The Political Discussion Thread

[mad_gater]

Sorry Hannah, I was hoping for specific extremes to pop and oh look, they have. Also, wanted to see what happens.



It's more complicated than that. So using your idea of women's right to body trumps religious objection, a woman can hypothetically get pregnant over and over again and get an abortion a month before birth, and it'd be ok? Fetuses have brain activity some time in the during the 2nd to 3rd trimester. And arguably, pain receptors. When people get an abortion, it's not exactly a joy ride. Babies undergo convulsions when it is terminated with the saline solution taking about three hours to die.



So you're arguing that a murder is a murder regardless of stage of development and encompassing the term of 'human being'? So it's all equal eh? Killing an adult is the same thing as killing an infant? Killing a zygote is the same thing as killing an adult and an infant? They're on the same level? So morally, when a couple fertilize eggs and implant them, and many of them do not come to full conception, that's constituted as murder?

You're not giving any room for discrepancy and arguing that they are already 'human' even in early stages of conception, that's very illogical. If they were human then, we should extend the same rights that we do to humans regardless of age? There's a lot of illogical consequences that follow from that kind of reasoning.

In my class, that's the potentiality argument, your argument. Goes something like: A single celled organism should have the right to life because it is going to possibly become a human in the future. Even more generally: X has the potential to be A, so X should have the rights of A. One simple counterargument to such reasoning is: Prince Charles has the potential to be king, so Prince Charles should have the rights of a king.



I may disagree with gater but no need to insult the guy/girl. Only insults yourself man.

actually I should clarify that it's INTENDED abortions that should be treated the same as murder.....in the example you mention (which is actually an entirely different discussion, one involving the moral implications of divorcing the procreative aspect from the unitive aspect of the marital act).....and in all cases involving the death of one or more unborn child(ren) for that matter.....the question that would need to be answered was whether or not the death of the unborn child was intended....so basically in analyzing each case involving such a death the principle known as double effect is used....the principle states that it is morally permissible to undertake an action that has both a good effect and a bad effect under very strict conditions.....the first condition that must be met is that the action itself must not be intrinsically wrong (like willfully taking the life of another human being....no matter the stage of development of that human being's body).....the bad effect must not be used as a means to accomplish the good effect and lastly the act must not produce evils greater than the one you seek to eliminate

so double effect applies if the child's death was not intended or not used as a means to accomplish the good effect.....it applies for example in such cases as ectopic pregnancies and in cases of uterine cancer...though a woman named Gianna Molla who was recently canonized as a saint was canonized because she displayed heroic virtue because she let her child live even though she had uterine cancer...she carried the child to term and after that the doctors tried everything to take care of her cancer but by that time it was too advanced and she died

and as far as the potentiality argument....it is not applicable where human life is concerned....it is a well known biological fact that (provided a viable implantation in the uterus occurs) a human being whose physical form will grow and develop both inside and eventually outside of the womb...a single cell organism, on the other hand....can NEVER become a human being because we are not single cell organisms.....our cellular structure is highly complex indeed.....amazing how 2 things...egg and sperm....innocuous little things but when combined give us new human life....I find it amazing that 2 innocuous things can create a gift so wondrous it takes our breath away when we behold it

so maybe you could call it more of an eventuality argument...that the physical form of the unborn child will EVENTUALLY resemble ours

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

I may disagree with gater but no need to insult the guy/girl. Only insults yourself man.

Who says it was an insult? It's a wry comment that I think her logic is insane, especially since her post there, before she clarified herself, it isn't even in line with the stance of pro life groups like the Catholic Church (which I had already pointed out).

Find something better to get your panties in a twist over than just the odd sardonic comment, if I wanted to insult mad_gater then I can come up with something stronger than that. I'm a sardonic old sod, get used to it.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Hypothetical:

You see Person A about to accidentally do something that will kill both himself and Person B. You happen to have it in your power to prevent this, but only at the cost of killing Person A. There is nothing you can do that will save them both.

What do you do? Do you:

1) Kill person A in order to save Person B, figuring that at least one life saved is better than nothing?

2) Do nothing, figuring two deaths are even better than one?


I know which one I'd pick, and probably most other people as well. In fact, I'd consider it a moral imperative to act, even though the situation is less than ideal (as in, ideally, I'd want to save both, but saving one is better than saving none, according to the moral teachings of my tradition).

Oh, and as for the argument that a single-celled organism can never become a human being? Hogwash. A fertilized egg is a single cell. We ALL start out as single-celled organisms.

[lordofseas]

Who says it was an insult? It's a wry comment that I think her logic is insane, especially since her post there, before she clarified herself, it isn't even in line with the stance of pro life groups like the Catholic Church (which I had already pointed out).

Find something better to get your panties in a twist over than just the odd sardonic comment, if I wanted to insult mad_gater then I can come up with something stronger than that. I'm a sardonic old sod, get used to it.

Now with added bacon? Thanks, now I want bacon.

[SF_and_Coffee]

mmmm... bacon....

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

Now with added bacon? Thanks, now I want bacon.

Bacon makes everything better.

You know the real reason the Middle East is so screwed up, no bacon. If everyone could just sit down to a bacon sandwich it would all be better.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Bacon makes everything better.

You know the real reason the Middle East is so screwed up, no bacon. If everyone could just sit down to a bacon sandwich it would all be better.

Washed down with beer, of course.

[lordofseas]

Washed down with beer, of course.

Donkey urine?

[SF_and_Coffee]

Donkey urine?

No, I said beer, not Budweiser.

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

No, I said beer, not Budweiser.

Well said.

To be fair while many in t the Middle East would like you to think they're good Muslims, apparently the illicit still is quite common in places like Saudi Arabia.

[SF_and_Coffee]

Well said.

To be fair while many in t the Middle East would like you to think they're good Muslims, apparently the illicit still is quite common in places like Saudi Arabia.

True. Of course, that line of thinking puts me in mind of an absolutely delicious applewood-smoked bacon coffee cake a Jewish friend of mine made last month...

[SoulReaver]

Thanks, now I want bacon.

mmmm... bacon....

+1

btw Al-Qaeda prisoners should be fed bacon only

[The Mighty 6 platoon]

True. Of course, that line of thinking puts me in mind of an absolutely delicious applewood-smoked bacon coffee cake a Jewish friend of mine made last month...

Ah yes, reminds of a Jewish friend who I once found eating a "kosher" bacon and lettuce sandwich.

Whatever religion or society bans, human nature always finds a way.

[s09119]

Obviously you shouldn't allow abortions whenever some feels like and over and over again in a pattern where it's clear it's being used as birth control or something. But people try and paint it like an all or nothing choice with abortion, either banning it outright or "OMG THEY'LL BE KILLING BABIES RIGHT UP TO BIRTH." Clearly there are in betweens, and that's what most people (IMO) should support.

A ball of cells is not a human being. Neither is the sperm wasted when someone uses a condom or masturbates. And neither is an egg that goes to waste because a woman didn't get pregnant while ovulating. If the pro-lifers want to argue against abortion on "Killing a human" grounds, they need to really take a hard look at where they're drawing the line.

[mad_gater]

Who says it was an insult? It's a wry comment that I think her logic is insane, especially since her post there, before she clarified herself, it isn't even in line with the stance of pro life groups like the Catholic Church (which I had already pointed out).

Find something better to get your panties in a twist over than just the odd sardonic comment, if I wanted to insult mad_gater then I can come up with something stronger than that. I'm a sardonic old sod, get used to it.

for one thing....I am a guy.....to save you some typing...and I'm Catholic....one who's actually considering the priesthood (awaits the usual tarring of all priests with the same brush that they tar the jacka$$ priests with)....and I did clarify myself.....left out a bit of a keyword "intended"....chalk it up to me not feeling too well atm...been dealing with a scratchy throat since yesterday