Which Of These Three Starements Do You Reject? (Abortion Related)

[chillrob]

Wow, I am so tempted to reply to the ridiculous statements made by the "female member" but they seem in no way related to the OP so I will refrain. Maybe she should start another thread for the subject, if she actually wants to bother posts made by the global womb-less minority.

Anyway, with regards to the original post, I agree with 2 and 3 and may agree with 1 as well, although I would have to think about it a lot and the exact formulation of the choice seems to be changing throughout the thread.

I definately think it is possible to be logically consistent and still agree with all 3 statements. For Sklansky's logical impossibility to hold true, he is making an assumption which I disagree with. His assumption is that life is generally a positive thing. I believe that life is most basically a negative, and support abortion in all cases because I believe it to be the most painless way out of an existence destined to be filled with pain. I do believe fetuses are human, and believe the most humane thing to do is to extinguish their desitined to be painful lives as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I would probably not object to the existence child-killing clinic if I could be assured that the children were being killed in a completely pain-free manner, and if the "lazy parents" were willing to either also accept the same pain-free death, or be sterilized so that they would bring no one else into the world.

If these clinics, however, are places where the children suffer more pain, i.e. - are tortured to death, and there is no way for the law to stop them, I guess I would think that bombing them was ok, and therefore would reject none of the three statements.

[Greeksquared]

I have a question that I have always wanted answered posed to those that reject #2...

When is the point in the creation of life where some one is considered human. A 3 month old child has no more chance at surviving by itself than a newly fertilized egg. This can even be true for children up to 2 years of age. I'm not sure how I would do now without my mom.

So where is this point? And why do you feel this way?

[luckyme]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question that I have always wanted answered posed to those that reject #2...

When is the point in the creation of life where some one is considered human. A 3 month old child has no more chance at surviving by itself than a newly fertilized egg. This can even be true for children up to 2 years of age. I'm not sure how I would do now without my mom.

So where is this point? And why do you feel this way?

[/ QUOTE ]
there is no 'Point', so people just make one up.

luckyme

[brashbrother]

[ QUOTE ]
Given my recent post about how some people won't examine their thoughts for inconsistencies, I wanted to ressurect a topic I broached before in this explicit way. But please understand that I choose this topic only because it is the best real world example of the syndrome that I can think of.

The following are three different points of view that a person can have. Aside from tortured rationalizations, it is clearly not possible to have all three simultaneously and be consistent. But some try to.

Anyway here are three statements. Logically you must pick at least one to reject.

1. If there are clinics in this country which kill mildly handicapped children brought to them by lazy parents, it is not morally wrong to bomb those clinics, risking injury or death to the killers, even if such bombings are against the law, as long as other remedies don't work and bombings do.

[/ QUOTE ]
I reject this because I think it is wrong to perform "vigilante justice" via a bombing attempt. Even if you can't seem to stop them any other way, as mentioned, you still don't get to play God.
[ QUOTE ]

2. Fetuses are equally human as children in spite of their age, size, and the fact that they are inside of a mother and couldn't survive otherwise.

[/ QUOTE ]
I accept this one, as I believe fetuses and infants and mentally incapacitated adults, all of whom could not survive without assistance, should be allowed to live.
[ QUOTE ]

3. It is morally WRONG to bomb abortion clinics if there is risk of injury or death to the abortionists, even if there is no other remedy that works but bombings do.

[/ QUOTE ]
I accept this one, again due to the idea of vigilante "justice" being wrong.

Not sure why this is being asked, although I assumed it was an attempt to show how those who are anti-abortion are inconsistent (Is that right, Sklansky?) Maybe it would be more appropriate to classify those who choose to bomb abortion clinics as inconsistent? I can't think of any sane person who would bomb a clinic, so it should be no surprise that a nutjob might have some inconsistent reasoning.

All I can surmise from this post is that Sklansky is pointing out that people who bomb abortion clinics are not using consistent reasoning. Anybody find something else? Maybe I am missing the point, please enlighten me if so.

[AlexM]

I reject 1 and 2, but...

I don't see how it's logically necessary to reject one. There's no reason a person can't believe a fetus is equally human as anyone and still support a mother's right to abortion while opposing the murder of born children.

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
I have a question that I have always wanted answered posed to those that reject #2...

When is the point in the creation of life where some one is considered human. A 3 month old child has no more chance at surviving by itself than a newly fertilized egg. This can even be true for children up to 2 years of age. I'm not sure how I would do now without my mom.

So where is this point? And why do you feel this way?

[/ QUOTE ]

Once the baby meets the following criteria, especially those bolded:

an·i·mal - noun

1. any member of the kingdom Animalia, comprising multicellular organisms that have a well-defined shape and usually limited growth, can move voluntarily, actively acquire food and digest it internally, and have sensory and nervous systems that allow them to respond rapidly to stimuli

This all happens about halfway through the pregnancy I believe.

[AlexM]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't think the male opinion on abortion is remotely relevant

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with most of what you said, but this is plain sexist.

[David Sklansky]

"At a certain state, a fetus is not a human being because it is incapable of surviving outside of my body."

So what happens when technology can keep two month old fetuses alive outside the womb?

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]
2. Fetuses are equally human as children in spite of their age, size, and the fact that they are inside of a mother and couldn't survive otherwise.


[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Why aren’t fetuses human beings?


[/ QUOTE ]

I really have difficulty seeing why people get so worked up about this point. Its just a matter of how we choose to define the word human. One might have esthetical objects to someone’s definition but its impossible for anyone to actually be wrong.

The only problem would be if the concept of human here was being automatically tied in with some already pre-existing definition of human, say in some legal documents. However the OP did give such a reference point.

[btmagnetw]

[ QUOTE ]
"At a certain state, a fetus is not a human being because it is incapable of surviving outside of my body."

So what happens when technology can keep two month old fetuses alive outside the womb?

[/ QUOTE ]why would that matter to him? the fetus itself is still inviable.