I have a question for Atlas's pro-lifers..

[12th Doctor]

Now I know that most pro-life people are like "life starts at conception". So what happens in the event of a miscarriage? so does the woman go to hell for "murdering her baby"? After all if life begins at conception a miscarried fetus DOEs have a soul...

Well, this post is assinine for several reasons, the first of which being that a miscarriage is, by its nature, an accidental event.  If it wasn't, then it is, by definition, an abortion.

[12th Doctor]

So you're saying that if a murderer repents 5 minutes before they go to the chair they go to heaven?

If it's a TRUE repentence, then absolutely.

Then what's the point of eternal punishment for murder? I remember the 10 commandments saying "thou shalt not kill" as one...

Because if people don't repent of any of the commandments in the bible (not just the 10), they go to Hell for eternity - but if somebody repents, God promises to forgive them.

So basically mass murderers and dictators get a free pass for being Christian? So basically Hitler is in heaven but billions of decent people are burning in hell according to the Christian worldview? That's a pretty screwed up and offensive worldview then.

*Yawn*

Hitler wasn't a Christian at all.  He was an occultist and that's a historical fact.  Number two, though I don't agree with the idea that one must be a professed Christian, one must acctually be sorry for their offenses.  I highly doubt murderous dictators are truely sorry for what they have done.  If they were, then they would have stopped it long before it got out of control.

[12th Doctor]

If there was a god she wouldn't care about something minor like one world out of many with life. She'd have bigger things to care about.

"If there were a God" that God would be ominipotent, and thus capable of seeing and caring about all things.  What is important is what said God would be willing to forgive.

[12th Doctor]

Now I know that most pro-life people are like "life starts at conception". So what happens in the event of a miscarriage? so does the woman go to hell for "murdering her baby"? After all if life begins at conception a miscarried fetus DOEs have a soul...

The Catholic belief is that non-baptised children go to purgatory, that would include miscarriages. The woman certainly wouldn't be held responsible for the death.

Ummm... no.  What are you smoking.  The Catholic belief never officially endorse the idea of what was once called "Limbo" that was a myth that was made up by some narrow minded preists and was never cannonical.  The Church didn't even officially address the issue until Vatican II, when they said, unequivically, that unborn babies go to Heaven if they die, as there is no offense they could commit that a just God would find reason to punish.


And the idea that the Church things the woman is morally responsible is SO laughable that I won't even address it.

[12th Doctor]

"What about rape?" - It's not the child's fault - dont' punish the innocent 3rd party.  My mother who counsels these people says that most raped women who get abortions get even more emotionally unstable.

Uh... wow.  That's because they were impregnated by a rapist...

Inks cares more about the fetus than he does women. Disgusting.

To be honest, I care more about what is acctually right than what is fair.  Do I think it is fair that I woman have the "right" to an abortion if raped?  Yes.  Do I think its right?  No.

Life is life, regardless of the circumstances underwhich it came about.  Not that religion is the only weapon I have in this fight, but I take note of what Pope Paul VI said on the matter... simply put, all life exists only through God.  A "testtube" baby is still a life, with a soul, as it has all the properties required of a human, and such creation can only happen if God either causes or allows it to happen.  Similarly, though I don't endorse cloning, as I think it opens a whole host of problems issues, I would see a clone as being a life, with all the rights and properties of a human life, including a soul.  If you take two clones and raise them seperately, with different expiriences, then they would be different people.  Individuals of themselves.  Even if you were to raise them together, and they turned out more or less the same, that doesn't change.

In law, the Constitutional definition of person (which is to say, someone who enjoys all the rights of a person) has changed quite a bit over the years to include blacks, indians, women... I see no reason it shoudl not include the unborn, and until you can provide reason otherwise, I will remain unconvinced.  I am perfectly content, the burden of proof is on you.

In a larger sense, people don't have rights because a government grants them.  The Declaration of Independence makes it clear that that is the founding principle of our country.  They have rights because they are human beings.  A principle Liberals used to hold dear until they got caught up in the red tape of legalism and narrowed their scope to include only the court room.

[12th Doctor]

I see no reason it shoudl not include the unborn, and until you can provide reason otherwise, I will remain unconvinced.  I am perfectly content, the burden of proof is on you.

The point is that
Generally, the burden of proof rests on one who seeks a change in the status quo.

Well, people once demanded proof that Blacks were not inferior to whites, before they would accept that whites didn't have the right to own blacks, but that's not the point.

I agree with you, the burden of proof is on those who wish to change the status quo... if one looks at the last 50 or so years that countries have accepted abortion as legal, it's just a blink of the eye compared to the thousands of years on human history in which an unborn person was considered to be an individual, with rights, by almost all human civilizations.  In many civilizations, it was considered murder to kill a fetus.  Killing a pregnant woman was considered double murder.  In ancient Chinese (and other African and Asian cultures) it was, and acctually still is, practice to count someone's age from the time of conception.  Literature accross culutres is full of references to unborn persons being persons.

Roe vs Wade and similar rulings are what changed a long standing status quo in the name of "privacy".  Little attention was ever paid to the notion of disproving that an unborn person had rights, and the issue was mostly ignored, until the anti-abotion crowd began to seriously look into the legality of the issue and not just thump the Bible.

Liberals, for their part, have yet to organize a coherant response to these concerns, simple stating "IT A WOMAN'S RIGHT".  "ITS ABOUT PRIVACY".  They have no legal argument, other than Roe, which itself flew blatantly in the face of precident, both in US Law and in comparison to the long standing thoughts of humanity up until that point.