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Kilkrazy wrote:

mcfly wrote:Hey KillKrazy, off topic here, but what time is it there?

Right now it is 3:47 in the afternoon.

So that makes you like 4 hours later than me...Crazy stuff this time zone thing.

Frazzled wrote:Too late! I already said that hahahhah I win! What do I get?

Mr. Dietrich is getting slow in his old age.

... have we brought up the Nazis yet or is the thread too young for that ?

.... now if fetus' were armed and someone tried to abort them and they fought back would that count as murder ?

1. Alright I finally win something. hurray!!!

2. No Nazis yet, not enough Nazi surf zombies. frankly i am disappointed in that aspect of this thread.

3. No that would be self defense, unless the feti formed an armed vigilante group meeting out justice from the end of a bottle. Which would be cool. Sci Fi Channel sounds like another of your winner movies.

Sorry, Fraz, I missed the gun control reference.

For bringing up the American trifecta of political hot-button issues (gun control, abortion, and the death penalty), assuming you're a US citizen, you win the ability to run for political office.

That's right, now you too can spout off propaganda that makes no sense, make commitments that aren't practical, and become even more hated than lawyers!

Now, personally, I think you're overqualified - you know more than a fifth grader. But, fortunately for you, there is no limit to how smart (or dumb) you can be and still be a politician.

I'm pleased to announce my candidacy for Emperor for life, er um, State Senator...

dietrich wrote:The Death Penalty and Abortion in the same thread! Someone needs to bring up Gun Control, and that'd be the triangle for American politics.

We can also add anti-abortionists who blow up clinics, thus bringing domestic terrorism into the mix!

We need to find a drugs angle.

We haven't mentioned immigration, social security, torture, or TARP yet. We have barely scratched the surface yet. You Nazis. (If I offended the sensitivities of anyone who considers themselves a Nazi, I meant no offense. In an era of moral and cultural relativism, with no good or evil, then a nazi is not evil. just misunderstood.)

On gun control, I am a firm believer that more gun control is always better. But my definition of gun control is hitting what you aim at.

Your first point, so now you are saying that a person that has to use a dialysis machine is not a human being. Or has to use any mechanical device to breath, proces nutrients etc. Basically, anyone that has a surgery, until they heal completely, is not a human being. A newborn is completely unable to care for itself. A 3 year old child might be able to feed itself, or drink unassissted. however a three year old has no idea how to provide the food in the first place. So again, is dependent upon another for survival. Also, apparently walking is a precondition for being a human being by your definition. Since you clearly state that once a child is able to walk it becomes self sufficient. Are amputees and parapalegics now no longer human beings? (I know that the walking part is not what you meant, but I was using that point to illustrate how arbitrary your definition is or can become)

That's not the same thing. Yes, those people would die without the machines, and yes, in the strictest use of that definition they aren't human beings, but they were before (And that makes a big difference i.e. they've most likely contributed to society in some way), and they will most likely become one after. A fetus has never been a human being. I suppose if you wanted to be overly mechanical and follow my definition to the letter, someone making medical decisions for someone on life support could choose to end that persons life. Hey! wait a minute we have a name for that Euthanasia. Wow, thats 4 moral controversies we've brought up now. Aren't we talented!

As for miscarriage, that is not the same as deliberately killing something. If a person dies from a heart attack, society doesn't generally put anyone on trial for murder. If someone shoots a person in the heart, society does try them for murder. "natural causes" compared to "murder."

Agreed. but that doesn't mean we should just allow nature to control everything. Contracting the flu and dying of it is "natural cause", but we stop that before anyone dies, dont we? (or at least try our best)

An embryo is an immature human being. It is undergoing cell division, cell differentiation, it has it's own distinct biological boundary, either a cell membrane, or later skin. It is capable or becoming capable of respiration, either through absorbing the oxygen fed to it, or later unassisted. If removed from the womb, yes it will die. But the key is how it is removed. If the woman's body spontaneously removes it, that is "natural". If someone shoves a needle into it first, that is unnatural. if someone takes hormones for the express purpose of "spontaneously" aborting the fetus, that is deliberate.

It's not an immature human being any more than a sperm or egg cell is. Sure it can become one, and the union of a sperm and ova greatly increases that chance, but it's ny no means a sure thing, so we cannot classify an embryo as a immature human being. Think of it this way: a sprue of model parts isn't a model. there's a decent chance of it becoming a model, but it could get lost in the mail, crushed underfoot by mistake, etc. To call something an immature something else, you need to know that barring outside action, it will become that something else in maturity. Obviousy the sprue analogy doesnt quite hold there, but if you suspend disbelief and accept that it getting lost or destroyed and being build and painted are 'natural' parts of it's life cycle, then the sprue, much like the embryo, isn;t quite and immature model/human. Now if the sprue makes it to it's new owner and he/she starts building it, we can safely say it's an immature model, and barring incompetance and catastrophe, it will become a model.

If abortion is not killing something, then why have an abortion? If it is not really a living being, and is instead a choice, then no actions would be needed to terminate its existence. When a choice is made to terminate somethings life, you are killing something. What exactly are you killing if not an immature human being?

what? It seems to me that you're implying that if a fetus is not a living thing then we just have to think it out of existence? Firstly, yes it IS alive. It's just not biologically viable. the most basic tenement of life is that (I'm 99.99999999999999999% of cases) life can only come from other life. therefor, for something to become a distinct, biological organism, it must have been alive while growing into that organism. Abortion is killing something, but my belief is that it's unfortunate that something has to be killed, but it's not a human and it's threatening to do serious damage to a woman/girl's and man/boy's lives. I know a number of people that have been the result of or been involved in a teenage pregnancy and in most cases it ruined the parents lives. Thats not fair to them. It's not fair to the fetus either but frankly, I don't care. it's not a distinct, viable human being, therefor it doesn't have human rights yet. If you start building a model and decide you don;t want it any more, why shouldn't you be allowed to just throw it out? Yeah, it's unfortunate that the potential for a nice model has been lost, but it wouldn't be fair to you to have to spend all the time carefully building it and painting it to become a good model if you don't intend to keep/use it. It's the same with a fetus. IF a procedure is ever developed to remove an embryo around abortion time and either implant it in a surrogate mother that wants it or test-tube baby it, I'll be all for developing that technology and replacing abortion with it, but thats just not doable. right now, it's either have the baby and put it up for adoptions (which in many cases doesn't lead to a much better life), keep it and care for it throughout it's life (which again can have some pretty detrimental effects), or abort it and save oneself, and in many cases the potential child a hard life. I believe people should have that choice, and to take it away from them isn't fair to them.

Kilkrazy wrote:

dietrich wrote:The Death Penalty and Abortion in the same thread! Someone needs to bring up Gun Control, and that'd be the triangle for American politics.

We can also add anti-abortionists who blow up clinics, thus bringing domestic terrorism into the mix!

We need to find a drugs angle.

Legalize marijuana! Smoke weed! get high! babies!

Mango wrote:We haven't mentioned immigration, social security, torture, or TARP yet. We have barely scratched the surface yet. You Nazis. (If I offended the sensitivities of anyone who considers themselves a Nazi, I meant no offense. In an era of moral and cultural relativism, with no good or evil, then a nazi is not evil. just misunderstood.)

On gun control, I am a firm believer that more gun control is always better. But my definition of gun control is hitting what you aim at.

*Well, many people on death row are there for crimes related to drugs: drug use or the furtherance of drug criminal activity. drugs-check
*There are several illegal immigrants who are on death row. There are no immigrants from Leichtenstein on death row. immigration-check
*If they get out from death row after 30 years, are they eligible for social security and medicare? SS-check.
*Prison movies are always a torture to watch. Torture-check.
*No TARP funds were used in the making of this commercial, although Geitner did just negatively impact my bonus. THANKS A hole!!!TARP and Geitner check.

All topics checked. We can turn the intranets off now. Viva me.

Woot. I'm unsubscribing here.

Thanks, Fraz - you've got my vote!

We haven't talked about health care reform either.

GG

Health reform is for chumps!

I'm not going to do everything GG, oh wait we're talking abortion, thats health care reform right there. Wee ha. Seriously, I pwon

(somewhere a 14 year old boy is sighing and chanting shutupdadyouremabarrassingmeagain shutupdadyouremabarrassingmeagain
shutupdadyouremabarrassingmeagain...)

I say we abort everyone, like in the day the earth stood still.
Then everyone will be dead and not argueing anymore.

Frazzled wrote:
*There are several illegal immigrants who are on death row. There are no immigrants from Leichtenstein on death row. immigration-check

Thats because like, 35 people live in leichtenstein.

Spartanghost,
1, Your first rebuttal, A fetus has always been a human being. It has the complete genetic make up of a human being. It is a seperate and distinct organism. It is capable of cellular division. It is capable of all the functions of a living organism. How is that not a human being? Is it to small? Does it not look like other human eing? Does its location determine if it is a human being?

2. Your second point. Yes we try to cure a person who has the flu to prevent them from dying, even though the flu is natural. The key difference is in one case you are acting to prevent death. In the other you are inflicting it.

3. Your third point. An embryo is most definitely different than a sperm or an egg. A sperm or egg each only have half the genetic material that an embryo has. A sperm or an egg by themselves can do nothing. An embryo, while it may not survive is still human, albeit immature. It might grow into a mature adult, or it might die anywhere along the way. Probability of survival does not make someone human. Since we are using analogies think of it this way. If you decide to bake a cake, you gather the ingredients. Seperately they are unique entities. Eggs. Flour. Sugar. Milk. (and whatever else goes in a cake). Because each is distinct and seperate, they cannot be called a cake. Think of the ingredients as the sperm and the egg. When the ingredients are mixed together. As soon as they are mixed you now have an immature cake. You place it in the oven. It comes out of the oven as a cake. After you have mixed the ingredients together, if someone were to ask what you are doing would you reply "nothing until it comes out of the oven" or would you say, "I am baking a cake"


4. Your last point. Yes it is alive. As soon as it starts cell division, it is biologically viable. Is it capable of living outside of the mother? No. Not unaided. That does not make it any less alive or less human. Killing another human being because it might have a perceived negative impact on the parent's quality of life is the height of selfishness. Aborting a pregnancy that would result in the death of the mother is different. For example if the fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tubes. That is the concept of killing one to preserve another. If The pregnancy was not terminated the mother and the child would die. If the abortion takes place, then the mother survives. Triage. Ties in with the concept of justifiable homicide. Killing a person for convenience is not justifiable homicide.

You agree that the embryo is alive. If it is alive, then what is it if not an immature human being?

Point 5. How do you do sub quotes?

Most people don't agree with you. They don't judge things according to a scientific checklist, they judge by often emotional factors.

By your definition, a blastula is a human being, yet it can't be seen without a microscope and would need to be analysed genetically to know it had a human genome, which you couldn't do without an invasive procedure which might damage the blastula.

There's no way a typical person is going to connect emotionally with a blastula.

Women don't even know they are pregnant for several weeks following conception. The idea that they contain a human being during those weeks is essentially theoretical.

So emotional connections are now how we base a decision on who lives or dies? I guess autistic people are out.

In the UK, the legality of abortion is set according to the age of the foetus compared to normal term of pregancy. It's 24 weeks except in special circumstances. That's about the time that a foetus can have a good chance of survival if born prematurely and given modern life support.

In Canada I beleive we do not have any kind of abortion law. You can do whatever you want to an unborn child right up until the embilical cord is cut.

ok, time to make my hippy friends sad

I support the death penalty, i feel that some people need to no longer be.

I believe women should have the option of an abortion, crap happens, and they should have options.

As for the prison system. Put them to work, like they do with the local one around here. They send them out in teams to clean up public property, and roadsides, and use them as cheap labor to for things like building churches.

Gun control-um, i'm not letting anyone have mine, and i support a person being able to get one. Maybe give out a stamp card- for every so many purchases, you get a free flak vest or something.

health care- i would need to read up before i felt comfortable presenting a supportable opinion.



now back to resetting mouse traps, for i am become mousy death, the destroyer of mousy worlds

greenskin lynn wrote:ok, time to make my hippy friends sad

I support the death penalty, i feel that some people need to no longer be.

I believe women should have the option of an abortion, crap happens, and they should have options.

As for the prison system. Put them to work, like they do with the local one around here. They send them out in teams to clean up public property, and roadsides, and use them as cheap labor to for things like building churches.

Gun control-um, i'm not letting anyone have mine, and i support a person being able to get one. Maybe give out a stamp card- for every so many purchases, you get a free flak vest or something.

health care- i would need to read up before i felt comfortable presenting a supportable opinion.



now back to resetting mouse traps, for i am become mousy death, the destroyer of mousy worlds

I like your thinking, sir! I you pretty much stated all of my opinions. QFT.

Also, i see what you did there, xzar.

Mango wrote:Spartanghost,
1, Your first rebuttal, A fetus has always been a human being. It has the complete genetic make up of a human being. It is a seperate and distinct organism. It is capable of cellular division. It is capable of all the functions of a living organism. How is that not a human being? Is it to small? Does it not look like other human eing? Does its location determine if it is a human being?

I think this is where our main disagreement is. I don't believe a fetus is a human being until it can survive outside the womb. You believe it becomes a human at the moment of conception. I don't think we'll ever know which one of us is right. But in the interest of a good debate (and this is), I'll offer rebuttal anyways. Firstly nothing has "always" been anything but whatever the universe is made of. Everything has a beginning and end. Secondly, all three of those reasons are reason enough to deny something the label of human. Too small means it doesnt have the requisite parts to be human, to be something you have to look at least remotely like it (which, i admit a fetus tends to do after some time), and it's location is one of preparation to become a human being.

Mango wrote:
2. Your second point. Yes we try to cure a person who has the flu to prevent them from dying, even though the flu is natural. The key difference is in one case you are acting to prevent death. In the other you are inflicting it.

Yes we are inflicting death, but the point there was that "It's not natural therefor it's bad" is an invalid point.

Mango wrote:
3. Your third point. An embryo is most definitely different than a sperm or an egg. A sperm or egg each only have half the genetic material that an embryo has. A sperm or an egg by themselves can do nothing. An embryo, while it may not survive is still human, albeit immature. It might grow into a mature adult, or it might die anywhere along the way. Probability of survival does not make someone human. Since we are using analogies think of it this way. If you decide to bake a cake, you gather the ingredients. Seperately they are unique entities. Eggs. Flour. Sugar. Milk. (and whatever else goes in a cake). Because each is distinct and seperate, they cannot be called a cake. Think of the ingredients as the sperm and the egg. When the ingredients are mixed together. As soon as they are mixed you now have an immature cake. You place it in the oven. It comes out of the oven as a cake. After you have mixed the ingredients together, if someone were to ask what you are doing would you reply "nothing until it comes out of the oven" or would you say, "I am baking a cake"

Yes, it is different, but this isn't black an white here. It's closer to being human yes, but it's still not all the way there. Agreed probability of survival a human does not make, but that's not really what i was trying to say. The cake analogy is a good one. But my conclusion of it is different. If someone asks me what i'm doing i'll say "I'm baking a cake". If they ask me if it is a cake, i'll say "No, it's batter right now, but it will probably be a cake in a few minutes. would you like a piece?" similar situation as far as I see it.

Mango wrote:
4. Your last point. Yes it is alive. As soon as it starts cell division, it is biologically viable. Is it capable of living outside of the mother? No. Not unaided. That does not make it any less alive or less human. Killing another human being because it might have a perceived negative impact on the parent's quality of life is the height of selfishness. Aborting a pregnancy that would result in the death of the mother is different. For example if the fertilized egg implants in the fallopian tubes. That is the concept of killing one to preserve another. If The pregnancy was not terminated the mother and the child would die. If the abortion takes place, then the mother survives. Triage. Ties in with the concept of justifiable homicide. Killing a person for convenience is not justifiable homicide.

You agree that the embryo is alive. If it is alive, then what is it if not an immature human being?

Respectfully, no. It's not viable. Viable means it can survive for a short period on it's own. for the most part a fetus can't. If you remove a fetus at say, 3 weeks and plop it on the table, it's probably dead by the time it hits the table. therefor it;s not viable. I can see why you might call that selfish, but I believe it's justified. Think of it this way: A girl wants to have a baby, but soemtime in the future, when she's ready so she can provide for it well. But she gets pregnant because the condom broke! she's not ready at all. if she keeps it, she'll have the baby, and probably love it just the same, but it's life won't be quite as full as if she had waited.. but if she aborts it, and has another one a few years down the road when she's ready, this baby has a much fuller, well provided for life. I really think that that's worth it. I really do think it's a shame that a potential human is lost, but i feel it's a necessary evil to do well by our children. I've said it before and i'll say it again. If theres ever a way that fetus can be saved without the woman having to go through with the pregnancy, it's awesome and i support it 500%. but we just can't do that now, so we have to settle for the next best thing.

Mango wrote:
Point 5. How do you do sub quotes?

like I did in this post? What i did was quote your post and copy and past the [ quote=Mango] and [ /quote] tags around the different parts of your post, so I can interject my comments between the different sections.

Theres one more point i'd like to add. Laws about abortion aren't necessarily about right and wrong, they're about choice. Some people believe as I do, that it's a viable and often good option, and others believe it's wrong. The laws would never under any circumstances FORCE anyone to have an abortion. It would always be that person's choice. It feels kind of oppressive(sorry for the harsh word, i don't have a better one) that people would seek to take away that choice; that freedom. It just doesn't seem fair that a complete accident could result in someones life being messed up so badly. Even if there was some kind of control on it like you're only allowed to get 1 or 2 (that weren't beyond your control) before they cut you off. I believe that anyone who keeps getting pregnant like that simply isn't taking the necessary precautions to prevent it, and in that case they're just being stupid (although one could argue that these are the last people who should be having children). If it was controlled like that, I believe it would relax some of the controversy about it, but since we're talking about a human life (or potential human life, depending on what you believe), i don't think the controversy will ever end completely.

Mango wrote:So emotional connections are now how we base a decision on who lives or dies? I guess autistic people are out.

I don't understand your point.

Are you saying that autistic people aren't human?

Life or death decisions are often made on emotional grounds. There are frequent cases of people drowning while trying to save their dogs, or other people's children, for example. These decisions are not made on rational grounds.

Many supporters of the death penalty are on emotional grounds, such as revenge.

spartanghost wrote:
The laws would never under any circumstances FORCE anyone to have an abortion.

YET

They do in China.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Mango wrote:So emotional connections are now how we base a decision on who lives or dies? I guess autistic people are out.

I don't understand your point.

Are you saying that autistic people aren't human?

Life or death decisions are often made on emotional grounds. There are frequent cases of people drowning while trying to save their dogs, or other people's children, for example. These decisions are not made on rational grounds.

Many supporters of the death penalty are on emotional grounds, such as revenge.

Killkrazy.
My point was that emotional considerations are a poor proxy for making rational decisions. That is why our legal system does whatever it can to take emotions out of the equation. Emotions are often wrong.

People do make decisions based on emotion. Those decisions are frequently wrong. A man loses his job and his finances are in a wreck. He comes home and kills his entire family. That is making an emotional decision. A woman suffers from post partum depression. (an emotional state) and drowns all of her children because she is trying to save them. That is an emotional decision. Attempting to save a drowning child, even if you are a poor swimmer, is not. Emotions would certainly play a role in the decision, but most adults rationally know that they have a much better chance of survival than the child does unaided.

I should more accurately have said “autistic spectrum disorders”. Specifically Asperger’s Syndrome. It is very difficult to connect with them on an emotional level. If emotional connection and empathy are requisites for the definition of what a human is, then anyone that is hard to relate to would be non-human.

Many supporters of the death penalty are also making a decision on how to best protect society and allocate societies resources. A murderer has already shown that they will flout the strongest of society’s rules. People also know that criminal typically have a very high recidivism rate. The death penalty is a sure fire way of preventing that individual from harming others in the society. People can and have escaped from prison. Hollywood notwithstanding, people rarely come back after you kill them. Now if you would prefer that prisoner’s be incarcerated, and the cost of maintaining the incarceration for lots of criminals prevents the society from performing other vital tasks (like building roads, police forces, militaries, fire departments et al.) what do you do then? Release the predator’s back into society? Or purge them?

Spartanghost,
1. If someone is missing a limb, they no longer have the requisite parts. Can we kill them? So number of parts does not a human make. Appearance is also a poor method. A white person looks different than a yellow looks different than a black, yet except for racial supremacists who tend to make those judgments based off of emotion rather than reason, most people would agree that all of the disparate ethnic groups are still humans. Making a judgment based off of appearance tends to lead to genocide. Location does not determine if something is human. If you use location, say inside the womb instead outside, you could easily define it as inside a prison or outside it. Dwarfs are also much smaller than normal, yet they are still human.

2. My point was not that if it is not natural therefore it is bad. My point was that Society does not assign blame to individuals for results outside of their control, for example dyeing from a heart attack, versus being murdered. One is a “natural cause” meaning no person is to blame. In murder, one person took a deliberate action that a reasonable person would know would result in the death of another person.

3. Hence why I said immature human. Maturity (and here I am using the term as it relates to physical maturity rather than emotional maturity). Is also a poor measure on deciding what is human. A human typically does not reach full maturity until 25 or so. Would it be permissible to kill anyone under 25 without penalty?

4 and 5. This is incorrect. You are changing the fetus’ environment artificially, and then saying it was not viable because it did not survive. If I took you and place you naked on the moon, you would die. Does that mean you are not a viable organism?

“Quality of life” is a very relative term. Would the fetus rather live a mediocre life or not live at all. No one asked the fetus. The decision was made for it. People talk about choice in this matter. Bt they rarely mention the fact they are taking the choice from another. Did the embryo “choose” to be conceived? No. Does the embryo get to “choose” to live or die? No. That choice is taken from it. In cases of rape, (I am talking in cases where the rape could potentially result in a pregnancy, so am excluding male on male rape) you have a wrong committed. A man forces himself on a woman. He takes away from her her choice. Then later the woman finds out that the rape resulted in a pregnancy. Is the resulting embryo guilty of the crime committed by the rapist? Or is the embryo blameless? Yet for no actions of its own, the embryo is aborted by the mother, who does not want to carry the child to term, and be reminded every day for nine months of the original crime. Is that not another wrong? Killing something that is blameless, does not correct the original crime. Should instead the woman be forced again to carry the child to term, even if she gives it up for adoption at birth? That is a much tougher question to answer than whether or not the embryo should be killed so that the parents can go off to college, party until 3:00 in the morning, and live a life unencumbered by a child, until they are “ready” to settle down and have a child. Even if by “ready’ you define it as emotionally or financially able to better care for the child.


Yes my opinion is that the human life does indeed begin at conception. Scientifically, that is the most valid view point. Other definitions would exclude too many segments of the population to be valid.

Are there instances where is justified to take a life? Yes. Is to preserve the life of another one? Yes. Is to protect others? Yes. Is to prevent another from harming people in the future, one? (That goes back to the original topic of this post.) Yes. Is doing it for convenience? No. Is it justified for “quality of life” of another? No. That way of thinking leads to eugenics and euthanasia.

This is not just an American topic by the way. This is a topic at least as old as the ancient Greeks. The original Hippocratic Oath included verbiage about not performing abortions.

spartanghost wrote:Yes, it is different, but this isn't black an white here. It's closer to being human yes, but it's still not all the way there. Agreed probability of survival a human does not make, but that's not really what i was trying to say. The cake analogy is a good one. But my conclusion of it is different. If someone asks me what i'm doing i'll say "I'm baking a cake". If they ask me if it is a cake, i'll say "No, it's batter right now, but it will probably be a cake in a few minutes. would you like a piece?" similar situation as far as I see it.

Not particularly. So, you're saying that when the Child-Cake comes out of the toasty Womb-Oven, then it's alive? That moment? A cake is a very poor example to use. How about 10 minutes earlier? The cake won't be good to eat, but the child will survive with proper care.

spartanghost wrote:Respectfully, no. It's not viable. Viable means it can survive for a short period on it's own. for the most part a fetus can't. If you remove a fetus at say, 3 weeks and plop it on the table, it's probably dead by the time it hits the table. therefor it;s not viable. I can see why you might call that selfish, but I believe it's justified. Think of it this way: A girl wants to have a baby, but soemtime in the future, when she's ready so she can provide for it well. But she gets pregnant because the condom broke! she's not ready at all. if she keeps it, she'll have the baby, and probably love it just the same, but it's life won't be quite as full as if she had waited.. but if she aborts it, and has another one a few years down the road when she's ready, this baby has a much fuller, well provided for life. I really think that that's worth it. I really do think it's a shame that a potential human is lost, but i feel it's a necessary evil to do well by our children. I've said it before and i'll say it again. If theres ever a way that fetus can be saved without the woman having to go through with the pregnancy, it's awesome and i support it 500%. but we just can't do that now, so we have to settle for the next best thing.

Where do you draw the line, sir? And anyway, that's not a foetus, that's called an embryo. Actually, it's not even a fully developed embryo. That's like saying, "Oh yeah, let's rip out these 100 cells." I might be exagerating somewhat, but that's all that is there at the "3 week" stage of pregnancy. And why do you discount the Adoption stage in all these affairs, how about giving the child away to a foster carer?

spartanghost wrote:Theres one more point i'd like to add. Laws about abortion aren't necessarily about right and wrong, they're about choice. Some people believe as I do, that it's a viable and often good option, and others believe it's wrong. The laws would never under any circumstances FORCE anyone to have an abortion. It would always be that person's choice. It feels kind of oppressive(sorry for the harsh word, i don't have a better one) that people would seek to take away that choice; that freedom. It just doesn't seem fair that a complete accident could result in someones life being messed up so badly. Even if there was some kind of control on it like you're only allowed to get 1 or 2 (that weren't beyond your control) before they cut you off. I believe that anyone who keeps getting pregnant like that simply isn't taking the necessary precautions to prevent it, and in that case they're just being stupid (although one could argue that these are the last people who should be having children). If it was controlled like that, I believe it would relax some of the controversy about it, but since we're talking about a human life (or potential human life, depending on what you believe), i don't think the controversy will ever end completely.

This is all very true, you make a good argument.

For the books, I'm erring on the side of Anti-Abortion, but you make a very good case.

sA

Mango wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

Mango wrote:So emotional connections are now how we base a decision on who lives or dies? I guess autistic people are out.

I don't understand your point.

Are you saying that autistic people aren't human?

Life or death decisions are often made on emotional grounds. There are frequent cases of people drowning while trying to save their dogs, or other people's children, for example. These decisions are not made on rational grounds.

Many supporters of the death penalty are on emotional grounds, such as revenge.

Killkrazy.
My point was that emotional considerations are a poor proxy for making rational decisions. That is why our legal system does whatever it can to take emotions out of the equation. Emotions are often wrong.

People do make decisions based on emotion. Those decisions are frequently wrong. A man loses his job and his finances are in a wreck. He comes home and kills his entire family. That is making an emotional decision. A woman suffers from post partum depression. (an emotional state) and drowns all of her children because she is trying to save them. That is an emotional decision. Attempting to save a drowning child, even if you are a poor swimmer, is not. Emotions would certainly play a role in the decision, but most adults rationally know that they have a much better chance of survival than the child does unaided.

I should more accurately have said “autistic spectrum disorders”. Specifically Asperger’s Syndrome. It is very difficult to connect with them on an emotional level. If emotional connection and empathy are requisites for the definition of what a human is, then anyone that is hard to relate to would be non-human.

Many supporters of the death penalty are also making a decision on how to best protect society and allocate societies resources. A murderer has already shown that they will flout the strongest of society’s rules. People also know that criminal typically have a very high recidivism rate. The death penalty is a sure fire way of preventing that individual from harming others in the society. People can and have escaped from prison. Hollywood notwithstanding, people rarely come back after you kill them. Now if you would prefer that prisoner’s be incarcerated, and the cost of maintaining the incarceration for lots of criminals prevents the society from performing other vital tasks (like building roads, police forces, militaries, fire departments et al.) what do you do then? Release the predator’s back into society? Or purge them?

Okay, I understand now.

My argument is broadly speaking that we don't need a legal definition of a human being for the following reasons:

1. As has been shown in this thread, it is very hard to create a legal definition of human being which doesn't have some kind of flaws.
2. It doesn't matter, because everyone instinctively recognises fellow humans without reference to a checklist.
3. In a few exceptional cases, such as psychopaths and possibly autistic people, psychology recognises a deficit in their ability to recognise fellow humans, yet, we 'normal' people still regard them as humans with a disability, not animals.

As I explained in a previous post, the UK law on abortion sets sensible time limits and leaves the judgement of whether to allow an abortion to medical doctors. Since the majority of the population accept this system, they do not regard early embryos as fully human and do not regard abortion as murder.

If you want to create a definition of human which manages to include early embryos, in order to class abortion as murder, you have got two problems. Firstly, that most of the population don't agree. This is why the anti-abortion activists depend on the shock tactic of so-called "partial birth" abortion. It let's them create a shocking, emotionally impactfull image which they hope will sway peoples' opinions. In rational terms, very few abortions take place after the 24 week limit, and can't really be described as partial birth.

Secondly, you need to define the start of the human being and this is where my point about classing a blastula as human is relevant. You'll have to end up putting a time limit (start point) on human-ness, say 12 weeks -- this still would allow legal abortion before the limit.

Now turning to murder and the death penalty.

Many murders are committed as crime passionelle, and are unlikely to be repeated. That is one reason why serial killers are so shocking. In fact, murder has a low rate of recidivism, especially when it carries a long sentence. Therefore the argument about prevention of re-offending is not valid.

We have already disposed of the argument about cost, on the basis that the long appeals process is actually more expensive than a straight life sentence. Any first world society can afford to keep its small number of murderers in prison.

Prison time is also rationally justified by the arguments that two wrongs don't make a right, that many miscarriages of justice would condemn innocent people to death, who can actually be saved even if they have to spend time unjustly in prison. Also there is always the chance of rehabilitation and the return to society of the murderer.

Prison provides punishment, while the death penalty is not as strong a deterrent as may be imagined, since deterrence depends more on the detection and conviction rate rather than the actual punishment.

Looked at from a rational viewpoint, there doesn't seem to be a strong case for the death penalty over imprisonment.

Killrazy,
I would disagree with you on why we do not need a definition of what a human being is.
1. Difficulty is not a reason for not doing something.
2. It does matter. Until fairly recently, (1864 or thereabouts in this country) Black people in the US were not recognized as human. They were considered partial humans. It took a fairly bloody war to stop argument on that question (among other questions at the time). If you cannot define a person, then you cannot define a crime committed against that person. If, to use my example, blacks had been defined as humans from the get go in US history, then it would have been much easy to say slavery was illegal.
3. Which is why I say using “emotionally relate too” is a poor reason to define humanity.

Setting a time limit on when someone becomes human is what allows abortions to take place. If it is not a human, you did not murder, so abortion is acceptable. If that arbitrary time limit is not there, then it is human and it is murder. How was the 12 week time frame determined? Because supporters of abortion wanted a way to allow it without calling it murder.

Again, having most of the population agree with something does not make it right or reasonable. It makes it popular. There is a difference. Using the logic of “most people agree with it”, we would still have segregation and jim crow laws in the US. Sometimes it takes a minority willing to stand up to the majority to defend the rights of those that cannot defend themselves.

Back to the death penalty,
The cost of keeping them in prison while we go through the lengthy appeals process is why it costs more to have the death penalty. So no, cost is not a settled issue.

If the recidivism rate for murder committed by a crime of passion is low, why punish the person who committed it at all? A firm talking to should drive the point home that they made a mistake and shouldn’t do it again.

That is why I in a previous post I brought up what the purpose of a criminal justice system is for.
Is it for rehabilitation, punishment, or deterrence? Someone said it is all three. Which is what we currently have. A system that tries to do all three and does poorly at all three.

Rehabilitation works poorly or haphazardly.

Deterrence cannot be proven

Punishment, now that we can do.

When you defend everything, you defend nothing. A system that tries to do all three, functions very poorly. The system should pick one of the methods and work from there. Either focus on rehabilitation or focus on punishment. Focusing on deterrence is in my opinion, the least plausible method, because it is nebulous to try and measure the impact of a negative.

Mango wrote:...

Setting a time limit on when someone becomes human is what allows abortions to take place. If it is not a human, you did not murder, so abortion is acceptable. If that arbitrary time limit is not there, then it is human and it is murder. How was the 12 week time frame determined? Because supporters of abortion wanted a way to allow it without calling it murder.

...

Can we separate the discussion of human from the discussion of abortion? The attitude of 1860s Americans to black people (British of the time obviously did regard them as human...) is irrelevant to abortion or the death penalty.

This one point goes to the crucial difference on attitude towards abortion.

The UK law does not bother to define a foetus or embryo as human. It allows medical practitioners to perform abortions within time limits which are legally defined, and are principally in reference to viability of the embryo. In the 60s, when the law was framed, 24 weeks was a good limit as it was almost impossible for a baby born earlier to survive, while babies born later had a better chance. Modern science allows babies as young as 21 weeks to survive, though long-term disabilities of various types are common in such prematurely born individuals. The people who framed the law also took into account social attitudes to abortion, the necessity to prevent the evils of backstreet abortion, and the social effects of unwanted children on their parents and themselves.

This law is regarded as one of the better ones the UK Government has made. It has lasted 40 years without needing amendment and there is not much supprot for changing it now. As such, it seems to be a popular piece of legislation. You may say that does not make it "right", but in terms of social conformance with law, pure "rightness" is meaningless without the popular support of the majority of the population.