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being pro life outside the political arena
Topic Started: Nov 12 2008, 06:24 AM (4,743 Views)
Moonbat
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Wrong. I'm not happy at all at having to attack somebody's position. I won't dignify those positions, however, by calling them moral convictions, when by their own unwitting acknowledgement they are amoral convictions. When arguing for a conviction on the basis that it's the lesser of two evils, one is acknowledging that they are promoting an evil. Therefore, it can not be a moral conviction, and I will not recognize it as such.


In addition to being hyperbolic in the extreme it's wrong by definition to claim that someone who favours taking what they consider to be the lesser of two evils over the greater of two evils is "promoting evil". And i'll also add that you are not in a position to speak about whether other people's views are held on moral grounds or on some other grounds. I certainly consider it wrong to force women to bring an early pregnancy to term.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
kathyk
Nov 14 2008, 03:52 PM
Luke's Dad
Nov 14 2008, 02:45 PM
kathyk
Nov 14 2008, 11:25 AM
To spell it out for you: Sometimes one must make the choice of the lesser of two evils. To take it a step further, it should not be your decision to make for another woman except perhaps your for your own wife.
What the hell? Having a child is an evil? Killing a fetus is less of an evil than having the child?

How about killing a three month old infant because it's too hard for the mother to cope? Is that a legitimate regrettable choice for the mother, too?

There are choices. Women have choices. The number one choice is whether or not to have sex to begin with (and Do Not take this conversation off target about rape victims, that is a different topic and should be discussed seperately. I'm talking about abortion as birth control). The second choice is birth control. The third choice is keeping and raising the baby or adoption if she does become pregnant. Taking an unborn life must not be an option. Plain and simple. There are other choices.

You want more explicit sex ed classes? Fine. They will not work to the extent we need as long as abortion is a choice that's on the table.
Yes, LD, for many women it is most definitely an evil, in the sense that it can present an unbearable burden.

And of course killing a three month old infant is wrong or a one minute old infant.

Indeed there are choices. And God willing, the choice to have a legal and safe abortion before the viability of the fetus will remain an option - a choice of the lesser of evils. Much better that than the option of desperate women losing their own lives in back allies with coat hangers up their uteri, which everyone knows will happen again if abortion is ever criminalized.

I also don't believe for a minute that criminalizing abortion would have an appreciable effect on people's sexual activity. I have never met a person who thought of abortion as means of birth control. It is almost always a choice made out of desperation.
Choices have consequences.

Some people make dumb choices. Some people make dumb choices over and over again. Daddy always told me that if I was man enough to make a baby, I was man enough to take care of one...the flip side of that is true for a woman, also. You spread your legs for pleasure, don't come crying to me, or to society for becoming pregnant.

And don't come to me looking for approval, if you decide to kill a life in order to make your life a little less inconvenient.

Choices have consequences.

Don't give me the "it's just a fetus argument, either". When I first got into the hospital, we'd let some extremely preemie babies die in the corner. You'd see those little chests heaving for air, trying to make lungs work that weren't developed enough to do so. But life wants to live...they'd struggle, they'd turn and they would eventually get weaker and weaker until they breathed no more...sometimes it would take hours before death mercifully came.

Know what? We routinely save babies that small nowadays and we're getting better everyday. So...what used to be considered by some as an abortable fetus, is fully capable of making it in a modern NICU. And we keep pushing the survival rate for weight limit and gestational period down. The fetus you aborted 15 years ago, is a viable baby today.

Choices have consequences.

People tell me they know folks that have had abortions and regretted it their entire life. Good. It shows that they may have a thread of common decency in their bodies, if an abortion memory pains them. So, if they make that choice, they must live with those memories.

Choices have consequences.

It saddens me to think of the many couples who would love to adopt, but there are no children available. In not so many decades past, it was considered the right thing to do, to carry a baby to full term if a girl had made a mistake, and if she did not want the baby, to let some loving couple have it...not for monetary gain, but for the best for all involved. Sadly, the mantra today is to abort the child, it is much more convenient.

I don't see how any person, particularly a woman, especially a mother, can condone the killing of the unborn.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
kathyk
Nov 14 2008, 04:13 PM
ivorythumper
Nov 14 2008, 10:10 AM
kathyk
Nov 14 2008, 07:36 AM
ivorythumper
Nov 12 2008, 04:05 PM
What is asinine? I think abortion is much worse than kiddie porn or child abuse.
Wow. This explains a lot.
What does it explain? The it is a graver injustice to deprive someone of life than to abuse them. Both are evil, but at least the victim can go on living and healing from their trauma in the latter two cases.
Just to remind you of who first drew the comparison between abortion and child abuse.
No Kathy, You really do need to learn to follow an argument.

I did not draw the comparison. I simply replaced Quirt's formula "abortion should be safe, legal and rare" with child abuse and kiddie porn to test it. It obviously fails that test.

I could have said "housebreaking and credit card fraud should be safe, legal and rare" and shown the same thing.

You are just too dogmatically rigid in your thinking to understand the fallacy in his logic, and instead come out fangs bared for anyone who defends the notion that innocent human life cannot be killed with moral impunity.
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
Moonbat
Nov 14 2008, 04:18 PM
Quote:
 

Wrong. I'm not happy at all at having to attack somebody's position. I won't dignify those positions, however, by calling them moral convictions, when by their own unwitting acknowledgement they are amoral convictions. When arguing for a conviction on the basis that it's the lesser of two evils, one is acknowledging that they are promoting an evil. Therefore, it can not be a moral conviction, and I will not recognize it as such.


In addition to being hyperbolic in the extreme it's wrong by definition to claim that someone who favours taking what they consider to be the lesser of two evils over the greater of two evils is "promoting evil" and you are also in no position to speak about whether other people's positions are held on moral grounds or on some other grounds. I certainly consider it wrong to force women to bring an early pregnancy to term.
Be careful, as the logical extension of your argument is to extinguish any biomass not needful to the collection of biomass known as "society".

By acclimation, we can always abort you.
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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JBryan
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QuirtEvans
Nov 14 2008, 01:44 PM
JBryan
Nov 14 2008, 12:11 PM
QuirtEvans
Nov 14 2008, 11:28 AM
JBryan
Nov 14 2008, 10:17 AM
QuirtEvans
Nov 14 2008, 09:46 AM
JBryan
Nov 14 2008, 08:39 AM
Quote:
 
The person that comes about from that other pregnancy would not exist were it not for the termination.


I'm sorry but I don't see how that follows necessarily unless you have a one child policy or whatever number is one over the number the couple already has. There certainly are people who are not here because of abortion. Your attempt at inversion falls short of that certainty.
It's not a certainty, but it's a reasonable probability.

Would every family stop having children? No, of course not. Would some? I think that's a fairly safe assumption. It's a lot of work to deal with a Down's syndrome child.
The difference is that an abortion means the certainty of someone not being born. The concept of people being born because of abortion is highly speculative bordering on the absurd.
Highly speculative bordering on the absurd? There you go again. I think it's almost a rock-solid certainty that some people aren't born as a result of abortion, and that your hyerbolic overreaction proves that you know it, but just don't want to admit it.
There is nothing hyperbolic in what I stated. An abortion means a rock soild certainty that someone will not be born. There is no "almost" about it even the way you stated it. it is a rock solid certainty that some people aren't born as a result of abortion. That there are people born as a result of abortion is speculative to the point of being absurd.
It's that final sentence that is hyperbolically ridiculous.

Oh, and yes, even your statement is a bit speculative. Some fetuses that are not aborted die before birth, you know. And, one might guess, the sort of person who would have an abortion might be more likely to fail to take the sort of pre-natal care that would improve the odds.

You can ignore reality, if you like, but, when you spread the odds across millions or billions of people, there are gonna be some who fit my supposedly speculative statement.

You might even know one. I might, too.

Nothing I said discounts the possibility that a fetus could die before birth and that fact does nothing to impair the point I am making. your statement about the prenatal care is just as speculative as the one about people being born because of abortion. At least it has the advantage of not appearing absurd on its face.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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brenda
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..............
Dewey
Nov 14 2008, 04:08 PM
Some of this thread literally makes me sick. I can't begin to describe the grief in my heart as I read some of it.

Posted Image


Some of you here might remember this earlier post of mine, from last July.

http://s10.zetaboards.com/The_New_Coffee_Room/topic/377397/1/#new



Thank you for sharing that prior thread again, Dewey. That was from before I joined here.

It's a great message and very needed.

I also appreciated reading the posts that went with that thread. It was very moving to have people share their personal views and experiences.

This thread has saddened me, too.
“Weeds are flowers, too, once you get to know them.”
~A.A. Milne
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JBryan
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Moonbat
Nov 14 2008, 01:46 PM
Quote:
 

I am attacking your logic, not your conclusions.


But all I said was that there are people who do not exist but would exist had a decisions to terminate been made. Likewise there are people today who do exist but would not had decisions to terminate not been made - for example suppose a couple have a child after a previous termination abortion, clearly there are examples of that, it's a statistical certainty that that particular child would not exist had it's parents not gone through with a termination.

Quote:
 

It is a rock solid certainty that some people are not born as a result of cutting down teen pregnancy but that is not a reason to eschew cutting down teen pregnancy any more than the fact that some people are not born as a result of abortion is a reason to oppose abortion.


I agree completely, and i'm suprised that given that agreement you took issue with me rather than Larry who made the exact opposite claim.
The only reason I responded at all is because your logical inversion of Larry's argument was absurd. I think there are more compelling reasons for banning abortion. I can also see the other side of the argument. I am not in favor of an outright ban but I am in favor of letting the individual states decide how to deal with the issue. We would not be having these brush wars if the Supreme Court had not butted in by inventing new rights.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Moonbat
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Be careful, as the logical extension of your argument is to extinguish any biomass not needful to the collection of biomass known as "society".

By acclimation, we can always abort you.


I don't see how that follows at all. What's the argument you think i'm applying and how does it lead to that conclusion?

Also I was interested to read you comments about foetuses gasping for air - that sounds pretty horrendous watching something that wants to breathe, suffocate must be heart rending but uh. don't you hunt?
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Moonbat
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The only reason I responded at all is because your logical inversion of Larry's argument was absurd. I think there are more compelling reasons for banning abortion. I can also see the other side of the argument. I am not in favor of an outright ban but I am in favor of letting the individual states decide how to deal with the issue. We would not be having these brush wars if the Supreme Court had not butted in by inventing new rights.


Well quantum mechanics is absurd - doesn't stop it being accurate. You've offered no counter argument to my repeated explanations i can only assume you have none.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Jolly
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Geaux Tigers!
Moonbat
Nov 14 2008, 04:29 PM
Quote:
 

Be careful, as the logical extension of your argument is to extinguish any biomass not needful to the collection of biomass known as "society".

By acclimation, we can always abort you.


I don't see how that follows at all. What's the argument you think i'm applying and how does it lead to that conclusion?

Also I was interested to read you comments about foetuses gasping for air - that sounds pretty horrendous watching something that wants to breathe, suffocate must be heart rending but uh. don't you hunt?
No hunter wishes to see what he kills, suffer.

Same things goes for when we butcher...I can slaughter beeves, hogs and chickens, but the Shakespeare rule always applies... If t'were done...
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
So, you are basing the validity of your argument on quantum mechanics? I'm sorry but I had to laugh out loud when I read that. :lol:
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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ivorythumper
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
The Three Stooges are absurd as well-- it doesn't stop them from being funny.

So take that, JB! :lol2:
The dogma lives loudly within me.
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
Got me there, bud. :lol:
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Moonbat
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So, you are basing the validity of your argument on quantum mechanics? I'm sorry but I had to laugh out loud when I read that. :lol:


I'm not basing the validity of the argument on quantum mechanics. The argument stands on it's own merits - which you haven't addressed. If you think it's strange then I agree, but whether something is strange has nothing to do with whether it's true. That was the point of the quantum mechanics example.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Moonbat
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No hunter wishes to see what he kills, suffer.

Same things goes for when we butcher...I can slaughter beeves, hogs and chickens, but the Shakespeare rule always applies... If t'were done...


Fair enough, i certainly wouldn't want any foetus to suffer.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Dewey
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HOLY CARP!!!
Awfully nice of you.
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Moonbat
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I think so.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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JBryan
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Moonbat
Nov 14 2008, 04:38 PM
Quote:
 

So, you are basing the validity of your argument on quantum mechanics? I'm sorry but I had to laugh out loud when I read that. :lol:


I'm not basing the validity of the argument on quantum mechanics. The argument stands on it's own merits - which you haven't addressed. If you think it's strange then I agree, but whether something is strange has nothing to do with whether it's true. That was the point of the quantum mechanics example.
I'm sorry, I should have said you are basing the validity of your argument on the validity of quantum mechanics. I have had a couple of glasses and that one slipped by.

You have done nothing to support your argument beyond its bare assertion decorated with some wild speculation. You really think I need to mount something against that? Your argument is absurd on its face and unless you can back it up with something factual do not pretend you can require me to prove it wrong. That is backwards. You prove it to be correct.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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George K
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Finally
I usually stay out of these threads (with good reason), but I read them. I thought this story today might provide cause for discussion lend some perspective pizz people off.

Priest: Obama Voters Must Do Pennance

Quote:
 
(CBS) A priest at a South Carolina Roman Catholic church says his parishioners shouldn't take Holy Communion if they voted for Barack Obama because of the Democrat's stance on abortion.

The Reverend Jay Scott Newman said Thursday that church law doesn't allow him to refuse parishioners the sacrament at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Greenville.

But, reports CBS affiliate WSPA, Newman said his congregants shouldn't take communion until they do penance for supporting the man he called the most radical pro-abortion politician ever to serve in the United States Senate or to run for president.

"We cannot leave our faith outside the voting booth," Newman told WSPA.

"It was absolutely inconceivable that a Catholic could say, 'I could vote for this otherwise extraordinary man and hope that the consequence won't be a widening of the abortion license and an increase in the number of abortions,'" Newman said.

Newman said that if a voter through his or her political action ("whether intended or not") contributed to the promotion of abortion, they need to "deal with it in the sacrament of penance."


:popcorn:

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Moonbat
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You have done nothing to support your argument beyond its bare assertion decorated with some wild speculation. You really think I need to mount something against that? Your argument is absurd on its face and unless you can back it up with something factual do not pretend you can require me to prove it wrong. That is backwards. You prove it to be correct.


I don't think you have grasped what i've said.

Suppose a couple terminates a pregnancy then the goes on to have another pregnancy which results in a child. If you could somehow go back and undo that termination, if you could split reality at that point then in the alternate no-termination world they would not end up with the child they have in the was-a-termination world.

Maybe some other child would be born maybe they'd even call it the same name but the odds that it would be the same child that in a different set of circumstances you would end up with idenitical genetic and environmental factors given the insane degree of variation in meiotic division, the success/failure of individual sperm and the environment conditions are impossibly small.

QED
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
S-p-e-c-u-l-a-t-i-o-n.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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John D'Oh
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MAMIL
OK - can I take a moment to ask a question. It's pretty obvious that none of the pro-lifers are willing to make any compromises, which was the point of the initial point of the discussion.

My question: How well has that strategy worked so far in reducing the number of abortions?

If a strategy isn't working, why keep pursuing it? This debate is strangely reminiscent of WW1. 'We've been dropping artillery on 'em for 2 solid days, sergeant , so we're absolutely sure they're all dead. We're just about to give the order to march slowly towards the trenches. Yes, I know, I know, the last 15 times we did this everybody got killed, but this time is going to be different!'

Wouldn't it be better to half the number of abortions than have no change at all?
What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket?
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JBryan
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I am the grey one
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I don't think you have grasped what i've said.

Suppose a couple terminates a pregnancy then the goes on to have another pregnancy which results in a child. If you could somehow go back and undo that termination, if you could split reality at that point then in the alternate no-termination world they would not end up with the child they have in the was-a-termination world.

Maybe some other child would be born maybe they'd even call it the same name but the odds that it would be the same child that in a different set of circumstances you would end up with idenitical genetic and environmental factors given the insane degree of variation in meiotic division, the success/failure of individual sperm and the environment conditions are impossibly small.

QED


Look, I present the argument that if you abort a child it will not be born. You counter with a speculative argument. There is no way you can show the two to be equivalent. Unless you have some hard data (obviously, really hard data) there is no way you can make that claim.
"Any man who would make an X rated movie should be forced to take his daughter to see it". - John Wayne


There is a line we cross when we go from "I will believe it when I see it" to "I will see it when I believe it".


Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.

Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.

From The Lion in Winter.
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Moonbat
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S-p-e-c-u-l-a-t-i-o-n.


What specifically is speculation: that there are people who go on to have children after having terminations or that the variability of meiotic division, sperm selection while in the reproductive tract, and environment factors is mind bogglingly huge?

I could no doubt find numbers for meiosis andsperm selection and with a bit of we could probably get a ball park figure (within a few orders of magnitude for environmental influence) but it's trivial that it's going to be an insanely small number. Do you not see that?
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem
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Jolly
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John D'Oh
Nov 14 2008, 05:54 PM
OK - can I take a moment to ask a question. It's pretty obvious that none of the pro-lifers are willing to make any compromises, which was the point of the initial point of the discussion.

My question: How well has that strategy worked so far in reducing the number of abortions?

If a strategy isn't working, why keep pursuing it? This debate is strangely reminiscent of WW1. 'We've been dropping artillery on 'em for 2 solid days, sergeant , so we're absolutely sure they're all dead. We're just about to give the order to march slowly towards the trenches. Yes, I know, I know, the last 15 times we did this everybody got killed, but this time is going to be different!'

Wouldn't it be better to half the number of abortions than have no change at all?
Or maybe having a father have sex with only half of his female children?

Yeah, bad analogy, but....if something is inherently wrong, it is just as wrong in little pieces as it is in its entirety...
The main obstacle to a stable and just world order is the United States.- George Soros
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