodily autonomy, gender equality, and children being alive are all good things, and that it's possible to argue that the first two (especially the second!) are more good for more people than the third), but don't given that I weight them in a deontological way (insofar as I think that it's categorically wrong to kill somebody who is impinging on your autonomy unintentionally and through no fault of their own, and that the 'potential human being'/'living human being' distinction is, in this context, spurious).

I think family planning is something that the state has a very clear and positive vested interest in promoting! That's why as a matter of public policy the use of any form of contraception that takes effect before the ovum is fertilized should be widely encouraged, even though I have religious reasons to find that morally questionable as well.
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🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸
shua
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« Reply #55 on: January 28, 2016, 11:53:07 PM »

A family cannot a burden imposed by someone else?  That's funny, I don't remember choosing to come into existence into a family.
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TheDeadFlagBlues
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« Reply #56 on: January 29, 2016, 12:23:40 AM »
« Edited: January 29, 2016, 12:25:47 AM by TheDeadFlagBlues »

A family cannot a burden imposed by someone else?  That's funny, I don't remember choosing to come into existence into a family.

Um, that's my point, the experience of being a parent is distinctly different from being a baby; having a child without that being an active choice is a pretty terrible/disorienting/horrific experience. Being a child without choosing to be a child is, well, it's what everyone has been through.

That was my point: being a mature adult is qualitatively different from being a child and it's very different from being a fetus. From a moral standpoint, different rules apply, and the moral standing of a fetus is clearly different form the moral standing of a mature adult who can do Calculus or cook a tasty bowl of pasta or whatever. Our legal system acknowledges this distinction, as it should.

Am I saying that parents should be allowed to kill their children? No, of course not, children are also qualitatively different than fetuses seeing as, you know, they're not physically dependent upon their biological mother or surrogate mother.
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shua
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« Reply #57 on: January 29, 2016, 01:16:35 AM »
« Edited: January 29, 2016, 01:20:38 AM by shua »

A family cannot a burden imposed by someone else?  That's funny, I don't remember choosing to come into existence into a family.

Um, that's my point, the experience of being a parent is distinctly different from being a baby; having a child without that being an active choice is a pretty terrible/disorienting/horrific experience. Being a child without choosing to be a child is, well, it's what everyone has been through.

That was my point: being a mature adult is qualitatively different from being a child and it's very different from being a fetus. From a moral standpoint, different rules apply, and the moral standing of a fetus is clearly different form the moral standing of a mature adult who can do Calculus or cook a tasty bowl of pasta or whatever. Our legal system acknowledges this distinction, as it should.

Am I saying that parents should be allowed to kill their children? No, of course not, children are also qualitatively different than fetuses seeing as, you know, they're not physically dependent upon their biological mother or surrogate mother.

If it is truly horrific to have a child without it being an active choice, that points to larger conditions or expectations which make it so.  It doesn't make sense from our nature that it would be so in itself (absent certain biological risks).   We were made to find fulfillment in reproducing and caring for offspring, it is in some sense inherent in who we are, even if this drive is not always nurtured in healthful ways. It is better for it to be an active choice, but the vast majority of humankind has not I would guess been conceived under such circumstances.  Horror need not follow from having not the opportunity to make an active choice. Many a mother and child have come to love each other without such options.  We have a basic need for liberty, though this liberty must be consistent with the preservation of life and our duties to one another; even still we are at our core dependent creatures, with inescapable relations that are not fully under our immediate control.  Otherwise you have neither family nor society. 

Some members are more directly dependent than others, it is true.  But how does this play out?  It is one thing to say that a parent has certain authorities over a child in order to strengthen and support a relation between them, acknowledging both the reality of the dependent relationship and the value of each member of that relationship.  This is a very different kind of claim than saying that one with a more total dependence on another may therefore be destroyed with political and moral approval.
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afleitch
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« Reply #58 on: January 29, 2016, 04:39:44 AM »


I thought I had enough pro-woman bona fides on the forum for it to be relatively evident that I didn't approve of the skulduggery.

Sure.

I'm beginning to reconsider presenting myself as transgender/a woman, primarily for religious reasons.

Combining something that's both anti-women (linking gender presentation to religious prerequisites) and an example of personal 'skulduggery' (ex-trans bull) in one then I think you've burned that card.

Nathan.
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afleitch
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« Reply #59 on: January 29, 2016, 06:58:56 AM »
« Edited: January 29, 2016, 07:02:24 AM by afleitch »

I understand the deontological argument for abortion that you're making. What I'm saying is that, within my perspective and my moral context, the points you're making would have merit if I weighted the things I value in a utilitarian way (insofar as I think that bodily autonomy, gender equality, and children being alive are all good things, and that it's possible to argue that the first two (especially the second!) are more good for more people than the third), but don't given that I weight them in a deontological way (insofar as I think that it's categorically wrong to kill somebody who is impinging on your autonomy unintentionally and through no fault of their own, and that the 'potential human being'/'living human being' distinction is, in this context, spurious).

I think family planning is something that the state has a very clear and positive vested interest in promoting! That's why as a matter of public policy the use of any form of contraception that takes effect before the ovum is fertilized should be widely encouraged, even though I have religious reasons to find that morally questionable as well.

How can an entity that is not self-aware and is not fully formed be capable of making an unconscious never mind conscious decisions or acts? The definition of impingement rests solely on the person experiencing that (the mother). The zygote/embryo cannot reciprocate. In effect the zygote/embryo isn’t ‘doing’ anything, but the mother is ‘feeling’ it (impinged). Bacteria are, in respect to themselves, fully formed. We carry more of their cells than of ours. They aren’t consciously or unconsciously ‘doing’ anything either (in fact they are doing more than embryos; they breed). But they can impinge. We can take action against that if we consider harm.

The only way to avoid the harm of pregnancy is to either use contraception in the first instance (which you have to separate from the joy of having sex, despite being flippant about that earlier. Contraception is about preventing pregnancy or controlling the conditions under which someone may become pregnant; in what capacity someone enjoys a sexual act is entirely independent of that), to abort or to induce labour whether viable or unviable. That’s it. If it’s viable, it’s ‘born’; the state of pregnancy has ended. It is no longer an ethical battleground. Otherwise you accept that morally, you prohibit a woman from taking any action against any physical or psychological harm caused as a result of her pregnancy. And of course that only applies to women by default.

Your definition hasn't removed 'harm'; both physical and psychological as experienced by the woman as an issue. It is still there. It is still elicit. What is your response? What do you do about it? Or do you not consider it to be 'real'? Or do you take a utilitarian approach to that Wink

If you’re placing value on the semantics; classifying the removal of an object that is the result of pregnancy as a human at any point, then your argument is not a truly deontological one, because your argument rests on the fact you see the unborn ‘status’ of this zygote/embryo as human (therefore abortion is wrong), which means you place status on the consequences of the end result of a pregnancy. Being human (and placing self importance on that) is in itself consequential with respect to evolution.

You are also in danger of making an assumption that there is a standard, definable almost Kantian ‘duty’ on someone, specifically the mother (as she is the subject here) to give birth each time it is presented as an option. There is no net effect on the father. Or do you believe that gender/sex gives people different 'duties'?

As I mentioned in a previous topic, any position that places a definitive ‘this is it for everyone’ start and stop on the spectrum of human life is based on trying to make an external definitive measure of life as if life is ‘scientific’ and measureable. Pregnancy is a unique female experience; it is part of her life, part of the act of her experiencing life. Definitions are understandable from a biological and medical perspective, being as they are studies of the ‘whole’, but aren’t something that should necessarily be adhered to by the person who is living it.

Duty based ethics based entirely on the perceived duty expected of her by a third party; whether that be another human or an appeal to something greater or transcendental has paper thin authority on which to appeal to.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #60 on: January 29, 2016, 11:14:10 AM »


I thought I had enough pro-woman bona fides on the forum for it to be relatively evident that I didn't approve of the skulduggery.

Sure.

I'm beginning to reconsider presenting myself as transgender/a woman, primarily for religious reasons.

Combining something that's both anti-women (linking gender presentation to religious prerequisites) and an example of personal 'skulduggery' (ex-trans bull) in one then I think you've burned that card.

Nathan.

I really don't want to discuss this here, but if you consider yourself an advocate for transgender rights, then you shouldn't lecture people on what their "true" gender identity is.
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afleitch
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« Reply #61 on: January 29, 2016, 12:24:25 PM »


I thought I had enough pro-woman bona fides on the forum for it to be relatively evident that I didn't approve of the skulduggery.

Sure.

I'm beginning to reconsider presenting myself as transgender/a woman, primarily for religious reasons.

Combining something that's both anti-women (linking gender presentation to religious prerequisites) and an example of personal 'skulduggery' (ex-trans bull) in one then I think you've burned that card.

Nathan.

I really don't want to discuss this here, but if you consider yourself an advocate for transgender rights, then you shouldn't lecture people on what their "true" gender identity is.

I will if it turns out it's being hidden away due to some religious bullsh-t.
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Bojack Horseman
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« Reply #62 on: January 29, 2016, 01:32:20 PM »


As I said, right wingers don't understand the concepts of legal and illegal.  You don't run a country based on what each individual determines in their head is right and wrong.  That is called anarchy.  Democrats support what we call laws.

I'm very far left. I just know that abortion is wrong.

Excellent riposte!

I know that abortion is right and very good because it prevents women from having children that they do not want, which increases their autonomy, promotes gender equality and is also very good news if one enjoys casual sex. That's my rebuttal.

I see abortion (and a license to parent children, for that matter) as the answer to many of society's social problems. Genetic birth defects/disorders, the cycle of stupidity, and teenage pregnancy could all be eradicated if we required parents to have s license to have a child, and if we removed the stigma around and encouraged abortion.
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