Pro-lifers... (punishment, Earth, exodus, choice, abortion)

[Bathsheba]

Originally Posted by PureX

Ignore the extremists, they can't hear, anyway.

I'd say something about self-righteous closed-mindedness but I'm desperately trying to respect this idea you have about the extremists.

[Reverend Rick]

Has anyone ever changed their mind in one of these debates? It's real simple. Life does not begin the exact moment you are born. You could live outside your mom a month or even longer prior.

So when a human is a life is just a matter of semantics. Pro choice moves the football towards the 9 month line all the while Pro life is running towards conception. Somewhere between the two is a better definition. Pro life says contraception is murder and Pro choice will defend partial birth abortion (sic).

Pro choice refuses to even look at the fetus and pretends it is not human and believes it's only a few cells. They want to trivialise and isolate themselves from reality.

Prolife refuses to understand that it is not their decision and even if the laws are changed, you cannot stop all abortions.

[PureX]

Originally Posted by Reverend Rick

Has anyone ever changed their mind in one of these debates? It's real simple. Life does not begin the exact moment you are born. You could live outside your mom a month or even longer prior.

You are confused. LIFE is not even part of the issue. Sperm and egg are alive, but neither is or can become a human being by themselves. My arm is an example of human "life", yet it is not and will never be a human being. The question here is not when a fetus becomes "human life", it's when a fetus becomes a human being.

Originally Posted by Reverend Rick

So when a human is a life is just a matter of semantics.

No, it's not a matter of semantics. It's a matter of disagreement and debate.

Originally Posted by Reverend Rick

Pro choice moves the football towards the 9 month line

No, they don't. Most people who are pro-choice are fine with the cut-off point being where it is, now, at 22-24 weeks. This was arrived at by the courts as being the point at which a fetus could survive outside the mother's body unaided.

Originally Posted by Reverend Rick

... Pro choice will defend partial birth abortion.

Only as an emergency procedure, when the mother's life is in danger.

Originally Posted by Reverend Rick

Pro choice refuses to even look at the fetus and pretends it is not human and believes it's only a few cells. They want to trivialize and isolate themselves from reality.

This is just silly name-calling and nonsense. It does nothing to help resolve the debate.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Originally Posted by PureX

This is just silly name-calling and nonsense. It does nothing to help resolve the debate.

Perhaps, but the label "Pro Choice" seems pregnant with evasiveness. No 'right' is absolute, and the 'right to choose' is, first and foremost, a function of what is being chosen. To assert "Pro Choice" as an appropriate label is a shift in focus that, in my opinion, de-emphasizes and, therefore, trivializes the choice being made.

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Originally Posted by Jay

Perhaps, but the label "Pro Choice" seems pregnant with evasiveness. No 'right' is absolute, and the 'right to choose' is, first and foremost, a function of what is being chosen. To assert "Pro Choice" as an appropriate label is a shift in focus that, in my opinion, de-emphasizes and, therefore, trivializes the choice being made.

By the same token, the label "Pro Life" tries to end the debate before it starts. Both sides spin their stances to some degree.

Personally, I think "Pro Choice" is as good as any short descriptor can be on this issue; it's a shorthand, not a trivialization, IMO. I think it's common sense to realize that "Pro Choice" is not in favour of "choice" on all matters any more than the "No" side of some referendum is in favour of answering "no" to every question. The label "Pro Abortion" wouldn't accurately capture the actual stance of the pro-choice side: generally, they aren't in favour of encouraging abortion (as a primary method of birth control, for instance), but only making it available, to allow a woman to choose to use it. I suppose "Pro Choice in Abortion" would be a more accurate label, but it probably hasn't found favour in the media because it doesn't roll off the tongue quite as well... which is likely the same reason that the more accurate term "Anti-abortion" for the "Pro Life" camp hasn't been adopted as much either.