I really have a hard time wrapping my mind around the strategies of anti-choice activists. I’ve encountered a few, and I’ve browsed some of their websites, and am so unimpressed with their tactics…but they seem to work effectively with some people.
We’re all familiar with their favorite choice of signage: preferably something with lots of blood splatters and body parts. This is quite blatantly an attempt to inspire aversion to what goes on beneath our skin, and encourage people to ignore the messiness of reality. It’s ugly but it works, to a degree (it also leads to desensitization; I notice that those sign-waving picketers aren’t prostrate with grief, as you’d expect if they were really feeling the message of their signs).
Their message could be whipped around and applied directly to, for instance, surgeons and oncologists. They also do bloody messy things, and they lop off parts and scar living, adult people. Shall we demand an end to surgery?
And then there’s the Big Lie. I have yet to meet a single anti-choice advocate with a shred of honesty and principle; the ones I’ve talked to are even more nauseating than creationists. They have a party line, and they stick to it…reason doesn’t even exist for these people, just blind, fawning adoration of babies, which they imagine to be sleeping inside the blood and meat of a living woman. So they say things like this without a stirring of conscience:
That’s just bizarre. What biologist has ever claimed that an oocyte was not alive? Of course it’s alive: sperm and egg are perfectly healthy, normal living haploid cells, the fertilized egg is a living cell, the immature oogonia and spermatogonia in the gonad are living cells, the primordial germ cells in the developing gonad are alive.
The argument is never about whether some state is alive or not. Your appendix and tonsils are great masses of living cells, but if the organ becomes inflamed, doctors will cut them out and throw them away. Every time you poop, about a third of that mass that you excrete and flush away consists of living bacterial cells, yet no one hesitates and feels regret at the tragic loss of life when their hand is on the handle.
The argument is about whether that living thing is a person requiring extensive legal and moral protection, and it’s entirely clear that “life” is not a sufficient criterion, or people would be lobbying for the protection of turds and tonsils. We are not absolutists about protecting all life; we can’t be.
Even the anti-choicers know that. That’s why, if you look at the awful site that image came from, you discover their other argument: it’s a baby. It’s got fingers and toes and a face and its heart beats. This is a purely emotional argument, trying to compel you to empathize with something on the most superficial grounds. This is the motivation behind all those intrusive ultrasound laws — you are supposed to surrender reason and decide that because something has a face and hands and heartbeat, it is exactly the same as a teenage girl who wants to go to college, or the young woman who discovers her much-hoped-for pregnancy has gone awry and the fetus is lethally deformed. It’s demeaning to real human beings.
But here, here’s a living creature with a face and hands and a heartbeat.
It’s even got far more autonomy and functionality than a twelve-week fetus, and is adorably cute. Shall we also declare that women and newts are morally, socially, and legally equivalent? It seems to be the way we’re going.
704 comments
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Louis
3 April 2012 at 8:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PZ,
Don’t be silly! Some of those newts will be male, and therefore far more morally, socially and legally valuable than any woman.
The very idea!
Louis
lexie
3 April 2012 at 8:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But PZ even though the newt has more sentience than the foetus, these god bots claim that man was made in god’s image and that he (I use this pronoun deliberately because according to the bible women aren’t really people) was given dominion over animals. So even though the newt is adorably cute, capable of making basic decisions and capable of feeling pain we can hurt it in any way we please but the tiny ball of cells looks like god and is therefore protected.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 8:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s another level of irrationality to the anti-choice position that I’ve never understood: Let’s for the moment, take their stated position. Every fertilized egg is a baby. What are the consequences of that position?
One big one is that the infant mortality rate suddenly got HUGE! Up to 80% of concepti don’t become babies due to one thing or another. Shouldn’t that be a major public health issue? Sure, abortion would be an important problem in this world, but if we lived in a world where 80% of babies were dying of “natural causes” within the first few days of life, I’d want a major research effort into solving that problem, even if, at the same time, there was a major societal problem with infanticide. Where is the outrage at the infant (conceptus/blastulocyte) mortality rate? The usual excuse of anti-choicers is that these deaths are “natural”, but most of them aren’t Christian Scientists and are perfectly happy to take “unnatural” medicine for themselves and their children, so that excuse does not hold.
Then there’s chimerism. Sometimes two concepti merge and a single baby is born from what was originally a twin pregnancy. Is the baby guilty of involuntary manslaughter? If so, of which conceptus? Does it have to undergo extensive sampling to see if it is majority twin A or majority twin B to determine who is the killer, who the victim? Should the mother be prosecuted for endangering minors (putting the two twins in an environment where one might “eat” the other?)
Now on to the opposite problem: monozygotic twins. If the fertilized egg is a baby then surely its products are a single baby. What do we make of the second baby? Is it a “soulless” clone? If so, which one? Should the mother be arrested for illegal human cloning?
Finally, a fertilized egg can occasionally develop not into a baby but into a cancer. A genetically unique cancer entirely separate from its host. An often highly treatable and curable cancer. But is chemotherapy murder? If the egg is a baby then surely it is murder of a sick child.
I’ve tried multiple times to get anti-choicers to address these points. Never with success.
nofriendoftheatheist
3 April 2012 at 8:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Human life begins at conception. The tiny egg cell (once fused with a sperm) has the potential to become a fully-fledged human in a way in which any other cell in the body cannot. Therefore, it is special and must be protected by the law. PZ Myers is here to tell the tale because his mother chose not to have an abortion. But many women are irresponsible and see abortion as an alternative to contraception. That has to stop. If you don’t want a child, either use a condom or abstain from sex. To interfere with God’s work in making the foetus is both criminal and immoral.
michaeld
3 April 2012 at 8:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Awww I want to pet it ^.^
Louis
3 April 2012 at 8:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Quoting odious anti-woman apologist at #4,
You heard it here first folks. Ladies, your wombs are not yours, they’re a rental space for the Works o’ God™! Naughty, naughty ladies, thinking your bodies are your own. Now get back in that kitchen and make me a sammich. You better be barefoot too.
Louis
holytape
3 April 2012 at 8:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s why if any one asks me when does life begin, I reply “Well, it started 4.5 billion years ago.” They don’t know whether to agree with me because it implies that the embryo is alive, or whether to disagree with me because it implies evolution. It confuses them enough to give me time to escape.
FSM and Love
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 8:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
See #4.
Ready pop-corn.
Ready lawn-chair.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 8:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Assertion. Citation needed, not unevidenced bullshit.
But what about the woman, and why must she be subordinate to the cells? WHY?
More lies. Women see it as a last resort if contraception fails. Why aren’t you for free contraception for all? That actually works to cut down on abortions.
What god? Unevidenced assertion, citation needed. Who the fuck are you to force your fuckwitted religious opinion upon any other adult? Or you can supply us with a recent signed letter from your imaginary deity giving you permission to speak for it…without that, all you have is presupposed and super egotistical OPINION.
joey
3 April 2012 at 8:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes! That’s why we should push for laws advocating infanticide. Just because an infant has a face, hands, and a heartbeat doesn’t mean it’s exactly the same as a teenage girl or young woman. Claiming that an infant is a “real human being” is purely an emotional argument. When will the world finally wake up and realize that “after birth abortion” is really no different than abortion in utero.
Beatrice, anormalement indécente
3 April 2012 at 9:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
At some point of hir life, nofriendoftheatheist had potential to become a decent human being.
*sigh*
No luck there.
And because his mother decided she wanted to have sex that particular time. And because she decided to date PZ’s dad and not some other bloke. And because she didn’t stay home that day they met. And because…
[continue this exercise until you get the point]
I sure hope you are not making God mad by interfering with any disease he might decide to give you.
holytape
3 April 2012 at 9:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Number 4 also forgot to say,
“Ladies, make sure that you always carry a condom, that way if your attacked, you can always use protection. And don’t sin, because if you sin God will deform your fetus and make it a high risk pregnancy. Better yet go to the hardware store, buy so caulk and seal that bad-boy up until you are read to start popping out babies, like Jesus wants.”
Mother Mary wants to be Grandmother Mary
PZ Myers
3 April 2012 at 9:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OK, Joey, I’m arguing that “living”, “heartbeat”, “hands”, “face” are inadequate to define personhood. I am not arguing that there are no possible criteria.
Your mission is to provide a clearly stated criterion that justifies giving full citizenship to a gastrula, and that isn’t absurd, incorrect, or diminishes the citizenship of a woman.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 9:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
PZ Myers is here to tell the tale because his mother chose not to have an abortion. But many women are irresponsible and see abortion as an alternative to contraception.
See, this is another confusing one. If PZ’s parents had used contraception or had simply not had sex at just the right time, he wouldn’t be here to tell the tale any more than if his mother had had an abortion when the embryo that would otherwise have become him was 7 weeks old. So why is one “responsible” and the other “irresponsible”? PZ would be just as non-existent and never existent if his parents had chosen to abstain as if they had decided to have an abortion. I don’t understand the distinction the poster is trying to draw.
Cuttlefish
3 April 2012 at 9:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Therefore, it is trespassing, and I can legally “stand my ground”. I invited haploid cells; I am under no obligation to play host to trespassing diploids.
holytape
3 April 2012 at 9:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey,
In your cases an after-birth self-abortion might not be such a bad thing. I recommend a coat hanger. Good luck.
Here’s the difference, inside the mother, not a person. Outside the mother, a person. There is this nice non-ambiguous event called birth. It’s the culturally accepted starting point for life. We celebrate birthdays not conceptiondays.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 9:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To interfere with God’s work in making the foetus is both criminal and immoral.
Also, this. Interfering with God’s work. First off, how can I, a mere mortal, interfere with the work of the omniscient and omnipotent God? A god that can be stopped with a D and C isn’t much of a god and you’d probably be best off leaving off worshiping him since he can’t help you anyway.
Second, at risk of bringing out the fundamentalist Catholics, if God’s intent is to make a baby, isn’t a condom also interference? Isn’t abstinence? A “baby” never conceived is just as non-existent as one aborted.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 9:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
holytape,
Hey! I celebrate attempted conceptiondays! That’s something to celebrate. Birthdays? Getting older and nearer the grave? Not so much.
;-)
Louis
consciousness razor
3 April 2012 at 9:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It isn’t against the law, so it’s not criminal; and if your imaginary friend can’t deal with some uppity women interfering with its baby-making business, maybe it could cast some imaginary lightning bolts. If it’s too stupid to figure that out on its own, your best bet would be to pray for it. That way nothing will happen.
joey
3 April 2012 at 9:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So what exactly is wrong with my argument in favor of infanticide? A newborn is not the same as a teenage girl or a young woman. So what other possible criteria should there be to define personhood? Let’s hear it.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 9:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Odious woman hating fundamentalist, #4,
How do you know what god’s will is? Please be very specific. If I am to convert to your religion I need to know precisely how to determine the will of your deity.
Thanks in advance.
Louis
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 9:11 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gee, nobody here is doing that, as infanticide describes the killing of a baby. A baby is born, outside of the womb, living independently of the woman who bore it.
Well, the state gave it a certificate to welcome it into the world, showing that it acknowledges its personhood.
Huge difference between being in the womb dependent on the woman, and being outside on your own without needing that support. Any fool can see the difference. The same difference between the old space shuttle sitting on the launch pad, versus being in low Earth orbit. Something irreversible happened between the two positions.
lexie
3 April 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not sure where you live but in most countries abortion is not a criminal offence.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey, do you know how “death” is defined? What criteria separate a living person from a dead one? Is it the presence or absence of a heartbeat, face, or hands? Is it the presence or absence of any living cells? Do you think that there might be some other criteria for end of life besides these?
Louis
3 April 2012 at 9:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey, #20,
I think PZ asked you first. I notice you snipped that part of his comment. Was that because the words were too hard or because you don’t have a clue?
Of course you could try to answer the question he asked you…no, no, THAT would be too simple wouldn’t it.
Louis
nofriendoftheatheist
3 April 2012 at 9:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The primary function of a woman is to reproduce. Everything about her anatomy is designed for this wondrous purpose. Hence, she should not deny her own role in Nature. Once a new life is begun, through the fusion of sperm and egg, she becomes a vehicle for the delivery of another human being. She has no moral right to deprive life from the person who is being formed in her womb by God (Job 31:15). If she does, she has committed a heinous crime and should be punished along with all those who helped her.
jaranath
3 April 2012 at 9:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks, PZ. This is exactly the point I’ve been trying to make with others. I’m not claiming they can’t argue on other grounds, but “LIFE!” and “TOES!” do not even pretend to approach the question honestly or intelligently.
Of course, as we can see above, shifting the argument away from these nonsensical positions only yields “INFANTICIDE!” or the barely less nonsensical “POTENTIAL!” Emotion and absolutism rule the day.
beethovenfangirl
3 April 2012 at 9:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Cuttlefish
*bows*
Please accept this token of my sincere worship.
@ 4
Aw, bless.
And by bless I mean, please come back when you can make a decent argument.
Beatrice, anormalement indécente
3 April 2012 at 9:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuck, I need to run. I’ll miss all the fun. :(
beethovenfangirl
3 April 2012 at 9:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@26
I revise my previous statement. Please kindly insert a decaying porcupine in the next available orifice.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 9:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The primary function of a woman is to reproduce.
Honesty is a positive character trait. I’m glad you’re up front about your belief that women are not fully human.
I also notice that you’re too stupid or too cowardly to address any of the objections people have made to your position. Not such a good character trait, but perhaps it’s not too late to correct it by addressing some of the questions your position has brought up.
beethovenfangirl
3 April 2012 at 9:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@26
Oh, I get it now. Sorry to say, but you missed the date by two days. Try again next year.
Improbable Joe
3 April 2012 at 9:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m going to get a little graphic, so maybe a trigger warning?
Let’s say that abortions are fun and happy and feel good and women have abortion parties and do a little dance every time they pee on the stick and have a fetus they want removed, and then they make a dumpling out of it and eat it with their friends… just for the sake of argument. That doesn’t make a bit of difference to the abortion debate, not one single solitary bit of fucking difference.
Here’s the whole point, the only point that matters: A WOMAN IS A PERSON. Not an incubator, not a life support system, not a vessel of a nonexistent god’s plan on Earth. A WOMAN IS A PERSON. Ethically, women are people while a fetus is a potential person who at best could have co-equal rights but whose rights cannot trump those of another person. You can’t make me donate a kidney, or even donate blood to save the life of another actual person, so why should a women be forced to donate 9 months of the use of their entire body to something that isn’t even an actual person yet.
The answer, of course, is that anti-abortion means anti-autonomy for women. Period.
lexie
3 April 2012 at 9:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wow! After all these years of thinking that meaning in life came from helping others, improving knowledge and generally improving society, I have discovered that I was wrong apparently my only purpose is to reproduce. Shame that I’m young, single and intend to use my brain not my womb.
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 9:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@consciousness razor
#19
The Republican would sure love to make it so.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies
3 April 2012 at 9:21 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Assuming that you live in the US, abortion is not criminal, idiot. Some states are trying their damnedest to make it impossible to end a pregnancy, but none of them have out right banned abortion (yet).
I also seem to recall a little Supreme Court decision Roe v Wade that made abortion legal in the US. Hmmm.
And as a woman who is currently pregnant, fuck you. I want to have a child, but I wouldn’t wish this misery on anyone, especially a woman who never intended to have a child in the first place. To make a long story short: I am in constant pain (abdominal cramps, ligament pain, severe back pain), I constantly have an upset stomach (I couldn’t go into work yesterday ‘cos I was hunched over the toilet for hours) and I’m physically exhausted. The kicker? I’m perfectly healthy and my pregnancy is progressing normally– this shit is normal. I can only conclude that assholes like you want women to suffer, otherwise you’d have more compassion for the pregnant woman and not a non-sentient blob of cells.
unbound
3 April 2012 at 9:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@4 – “The tiny egg cell (once fused with a sperm) has the potential to become a fully-fledged human in a way in which any other cell in the body cannot.”
True enough. But every egg has the potential to become a fully-fledged human. Do you advocate that women must always make sure that every egg gets fertilized to continue to process? Why the distinction? Your own logic defeats the very concept of avoiding sex.
Same actually applies to sperm. Should we make sure every male that masturbates is jailed for clearly killing what could be a potential human? And, once again, your own logic defeats the concept of using a condom.
joey
3 April 2012 at 9:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nerd:
And what does “living independently” have to do about a life form’s personhood? Botched late-term abortions resulting in fully born infants outside the mother also “live independently”. Would you consider these things to be persons?
Oh, so you listen to whatever the state says?
No it’s not. It’s not like the baby right after the birth event can pick up his things and go on his merry way. The baby is still very dependent.
Beatrice, anormalement indécente
3 April 2012 at 9:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And what’s with capitalizing Nature?
Don’t you go mixing different kinds of woo and worshiping there, you will make God jealous.
Oh, and go fuck yourself. Thanks.
Eamon Knight
3 April 2012 at 9:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Someone please tell me #4 is a (badly done) Poe. It rings the alarms bells without quite being over-the-top enough to confirm it.
A principled “pro-life” argument would be something like:
1) Show that a fetus has (at some point) characteristics that, when we encounter them elsewhere, we have little hesitation in ascribing personhood (not mere biological activity) to their bearer.
2) Show that the rights of a fetal person legitimately have priority over those of the woman carrying it. (Even granting #1, this does not automatically follow — a human person does not necessarily have the right to parasitize someone else’s body, even if their own life depends on it.)
Note that I’m not making the above argument — far from it — only describing the type of pro-life argument I would accept as being made in good faith.
And that’s not, in general, what we get from the “pro-life” side, is it? Which is why we should refuse them their self-chosen positive-sounding label, substituting instead “anti-choice”, “forced birth” or just “lying misogynist”.
Improbable Joe
3 April 2012 at 9:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, and I’m not sure that you CAN’T make an argument for infanticide, and in very limited situations I’ll bet an argument can be made in favor of it… but that’s a red herring and we all know it.
interrobang
3 April 2012 at 9:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The primary function of a woman is to reproduce.
Sorry, no, the primary function of any human being is to be a human being, which includes women. (Besides which, dimbulb, since it takes two humans to reproduce, the onus can’t be entirely on women. What do you think men are doing in this equation, huh?)
Personally, I’ve got better things to do. My primary function is to be a technical writer, not an incubator. My secondary function is to be a slacker posting at Pharyngula instead of laundering this document I’m totally sick of.
How many adopted kids do you have? Bet you fifty New Israeli Shekels (just to make the currency exchange annoying for you) that my pro-choice parents are up on you by one.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 9:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Odious and apparently clueless woman hating fundamentalist, #26,
Ohhh you HAVE to be kidding! I hope you’re trolling, for your sake.
On the off chance that you haven’t been, please familiarise yourself with the naturalistic fallacy. Even if what you claim about design/nature is true (and it really, really isn’t), the fact that something IS does not lead to the moral OUGHT. I will illustrate it for you with an example.
The pointy end of my hobnailed size 13 boot is designed for the wondrous purpose of being rapidly and liberally applied to your testicles with some force via the medium of my kicking designed leg and foot. Therefore I should not denied my own role in the perfectly natural kicking of your bollocks.
Now I’m betting that you find the example above to be deeply morally dubious. And you’d be right! Hurrah. Now, sit down and think very, very hard and you might be able to grasp the simple fact that the form of argument made in that example (which is fallacious) is identical to your own. If you disagree, we need to meet up. I’ll bring my boots. I don’t want to deny my role in nature after all.
Louis
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 9:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gee, and here this scientist sees a typical human being with a few lady parts, some that only get used a couple of times in typical woman. More lies by the lying liar.
Prove this deity of yours actually exists with solid and conclusive physical evidence. Show your babble is anything other than a book of mythology/fiction with solid and conclusive physical evidence. Now show with solid and conclusive physical evidence why we have to even listen to a liar and bullshitter basing their theology on twin fallacious presuppositions. We don’t.
Where is your recent signed letter from your imaginary deity giving you permission to speak for it? Talk about egotism…
A. R
3 April 2012 at 9:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
#26: And the LOLstar Poe detector indicator has the “Really Good Poe/Really stupid Fundamentalist” indicator illuminated. Powering up the LOLcat projector.
But if you are a genuine fundamentalist, you quite remind me of those Jesus camp ilk.
KG
3 April 2012 at 9:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey,
Just how stupid are you? For a member of our species, having been born is an excellent criterion for being a person. Before birth the fetus is (a) entirely dependant on its host, the mother, and (b) almost certainly aware of nothing, as oxygen perfusion of the brain is at levels that are not compatible with consciousness after birth.
Even neglecting the holes in this claim (see: vast spontaneous rates of failure to implant and miscarriage, monozygotic twins, chimerism), the “therefore” simply does not follow. We do not give potential lawyers the right to represent people in the courts, nor potential adults the right to vote. Why then should potential people be accorded rights?
pentatomid
3 April 2012 at 9:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
FUCK. OFF.
consciousness razor
3 April 2012 at 9:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But that would be interfering with God’s work. Surely, they wouldn’t want to do that.
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 9:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@joey
#38
The key difference is that the person said baby is dependent on can change.
joey
3 April 2012 at 9:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
jaranath:
So let’s have an honest and intelligent discussion on this. Why can’t we use the same logic and reasoning as Peter Singer to advocate infanticide? Is Peter Singer a loon for his views?
dianne
3 April 2012 at 9:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
joey, please see my question @24.
interrobang
3 April 2012 at 9:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sure I have the moral right to deprive life from the potential person invading my uterus; just the same as in certain jurisdictions I have the right to use lethal force to defend my house. How on earth is it right that I can shoot someone dead for entering my house uninvited, but it’s somehow “morally wrong” to use lethal force to remove an invader in my body? I know which of the two I think is more important. The thief can have my shit if they want it, but my skin needs to stay intact.
Personally, I disagree with ‘castle laws’, but that’s because I think a summary execution for breaking and entering is a bit harsh. Break and enter my body, though, and all bets are off, particularly if you decide you’re going to shit on my metaphorical rugs and eat all the food in my metaphorical fridge.
Also, too, let’s address the issue of “use a condom.” Don’t you know that abusive men often sabotage condoms in order to deliberately cause unwanted pregnancies in their partners? How do you feel about female-controlled contraception? What about women’s right to determine when or whether they get pregnant?
Louis
3 April 2012 at 9:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
FilthyHuman, #49,
Oh that’s not a real difference! The fact that some other person can care for the baby. If that was a real difference then men might have to do some of the work involved in looking after a baby. And we couldn’t have that.
And we all know what that would mean, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.
Louis
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 9:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@KG
#46
We do accord potential adult varying level of rights (it’s not like children have zero rights). Heck, we accord certain level of rights to animals (not to be tortured for one).
dianne
3 April 2012 at 9:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is Peter Singer a loon for his views?
Yes. Next question!
joey
3 April 2012 at 9:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
KG:
So I ask the question again. Should we protect the fetuses that are fully born who are the result of botched late term abortions? If this birth event is THE defining point, then we must…right?
lexie
3 April 2012 at 9:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not only am I defying nature by not reproducing, I also am defying nature by taking doxycycline to kill of the bacteria which have naturally invaded my sinuses and are rapidly multiplying in a natural environment for them, and I am squatting mosquitos whose natural purpose is to feed on my blood in order to avoid getting infected with the natural malaria parasite which could kill me
twist
3 April 2012 at 9:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Damn right! We’re just walking wombs, not people with thoughts, plans, dreams, desires and rights. How silly of me to have thought otherwise all these years! How silly of me to think that my frindships, relationships and career were important when clearly I should have been squeezing out babies, as is my only reason for existing, from the moment I hit puberty.
So what function do you (or your imaginary friend) think infertile women serve? I’m curious. Or women who’s anatomy can’t cope with this ‘wondrous purpose’ without killing them? They should just die, I guess? And who cares, really? After all, the rights of a little cluster of cells so clearly trump the rights of fully grown, autonomous human beings, as long as those human beings are from the half of the human race in possession of two x chromosomes.
Fuck you, you woman hating piece of shit. Fuck you for being so fucking scared of us that you try to strip us of our rights every chance you get. Fuck you for thinking you can tell me that I’m not a real person, that a fucking blastocyst is more important than me. Fuck you and your imaginary friend along with you. I am many things, but I am not a baby machine, and I don’t need anyone to tell me what my ‘primary function’ is, fuck you very much.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 9:35 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Everything, including a certificate from the state saying they are a person. As I said, it means everything. Until then, the fetus (not baby, that only comes into play outside of the womb) is a parasite inside of a woman, whos personhood is absolute, and has total bodily integrity like any other adult. You haven’t made the case of why the fetus has more personhood than the living, breathing woman, and you really can’t.
PZ Myers
3 April 2012 at 9:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
#26: So wrong! Woman has multiple functions. She has multiple orifices for my sexual satisfaction. She has hands to hold my beer, and feet so that she may bring it to me. She has a brain so that she can efficiently clean and cook for me. How dare you diminish the value of god’s holy creation, Woman, which has so many ways to serve man?
Looking over your recent output, nofriendoftheatheist, I have to conclude you’re either an annoying troll or an awesomely brainwashed and stupid asshole. Either way, I don’t like you. I am toying with my banhammer right now, and I’m just giving you fair warning: I’ll probably be smacking you in the face with it soon.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 9:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s a thing the idiot does in service of its assertion that atheists worship Nature and Evolution and other Things, just like Christians.
It’s Argumentum ad capitalisum.
Ha-ha, stupid women and their baby-making toes. If they want to have abortions, they should have been born with working-in-a-factory toes, or being-a-priest toes, or playing-professional-football toes.
Seriously, though, if we want to invoke potential, let’s use nofriendoftheatheist here as an example of wasted brainpower: is it honestly any more wasteful to abort a fetus than to raise it as a creationist like this empty-headed dolt?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 9:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Stupid and fuckwitted question. Abortions in the third trimester are not for birth control, as you presuppose with your inane and fuckwitted question. They are because the woman needs the abortion because the fetus is killing her, or the fetus has abnormalities. Try again with an intelligent question.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 9:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Because, Joey, a newborn isn’t literally leeching off the body of the woman anymore. She can separate herself from it without killing it.
And, yes, I said “leeching.” I realize that fetishizers of pregnancy and motherhood flap their hands in outrage when a fetus is called a parasite, but, biologically speaking, that’s what it is. Beyond what Audley is saying at #36, google “risks of pregnancy.” Pregnancies can kill women — especially in a piss-poor excuse for a “developed nation” like the United States, where if you don’t have money, you aren’t considered worthy of healthcare.
Telling, isn’t it? And Joey is far from the first pro-liar I’ve seen that “slip” from.
nofriendoftheatheist:
Assholes like you make me want to go out and get knocked up so I can get it scraped out and leave the fucking abortus on your doorstep.
Abortion is responsible. It’s a hell of a lot more responsible than having kids you can’t take care of, and no woman is obliged to breed for some random Nice White Hetersexual Xtian Middle-Class Couple.
Women shouldn’t have to forego the pleasurable, healthful benefits of sex because you believe in a hateful, misogynist, science-denying deity. And women in relationships where they have no power to negotiate saying no to sex, let alone having the man wear a condom, shouldn’t be forced into endless pregnancies for the same reason.
Who the fuck are YOU to decide what my “primary function” is? I am the one who decides that. I am a full human being, just as a man is. Shove your forced-birther bullshit up your ass and wedge it in there with a taxidermied porcupine that’s been marinating in dogshit and Ebola for a month.
Oh, and fuck your imaginary friend, too.
Eamon, sadly, NFotA doesn’t seem to be a Poe.
Louis:
You know, I just may have to join that Groop Secks club. But I want to forego any birth control, because I’d like to make me an unborn babby, then go to the Abortionplex and have it removed whilst I get a pedicure and enjoy some home-churned gourmet lavender ice cream. I’ll have to ask them if they can vacuum-seal and freeze it for delivery to NFotA. (Sorry, NFotA, the ‘Plex only mails abortions C.O.D.)
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
3 April 2012 at 9:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@PZ Myers:
“How to Serve Man!” It’s a cookbook!!
noneedofthathypothesis
3 April 2012 at 9:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Here’s how things are shaping up in the UK at the moment:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/apr/02/abortion-protests-mum-fought-video
The baby argument comes up about 5 minutes in. And “Which species is it?” at 7:00. First, watch out for the Godwin at 1:48!
chigau (違う)
3 April 2012 at 9:40 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
citation needed
nofriendoftheatheist
3 April 2012 at 9:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Dianne
I am just stating a simple fact: women are baby-making and nurturing machines whether you regard this as the will of Nature or of God. Just take a look at your naked body in the mirror. It doesn’t mean that women are subhuman. On the contrary, the human race cannot survive without them. I believe that women are nothing short of biological temples to the Lord.
@Unbound
Every fertilized egg has not only the potential to become another human being but will do so unless prevented. Unfertilized eggs are backups that should still be respected. How many babies a woman has is her business.
Masturbation does indeed lead to an undignified loss of cellular life. I think people should think of their own tadpoles before they jerk off. If they did, they would refrain from doing so as often as they do.
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 9:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@dianne
#55
In that case yes. By that point, the mother in question have no right to ask the doctor to kill it (since at that point, the fetus/infant is no longer exclusively dependent on the mother).
jaranath
3 April 2012 at 9:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You’re dodging, joey, and in quite the dishonest fashion. NOW you want to talk about honest and intelligent discussions? Why didn’t you start with one, instead of raw emotional appeal? The question (and burden) is on you here. You need to offer a coherent, rational, defensible case.
Why is it ok, or not as bad, to kill the salamander (or was that John Cleese?)
Why is infanticide wrong?
How does that transfer to fetuses from conception to birth?
Show your work.
otrame
3 April 2012 at 9:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joed is just a classic troll. I doubt s/he actually believes any of the deliberately outrageous shit that s/he spews here. And s/he is boring.
Nofriendoftheathiest is much better. He (might be a woman, but unlikely) really believes this stuff. Nofriendoftheathiest, you arrogant creep, I had 4 pregnancies that I know of (there were almost certainly a bunch more I didn’t know about). I have two children, both of whom now have children of their own. The other two pregnancies did not come to term. One was a spontaneous abortion at about 6 weeks. The other was an ectopic pregnancy that was (maybe deliberately) misdiagnosed at a Cathoilic hospital, so that I very very very nearly bled out before it could be removed. I say all that to show that I have made babies and lost wanted babies to the nature of nature. Being a mother and grandmother is an important part of who I am BY MY CHOICE.
You cannot even imagine how offensive your assertion that my only purpose in life was to be a fucking brood mare is. How dare you?
You don’t even deserve a porcupine. Go fuck yourself.
interrobang
3 April 2012 at 9:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m an adoptee. Abortion wasn’t legal when and where I was born, and I’ve also just found out that when and where I was born, there was a huge industry aimed at separating young unwed mothers from their (healthy, white) babies. On behalf of my biological mother and myself, and all biological parents and coerced adoptees out there, the forced-birther contingent owes us a huge apology, and probably compensation for emotional damages to the birth parents.
We had the world you assholes wanted. It was a tragedy for everyone. Put up or shut up.
joey
3 April 2012 at 9:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nerd:
And what you presuppose is that abortions in the third trimester cannot possibly be used for birth control. And what if a woman does choose to wait until literally the very last minute (before birth) to perform an abortion? Would you actually have a problem with this?
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 9:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If your god truly loved you, nofriendoftheatheist, he wouldn’t let you be so goddamn fucking wrong all the time.
Or do you actually worship Ignorance?
A. R
3 April 2012 at 9:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ms. Daisy Cutter: Oooooh, nice choice with the Ebola marination!
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 9:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Interrobang:
Oh, I’m sure NFotA is perfectly fine with that. After all, wimminz is MADE fer breedin’, and a man who properly owns a woman has every right to expect her to start crankin’ ‘em out.
Joey:
I’d like to see some citations from respectable publications on how often this happens. That is to say, peer-reviewed journals, not webpages from some “pro-life” organization.
Lexie: And NFotA is defying nature by typing on a computer. It’s rather interesting, isn’t it, how the only form of nature defiance the pro-liars care about is, by sheer coincidence I’m sure, the one that allows women to live fully realized and healthier lives?
Twist: “They should just die, I guess?”
NFotA:
Ah, never mind. Yep, it’s a Poe.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 9:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Pz, #60,
Good point! I want a sammich AND a beer AND a blow job. Surely those things are part of the Purpose of Women?
Excuse me, I am just going to phone my wife and make my Natural Man Wishes known.
{Sound of dialling}
{Sound of informing}
{Sound of wincing and holding phone at some distance}
My beloved wife has informed me that she mildly disagrees that these things are her Purpose. She said that whilst she was happy to do at least one of those things, that I can get her a beer and a sammich when she gets home if I’m there before her, or there’s fuck all chance of the third thing. I believe she made her point with some force and in a variety of ways.
Perhaps I am asking the wrong woman. Excuse me whilst I ask one of my colleagues…
{Sound of informing}
{Sound of being punched
{Sound of sexual harassment lawsuit}
Hmmmm. I’m thinking this idea of Purpose doesn’t have the legs I would like it to. I wish to make a complaint.
Louis
twist
3 April 2012 at 9:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
This. I was seventeen when this happened to me. But of course, if I hadn’t been slutting around in the first place, and just kept myself pure for marriage as gawd intended it wouldn’t have happened, right? Which totally makes it my fault. So I’m totally a selfish baby killing slut.
Condom usage still leaves control in the hands of the man, the only real person in the relationship, hormonal contraceptives let all of us slutty slutty sluts have control, and we all know how the invisible sky daddy feels about walking wombs having control over anything.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 9:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
When will you stop lying and bullshitting. Unless it implants in the uterus, it goes out in the wash. And up to 50% of fertilized eggs, do that. So, your imaginary deity is very wasteful, and actually approves of abortion. It is the biggest cause of abortions in the world. You lie when you claim to know what it wants…
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 9:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Says the self centered sack of shit who never has to deal with the health risks, pains and dangers that pregnancy brings.
Pointless to even argue with the slime, he will not acknowledge the pains that women go through in order to fulfill this .
Why was this intelligent designer so unintelligent that he made the skull of the baby too big to fit through the pelvic girdle.
Also, does this sack of shit think that women who do not have children are denying their place?
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 9:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@PZ
#60
Aw, we like our new toy.
@Dianne
#64
Hm… I’ve never eaten a man before…
Wait, that sounded wrong somehow…
@nofriendoftheatheist
#67
Meh, a million+ death is just a statistics.
I’m making a lot of statistics.
Owlmirror
3 April 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
It’s not a fact; it’s an opinion.
Your dehumanization of women is noted.
Nature does not have a will.
A nonexistent God cannot have a will.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 9:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s a sound associated with sexual harassment lawsuits?
lexie
3 April 2012 at 9:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ms Daisy Cutter (congrats on the Molly btw) thanks I had forgotten about computers in the midst of being grumpy about the bacteria that think my sinuses are a good home and my itchy mosquito bites.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 9:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ms Daisy Cutter, #63,
You are of course most welcome. Note that we are trying to get a self sustaining orgy going, with people coming and going all the time, but the orgy reaching the point of self perpetuation. Naturally, this will be quite large, and ingress and egress might take some time, therefore the orgy will be conveniently situated near an Abortionplex.* Full beauty services will also be available, have no fear!
;-)
Louis
* The stem cells from these abortions will be used to make an army of clone zombie atheists. Obviously.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 9:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Since Esteleth isn’t here, I am now obligated to proclaim the virtues of fried mountain oysters.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 9:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Likely, though we need a better term than ‘Poe’ for these cases, since this isn’t an attempt to satirise the positions of creationists and anti-abortion advocates, but just to regurgitate them. If those aren’t the beliefs it holds, then it’s just lying.
Either way, it’s a fucking douche.
nofriendoftheatheist
3 April 2012 at 9:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Would that be Thor’s hammer, by any chance? I heard you were part Swedish or something. Let me just say this: I am not your friend.
unbound
3 April 2012 at 9:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@67 – “Every fertilized egg has not only the potential to become another human being but will do so unless prevented.”
I have some really, really bad news for you. In reality only about 1/2 to 2/3 of fertilized eggs implant successfully in the womb. The rest are flushed out…or aborted naturally by the female body.
A few other things that you should be aware before you continue on your naive black-and-white journey with this subject.
Ectopic Pregnancy, Vanishing Twin, and Anencephaly (which could challenge some of your preconceived definitions) just to name a few of the things that eliminate the concept of “…will do so unless prevented”.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 9:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Masturbation does indeed lead to an undignified loss of cellular life. I think people should think of their own tadpoles before they jerk off.
Ok, that’s IT. I call Poe on this one. Tadpoles, indeed. You had me going for a while, nofriend!
Louis
3 April 2012 at 9:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A.R., #82,
Of course! Usually a wailing and gnashing of teeth and a *kerching* of lawyers. Occasionally the sound produced by the dawning of realisation of personal fuckwittery on the part of the man….but that is sadly rare.
Louis
pensnest
3 April 2012 at 9:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If we found single-celled life elsewhere in the solar system, we’d get excited about it but we wouldn’t try to communicate with it, we wouldn’t expect it to act autonomously (at least, not in any meaningful way) and we wouldn’t consider it the equal of the human beings who found it.
Actually, we’d probably go from Step 1: Discovery straight to Step 2: Exploitation.
Also, nofriendoftheatheist @ #26: I have reproduced, thanks. Twice. Took a total of around 80 weeks. I’ve been alive for about 2,670 weeks. 2,590 weeks is a lot of time to exist with no purpose.
Incidentally, I also had a pregnancy which involved a blighted ovum. Conception occurred,yay!—an egg and a sperm fused together and then did nothing else. No development, no fetus, nothing, just a busy uterus trying to support something that was not going to grow. Was that blighted ovum a person, do you think?
Pillock.
timgueguen
3 April 2012 at 9:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
nofriendoftheatheist, it’s pretty simple. The omnipotent God you believe in could stop abortions in an instant. He could appear to everyone on the planet and state “ABORTION IS WRONG. DON’T DO IT AGAIN OR FACE ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. AND BY THE WAY, THE JEWS AND MUSLIMS ARE RIGHT, EATING PORK IS FORBIDDEN. NO MORE BACON FOR YOU!” Yet he doesn’t. So, if he exists, he apparently doesn’t have a problem with abortion. Or perhaps he’s a horrible creature looking for any excuse to punish people after they die. Or is only interested in the behaviour of a tiny number of human beings. Take your pick.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 9:58 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The sack of shit seems to want to make teen aged boy who have wet dreams feel bad about what they cannot control.
Also, think of periods. Each one is a potential life that was never allowed to come to being. A woman’s body is a murderous field. No wonder women are so irresponsible.
Just for the record, I want nofriendofthe atheist to play the role of the decaying porcupine and for joey to make use of him.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 9:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
#55 wasn’t mine. Neither was #64.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 9:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thanks, A.R. and Lexie.
Louis:
Well, I should hope so.
Not too much time, though. Chafing. Ouch.
Should clone zombie atheists be released on megachurches? On the one hand, the idea gives me a ferocious ladyboner. On the other, there will be no brains in sight on which they can subsist.
Randomfactor
3 April 2012 at 9:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m perfectly willing to accept that there’s room for compromise in the abortion debate.
It’s called Roe v. Wade, in this country.
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 9:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@A.R.
#82
I’m guessing sound of ass-slapping followed by face-slapping.
nofriendoftheatheist
3 April 2012 at 9:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s easy enough to explain. I read on the ICR website that if women had hips any wider they couldn’t walk properly. So, it is an engineering compromise between giving birth and locomotion. And it works just fine!
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 10:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Like we give a shit what an unevidenced delusional fool like you thinks. Your disapproval is makes PZ’s day, if he swats your ass back into the bandwidth for being a general egotistical turd.
lexie
3 April 2012 at 10:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, it’s not Thor’s hammer. Information on the ultimate overload’s banhammer is available under the ‘Standards and Practices’ section.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 10:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Undignified? Nonsense! I have my butler masturbate me whilst I am reading the Financial Times, listening to Brahms and wearing a dinner suit.
Undignified? The very idea.
Louis
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 10:03 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You must think we are all fucking stupid if you think we cannot figure that out from your moniker.
Any friend of mine would has to be of a higher grade of human than what you have been showing.
Go forth and fucking meet your god already. You deserve to grovel forever.
chigau (違う)
3 April 2012 at 10:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The primary function of a man is to impregnate a woman.
Once he’s done that he can be turned into drymeat to sustain the woman and her precious, precioussss foetus during the pregnancy.
rookieatheist
3 April 2012 at 10:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m a fan of Pharyngula. I would describe myself as a non-believer and a rationally minded person. But I just can’t figure out what the general consensus among PZ and like-minded people is on when the fetus should acquire legal/scientific status as a human?
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 10:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
A.R:
Eh, they’re okay. I tried them once, just to say I’d tried them. I don’t think I’d order them again. Also, my friend and I were disappointed that they arrived all cut up; we were hoping our plates would each have two gigantic fried spheres in the middle. Maybe with the parsley-stuffed sac artfully arranged around them.
NFotA:
PZ is eating his heart out over that, I’m sure. With “friends” like you….
Janine:
And Brownian to write the slashfic.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 10:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Speaketh the asshole from Cloudcuckooland.
otrame
3 April 2012 at 10:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“it works just fine”
It works just fine? It works JUST FINE!!?!!?!!?
Okay. Now I believe Nofriendoftheathiest is a lying sack of shit or is about 10 and his parents have never let him out n the real world.
Which is it?
Louis
3 April 2012 at 10:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ms Daisy Cutter, #95,
There will be specific battalions aimed at the megachurches, they will be engineered to subsist on sanctimony and hair products.
Also this:
is one of the best things I have ever read. I am making a rock band right this second and appropriating that name for it.
Louis
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies
3 April 2012 at 10:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rookie:
Birth.
There, wasn’t that easy?
Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
3 April 2012 at 10:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Louis:
I ♥ you.
@rookieatheist:
Birth. For me at least.
Owlmirror
3 April 2012 at 10:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Marsupials laugh in your general direction.
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 10:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@rookieatheist
#104
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 10:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
#112
GAH! Blockquote fail…
jaranath
3 April 2012 at 10:10 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
FilthyHuman:
I thought it was “Human Resources wants to see you.”
Louis
3 April 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Legally? Birth.
Scientifically? It’s always “human”. But then so is a significant portion of my last turd.
The legal definition isn’t perfect, but since we are trying to apply discontinuous definitions to systems that are largely continuous (although birth is obviously THE big rubicon), there will always be difficult decisions to make.
After all, how many grains of sand does it take to make a pile of sand? I wonder, has anyone asked questions like these before? I wonder if there’s…ooooooh…millennia of philosophical and medical thought on the matter?
Nope, can’t be. Otherwise the anti-woman forced-birther fundamentalists wouldn’t exist, right? Right?
Louis
KG
3 April 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You’re either a liar or an idiot: the answer is, of course, at birth.
twist
3 April 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, your all knowing, all powerful, all intelligent imaginary friend couldn’t come up with something that would allow women to walk properly and give birth easily? Sounds like a pretty rubbish engineer to me, considering it’s meant to be all knowing and all powerful. Oh wait, giving birth is meant to be a punishment, right? Because of the rib woman being talked into eating magic fruit by a snake? After the all powerful designer left them all alone together, knowing what would happen? Now it makes sense!
I’m learning so much today! I’ve learned that I’m not a real person (I’m a baby machine!)and now I’ve learned why my pelvic girdle is too small to fit a baby’s head (god’s a shitty engineer/women need to be punished FOREVER). While we’re at it, can you explain the appendix to me? I just can’t see why an all powerful, all loving and all knowing designer would leave what in many people amounts to a ticking time bomb inside his beloved children. Is this the shitty engineer thing again?
otrame
3 April 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@rookie
In general, I would say when the fetus is viable outside the woman. Baby=capable of independent existence.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But I just can’t figure out what the general consensus among PZ and like-minded people is on when the fetus should acquire legal/scientific status as a human?
Two counter-questions for you:
1. When does a living person become a dead person? That is, what biological changes have to occur before someone is considered to be dead?
2. If a fetus or even an embryo were given the same level of rights as a born and independently living human, what laws would be in effect with respect to abortion?
I’d like your answers before I give mine.
Owlmirror
3 April 2012 at 10:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…of course, all theists should actually support abortion, since that guarantees that an innocent (putative) soul goes to (putative) heaven.
Their problem is that they don’t even understand the premises of their own theology.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 10:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Owlmirror, #111,
I’m a marsupial? Fuck me! That’s a surprise!
Louis
consciousness razor
3 April 2012 at 10:14 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Excellent. Then we will pit my TZT robots against the undead clones. It’ll be like Star Wars episode 2, except it won’t suck quite so much. Except for the good kind of sucking. Lots more of that, obviously.
otrame
3 April 2012 at 10:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, and Louis, I am madly in love with you.
Just saying.
KG
3 April 2012 at 10:16 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What a callous little shit you are! For a woman, giving birth is a painful and dangerous process: in the absence of modern medical techniques, maternal mortality rates of 2-3% per birth were normal. And you think that a process that leads to an excruciatingly painful death for that proportion of women “works just fine”. You sick scumbag.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 10:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Otrame, #123,
{Gasp}
That could lead to abortions! Won’t someone PLEASE think of the babies?
Louis
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 10:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s fair. I am not your friend either.
However, given that I, as an atheist, hold from the same amoral no-God-to-tell-me-what’s-right-and-what’s-wrong worldview as Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot, our mutual enmity should worry you a lot more than it worries me.*
So, it is not the case that “everything about her anatomy is designed for this wondrous purpose” of giving birth. So much for your earlier claim. So much for your Intelligent Designer.
*Two can play this Poe game.
jaranath
3 April 2012 at 10:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
rookieatheist:
I tend to agree with others about birth, at least as a practical line. Though I’m not entirely sure I’d rule out the current “somewhere pretty late in pregnancy with exceptions” line that we theoretically have now.
Of course the underlying philosophy, evidence, rationale, etc, are what I’ve been trying to draw out of joey. You aren’t him, are you?
KG
3 April 2012 at 10:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In addition to my #124, your imaginary friend is supposed to be omnipotent, nofriendoftheatheist. Yet this useless douchebag couldn’t come up with a solution – like, for example, a pelvis consisting of two separable halves that could part to let the baby through – that both allows women to walk and does not subject them to such pain and danger. What a maroon!
DLC
3 April 2012 at 10:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But what if my God demands that children conceived on odd months must be aborted ? What if my God demands that children only be conceived in months without an “R” in them, and that all others must not be born, on pain of eternal damnation ?
Are you Christers going to force eternal damnation on followers of my God?
But seriously folks: Anti-Choice whackjobs have been doing this since the 1970s. It’s all appeal to emotion, grossout and appeal to deity (authority). Not surprising, because they can’t come up with a solid empirical argument. Even a religious argument is shaky, and would in any case only apply to adherents.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 10:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
But what if my God demands that children conceived on odd months must be aborted ?
So, what’s the call then if you’re not sure of when the conception happened? Like if you had sex on March 31st: the sperm survive 24 hours in the woman’s body so the conception could have been in March or April. Abort to be sure, carry to term to give benefit of the doubt, or dealer’s choice? These questions are important for potential convertees, you know.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 10:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So they had to wait for secular science and technology to provide them with the ultrasounds and colour pictures they need to stop this inhumane slaughter that’s been going on for millennia? Was God all out of stone tablets?
nofriendoftheatheist
3 April 2012 at 10:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m sorry if it upsets you, but your female body is designed to attract males, to give birth to babies and then to suckle them. That is your primary role in life. Surely any biologist or evolutionist would have to concede this point.
Actually, babies have very flexible crania. They are composed of bone plates which can bend in order to allow the baby to make it through the birth canal – that is a remarkable feat of engineering design.
SC (Salty Current), OM
3 April 2012 at 10:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tell you what: After you’ve 1) answered PZ’s question above and 2) demonstrated that you fully understand Singer’s logic and reasoning related to these issues (in your own words, without cut-and-paste propaganda, and with nonquote-mined citations and/or quotations from Singer’s own work; and including the relationship of his personhood arguments to all related issues: animal rights, fertility treatments, abortion, infanticide, euthanasia), I will answer your question.
***
Why are you asking us whether or not you can figure it out? You should know.
SQB
3 April 2012 at 10:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nope, that’s we call a workaround.
Bronze Dog
3 April 2012 at 10:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Time for my bit of rage about the “purpose” of women. It makes me wonder what NFotA supports with regard to women with an asexual orientation, as in women who don’t feel strong sexual desires.
Are they considered worthless because they have no desire to fulfill their alleged reproductive purpose? Would NFotA support raping them so that they could fulfill their designed “purpose” instead of the purpose those women choose for their own lives?
As a largely (but not completely) asexual man, it makes me wonder if NFotA considers me to be nothing more than a drain on the human race because I don’t reproduce. Am I a terrible, terrible sinner for preferring blogging and video games over sex?
pdxy
3 April 2012 at 10:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“To interfere with God’s work in making the foetus is both criminal and immoral.”
This is the crux of the problem, of course. Why they have their panties in a wad.
They drew the line at Gutenberg and his infernal babble-replicating machine.
Then they drew the line at Galileo and his infernal notions.
Then they drew the line at Darwin and his infernal notions.
Now they’re drawing the line at what the godless chemists and surgeons have got up to.
Eventually they’ll draw the line so close that they’ll all disappear with a bright little twinkle and a pop.
Owlmirror
3 April 2012 at 10:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No concession. Biology is not destiny.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 10:42 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
that is a remarkable feat of engineering design.
No, it’s not. It’s a crappy kluge and any decent engineer could come up with half a dozen better ways to get children born. About 30% of pregnancies in the US end in a c-section. What kind of engineer designs something with a 30% failure rate and claims it’s a remarkable feat?
A. R
3 April 2012 at 10:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
KG: The symphysis pubis can allow a small degree of seperation, but not much. Anyway, I’ve heard arguments for 24 weeks being the cut off for abortion, as that is the point at which the fetus is theoretically capable of surviving outside of the uterus. I would generally agree with birth though. Excepting, of course those babies intended for atheist barbecues.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 10:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Going to play this game. fuckface?
You were not made to spend time on a computer. Act as your fucking monster of a tyrant designed you and get off the net right now.
You must concede this!
Also, take a face first dive in a cesspool.
Gen Fury, Still Desolate and Deviant #1
3 April 2012 at 10:43 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What I’m always confused about is even IF the woman had a late-term abortion where the baby would survive outside of the womb and didn’t have a condition incompatible with life – whether she had this “late-term abortion” for shits and giggles or to save her own life – where I live, we normally call that preterm birth and the product of it is a premature baby
Is it different in other places?
otrame
3 April 2012 at 10:44 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
idiot @ #132
So why didn’t your great engineer just make babies heads smaller and then increase how much a brain grows after birth? He can do anything. Why not that one little thing. It would save so many lives. Remember, when women die in childbirth because the baby’s head is too big to pass through the pelvis, THE BABY DIES, TOO.
Look, if you are for real, go to your library and get an obstetrics text book. Look at the pictures if the words are too much for you. Then come back and tell us about the marvelous engineer. I’m serious. You are so ignorant, you are pathetic. Don’t worry. Lots of people who have read such textbooks are still among the faithful*. You’ll be safe.
If you are just a lying troll: I repeat, fuck right off.
* though I will never understand why, personally.
Owlmirror
3 April 2012 at 10:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fixed that for you.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies
3 April 2012 at 10:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Notawhatever,
Somehow, I’m not surprised that gay men and lesbians don’t exist in your fantasy world.
If woman’s “primary purpose” is BAYBEEZ, why are we intelligent? Why do we have goals and wants? Wouldn’t it have been much more efficient if your god made us without the capacity for thought?
Pro-tip: No, we are not made for pregnancy. Way back in my post at 36, I described some of the pain that my prenancy is causing. I have ligament and nerve pain because my abdominal cavity cannot accomodate both my expanding uterus and the connective tissue that’s already there. That some pretty shitty design, if you ask me.
Anyway, fuck you, you inhuman sack of shit.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 10:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The answer is simple. Someone who does not give a flying fuck.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 10:46 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Actually it’s a fairly shitty design even from a novice POV that has any number of problems. Some other solutions
a) Elongate the skull to maintain the same mass but reduce width, also elongate the adult torso to accomodate a longer womb
b) Reproduce by eggs, with a organ for carrying and incubating said eggs
c) Increase brain density/surface area while reducing volume.
d) Alter the locomotion system.
e) Extreme sexual dimorphism. Since you’ve already said the purpose of females is to make babies, why not specialize for that? Why is locomotion needed at all? Many species that have castes specialized for reproduction just swear off that whole “moveing about” nonsense. Why not have females be like termites? I mean if that were the case we could have more males to defend her and carry her if they need be and it would make reproduction a lot safer and less messy.
Also speaking of D, there are a number of complaints to your designer about our horrendously inefficient structure for bipedal locomotion. Now ignoring even the problems of flaws in arches, known birth defects with feet, the pointlessness of the toes, the structural weakness of the underside of the foot which I might point out is heavily prone to injury from casual use and the good lord has failed to provide even the minimal protection from such injuries he deigned to grant his, presumably more favored creations, of canines and swine, There’s still a problem with leverage and strain on the spine.
Furthermore there’s the question of why have a bipedal system at all. A bipedal walk is inherently problematic as it is basically a controlled fall. Meanwhile the hexapedal system is shown to be amazingly stable as it allows the body to have a tripod support at every moment of movement. Why roaches can maintain their balance when having a miniature rocket strapped to their side pushing them sideways because of how efficient this is. Why the problems that could be solved by having humans be based on the template of say, spiders or insects, with octopod body structures (two adapted into manipulating limbs, 6 for locomotion) and specializing an abdomen under neither or behind the legs for locomotion would allow us to have a reproductive system that would give minimal impediment to movement. In fact the frankly slap dash engineering of the tetrapod body is disgraceful. Arthropods, especially insects, show high degrees of specialization for their body, a sensory head, locomotive thorax, and organ holding abdomen. Humans on the other hand have their organs and locomotive muscles shoved into one tube shaped segment where they conflict with each-other. What was the designer thinking; especially considering he had the blueprints of better designs right on hand? I ask you, do we not deserve an explanation?
Oh sure the speculated arcahnomorph human wouldn’t look very humanoid (frankly I think we could also use the opportunity to fix some sensory problems) but why is that a bad thing? Are we to believe that the All Mightly Creator gimped us with a body that literally struggles to both reproduce and WALK purely for aesthetic reasons?
jaranath
3 April 2012 at 10:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“That is your primary role in life. Surely any biologist or evolutionist would have to concede this point.”
Ah, so the PoeTroll does at least have an agenda. Pro tip: When pushing your more serious points, make sure you’ve weeded out the fallacies. That line’s dripping with the naturalistic one.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 10:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also he’s clearly just a troll. And he’s not funny. Just trash bin him.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 10:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m thinking this Nofriendoftheatheist muppet is deeply needing to have an intimate connection between my boot and his testicles. After all he seems inordinately fond of the argument from design coupled to the naturalistic fallacy. Both of which are…haha…false!
Looks like bollock kicking time again.
Oh the burdens I bear.
Louis
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 10:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley, unless I am mistaken, you wanted to have this child.
Imagine what it is like for those women who do not.
Wait, be it by inclination or by making himself this way, the latest troll will not use imagination. Empathy will not touch the sack of shit.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 10:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Louis:
Categorization is both an immensely useful and an immensely harmful human behavior.
I want custody of the ‘roos. Because they’re cute.
DLC:
FTFY.
NFotA:
Your gawd “created” non-heterosexualty, too, you know. And not just in humans.
Yep. Works every time, too.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 10:49 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
that is a remarkable feat of
engineering designEVOLUTION adapting.Surely any biologist or evolutionist would have to concede this point.Nope, the evidence says the woamn only carries fetuses for a small fraction of their life. You lose to reality once again, as expected for your abject stupidity.
Still no evidence for your imaginary deity.
Still no signed letter from your imaginary deity allowing you to speak for it.
All you have is presupposition and fuckwitted thinking.
SQB
3 April 2012 at 10:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wow, congratulations! (I’m totally TET-rupt, so I will have missed any earlier announcement).
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 10:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also, that design is only useful because enough offspring survive to keep the species going. It is only good enough, not a marvelous design.
SC (Salty Current), OM
3 April 2012 at 10:52 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What were male nipples designed for?
adamshelton
3 April 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Off-topic, but is it weird that when I glanced at this ad image as I was scrolling through PZ’s blog entries, I thought it was a picture of a robotic squid?
Matt Penfold
3 April 2012 at 10:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not really. It is a compromise that puts babies at risk from head injury. It is the type of solution engineers might come up with, but for an omnipotent and omniscient who is not subject to the constraints engineers are, it has to be considered a piss poor solution.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SC, male nipples often provide sexual pleasure to their owners.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 10:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nipple torture!
Louis
3 April 2012 at 10:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SC, #155,
In order:
Sucking, twiddling, pinching, clamps, electroshock and laughing at.
HTH
Louis
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 10:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
snort
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies
3 April 2012 at 10:55 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Janine,
Totally wanted. I pointed out in my post at 36 that while this pain is bad for me, it must be torture for a woman who doesn’t want to be pregnant.
If anything, being pregnant has made me even more pro-choice.
SQB,
Thanks! I haven’t announced on TET yet– this is the first time I’ve mentioned my pregnancy on Pharyngula, so you didn’t miss anything.
Rey Fox
3 April 2012 at 10:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And this is how you tell me?!
Congrats, Audley. May you carry out your predetermined purpose with maximum possible efficiency.
–
You anti-choicers sure love your bullshit hypotheticals, don’t you?
–
Facts: You’re doing them wrong.
Please leave your prurient fantasies out of this.
Fortunately, what you believe about women is completely irrelevant to actual women.
Actually, most biologists aren’t authoritarian whackjobs who masturbate about “purpose”.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 10:56 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Purple nurples!
Oh, and another congrats to Audley.
pentatomid
3 April 2012 at 10:57 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So, Nofriend, how’s the mammoth hunt been? What? You don’t hunt mammoth? You spend time on the internet you say… Pfft, unnatural freak.
FUCK. OFF.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 11:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Funny how a bunch of people who denies the natural purpose of women are congratulating a woman who will give birth to a wanted baby.
Wait. No, that is not funny. This is everyday life, not a bullshit argument.
Gen Fury, Still Desolate and Deviant #1
3 April 2012 at 11:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Seconding the congrats to you, Audley, as well as seconding that being pregnant (and actually having kids, the kind you can’t give back or take time “off” from, you know, kids in real life who aren’t always delightful or cheap or easy to deal with) has made me more pro-choice.
Matt Penfold
3 April 2012 at 11:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well the ones that are not genetic detirminists anyway. Which of course is most of them.
I have to wonder how nofriendoftheatheist explains the menopause.
Rey Fox
3 April 2012 at 11:00 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nah, I’m pretty sure “laughing at” comes first.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies
3 April 2012 at 11:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry, Rey. I was going to call you, but I don’t have your number. ;)
Thanks for the well-wishes, guys. I’m gonna stop derailing now. :p
A. R
3 April 2012 at 11:01 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I can hear the banhammer swinging now
DLC
3 April 2012 at 11:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
dianne @130 :
Clearly which month the baby was conceived in must be judged by a member of the clergy. She’s the one with the plate of spaghetti on his head. It’s a fairly simple magic ceremony that takes a few minutes.
Brownian @ 131 : before all the ultrasounds and such they used mimeographed stories, drawings and the occasional airbrushed “dead baby” photo. Because, well, God took the last two tablets.
Guess he had a headache after designing everything.
SC @155 : male nipples were designed so that men could also have piercings and enjoy nipple clamps. why else ?
nofriendoftheatheist
3 April 2012 at 11:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The primary purpose, not the sole purpose. Locomotion is needed to evade predators, gather resources, and to attract males by wiggling it about.
Because we need huge brains to start off with. Anyway, women do have to feel pain because it makes giving birth an unforgettable experience.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:02 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Janine: Sick minds think alike! ;-)
Ms Daisy Cutter: The ‘roos are all yours, and double seconded on the “categorisation” comment.
Dr Audley Z Darkheart:
CONGRATULATIONS
My best wishes for your pregnancy and impending motherhood! I’ll celebrate by having your beer for you. No, no. No need to thank me, it’s just the kind of self sacrifice I am willing to do for lovely people like you. Every drop of amber gold will be murder I assure you. Somehow I’ll choke it down.
Louis
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rey Fox, #169,
That rather depends on the sort of clubs one frequents. ;-)
Louis
pentatomid
3 April 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley,
Congratulations!!!
Porco Dio
3 April 2012 at 11:04 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
dianne
3 April 2012 at 11:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Audley, congratulations! But pregnancy is an absolute horror, isn’t it? I ended up with one kid because I couldn’t face it again…at least it does get better after delivery. A newborn’s easier than a fetus, a toddler easier than a newborn, a kid easier yet.
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 11:06 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am calling myself a monster as a joke.
This shitstain is an actual callous monster.
Funny how it makes use of “biology” when it backs it’s facts about being female.
Am I the only one getting an MRA vibe.
What does the shitstain think of actually allowing breeding stock to get educated?
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:07 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuckwit, #173,
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA Oh that is some really poor quality trolling.
Seriously, you are not good at this. You do realise most people are simply laughing at you right? The newest 10 year old on /b/ could do better than you. Paddle the troll canoe elsewhere, old bean. Which I suspect you will be doing very soon. Incompetence of that degree is not tolerated.
Louis
Janine: History’s Greatest Monster
3 April 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Great, an other shitstain just plopped out.
Rey Fox
3 April 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuck off, you lying sack of shit. Take some time to ponder just how profoundly you have failed in life.
pentatomid
3 April 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And your omnipotent and super benevolent skydaddy couldn’t make it unforgettable by making it super duper fun time? Seriously? Your god is an asshole.
FilthyHuman
3 April 2012 at 11:08 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@dianne
#178
I find it interesting that you stopped before teenager.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dianne, #178,
I can’t speak about the pregnancy part from personal experience, although my wife agrees with you about the “ONCE ONLY, LOVER BOY!” thing. I agree with her too! I’m not dumb enough not to!
I’ve heard the baby > toddler > kid > teen sequence is reversed though. Apparently when you can hold them in one hand and wipe their backside it’s easier than when they are 16. Mind you, mine isn’t even 3 yet and he’s a handful, so I have no idea! :-)
Louis
The Amazing Rando
3 April 2012 at 11:09 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Because NfotA likes to quote the bible, let’s play that game!
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/abortion.html
What the Bible says about Abortion
Abortion is not murder. A fetus is not considered a human life.
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. And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life. — Exodus 21:22-23
The Bible places no value on fetuses or infants less than one month old.
And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver. — Leviticus 27:6
Fetuses and infants less than one month old are not considered persons.
Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them. And Moses numbered them according to the word of the LORD. — Numbers 3:15-16
God sometimes approves of killing fetuses.
And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? … Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. — Numbers 31:15-17
(Some of the non-virgin women must have been pregnant. They would have been killed along with their unborn fetuses.)
Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts. — Hosea 9:14
Yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb. — Hosea 9:16
Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up. — Hosea 13:16
God sometimes kills newborn babies to punish their parents.
Because by this deed thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme, the child also that is born unto thee shall surely die. — 2 Samuel 12:14
God sometimes causes abortions by cursing unfaithful wives.
The priest shall say unto the woman, The LORD make thee a curse and an oath among thy people, when the LORD doth make thy thigh to rot, and thy belly to swell. And this water that causeth the curse shall go into thy bowels, to make thy belly to swell, and thy thigh to rot: And the woman shall say, Amen, amen. …
And when he hath made her to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, and become bitter, and her belly shall swell, and her thigh shall rot: and the woman shall be a curse among her people. And if the woman be not defiled, but be clean; then she shall be free, and shall conceive seed. — Numbers 5:21-21, 27-28
God’s law sometimes requires the execution (by burning to death) of pregnant women.
Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also, behold, she is with child by whoredom. And Judah said, Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. — Genesis 38:24
How does that set with you NfotA, god says abortion is alright, or do you disagree with your own god?
dianne
3 April 2012 at 11:12 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I find it interesting that you stopped before teenager.
I’m not there yet-the critter’s only 8-so don’t have any information yet. My mother claims that I was easier as a teen than as a child, but I was a probably Aspie nerd so not sure that holds for a normal kid.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 11:13 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
no matter homw much you lot whine about this, fetuses are not entitled to more legal protection than grown human beings. And since I’m not morally and legally obligated to give you any body parts of mine if I cause an accident and run you over with my car, I’m also not obligated to give you any of my body parts if I cause an accident and the condom breaks.
this, of course, is not actually true. The few women who do so can’t use other forms of Birth Control due to hormonal sensitivity and latex allergies.
but thanks for coming out right at the beginning with the admission that this isn’t about fetuses, but about punishing women.
it’s neither, and god doesn’t exist.
people don’t have “functions”, primary or otherwise. But thank you again for making it so fucking obvious that this isn’t about fetuses but about controlling and punishing women.
actually, nothing about a woman’s body is designed; and only a few parts are specifically used in procreation, but unsurprisingly, you probably haven’t noticed that women consist of something other than their reproductive systems.
more unsurprising misogyny. You’re like a poster-child for how anti-choice is all about how women aren’t people, rather than about Teh Babeez.
your opinion is not factual.
nature doesn’t have a will, and neither do nonexistent deities. And your misogyny continues to be noted.
the vast majority of a woman’s body is not part of the reproductive system, but again it is duly noted that you’re not capable of looking past the boobs.
again, your “lord” doesn’t exist. and women are people, not buildings.
incorrect. at most, about 20% of them will, and that’s not counting death at childbirth.
why am I not at all surprised that you value even unfertilized eggs above a woman.
lots of dead women = “works just fine”.
you’re a real piece of shit. also, if women were “engineered”, they’d have pouches like kangaroos, which would actually solve the problem.
the female body is not designed. as for attraction… the male body is just as attractive to women as the female body is attractive to men, but you never hear the argument that men are “designed” to be sextoys for women. Could that be because people like you consider men to be autonomous beings, and women to be those autonomous beings possessions?
or?
anyway, evolutionary biologists will tell you that the human body isn’t designed. you’re projecting yur misogyny and teleology.
no it isn’t, it’s a pretty shitty evolutionary adaptation to a problem that could have been solved much more elegantly if a designer or engineer had actually been involved.
- – - – - – -
BTW, is anyone surprised that joey turned out to be an anti-woman fuckweasel? whining in every thread about how Teh System is oppressing him, but Patriarchy? Nah, that’s just fucking peachy.
male pronound duly noted. Also duly noted is the conflation of a woman’s body with “things”.
once again: even fully grown adults don’t get to use another person’s body against their express permission. Under no circumstances can a fetus be granted more rights than other people have, that would be fucking absurd.
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 11:15 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That is a remarkably STUPID example of engineering design, particularly when the ludicrously easy (from a design and engineering point of view) alternative of moving the birth canal a couple of inches so that it exits above the symphysis pubis (through the abdomen instead of through the pelvis) is superior in every imaginable way.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 11:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Congratulations, Audley!
SC (Salty Current), OM
3 April 2012 at 11:17 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Congratulations, Audley!
***
The tendency to ignore all of the aspects humans share, focus exclusively on differences, and then use these differences to define people is just so wrong. (Of course, I suspect this is a troll, but it’s similar in form to arguments you often hear.) It’s the same thing people do when they insist virtually exclusively on talking about how humans are so vastly different from other animals and how it’s these differences that define us and them.
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 11:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
When it is no longer a fetus. ie, AT BIRTH, whether that birth is natural or technologically assisted.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies
3 April 2012 at 11:18 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Janine,
Nope, I’m totes getting the MRA vibe too. And it’s creeping me the fuck out.
chigau (違う)
3 April 2012 at 11:19 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Louis
re: proxy beer
Aren’t you some kinda 40-day wagon?
(like jesus in the desert)
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jadehawk, #188,
Waaaaaaaiit a second! Are you implying that certain libertarian tendencies appear to strongly correlate with being a cluelessly privileged, selfish, sexist fuckstick?
{Gasp}
But, but, but….no, I simply cannot imagine such a thing to be true.
Louis
Anri
3 April 2012 at 11:20 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And human males are well-suited (I’m not going to use the prejorative ‘designed’) to impregnate multiple partners.
Therefore that’s good, right?
If not, please explain your biological justification for objecting – or admit that biological well-suited-ness is a stupid thing to reflexively base civilized rules of behavior on.
(Oh, and harems are also pretty common among biblical characters, so please don’t object to it on that basis.)
pensnest
3 April 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Rookieatheist € #104
When it is BORN. Seriously, why is this difficult?
Has Nofriendoftheathiest ever wondered why women have hands? These play no part in reproduction. Feet? Likewise. Eyes? Ears? Not necessary. If women’s bodies were designed solely for incubation, I’m sure they could have been made a whole lot more efficient. Something like a giant womb with input pipes for air and food and output pipes for waste. Oh, wait, I forgot—we’re *also* designed to be attractive to men. Better throw in a cunt, then.
What women actually are, is ‘human beings’. Not designed at all.
twist
3 April 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, no it is not. Currently, my primary role in life is as a graduate student. One day, I hope that my primary role will be as a researcher in some capacity, actually doing something useful with my life. One day, perhaps, I might have a child, but it will never, never, never be my primary function. I will not give up my career to take care of it. My female body is not ‘designed’ to do anything. I am not here to attract males. I am not here to be a fucking brood mare. If my only perpose is to attract men, breed with them and pop out babies, why bother giving me a brain at all? Why does your imaginary friend give us breeding machines the reasoning skils to look at your pathetic non-argument and call bullshit? It would be so much easier if we were just good little brainless clones, right? I am going to use my brain, that was not designed but evolved, to do something constructive and hopefully, in some small way, beneficial to the human race. I am not going to waste my life contributing to the overpopulation of this planet. And most importantly, I can do these things becuase the decision is fucking mine, however much you woman haters try to take it away from me. I am first and foremost a human being and I’m sorry if that’s too much for the lump of sewage you call a brain to deal with. You didn’t seem to get it last time, so I’ll say it again. I have plenty of meaning in my child-free life. I’m happy and fulfilled. SO FUCK OFF AND STOP TRYING TO TELL ME THAT I CAN ONLY FUNCTION AS A BABY MACHINE YOU SHIT-SWILLING MISOGYNIST. FUCK OFF.
Tell that to the countless women who have, and still are, bleeding to death in childbirth you inhuman sack of shit. Pregnancy can kill a woman in many, many ways, not just the part where you actually have to give birth. It is dangerous. It is not some perfect fluffy fucking miracle. Pre-eclampsia. Placental abruption. Eclampsia. Deep vein thrombosis. Ectopic pregnancy. Gestational diabetes. HELLP syndrome. Prolonged or obstructed labour. Of course, none of that matters when you don’t consider those who suffer from these conditions to be really human. If it’s just an incubator, who cares when it bleeds to death, right? Either your imaginary friend hates women as much as you do, or it couldn’t come up with anything better, which makes it a shitty designer. And again, FUCK OFF.
RFW
3 April 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
#155 #SC (Salty Current), OM says (3 April 2012 at 10:52 am):
Sexual stimulation (ask nearly any gay man about nipples) and, on rare occasion, a source of life-sustaining milk for infants whose mothers died in childbirth. They’re also handy for body ornamentation via piercing and the wearing of jewelry therefrom dangling.
They’re also useful as markers distinguishing the ventral side of the torso from the dorsal, in the event that other such markers (face, pectoral muscles, skeletal conformation, navel, external genitalia) are ambiguous or missing.
The rubes, as usual, are utterly unaware of these usefulnesses.
Ladies with male partners in intimacy are particularly pointed to the first usefulness noted in the above list. Just keep in mind that well-known slogan, “no pain, no gain.” Should the b.f. squeal in distress as you adjust his anatomy, remind him that when the scabs fall off, there’ll be a new him underneath.
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not at all. This has been a standard and recurring pattern for his ilk.
I will go on to predict that if his rampant misogyny should get him squished by the banhammer (as empirically, odious misogyny gets them banned much more easily that insipid creationist trolling) he will go his merry dishonest way whining about being censored here for his creationist views.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:23 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Chigau, #194,
I am, I am. But I am writing myself little notes with glasses of beer drawn on them for use on the evening of May the 11th (when self imposed good behaviour ends for the weekend, then reinstates itself around the Tuesday).
I can at least imagine the beer until then.
The 40 day part is a happy coincidence. ;-)
Louis
raven
3 April 2012 at 11:24 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
True.
According to the magic book of mythology, personhood starts one month after birth.
This is common even in third world cultures today. The reason is real simple. Newborns have a high probability of dying. No point in giving them a name or getting too attached when half of them will die.
In parts of Africa, naming day is 3 months after birth.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 11:25 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not sure it’s possible to be even more misogynist about this. fuck you, dude.
tavethethrasher
3 April 2012 at 11:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Just as a side note, an interesting historical fact.
Bartolomeo Corte, a student of Antonio Vallisneri, in 1703 tried to publish ” Lettera nella quale si discorre da quale tempo si infonda nel feto l’anima ragionevole “, which can be loosely translated as ” An argument regarding when the soul is infused in the fetus “. In it, Bartolomeo corte, which was a Cartesian preformist, argues that the soul enters the fetus at the moment of conception.
The catholic church will put this letter in his index of forbiddeen books, and forces Bartolomeo to abjure on the penalty of life imprisonment. In 1703 the Catholic Church still accepted abortion based on the writings of Thomas Aquinus, for whom ” a male fetus becomes a person after 40 days, a female fetus becomes a person after 80 days “.
Only after 1869 with Pope Pius IX the “life begins at conception” doctrine becomes the standard position of the Catholic Church.
Just saying.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Twist, #198,
OH I KNOW I KNOW!
It’s because men need brains and men and women share most features of embryological development. The reason men need brains is so their eyes can connect to something that knows it’s looking at boobs.
I HAS COMBINED MISOGYNY AND SCIENCE! Can I have a biscuit now?
Louis
Eamon Knight
3 April 2012 at 11:26 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@185: Speaking from experience, I’d say kids are a royal pain from the moment the morning sickness kicks in until they achieve economic escape velocity, 20+ years later.
And it’s totally worth it.
(Which is not in the least to imply that it’s an inferior choice to just forgo the whole experience. And yes, we are enjoying life now that it’s just us and the cats, while looking forward to #1 Son’s visit this upcoming long weekend, and #2 Son moving much closer to home [ie. two hour drive instead of two day] for his Ph.D programme).
Anri
3 April 2012 at 11:28 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In the US, a person becomes a full citizen 35 years after birth.
Prior to that point, they are restricted by law from doing things full citizens can do. The younger one is, the fewer rights one has – these is no ‘magic moment’ where one transitions from a ‘not-person’ to a ‘person’. There are just accumulations of rights throughout life. The biggest jump, however, is at birth, for I think pretty obvious reasons.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:29 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I remain convinced that, as someone else said, this nofriendoftheatheist moron is the troll “IT polymath” muppet from the other thread. I don’t know why I think this so strongly. Perhaps it’s a supernatural sense that detects arseholes and their resonances.
I think we’re just being trolled. Not that it makes much difference. The schtick is indistinguishable from that of real pissant misogynists.
Louis
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 11:30 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Over 80% of all fertilized eggs will spontaneously abort.
Fact. A word you like to use, but whose meaning you evidently do not comprehend.
Matt Penfold
3 April 2012 at 11:32 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have never understood this life begins at conception stuff. Conception is not an instantaneous process. I have asked Catholics at what point during the process they consider life to have begun. Most of them have not even understood the question, and all of them has just kept repeating “life begins at conception”.
PZ Myers
3 April 2012 at 11:33 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I appreciate that he spawned all kinds of brilliant responses to his idiocy, but clearly, the purpose of nofriendoftheatheist was to be crushed by my banhammer. Why else would god have made him so stupid?
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 11:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No, actually it is your male brain is designed to be attracted to female bodies. It is specifically a secret test of character that your god implements to determine that nature of your moral fibre.
A test which you have failed.
Eris
3 April 2012 at 11:34 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To all those people who twitch in horror at the idea of hypothetical late term abortions of healthy fetuses: I have a question.
If you really hate late term abortions, why are you engaging in behavior that will force women into getting abortions later and later?
For example, one of the main reasons that a woman might have an abortion later rather than sooner is that she does not have access to affordable early abortions. This means making sure women have to have access to accurate pregnancy tests to allow her to get an abortion early on, the money to get an abortion, the ability to find an abortion clinic easily, the ability to take time off from work/school/child rearing/etc to get an abortion, transportation to the abortion clinic, lack of fear that she will get in trouble for getting an abortion, not being forced to wait due to “waiting periods” and unnecessary medical procedures, etc. Furthermore lack of access to healthcare/housing/food/child care/etc that doesn’t depend on employment and may take a wanted, prepared for pregnancy and turn into one that cannot be handled in a heartbeat.
All of these things push women into having abortions later. So why don’t you spend your time fighting against these things?
Unless, of course this whole “late term abortion” thing is a smokescreen, and you are no happier with a first trimester abortion than you are with a third trimester abortion.
SC (Salty Current), OM
3 April 2012 at 11:36 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hope the pain makes it an unforgettable experience.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 11:38 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SC, #214,
Tragically there will never be enough pain for him to remember even the basics of something worth remembering.
Louis
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 11:39 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Before a certain point, a human fetus looks more like a newt than it does an adult human, though.
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 11:45 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I will also point out that in a third trimester situation in which the mother’s life is threatened and can only be saved by ending the pregnancy, if it is possible to deliver the child alive, then that IS the medical treatment, induced birth or caesarian section.
Abortion is this situation is ONLY contemplated when survivable birth of the fetus cannot be accomplished, either because the fetus is not yet mature enough to survive outside the womb, if it has defects that would prevent it from surviving outside the womb anyways, or if the condition that is threatening the mother’s life is also going to kill the fetus regardless.
ie, abortion in these situations is the option only when the fetus CANNOT be saved. (These are virtually all wanted pregnancies, after all.)
Akira MacKenzie
3 April 2012 at 11:47 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
#173
You’re missing the point, fucktard. The invisible cosmic tyrant you and all other Christians mindlessly worship is supposed to be omnipotent, and if you can wrap you tiny brain around big, foreign-sounding words, that means “all powerful.”
An omnipotent being should be able to create a biological structure that allows for locomotion and big brained infants that won’t put the female through distress. As pentatomid just pointed out, if imparting the birth experience into a woman’s memory is so damn important , then your magical space dictator could have made labor an orgasmic experience rather than an agony. If abortion was such a horrible thing, then he should have the power to magically stop it. All of the things should be cake for an all powerful being.
In your religion’s Big Book of Fairy Tales, your immortal intergalactic despot could allegedly POOF the universe into existence, make it rain for 40 days and nights, part the Red Sea, stop the Earth from rotating so one of his followers could have sufficient daylight to slaughter a group nonbelievers, make virgins give birth to bouncing baby demigods, raise the dead, etc. Yet your deity, despite his allegedly omnibenevolent (that means “all good”) nauture, seems utterly incapable of dealing with the pain and suffer that his supposed creations endure. (He does, according to your Bible, have a psychotic desire to spread pain and suffering around, though.) Don’t give me this bullshit about “interfering with free will” either. Ignoring that free will is about as mythical as gods, how does preventing an “evil” act curtail free will? “Sorry, ma’am. I like to stop that thug from raping you, but to do so would curtail free will and reduce us to fleshy robots!”
Your god’s absence is as telling as his silence is deafening.
To close, I quote Epicurus:
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
Ponder that, moron.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 11:48 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oops, forgot this:
Uh-huh. That must be why mothers never, ever murder their children, either because of postpartum psychosis (there’s that “intelligent design” again) or because they’re just not good at the job. That must also be why I start feeling very antsy when around a small, squalling human for more than about 30 seconds.
Jadehawk, I don’t think “Joey” is the same commenter as “joed.”
Pensnest: Well, feet are to fetch another nappy for teh baybee. Eyes are to check to see whether the current nappy is full first. Ears are to hear Baybee crying. And, Twist, I’m sure NFotA would say that your brain exists only to boost your (male) Baybees’ IQ and make him more attractive to the wimminz who will be wiggling their hips at him in the future, because that will make him a better provider.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 11:50 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuckin’ case agreement, how does it work?
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 11:51 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And I will also point out: Even if it is used for birth control so fucking what?. We need to stop with this tacit agreement that there’s something fundamentally horrible about late-term abortions or using abortions as birth control. It’s as bad as pro-choicers echoing that dreadful sentiment “safe, legal, and rare.” And no, don’t talk to me about them meaning “rare” as in “birth control is so widely available women don’t have to have a medical procedure.” It’s tacit support of abortion-as-immoral whether it’s meant that way or not and it will be read that way by anti-choicers.
Akira MacKenzie
3 April 2012 at 11:53 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Awwwww, nuts PZ. I wanted to see if the little maroon (I’m channeling Bugs Bunny) would have responded.
Ye Olde Blacksmith
3 April 2012 at 11:54 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Soooooooo, I suppose that xe would have no problem with impregnating girls as soon as they are physically able. That would be around age 10 for many in the developed countries, right? Also, why even bother sending girls to school. What “natural” purpose does that serve? Education, clothing, etc are not necessary to a female’s purpose.
Gah, I think I’m going to be sick now.
Eris
3 April 2012 at 11:59 am (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have never understood why giving birth to a child you can’t care for (either due to a lack of desire or a lack of resources) is considered to be somehow superior to abortion as a method of birth control.
The Amazing Rando
3 April 2012 at 12:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Awwwww, nuts PZ. I wanted to see if the little maroon (I’m channeling Bugs Bunny) would have responded.
Yeah, I want him to respond to me too. Will he feel the same way about Abortion if god says it’s alright? Inquiring minds are moderately curious…
Nepenthe
3 April 2012 at 12:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wouldn’t it be sweet if the symphysis pubis was super stretchy, like the one joining the mandibles of snakes? Birth would be no problem! And I see some interesting recreational possibilities there too!
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 12:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
my bad
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 12:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nepenthe:
On the one hand, backpacks would become obsolete.
On the other, I misplace my keys quite often enough, thanks.
Rey Fox
3 April 2012 at 12:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
In the same way, the “at what instant does it *ping* become a person” argument is a red herring.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies
3 April 2012 at 12:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ms Daisy,
I just laughed so hard that I peed a little. XD
(Thanks for the kind words, everyone!)
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 12:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oddly termites do not seem to have any problem attracting each other.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 12:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
The overlap between this and anti-healtcare is disgusting to me.
On one hand every life is sacred and we cannot allow death panels…on the other hand we need to preserve a system of cold calculus that determines how many avoidable deaths is acceptable.
Akira MacKenzie
3 April 2012 at 12:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@The Amazing Rando:
Akira MacKenzie
3 April 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gah! Blockquote failure. Sorry
joey
3 April 2012 at 12:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jadehawk:
Where are you getting this? I’m simply trying to argue why infants should not be considered persons.
Why can’t the criteria for personhood be “rationality, autonomy, and self-consciousness” as advocated by Singer? Those seem like much more reasonable criteria for personhood compared to the somewhat arbitrary point of birth.
And why do some people get so upset with notion of late-term abortion. Why exactly?
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 12:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Eris:
It’s the exaltation of suffering and sacrifice above practical concerns. Of course, said suffering and sacrifice are honored the most only in certain sorts of people.
Audley: Sorry!!! :D
Ing:
It’s the flip side of my reply to Eris. Some people, by virtue of being whiter, maler, richer, straighter, and Christianer, are appointed by gawd to dispose of other people. Those other people are appointed by gawd to suffer.
joey
3 April 2012 at 12:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh:
Why? What is so “fundamentally horrible”? You sound like an anti-choicer.
KG
3 April 2012 at 12:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So why not make the experience an intensely pleasureable one? Your imaginary friend would be even more of a sack of shit than you are if it existed.
Akira MacKenzie
3 April 2012 at 12:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m going to post that last one again. Too many errors:
@The Amazing Rando:
Be careful, after hearing fundy scum like William Lane Craig and Doug Wilson* defend Moses and Joshua’s apocryphal genocide of any non-Hebrew culture they ran into on their mythical 40-year desert stroll, the answer to that might be more frightening than you imagine.
*See the film “Collision.” all I can say is that Hitchens was way too nice to that creepy pile of Christian shit.
KG
3 April 2012 at 12:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
joey@237,
Why not learn to read, fuckwit? Josh was quite clearly dissenting from the view you interpret him as supporting.
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
3 April 2012 at 12:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Strangely, the first thing that hits my eyes is my face and head, which contains a brian suited for far more complex tasks than caring for wee babbies (fun as that is) and giving men boners (fun as that is).
I just threw up in my own mouth a bit.
Too bad fuckwit was too fuckwitted to evade the banhammer. Oh wait, no, that’s a wondrous thing, a testament of his fulfillment of his Natural Function.
joey
3 April 2012 at 12:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh, okay then. My bad.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey:
That something makes people “so upset” is not an argument against it per se. Why do some people get so upset that other people have gay sex, which, when consensual and safe, harms no one?
Also, as KG says, your reading comprehension of Josh’s comment sucks. You yourself seem much more exercised at the idea of late-term abortion than anybody else here, except maybe the other pro-liar trolls.
Sally:
Huh. I’ve met a few men who’ve named their penises. I’ve met one or two women who named their vaginas. I’ve never met someone who named their grey matter.
Louis
3 April 2012 at 12:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sally, #241,
We demand boners!
And also: sammiches!
Get on that right away because it’s Natural apparently.
Louis
phein39
3 April 2012 at 12:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Human life begins at conception.
A meaningless statement from Mr. Obvious. [Who thinks this is news? Do they really think that most women believe they are growing, what, toaster ovens?, and that if they only truly knew . . .]
When does human personhood begin? And more importantly, how do a few small cells get to be a person?
From all that I can see, being the father of four, my wife made those small cells grow into persons. None of this “vehicle for delivery” nonsense, as if she were just along for the ride. She was the producer.
This is what every right-to-lifer can’t stand: Each and every one of us was created by an individual woman. That’s a simple truth. But for pathological reasons of their own, they can’t recognize that fact and grant the authority that naturally goes with the power and responsibility.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 12:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Except autonomy requires being born and unplugged from the woman. Being born is a defining event. You haven’t shown another equally defining event.
Avoid this inane question bullshit, and simply say “this is what I believe, and this is the evidence to back it up. We prefer the direct approach.
Gregory Greenwood
3 April 2012 at 12:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
As A late comer to the thread I missed all the fun to be had gnawing on the chew toy, but looking at hir comments nofriendoftheatheist seems to have been an exceptionally nasty piece of work – good banhammer-fodder and little else.
You know, I am almost certain that such clueless misogyny is the product of male privilege. It is times like this that I almost wish that reincarnation wasn’t a ludicrous superstition. Justice could be neatly served if nofriendoftheatheist is in fact a man, and was reborn into the body of a woman in order to get a first hand look at the vicious misogyny he so approves of at the moment…
——————————————————————
joey @ 237;
Read Josh’s comment again – he is arguing against the behaviour of some pro-choicers who talk about making abortion ‘safe, legal and rare‘, and that thereby give ground before anti-choicers by tacitly supporting the idea that late term abortion is somehow morally objectionable. A stance that will be interpreted by anti-choicers as an admission that abortion is inherently unethical.
joey
3 April 2012 at 12:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nerd:
Sorry, your argument doesn’t work. I could also argue that autonomy requires that you have to be conceived first. Or maybe that you have to develop a brain first, or a heartbeat. So can’t any of those prerequisite moments also be argued as “defining events”?
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 12:46 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
…you’re not possibly this stupid.
A defining event would be one that, by definition, is the turning point that establishes the definition.
For example BIRTH is the defining event of becoming a baby from fetus.
You’re being intentionally dense and are arguing that birth is the defining event of graduating from the Marine Corps.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 12:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@joey
Or to put it another way, despite that you need to have eaten before you can possibly take a poo you cannot claim to have already taken said poo by mere virtue of having eaten you have to actually plop-the-squat.
joey
3 April 2012 at 12:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Gregory Greenwood:
Yup, I already admitted fault in glossing over his actual meaning. I, too, think it’s absurd that a pro-choicer could think that that a late term abortion is somehow morally objectionable. “Irrational humans” (thread title).
Feats of Cats
3 April 2012 at 12:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If childbirth was a pleasurable experience, I expect this would be a very different conversation. Abortion might even be encouraged by the same people arguing against it now as it would be more of a punishment for those slutty, uppity wimmen than going through with the birth.
pentatomid
3 April 2012 at 12:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Wait… What? Seriously, Joey, you cannot be this stupid. I don’t think that’s humanly possible.
joed
3 April 2012 at 12:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Seems truely unfortunate to me that this abortion “arguement” is still part of life in the u s.
I think the antiabortionists are concerned about when the “soul” enters the body. What I hear them saying is that the soul enters the body at the moment of conception and therefore is a viable human. but the anti’s seldom use the term “soul” because they know proof is not available but they use the term “life” to confuse the issue. Like this article says,”The argument is never about whether some state is alive or not.”
So, if i find myself talking about this I will always bring up “soul” and see where the conversation goes. The antiabortionists will say anything to confuse the issue because they know they can’t be reasonable.
To them Life=soul.
Anyway, if a woman has enough money she will get a proper abortion. If a woman doesn’t have the resources she will take her life in her hands. What an immoral , unjust situation for women, their partners, family friends.
Seems everyone loses.
joey
3 April 2012 at 12:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ING:
My comments were in the context of the criteria of autonomy, rationality, and self-consciousness. Okay, so I guess it can be argued that an infant is “autonomous” after birth (that’s a stretch, but let’s simply roll with it). What about rationality and self-consciousness? Is autonomy the only criteria?
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No. Autonomy means not supported by anothers’s body, so anything in utero can’t fit the definition. End of story.
The other things you stupidly mention do not happen in one time relatively quick event. Which is why birth is such a fantastic defining event. The change from non-breather to air-breather, from in utero to normal human environment, from feeding parasitically off a woman to feeding off other sources, all happen at approximately the same time, and are irreversible. Find a better moment and defend it, or shut the fuck up.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 12:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey:
Oh, the irony.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 1:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You are failing to understand autonomous in this context.
Of value yes. If you can come with a way to test ‘rationality’ and ‘self-consciousness’ you’re welcome to try to expand it. It takes between 18-25 years for a human to become fully ‘rational’ and ‘self-conscious’ if you want to get technical. Our society already has people in development under the responsibility and wardship of others.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 1:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Once again we are forced to consider raising the debt ceiling on human stupidity.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 1:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m rather curious why joey thinks it’s a good idea to switch from an objective criteria, to a subjective one.
twist
3 April 2012 at 1:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
From your earlier postings, you also seem to think it’s absurd that pro-choicers are not fine with people going around gleefully murdering newborns.
What is so difficult to understand about a fetus becoming a person when it ceases to be dependent on it’s mother’s body to survive (newborns, toddlers and children are dependent on other people to survive, not necessarily their mother)? It is a person when it is not living inside the body of another person. Before that, not a person.
joey
3 April 2012 at 1:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nerd:
Fine. Rationality and self-consciousness. Infants have neither. You have a problem with those criteria?
After all, even the bacon we ate for breakfast was once part of an autonomous life form.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 1:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why don’t you defend them instead of us. This is your inane idea, not ours.
So, tell us how an infant isn’t rational or self-conscious, compared to say a dog or a cat (Singer’s argument).
Azuma Hazuki
3 April 2012 at 1:04 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am fairly sure, after reading this thread, that NFotA is a Poe. He’s too well-spoken to be completely serious and there’s a few subconscious “tells” in there that out him.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 1:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes. They are subjective. You might as well have said “ensouled”
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 1:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey
K.I.S.S
What problem is there that justifies creating greater complexity and adding more subjective criteria to this question rather than a very simple, impossible to confuse, and absolute objective criteria.
IslandBrewer
3 April 2012 at 1:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
<god, (Spaghetti monstrum volans)> Did someone mention intelligent design?
Okay, okay, I’ve got a lot on my plate, you know, not listening to prayers and ignoring human suffering, but I’ll see if I can’t redesign this.
Yes, I’ll admit it. I fucked up the first time. Yeah, sorry. What, you want a box of candy from me?
And, by the by, “intelligent” refers to me, not the “design”. So I’m intelligent, and a designer, but that doesn’t mean my designs are necessarily intelligent, so there!
Alright, yes, I’m getting on with it.
So, first off, I’m getting rid of menstruation. No purpose at all. “Wait, it cleans the uterus and prepares it for,” No, it doesn’t. Bunch of crap.
I’ll make it so women will mentally have to turn their fertility on and off. They’ll have to concentrate really hard, go into a short fugue state for a few hours, so they can’t casually and accidentally become pregnant. Childbirth is a big decision – don’t want it to happen indiscriminately.
I mean, it’s either treat them as sentient adults with intelligence and wills of their own, or make them into breeding livestock, like the Republicans want. I flipped a coin, so we’re going with mental switches.
Next, a pregnant woman will grow a birth canal ventrally and avoid the narrow pelvic opening. That’s right. The birth canal and vagina are now two completely separate things. Vaginas will now only be for fun, and occasionally incubating yeast (I’ll fix that in an upcoming patch, okay?).
Also, zippers. She’ll grow a zipper. The whole thing will be reabsorbed postpartum.
The onset of birth will release a whole bunch of opioids and cannabinoids, making the birth process painless, and a little bit trippy (as if it’s not already kind of trippy).
And finally, gestation and birth will be available to men, too.
Only fair, right?
Please direct complaints and prayers in a generally upward direction. All currently known issues will be addressed in an upcoming patch to be released at some future date.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 1:08 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Or to put it another way joey, going off of my previous analogy
You have pooped when you poop…saying that it doesn’t count until it hits water or you flush is absurd.
Anri
3 April 2012 at 1:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
(Emphasis added for incredulity)
Wait, what?
Birth is arbitrary?
Has some sort of Stupid Olympics been going on that I’m unaware of or something? Like a Decathlon of Dumb event?
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 1:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
For one, ableism.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 1:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
For two, practically trying to equivocate pro-choice with “it’s ok to kill babies” is a horrendously stupid idea. Stop “helping”.
julietdefarge
3 April 2012 at 1:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I suggest we ask all politicians who oppose any form of birth control if they were virgins when they married. If not, I’ll expect them to make a tearful confession about how their sluttiness ruined their lives.
When does a fetus become a human? Well, a normal fetus will have enough brain and nervous system development to reach sentience in 26 weeks. It can be aware that it is feeling discomfort. 26 weeks is not viable outside the womb, though. Call me callous, but I think doctors and parents have to establish if a fetus can/should survive to term in each specific case.
KG
3 April 2012 at 1:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To what purpose is Joey arguing? Does he perhaps want to go around killing babies, and thus needs to find a justification for doing so?
twist
3 April 2012 at 1:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey’s argument seems almost like something an anti-choicer who was trying to prove that pro-choicers are in fact evil baby murderers who are secretly just waiting for the chance to bludgeon your toddler to death would come up with. But nah, that can’t be it.
Gen Fury, Still Desolate and Deviant #1
3 April 2012 at 1:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, that “rare” in “Safe, legal, rare” doesn’t work for me either. I, in fact, wish sincerely that abortion was more common. Easier, more affordable and just generally done more – every single child on this planet should be a wanted child.
Having a kid as a punishment (either for opening your legs in the first place or for not meeting some kind of “deadline” while obstacle after obstacle is thrown at you) is, to me, the height of immorality.
Abortion as contraception? I have no problem with this in any way.
However, from what I’ve seen and read, third trimester abortions as contraception? They simply do not exist, and if they DO sometimes slip through, it’s because the woman couldn’t get an abortion earlier. No one goes through 6+ months of pregnancy to just one day wake up and think “Nah, don’t want it after all” and then just skip over to the hospital to get it done.
Even if that *were* to happen, despite all odds and all sense of common sense, chances are better that said woman would go the adoption route at this late stage.
Further, if the late-term abortion is done due to life-threatening complications (which is most often the case), everyone would try to do what’s possible to ensure survival after preterm birth (Steroids, those things they do when they expect a premature birth) – if there’s any possibility for the fetus to be able to live, that is.
That’s what I see the most. Early labours, induced from 6 months up (or emergency c-sectioned) because of severe distress to the mother. However, since every single one of these cases I’ve heard of were for wanted babies, the potential survival of the fetus ex utero also receives a lot of attention in these cases, where time and resources and circumstances permit.
Third trimester abortions? They exist, and are almost without exeption heart-shattering to the prospective parents, since they are almost without exception done in wanted pregnancies where shit went really bad really fast. The kind of circumstances you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.
Third trimester abortions as contraception? Sorry, I don’t believe that this animal exists outside of the fervent imaginings of the death cultists and maybe, I said maybe, in the rare, exceptional case caused by these very same hand-wringers.
Nepenthe
3 April 2012 at 1:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To Ms. Daisy Cutter, in regards to comment 228.
Well played, ma’am. Well played. It made my day to have assisted in that post.
Sincerely,
Nepenthe
Gen Fury, Still Desolate and Deviant #1
3 April 2012 at 1:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
julietdefarge , 272
Actually, I’ll call you the opposite of callous, whatever that is, since this is the only consistently humane and ethical position – I’d only change the “parents” in there to the “pregnant person”, but that’s just coz I nitpick often and well and am hyperaware of the culture of violence and coercion we live in.
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces
3 April 2012 at 1:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Aw, I missed all the fun :(
Louis, I want to marry you and not have any of your babies. However, since you are already married I think I’ll just drop by The OrgyTM and of course the ‘Plex.
Ms. Daisy Cutter, Gynofascist in a Spiffy Hugo Boss Uniform
3 April 2012 at 2:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
/tips hat to Nepenthe
Opposable Thumbs, maybe we can get a group rate at the ‘Plex if we call ahead early enough. Do you like lavender ice cream, or would you prefer Tears of Aborted Unborn Babies flavor?
Akira MacKenzie
3 April 2012 at 2:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Feats of Cats
Heh, probably. I met a comely young female atheist at one of my local freethinker Meet-Up group who I’m quite fond of and lately I’ve been going to her place to watch documentaries (perhaps more, one day, if I can work up the courage to tell her how I feel…but I digress). A few weeks ago we watched “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” which about the MPAA and the slimly right-wing politics behind the rating system. The directors interviewed mentioned that part of the review boards reason to give a couple of their films were given NC-17 was because they featured a female character who was having a “too long” of an orgasm during a sex scene.
Apperently, cinematic blood, guts, and slaughter can get you a PG, but the sight of a woman coming (along with breasts, genitals, and simulated sex acts) is a threat to Western civilization.
joed
3 April 2012 at 2:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@210 Matt Penfold,
“I have never understood this life begins at conception stuff. Conception is not an instantaneous process.”
The word “life” equals the word “soul” to those folks. So, they are saying, At conception the soul enters the body.
It is goofy but to them life=soul.
hypatiasdaughter
3 April 2012 at 2:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
All this “fundamental right to life once conceived, a right that transcends all others’(esp. the woman’s) rights” seems to fly out the window in so many cases.
Like: Treyvon Martin’s, who was an autonomous being who had “fingers and toes and a face and (a) heart beat.” But his right to life got trumped by someone else’s right “to stand his ground”.
Like: African women and children who get infected and die from HIV, because their right to life gets trumped by the greater moral issue of using condoms.
Like: The 150,000 – ???? Iraqis who have died in the 10 year war, fought to overthrow a dictator who was in America’s bad books.
Like: The 3200 inmates on death row in the USA
The “Sacredness of Life” meme bites the dust when someone has a personal need, such as self-defense, protection from criminals or war, that they think trumps it. Taking the higher moral ground in these cases might actually put men and their privileged womenfolk at risk. Putting young women at risk in pregnancy is a gamble these bastards are willing to take.
Eris
3 April 2012 at 2:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
First, please indicate how you intend to prove that an individual organism has said abilities.
Also, I don’t understand why this is an important distinction for you to make. If someone has an infant they cannot or do not wish to care for, they are perfectly capable of dropping the infant off at child protective services. Why is it important to you that people be allowed to kill infants rather than dropping them off somewhere? Because part of the abortion argument is that it isn’t possible to just drop off unwanted zygotes/embryos/fetuses/etc. What would infanticide solve that termination of parental rights can’t?
Gyeong Hwa
3 April 2012 at 2:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I guess you are not aware that abortion rates are higher in those countries where abortion is criminal. As for the immoral part: Look you don’t make any fucking sense. The development of the foetus has absolutely zip to do with morality. You can chose to apply what ever sense of “morality” you want when you’re pregnant, but you are not welcome to make decisions for other women’s body.
joey
3 April 2012 at 2:50 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nerd:
Sorry, I can’t take credit for the argument. Singer and others have formulated it before me.
You think a newly born infant is more rational than an adult dog or cat? I wouldn’t.
Bronze Dog
3 April 2012 at 2:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Another way I look at it: They’re equivocating with “life.”
The zygote has “life” in the way biologists talk about, mixing organic chemicals, and such. They’re “alive” in the same sense that my spleen is alive. It’s a large collection of chemical reactions performed in certain ways.
The other definition is in the sense of having a life: As human beings, we have social, professional, educational, cultural and leisure activities. Those activities are the result of having a well-developed and active brain that performs the processes we use to engage in those activities. A person who loses those parts of his brain can no longer engage in those activities. A brain-dead person is no longer alive in this sense because he no longer has the ability to process thoughts and emotions necessary for those sorts of conscious activities.
They’re trying to conflate simple things like protein coding with the complexities of consciousness.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 2:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey, make your argument as to time and defend it. Or shut the fuck up. Your blathing is pointless at the moment.
Eris
3 April 2012 at 2:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t think anyone cares who came up with the original argument. The issues is that you are currently making the argument, regardless of where you got it from. As such, it is your place to defend the argument that you are making.
joey
3 April 2012 at 2:58 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ING:
How do you define “birth”? Is it when the fetus has a single toe or strand of hair outside the mother? Is it when 51% of the fetus is outside the mother? Is it when the baby’s head is completely out? Is it when the baby takes its first breath? Is it when the umbilical chord is cut? When exactly is the absolute objective moment “birth” happens?
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 3:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
and then there’s male masturbation vs. female masturbation; only one of those gets an NC-17
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 3:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Is it when the baby takes its first breath? Is it when the umbilical chord is cut?The state has it covered. Any or all the above.
Again, you put forward your decision and defend it. We shouldn’t play your inane and fuckwitted game of “what if”.
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls
3 April 2012 at 3:06 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dang, borked the blockquote in #291. First two sentences are Joey’s fuckwittery.
Let’s all make Joey defend his goal. Don’t answer his questions, but keep requiring him to define himself. Which he is is afraid to do.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 3:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Baby in >>> Baby out
Why does this matter? Are there people who actually WANT to kill an infant just before it draws first breath? Is this an actual issue?
Intentional obtuseness does not help your case.
Neither does dodging the actual question. WHY?
I’ve come to the conclusion that joey is an anti-choice asshole who is concern trolling us. Nice try but those tactics are shitty tactics that shitty authoritarian people use because they’re shit.
Ing: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream So I Comment Instead
3 April 2012 at 3:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joeys position apparently hinges on everyone being as dumb as him and by his own argument unable to tell a fetus from infant…and then posing even harder questions to said idiots.
Oh yeah that’s rational.
Dr. Audley Z. Darkheart, purveyor of candy and lies
3 April 2012 at 3:30 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Seriously, I can’t tell what joey is arguing for. Or against.
Birth isn’t a good enough line to establish when personhood occurs, so infaticide is okay? Or is this a shitty “gotcha!” to demonstrate that all abortion is wrong?
For fuck’s sake, notafriend was a sack of shit, but at least they were clear.
joey
3 April 2012 at 3:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
ING:
You never heard of intact dilation and extraction (a.k.a. partial-birth abortions)? Look it up.
If Baby in >>> Baby out, then you must disapprove of such procedures. And yes, these procedures do occur in the real world.
joey
3 April 2012 at 3:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Nerd:
Here you go again simply appealing to whatever the state says.
You know what my state says? That there is no such as gay marriage. So if the state says so, then it must be so…right?
Woo_Monster
3 April 2012 at 3:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
joey, what position do you advocate? Seriously, you’ve been asked countless times. What the fuck are you arguing for? State it plainly or just shut the fuck up already.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 3:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
joey, I’m going to ask you a third time: Do you know what criteria are used to establish someone’s death?
jaranath
3 April 2012 at 3:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey has no interest in describing and defending his position. His purpose here is to scatter a few drive-by potshots and reinforce his sense of moral and intellectual superiority.
Mak
3 April 2012 at 3:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Baby isn’t out during IDX. Notice it isn’t called a “birth abortion”.
Eris
3 April 2012 at 4:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yeah, I’m going to agree with jaranath here.
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
3 April 2012 at 4:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Here Joey. Imma lay it out for you real simple-like, so you can’t pretend any longer that nobody has answered your obvious concern-trolling.
The difference between a fetus and a baby is that you can take the baby away from its mother if she doesn’t want it, and allow someone else to care for it and feed it. You can’t take a fetus away from its mother, though; if you do, it will die. If you do take it away from its mother and it doesn’t die, then guess what! That’s called birth. Premature birth perhaps, but birth nonetheless. The point is that in order to ensure that all blastocysts and embryos have the chance to become babies, you necessarily have to enslave pregnant women to do so. Practically speaking, you would have to institute all sorts of invasive government bureaucracies that would track ovulations and pregnancies, have the power to lock up women who expressed an interest in abortion, and to penalize women who somehow succeeded in breaking the law and getting one (and who managed to survive the process of getting an illegal abortion–maybe you’ve heard that medical procedures tend to be more dangerous when they’re illegal and performed by unlicensed practitioners?). Practically speaking, it would require that the state write off an increase in the mortality rate of pregnant women in favor an increase in the percentage of blastocysts becoming actual babies.
That is, until and unless someone manages to develop an artificial womb, into which a removed embryo or fetus could be deposited until it was sufficiently biologically mature to breathe air and absorb nutrients under its own power.
Anyone who thinks abortion is morally abhorrent, but also believes that having the government track menstruations and imprison women for seeking or getting abortion would be more morally abhorrent, is in fact pro-choice.
There’s nothing in there about endorsing infanticide, so shut the fuck up with your obvious attempts at a “gotcha” moment. that only works with people who are as stupid as Sarah Palin, and that’s not Pharyngulites.
Any questions?
dianne
3 April 2012 at 4:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Practically speaking, it would require that the state write off an increase in the mortality rate of pregnant women in favor an increase in the percentage of blastocysts becoming actual babies.
A small increase in the percentage of blastulocytes becoming babies in return for a large increase in maternal mortality. As I pointed out at the beginning and multiple people have added since, the vast majority of blastulocytes die before or shortly after implantation. And no one in the “pro-life” movement is in the least interested in finding a way to avoid the loss of those “babies.”
timgueguen
3 April 2012 at 4:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Apparently S.M. Stirling is smarter than God. His book Drakon deals with a Drakka, a member of a race of genetically engineered superhumans who conquered the world, who ends up on a late 20th Century Earth parallel to her own, and intends to conquer it. She eventually has a woman act as a surrogate mother for her, and as I remember it the fetus is genetically engineered to have a smaller head, to make childbirth easier.
(Don’t tell Stirling he’s smarter than God. The guy is apparently enough ot a prat without having it encouraged further. Of course he probably believes it already anyways.)
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
3 April 2012 at 4:36 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Well, if we’re talking about the Yahweh of the Bible here, lots of people are smarter than God. The God of the Bible is a fucking dumbass in a lot of ways.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 4:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Joey is expressing himself badly, but he’s right on several counts. If you’re not familiar with Peter Singer’s arguments that might make this hard to follow. Near as I can tell, Joey is trying to say:
1. Using birth as the event that makes the baby non-abortable is arbitrary. It may be a convenient bright line, but it is arbitrary.
2. There’s a very good argument to be made that an adult cat, dog, cow, etc. is a good deal more conscious and self-aware than a just-born human baby. I’m sorry if that makes folks uncomfortable, but it’s true.
3. Because we answer questions about life and death (the blurry ones) by appealing to personhood—consciousness, self-awareness, ability to retain memories, ability to fear potential death, etc.—it’s not insane to argue that newborns aren’t persons.
4. So who are the persons with interests that should weigh more heavily? The living mother, a fully self-conscious being with interests, fear of mortality, maternal feelings (or lack thereof), a web of relationships in society, etc. The infant lacks these.
5. If we actually accept these (I find even those of us who do often can’t get past our emotions) as true infanticide simply does not present as a per se evil.
That’s Singer in a nutshell.
SQB
3 April 2012 at 4:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What Joey may be getting at, is that while life does not begin at conception, there is something there at some point before birth. My definition of life would be presence of brain activity, and that does not begin abruptly at birth.
However, there is something else that does begin at birth and that is autonomous life. Up until that point, the woman has full control over what goes on in her body, and that includes expelling other inhabitants. And I support that, even it that involves ‘killing’† other inhabitants.
† Let’s not mince words. If there is life (although not autonomous life), then the most adequate description of ending that, is ‘killing’.
tl;dr:
Some form of life is likely to be present at some point before birth, however that is — to me — no reason not to be pro-choice.
I’m sure someone else will word this better than I just did.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 4:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
SQB: The concept you’re looking for is personhood. There are a lot of things that are alive but are not persons.
feralboy12
3 April 2012 at 5:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I would say it’s the third time it renews its driver’s license.
Happy now, Joey? It’s the sort of answer you deserve.
SQB
3 April 2012 at 5:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Damn! Haven’t renewed my driver’s license even once! Uh-oh — I’m toast now!
====
Also, thanks Josh, personhood is what I meant.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 5:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Using birth as the event that makes the baby non-abortable is arbitrary. It may be a convenient bright line, but it is arbitrary.
Not entirely. Physiologically, babies are different from fetuses, even babies who were conceived the same number of days ago as the relevant fetus.
Babies are, obviously, born. They are no longer dependent on a specific person to provide them with oxygen, glucose, and other necessities of life. So they are not obligate parasites the way fetuses are.
In addition to that huge issues, fetuses are physiologically different. Their circulatory systems are different. Their hearts are different. A baby with a large PDA is often in trouble, a fetus without a PDA definitely is. Blood pumps through the umbilical vessels in a fetus, but not in a newborn. Most significantly, a fetus exists in a low oxygen environment. We know that adults and children in a low oxygen environment lose consciousness rapidly. There is no particular reason to believe that fetuses are more able to maintain consciousness in a low oxygen environment than people. Therefore, it is extremely likely that a fetus is not conscious, but a newborn may be.
If an adult were to become brain damaged to the point that they would never recover consciousness, few people (apart from the occasional “pro-lifer”) would object to “pulling the plug”, i.e. to allowing that person to die. Why, then, should we be all that concerned with the death of a fetus that has never experienced consciousness? It will suffer no more than if it had never been conceived. A baby, on the other hand, has experienced at least some level of awareness (though it is true that babies can’t pass the mirror test at birth or indeed until about 15-18 months) and killing it is a much more morally questionable act, even leaving aside the issue of the trauma killing an infant would do to related people.
Therefore, I would argue that the bright line of birth is not arbitrary but is, in fact, sensible.
unbound
3 April 2012 at 5:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@307 –
1) Birth is not really arbitrary. It is the point which the fetus was fully integrated with the female becomes separate and functions independently. The newly born infant is no longer linked to the mother. I really don’t understand how that would be considered arbitrary…there is reason behind designating this event which is the polar opposite of arbitrary.
2) So what? It is completely irrelevant that something might be more self-aware or more conscious.
3) Invalidating the independent life just because something may be more self-aware is about as poor of an argument as I can imagine. Is someone that is developmentally delayed less of a person?
4) The mother’s interest as being the independent person will have priority over the fetus that may or may not become an independent person.
5) Since the prior arguments are largely nonsense, I call non sequitur.
opposablethumbs, que le pouce enragé mette les pouces
3 April 2012 at 5:15 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ms Daisy Cutter, I love lavender ice-cream. Maybe we could have a fricassée of Aborted Unborn Babies as a restorative mid-OrgyTM snack, with lavender ice-cream for dessert?
PS just wanted to QFT this from Cuttlefish #15:
No-one can be forced to donate an organ, let alone lend their entire body and risk their health against their will (eh, not even if the technology ever became available to hook up the forced-birthers/MRAs for use as involuntary life-support systems …)
Azkyroth
3 April 2012 at 5:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Key word: CHOSE.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 5:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dianne, it simply does not make sense that a baby five minutes outside the birth canal is as different as you claim it is from one five minutes earlier. Unless I’m misunderstanding you, I don’t believe what you’re saying.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 5:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Unbound – I don’t even know how to respond to you because you didn’t actually dispute my arguments. You just called them absurd. Do I have to write in all caps for you to understand that what’s arbitrary about choosing birth as the line is that it’s the choosing itself? That the baby isn’t fundamentally different than it was an hour earlier while still in utero? That there’s nothing that makes it more of a “person” by my criteria simply by having passed out of the birth canal?
raven
3 April 2012 at 5:26 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So what.
Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and George Bush were here to kill millions and screw up millions of lives because their mothers didn’t choose to have abortions.
These sort of meaningless statements are what really stupid people come up with.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 5:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dianne, I respect you as a great commenter, so I’m surprised to see this kind of thing from you:
The first part is patently ridiculous. So the baby has coughed and opened its eyes. That all of a sudden makes it a “much more morally questionable act?” That doesn’t follow. At all. I think it just makes you squeamish.
As for the second part, how in the world did you read my post and imagine I didn’t account for that? How did you manage to not notice that I talked about the mother’s interests. Yes, we both agree that the trauma to other people is a serious concern. Did you actually think I was positing that it would be morally acceptable to kill an infant that actual persons had vested connections with? Do I really seem that stupid to you?
A. R
3 April 2012 at 5:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh: Are you suggesting that it’s not a person until it reaches a certain state of cognitive development?
dianne
3 April 2012 at 5:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh, if we sent you up a few thousand meters in an unpressurized airplane, you’d lose consciousness due to hypoxia. Generally, if oxygen saturation goes below 80-85%, people start having loss of consciousness. Fetuses exist in a low oxygen state, with a pO2 of about 25-30 mmHg (about 70% saturation). Unless I’m screwing up the gas dynamics (very possible), this should mean that the fetus does not have enough oxygen to maintain consciousness.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 5:35 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If I may, could I ask how you feel about the following pontifications / arguments / questions?
I think first, as a matter of principle, we have to agree that the primary moral concern is to promote the well-being of conscious creatures (including people), and to prevent/stop the suffering of conscious creatures. Next, as a matter of facts, suffering and well-being requires a mind, and a mind requires a brain. Thus, one consequence is that no (functioning) brain implies no moral rights. As many others in the thread rightly noted, this is the usual goto definition for demarking the end of human life w.r.t. moral rights.
So, next is Roe Vs Wade. It is unreasonable to demand conscription of a mother’s body to care for another member of society. I agree with this simple argument quite readily (with possibly a couple of caveats).
So, I guess my main question is: if we determine that a late term fetus is “aware” or “conscious” to sufficient degree to grant some moral rights, is it morally permissible to allow a woman to chose to allow the fetus to grow in her for some time, but then later change her mind? Let me try to elaborate.
I think we’re all on board with outlawing the killing of born babies. It’s my very limited knowledge that the awareness, the ability to suffer pain, etc., between an infant and a fetus is small as to be negligible for this discussion. (Though one post else-thread has questioned this. Can you provide any sources please? I’m curious now.) So, the only reason to allow the killing of an almost indistinguishable infant is to prevent the harm, the conscription, of the unwilling mother’s body. My … sticking point, my inherent question, is whether this is justifiable to let the woman wait so long to make the decision. The longer the woman waits, the more she risks killing a conscious or “more conscious” creature.
Some might say that sex carries consent to carry the baby to term. I’m dubious of that claim. However, what I feel is a stronger argument is that after X months (say 3 or 6), the mother knows if she’s pregnant, and failure to get an abortion in a “timely” manner carries consent to carry the fetus to birth. (Of course, barring mother’s health issues, which are legit.) I’m not against the Roe Vs Wade argument. I think that I’m against allowing someone 1- to notice a leech leeching them, a leech which has no moral rights, but which will eventually gain moral rights, and 2- to decide not to remove the leech now, and 3- to later remove and kill the leech which has since gained moral rights. I think this is a reasonable and quite small restriction on a woman’s autonomy, liberty, and citizenship to prevent what I might consider the involuntary ending of an innocent conscious creature’s life.
~prepares for incoming porcupines~
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 5:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not suggesting it, I’m stating it candidly. But you know what? I can’t have this conversation here I’ve realized. If one hasn’t read philosopher Peter Singer on this issue it’s pointless. Because I know exactly where you’re going – “what about mentally retarded people? What about developmentally delayed people—it’s OK to kill them????” No. But you won’t get it because you don’t have the same reading under your belt. All these horrible things you imagine flow as consequences from my position don’t actually, and they have been accounted for. But it requires me to walk you through them and the associated fallacies step by step, and I’m not willing to do that.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 5:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Not that the asshole needs a response at this point, but I’m only here to tell any tales thanks to a centuries-old process of nation-building that included genocide, war, colonialism, internment, and the state-appropriation of land.
Does that mean I have no right to argue against these things by right of my existence?
I don’t think we are.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 5:39 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Jesus Fucking Christ. This is exactly why I shouldn’t have had this conversation. You haven’t read Singer either, have you Dianne?
There’s much more to personhood than mere consciousness. I’m not so goddamned stupid and ethically moronic as you appear to think I am.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 5:41 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Could you explain further please? Are you in favor of killing born babies on a whim? Who is?
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 5:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
And the thread devolves into an embarrassing pit of emotional arguments and loaded terms.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 5:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ack. Proofreading fail. “an almost indistinguishable late term *fetus*”, not infant.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 5:47 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh: I find it hard to take Peter Singer seriously after Animal Liberation. But let’s not derail this thread with that argument.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 5:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I hope there was a car coming down the road, because I cannot imagine you had any better reason for shifting the goalposts from “We’re not all on board with outlawing the killing of born babies” to asking “Are you in favor of killing born babies on a whim?”
But since you asked, I’ll respond in kind:
What the fuck is a whim, and how do I get on one?
dianne
3 April 2012 at 5:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
So the baby has coughed and opened its eyes.
Coughed, opened its eyes, and breathed oxygen rich air, instead of getting its oxygen second hand and in low amounts through the placental circulation. That, IMHO, is the potentially critical difference between a fetus and a baby.
Did you actually think I was positing that it would be morally acceptable to kill an infant that actual persons had vested connections with? Do I really seem that stupid to you?
Of course you don’t and I apologize for the implication!
SC (Salty Current), OM
3 April 2012 at 5:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Heh. *clenched-tentacle salute*
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 5:52 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Brownian
I’m sorry Brownian, I did mean to use the two phrases interchangeably. I don’t mean to be moving goalposts. I admit – I can’t think of a legitimate plausible reason offhand to justify the killing of a born baby, but I don’t want to derail the discussion of questions / arguments over this silliness.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 5:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@dianne
Interesting, I’ve never heard of this before. Is kicking in the womb some sort of … reflex reaction?
I guess this raises the interesting point that I usually like to dodge as irrelevant, but it’s not irrelevant here.
Suppose a man in a coma in my world view still has moral rights. However, suppose he was born in a coma, and never achieved what we call conventional consciousness and awareness. Are you arguing that he doesn’t have moral rights? I’m not sure I can agree quite so readily. I’ll have to think on it.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 5:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s much more to personhood than mere consciousness.
Hmm…I’m not sure we’re talking about the same thing. What criteria are you using to describe someone/something as having personhood?
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 6:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fair enough. I, on the other hand, given some intractible incompatibility between another life and a newborn (think trolley problems) don’t see why it should never be justifiable, using consciousness and experience as one possible measure for ranking lives. And trolley problem-type moral calculi were one justification for infanticide in our forager past, though my thoughts are less clear on the problem.
What I did mean, though, was that it’s clear from this discussion (to me at least) that we’re not universal here in condemning infanticide.
It would appear that I have some Singer to read.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 6:02 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Thank you. I am a dumbass, though, for forgetting this. It’s like having to do Feminism 101 each time. Reasonable people can make arguments against Singer’s view or what I’m presenting, but not if they don’t even know what the arguments actually are they think they’re disputing. “Killing babies” is, I gather, so powerful an emotional trigger that the most rational people lose their ability to engage in logic. It may well be the only impossible conversation.
John Morales
3 April 2012 at 6:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
LFAAPN: As dianne has noted, parturition changes a fetus into a neonate; that’s a pretty clear and definitive transition.
dianne: I don’t like the “potentially critical [physiological] difference” distraction; I think the physical separation is enough.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:05 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
True.
As do I.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 6:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Me as well, though right off the bat we can differentiate between different sorts of rights: i.e. Am I, as part of the state, responsible for keeping him alive, and if so for how long? vs. Can I use the body to satisfy my sexual urges?
One seems more clear cut than another.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 6:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I know it’s probably utterly impossible, but can any of you at least try to grok that the question isn’t whether a physical transition happened. That the question is is that relevant to a moral calculation and why?. Note that you cannot answer that question by continuing to describe the ways in which this physical transition manifests.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 6:09 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Suppose a man in a coma in my world view still has moral rights.
IMHO, it depends on what you mean by “in a coma”. A person who is unconscious can be so for reasons ranging from s/he just had surgery and is under general anesthesia still to his/her brain has been eaten by kuru. Obviously, saving the first person should take precedence over saving the second.
It’s generally established medical ethical practice to give relatives of patients who are in a persistent vegetative state with no reversible cause the option of “pulling the plug” i.e. withdrawing care and allowing the person to die. If the thinking part of the brain is gone but the brainstem is still active, the person isn’t actually dead yet, but they are essentially unable to function as people again.
However, suppose he was born in a coma, and never achieved what we call conventional consciousness and awareness. Are you arguing that he doesn’t have moral rights?
I’d argue that such a person would have few moral rights. Indeed, an anencephalic baby is considered a potential organ donor, i.e. is treated as being dead despite the beating heart, fingers, and toes or whatever else the right appeals to to try to make abortion seem evil.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yes, but if you take the view that I do that the primary concern is about human suffering and human well-being (or more generally the suffering and well-being of conscious creatures), then it seems to be an irrelevant point – unless of course I was wrong and that birth actually gives the baby its first moment of awareness / consciousness. That raises all other sorts of hairballs in my world view.
I’m still more interesting in my basic proposition that: If you notice a leech leaching you which currently has no moral rights, and you know that sometime in the future it will gain consciousness and thus moral rights, is it morally permissible to chose to not remove and kill it now, wait until it gains consciousness and moral rights, and then chose to remove and kill it? Barring some sort of other mitigating circumstances, I think not. In fact, I think it’s evil to make those choices, and that the state ought to act to prevent such actions.
Of course, this may not be a fair description of fetuses and babies, given the suggestions about oxygen content before and after birth.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 6:11 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh: But linking the physiological transition to a neuropsychological one does create a moral boundary. I’ve always seen that as one of Singer’s faults.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:12 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@dianne
Yeah, we recognize that there is a “level” of a mind that doesn’t require conventional normal awake consciousness. At least, I think that’s the consensus we two have. A sleeping person still has rights. A man in a coma which isn’t persistent vegitative still has right. I’m trying to get at if you think that merely being “unconscious” due to lack of oxygen before birth would void all moral considerations for a fetus. Do you?
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 6:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t think this has to be the case. I can tell you why I don’t have that emotional trigger*, and it’s because I was exposed to the concept of infanticide as a necessary method of child spacing† used by forager groups when I did my anthropology degree.
Fuck, does that sound pretentious. Sorry.
*There are probably other contributing factors. I like babies less than kittens, for instance.
†It’s not the only one, of course. But for forager groups, there’s no fucking about with the concept of ‘potential’: if you cannot support more than one child at the age of helpless dependence, you sacrifice it in favour of older ones who’ve already survived the riskiest period of infant mortality. In a lifestyle where age and experience increase your likelihood of living longer, infants are at the lowest rung of the ladder. It’s the only sensible solution.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
If there is no part of “the mind” surviving (a neurological question), then I argue no obligation. It’s when there is a mind still there that things get tricky IMHO. It’s the same for government health care in general. Sadly, resources are finite, and there is only finite things we can do for other people. In principle, eventually the moral choice is to let someone die so we can help others live. In practice? I haven’t the faintest clue.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 6:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Needs demonstration and explication. You are also ignoring all the other factors that go into whether an entity is a person. Are you seriously claiming that a five-second-old infant is capable of fearing death, for example? That it even knows what anything is beyond hunger?
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 6:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Tell me you just didn’t imply that Guvmint Health Care is likely to let people die who shouldn’t otherwise. Tell me you didn’t just imply that the private health insurance system is to be trusted not to do that, despite that it does it every damned day.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 6:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That the question is is that relevant to a moral calculation and why?
Ok, here’s a simple reason why it’s relevant to the moral calculation:
Before birth the fetus is parasitic on a person who may not consent to being parasitized. To force her to continue to support the parasite would be to give it rights far beyond those given to any living person under any other circumstance. No one can be forced to donate the use of their body or any body part to another person under any other circumstance, even if they have previously agreed to do so.
For example, suppose I got leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. You were in the registry and are a match for me. Indeed, the only match for me. Preliminary testing shows that you’re healthy and able to tolerate the procedure. You take neupogen to stimulate your marrow and get hooked up to the pheresis machine to remove the stem cells needed for transplant. About half way through the procedure, you suddenly remember this argument and decide I don’t deserve your cells. You say, “Stop! I don’t want to donate any more!” What happens then?
The answer is, the procedure is stopped. Even though I’ll die. Even though you agreed to give me the stem cells earlier. Even though you are healthy and the risk is extremely low. And you’d be 100% within your rights to do so. No one should under any circumstances be forced to give up their bodies to another person.
After birth, it’s a baby that can be tossed to any competent adult and indeed a lot of competent children to be raised and come out at least half way decent.
That’s THE most relevant point: the transformation of the fetus from parasite to free living baby. John Morales is quite right that the question of personhood is a distraction. Even if the fetus could be proven to be a “person” (whatever that means, exactly), it still would not have the right to use another person’s body for its benefit without her consent.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:22 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Josh, Official SpokesGay
Dude, no. Hair triggers here. Sorry, I’ll try to be less vague in the future.
No no no. I argued that we can’t save everyone. This is true of a person in a coma, and this is true for health care in general, government provided or privately provided or whatever. You can’t spend the entire world’s GDP to get a cure for some obscure disease that only one person has. It’s not moral.
That was my only point.
It’s unreasonable IMHO to require great expenditures of money to keep someone in a coma alive, or someone not in a coma alive. What constitutes “great expenditures” is a matter of public discussion IMHO.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 6:23 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t think Looking For An Applicable Political Name was implying that, but instead arguing from a “What is society’s responsibility in such cases?” and used government health care as a concrete.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@dianne
tl;dr
Again, do you think it’s morally permissible to notice a leech leaching on you, to know it has no mind but will soon develop one, to not remove and kill it now, and to later remove and kill it after it develops a mind? That’s my basic question.
Whether it applies to fetuses and babies is one for neurology to answer, for which I’m quite ill prepared to discuss at the moment.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 6:25 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Absolutely. fMRI studies (will link when I find it again) indicate that newborns show heightened activity in the amygdala when threatened with unknown situations. Whether this is a reflex or genuine fear is unknown. But where is your “bright line?” Is it a certain form of brain activity? Is it the infant’s relationships with it’s surrounding community of people?
consciousness razor
3 April 2012 at 6:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
joey was doing the same shit last week about free will… He was vaguely on the “right” side of the argument, but making a dumbed-down version of it I’d expect from a fucking cartoon character. I’ll be charitable and give him an E for effort, but a big fat F for noncomprehension and lack of clarity. Please let Singer and others make the argument if you can’t avoid fucking it up.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:31 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I fundamentally disagree. I can name several counterexamples offhand: taxes, the draft, jury duty, jail.
Do you mean to split hairs over the exact meaning of “give up their bodies to another person”?
dianne
3 April 2012 at 6:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Again, do you think it’s morally permissible to notice a leech leaching on you, to know it has no mind but will soon develop one, to not remove and kill it now, and to later remove and kill it after it develops a mind?
I can’t imagine why that would ever come up in real life. If you’re pregnant long enough for it to even questionably apply to a fetus then you need to sue your OB because you needed an induction a loooong time ago.
That being said, I think the most morally correct thing to do, if you don’t want the leech on you is to remove it as soon as possible. That’s also the most sensible and instinctive thing to do. In the embryo/fetus context, how does it make any sense that someone would live through 9 months of nausea, abdominal pain, and fatigue and then get an abortion if they could get one at 7 weeks and avoid a lot of pain and suffering?
However, what if one were prevented from removing the leech earlier? Suppose there are leech removal wait times or leech removal is not covered by your Catholic employers’ insurance carrier or there is only one leech removal expert in your state and s/he’s hundreds of miles away? Then you have the right to remove the leech at any time that you can do so and any immorality involved is on the part of the people who prevented you from removing it sooner, not on your part.
Still tl?
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@dianne
Ack, that was meant to apply to my post. I trimmed down my basic question.
Otherwise, I think we’re mostly in agreement. I’m too ignorant to know when the fetus actually gets a mind – again a question for neurology. Let’s suppose it happens after 6 months. We can agree that you know if you’re pregnant before 6 months. Thus abortions out to be illegal after 6 months, barring mother’s health issues, or bullshit w.r.t. Catholic church provided care et. al. Is that a fair assessment of the consensus? If so, I have no complaints, and my question is answered.
Well, I fibbed a bit just there. When is it reasonable to assume / require that a woman knows she’s pregnant? Is 3 months too early?
John Morales
3 April 2012 at 6:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
LFAAPN:
You quite sure about that?
dianne
3 April 2012 at 6:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I can name several counterexamples offhand: taxes, the draft, jury duty, jail.
The draft has gone away and I agree it was completely immoral. Taxes and jury duty don’t require you to give up any part of your body for the use of another person. At least, I know of no country in which your taxes could be “$10,212.34, two pints of blood, and one kidney”. Jail is more equivocal, but even there, as far as I know, no country requires a person to, say, give up a kidney as punishment for an assault that caused the victim to lose a kidney. I’m pretty sure the Supreme Court would have something nasty to say about such a requirement, in the US.
When I think about it, there did used to be laws in the US and probably still are elsewhere which required people to allow other people to use their bodies. Specifically, marriage laws which allowed one spouse (guess which one, typically) to force the other to have sex with them. I don’t think much of their morality either.
Anri
3 April 2012 at 6:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Are we still trying to get joey to actually say what he’s arguing for?
Can we conclude, at least tentatively, that he doesn’t have any ideas and just likes making metaphorical mud pies to throw in his own face?
Really, joey, take a position and defend it or stop pretending you’re doing anything more mature than “But WHY? Nuh-UH! But WHY? Nuh-UH! But WHY? Nuh-UH! But WHY? Nuh-UH! But WHY? Nuh-UH!”
…which we can get out of any passing three year old. (The difference being that the three year old will eventually outgrow it.)
echidna
3 April 2012 at 6:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hailing from Melbourne as I do, I have been exposed to Peter Singer’s arguments for some decades now. Having said that, I am not a philosopher, nor have I studied him per se.
FWIW, my understanding of the underpinnings of Peter Singers arguments go something like this: the job of philosophers is to examine the logical framework by which we make decisions, particularly life and death decisions, for internal consistency, without giving special regard to existing social conventions. It’s that last part that leaves people gasping, for the most part.
I’ve never heard him advocating human infanticide: quite the opposite: if we draw the line at human infanticide, what are our grounds for treating animals without anything like similar consideration? He does of course talk about the idea that the quality of life is an important consideration, not just the existence of life itself. For example, Alzheimers sufferers (like his mother) have lost so much, that if forces the consideration of whether at some point life itself is not worth sustaining.
My own thoughts now: as background, it is probably useful to recognise that cultures all over the world have accepted infanticide as a reasonable and necessary action during times of scarce resources to preserve the ability of the group to survive. Australian aboriginal tribes kept very strict control of numbers, allowing new children to the group only when a member died. Eskimos similarly sacrificed babies when the group was in danger of starving. No human group is so distant historically, from infanticide and even cannibalism, that we can claim that our current view that existing human life (i.e. from birth to death) is precious is inviolable.
If we do, does that mean that we condemn people for population control in whatever way they can manage for the survival of the group as being immoral? Whose morality? The idea of infanticide being immoral seems to have arisen when there was a constant food supply that an agrarian culture can provide, but not before then.
Anri
3 April 2012 at 6:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh:
How does Singer differentiate between a newborn and a sleeping adult? Not a gotcha, I’m curious.
If it’s too involved, then don’t worry ’bout it.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 6:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Exactly. Perhaps this was due to the need for farm assistants? Same reasons for the construction of the patriarchy.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 6:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
People really should read the Singer. I’m sorry, but I’m just not motivated to do it for you.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 6:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Ack, that was meant to apply to my post. I trimmed down my basic question.
Heh. I’m kind of verbose so it could well apply to my posts.
We can agree that you know if you’re pregnant before 6 months.
I’ve heard of exceptions. They’re rare, but not incredibly so.
Thus abortions out to be illegal after 6 months, barring mother’s health issues, or bullshit w.r.t. Catholic church provided care et. al.
I don’t entirely agree. While I think that on a practical level if abortion were readily available and cheap/free in the first 3-4 months of pregnancy and one removes from consideration medically necessary abortions that the number of abortions performed after 4 months would be negligible. However, in principle, I think that the pregnant woman should always have the right to remove an unwanted fetus in the way that is safest and most acceptable to her.
That having been said, I would be reasonably happy with laws that restricted non-medically necessary abortions to, say, 20 weeks and earlier, if I thought that it would end there. For example, I’d be reasonably happy if the US compromised on the question by instituting Holland’s abortion laws. But in the current political climate in the US, any compromise will inevitably lead to further restrictions and a generally more Romania like country.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 6:55 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You know what Josh, don’t try to make the argument unless you are willing to explain it. That’s what trolls do.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 6:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@dianne
Curious, I can agree with most of that reasoning, or at least call it plausible, but not the draft. Why is the draft immoral? It seems like a classic freerider problem. Of course, we can argue whether particular wars are unjust, but are you trying to argue that war is always unjust? I will politely disagree with the strict pacifist viewpoint as self defeating, stupid, suicidal, and immoral. “All it takes for evil to flourish is good men to do nothing.”
Still, going back to your other points, this decision that 1- requiring labor is ok (taxes) but 2- forced blood donation (for example) is never ok, seems without basis. I try to focus on the well-being and suffering of people, and this seems to be an example of the so called libertarian ideology of “don’t mess with me, leave me alone” or whatever (appropriate) (non)caricature is popular around here.
If I could cure all cancer by forcing monthly forced blood donation for everyone, I would vote for that. This seems like an exceedingly easy moral question. Admittingly, it is rather divorced from the real world because such situations simply don’t present themselves. Money spent on blood drives seem to do enough to get enough blood. Taking a kidney isn’t a simple blood transfusion and does terribly impact your quality of life. Still, I reject your simplistic superlative universal.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 6:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
People really should read the Singer.
I’ve tried. Really, I have. I’ve never been able to get past his argument that it’s immoral to kill animals but ok to kill some humans. What about our rights as animals? Maybe I never got in deeply enough to get to the good stuff, but Singer just never made much sense to me.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 7:00 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Go fuck yourself. I’ve been explicit and detailed, but there’s a limit. I’m not obligated to look up the text to explain someone else’s question about what Peter Singer would say. Are you mad?
You don’t want to start shit with me, A.R. You don’t have near enough capital here for that and I’m a nasty opponent.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Also, to dianne 366. Thanks. Makes perfect sense. This might be one of the first times I’ve engaged in discussion with a “rabidly” pro-choice side (as I usually engage with my usual opponents of the pro-life side), and I’m thankful to say that I came back from a quite reasonable person making quite reasonable demands. Just wanted to say thanks for that, for proving the stereotype wrong that between two strongly vocal camps the truth lies in the middle.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 7:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Fuck you Josh –> Killfile.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 7:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dianne, I’m not trying to be caustic, but that’s a ridiculous and embarrassing misunderstanding. Either you haven’t made it to the end of an essay, or you’ve got (which I suspect) an emotional reaction that’s heavily filtering stuff. You think authors are saying things they’re not saying, you’re reducing complex arguments to strawmen (and you’re super intelligent so I know it’s not that you can’t understand them).
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 7:03 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
W00t! My second killfile!
dianne
3 April 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why is the draft immoral?
While I think that there’s an argument to be made for pacifism as a first line of defense, that’s not the argument I intended to make by calling the draft immoral.
A draft forces a person to fight, to put his/her body on the line for the state. A volunteer military fighting for its country is a much more reasonable and moral way to go, if you intend to use violence to make your political point (or defend yourself from someone making theirs with violence.)
Taking a kidney isn’t a simple blood transfusion and does terribly impact your quality of life.
Fun fact: Kidney donation and completion of pregnancy have similar mortality rates. Kidney donation is still slightly more dangerous at about 30 deaths per 100,000 versus 14-15 for an average risk pregnancy.
echidna
3 April 2012 at 7:07 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Dianne,
I’ve got a lot of respect for Singer, and have always enjoyed his talks and articles. Because his arguments don’t pander much to social norms, the trick, I think, is to keep the question “is this internally consistent?” uppermost, rather than “do I agree with this?”, and set aside judgement until you have had time to think about his arguments. Is he actually wrong, or is he just seeing it all differently?
BTW, this suspension of belief, with a different author, was very useful for me in coming to realise that Christianity was a house of cards.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:10 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@dianne
I think we’re mostly quibling over semantics, which is usually my favorite kind of disagreement because it’s no disagreement at all. I agree that war is the last resort, and that a legitimately volunteer fighting force is morally better than a drafted force. I disagree that a drafted force is never morally acceptable – in principle. I am not an adept enough stupid of history to say whether even the prototypical example of WW2, to end Naziism, is a justifiable case. I lean towards “yes the draft was justified in WW2″, but I fear porcupines from all sides for my ignorance of history.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 7:13 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Eh, perhaps I’ll have to read Singer again, if only to dissect his arguments.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:14 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I don’t owe my body to anyone, and not to the state either. Slavery, even temporary slavery, is a violation of one of the most basic human rights.
Economic free-riding OTOH is remedied by making a society pay for making the lives of volunteers as free from need and want as possible.
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 7:16 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
On the day that abortions are freely available, upon demand and without stigma, no strings attached, no questions asked, for any and every woman pregnant for less than X months (be it 3 or 6 or whatever), anywhere and everywhere, and the period from demand to actual access to and completion of the procedure is absolutely guaranteed to be less than X months, be it 3 or 6 or whatever. On that day the above argument may be legitimately discussed.
Until that day, it isn’t relevant.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:17 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
Politely disagreed. I doubt we’ll get anywhere on this, but at least let me ask: “What do you prefer? The draft, or Nazis ruling the world?”. Perhaps it’s not a legitimate characterization of the facts of WW2, but that’s not the point. What if it was?
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:18 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
because circumstances never change, eh? it never happens that having and raising a child seems like a good idea at 2 months, but like a dire mistake and unbearable burden on everyone involved at 4 months.
idiot.
dianne
3 April 2012 at 7:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
OTOH, kidney donation and pregnancy after age 35 have almost exactly the same mortality and pregnancy is more dangerous than kidney donation for a black woman.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:19 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
what difference does it make whether I’m killed by my government against my will because it wants me to fight a war, or because it thinks I’m too jewish?
Azkyroth
3 April 2012 at 7:20 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
….um, yeah, no shit?
SallyStrange: bottom-feeding, work-shy peasant
3 April 2012 at 7:21 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Josh DID explain Singer’s arguments, quite succinctly I might add.
Azkyroth
3 April 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Why even ask?
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:24 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Sorry, new person, new discussion. Let’s go back to basics. So, you do think that you can 1- notice a leech leaching you that is not conscious, but soon will be conscious, 2- decide not to remove and kill it, and 3- later decide to remove and kill it on a whim after it’s gained consciousness?
Sure, we can play the circumstances game all day, and I’m curious how that will end, but I don’t like you calling me an “idiot” and thereby dismiss this entire point, thereby stating you do think it’s morally permissible. I think that’s reprehensible, honestly.
To use an example else-thread. Suppose you voluntarily decide to do a kidney transplant for a friend. You are right that in my world view you can legally, and to some extent partially morally, decide at the very last minute to not go through with it, even if that means the recipient is going to die because there’s no time to find another donor. I say legal, but morally this is dubious at best. In fact, I’m tempted to characterize this hypothetical not-donor as an asshole.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:27 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I have nothing to say to such amazing stupidity and selfishness.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
yes.
it’s my fucking body, asshole. It means I legally get to be an asshole to people depending on its parts for survival. I’m legally allowed to deny a kidney or bone marrow to my adult child, even it it will kill that child. Because the alternative is slavery.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 7:28 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Indeed, he does give an (excessively concise) explanation earlier. He then goes on to complain that anyone who hasn’t read Singer can’t fully understand the argument he is making. Sounds like a variant of the Courtier’s reply to me.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:29 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
so you don’t have an answer, you just “know” that forcing people to die in one of these ways is “bad”, and in the other way is “good”.
you’re out of your fucking depth here.
echidna
3 April 2012 at 7:32 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
False dichotomy. Australians fought WWII without the draft. Having a draft just encourages the powers-that-be to treat soldiers as expendable. Remember always that the USA shot its own veterans on July 28, 1932, and went on to draft for WWII. Only this time, they needed the GI bill to prevent social unrest.
You could even speculate that its taken till now to wind back the rise of the middle class that arose from that bill.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
You fucking asshat.
Did it ever occur to your small and self centered brain that maybe, just maybe, the people in the concentration camps in Germany and elsewhere may be quite happy and better off because of your sacrifice? Or the billions of people to be born after? Or even your own sorry excuse of a person when they find out you’re an atheist? “Oh no”, you say, “god forbid I’m compelled to fight for the lives of myself and billions of other people in the world. That would be slavery!”
Fuck you.
consciousness razor
3 April 2012 at 7:33 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
That’s not how it works. I want neither, because not issuing a draft does not entail Nazis ruling the world.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:34 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
irrelevant to your argument that abortion after a point should be illegal.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Perhaps, but it’s insane and suicidal to decide that, in the face of overwhelming odds, to decide against the draft for these reasons. Your argument really is “There could not be a situation where the draft or no-draft would be the deciding factor between the moral side winning or losing a war against a morally bankrupt group, like Nazi Germany”. I think the argument is patently absurd.
Now, as a matter of practical geopolitics, I admit that perhaps today the draft is a bad idea, and it’s not needed to prevent a hypothetical Nazi Germany. Still, it remains in the realm of plausibility that sometime in the near or far future, a war could erupt where the moral side find themselves losing for want of more soldiers, and the draft could remedy that.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 7:37 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Hmm, we would appear to have Godwinned out.
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 7:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
No it is not morally dubious AT ALL. It is morally COMPLETELY NORMAL.
Going through with the kidney transplant is ABOVE AND BEYOND the requirements of normal morality. It is an act of heroism, and is rightly celebrated. But it is NOT ethically right or fair to REQUIRE or COMPEL anyone to be a hero. Nor is it ethically justifiable to sanction anyone for failing to be a hero.
The asshole status of this hypothetical not-donor depends COMPLETELY on the reason why he chooses to back out at the last minute. If it is because he was afraid of the medical risks to his own life, then he is NOT.
Choosing to become a mother is a heroic act. It should be celebrated (and it is!). But no woman should ever be compelled to become a mother.
linevincent
3 April 2012 at 7:38 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
#4
Then you admit gays are also created by God.
Then you admit the death penalty is wrong because man has no right to take a life.
And re
“If you don’t want a child, either use a condom or abstain from sex.”
I assume you are talking to women.
What about the husband that is determined to have sex and not listen to your objections?
Why are women always singled out for guilt?
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
To be fair, isn’t Godwin when someone compares a participant in the conversation to Naziism? I merely used Naziism as a convenient stereotypical evil. I think there’s a difference there. I could go a step further if need be and use baby-eating Nazi vampires ala Hellsing. I don’t know much that’s closer to universally reviled than that. ~smile~
consciousness razor
3 April 2012 at 7:40 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Look at the bolded part closely, asshole. Then check out the italicized part.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
precious. except this isn’t about me, and I’m not being “selfish” for pointing out that dead is dead, and forced to die is forced to die. No matter that one of these forced deaths is considered the epitome of evil in our society, while the other is considered acceptable.
And in any case, did it maybe occur to you that the people who were sent against their will to fight in wars and died there also would have been quite happy if a small part of Europe would have sacrificed itself so they wouldn’t have to have fought that war and died in it?
22 million soldiers died in that war.
and in any case, “your sacrifice” implies choice. what you meant to say is: “your government sacrificing you”.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:42 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Amphiox
I think you missed a subtly in my argument. It’s voluntary, even heroic, to offer a kidney. It’s a total asshat move to offer it, then take it back at the last moment offering the recipient no time to find another potential donor. I argue it’s morally reprehensible, far worse than not offering in the first place.
I then left an implicit analogy to offering a leech residence in your body, only to remove it at a future time. Of course, the analogy is weak, as I think “gaining consciousness” or “more consciousness” is an important part of my argument.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 7:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Despite the fact that Jadehawk does not make such claims without thinking such things through, slavery is still fucking slavery no matter how many people it benefits.
By the way, the technical term for what you just pulled is argument ad captandum. You are out of your depth. Reel it back.
Azkyroth
3 April 2012 at 7:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
You know, breasts and a vagina and uterus probably ARE the only parts of a woman’s body he realizes exists.
Sick.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:43 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@consciousness razor
I’m sorry – what point are you trying to make?
linevincent
3 April 2012 at 7:44 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
What if the test or echography show at 7 months the fetus has no brain?
Some tests take a lot of time to get results.
Especially when antichoice terrirists do all they can to make prenatal tests impossible.
And then they defund homes for the handicapped because “State is too big”.
Ah, clumps of cells have to be protected at all costs (even the woman’s death. Ever heard of ectopic pregnancies?). After they are born, they can go fly a kite. If they have arms, of course.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“the moral side”?
we are talking about war. there is no “moral side”, there’s only more or less morally fucked up sides. and the side that forces the most of its people to die against their will is the less moral one.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:45 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Brownian
@PZ
Thus, no. You can fuck off too if you are defending your right to not be drafted if that’s the deciding factor between Nazis ruling the world vs not.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*rolleyes*
linevincent
3 April 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
“The primary function of a woman is to reproduce. Everything about her anatomy is designed for this wondrous purpose.”
They why do men enjoy looking at them so much?
Alethea H. Claw
3 April 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I can’t think of a legitimate plausible reason offhand to justify the killing of a born baby Aren’t you lucky? Sadly, that’s too easy. It happens all the time, except mostly they’re left to starve or suffocate on their own because Teh Law is against euthanasia. Some babies simply can’t live – one case I read about recently was a baby born with no kidneys. A quick shot of morphine would have been the kind choice.
I’d rather not get into the Singer thing, but I don’t 100% dismiss it. While birth is an excellent bright line for some rights, we do also have other lines for other rights. A newborn isn’t allowed alcohol or tobacco or a drivers license. In many cultures a newborn isn’t a person until it’s survived for a certain time. So, yeah, it’s arguable. But also it’s irrelevant, unless all parties are arguing in good faith and not trying to derail the issue from the topic of women’s rights to our bodily autonomy.
Amphiox
3 April 2012 at 7:48 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Late-term abortions only occur in two situations:
1. A late identified congenital defect or late developing disease of the fetus renders it impossible for the fetus to survive beyond birth for any significant length of time without intense pain and suffering.
2. A late developing or late identified complication of the pregnancy itself renders it prohibitively life-threatening for the woman to continue with the pregnancy AND it is IMPOSSIBLE for the fetus to survive an induced early birth.
When it is actually possible for the fetus to survive the termination of the pregnancy, the treatment for scenario 2 is INDUCED BIRTH, not abortion. Never abortion. The risk to the woman of the two procedures are virtually identical. In fact, from a technical standpoint, the two procedures are virtually identical.
So the scenario wherein a botched late term abortion results in living infant capable of surviving independently can virtually only happen in the event of a misdiagnosis – ie, a fetus that was thought to be non-viable turns out to be viable. And in this scenario the so-called “botched” abortion actually IS an induced live birth.
This occurs so rarely that to even bring it up as an argument against abortion in general is an exercise in pure intellectual dishonesty.
Just_A_Lurker
3 April 2012 at 7:49 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
*rabbit*I’m late! I’m late! I’m late,I’m late,I’m late!”
joey
There’s the sign we’ve all been waiting for. You are indeed a forced-birther trying and failing to play “Gotcha!”.
Yeah, Gotcha!
You moron, he was simply informing you that our position is already solidified and in use. It’s practical. In order for your position to “win”, you have to put forth what you think would be better and defend it. The impractically of using Singer’s standards for human fetus’ is just one way to chip at your pathetic ramblings put forth.
LFAAPN
/sigh
NO.
Look, asshole, this isn’t funny. It is not reasonable to assume a woman will know she’s pregnant at 3 months. In a whopping amount of cases you have your period for the first 3 months and the signs are subtle. Some women have their periods all the way through. I knew a girl in high school who did not know she was pregnant until she was 6 months. She didn’t have the big belly and was still having her period. For women on birth control it is extremely silly to insist these requirements on them. You really want to force a scared 17 year old to go through with the rest of it and fuck up her life plans?
Fuck you.
It is not reasonable to put the onus on the woman to get this done before your arbitrary deadline. Life happens. Clinics are few and far between, several appointments necessary, time off needed, often travel is needed, and money to do all of this.
You do not get to decide when a woman loses her body to a hostage. That is fucking wrong. Birth is a physical, distinct line to cross. Enough of this nonsense.
diane
YAY, good.
Ugh. So close. You agree it’s impractical at least, I will give you that. No, I would not be happy with this. You know why? I’m a poor single mother, in and out of shelter due to being born poor. I’m struggling to keep a job (currently unemployed) and can’t pay rent. It may very well take me 7 fucking months to raise money to get an abortion. Unless its covered under universal health care and employers stay out of my business (Fuck you too Arizona!) then I’d be screwed out of one. Seriously. Bring this bullshit squeamish waffling down the line when it wouldn’t fuck everything up.
[General]
This is not funny. You are giving ground to forced-birthers. They love to point and say “See you aren’t comfortable with this either! You know its wrong. Gotcha!”. Why is this still a debating point. Even if you deem the fetus a person it doesn’t trump the woman’s right at any time. This late term, partial birth abortion crap, is just that, crap. They are trying to trap you. Why are people failing for this?
/sigh
Fuck it.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:51 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
The better part of Europe vs the World vs even a small country doesn’t change the calculus.
I have also emphasized that this may not indicative of the facts surrounding WW2, and as such it’s a hypothetical, but it’s not one of the asinine hypotheticals that could never actually happen. This could. If your reading comprehension is so bad that you didn’t understand that Naziism was just a proverbial placeholder, that’s not my fault. It’s your own ass for promoting your hateful, selfish policy where you only care about yourself.
Azkyroth
3 April 2012 at 7:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
There’s a perfectly logical solution:
A woman has the right to have a fetus removed from her body at any time.
At the stage of development where it’s possible to do so, efforts should be made to remove it alive and keep it alive, if that won’t substantially additionally burden the woman.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
@Just_A_Lurker
Good points. I wouldn’t suggest this policy unless abortion was free. I’m still of the mind that perhaps it’s not too much of an onus to require monthly pregnancy tests. Again, we are talking about ending the life of what may be a fully conscious human being. I don’t take these matters that lightly.
Still, I apologize if I’ve talked someone into helping the Christian right on this topic. I do not mean to do that. They are far, far worse.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 7:53 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Exactly. I’ve been trying to argue this here for a very long time.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:54 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I am legion. I’m the 22 million soldiers who died in WWII.
fucking idiot.
Brownian
3 April 2012 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not saying be less rude. I’m saying be less stupid.
What are you, fucking fourteen? “OMG! Teh Nazis! therefore trump card!”
First of all, I was clarifying why what you said was stupid, not making any such claim. But since you’ve made the claim, it’s not out of bounds for me to note: here’s a list of ongoing conflicts. Why aren’t you getting the fuck off the internet and sacrificing yourself for one of the moral sides, asshole?
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:56 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Oh goody. Can we start going over all wars in history? I’m sure there’s got to be some wars purely for aggression and territory expansion, where there clearly is a good side and a bad side. This moral relativism and pacifism is confounding. Again, I’m not half-cocked, and I don’t support war as anything but the last option, but sometimes force is required and it’s naive to advocate otherwise.
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 7:57 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
yep. I’m the one with the reading comprehension issues. sure.
Josh, Official SpokesGay
3 April 2012 at 7:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
JAL: You’re right, and I’m sorry I got sucked in to this stupid debate. It is all just a planned trap. Now I feel filthy.
So fuck y’all (except everyone but A.R, Joey and Looking).
Oh, and Looking?
You fucking bastard. Don’t look any further for a political name, you’ve found it. Republican.
Looking For An Applicable Political Name
3 April 2012 at 7:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
False dichotomy. We’ve already established that a voluntary army if sufficient to get the job done is preferable to a drafted force.
Now, if you’re asking why we’re not helping in more countries around the world where there clearly is a right and wrong side, then “it depends” and “I don’t know”. There is a limit to the good we can do militarily. It’s the last option. For example, why aren’t we helping out Syria? Maybe because it can do more harm than good. Maybe because we’re too selfish and they don’t have anything pertaining to our interests.
I do not demand of anyone that they must live their lives purely for others. I will demand that as a collective action issue, if our country and its liberty is threatened and the only plausible option to save it is the draft, then I will go for the draft. That is your false dichotomy.
Stop being an asshat.
A. R
3 April 2012 at 7:59 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
Yep. How about the Tokyo firebombings, Dresden, and the Japanese Internment Camps?
Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
3 April 2012 at 8:01 pm (UTC -5) Link to this comment
I’m not a pacifist, honeycakes.
you live in an interestingly black-and-white world where all “required” choices apparently become wholly moral, with no possibility of that which is required to be accomplished by immoral means. apparently the ends make the means moral…