I'm for anything that increases the number of false rape accusations.

10/21/2012 10:59:02 AM

You're also lumping in those who have abortions for fetal anomalies. Pretty misleading statistic IMO considering this happens more frequently than you would expect.

10/21/2012 4:29:16 PM

Quote :

"You're also lumping in those who have abortions for fetal anomalies."

And these are completely relevant to the debate. They don't even mention it as an exception. It's rape and incest. That's the sound byte.

10/21/2012 10:59:08 PM

http://thedeadauthorsclub.wordpress.com/2012/10/26/fetal-personhood-and-criminalizing-abortion-a-prosecutors-perspective/

This was just... wow.

Quote :

"Oh, and, what if the rapist denies that it was a rape (rapists do this, sometimes. This may come as a shock. I am sorry to destroy your illusions)? What if I – the prosecutor – determine that there is insufficient evidence to charge the defendant with the crime of rape. Criminal charges require proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a really high burden. What if I believe it happened, but I don’t think that I can prove it. Does that mean the woman wasn’t raped for purposes of the rape/incest exception?"

She's right. In this light, exceptions for rape are incoherent. It's a philosophical position that people seem to agree with, but practically it's not doable. You either
- accept the criminal system criteria of proof, which makes the exception non-existent
- you have rape panels where bureaucrats expose women to terrible trauma

Quote :

"But if that isn’t their goal, if they would say “of course we don’t want that,” well, then, I have to ask, “what the hell do you want?” Because if you actually believe that a zygote is a person, then how can you demand anything less than justice for the murder victim? Acceptance of less than full accountability means that the zygote has less meaningful protection for its personhood than other persons. And if you can accept this, then it must mean that you don’t actually think it is a person, because we don’t have degrees of personhood in this country. If it is a person, then it absolutely must enjoy the same rights and protections of every other person. So, if you aren’t actually prepared to deal with the consequences that flow from granting it those rights and protections, then you cannot justify calling it a person. Words have power and meaning, and if even you don’t really think it is a person, then what the fuck are we all having this discussion for?"

It's true, they can't argue for personhood and deny the other extreme positions.

It's the mess of big government. You want to government to do something. If they do, you've going to get stuff you never wanted.

11/3/2012 3:15:11 PM

This all boils down to white men wanting to impose their beliefs on women.

[Edited on November 3, 2012 at 4:10 PM. Reason : because they know that it will get them votes.]

11/3/2012 3:59:18 PM

It's only white men because white men run the country.

Sure, maybe they would have more compassion if they were women, but the gender difference isn't really shown in polls. Women also want to control the bodies of women.

The real issue is that people applied a morality framework to a reproduction cycle. Modern humans live differently than the rest of history. Infanticide has been a staple of society for millennia. It was never a problem because it was unambiguously murder, and murder was a part of life.

For half a billion years before this it was always the case that organisms produced more offspring than could possibly survive. The mechanisms of life itself wouldn't have worked if not for that. The larger brains of mammals naturally lead to elective infanticide in several species. We were no exception. The unique attribute of humans was a long post-infant childhood. Occasional killing of infants was the same as apes.

Before industrialization, the natural mortality of young children was so bad that you couldn't even tease out the number from parental murder. Population control was intertwined with death. It always has been. How did we tackle the issue when childhood outcomes improved? We didn't. Population increased uncontrolled. Almost every human alive today is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th product of an unmitigated baby boom. This can still be seen in most family structures. Most American family trees reflect several 5+ child families since migration to the continent.

A baby boom, however, is not without its consequences. If you think the parents of a large number of children don't feel those effects, just ask my (and probably your own) grandma. The problems of overpopulation are mirrored on a microeconomics scale, and if the adjustment can't happen through actions made from free will, we can't very well call ourselves human. The per-woman fertility reduction through abortions is, by my estimate, on the order of 0.5, which is more than sufficiently supported by my statistic on the last page. This is much more than enough to change the outcome of Earth's tipping point. I think this is actually impressive evidence for the capability for accurate decision making with distributed cognition.

Nature ultimately has a plan in mind. Abortion as a form of birth control is a natural consequence of the world we live in. Individuals believing they know better would be, and has always been, just inviting destruction.

11/3/2012 4:39:46 PM

for those of you that are tl;dr, just read ^^ post

11/3/2012 5:05:21 PM

This guy poses a good argument against the rape/incest exception

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ9fd4pgCvQ

11/5/2012 12:53:49 PM

Why don't you sum it up and express it in your own words instead of making us watch a webcam video of some guy talking?

11/5/2012 1:49:24 PM

The guy is absolutely right on the legal hazards and complications that arise from a rape exception. It's completely unworkable.

He is also absolutely right that the rape and incest exceptions are for weak-kneed pro-lifers who can't stomach the logical outcome of real personhood for the unborn.

And these reasons are exactly why I am not voting for Mitt Romney. But I'm from the completely opposite end of the spectrum. I'm not voting for Mitt precisely because he is not pro-life.

11/5/2012 3:06:11 PM

Quote :

"weak-kneed pro-lifers who can't stomach the logical outcome of real personhood for the unborn"

Are there pro-lifers who can? Or just idiots who haven't been validly asked to defend their position?

11/5/2012 3:09:11 PM

There are pro-lifers who can (and I am one of them), and most have been asked stupid questions like the ones you are about to ask.

11/5/2012 3:19:55 PM

i always find it amusing when staunch pro-lifers, who really "care about the babies", are huge assholes to strangers they don't even know. if you care about humans so much, why are you unnecessarily hostile to people you don't know?

[Edited on November 5, 2012 at 3:28 PM. Reason : ]

11/5/2012 3:26:50 PM

Can someone explain the position that fertilized eggs are life, but abortions are okay in cases of rape or the mothers life? How does that position make any sense?

11/5/2012 3:34:24 PM

With rape and incest, it doesn't make any sense at all.

With a threat to the mother's life, it can make some sense, but not much more.

11/5/2012 3:35:26 PM

I'm not pro-life, but could a pro-life person be convinced, or at least concede that forcing a 13 year old rape victim to keep the child would be ruining her life, and that might be just as bad as saving the life of an unborn child?

11/5/2012 3:48:34 PM

Quote :

"Can someone explain the position that fertilized eggs are life, but abortions are okay in cases of rape or the mothers life? How does that position make any sense?"

Probably has something to do with the mother's consent in the matter. If someone suddenly attached a life to you (without your consent) that you bore no responsibility for creating, would you deem yourself on the hook for 9 months of changes to body, lifestyle, etc?

Life is not HUMAN life in the sense of a full, meaningful human existence. A clump of cells developing inside of a woman's body is anything but a human life, and even if we wanted to call it that, it's a tough sell that this clump of cells (incapable of supporting any of the cognitive faculties we deem human) has moral status trumping that of the mother's.

As usual, anti-abortion is a crusade to control women and slut-shame, God damn the consequences.

[Edited on November 5, 2012 at 3:50 PM. Reason : .]

11/5/2012 3:50:04 PM

Quote :

"There are pro-lifers who can (and I am one of them), and most have been asked stupid questions like the ones you are about to ask."

Can you admit in public that you think a rape victim should be charged with manslaughter for terminating a pregnancy?

How about in the first trimester? A teenager raped by her uncle does a homemade abortion. You would admit (not argue, just own up to) that your position includes her facing the full consequences of a personhood legal treatment of a fetus, up to life or the death penalty?

11/5/2012 4:35:18 PM

^^ Some people do think its a person with the full rights of a person, and some of these people say that abortion is okay in the case of rape or in cases where the mothers life is at risk (or so they claim at least). I can't figure out how this position makes sense

[Edited on November 5, 2012 at 4:41 PM. Reason : so my comment was just about this group]

11/5/2012 4:41:19 PM

I guess it needs to be said...

Isn't the exception for the mother's life ethically obvious? Legally (and morally too), if you're on a lifeboat and it's perfectly clear that only one of you can live, you can opt for your life over the other person's. You can error on the side of self-preservation if the total number of lives lost is the same in all outcomes.

11/5/2012 4:49:04 PM

Quote :

"I can't figure out how this position makes sense"

It doesn't. It's just how pro-lifers can say "abortions are wrong" and sleep at night. They know it's morally repugnant to suggest that rape victims should carry their rape babies to term.

11/5/2012 5:00:31 PM

Quote :

"^^ Some people do think its a person with the full rights of a person, and some of these people say that abortion is okay in the case of rape or in cases where the mothers life is at risk (or so they claim at least). I can't figure out how this position makes sense"

You can't understand how a developing human could receive graded moral consideration in comparison to a fully formed human?

I think your problem here is thinking in terms of moral absolutes.

Quote :

" They know it's morally repugnant to suggest that rape victims should carry their rape babies to term."

Not so sure. This, along with other things they should "know", are washed away by the euphoria of slut-shaming.

[Edited on November 5, 2012 at 5:28 PM. Reason : . ]

11/5/2012 5:27:41 PM

Here come the questions. Thankfully, they're not stupid ones yet.

Quote :

"Can you admit in public that you think a rape victim should be charged with manslaughter for terminating a pregnancy?"

Yes.

Quote :

"How about in the first trimester? A teenager raped by her uncle does a homemade abortion. You would admit (not argue, just own up to) that your position includes her facing the full consequences of a personhood legal treatment of a fetus, up to life or the death penalty?"

Yes.

Quote :

"I'm not pro-life, but could a pro-life person be convinced, or at least concede that forcing a 13 year old rape victim to keep the child would be ruining her life, and that might be just as bad as saving the life of an unborn child?"

The only person that should die in this situation is the rapist at the hands of the state, after a fair trial.

And, yes, the unborn child's life trumps any rights of the teenage girl not to have her life 'ruined.' I don't use those quotes to make light of her trauma. I use them because 'ruined' implies finality and certainty, which isn't there, even in this situation that nearly reaches to the extent of human evil.

http://www.rebeccakiessling.com/index.html

11/5/2012 6:19:40 PM

Would not delivering these unborn people to the Lord instead of an unfit mother be the ultimate mercy for them?

11/5/2012 6:48:37 PM

Quote :

"Would not delivering these unborn people to the Lord instead of an unfit mother be the ultimate mercy for them?"

Now the stupid questions have arrived.

11/5/2012 7:06:26 PM

Really? Seems legit to me.

Here, here's a stupid one. Isn't god the most prolific abortionist in cosmic history?

11/5/2012 7:48:55 PM

Quote :

"You can't understand how a developing human could receive graded moral consideration in comparison to a fully formed human? I think your problem here is thinking in terms of moral absolutes. "

I am certainly doing no such thing. The differences between a human and a fetus are obvious to me.

That's not true though for some people though, some people believe that the fetus is a person created by God and should have the full rights of a person. Some of them add exceptions to that. That position does not allow exceptions.

11/5/2012 8:01:19 PM

http://www.rebeccakiessling.com/index.html

oh, the existentialist arguments...

Quote :

"Have you ever considered how really insulting it is to say to someone, "I think your mother should have been able to abort you."? It's like saying, "If I had my way, you'd be dead right now." And that is the reality with which I live every time someone says they are pro-choice or pro-life "except in cases of rape" because I absolutely would have been aborted if it had been legal in Michigan when I was an unborn child, and I can tell you that it hurts."

How many of us wouldn't be here if contraceptives worked better?

I would prefer that children only be born when the mother intends it. That means that many of you reading this post, it's like I'm trying to murder you by writing this.

11/5/2012 8:40:56 PM

Quote :

"That's not true though for some people though, some people believe that the fetus is a person created by God and should have the full rights of a person. Some of them add exceptions to that. That position does not allow exceptions."

*Full rights*? Yeah, I dunno.

11/5/2012 9:06:00 PM

Quote :

"Now the stupid questions have arrived."

Yes, I agree. The concept of a soul permeating a zygote is pretty stupid. And yet, what possible other reason do you have to assert that a zygote as as much moral right as a person to exist?

11/6/2012 9:34:52 AM

Quote :

"And yet, what possible other reason do you have to assert that a zygote as as much moral right as a person to exist?"

It allows for delicious slut-shaming. Any metaphysical gobbledygook that allows for that is A-OK. This is called "hypothesis generation"; you select the axioms that produce the results you want, regardless of how absurd they are.

[Edited on November 6, 2012 at 10:42 AM. Reason : .]

11/6/2012 10:41:27 AM

Quote :

"Yes, I agree. The concept of a soul permeating a zygote is pretty stupid. And yet, what possible other reason do you have to assert that a zygote as as much moral right as a person to exist?"

I shouldn't have to explain the stupidity, but evidently I do.

He's saying I should be happy a baby goes to heaven instead of being delivered to an unfit mother. Thus, I shouldn't be too upset about legal abortion.

Even among serial killers, not too many are crazy/stupid enough to say "I was just sending people to heaven, so it's ok."

The fate of a soul doesn't determine whether a person can be killed.

Quote :

"It allows for delicious slut-shaming"

I'm all for slut-shaming, but my position on abortion doesn't have anything to do with it. I'm after murderer-shaming on this one.

[Edited on November 6, 2012 at 5:51 PM. Reason : s]

11/6/2012 5:50:26 PM

Quote :

"He's saying I should be happy a baby goes to heaven instead of being delivered to an unfit mother. Thus, I shouldn't be too upset about legal abortion."

Actually, no, it was a very direct question and it had fuck-all to do with your subjective feelings.

11/6/2012 6:01:16 PM

It was a very direct, very stupid question.

No, I do not think where someone goes after death has any relevance to the morality of killing them.

Murder is not mercy.

[Edited on November 6, 2012 at 6:54 PM. Reason : a]

11/6/2012 6:50:40 PM

http://www.wral.com/parents-slam-irish-abortion-laws-after-woman-dies/11776663/

prolifers kill another mom.

11/15/2012 9:40:18 AM

^^You'd rather a child suffer and die shortly after birth rather than be aborted early term before it has even the capacity to suffer. It makes no sense morally, *especially* if you believe in the salvation of the unborn.

I think the difference here is my moral barometer is minimizing the amount of suffering, and yours is adherence to doctrine. Why is not ending a suffering life (or preventing one from ever happening) merciful?

11/15/2012 10:11:09 AM

Should you be allowed to kill a terminal patient before they start suffering?

11/15/2012 10:32:40 AM

If they ask for it (and are of sound mind, not coerced, etc.) then sure.

Not the same as a zygote/embryo/fetus that doesn't even yet have the capacity for suffering or choice.

11/15/2012 10:47:40 AM

The entire premise of the pro-life argument is that it is the same. Exactly the same.

11/15/2012 10:48:40 AM

How does life begin at conception if the fetus could not survive outside the womb? If the mother dies the fetus will die with it, so is it really alive if it can not live on its own?

Also WTF to this incident?
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/14/world/europe/ireland-abortion-controversy/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Quote :

"In Ireland, abortion is legal if the mother's life is at risk, which is different from her health being at risk, Holland said."

So essentially since the doctors were in a grey area over weather her "life" vs "health" were in danger (an unclear distinction under the law) they just let her suffer and eventually die. Pretty fucking disgusting. The fetus was going to not life anyway.

11/15/2012 11:26:55 AM

Since the pro-life crowd seems to be largely on the 'right' I'd like you to answer the following.

Given that you wish to legally require the victim of a rape to carry to term, due you support tax payer funding to provide the following:

1) Full coverage for psychological and medical care for the course of the pregnancy.
2) Full coverage of lost wages due to missed work for medical visit and/or disability as a result of the pregnancy
3)Full coverage of delivery and post delivery medical care for the mother and child

Adoption:
4a) Funding assistance for adoption in the event that the child is given up
5a) the allowance for gay couples to adopt to help with the overburdened US foster system

Keeping the child
4b) Full funding for child care to allow the mother to complete schooling (including college work if that was part of the plan before the event)
5b) Cost coverage of child related expenses until adult hood.

Please support you answer with a reasoned response.

11/15/2012 3:28:58 PM

cain, that's crazy. For them to support those things would mean believing that a baby had just as much value as a fetus!

[Edited on November 15, 2012 at 3:55 PM. Reason : .]

11/15/2012 3:54:54 PM

I'm simply asking they are willing to be philosophically consistent or if i can get some Olympic level logical gymnastics kind of response.

11/15/2012 4:27:48 PM

Quote :

"How does life begin at conception if the fetus could not survive outside the womb?"

amazing how simple that sounds... and yet

11/15/2012 5:41:25 PM

Yeah that's a completely asinine argument.

Quote :

"I'm all for slut-shaming"

Boooooo.

11/15/2012 6:10:04 PM

^^

How is Dick Cheney considered alive, if he couldn't survive without his battery staying charged?

11/15/2012 7:31:37 PM

Do we put the mother in prison for having an abortion, the doctor or both?

Do we lock up women if they attempt an abortion and ensure they give birth in prison?

11/15/2012 7:56:25 PM

http://www.wral.com/judge-finds-nc-choose-life-plates-unconstitutional/11861952/

Lots of great "debate" in the comments!

[Edited on December 10, 2012 at 12:53 PM. Reason : ]

12/10/2012 12:53:30 PM

What a trivial thing to get all worked up over... for either side of the debate.

12/10/2012 2:04:39 PM

"Either side" my ass. Fuck them for trying to inject their political beliefs into State-backed license plates.

[Edited on December 10, 2012 at 2:13 PM. Reason : .]

12/10/2012 2:13:19 PM