Anti-LGBT/Religious Freedom Laws

I was going that route because I, like most others, took your comment to mean that it affected her life in the sense that it threatened to end it. Your last comment implied otherwise and I responded in turn. But I'll be sure to text Tenacious and make sure our arguments are fully synchronized next time so that the site-wide conspiracy can continue to crush you mercilessly.

 

I've been sick and throwing up for the past three mornings. I may be fixing to find out.

 

There are lots of ways in which we can circumvent biology that don't result in ending an innocent human life. That's why this is different, according to the standard pro-life take (and yes, the Catholics are something different, although I would suspect that even Catholics would see at least a difference in degree of moral wrong between contraception and abortion)

 

I know that we can agree that laws can be unjust. We just disagree which law is/was/will be unjust.

The difference is that one isn't within another person, completely reliant on that person for remaining viable and developing. I think that's a pretty huge difference. One can easily hand off a baby to someone who wishes to care for it and allow it to develop. Not so with a fetus.

*let's keep in mind an 8 month old fetus being aborted is a rare occurrence, and almost always done because there is something about it that makes it unviable, a threat to the mother to carry, doomed to a brief and painful life (harlequin babies, etc), or a combination. Some of disorders can't or are not detected until very late. There is this mythic concept of women who are carrying pregnancies for 8 months, gaining stretch marks, lactating, and going through all the hormonal stuff that just, what, procrastinate until the third trimester? C'mon. You know that, barring the extreme exception, there is usually a story of tragedy that leads to the decision to terminate after going so far along on the path towards motherhood. Let's not be politicians.

 

How can something end before it starts?

 

I doubt it happens frequently, I'm just following your logic down different avenues. It sounds like you would agree that an 8 month fetus being terminated solely for the mother's convenience would be somewhat disagreeable and perhaps a bit more than disposal of unwanted tissue.

 

I'd recommend getting a c-section, when it's time. The alternative seems... bad.

 

And I have seen pictures of OV's sons. If they are any idea of how big the baby would be, it would be huge.

 

My view hasn't done a 180, but my views have deepened significantly for similar reasons. My wife is currently going through an unplanned pregnancy that we were totally not prepared for (we'd only been married two weeks, I still have a year left of grad school, she still hadn't had the uterine surgery that would allow her to carry a child relatively safely in the first place), and seeing a lot of this stuff first hand has really affected my thinking on the issue.

On the one hand, I've become more staunchly pro-life after seeing the ultrasounds and feeling my daughter kick. On the other hand, I've become really dissatisfied with the standard Republican take, which makes protecting life a priority but entirely ignores all the factors that make people consider abortion in the first place. Their rhetoric makes it sound like people are idiots (or actively immoral) to get themselves into a position where they are growing a baby and aren't prepared to take care of it. I want to hear a discussion on the other factors surrounding this issue--sex ed, birth control, maternity leave, welfare, etc. They don't have to come down on the "Uncle Sam will handle everything" side, but it'd be nice if they at least acted like they understood that this can be hard on people and there are other problems to consider.

 

They could just give him an extra stitch or two and he'd be as tight as new

 

I tried to chose those words to be non-controversial. I didn't say "person" or "baby." But a human fetus is definitely human, and a living fetus is definitely alive.

 

Yes. I also think dropping out of college with 2 classes to go is disagreeable. I don't think it's murder, and I don't think a human life was extinguished, just aborted. I don't see why they would put themselves through all of that just to drop out at that point.

I also think it is very important for women to be able to make decisions about their own body, and for potential mothers to be able to make the call on whether it would be more merciful to abort. And we're talking about an extreme circumstance here anyway, whether it is a procrastinator or someone facing a heartbreaking situation at 8 months. This is as typical of an abortion scenario as a hurricane hitting Connecticut (exactly, statistically)

 

A human tissue is definitely human, and a living tissue is definitely alive. Living tissue doesn't equate to a living being. Something that isn't a sentient being isn't any more "innocent" than it is "guilty," it doesn't have the capacity to be making decisions or navigating morality. That's a throw-away adjective intended purely for emotional effect that has no real value to the matter at hand because we aren't talking about a tug of war between the rights of two beings (even though that is the way it is framed). We're talking about one being who is either allowed to make decisions regarding their own body, or is not.

 

Sure, it's an adjective intended for emotional effect. Fair enough. But you also asked what the difference was between abortion and abstinence, if they're both preventing births. These are differences. Maybe they're differences that aren't morally moving to you, but they are clearly differences, and I would think are differences such that it's pretty easy to see why they would be morally moving to some people.

 

A one month old isn't making a ton of moral decisions, either.

 

It isn't that I don't comprehend that people have a problem with abortion. I do think the distinction between any sort of birth control and abortion is far more grey than it may initially seem if given consideration, in the same way abortion is far less unnatural than it may seem given the context of normal reproduction success and failure rates. You aren't Catholic, so I am guessing you don't have a problem with the pill or condoms. And yet to them, they see it as an interference in the "Godly transmission of human life," which is quite similar language to what they say about abortion. And keep in mind virtually ALL protestant denominations held similar views at one point in time.

It really comes down to where one thinks human life comes from: natural processes or the divine. I'm pretty damn sure it doesn't come from the divine, and you can bet that is the point of view I am arguing from. I would think it would be much harder to be okay with contraception and not think extramarital sex itself be an extreme abomination, let alone abortion.

 

But a one month old isn't inside of another person, completely dependent on that specific person to continue to develop. I thought we already did this part.

 

While it would greatly piss me off, I'd be curious to know as well.

 

What number above 0 % wouldn't greatly piss you off?

 

The difference being that, in the case of abortion, there is a being in existence that is either a person or is growing into a person, and in the case of contraception, there isn't. Now they may both interfere with the natural course of procreation or the Godly transmission of human life or whatever, and if that's your grounds for opposing them, then I get it (although that is not my position). But there is an additional reason, beyond that, to oppose abortion, which is that it ends the life of a being that is either a person or is growing into a person.