flash2015 wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2019 1:00 pm
Carl Tuckerson wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2019 1:14 am
Randomizer wrote: ↑Sat May 18, 2019 12:48 am
It's a parasite living off the host. Would you defend a tapeworm's right to exist?
Would you let the government decide it could harvest your organs to save other people's lives? How much would you let the government decide to do with your body without your consent. After all it would be against the US constitution for the government to take your property (body) without monetary compensation by forcing you to keep a fetus inside you.
If you unironically have to refer to children as parasites and compare them to tapeworms to justify abortion, you have no business making public policy regarding children, and you might be a psychotic monster. Aren't you glad your parents didn't consider you a tapeworm?
None of these analogies even come close to hitting the mark. We already have precedent for the government deciding what you can do "with your body without your consent." What do you think a law is? We even have ample law on point: you can't voluntarily use your body to kill people. And if dependence on a parent is the line of demarcation for you, why don't you support infanticide after birth? Let me ask you where your line is--how long are you allowed to slaughter your own child because they're depending on you and you don't want that anymore? Because that's your position you're advocating right now.
So **every** fetus is a child then? Every time a woman miscarries we should create a death certificate and have a funeral? Or taking it to the logical extreme, every time a sexually active female has a period we should create a death certificate just in case? Perhaps the menstrual blood should be stored for investigation? What do you think?
Not to be rude but getting increasingly emotive about the issue doesn't make your opinion (and it is only an opinion) any more valid. If anyone should be kept away from public policy I would argue it would be those that demonize any opinions which disagree with their own. Democracy is about compromises between competing interests. Ideological absolutism leads to tyranny.
Strictly speaking yes, every fetus is a child, and we have clearly recognized that a fetus has a legally protected right to life even when we wouldn't otherwise treat a fetus like a child already born. If a woman miscarries in her seventh month of pregnancy, we obviously don't give the fetus a funeral, but if that same woman is criminally resulted and the death of the fetus results, the criminal is responsible for homicide; and if such a woman is killed herself then the killer is liable for homicide twice. That we don't have a tradition of holding funerals for some people doesn't mean they don't have a right to life that should be protected.
I'm not being "increasingly emotive." Abortion is the deliberate killing of a human being. It is murder in the colloquial sense of the term. It is infanticide. There may be circumstances where it is appropriate nonetheless, but the debate has to start from that frame. Casually referring to children as parasites and tapeworms, as the person I quoted did, is reprehensible, and you are wrong for trying to bludgeon my condemnation of such language by calling for compromise. People who show that much disdain for the life of children do not belong in the public policy discussion on their fate. That should not be controversial. That doesn't mean everyone who supports abortion rights doesn't.
As for compromise... how can there be compromise that results in widespread abortion access? One side sees it as murder, and the other side never does anything to address this concern. I can think of several ways that one can compromise on this issue that permits women to have ample control over their reproductive health and bodily autonomy that does not result in widespread abortion access:
1. Don't have sex without protection
2. Use condoms, birth control medication, IUDs or other procedures or devices to inhibit pregnancy, then have sex as you please
3. Permit abortion where there is a danger to the life of the mother, or in cases where she didn't choose to have sex (exceptions for rape, which Alabama notably doesn't include)
That's a compromise that would be very reasonable. You don't terminate the life of a child unless it is absolutely necessary and you emphasize the means of having sex that don't result in pregnancy or, God forbid, just abstain from sex in an instance where you can't have unprotected sex and there's an unwanted risk of pregnancy. It's really not that big a deal to decline sex where you can't afford the risk of pregnancy.
The tough part is that there's a real gap where the woman didn't decline sex (i.e. exceptions for rape and incest which are typically included in all these laws, but which Alabama doesn't), but:
1. Numbers vary on the reasons given for seeking abortions, but the most-cited figure I could find places the number sought for rape cases at roughly 1%. Based on current data, these cases are an extremely small proportion of abortions sought; the vast majority are properly addressed even if you think that an exception for rape is proper and Alabama is wrong in this respect.
2. It is a perfectly valid moral position to hold that even though the woman is obviously blameless in the circumstances leading to her pregnancy, the harm caused by killing her child is greater than that caused by forcing her to carry a pregnancy resulting from rape to term.
I don't agree with this take and consequently I think Alabama is wrong to ban abortion in the case of rape, but I think it's a valid position for someone to take.
In any case, we can have a conversation about those issues and come to a position that respects the life interest of the child and the interests of the woman.
You know where we
can't have such a conversation? When people lead off by calling those who disagree with them "barbaric" and "medieval" and refer to children as "parasites" and "tapeworms." It's very strange that you chose to single out my correct reference to the procedure as infanticide for being too "emotive" while ignoring these comments.