Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

Hesher · 06-16-2009, 12:04 AM

So Jay, are you saying that Neapolitan's argument has nothing to do with science or the laws of reality? That's all we're trying to establish here. As I said, there is no point in arguing with a position that is not based in logic.

Pro-life believes that the million dollars is essentially in the shoebox all the way up until you open it.

Pro-choice knows, for a fact, that the million dollars is slowly growing inside the shoebox.

Those are the positions here. One is an opinion and one is a fact. Once people accept that their opinion is not a fact, there will be nothing to argue.

Son of JayJamJah · 06-16-2009, 12:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sleepy jack

Yeah I'm thick but at least I can argue without resorting to condescension.

No you can't, you never do with me. You are consistently condescending and inconsiderate. You rarely read any of my posts and think about them, you simply isolate something you can take apart regardless of rather or not it represents what I think or what I was trying to relate.

I tried to explain why it was a bad argument to misrepresent the position of your opposition and you are insulting my metaphor because a hypothetical shoebox has no value according to you. That's not condescending?

Hesher · 06-16-2009, 12:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

You say that, but you yourself do not offer any scientific proof that a human fetus is not a human.

Since it is true that a being fetus is human being, all you can do is to deny it, with nothing to support your position.

Truth is unchangeable, it will not change with time, it will not change with points of views, if you can not comprehend that a human being start life as human zygote and then developes as a human fetus within the womb, then is born as a human newborn baby then it up to you to learn more about biology, ethics, and philosophy.

I presented the facts, and you ignored them. I demonstrated the proof, and you refused to acknowledge it. I showed you the truth, and you would not see it.

Persist in your delusion, for apparently none may rescue you from it. Woe is the world when science becomes yoked to the ignominy of belief.

Son of JayJamJah · 06-16-2009, 12:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hesher

So Jay, are you saying that Neapolitan's argument has nothing to do with science or the laws of reality? That's all we're trying to establish here. As I said, there is no point in arguing with a position that is not based in logic.

Pro-life believes that the million dollars is essentially in the shoebox all the way up until you open it.

Pro-choice knows, for a fact, that the million dollars is slowly growing inside the shoebox.

Those are the positions here. One is an opinion and one is a fact. Once people accept that their opinion is not a fact, there will be nothing to argue.

I'm not as confident in "science" as you. When I was a child popular science more often suggested the fetus was a living organism. And I'm not so sure the medical\scientific community is as confident as you assert, but I do overall plead ignorance.

I think you're still missing the point. If you don't abort the fetus it will eventually (in the majority of cases) become a human being, that's also a fact. And that is how those who do not think like you draw their conclusions, it's very logic and it's very much based in the laws of reality, if anything your argument is more semantically then anything.

Hesher · 06-16-2009, 12:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayJamJah

I'm not as confident in "science" as you. When I was a child popular science more often suggested the fetus was a living organism. And I'm not so sure the medical\scientific community is as confident as you assert, but I do overall plead ignorance.

I think you're still missing the point. If you don't abort the fetus it will eventually (in the majority of cases) become a human being, that's also a fact. And that is how those who do not think like you draw their conclusions, it's very logic and it's very much based in the laws of reality, if anything your argument is more semantically then anything.

Science has evolved since you were a child, obviously. As I said, the fetus is of course a living organism. But there is a difference between an organism with life and a human being - otherwise, using antibacterial soap would be genocide. The medical/scientific community is exactly as confident as I assert, as much as the fetus being viable by the 20th week. This isn't something that is cast in doubt. Ask a doctor, please.

I'm not missing the point at all, and my argument both utterly logical and anything but semantic. Every sperm being produced in your body, if mated with an egg, will eventually become part of a human being, just as a fetus, if carried to the 20th week, will become part of a human being. But it is not a human being until the 20th week. That is the fact.

We are arguing that the potential to be a human is the same as being a human, which, if true, would mean that the human body aborts millions of "human babies" every time it reabsorbs sperm or flushes out an egg with a through menstruation. A fetus is farther along in development than those things, but it is not a human yet. It has the potential to be a human. Those are not the same, no matter how much you think the potential to have a million dollars is the same as having a million dollars. If that were true we'd all be millionaires because we have the potential to be millionaires (illustrating how your metaphor is further flawed).

Son of JayJamJah · 06-16-2009, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hesher

Science has evolved since you were a child, obviously. As I said, the fetus is of course a living organism. But there is a difference between an organism with life and a human being - otherwise, using antibacterial soap would be genocide. The medical/scientific community is exactly as confident as I assert, as much as the fetus being viable by the 20th week. This isn't something that is cast in doubt. Ask a doctor, please.

I'm not missing the point at all, and my argument both utterly logical and anything but semantic. Every sperm being produced in your body, if mated with an egg, will eventually become part of a human being, just as a fetus, if carried to the 20th week, will become part of a human being. But it is not a human being until the 20th week. That is the fact.

We are arguing that the potential to be a human is the same as being a human, which, if true, would mean that the human body aborts millions of "human babies" every time it reabsorbs sperm or flushes out an egg with a through menstruation. A fetus is farther along in development than those things, but it is not a human yet. It has the potential to be a human. Those are not the same, no matter how much you think the potential to have a million dollars is the same as having a million dollars. If that were true we'd all be millionaires because we have the potential to be millionaires (illustrating how your metaphor is further flawed).

Holy Shit.

We are not arguing and it's not what I think.

I am TELLING you how other people with opinions DIFFERENT then you see it.

I don't find any flaw with your arguments, they are as you say logical and to my knowledge (very little) accurate, your error comes in assuming they in anyway devalue the oppositions stance. My shoebox analogy is just that it's not meant to be taken literally.

When a woman has a miscarriage three weeks into pregnancy should she not feel sad because it simply had the potential to be a human being?

Listen, I understand and respect your argument, I happen to come out on your side (por-choice) as it were but for completely different reasons. I don't think it's any of my business to tell other people what to think.

Hesher · 06-16-2009, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JayJamJah

Holy Shit.

We are not arguing and it's not what I think.

I am TELLING you how other people with opinions DIFFERENT then you see it.

I don't find any flaw with your arguments, they are as you say logical and to my knowledge (very little) accurate, your error comes in assuming they in anyway devalue the oppositions stance. My shoebox analogy is just that it's not meant to be taken literally.

When a woman has a miscarriage three weeks into pregnancy should she not feel sad because it simply had the potential to be a human being?

Listen, I understand and respect your argument, I happen to come out on your side (por-choice) as it were but for completely different reasons. I don't think it's any of my business to tell other people what to think.

I apologize. Your argument seemed presented as if you believed it. You can assume I mean "you" in general from now on.

I think I understand the arguments of people like Neapolitan very well. It's as you (Jay) said; they believe that since the shoebox has the potential to hold a million dollars, it is worth a million dollars up until the point that it is confirmed. Which is silly.

I don't think it's erroneous to say that they devalue the opponent's stance. One stance is fact, the other is an opinion that ignores the fact. The idea that the potential for a human is the same as a human effectively throws a blanket over what medical science has shown us occurs and takes us back to the time when we didn't have that information.

The psychological value people ascribe to the potential for a human is a different matter than the factual value of a pre-20th week fetus. I feel perfectly comfortable aborting a fetus that I know is not human yet. I ascribe no more value to it than I would a sperm or an egg or any other cluster of human cells. The law should say the same.

The other examples people were using are valid examples of the "life = life" problem. A pre-human fetus has no more value than any other bundle of cells. Even in religious terms it does not have a soul yet. It cannot think, speak, or do any other uniquely human action. It is not a person, no matter how much psychological value you ascribe to it. The opposing stance is simply illogical.

Fruitonica · 06-16-2009, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hesher

We are arguing that the potential to be a human is the same as being a human, which, if true, would mean that the human body aborts millions of "human babies" every time it reabsorbs sperm or flushes out an egg with a through menstruation. A fetus is farther along in development than those things, but it is not a human yet. It has the potential to be a human. Those are not the same, no matter how much you think the potential to have a million dollars is the same as having a million dollars. If that were true we'd all be millionaires because we have the potential to be millionaires (illustrating how your metaphor is further flawed).

JJJ's metaphor was illustrating the value of potential. If, after nine months a shoe box can produce a million dollars, without any further actions taken by you, then it is a fucking valuable shoe box.

Your egg/sperm argument is semantics. You said yourself, there are degrees of potential and a fetus has an incredibly larger potential to become a human being than an egg or sperm, the process is already underway. So if people choose to value the potential of a fetus, your facts don't actually devalue that. It's just an ethical choice.

To be clear, I'm pro choice.

Hesher · 06-16-2009, 02:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fruitonica

JJJ's metaphor was illustrating the value of potential. If, after nine months a shoe box can produce a million dollars, without any further actions taken by you, then it is a fucking valuable shoe box.

Your egg/sperm argument is semantics. You said yourself, there are degrees of potential and a fetus has an incredibly larger potential to become a human being than an egg or sperm, the process is already underway. So if people choose to value the potential of a fetus, your facts don't actually devalue that. It's just an ethical choice.

To be clear, I'm pro choice.

There is value in potential but it is not the same as the result. A shoebox that is technically capable of holding a million dollars in bills (a very large shoebox to be sure) is still a shoebox until it contains a million dollars.

I see what you're saying, and you're the first person to phrase in a way that is clear to me. I guess I am comfortable with the knowledge that any value someone ascribes to a fetus before viability is an "ethical decision" of theirs and not a reflection of the technical value of a cluster of cells. Either way, the law does not prohibit killing most animals, no matter how attached you may be to them, and from a purely technical perspective, a pre-viability fetus is roughly analogous to any other non-human organism. So from the point of view of the law, there is no obstacle to pre-20th week abortion.

Guybrush · 06-16-2009, 02:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

What point of view is that? That I believe a human fetus is a human being? That the life of a human fetus is just as important as the life of all human being? That a human fetus should not be terminated?

That's all you could respond to? What you're asking for is actually answered in the post I wrote. There's some critique in there against what I think you believe. Maybe you should read it again :

Quote:

Originally Posted by toretorden

Neapolitan, if you value the human life over the ant life, you should make a point about it other than saying "life = life". We're not mind readers here.

I would still argue that your point of view makes no sense. I guess you know the utilitarian view, but I'll summarize for those who don't. From a utilitarian point of view, the right moral action/decision is the one that causes most happiness / least amount of suffering. By that logic, abortion is sometimes justified. Because none of us can read the future, we have to base moral decisions on the present. A fetus likely does not have the same capability of suffering as the mother, so it gets less moral consideration. It might have the same capability in the future, but we don't know that so that is irrelevant.

It's easy to see there's some kind of logic here - you want to ease suffering and make people happy - get the best results you can quality-of-life-wise. But what's the logic behind your moral stance? Okay, above all you want to preserve human life, but why? What makes it so holy? You say it's the same as killing a human, but abortion is legal in many places in the world where murder is outlawed so it's appearant that a lot don't agree with that "logic" either and there's a good reason. If you look at a fetus and then look at yourself, you'll see you're not the same. The fetus has potential, but having potential doesn't necessarily mean it should be protected like a person is.

I don't think human lives are any more special than those of animals. To me life is life and there's nothing holy about it. The difference is we generally have more emotional ties to people of our species. What matters are consequences. If someone was completely braindead and could only experience pain and the relatives thought it would be best if they were unplugged from the life support, I can see why that could be considered the right moral decision. It seems to me you could not support this because it would be murder.

You'll see some points here that I think make more sense than what you're pushing. Such as :

The right moral decision on wether or not abortion is right should be based on the consequences the decision will have, you should maximize happiness/minimize suffering
A fetus should not have the same moral protection as a grown human because as far as we know, it doesn't have the same capabilities for happines, suffering, rational thought etc.
Humans are animals and what makes their lives special is only that we generally have more family/emotional-ties to them. Human lives don't have to be preserved at all costs.

The last point I illustrated by the relatively braindead person on life support who could only experience pain and so you could argue ending his or her life would be the right moral decision, but you by your logic would have to think of that as murder.

I think you make much less sense because as far as I can tell :

You see everything in black and white, there's only ever one answer (abortion is always wrong, no matter the circumstance)
You sometimes think the right moral decision is the one that causes the most pain and suffering
You think something that is not capable of emotions, sentience, pain or happiness should have more moral protection than a grown human being (mother)

I'd like to see the logic behind this, yes. I'm not asking why you think a fetus is human - thanks for the petty attempt at trying to make me look silly, but that's not what we're discussing. I want to know what it is about fetuses that they should be protected so to the point where you always take away the mother's freedom, even if she got pregnant by rape and gets beaten every day of her pregnancy. That makes no sense to me and I want to know what it is about it that makes sense to you.

06-16-2009, 12:04 AM	#141 (permalink)
Hesher Palm Muted Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Vancouver, BC Posts: 168	So Jay, are you saying that Neapolitan's argument has nothing to do with science or the laws of reality? That's all we're trying to establish here. As I said, there is no point in arguing with a position that is not based in logic. Pro-life believes that the million dollars is essentially in the shoebox all the way up until you open it. Pro-choice knows, for a fact, that the million dollars is slowly growing inside the shoebox. Those are the positions here. One is an opinion and one is a fact. Once people accept that their opinion is not a fact, there will be nothing to argue.