Where do ya stand on abortion?

[trish]

It is called compromise.

_notdrunk.

Oh, so you're willing to compromise a human life? Face it, notdrunk, you're being woefully inconsistent. You don't really believe fertilized eggs are persons, you're just pretending you do. So what DO you really believe? That all woman should obey your stymied notions of morality? By the way, you never got back to us on the question of destroying blastocysts. I believe you said they weren't as important as human beings, is that right?

[dave252]

if there was ever a civil rights case, abortion is it. We were all just a fertilized egg, as some put it, at 1 time. What people really dont realize is that at the moment of conception, your gender, your eye and hair color, your body type and most of your physical characteristics are already determined. When does a women become a woman? At conception, is it her choice to be destroyed or do we just abort male babies? The fact is, that its not the mothers body she is destroying, but someone elses. This is proved by the womans body trying to trick the imune system, the child and the mother share genes, otherwise the imune system attacks the fertilized egg as a foriegn body. This is why some women have problems with miscarriages, they have strong imune systems. these women are given dangerous drugs to weaken the immune system so they can go full term, and in some cases the immune system never returns to what it was. Therefore, logically, it is a seperate lfe from the mother and should have alll the rights as any of us.

[trish]

Can a fertilized egg think? When is it determined what a fertilized egg will think? Does a fertilized egg have a personality? Is it a person? What sort of person? A jovial one? An intelligent one? A responsible one? Is it a good friend? Is it a Christian? Is it right wing? Left? Is it a moral agent? Does it have the freedom to express itself? What is that self? There's a lot that is not determined by a full set of chromosomes, not even all phenotypic expression is genetically determined. Genes do not determine any acquired traits nor the rights and responsibilities that are earned through the acquisition of those traits.

Therefore, logically, it is a seperate lfe from the mother and should have alll the rights as any of us.

Your conclusion is false; e.g. I have the right to vote, fertilized eggs do not. Consequently your hypothesis is false or your conclusion fails to follow logically from your hypothesis...or both. I suggest that assertions about rights can never be logically proven from scientific claims alone. From the fact a fertilized egg received only half its genetic material from it's mother, you cannot prove anything whatsoever about its rights. This is akin to trying to prove an "ought" from an "is". Perhaps you just meant to say something like this, "If a mother has the right to end a pregnancy, then the next generation of mothers should also have that right."

[By the way, Dave, your argument maintains that a fetus that developed as a result of parthenogensis (e.g. Jesus Christ who had only the genetic material contributed by his virgin mother) can be aborted.]

[DL_NL]

I prefer abortion over raising unwanted and unloved children, or children raised by mothers too young, stupid or uncaring to do a good job. About rape- geez, imagine raising a kid you got that way, it would be a lifelong trauma for the mother and if the kid would know it, it would be pretty hard on his/her confidence as well.

[dave252]

a month old baby, is it right wing, left wing, is it a christian, a jew, tell me what it thinks, by your logic, it also should be deemed not a person. a 17 year old doesnt have the right to vote. a 20 year old cant drink legally, so they are a human yet, give me a break, we are who we are at conception, that never changes.

[trish]

Where did I say that if you don't have a particular right, then you aren't a person? You need to learn the difference between a proposition and it's converse. You get no breaks for committing logical errors. [Your previous error is now compounded, btw. You claimed to have proven that a fertilized egg has all the rights as any of us, and yet you just confessed you don't believe that.] My position is that only persons have rights (and some of those rights as you point out depend on age and experience). Blastocysts might have a full complement of chromosomes, but they are not people. There's an ocean of difference between a fertilized egg and living person.

[evilernie]

a month old baby, is it right wing, left wing, is it a christian, a jew, tell me what it thinks, by your logic, it also should be deemed not a person. a 17 year old doesnt have the right to vote. a 20 year old cant drink legally, so they are a human yet, give me a break, we are who we are at conception, that never changes.

I think what you should ask yourself is "can it survive on its own". If it cannot then it's no different than pulling a brain dead person off a respirator.

[trish]

In your first post, Dave, you claim to have a proof from logic and science alone that a fertilized egg has all the rights as any of us. But you know for a fact that the conclusion of your argument is false. You agree that fertilized eggs don’t have a right to drink, drive, vote, own a home, etc. Since the conclusion is false, so is the argument. Yet you persist in your belief that fertilized eggs have a right to live that trumps the mother’s choice to carry or not to carry it to term. Okay, that’s fine. But it means that the argument you gave is not the reason for your belief...because you yourself cannot believe that argument. So what is the real reason behind your position against abortion? Do you believe in some sort of ensoulment? Is it simply God’s command? Do you think of children as a kind of punishment for getting pregnant? Just what’s behind your belief? Please spare us the ludicrous and false excursion into logic.

By the way, I thought you might like to know why your argument fails. Basically your error is based on a fallacious interpolant.

Here’s your original argument:
From the two premises listed here...

P1) Only half the genetic material in a fertilized egg is contributed by the woman in whose womb it now resides.

P2) If not suppressed (in certain naturally occurring ways) a woman’s immune system will attack her own fertilized egg.

... it follows from logic alone that

C1) A fertilized egg has all the rights as any of us.

First of all, it seems a bit odd doesn’t it that from two premises stated solidly in the language of biology and which consequently make no mention of rights, obligations, morals etc. one can deduce from logic alone a conclusion about the rights of a fertilized egg. How did you do this? By an intermediately step, which I’m unfairly left out. Here’s the step. From P1 and P2 it follows from logic alone that

C0) A fertilized egg is a separate life from the woman who carries it.

But the objection that C1 doesn’t follow from P1 and P2 from logic alone also applies to C0 as well. Neither P1 nor P2 make any mention of the technical and undefined term “separate life” and consequently nothing about that term follows from them. You could have defined “separate life” as “having only have the same genes and being an potential immune system trigger. Then C0 would follow easily from P1 and P2. But then C0 would say nothing about rights and so C1 still doesn’t follow.

[trish]

Sometimes a girl just gets tired pointing out all the false turns in the logical mazes constructed by confused minds. So in this post I’ll just give you my own take on the issue of woman’s choice.

Here’s my position:

A) I choose to grant women the right to decide for themselves whether to carry a pregnancy to term or not.

First some background assumptions:

B) There is not issue of ensoulment. There are no such things are souls in the sense that the notion of ensoulment requires. There are no rights that are not given to us by ourselves. There are no divine commands. None of us has been given any divine rights, because there are no deities. If a fertilized egg has any rights, it’s because we have given it those rights.

These are the assumptions I require to make sense of my motivation. I will grant you they are assumptions. I will not attempt to prove them, logically, scientifically, morally or theologically. I do think I can support these assumptions with evidence, but I will not do so here. You may take them as my background assumptions.

In support action A above, I do not attempt to give a logical argument, a scientific argument or even a moral argument. I need no proof to take an action. Actions require only motivations.

Here’s my motivation:

M) I look at the micrograph below which shows not a fertilized human egg (which is a single cell) but what results after the egg has divided into a hundred cells. It's mass of undifferentiated cells. It is not a person. It may grow into one, like my sister or my mother or my best friend. But now it is an unthinking, insensate, aggregate. Look at it. I, along with the rest of society, get to determine what rights it has. Do I really want to afford it rights that will trump my sister’s right to choose the proper and moral path her life should take. Like I said. I offer no argument. I just look at that mass of cells and I imagine my sister, your sister, any real and living woman and I know my decision. No. I will not grant a mere collection of cells rights that trump the rights of real persons. Moreover, I’ve a tendency to be magnanimous when it comes to granting rights, freedoms and liberties to actual persons. "But," you might say, "there is a whole progression of micrographs and sonographs that could be shown." Yes, I grant each woman the choice to draw her own line.

[Silcc69]

Sarah Palin is actually pretty sexy IMO. I can't really stand her and she say's some off the wall things but she is entertaining to say the least. I'm not to fond of abortions but I do know most pro-lifers a hypocrites anyways.