Georgia governor signs controversial "heartbeat" abortion bill

[Kangaroo Feathers]

This is why I don't often use the words "person" or "personhood" in this conversation. It's totally subjective.
Similar to the word "murder".

I try to stick to the much more objective words "human being" and "killing". As in "Abortion is a human being choosing to kill another human being".

Sometimes we do that. We kill other human beings. But there is a moral distinction to be made between killing in self-defense and killing because some other human being is in between us and what we want.
Medical necessity justifies the first. Some pregnancies are just doomed. But choosing the death of your progeny, because you wish you hadn't made the choice that you did, is very different. Because then you're making two choices, one for the sex and the other for killing your child.
Tom

Human being is subjective too. I think you mean "human organism". And frankly I've never seen what's so special about a human organism that it warrants special protections.

 

[columbus]

Human being is subjective too. I think you mean "human organism".

As a matter of fact, I don't.
I mean human being.
So tell me what the difference between a human being and a human "organism" amounts to.
Sounds like the kind of BS people invent when they're trying to avoid looking as hypocritical as they actually are.

And frankly I've never seen what's so special about a human organism that it warrants special protections.

So, you don't think that the term "human rights" means anything important?
I do. I think it applies to all human beings (or "organisms" if you prefer).

That doesn't mean I think that every human "organism" has all the same rights. I wouldn't give a two year old a drivers license.
Tom

 

[Kangaroo Feathers]

As a matter of fact, I don't.
I mean human being.
So tell me what the difference between a human being and a human "organism" amounts to.
Sounds like the kind of BS people invent when they're trying to avoid looking as hypocritical as they actually are.

So, you don't think that the term "human rights" means anything important?
I do. I think it applies to all human beings (or "organisms" if you prefer).

That doesn't mean I think that every human "organism" has all the same rights. I wouldn't give a two year old a drivers license.
Tom

Human rights pertain to people, which are important for, you know, being people. There is some amount of subjectivity and arbitrariness to the definition, but, in general terms, it's qualities like self awareness, continuity of self, familial and community ties that make for a "person" Those qualities I see as special. The mere quality of being human derived biological material I don't see as anything particularly special. A foetus isn't self aware, it has no continuity of self, and doesn't have much if any particular in the way of community or family ties. It's "just" biological material. An organism. It's human, not a human being.

 

[columbus]

There is some amount of subjectivity and arbitrariness to the definition

There is nothing but subjectivity and arbitrariness. "People", are the human beings that you consider important enough to grant personhood.
Used to be that didn't include female human beings. More recently, it didn't include negroid human beings.

You don't think it includes unborn human beings.

Well, I think it includes every human being. Because I don't ascribe to your subjective and arbitrary meaning for the concept "human being", any more than I ascribe to the 19th century slavers subjective and arbitrary meaning for the term. I just don't.

We now have basic rights for women. We now have basic rights for blacks. We now have basic rights for queers.
Mostly. It's not perfect, but it's a huge improvement over 50 years ago.

Next on the agenda, basic rights for young humans. Including the unborn.
Tom

 

[dianaiad]

You can teach it all you like; do they listen? - do they heck!

Most kids rebel starting at about 14 from their parents, it is called growing up.

My Dad played me The Beatles, I liked The Stones
My Mum wanted my hair short and tidy; I grew it long and unruly.

If Mum and Dad say something is bad; teenagers try it.

They told me "Don't drink too much", I got slaughtered.

Abstinence works great with boring compliant kids, but for 80%+ it is an abject failure.

What part of 'abstinence plus a complete grounding in effective birth control" went whoosh?

What absolutely astounds me is this claim that only 'boring, compliant kids' listen to their parents. That's baloney. Kids who think for themselves and don't haul themselves over to the cult-like uniformity of the 'rebellious" listen to their parents. Their parent have BEEN THROUGH all this stuff.

As in, 'been there, done that, laughing at you."

They have experience and have learned from it. Kids with brains understand this, and pick and choose for themselves what will guide them through life.

There is no more boring, conformist kid on the planet than the one who wears the same jeans ripped in the same places, the same T-shirts with the same 'shocking' logos, the same tattoos in the same places, object to the same attitudes and opinions, pierce their noses, navels, eyebrows and lips in the same way with the same stuff, or dye their hair (which must be styled in the same way) in the same colors as everybody ELSE who is in rebellion against their parents.

their PARENTS may come from many different cultures, belief systems and ideas, but THEY all look and think and speak like each other. Conformity run amok. Boring.

The only think that gives me hope is that I've seen this happen to every group of teenagers/young adults since 1960, including the group I was in. You know the group I was in, don't you? The ones with the long hair, tie-dyed t-shirts...wait. I think those are back in style?...anyway, the head bands, the long hair and the motto 'Never trust anybody over 30?"

If you line them up, an example from each group from each decade going back fifty years, the only way you can tell the difference between 'em is sleeve puffs and whether the girls tease their hair into Marie Antoinette heights. Other than that?

We were all alike.

And boring. Wait until they ARE thirty and see how many of them actually begin to think.

In the meantime, the price of ending human life until they begin to really do that is too high.

 

[dianaiad]

This is why I don't often use the words "person" or "personhood" in this conversation. It's totally subjective.
Similar to the word "murder".

I try to stick to the much more objective words "human being" and "killing". As in "Abortion is a human being choosing to kill another human being".

Sometimes we do that. We kill other human beings. But there is a moral distinction to be made between killing in self-defense and killing because some other human being is in between us and what we want.
Medical necessity justifies the first. Some pregnancies are just doomed. But choosing the death of your progeny, because you wish you hadn't made the choice that you did, is very different. Because then you're making two choices, one for the sex and the other for killing your child.
Tom

IMO, 'human being" is something medically and scientifically established. That conceptus/fetus is human, and alive, and therefore a 'being.'

"person" is not synonymous with that. It is an assigned thing, as I said. Way back when, slaves were considered 3/4 of a person for the purpose of taxation. Corporations are 'persons.' Other cultures have assigned personhood to humans who are eight weeks, eight years, twelve (or puberty), some did not reach 'personhood' until they were twenty one, or thirty, or...???? "personhood" is a purely arbitrary, cultural and legal thing, applied for the purpose of establishing rights, and it is absolutely subject to change as the culture does.

"Human," and "being" are not arbitrary. So yeah, I completely agree with you here.

 

[dianaiad]

Why is it just wrong, though?
Is it not potential? Is a zygote or fetus a fully fledged human being or does it have the potential to be one? I never once said it had the potential to be anything other than a human. Just that it’s not quite there yet. Ie not quite a being with full personhood yet, unlike the pregnant woman.[/qipte]

That argument fails completely, and here's why.

Using PRECISELY the same language: "Is it not potential? Is an infant or a pre-schooler a fully fledged human adult or does it have the potential to be one? It doesn't have the potential to be anything other than a human adult. Just that it's not quite there yet."

And yes, it IS a 'being.' That's a scientific/medical thing. It is not a person...because society hasn't given it that title. THAT is the question under discussion, so...saying that it is acceptable to kill it because it's not a person is a huge begging of the question, yes?

It can be human with the right help. But I don’t think any woman is obligated to do that. Even biology is not obligated. That’s their choice.

It was there choice, absolutely, before that human life was conceived. Once another human being is involved, it's no longer only about the woman. it is true that she has no obligation to conceive a human life. Once she has done so, however...there this new human is, and that new human should be considered.

As to 'it can be human with the right help..." Seriously? The woman doesn't need to 'help' that kid grow in her womb and eventually be born. That's going to happen will she, nil she.....unless it dies, or she kills it, first. Those are her only choices. She doesn't have to actively help the child grow and be born, though she can if she wants. She can let nature take its course....or she can hurt it.

But her choices were made before she conceived. If the sex was consensual, in full knowledge that sex is what makes babies, then she IS, IMO, obligated to that new life. She invited it in, knowing full well what she was doing. One does not invite guests into one's home and then kill them because you are bored with them.

Perhaps you can direct me to a specific scientific, medically sound, definition of the precise moment when a zygote or fetus magically becomes a fully fledged human being. It might help in these matters. In fact it would be a downright godsend.

"Human being"....it's human. That is scientifically established, would you agree with that?
It is a 'being,' as in...it's one, distinct, human that is unlike any other human (except perhaps a twin). It is not it's mother or its father, but wholly itself. It's basic DNA 'map' is established at conception and will not change: unique. It's DNA will be the same at conception as it is when it is a fully mature adult. It is a 'being."

What it is NOT, is a "person,' because that's a legal definition that is assigned, and frankly, whether an unborn human being should be a 'person' seems to be the question under discussion...a question that your argument is begging, big time.

A woman, indeed a baby, has already been born. They can survive without the womb. They can even survive without their natural biological mother. As can those kids who jump into rivers, or can be snipered to death. They don’t need the ongoing permission of the person literally carrying them inside their body in order to keep functioning. That’s the difference.

Why? It's an arbitrary point; really arbitrary. There is nothing, and I do mean NOTHING, scientifically or medically different about a fetus just before it is born and the breathing baby thirty seconds later. In fact, except for the stage of individual development, there is nothing different between the conceptus and the adult it will be--unless it dies, or is killed, first.

The question under discussion is whether we should have the right to end a human life because of a legally and culturally assigned label that can (and in my opinion, should) be changed.

As medical science gets better at doing things, fetuses can be taken from their mother's wombs earlier and earlier, and as we learn more, those babies (they're born, so they're babies, yes?) are more and more likely to live and be healthy. We already grow fertilized human eggs in petrie dishes...how long do you think it will be before we have 'artificial wombs' that can take that fertilized egg and grow it to healthy viability? What about all the kerfufle regarding pro-choice THEN?

I'm all for a woman's right to choose. All manner of birth control methods are available, from abstinence (which has such a nasty rep) to multiple forms, to vasectomies and tying tubes to hysterectomies. Yes, sometimes these things don't work. I have an amazingly beautiful niece who was the product of a man who'd had a vasectomy and a woman who was on birth control pills.

Unbeknownst to them, his vasectomy had healed and she'd had a cold at the wrong time. oopsie. However, if he had used a condom...or she had...my little niece would not have showed up. THEY, however, figured as I do; they made their choices, got married, had the baby...and their second is due any day now.

My own opinion is: if you don't have a strong commitment, aren't willing to take what God (or just the laws of nature) hand you in spite of all your precautions...if you honestly are horrified at the idea of pregnancy, then you aren't ready to have sex.

Period.

Or if the idea horrifies you to the extent that you are willing to kill someone (another human being), but you want sex really badly, then do something very permanent. Make that vasectomy the kind that can't grow back. Same with Fallopian tubes. Then go play bunny all you want.

I have a very stringent definition of bodily autonomy.
If the woman says, “nope” then that’s the final decision as far as I’m concerned. If the father wishes to be prominent fixture in the baby’s life after birth, then he can discuss it and try to work it out with the mother.
Granted I might balk at a late term abortion, but those are usually only done for medical reasons.

Usually, that's true. Sometimes it's not. There is no excuse for those which are not. IMO.

I know that my attitude seems harsh towards the fetus. But I just place more weight with an already functioning human being, than a being that no one can seem to decide has full personhood or not. Show me where people in the civilised world are calling the woman’s personhood into question. With foetuses, that’s all we seem to argue about.

That's because 'personhood' is the question under discussion, when it comes right down to it. If a fetus is a person, then abortion for the sake of convenience is a Very Bad Thing.

However...the laws regarding one person's right to live by taking action against another...even an innocent 'other' are already very clear.

If mountain climbers are held by ropes, in series, and one falls, leaving them all in the position of 'cut the rope and let this one...or these two or three...fall so that the rest of the climbers will live" then you cut the rope.

If it is a case of 'the fetus dies or both the fetus and the mother dies" you get the abortion.

In both cases it is an agonizing, if necessary, decision. I want abortion to be precisely that level of agonizing decision, in full knowledge that abortion means the death of a human being.

Necessary at times, but something to be mourned, because a human life is being ended. Not to be considered 'eh...just another method of birth control."

 

[Shad]

Can’t, not in the south, these people among the Bible belt are leaders of premarital sex

People are completely capable of avoiding sex. They choose not to. Their problem.

 

[Shad]

Red Herring.

Nope as the topic was a Bill and government while your rant was about men. Try again.

 

[Shad]

Abstinence-Only Education Is Ineffective And Unethical, Report Argues

There is plenty more similar reports.

You are conflating abstinence, individual choice, with an education program. I never advocated for abstinence only education. I advocated for people being responsible for their own actions or their parents for being bad parents letting their children run loose.

 

[Shad]

That is the question, isn't it?

Always has been.

What does 'person' mean? May pro-choice advocates claim that the current definition of 'person' (which doesn't include humans still in the womb) is set in stone, and is the go-to determiner of whether abortion is just dandy.

If you make something less than human, less than a person, you can treat them poorly. There is a good 2 centuries of history of using this line of thinking to justify whatever they want.

Yet the term 'person' isn't a scientific or medical fact. It's an assigned value, given to a human (or something else, like a corporation) by the legal system. It changes according to culture. Being a 'person' means that one has the rights of a person. But how is 'personhood' determined?

Pretty much.

The thing most important about this bill is that it assigns 'personhood' to unborn humans, at least after the heart starts beating. Once a fetus is assigned personhood, then we have to treat it as if it WERE a person...and all the laws regarding 'self defense,' etc., also come into play.

There is a problem with this as per my comparison. This Bill does not change the criteria for murder. For example a pregnant mother is murdered but the fetus is not a person under that set of law. Hence why I view the Bill as arbitrary as it is not addressing the large issue only abortion.

This protects women who have health issues, and perhaps even rape victims (though I'm not sure how this would help them). It does, certainly protect the right of women who must abort to save their own lives, and it certainly allows abortion in the cases where the fetus is utterly unable to live outside the womb. What it does not do is allow a woman who had consensual sex, knowing that sex produces babies, to kill another human because she went 'oops...' and changed her mind.

Debatable.

I'm pro-choice. Really. It's just that as soon as another human life enters into the picture, the choices are pretty much all made.

Yup. Funny how people ignore all the choices leading up to pregnancy. Abortion has become a mulligan for poor choices

 

[Shad]

Real democracy is wonderful in that way.

The war is fought over who has the best ideas.

Dems must not have that great many ideas lately.

This only works on paper and if the voter base is nominally the same in intelligence and education.

 

[Shiranui117]

IMO, 'human being" is something medically and scientifically established. That conceptus/fetus is human, and alive, and therefore a 'being.'

"person" is not synonymous with that. It is an assigned thing, as I said. Way back when, slaves were considered 3/4 of a person for the purpose of taxation. Corporations are 'persons.' Other cultures have assigned personhood to humans who are eight weeks, eight years, twelve (or puberty), some did not reach 'personhood' until they were twenty one, or thirty, or...???? "personhood" is a purely arbitrary, cultural and legal thing, applied for the purpose of establishing rights, and it is absolutely subject to change as the culture does.

"Human," and "being" are not arbitrary. So yeah, I completely agree with you here.

And this is the major unresolved issue in the abortion debate. Everyone on all sides of the debate agrees that women have rights to bodily autonomy. What we have not yet resolved, however, is at what point in the human life cycle we confer legal rights and personhood on an individual. At what point do human babies receive the right to not be dismembered or burned alive in an acid wash?

 

[dianaiad]

And this is the major unresolved issue in the abortion debate. Everyone on all sides of the debate agrees that women have rights to bodily autonomy. What we have not yet resolved, however, is at what point in the human life cycle we confer legal rights and personhood on an individual. At what point do human babies receive the right to not be dismembered or burned alive in an acid wash?

Well, my personal opinion is that they have THAT right as soon as the DNA map that makes them distinct individuals...which pretty much means at conception. They shouldn't receive more rights than their mothers; they shouldn't have the 'right' to live at the expense of her life, for instance. Not that that can happen, mind you. If she dies, so does the fetus, as a general rule.

I don't think they have the right to force her to be their life support systems if it is certain that they cannot exist outside her womb, ever, and will die as soon as it is born. However, in a consensual sex situation, SHE invited that kid. She is responsible for it until it can live outside her womb, in nine months. That's the way the biology in this situation works. That's my opinion.

Children do not receive the rights, privileges and obligations of full adulthood until they are eighteen, in this country. Those rights go to them in increments...as they grow and develop. I think that an unborn child should have one right; the right not to be killed simply because it has overcome all the other obstacles to its existence, and exists, and is inconvenient to the mother.

My neighbor is decidedly inconvenient to me; as in...she walked into my house, stole my mother's check book and gleefully wrote 2600 bucks worth of fraudulent checks. We know she did it; she made them out to herself, and there is only one person of her name in the entire USA.

She lives two doors down.

But trust me on this; if I killed her for this, it would not be taken well.