And I've seen you contribute unnecessary vitriol to situations that don't call for it plenty of times. I was having a peaceful, friendly conversation with a member that I respect and there was zero reason for you to speak up and try to escalate things. No one was feeling insulted and I added a disclaimer that I find WD to be a great member to ensure that didn't happen. What you did (completely unprovoked) is called trolling. There was no drama until you intervened.

I know you're a mod and I'll give you the respect you deserve for that, but I really don't see a single thing I've done wrong and I think you were trying to stir things up which is something I won't do anymore. I've come back as a changed member, so just try to ignore your perceptions of me and give me a chance.

You guys should stop talking about each other and discuss on the merits, try to stick to the subject matter. It helps avoid ****fights.

I agree. Overall I agree with Vanilla's stance that it's a woman's body and I'm pro-choice, etc, etc, but "scientifically it's just cells up to a certain amount of weeks" is kind of misleading. First of all, it's a moral discussion, so it's not directly relevant; there is a legitimate moral argument on behalf of pro-choice already being made, so it's not really necessary in this regard anyway. Second of all, science doesn't actually say it's "just cells" (key word just). They certainly say it is a clump of cells, but science doesn't take up a moral position, such as setting the threshold for when something is "just" a sea of quarks and leptons, rather than having some sort of significance, since meaning is susceptible to subjective opinions and environmental conditions.

That's not to say some scientists and scientific communities don't take moral positions. Often it can compromise their subjectivity though and their work becomes more political than scientific. But science is not scientists, of course.

scientifically it never stops being just cells. it's an arbitrary line you're trying to draw that doesn't actually exist.

i agree it's the woman's choice and i actually agree with abortion being legal. i'm just ok with humans being killed for the sake of reproductive control. but pro-choicers need to stop playing these silly word games.

Well the point isn't "life" or "cells" (or at least it shouldn't be to anyone who has any useful understanding of what constitutes life), it's consciousness, and the level of consciousness that qualifies as worthy of protection. "Consciousness" itself is a nebulous concept that's based on many different emergent biological processes, and at what level it should be protected is probably just as nebulous, so trying to come up with any kind of hard-and-fast rules concerning it is pretty much impossible. But again, we're dealing with legal issues, which are binary, yes or no, legal or illegal questions, so at some point, you do have to make distinctions that are, at least to some extent, arbitrary. It is what it is.

We can just define some threshold drawing on Tononi's model of consciousness :P

that's true. but it's not a scientific distinction we're making, it's just a judgement call. like the age of consent.

edit - also, i think it's a little trickier than consciousness vs non-consciousness. essentially it is human life we're really concerned about, you're just saying you think consciousness is the point at which a human life earns protection. we have no problem slaughtering animals that are just as conscious as any human baby.

Like I said, arbitrary. And I imagine the idea of consciousness is going to start being more and more important. From my understanding there's more and more talk about giving dolphins and whales status as "nonhuman persons", which wouldn't give them the same rights as human beings, but would guarantee them a right to life (or so I believe). This whole concept of secular personhood vs. souls seems to be a relatively new concept in the public consciousness, so it's no surprise that there are contradictions in our laws. Give it some indeterminate amount of time and I imagine the concepts of consciousness and personhood will start making more sense in a legal sense.

hopefully it also liberates them from the shackles of sea world.

anyway that's a fair point, though it's easy for westerners to not want to slaughter whales and dolphins cause we don't really eat them that much anyway. i would wager a pig is aware enough that if that's our criteria we should feel ****ty about killing them in droves yet that won't stop any time soon. and i won't stop eating them either because i'm just not that good a person.

Same here. Bacon > not being an *******.

But I can see a time, long in the future, when serious restrictions are placed on what animals can and can not be used for meat.

hopefully by then they master the science of growing bacon in a petri dish