DING DING DING Godwin activated DING DING DING

This is (again) an unfair, intellectually dishonest, emotive way of displacing the argument. It is an inaccurate analogy.

Plenty of creatures feel pain, and yet we don't treat them as human. Pigs are cognitively perfectly capable, and we don't feel bad about subjecting them to fates worse than death, followed by a horrific brutal death.

In addition, it is arrogant of me to decide what is and isn't a human being, yet not at all arrogant when you do the same? And don't try to claim you don't, because I doubt you would be quick to give primates rights. I have decided that I can judge what is and is not human. I do it on an entirely subjective scale, because any objective scale is likely to be flawed.

@Octavious
Yeah, that's why I feel that many drugs should be legal for recreational purposes. As long as a person has agency, they should be able to do more or less what they want to themselves. Self-harm and suicidal tendencies frequently negate agency, but doctor-assisted suicide for people who will probably be in constant pain until they die and have nothing to live for? Sure, I've got no problem with that. I'm also in favor of legalizing (very very carefully) prostitution, and all the other victimless crimes.

@KingCyrus, I do believe you mean that DemonOverlord is following the *tack* of making something non-human to explain it away. "Tact" has to do with social graces and "tack" refers to a course or heading. This of course in no way undermines your airtight reasoning of calling her Hitler, but I thought I might mention this briefly. It would demonstrate an extreme lack of tact, for example, if I were to invite you to kill yourself because of your egregious abuse of the English language; as such, that is not a tack I will take.

Now, as for your questions, I have, as many who support the murder of the unborn, seen videos of abortions. In fact, I have numerous pictures of this very act hanging in my room. I have baby parts that I bought from Planned Parenthood sitting in jars of formaldehyde as well. I got a good deal on them, so if you'd like to partake, just let me know.

You ask also how a heartbeat, brainwaves, and the capacity to feel pain do not constitute humanity. I offer very simple answers to this. First, the trinity of signals you mention are not exclusive to humanity, so relying solely on this to make the determination of humanity is silly. My dog has a heartbeat, brainwaves, and the capacity to feel pain, but she is not human. Second, does the absence of any one of these three constitute a loss of humanity? By your criteria, dead people--who lack heartbeats, brain waves, and pain receptors--are no longer human. This seems untrue, no?

I now refer to Peter Singer. There are two usual ways to define humanity. The first is that human beings are members of the species Homo sapiens. This is trivially true for all of our unborn, from the moment the sperm fertilises the egg, I should think. The second argument is that human beings are rational and self-conscious. A fetus is clearly not rational or self-conscious, and so this implies that its right to life, as it were, is not sacrosanct. (Incidentally, neither I nor Peter Singer has a problem with euthanasia).

I gather from your post that you are of the opinion that the first definition should hold, that membership in the species Homo sapiens should automatically grant this right to life. Perhaps, then, you could enlighten us as to why mere membership in a species confers this right.

@ Phil

Out of interest, where do you draw the line in terms of terminations? Is it immediately after birth, a number of weeks before birth, or something else? And, briefly, what is your chief motivation for doing so?

I'm inclined to trust doctors on the issue. If both the doctor and patient are willing to through with the operation, then they should. Of course, it becomes deeply impractical a couple months in. Given that I am not and will never be pregnant, it is not actually any of my business. My chief motivation is protecting the right to choose what goes on with your body, against the rights of a thing that does not have them.

As there will always be some doctors willing to do highly questionable activities, I assume you mean the medical consensus rather than the view of a particular doctor? Do I take it from that that should the consensus of medical opinion move to reducing the period in which abortions are available, you would support that?

I find the "none of my business" argument baffling. It is the business of all of humanity to define the rules that allow society to function. Banning barren women and men from having valid opinions strikes me as odd. We all have a stake in society. We should all have a voice.

If the doctors are willing to perform questionable activities their medical licenses should be revoked, yes. Not going to let Mengele perform abortions.

I am not for banning opinions, given I have them myself. I am just of the opinion that pregnant women should be the ones decide whether or not to have an abortion, which seems like it should be self-evident.

The very fact that the abortion debate exists as it does proves beyond doubt that it is not self evident. You yourself are perfectly happy to support doctors limiting the women's right to choose.

Well, yes, when they have a reasonable fear of medical complications. I also support a doctor limiting my right to choose to remove half of my brain.

The current laws on abortion are not based upon medical complications. They are based upon whether the foetus is viable or not. Are you saying that you believe there should be no limit on how late in a term an abortion is carried out as long as the woman is not at significant risk? That would be a huge shift in the law.

If there's one thing I hate in society, it's abortions.

@KC
"The problem that Demon, phil, and Randomizer have, among others I am sure, is this "otherization" of unborn children. They have the arrogance to decide what is and is not a human being."

Well there are some anti-abortionists that commit the illegal act of murder of doctors that provide the legal act of abortion. They take the law into their own hands and decide that some doctors are "others" based upon their own definition of life and what should be the law.

There's a reason murdering doctors is illegal.
I knew a pro-abortionist who got in trouble for rape. It has absolutely zero bearing on whether fetuses are human or not. Similar to your example how some anti-abortionists aren't good people.

@ Randomizer

I am struggling to see the relevancy of that point... Go to an American jail, and you will find prisoners who are Republican voters and prisoners who are Democrat voters (or at least were). You will find that the bastards of society do not form a united community that speaks with one voice.

For the record, my stance that I hate abortions is obviously a little more complicated then that. I do hate them, but I can understand some situations for women where they feel like they have no other choice, like in the cases of rape, and they have my deepest sympathies and the animal who abused her should be brought to justice. But nothing irks me more then when people just sleep around, get pregnant, don't give a shit, and kill the fetus off whenever one is created.

@ Fluminator: "when people just sleep around, get pregnant, don't give a shit, and kill the fetus off whenever one is created."

What proportion of abortions do you think this scenario accounts for?

There are a ton of stats out there you can look up.
https://www.guttmacher.org/media/presskits/abortion-US/statsandfacts.html

Over a million abortions in 2011. Most of them aren't rape victims.
The women are all in very unique situations that I can't group them all together, but in order to get pregnant, you need to have sex. It really isn't all that hard to avoid unplanned pregnancies. I'm also not saying that we should scorn or shun couples that do this, and I'm sure a lot are genuine mistakes. It's not a thing where their life should be ruined after one mistake. (Which having a baby won't necessarily ruin your life, when adoption is a thing).
I just wish people would be more careful, and realize that when they make a mistake, killing the baby is not a good idea. There are a ton of institutions that help the women AND the child get through alive and healthy.

I'm passionate about this because I view abortion similar to, "Let's kill our 1 year old because we aren't ready to have kids yet."
If you can convince me the fetus isn't human, then I won't care, but in my research of the fetus, I have a very hard time seeing that it isn't human from the get-go.

Less than 2 percent of all abortions in the US are the result of rape or incest.

@pangloss, with respect to two definitions of humanity

"The first is that human beings are members of the species Homo sapiens....The second argument is that human beings are rational and self-conscious....I gather from your post that you are of the opinion that the first definition should hold, that membership in the species Homo sapiens should automatically grant this right to life. Perhaps, then, you could enlighten us as to why mere membership in a species confers this right."
Because Homo sapiens is a select species with dignity and rights that do not inhere in any other species. Membership in the species is sufficient to confer these dignity and rights without additional appurtenances such as self-awareness and rationality (as traditionally understood) being necessary.

Other species, meanwhile, are quite literally sub-human.

Someone mentioned Peter Singer. Now there is a pro-choice supporter that one must admire for his consistency. He holds a brief for the killing of newborns-infanticide. He justifies this by drawing a comparison with the aborted foetus' lack of self awareness. Such are the logical outcomes of an unrestrained pro-choice position.

Also, I feel I should point out the following exchanges

KC says: "We define someone as legally dead when their heart stops beating. Why not define a baby as alive when their heart STARTS beating? After only 18 days, a heart is beating. If you want to go the route of brain activity, brain waves can be detected at 6 weeks. After 9 weeks the baby has the neural capability to feel pain. How is this not a human being?"

phil_a_s ignores the beginning of this comment, latches on to the question in the last sentence (not realizing it's equivalent to the earlier "Why not define a baby as alive [at this point]?") and produces this: "Plenty of creatures feel pain, and yet we don't treat them as human. Pigs are cognitively perfectly capable, and we don't feel bad about subjecting them to fates worse than death, followed by a horrific brutal death."

pangloss takes up phil's miscue and doubles down on it: "You ask also how a heartbeat, brainwaves, and the capacity to feel pain do not constitute humanity. I offer very simple answers to this. First, the trinity of signals you mention are not exclusive to humanity, so relying solely on this to make the determination of humanity is silly. My dog has a heartbeat, brainwaves, and the capacity to feel pain, but she is not human. Second, does the absence of any one of these three constitute a loss of humanity? By your criteria, dead people--who lack heartbeats, brain waves, and pain receptors--are no longer human. This seems untrue, no?"

Let's be perfectly clear (great, now I sound like Stephen Harper): the "heartbeat, brainwaves, and pain" argument is meant exactly the way KC presented it -- as signs that a fetus is ALIVE. And that therefore the termination of a fetus is termination of a LIVING person's life. The remonstrations that these signs do not uniquely signify humanity are head-scratchingly off topic.

^In the last sentence, amend "uniquely signify humanity" to "signify humanity per se"

@OutsideSmoker27
"Because Homo sapiens is a select species with dignity and rights that do not inhere in any other species. Membership in the species is sufficient to confer these dignity and rights without additional appurtenances such as self-awareness and rationality (as traditionally understood) being necessary."

Why? What is it about humankind that confers these rights?

@fulhamish
"Someone mentioned Peter Singer. Now there is a pro-choice supporter that one must admire for his consistency. He holds a brief for the killing of newborns-infanticide. He justifies this by drawing a comparison with the aborted foetus' lack of self awareness. Such are the logical outcomes of an unrestrained pro-choice position."

Yes, I appreciate Singer's consistency. I don't have much of a problem with after-birth abortion/infanticide myself.

@OutsideSmoker27 (again)
"Let's be perfectly clear (great, now I sound like Stephen Harper): the "heartbeat, brainwaves, and pain" argument is meant exactly the way KC presented it -- as signs that a fetus is ALIVE. And that therefore the termination of a fetus is termination of a LIVING person's life. The remonstrations that these signs do not uniquely signify humanity [per se] are head-scratchingly off topic."

This of course relies on the implicit premise that prenatal Homo sapiens deserve the same rights as post-birth Homo sapiens, a position which has yet to be justified. Beyond that, I think our objections still stand because these are not necessarily signs of human life, but merely life itself--which is terminated on a routine basis by human beings.

@pangloss
"This of course relies on the implicit premise that prenatal Homo sapiens deserve the same rights as post-birth Homo sapiens, a position which has yet to be justified."
Actually, it relies on the implicit premise that membership in the race Homo sapiens is sufficient, which is indeed a position that has yet to be justified. Or maybe that's what you're saying here.

It's certainly what you're saying here: "Why? What is it about humankind that confers these rights?"

Thomas Jefferson had something to say about this: "all men are created equal [and] are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights [and] among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

But I actually think Genesis 1.26 is a bit more relevant to this particular point (and has more normative force to it): "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.'" I think the privileged status of humans comes through pretty clearly here.

And as for membership in the species being sufficient to guarantee a right to life (subject to due process of law), I think Genesis 9.6 this up pretty clearly: "Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man."

Interesting. I wrote "p oint s" as a single word and it converted it to a D. Quite interesting.

@OutsideSmoker27, do rights stem from Thomas Jefferson? Or God? This seems to elevate your beloved founding father beyond what seems appropriate for a secular state. But, ignoring that, it strikes me as a bit infirm to declare that rights exist because someone said so.

Pardon my atheism, but I tend to look beyond the Book of Genesis for justification of the present day. Also, don't Christians use the New Testament a bit more than the Old Testament?

I believe that the D symbol comes up if the word "points" comes preceded by a number. 100 vs. one hundred points.

"do rights stem from Thomas Jefferson?"
No [puzzled look as to where that came from, since I'm pretty sure Jefferson wasn't making pronouncements of ideas that came originally from him or based on his own personal authority for their binding nature]

"Or God?"
Yes [puzzled look goes away as this follows more clearly from what I said and that God actually WAS making pronouncements that came originally from Him and were based on His personal authority for their binding nature]

"This seems to elevate your beloved founding father beyond what seems appropriate for a secular state."
Um, okay.

"Pardon my atheism, but I tend to look beyond the Book of Genesis for justification of the present day."
Okay. So do I. But I don't dismiss Genesis while doing so.

"Also, don't Christians use the New Testament a bit more than the Old Testament?"
Depends on what part of the Old Testament and what part of the New and for what purpose.

"it strikes me as a bit infirm to declare that rights exist because someone said so."
Okay, I'm curious about your description of what a strong/non-infirm base consists of.

"I believe that the D symbol comes up if the word 'points' comes preceded by a number. 100 vs. one hundred points."
Thank you for that explanation. I did not know that.