This is appalling....and nauseating..and back to appalling

A few examples:

1. A one-year old obviously does not have the right to bear arms. Nor does a convicted felon--as this human has violated his personhood.

2. We send people to jail (taking away their rights) when they violated their personhood--that is, acted as non-rational agents.

3. A 14 year old does not have the right to vote and can also not be sent to jail because we do not consider them to be a full person.

4. The whole idea (posed as a counter argument) that we are not persons when we sleep is ridiculous. It is perfectly rational for an agent to take care of his body by sleeping. It is also rational for that person to protect himself and his family if awoken by a threat from sleep. If I kill another person when sleeping, I violate his rights to care for his body.

what is a right wrote:

4. The whole idea (posed as a counter argument) that we are not persons when we sleep is ridiculous. It is perfectly rational for an agent to take care of his body by sleeping. It is also rational for that person to protect himself and his family if awoken by a threat from sleep. If I kill another person when sleeping, I violate his rights to care for his body.

This notion that a person continues to be during sleep is simply wrong. It has been so thoroughly debunked as to make your notion laughable.

A person is not a thing. It is a process. When the lights go out the process shuts down. No process, no person. You do not violate anyone's rights by killing them in their sleep - there is nobody there whose rights could be violated.

Please get with the 21st century. Thanks.

I don't understand your argument. When you kill me, you end the process of personhood, violating those rights. When I sleep, I protect my personhood, as sleeping (and eating, etc.) are necessary material conditions of personhood.

?

Also, this whole conversation about sleep is a red herring. All of this is intended to make the simple point that a fetus does not have rights because it is not a person, rendering the whole question of "the point of beginning of life" moot. The issue is not the beginning of life, but the beginning of personhood.

My red-herring loving friend actually concedes this point through his objection.

Hey everyone! So how about those Jets!?

cold-hearted wrote:

Except it takes a very cold heart to stab something that is human and kill it.

So are you calling most Liberals cold hearted?

Most liberals consider conservatives cold hearted for putting down a hardened convict thats murdered people.

I suppose we can just 'cut' this down to a difference of opinions on what is right or wrong and one's moral outlook on life.

While I do not believe in capital punishment, the concept that a grown person has free will and makes their own bed, so to speak, and therefore must reap the consequences, is understandable to me. I personally think taking another human's life (at whatever stage) is morally wrong.

If a female in my family gets impregnated by a mud race person, she will get an abortion.

1) That would be like saying you thought the pedestrian on the street was carrying a knife and would attack you, even though you had no reason to suspect it, so you had to shoot them. This would not hold up as constitutional.

2) It's not my fault the mother has an advantage over the baby. Any human being who is legitimately threatened has the right to defend themselves, and just because it may not be a fair fight, doesn't mean neither party should do anything. Of course, it would be up to the mother to decide if she wanted to live or let the child live, much like a situation in which you could either kill an attacker and live or avoid killing them and let them live at your own expense.

another average american wrote:

someone else wrote:

This is a fallacious argument. Just because you disagree with me, doesn't mean your view is also consistent. It may be just as legitimate as mine, but it does not mean it is as legally consistent.

I'm not saying that simply because we disagree means both of our arguments are consistent. I'm saying that I believe my view is perfectly consistent. You don't agree. But just because you don't agree doesn't mean my view isn't consistent.

I think it's just a fundamental agreement on what constitutes life. I am pro-life, and I'm also pro-choice, and I see that as perfectly consistent.

Well, just because you see it as consistent, does not mean it is. You must demonstrate how your view is consistent in order for it to be as such. Stating that you have this belief means absolutely nothing.

Meh, this is kind of getting nowhere. I agree with what you're saying: Just because I say so doesn't mean it's true.

I would just say to you: just because you say so doesn't mean it's true.

I see your position as inconsistent, and mine as consistent. You see it the other way around.

I recognize that there are varying opinions on this issue, and just because I believe in something doesn't mean I am right. But the same goes for you. You seem to be saying that my position is inconsistent (I have no doubt you truly believe it is) without recognizing the possibility that your position is inconsistent (which I truly believe it is).

I get what you're saying, but there's a clear difference. You don't have to kill anything before conception begins, you just have to prevent something from happening. Once it begins, however, at conception, the process is already taking place and the only way to prevent it is to stop the inevitable process. Miscarriages are tragic accidents, but they should have nothing to do with determining the difference between conception and non-conception, which is a pretty obvious difference, in my opinion. Say you were going to start a car on its own and let it drive down the street by itself. It would inevitably hit something unless somebody came and stopped it, but a better way to prevent this from happening would be to never start the car in the first place. Bad analogy, I know, but the difference is clearly demonstrated in so many ways. I guess by your logic, EVERYTHING is the "potential" for human life, but I see conception as the start of a process that was actually set in motion for the sole purpose of creating human life. If you don't start that process, then there is no life. If you do, there is, and the only way to preven this is to intervene. It's like a safe murder, where you decide before you know anything about the person to prevent them from existing. Nothing changes except the fact that, if you wait until they are born, you know who you are killing. If you do it before that, you are killing someone, but it's okay because nobody knows who it is. At conception, it has been determined who the person is going to be, but before conception, any number of possible combinations of sperm could result in something different, so there is effectively no human being. However, if you start the process, then it has been determined who it is, you just don't know. Is that a good reason to end it? Sorry for the long post, but it seems really strange that I have to try so hard to make this clear to you.

You mean like a process of sleep, wake, sleep, wake, etc? Or a process of subconcious activities in the body that keep the person alive while they sleep? I really hope this argument is not a serious one. If you believe it is okay to kill a person in their sleep, you need help.

another average american wrote:

Meh, this is kind of getting nowhere. I agree with what you're saying: Just because I say so doesn't mean it's true.

I would just say to you: just because you say so doesn't mean it's true.

I see your position as inconsistent, and mine as consistent. You see it the other way around.

I recognize that there are varying opinions on this issue, and just because I believe in something doesn't mean I am right. But the same goes for you. You seem to be saying that my position is inconsistent (I have no doubt you truly believe it is) without recognizing the possibility that your position is inconsistent (which I truly believe it is).

Except I have demonstrated how my argument is consistent, and you have not debunked it, nor have you supported your own position. I know there is a possibility that I am wrong, but based on the necessary assumptions that the Constitution is built on, it is a consistent view, or at least the most consistent one.

someone else wrote:

... You must demonstrate how your view is consistent in order for it to be as such...

This ^ makes no sense. A view is either consistent or not on its own merits and is not dependent upon whether or not a particular individual has demonstrated those merits to a particular audience in a particular forum.

Please, just a little more logic.

Thanks.

someone else wrote:

You don't have to kill anything before conception begins, you just have to prevent something from happening.

See, I would argue that abortion isn't killing anything; abortion is "preventing something from happening." So I would rephrase your statement:

You don't have to kill anything before a baby is born, you just have to prevent that from happening.

All of these arguments about when the fetus becomes a human being are tiring me out because everyone has a different opinion on the matter. Also, these arguments circumvent the more important things that we need to consider. We will not reach a consensus on what constitutes a human being, and what can simply be regarded as the potential for such. However, we should be able to reach a consensus on what policy regarding the legality of abortion will minimize the number of abortions performed as well as maximize the health of the possible future mother involved. If you want to propose a different law regarding abortion, then propose the law. Come out and just say that you propose that all abortions should be illegal except in the most extreme circumstances. We can then analyze this policy, compare it with the one that is currently in place, and determine if it will actually save more lives than the current policy.

I would propose that if abortion is outlawed, it will not stop women who really need/want to get an abortion from getting an abortion. Abortion will become a black market procedure, and thus unregulated and much more dangerous. I highly doubt the abortion rate would drop all that much, and the rate of death from improperly performed abortions would sky rocket. So the total amount of death in my opinion would increase immensely. If you don't believe me, do some research about abortion rates in countries where abortion is illegal.

Stop arguing about nebulous philosophical ideas, and start arguing about and defending the practical application of the policy you are proposing.

Another analogy is that it's like someone building a house. They have the blueprints and the plans worked out, but no construction has taken place. It would be illegal to destroy the house while it was being built just as if it were already built, but if it has never been started, then there is nothing to destroy. The blueprints are like sperm, except the person building the house has an unending supply of blueprints, like a male has a pretty much unending supply of sperm. So destroying blueprints would not hinder the ability of the person to build the house.

The blueprints for life are there from the very beginning, and are built into a person's genetic code so that they can reproduce. If they don't make an attempt to reproduce, then nothing destructive has to happen.