A mother's love

[iplaw]

quote:As I said before in my statement, LIFE itself is not the determining factor.  Being alive only garners a minimum amount of protection, additional protection is given because of what makes us human.

Sperm is both alive and capable of creating a human, but when a teenagers throws a condom out the window it isnt murder.

Surely you must be joking or being flippant.  If you cannot see the difference between sperm and a fetus I think we have nowhere to go.  Human life, in this country at least, attaches certain inalienable rights that you simply cannot abridge.  There is no limitation on those rights.  

quote:
Social advancement should be the precursor to ALL laws.  Human rights laws are key to a modern functioning society as it establishes basic rules that, if followed, would help curb the cycles of violence.

This is quite a myopic and utilitarian view of human rights, and again, a good example of where the law fails to encompass the breadth of the issue.  

quote:
Laws are not meant to delineate good from bad, they are meant to keep social order.  

On the most fundamental level they all are.  They all seek to explain why one behavior is preferrable to another.  Not even the most nihilistic philosopher among us can argue that evil and good do not exist on a fundamental level.  The societal contract theory only works when you have a benchmark to test ideas against.  You seem to think social order precluded religious mandate, so it's a chicken and egg discussion.

BTW, if nothing is good or evil, simply a choice or preference then we eventually devolve into nihilism which breeds a loss of meaning, quintessentially what viktor frankel warned us all of.

quote:
It doesn't matter that murder is wrong, it matters that people committing murder would destroy our society.  

This point just dissolves into a discussion of objective ethics and morality which we neither one of us will ever answer.

quote:
Even most of the 'moral' codes in the world are society codes in their origin (including keeping women covered in Islam, kosher foods for Jews, and worshiping one god).  

We could start a completely different discussion just on this topic...

quote:
I digress, laws should be formulated to benefit society and not a particular moral code.  Though, the two are not mutual exclusive.

What happens when the benefit to society entails the extermination of others (IE WWII Germany)?  The societal benefit test is simply too loose and deficient a means to develop a human rights.  It's a good tool, but certainly not a unerring one.

quote:
Medicine cannot determine at what point a fetus becomes a human worthy of protection.  The protection is granted by LAWS, but medicine.  Therefor, it remains a legal issue.

Sure it can.  There is no branch of human science more equipped to make that determination.  It's certainly not an appropriate for political hacks in black robes.  

quote:
Again, the issue isnt when something is alive, but when it should be endowed with individual rights.  If medicine decided sperm+egg = human it wouldnt effect the debate.  Everyone knows it is genetically human and alive by definition.  But LEGALLY, that alone doesnt not grant protection as an individual.

And black people weren't legally fully human beings for quite a while in this country thanks to our legal system.  I think it's time we end our beatification of the legal system around here.

[shadows]

If abortion is the answer then search the history of man to who were the contributors to the rapped advancement e of knowledge.   You will find many   were illegitimate at birth such as Jesus and the illegitimate children that have contributed to changing the face of  our society.  

There have been many that are without explanation.  

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by shadows

If abortion is the answer then search the history of man to who were the contributors to the rapped advancement e of knowledge.   You will find many   were illegitimate at birth such as Jesus and the illegitimate children that have contributed to changing the face of  our society.  

There have been many that are without explanation.  

Uh, I believe that the Gospel spells out that Jesus wasn't a bastard child.  That's the whole point of immaculate conception.

[iplaw]

quote:rapped advancement

Is this about Imus?  I thought we were done with that story.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

quote:rapped advancement

Is this about Imus?  I thought we were done with that story.

*GROAN*

[cannon_fodder]

IPLAW:

1) I have been trying to drive home the point that simply being ALIVE is NOT, NOT the reason we grant rights to humans. We grant them rights because they are capable of advanced thought and as such we presume they have a thought process similar to ours.  It is NOT just because something is alive we protect it.  I thought I have been extremely clear on that point.  

Therefor, in abortion the question is at what point do we attach those rights.  Not whether or not the living thing is human.  You could answer as soon as an egg is fertilized (advocated by Christian fundamentalists) or as soon as it takes its first breath (historical view, advocated by nearly no one today).  The status quo is the fetus has independent rights from the mother when it is capable of surviving outside the womb.  

I believe you are advocating for rights upon fertilization.  I have listed many of the potential problems this brings to bare not to mention the fact that few, if anyone actually knows the moment they become pregnant.  If that is what you believe, I cant change your mind.  All I can do is try to explain my point of view and understand yours.

BUT TO DATE, you have given neither a statement of your opinion nor an explanation of it.

Furthermore, there are limits to the rights of man.  Your rights stop as soon as it infringes on the right of another.  That's the entire core issue here - at what points do the rights of the fetus overtake the rights of the mother?  If both had unlimited and inalienable rights the mother would be free to abort whenever she wanted and the fetus would be free to be born under all circumstances.  That doesnt work out so well...

2) A moral relativism is not a plunge into nihilism.  I advocated the notion that all laws should serve the common purpose the society for which they are to serve.  That is in no way a nihilistic notion.  

This theory also explains the evolution of society and of law throughout the ages.  Tribal societies needed to function as a cohesive unit only inside the tribe, a feudal society needed draconian laws to keep order and a modern democracy needs to protect minority rights while yielding to majority rule.

3) Man has sought to explain his world since he first gazed upon the stars.  Most commonly the explanation entailed all the science they could muster and a pantheon of gods, demons, and wizards to explain the rest.  Likewise, as long as man has gathered in any numbers certain among us have been appointed experts on the gods and their knowledge sought.

Religion existed before society as belief in things unknown, but society spawned organized religion.  There is no doubt in the historical record that the priests of Egypt and the Aztecs, the holy men of the Zoroastrians, or the religous leaders of any ancient society wielded join political and religous authority.  Yet we stand by the belief that this universal truth somehow failed to infect the Judeo Christian belief system and that our religous credo was laid down by god and we are right and everyone else is wrong.

Their laws were laid down by corrupt religious leaders witnessing false visions and leading the people astray.  Our religous laws came from god.

Not only could this be an entirely different topic, there are volumes of books and lectures written on it.  Entire classes are offered at universities on such notions.  So I must digress.

4) There is a solid argument to be made that the extermination of the Jews by Nazi Germany was NOT beneficial to the society (on any number of grounds from loss of skilled labor, to waste resources, to alienation of sects of its own society).  

Furthermore, as state above, the societal goals are relative and change over time and in a modern democracy protecting minority rights is highly beneficial to society.  Protecting the rights of others in your society ultimately DOES benefit you and the entirety of society from similar slights.  Lest we quash all dissent and the majority opinion be taken for truth.

I suppose that would entail most of a interest-theory thought process.

5) What I meant when I stated that medicine cannot state at what point a fetus becomes human is just that.  It cannot, or HAS not been able to make that determination.  Any attempt at doing so would be drawing an artificial line (a tropical storm becomes a hurricane at 75MPH because meteorologists say so).  

Medicine CAN NOT determine at what point rights and laws should be applied to a mass of expanding cells inside of a woman.  How would an MD come to such a conclusion?  Is it when it looks human?  When it can think as an advanced human (a year or more outside the womb)?  When it has unique DNA?  Or when it can survive outside the womb?  

The question is one of philosophy and a matter of law, not medicine. Laws dictate the application of rights, not medicine.  This is an issue of LAW, not medicine.  

6) You're absolutely right!  Black people were not considered human under the laws of the United State for a long, long time.  Medically speaking, they were of course fully human.   But as your example illustrates that has no bearing on the rights granted nor the legal status recognized.  A perfect practical illustration of how laws dictate our society and not medicine.

And again, even if medicine were allowed to rule, in the context of abortion medicine has no manner, no guidelines on which to determine the moment a fetus becomes worthy of protection.  This realm of morality in which you previously argued is not the expertise of science.

Furthermore, if science came to THE conclusion when a fetus is magically enlightened and should be garnered the full protection of the state and the fundamentalists chose to accept it; hypocrisy would ring true throughout the land.  Fundamentalists fought against science to declare the Earth was flat, the sun rotated around the Earth, Jerusalem sat at the center of the Earth, woman were inherently less smart, blacks were not fully human, chemistry and electricity were acts of magic from the devil, bathing is unhealthy, autopsies and the study of anatomy were heresy,  and of course that the Earth is only 6,000 years old.  In fact, since the the renaissance pretty much every fight religion has picked against science has been lost and eventually conceded.  It would be amusing to hear religion arguing on the side of science.
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but you are correct.  This argument will go nowhere.  However, I would be interested in hearing your take on the issue.  I dont believe I have heard you clearly express your view and underlying thoughts on the issue.

I hope you are not offended by this discussion.  I find it rare to get someone who actually discusses this issue with a knowledge base and a thought process that forces me to think about my position.  Thank you.

[iplaw]

I think for simplicty I can give you an opinion on 1, 5, and 6 and my personal take on abortion.  The other points, I believe, while interesting aren't necessarily important to the discussion.

Is that okay?

[mr.jaynes]

The fact that I have remained 100% neutral on the topic of reproductive freedom-rights, is something of which I am very proud. Neither pro-life nor pro-choice, having friends and family on both sides of the debate, finding fault with both sides, and yet finding good points from either side.