The [Current Year] General Political/Salma Hayek discussion thread, part 4!!!

[engi-ninja]

Let me be clear...I don't care. Even if the number of "choice" abortions were 100%...I just don't care. The reasons those women chose to abort are theirs alone...those pregnancies didn't involve me, and I have no stake in their outcome. I'd love to have a conversation with you about living in a world where millions of women believe it is a better option to abort their pregnancy than carry it to term, what changes could be made to such a world, and how to effect them...but that's a completely different conversation.

As long as women are choosing to end their pregnancies - for whatever reason - I will support their right to have the procedure done legally and under competent medical supervision.

Your position is logical if you consider a "pregnancy" to not involve the life of a human being. Correct?

So the real debate is whether or not an unborn baby is a human being. I've always been a little confused about how a living entity, having a unique human DNA, is not a human being. What is it, then? It's not part of the mother, since it has its own DNA. It's not non-human, since it has human DNA. It's definitely alive, since it's growing. Calling it a fetus doesn't get you anywhere either, since fetus is just the Latin word for baby. So...if it's not a human life, what is it?

I guess another rational would be that the right to life is something conferred by society, and if society wants to declare certain human lives to be non-persons, then they don't have human rights? I feel like this has happened before, to the general disapproval of the human conscience...

Anyway, I'm genuinely curious as to your rational for why an unborn baby doesn't possess same rights as your or I.

 

[engi-ninja]

As much as I don't like it, Paul is correct.
Look at it this way, you don't want people telling you which guns you can or can not own, hell if you can even own them.
What gives any one the right to tell a woman what to do with her body.
If you feel that strongly about abortion, get the law changed . Just like we try to get gun laws changed.

Again, I don't like abortion but, I don't have a say in any case that doesn't involve me.

Again...who said anything about the woman's body? How is that part of this conversation at all? Do you have any body parts with a different DNA from the rest of you? Nobody cares what the woman does with her body.

 

[Hohn]

Let me be clear...I don't care. Even if the number of "choice" abortions were 100%...I just don't care. The reasons those women chose to abort are theirs alone...those pregnancies didn't involve me, and I have no stake in their outcome. I'd love to have a conversation with you about living in a world where millions of women believe it is a better option to abort their pregnancy than carry it to term, what changes could be made to such a world, and how to effect them...but that's a completely different conversation.

As long as women are choosing to end their pregnancies - for whatever reason - I will support their right to have the procedure done legally and under competent medical supervision.

I would encourage you, sir, to read Abraham Lincoln's dismantling of the idea of popular sovereignty to see why you DO have a stake in the outcome and it DOES involve you.


See, people once made similar arguments about slavery in the new territories-- that accepting slavery and rejecting slavery were both equally viable so long as they acceptance or rejection was arrived at by democratic means. This was what Stephen Douglas and the popular sovereignty movement --pop sov as they called it-- was about. The rush to determine the future of slavery in the US as it expanded was behind Bleeding Kansas and a root of all the consequential events from 1854 to the bombardment of Fort Sumter that started the civil war.

Read the text of Lincoln's speeches, from the his speech at the Lyceum to his debates with Douglas.

It is simply not that case that the presence of an immoral horror doesn't affect you just because you don't recognize it as such. Slavery was not just an issue for slaves and slave owners, but was an issue for every American because we all have a stake in what kind of country we will be. Our legal code reflects our values and our morals. And I have a hard time seeing how the country that will send its blood and treasure to far-flung deserts and mountains to protect less-than-innocent people will allow at home the most innocent of all humans to be slaughtered for the sake of convenience.

"Just as I would not be a slave, neither would I be a master."-A. Lincoln.

 

[T.Lex]

Again...who said anything about the woman's body? How is that part of this conversation at all? Do you have any body parts with a different DNA from the rest of you? Nobody cares what the woman does with her body.

I'm not sure, but I think every egg and every sperm have different DNA than their host.

 

[caverjamie]

This issue isn’t going to get solved here and I can all but guarantee no opinions will be changed as a result of it.

 

[red_zr24x4]

Again...who said anything about the woman's body? How is that part of this conversation at all? Do you have any body parts with a different DNA from the rest of you? Nobody cares what the woman does with her body.

Ok, leave her body out of it.
I only shoot shotguns no one needs a military style rifle
Or more than 10 rounds is a waste no one needs "hi capacity" magazines.
Don't like the law change it
You don't want to be told what to do as a law abiding gun owner, don't tell people what to do as long as they're following the law.
I'm done, not arguing over something like this where no one wins.

 

[PaulF]

Your position is logical if you consider a "pregnancy" to not involve the life of a human being. Correct?

So the real debate is whether or not an unborn baby is a human being. I've always been a little confused about how a living entity, having a unique human DNA, is not a human being. What is it, then? It's not part of the mother, since it has its own DNA. It's not non-human, since it has human DNA. It's definitely alive, since it's growing. Calling it a fetus doesn't get you anywhere either, since fetus is just the Latin word for baby. So...if it's not a human life, what is it?

I guess another rational would be that the right to life is something conferred by society, and if society wants to declare certain human lives to be non-persons, then they don't have human rights? I feel like this has happened before, to the general disapproval of the human conscience...

Anyway, I'm genuinely curious as to your rational for why an unborn baby doesn't possess same rights as your or I.

Chip Bennet (wherever you are I hope you're well, sir) fermented my view on this in an old thread where he handily out-argued me on that very idea.

I think it is absolutely clear (now, thanks chip!) that a human fetus is a unique, individual life...a human life, if not yet a fully-formed human being. I also think that no person can be forced to allow another human being (or life) to occupy their body against their own will. Pregnancy and delivery can result in permanent disability or death...those are not trivial risks, and must be taken on soberly and intentionally...at least from my perspective.

As far as rights are concerned (in my humble and flawed opinion, of course): if a fetus has any rights at all, they are completely and fully overridden by the rights of the mother...including her right to empty her uterus of any content, at any time.

 

[jamil]

Okay...from my perspective I have tried to illustrate a reasoned and reasonable position in a sincere and non-inflammatory way...and I thought that was how this was being received.

If I'm way off course here I depend on people like you and Bug to tell me.

Why is a lock needed?

Because that’s how these discussions typically go. For the people who really care about this issue on both sides, it’s a binary moral issue. It’s either immoral to abort a baby at any time during the pregnancy, or it’s immoral to prohibit abortion any time during the pregnancy.

You know how it goes. Eventually tempers flare, and people say stuff, then threads get locked; and sometimes the banhammer comes out. I’m just extrapolating history to arrive at a prediction. I hope I’m wrong.

 

[nonobaddog]

I'm not sure, but I think every egg and every sperm have different DNA than their host.

No. They do not.

 

[PaulF]

Because that’s how these discussions typically go. For the people who really care about this issue on both sides, it’s a binary moral issue. It’s either immoral to abort a baby at any time during the pregnancy, or it’s immoral to prohibit abortion any time during the pregnancy.

You know how it goes. Eventually tempers flare, and people say stuff, then threads get locked; and sometimes the banhammer comes out. I’m just extrapolating history to arrive at a prediction. I hope I’m wrong.

You make a good point. A really good point. I'll take it easy.

 

[red_zr24x4]

Because that’s how these discussions typically go. For the people who really care about this issue on both sides, it’s a binary moral issue. It’s either immoral to abort a baby at any time during the pregnancy, or it’s immoral to prohibit abortion any time during the pregnancy.

You know how it goes. Eventually tempers flare, and people say stuff, then threads get locked; and sometimes the banhammer comes out. I’m just extrapolating history to arrive at a prediction. I hope I’m wrong.

You make a good point. A really good point. I'll take it easy.

He's right

 

[nonobaddog]

Did you watch this video? I think the left will have to come up with a new term. It isn't an aborted pregnancy after delivery.

Leftists push INSANE Bill That Allows Executing Babies
[video=youtube;xp0ZY1rVbAQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp0ZY1rVbAQ[/video]

 

[mmpsteve]

So when does a baby become a human? At one time, negroes were not considered human. That wrong thinking was eventually corrected, and rightfully so. Who gets to decide when the baby becomes a human, an American, with all the rights afforded to an American citizen? We do, and we do it with our votes. Elections matter, as do conservative judges.

.

 

[Hawkeye]

1.4M dead Americans from guns since 1968. Do gun rights advocates "own" that?

I don't know that there are "gun rights advocates" around. Guns, as inanimate objects do't have rights. And it's not the guns that kill people. It's the decisions of people who(mis)use guns in the commission of a crime.

 

[BugI02]

So when does a baby become a human? At one time, negroes were not considered human. That wrong thinking was eventually corrected, and rightfully so. Who gets to decide when the baby becomes a human, an American, with all the rights afforded to an American citizen? We do, and we do it with our votes. Elections matter, as do conservative judges.

.

View attachment 74406


Reverse Godwin's

 

[Kutnupe14]

View attachment 74406


Reverse Godwin's

Since you used the analogy, is it faulty logic to believe that if a Nazi death camp were in your city, you'd stand idly by, and let them continue their work, only railing about how you disagreed with it on the internet?

 

[BugI02]

Statistically speaking, if it comes from your keyboard, then yes I must assume it is likely to be faulty logic

 

[Kutnupe14]

Statistically speaking, if it comes from your keyboard, then yes I must assume it is likely to be faulty logic

Personal quip aside...
Well here's your chance to explain the faulty logic. As it stands now, for all the freedom loving, from my cold dead hands, liberty loving Americans, I find it difficult to reconcile if they think abortion is an ongoing exercise in mass murder, how they can standby doing nothing. It seems because it is allowed by "law," then their hands are constrained from taking action. Historically, that has been the coward's excuse from doing the right thing.

 

[nonobaddog]

So when does a baby become a human? At one time, negroes were not considered human. That wrong thinking was eventually corrected, and rightfully so. Who gets to decide when the baby becomes a human, an American, with all the rights afforded to an American citizen? We do, and we do it with our votes. Elections matter, as do conservative judges.

At one time humans were not considered humans. When they first evolved they didn't know what the heck they were. And their entire language had only two words - 'food' and 'sex'.

 

[BugI02]

Personal quip aside...
Well here's your chance to explain the faulty logic. As it stands now, for all the freedom loving, from my cold dead hands, liberty loving Americans, I find it difficult to reconcile if they think abortion is an ongoing exercise in mass murder, how they can standby doing nothing. It seems because it is allowed by "law," then their hands are constrained from taking action. Historically, that has been the coward's excuse from doing the right thing.

And how shall I take action beyond the ballot box? Would you have me murder the murderers?

What of you? 156 people were murdered in Indianapolis last year, 3/4 of them black. Given those last couple of posts, how can you crouch behind a keyboard in Carmel and do nothing, you even have police experience. Why aren't you out there going all Equalizer on the perps?