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Grex > Glb > #37: gay bashers in the news again (long -- 163 lines) |  |
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| 25 new of 404 responses total. |
janc
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response 152 of 404:
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Oct 24 03:44 UTC 1998 |
I think Kenton needs to read cmcgee's resp:137 carefully.
Your wife was given a choice - to protect her life, or to protect her
baby's life. She made a courageous choice. Suppose instead the doctor
had said "Your pregnancy is endangering your life, but it's against the
law to abort it." She would have been spared the opportunity to make a
courageous choice, because the government would already have decided to
courageously risk her life for the baby's. I believe it was right for
your wife to make the choice she did, and I applaud and respect her for
it. But that does NOT mean that I think it would have been good for the
government to make the choice for her.
It's true that most pro-life people would allow abortion in cases where
the life of the mother is endangered, so even under those laws your wife
would not have been robbed of her choice. However, medical problems
aren't the only kinds of problems which might make giving birth to a
child an extraordinary act of courage. Bringing a child into this world
is a huge responsiblity, and for many people find it unimaginable that
they can stretch far enough to do that. To go ahead requires courage
from them, just as it did for your wife. I believe they too should be
allowed a choice in the matter.
Like Rane, I find your arguements about when the soul enters the baby
irrelevant. But they aren't irrelevant because I don't believe in
souls. They are irrelevant because even if I agreed with everything you
said (and I do agree with much of it), it wouldn't change my mind about
abortion. The reason I believe in abortion being a choice is not
because I think babies don't turn human for three months. You can harp
on that point forever and it will never change my mind about anything.
My reasoning works like this:
- First, it is important to understand that the viewpoint of the law
is not the viewpoint of a person. The law must be impartial. Good
people are partial to their friends and family. The law must serve
the good of society as a whole. Individuals serve other individuals.
The law must protect the freedom of individuals to seek fulfillment.
Where the interests of individuals conflict, the law must favor those
whose actions strengthen society instead of those who weaken it.
(That is why it's good for the law to strongly discourage murders,
while being relatively friendly to farmers).
- From the viewpoint of society as a whole, there is no shortage of
babies. Quite the contrary, most of our problems would be much
reduced if population growth was slower. The capacity for babies
to make a contribution to society is extremely limited. On the
contrary, the effort involved in raising them costs society quite
a lot.
- Of course, for society to try to restrict the birth of babies would
make a lot of individuals very unhappy, causing depression and
revolutions and such. Individuals like you and me want our babies
very much, no matter what they cost us to raise. A sane and stable
society will respect our desire for babies. And after all, society
does need enough babies to make a new generation, and if there are
people willing to do the work of raising them, that's terrific.
Here, the needs of the individual and the needs of society are in
perfect harmony.
- However, babies that their parents don't want have very little value
to society. To force a productive member of society to bring yet
another baby into a world with too many babies doesn't do any good.
Not only is it a burden on an over populated world, but it isn't
even as good a risk of becoming a productive member of society as
a baby that is wanted by someone.
- The right to life is not something that comes for free just because
you have human genes. You need to provide some value to someone.
Some people, like the folks who recently beat Matthew Shepard to
death, or the folks who bombed the federal building in Oklahoma
provide more negative value than positive value, and their right to
life is generally consider low to non-existant. We generally try to
give everyone a lot of benefit of doubt when judging their worthiness
to live, be we do make those judgements.
- As far as value to society goes, a baby is a zero, or in these days
of overpopulation, even a slight negative. However, my unborn baby
has some non-intrinsic value - I value him. I am personally
committed to doing everything in my power to raise him to be a
useful and positive contributor to the society of man. His existance
adds to my personal desire to make this a world worth living in.
That's where all of the value of that baby to society resides, and
it is primarily on the basis of preserving that value that I claim
that society should aide me in protecting the life of that child.
- An unwanted baby does not have that kind of value. Its parents
are not prepared and willing to make the effort needed to ensure
that it will be eventually worth the food it eats. True, there
are lots of potential adoptive parents who'd like to adopt the baby,
but they would be equally happy to adopt any other baby. There
really are plenty of babies in the world. We don't need to bring
more babies into the world for people to adopt.
- Babies are human from conception, but they aren't part of human
society until they are loved and wanted. When a parent says, "I
want this child," then that child gets the rights of a human being.
- The rule allowing three months to decide on an abortion is not
because the baby somehow gets a soul at three months. It's because
three months is adequate time for a woman to find out she is
pregnant and make a thoughtful, considered choice. Once that time
is past, society assumes the parent has made a commitment, and will
hold them to it, holding them responsibile for the child. It's
a reasonable time period to make an informed realistic choice. It
has nothing to do with the time it takes to grow a baby. It has
to do with the time it takes to grow a parent.
- Pro-choice means that if you ask someone why they became a parent,
the answer will never be "well, I got drunk and the condom leaked."
The answer will have something to do with wanting a child, and
wanting to be a parent to the child. In an overpopulated world,
we should always have good reasons to add another baby.
Yes, I really believe that the value of humans is socially determined.
I expect there will be questions about vegetables and homeless people
with no ties to anyone. I can answer those, with arguments deriving
from the complexity of society and humans and the many kinds of value a
person can have and the difficulty of judging that value. Unborn babies
are uniquely simple in their social connections.
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katie
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response 153 of 404:
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Oct 24 13:57 UTC 1998 |
(Yes, I have often found it unimaginable that I could stretch that far,
but I don't think that`s what you meant...;-))
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brighn
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response 154 of 404:
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Oct 24 17:03 UTC 1998 |
Senna> If you honestly don't see how saying, "Both sides are stupid" is an
insult, then it's pointless to discuss it further.
insult, n. 2. any gross abuse offered to another, either by words or actions;
any act or speech meant to hurt the feelings or self-respect of another.
That definition does not qualify "true" or "untrue." I think nearly everyone
would agree that my calling you ugly would be an insult, whether or not you
are.
There, I said it was pointless to discuss it further, and then discussed it
further. Why? Because it amuses me to do pointless things, and besides, it's
as on-topic as six-screen diatribes on abortion in the GLB conference... or
did this cross-linked? =}
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senna
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response 155 of 404:
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Oct 25 00:16 UTC 1998 |
Uh, Jan, some of the assertions you make there are extremely, extremely
disturbing, and that has little to do with abortion.
Kenton, arguments concerning when the soul enters the fetus are relevant if
they are true. However, as it is quite impossible for you to prove that they
are true, I highly recommend you argue on terms that people understand, rather
that attempting to establish personal religious viewpoints as rules that
govern others that do not believe what you do.
That's always annoyed me.
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suzie
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response 156 of 404:
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Oct 25 00:51 UTC 1998 |
Jans *really* smart and cool but I dont think anyone here understands him.
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kenton
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response 157 of 404:
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Oct 25 02:13 UTC 1998 |
Chuckle. My thoughts are not necessarily even close to fact, but they are
my thoughts. If your interested in what I have to say, read it. If not skip
to the next entry. But in my lifetime, I have learned much by exchanging
even offbeat ideas with others.
If you were caught in a flood and were swimming to shore with a small child
on your back, but were tiring quickly, would you rid yourself of the child
and save your life? The fact is some would and some wouldn't. Would you (if
not tired) push the child off because you didn't know if you could feed him
or her once you reached shore? By an above argument, I guess the answer is
the same for this question.
I don't think anyone has a right to life. By the same token, I don't think
anyone has a right to decide who lives and who dies. The challenges of
population increase can be met with out killing babies. Some sociologists say
that the society which values life the highest, extract the highest penalty
for the taking of life. I guess our society needs some healing.
My grandmother was nearly 50 when she became pregnant. She didn't want that,
but had no choice. She told me that she was quite despondent at my uncle's
birth. Yet she lived in the same house with him as a widow and under his care
for more than 20 years. The child she didn't want, became her mainstay and
shining light. How many aborted children would have been a great blessing to
their parents or another. Do mere mortals have the foresight and wisdom to
make such choices. I don't think so.
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drew
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response 158 of 404:
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Oct 25 02:50 UTC 1998 |
I would like to see some substantiation for this 8 cell limit for being
capable of being made twins or quadruplets. Why not 4 or 16 cells?
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rcurl
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response 159 of 404:
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Oct 25 05:23 UTC 1998 |
#157 implies that either children are required to care for their aging
parents, or that it is impossible for anyone else to do so. Neither is
true in my opinion. I cannot imagine that "wisdom and insight" calls
for having as many children as possible to ensure one's eldercare. I
prefer a society in which people prepare in their life for their own
old age, and consider themselves lucky if someone(s) wish to assist
in that care out of love or perhaps some less altruistic motive.
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md
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response 160 of 404:
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Oct 25 15:19 UTC 1998 |
That seems hardly worth debating next to "I don't think anyone
has a right to life" (in #157). Why not throw out liberty and the
pursuit of happiness while you're at it?
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maeve
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response 161 of 404:
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Oct 25 18:41 UTC 1998 |
re 152...gosh..that was rather impressive..
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lumen
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response 162 of 404:
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Oct 25 23:04 UTC 1998 |
ah, gridlock. :P
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kenton
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response 163 of 404:
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Oct 26 03:45 UTC 1998 |
Rane, you missed the boat with your response about # 157. In fact you missed
the pier.
Mike, you win the booby prize. I wondered who would be the first to recite
from the preamble. But in my humble opinion, that is exactly what is being
done to many tiny babies. It proves that our constitution is only good for
some. If you don't want someone included, just make up some arbitrary ruling
to exclude them. Take black and white and mix them. Now you have a grey
area, so make up your rules to fit your desires. First start with the very
young and unborn who have only their uncaring mother to protect them.
Then add the very old, especially those who are blind and deaf. They don't
understand anyway. Get rid of them. Add the feeble minded and people with
terminal diseases. They are just a load on society. Finally add people who
are blonde and have green eyes. And don't forget those who don't believe as
you do. Like homosexuals.
Abortion just got the ball rolling. Where will it stop?
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brighn
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response 164 of 404:
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Oct 26 06:36 UTC 1998 |
Suzie, can we avoid the Hero Worship at the expense of insulting the rest of
the conference?
Kenton> #157 is meant as support for your argument, but seems like support
against it. You ask, "If you were swimming to shore from a shipwreck, and had
a child as added weight, would you let the child die to save your own life?
Some would and some wouldn't." This is *exactly* the position most women who
seek abortions are in: Frequently, they've become pregnant by accident, and
they have a choice: Abort the child, or risk their career, their education,
or whatever else... in short, either drown the child, or risk letting the
child drag you down. I know of at least two women in this situation: Pregnant
early in their college career, they chose to carry the child to term; now,
without a college degree, they can't find a decent, well-paying job, so the
child is destined to live with the mother in the lower classes... the child
has metaphrocially dragged the mother down. Now, both of these women chose,
of their own free will, the baby over the degree... in short, they chose to
risk drowning themselves in order to save the child. But, as you yourself
point out, others would chose to let the child drown. You seem to have no
judgment call one way or the other; you make it a statement of fact. I agree;
the judgment call is up to the mother.
A woman who is pregnant and doesn't want to have a child has two choices:
(1) Abort the fetus
(2) Bring the fetus to term and either raise it or put it up for adoption.
Let's look at (2). If she chooses to raise it herself, she needs to examine
the likelihood that it will significantly affect her livelihood, which impacts
her happiness, which impacts her ability to raise the child. Perhaps she will
decide that the child is worth the sacrifices, and that she can look beyond
the problems to give it the love it needs to thrive. Perhaps she will decide
that the child is an albatross, and resent it for as long as it lives. If she
chooses to put it up for adoption, she risks placing it in an already
overfilled and overbureaucracized adoption system; perhaps it will find a good
home, perhaps a terrible one, perhaps it will wind up in foster care, hopping
from dysfunctional setting to dysfunctional setting. When the child is older,
perhaps it will love it adoptive parents as if they were birth parents, or
perhaps it will pine for the mother that abandoned it, in its view, and wonder
who she was.
Let's look at (1). Perhaps she will walk away from the clinic and never think
of the child again. Much more likely, she will lie awake wondering what the
child would have been like, whether she will ever get the chance to h ave a
child when she wants to... she might hear the voice of the child as she tries
to sleep; she might picture it in her nightmares. Abortion takes reality and
makes it potential, and we are left wondering about the potential, stuck in
a quagmyre of "what ifs."
I am not female. I am not ever going to be in the position to choose. But I've
talked to women who've gotten pregnant accidentally, both those who chose to
abort and those who chose to carry through. Above is an amalgam of precisely
the questions that each of them went through in their decision.
Anyone who thinks that the decision to abort is easy, or made lightly, is
sadly mistaken. Perhaps there are a few women out there who use it as a form
of birth control. But of the women I've talked to, who've been pregnant and
then, by their own volition, become unpregnant, the decision was filled with
introspection, guilt, and meditation.
"Do you think women want to kill their own babies?
If you got your own twisted baggage, then, maybe."
-- Consolidated
This is entirely different that ridding society of undesirables. Abortion is
about a mother choosing between what she perceives of being a trio of
unpleasant choices: Abort, raise, adopt. (Abortions that aren't medically
necissitated, that is.)
Comparing that to murderers (as Jan does) or to social undesirables, such as
the elderly and gays (as Kenton does) belittles both the issue of abortion,
and the relevant issues of crime management and fringe members of society.
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md
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response 165 of 404:
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Oct 26 11:36 UTC 1998 |
Re #163, when societies start down the slippery slope you
describe, it isn't because government gives individuals power
over their own lives, as in Roe v. Wade. It's because government
attains power over individual lives, as in Mazi Germany. You're
right about selective rights, though. The "life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness" language applies only to "men," as I recall.
But that's as it should be. ;-)
Anyway, why did you say you don't think anyone has the "right to
life," of all things? That's an incredibly strange position for an
anti-abortion person to take.
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danr
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response 166 of 404:
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Oct 26 13:42 UTC 1998 |
Why does it seem every 'serious' discussion turns into an abortion debate?
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mta
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response 167 of 404:
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Oct 26 16:14 UTC 1998 |
It doesn't actually happent hat way -- but it happens often enough over the
years to often seem thatw ay. ;
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md
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response 168 of 404:
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Oct 26 17:12 UTC 1998 |
Who's the idiot who introduced the abortion topic into
this item in the first place?
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brighn
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response 169 of 404:
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Oct 26 17:18 UTC 1998 |
me
I made an analogy between militant gay-bashers and militant pro-lifers, and
offended senna.
Then we slid down that proverbial slippery slope.
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albaugh
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response 170 of 404:
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Oct 26 17:23 UTC 1998 |
Not to be confused with sliding down a slippery tunnel... ;->
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md
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response 171 of 404:
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Oct 26 19:12 UTC 1998 |
[Gack. I thought it was me, brighn. I never would've used
the word "idiot" otherwise. 1,000,000 apologies.]
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brighn
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response 172 of 404:
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Oct 26 20:27 UTC 1998 |
[Maybe it *was* you, after all. I honestly don't remember. Nor do I care.
We're debating abortion on a teensy BBS where those of us who on't agree with
us aren't going to change their minds anyway, and getting carpal tunnel and
inflated heads doing it, so I guess we're both idiots. =} ]
[The preceding was a joke, for the humor impaired.]
[MD doesn't strike me as humor impaired, otherwise I wouldn't've made such
a joke.]
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senna
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response 173 of 404:
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Oct 26 23:27 UTC 1998 |
That was a joke? I took it as a mortal offense :)
(the preceding was sarcasm, but my sarcasm is hard to pick up anyway)
At least we haven't turned to insulting each other entirely yet. Debates lose
all of their appeal when people decide that the reason the other person holds
a different opinion is because they are mentally challenged and decide that
a quick path to winning the debate is to enlighten them to their stupidity.
Take politics, for example.
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janc
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response 174 of 404:
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Oct 27 02:54 UTC 1998 |
Interesting. I'd expected resp:152 to raise at least a few flames.
It's pretty far from the politically correct pro-choice party line.
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kenton
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response 175 of 404:
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Oct 27 03:21 UTC 1998 |
If people didn't have opposing views, there would be no debate. I personally
argue both sides of an issue (with myself) to try for a better understanding of
the issue....And for the smart asses...I haven't lost an argument with myself
yet. This conference has helped me gain a better understanding of the issue.
Never the less, if I knew that a woman was going to have an abortion, and
opportunity presented itself, I would try to dissuade her.
I only know of two women, who have had abortions. The first aborted a female
baby because her live in only wanted a boy. The second has had 7 abortions (
or so she claims). To me , both of these women have an ugliness that goes
clear to the bone. And I'm not talking about appearances.
Back to the homosexuals.... There is an ice skating champion named Rudy Galindo
or something like that. Many of his mannerisms, appear to be very female in
nature. Is this learned or inborn? Do all homosexuals have mannerisms and
characteristics of the opposite sex?
Cows when deprived of a bull will hop each other. In fact this is one way to
determine when to artificially breed them. I have also observed incarcerated
dogs of the same sex humping each other. But this action seems to be triggered
by limited or no access to the opposite sex. Human prisoners may exercise this
same phenomenon.
But what about people on the outside. Is homosexuality a natural choice or a
learned perverted action? Is it a matter of personal choice or a case of "I
can't help it".
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janc
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response 176 of 404:
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Oct 27 03:40 UTC 1998 |
Kenton slipped in. But I'll post this response anyway.
I suspect that there is a reason why an awful lot of serious debates
turn into abortion debates. It's probably the same reason why so many
people use the abortion issue as an acid test for choosing who to vote
for. I think this country is divided between two different moral
viewpoints, and I think the abortion issue happens to be the one that
most starkly falls across that cleft. There is no other issue where
both sides feel they are so clearly right, and the other side is so
clearly wrong. A lot of other issues divide along similar (but never
really identical) lines. Not all gay-bashers are pro-lifers, nor vice
versa. Not even close. But there is enough correspondence in people's
minds so that when they try to fortify their positions on either side of
the gay question, both sides tend to reach for that stone that feels so
solid to them - the abortion question.
I experimented a while back with making the claim that I'm *both*
pro-life and pro-choice. Logical enough. Life and choice are both good
things. I argued that 1.5 million abortions a year in this country is
too many and that something should be done to reduce the number. But I
argued that illegalizing abortion would be a very ineffective way to
reduce abortions. The abortion rate was very high even while it was
illegal, and there is no reason to believe that illegalizing it again
would save a large fraction of those 1.5 million babies. Certainly it
would kill lots of women in backroom abortions, and it would be done at
the cost of losing women a great deal of freedom. It's a lousy way to
solve the problem. Better ways would be to do things like making birth
control more readily available, improving public education about birth
control, and throwing lots of research dollars at developing safer and
more effective birth control methods. This way, women who don't want
babys would be more likely not to get pregnant, and thus the abortion
rate would fall, while actually increasing women's practical freedom of
choice.
I figured this was the perfect solution. The best of both worlds. At
very least should be a program that both sides could agree on, even as
they continue the debate about the legality of abortion.
(I also figured that by grabbing both positive terms, "Pro-Choice AND
Pro-Life," I'd have all the good turf, leaving anyone who disagreed with
me stuck with defining themselves negatively, calling themselves
"Pro-Choice and Anti-Life" or "Anti-Choice and Pro-Life". I love to
fight dirty.)
Fat chance. The notion that there is might actually be common ground
between "Pro-Choice" and "Pro-Life," that there exists a reasonably
practical program that could further the stated goals of *both* sides,
was thoroughly and completely unwelcome. I never found a single person
from either side who liked the idea. Objections were not to the content
of the argument, but to the notion of blurring the boundaries between US
and THEM. I was thoroughly and generally ignored.
The abortion debate is NOT about abortion. Nobody cares as much as all
that about that specific issue. It's really about a whole complex of
moral values that happen to be reflected in the standard formulations of
the two sides of that one issue. That's why people love debating it,
why all other issues feed into it, and why nobody likes me messing with
the stereotypical "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice" positions.
My guess is that as time passes the particular deep issues that are
bugging society will shift, and the abortion issue will simply cease to
be interesting to people. In a century people may look back at the
abortion debate with the same puzzlement that we look back at debates
over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Solutions to the
abortion problem can be found as soon as we actually want them. But
right now we don't want them, because we like having the abortion issue
as a nice way to divide the good people from the evil people in minds.
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