response 35 of 116:

Aug 24 15:59 UTC 2003

In a fit of self-righteousness, sabre wrote:

>Well tod maybe those rednecks don't know thier bible....I do.A "fetus" 
>is alive.

So's an ant.

>Show me a scripture where it is stated that life begins when the 
>first breath is taken.

It's in the very language.  For instance, the Greek word for "soul"
is pneuma.  This is also the word for "breath"; if there was a
difference you would have expected all the apostles and later
translators to have and use a different word.  As long as you're
arguing scripture rather than evidence, what more do you need?

> The only verse that even deals with this issue 
> is.
> Ex 21:22
> 22 "If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit 
> depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely 
> punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he 
> shall pay as the judges determine".
> KJV

Right.  Cause a miscarriage (kill a fetus), pay a fine.  (Serious
premies died in those days.)

> This verse in no way justifies calling a "fetus" a piece of tissue.

Quite the opposite, it demands it.  If you kill a person (even a
child), the law you cite has a very different punishment.  Anyone
reading this has to conclude that a fetus is not a person.

Note also that the penalty is paid *to the husband*.  In other words
the fetus is HIS property, presumably to be disposed of as he sees
fit.  According to this interpretation of the Old Testament a man
ought to be able to demand a fine of a woman who aborts his fetus,
or perhaps even require her to abort (if it's HIS property, he can
tell her what to do with it).

> Can you point to another one?

If that's the only one you can find, your position is in deep trouble.

response 37 of 116:

Aug 24 23:02 UTC 2003

I thought the issue is supposed to be the woman's right to choose, ja?  
If she doesn't say, "I want this pregnancy aborted" and someone goes 
and aborts it anyway, then she has an action against them.  Obviously, 
if you believe a nine-week fetus is a human being in some sense, you 
won't agree.

response 39 of 116:

Aug 25 03:09 UTC 2003

re resp:36: Death is a limitation of freedom, is it not?

The *sole* justification you've given for the morality of abortion is 
that it is legal.  Using that reasoning, before it was legal, it must 
have been immoral because it was illegal.  It was illegal because the 
fetus was regarded as alive up to that point.

The Supreme Court took away the right to life of a fetus.  Up until 
the point where they did, the fetus was legally a person.  Your 
reasoning states you would have to regard the fetus as a person until 
then, doesn't it?  If so, you're approving the removal of the right to 
life from a large group of people as "greater individual freedom", and 
dismissing it's significance in those terms because it doesn't "limit 
*like* freedoms and controls of others".

I'm sure I'm missing something here, but I don't think I'm the only 
one.

response 41 of 116:

Aug 25 05:15 UTC 2003

Re #39: I never claimed "The *sole* justification you've given for the
morality of abortion is that it is legal." The moral justification for
abortion is, in fact, the right of the woman to control the function of
her own body, just as you have a right to control the functions of your
body. 

response 43 of 116:

Aug 25 17:42 UTC 2003

No problem. We assume rights based on subjective wishes for "life, liberty
and pursuit of happiness", which also embody concepts of fairness and
equality, and embody them in law. This is also true of "rights" claimed on
the bases of religion, old books, oracular pronouncements, etc. 

response 45 of 116:

Aug 25 18:03 UTC 2003

You find a fetus that can say or write that, and you might have a case.

response 47 of 116:

Aug 25 18:40 UTC 2003

re resp:41: In this item (resp:22), and others on the subject in the 
past, you've stated that abortion is okay because the law says it's 
legal.  I would think there are implications to that kind of 
statement.  For example, it wouldn't be okay if it weren't legal.  Is 
that an incorrect view of your position?

response 49 of 116:

Aug 25 20:16 UTC 2003

I assume nothing about rights. There is a big difference between creating
"rights" based in logic and reason applied to the human condition, and
creating "rights" based on mythology and doctrines from the distant past.
At least one can find "rights" that might be applicable to human society
today. 

response 51 of 116:

Aug 25 22:43 UTC 2003

Theology gets huge amounts of conjecture without any facts at all.
It even finds certainties (oddly, lots of contradictory ones).

response 53 of 116:

Aug 26 03:03 UTC 2003

Re #39:

   The *sole* justification you've given for the morality of abortion is 
   that it is legal.  Using that reasoning, before it was legal, it must 
   have been immoral because it was illegal.  It was illegal because the 
   fetus was regarded as alive up to that point.     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Not so.  Before then, abortion was the exclusive province of doctors,
who decided if a hospital abortion under sterile conditions with good
followup was justified by a woman's condition or not.  Marilyn Monroe
had a number of abortions.  (While abortions were approved by a panel
of doctors based on the woman's physical and mental health, it should
not surprise anyone to learn that a woman's emotional state was more
significant if she or her family was important, whereas the poor folk
knew better than to bother asking; they went to back allies.)  The
fetus didn't matter then either; it was merely a question of who
exercised control.

I give legalities as the reason why abortion cannot possibly be murder.
I give science as justification for asserting that any definition of
fetuses as a group as human beings flies in the face of reason.  (Which
is not to say that government has not flouted reason for all kinds of
purposes, and continues to do so; just that it is wrong when doing so.)

response 55 of 116:

Aug 26 14:31 UTC 2003

I'm not sure if I'm saying this right, but shouldn't we take into 
consideration whether or not the fetus can survive, independently of 
the mother?

response 57 of 116:

Aug 26 16:58 UTC 2003

Many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves.  Should slavery therefore still
be legal, simply because it was part of the founding laws?