Kevin's Watch

Exactly Edge. It works both ways.



Btw, I am sorry I brought this on. Ruining a perfectly neutral thread. Forgive me Syl. I'll can it.

Yup. Exactly.

(wait, am I agreeing with you? )

It had to happen sometime Edge. I am generally a very reasonable man

And no, I dont endorse the use of charged words on either side of the debate, and therefore find the pro-choise term ridiculous as well.

prebe,

and therefore find the pro-choise term ridiculous as well.

Why? Pro-choice does not equal pro-abortion, for example. I find "pro-choice" to be perfectly acceptable.

The point is, that no exponent of a particular viewpoint has the right to define terms for their opponent.

You can call yourself 'pro-choice' or 'pro-life' - that's your right. You do NOT have the right to label your opponents as, e.g., 'pro-death' or 'anti-choice'.

Right, and the term "Pro-Choice" implies that anyone that disagrees with you is "Anti-Choice", likewise anyone who disagrees with someone who is "Pro-Life" is suddenly "Anti-Life".

The only choice I'm against is the decision to murder your baby.

Cail wrote:Right, and the term "Pro-Choice" implies that anyone that disagrees with you is "Anti-Choice", likewise anyone who disagrees with someone who is "Pro-Life" is suddenly "Anti-Life".

Sure. But implications are one thing; epithets are another thing entirely.

Cail,

Right, and the term "Pro-Choice" implies that anyone that disagrees with you is "Anti-Choice"

But umm isn't that the entire basis of the Pro-Life camp? A legal ban on abortions?

Lord Mhoram wrote:Cail,

Right, and the term "Pro-Choice" implies that anyone that disagrees with you is "Anti-Choice"

But umm isn't that the entire basis of the Pro-Life camp? A legal ban on abortions?

...Just as much as the opponents of the Pro-Life stance want to legalise murder, making them obviously 'Pro-Death' and 'Anti-Life'.

Well put, Edge.

Cail,

"Well put"? You've got to be kidding me.

Edge,

I don't support "murder." I support the woman's right to choose. I find your calling me a supporter of murder to be very condescending.

Mhoram: well if the choice is the death of the foetus, what else would you call it?

Cail: if we find that plants are sentient I'm doomed.

dennis,

Well there is a difference between aborting the fetus and murder.

Lord Mhoram wrote:Well there is a difference between aborting the fetus and murder.

No there isn't. You've convinced yourself that to justify your stance, but in the womb or out, murder is murder. What's the difference between aborting a 7-month fetus and strangling a preemie that was born 2 months early?

But Cail...a fetus really isn't a "person." It is only a "potential person." It isn't even physically independent: it is still in the womb. How can aborting a physically dependent fetus be murder?

A hair follicle contains a full set my DNA. Would you defend its human rights?

Further, a fetus isn't even sentient. Sentience doesn't usually come about until months after birth.

Cail's question is a great one. Many babies are born in the seventh month, and they do just fine. I know a woman who, because her mother fell on the ice, was born much more premature than that (iirc, four months premature), and weighed only 3 lbs. Obviously, she was not ready to be physically independent of her mother, and when she was born, she most certainly would not have survived without the doctors, incubators, and all that. I cannot imagine letting her die when she was born. Despite the lack of sentience, and the fact that most collections of cells at that stage of development are physically dependent on their mothers, I think of that 4-month premature baby as, well, a baby - and of extraordinarily more importance than a hair follicle. I think everything possible should have been done to save her life, and I'm thrilled she made it.

And I think every other collection of cells at that stage of development should get the same consideration.

I disagree, Fist. If the baby is a) physically dependent on the mother b) not sentient and c) containing as much DNA as a hair follicle, then I feel that the mother should be able to abort the fetus if she wants.

One minute, the 5-month old fetus is safely tucked away in the mother's belly. The next minute, it's been brutally ejected by the mother's injured body. Do you think this prematurely born fetus should be saved if possible? If you do, why? There's been no change in the fetus/baby in that minute. Still incapable of living on its own (as is the case with all human beings before many years after birth); still no sentience; still the same amount of DNA. All the effort and resources that would go into keeping it alive might be better spent on a real baby; one that has a better chance of living. And even if the mother does feel an enormous tie to it, the feeling will pass. After all, it's not a baby.

Fist,

I don't see how some freak premature birth has anything to do with this. Of course they should save the baby, if the mother wishes to. If the mother wished to have the fetus aborted during an early strage of pregnancy, then yes the should have done that too.

Sometimes extreme examples, like freak premature births, help me get a fuller picture of something. Is stealing wrong? Well... Hey, is anybody really gonna be burdened if I steal $1 from them? But in an extreme example, where the family is poorer than I ever imagined being, $1 might literally be a matter of life or death. In another extreme example, maybe I steal $1 billion.

In the run-of-the-mill example - stealing very little of what someone has - stealing isn't really a big deal. But in the extreme situations, it is a big deal. So maybe stealing is always wrong.

And in the run-of-the-mill example - your average 5-month old fetus that's just like millions of other 5-month old fetuses - it may not seem like much. But in the extreme example of the freak premature birth, some might think it's wrong to just let it die on the ice. (Some might think that's wrong regardless of what the mother says.) So maybe a 5-month old fetus is always deserving of our best efforts.