Legal Death, Legal Life, Personhood and Abortion

Yes, this is very simple. If you do anything there is a chance of something happening to you that you may not want, or be able to handle. That comes with life.The best thing you can do is lock yourself in a lead box till you die, or actually live a life but take precautions. If you take precautions, they may fail, but then it is out of your hands. You did what you humanly could do to avoid bad things from occuring YET CONTINUED TO LIVE YOUR LIFE AND NOT LOCK YOURSELF IN A LEAD BOX TILL YOU DIE.It really is that simple. From the woman's perspective regarding having an unwanted pregnancy I do not see the difference. There are of course the visceral differences between the two which have nothing to do with what we are discussing. Agreed, and thus for people that do not believe in little magical fairy babies waiting for the woman to just give them a chance, they have other options so as to minimize the risk. Heheheh. First of all, what percentage do you need before you can say you have taken reasonable precautions. I'm one to say anything over 90% is pretty reasonable. Second, have you read birth control packages? Most of the ones I have seen explain that you should be combining them with other methods for greater protection. Literally speaking abortion is a form of birth control. What it is not is a form of pregnancy control or contraceptive. That is to say it is a last step in birth control, unless a culture allows for infanticide.In any case it is always preferable to prevent the conception in the first place. Or if not that then the implantation. Once that occurs things begin to get worse for the woman. I don't think this is well put. More accurately I do believe that women who are faced with a pregnancy weigh the risk of continuing with it through birth, to the potential beneficial outcomes. The latter may be affected by potential negative outcomes as well (like impact on the woman or family's life).You seem to miss that a child has several effects on a woman's life and there are plenty of reasons a married woman will not want to have kids. The threat to her life or livelihood (especially if she already has kids) may not be deemed worth it, as well as what impact a living baby will take up of family resources.There are more issues in real pregnancies than were ever dreamt of in your philosophy, horatio. That's a great question. If you believe life begins at conception I may have many many numbers of kids, right? You mean am I glad the woman was able to fend off an attacker? Yeah. What does this have to do with anything. You will note that at the bottom of your article it says that in a similar incident a fetus removed at 6 weeks did not live. I guess the attacker was under the mistaken opinion that all she had to do was cut out the "baby" and "give it a chance". If this is true then you better make a more detailed case of why. I personally don't see why it hinges on whether they have been lost or not. He even said it didn't and explained why it didn't. Actually I think this is the summation of the problem. Anyone with a brain and the current scientific knowledge we have on pregnancy and gestational development, will know that if you rip a gestational being from a womb it will not die as a person dies, but as a piece of tissue dies. It is not a person, according to the criteria RAZD nicely worked out, during much of its gestation. It has no quality one normally uses to identify a person.The fact that it is in a belly and so you can pretend that it is a baby that just needs a chance, does not change facts. Until well along it is living just as a tissue, or tumorous growth. Well you have yet to say anything that makes sense here. I hope its better than "society made me do it." No but you can get an operation to save your life from injuries sustained. During sex there is a chance that a zygote will form an implant itself in the uterus. If precautions were taken then this would be the "accident", or "risk" which you had tried to avoid. Thankfully an operation is available to remove the risks that implanted entity could pose if it were to grow into a fetus and then a baby. No, if it were then I'd respect your position. You could even go on to state your opinion that life is sacred according to your religious beliefs and so those that believe in it should avoid abortion.What is actually happening is that you made false statements about sex, sex education, society, RAZD's argument, the nature of gestational life, as well as saying that laws should be in place to prevent people from doing what you would not choose to do for yourself.Once again I will point out that I am not telling you what to do with your life. If you feel life begins at conception and so should not be killed, then that is great for you, run with it. I am saying you should not be trying to tell others how they should live their lives, under threat of law. Name them. I have yet to see an organization that is prolife and prosex education, pro contraceptive, and pro socialized healthcare. I usually see what you have said... don't have sex, and if you do then have the baby. I am open to evidence.But I would like to get your position on this. Are you saying you are for all those things? Do you agree they are necessary for a person to truly be commited to a position called "prolife"? Nine years old? Maybe he just didn't remember the times he played with himself before that. Are you telling me you never caught your son playing with his penis at anytime between birth and 9 years old?In any case I am unsure what I am supposed to take away from this. Masturbation does not cause pregnancy (100%), and as long as it did teach him how to avoid pregnancy and it worked, so what if he whacked off to it?As a kid I whacked off to just about everything, including the stereotypical "national geographic". Again, locus of control. So now you had no control over how you raised your kid? The only thing that I can take from that story is that somewhere there is a sex ed book which a kid liked to masturbate to. Has he gotten girls pregnant because of its advice or what?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

As Asgara has already pointed out, you are telling people that your opinion counts more and they must do what you think, when you enforce your opinion with law.The converse cannot be said when one argues there should be a lack of laws on a subject. They are not forcing you to do anything. It is only silliness to say "I'm forced to say it is legal." No one is forcing you to say anything. Why do you have to say anything but how you feel and try to encourage others who share your faith to listen to your opinion? The only thing we are preventing you from doing is saying it is illegal and calling in police to arrest those that do not have the same religious beliefs as you do. Missed 'em. But now that I looked they are not prolife organizations, as in political/legal groups against abortion. The first (which you are a VP) looks like a well meant group to help children across the world (though it looks like it is for prosyletization purposes which I find exploitative). The second, is a prolife organization, but specifically as health centers. Neither stated their position on sex-education and contraceptives, nor socialized health care for women and children (unless they go through christian charity). I don't think this is true at all. I think quality of life is very important. Life certainly is a driving force, and it is compelling to help life continue, but not in any and all situations. Indeed that is why we have concepts of euthanasia, and abortion. Unless of course we want to use a circular argument that those people are wrong and you are right so we can forget those issues. We also have slaughterhouses and farms, and even vets will put down animals whose quality of life is deemed no longer worthwhile. But this is a religious position. Unless you are going to force your religion on other people, this is blatant enforcement of one religion over another.To my way of thinking there is no such thing as "playing games" with life, besides torturing already living entities. The process of living involves the accidental and intentional ending of many other lives just to keep yours and those you love alive.I think it is healthier and important to try an minimize suffering and loss of life, but the creation and ending of life is not inherently "wrong", especially when that life is basically cellular and not independent of a host...In fact, if one was to choose the best time to terminate life it would be within the gestational phase when it is not "complete" as a being. In that case one will have sufficiently reduced the possibility of suffering. Okay let me back off a minute. Even though I did try and rip your position up a bit, the latter half of your post was really well composed and perhaps even eloquent in describing your feelings on the subject.That is great. That is wonderful. I am actually glad you have an interesting and apparently thought out position on this subject. I am glad about this even though it is opposite of my own position. I like diversity of opinion.That said, I am trying to show you that while my position may not be for you, it is equally a thought out and valid position, just not one you can accept given your feelings.Now here comes the problem... you want yours to trump mine because of a popularity contest using the government. I want the government to respect both of our beliefs and so treat us both as valid thinking adults, and not as an uber-parent.RAZD created an interesting essay which took into account many different view points (popular view points) regarding life and personhood, and created an argument for how to capture extreme positions like mine and yours within law so that it won't insult either one of us. It is flexible enough not to be overbearing, yet strict enough not to let people "play with life" intentionally or negligently.Yes it will allow for things you may not desire, and restrict things in a way I do not think is necessary, but the result is that needs of both sides are met in a form of compromise based on consistent rules for assessing personhood. Again I want to point out that this is your religious position and not mine. How do we know that God did not give us intelligence in order to properly control our own reproduction? Your statement that people should just abstain, I would note, is not carried over to other aspects of life. Or do you say, people should just be going without food, because it will kill life?In the end none of us can be 100% certain what has brought us into being and what the rules are. That is based on experience and faith. There are many different faiths. I am arguing to have them remain diverse with laws set in place to protect their diversity, rather than trying to enforce one over the other. I find it sort of funny that I am more angered by your attempting to speak for Lennon than for God. Maybe that says something about me. In any case, I agree with the above statement and like Lennon, and yet come to an opposite conclusion.Perhaps it is based on the fact that I want to see the human race as one living race with many many different beliefs and practices. I do not want to see it as one race with a single cultural structure. The first represents life to me (diversity), the other represents oppression and illness.I think it is by respecting different cultures and not forcing others under using laws that the world will become a better place.This message has been edited by holmes, 02-18-2005 11:15 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I am a subjectivist. That means I believe that as much as I might think something is right you can think it is wrong, and both would be correct.Laws are (or were) a means of keeping the peace and not necessarily enforcing social norms. As we base laws on concepts of right and wrong, we are inherently repressing diversity and real humans who happen to think different than us.Abortion is different than murder, rape, theft etc in that is includes more than just moral components. It is not just "is it okay to kill someone?" This also includes patently religious concepts that come down to faith alone. The possibility of considering a gestational being a "someone" that can be "killed" is based entirely on metaphysical assumption neither side is ever going to prove.Thus we are down to a debate between "gestational beings are what they are" or "gestational beings are what they might possibly become some time in the future because they have special property (life or soul) that is more than their physical being."To craft laws on the latter proposition, not only represses actual living women in order to "take a chance" for the gestational being, but enforces that metaphysical position on others. Crafting laws on the former keeps the door open for both sides to practice their beliefs as they see fit, they just can't force others to practice their own singular belief. I don't find it exploitative, it is exploitative. To go to people in desperate poverty and then preach to them while delivering help is not to seek actual converts, it is to brainwash unwitting masses. Don't you realize that is a form of brainwashing?If you really had faith, and a strength in your faith, and you really wanted to help people, wouldn't you simply help people and know that when they are strong they will choose to go with what is right (to you)?This is one of the very reasons I have a very hard time with Xianity. Its basis is that people will not choose it unless they are preached to. Their is such an abundant lack of faith in the message travelling all on its own. A God that needs that kind of snake-oil salesmanship or predation can't be much of one. It suggests he doesn't even have faith in himself. Thanks, it wasn't just a typo. It's amazing no one has caught that (or mentioned it) all the other times I used it. You do not have to believe in God in order to hold a religious belief. Perhaps I should call it a metaphysical one, but the end result is that it is a faith, something you feel and believe without any positive proof.That there are "rules" about how to treat life, and that you can even consider risk taking behavior as "playing with life" are moral concepts derived from your specific metaphysical assumptions.I can honestly say that I have absolutely no concepts such as these. To me life is a force unto itself, which if anything plays with us and does not use a rule book. The best we can do is protect our individual lives with what few advantages we have. Lives in gestational and growth stages are not fully realized entities and do not take preference over fully realized entities, unless for some reason it is necessary to preserve life continuing at all. Given the overabundance of human life, this is hardly the case. Right now more humans are more likely to threaten life than less humans. I agree that everyone should be concerned with reducing unwanted pregnancies. Of course it is because I care for the health of the woman involved. Indeed she is playing with her own life. However, as I said, I feel there is sufficient technology to reduce risk so that it is accidental at best. I don't think people should be locked into lead boxes to prevent all possible risk. Is that living? Most likely not, and they don't necessarily have to be hypocrites as long as they don't view gestational entities (even of animals) as actual "moral" entities. But I can use this to provide an example of how laws that allow freedom do not oppress.Right now you have held the position that a lack of laws which allow abortion force you to say it is legal and thus oppress you. At the same time you live under a lack of laws which allows you to own pets as well as eat meat and call for exterminators when you have a pest problem.Are people like Peta and their more extreme affilliates oppressed by having to say that those things are all "legal"? There are religions such as jainism, hinduism, and buddhism which have very prolife beliefs well beyond your own. Should we craft laws according to the strictest morals on this subject (even if they are the most popular), or is it better to allow everyone to practice their own beliefs?Once you get a real cockroach problem you let me know. We cannot prove any other gods do not exist, shall we craft rules based on them? What I can prove is that we have a first amendment. You cannot establish your kingdom on me by fiat. You mean it is not, whether you believe it is because you have absolutely no knowledge of the founding of our nation, nor its laws.Let us get this straight:1) You quoted the Declaration of Independence and not the Constitution (which is our founding body of laws).
2) The founders were Deists and did not have the same concept of Creator as you do, so even if we were to accept this I have more ability to say it is based on something other than your religious beliefs than you can say it is based on something other than my own. I am closer to deism than you are.
3) The concept "under God" as well as the entire pledge of allegiance would likely have been repugnant to the founders of this nation. They certainly avoided such things and there was no pledge until the late 1800's when a socialist thought we should have one and started championing it. The original pledge was without "under god" and included a salute not unlike the Nazi one. First the salute was changed and then under god was added to make us seem different than "godless communists".
4) If you actually look at the Constitution as well as the writings of our founders you will discover that they were against merging religion and politics. One early president (and Constitution signatory) explicitly rejected the idea of "faith based programs" being funded by the government. There is also an early treaty (1787) in which the entire government put in writing that the US is not founded on Xian principles.I wish you would show half as much interest in our actual history as a nation as you do in trying to pretend that you are more patriotic because of your religion. I didn't say your beliefs can't be, indeed I said they can be and that is wonderful. What I did say is that our laws should be created to respect the diversity of religious belief. Once a singular belief becomes law, the rest are oppressed.With a lack of laws (which is currently the case) no one is oppressed. You can certainly say it is wrong as much as you want, you can choose not to have abortions, and work to convince others not to have abortions. That is 100% okay by me. Let me put it to you this way, if I have been answered then I have been told that your version is not the correct version. I have read the Bible and I have sought answers. All the answers I get have nothing to do with 90% of the Bible and 99% of what Xians espouse as their faith.If you have been answered than that is great for you. Now I suggest studying philosophy and logic and history in order to put into perspective how your religion can best fit within the world. Is the answer pluralism and freedom, or unification under force of law? That is interesting and certainly points to the error you made. Clearly you did have some moral religious/metaphysical beliefs, though they may not have been fully realized. It was definitely a mistake to view legal=moral. I think that is one of the problems with society today. We are now crystalizing that concept by making laws=morality.We ought to be teaching kids from a very early age that laws are not morality. In a free society laws are made so that many diverse moralities can function without oppression. Thus one must learn to follow one's own moral laws, without threat of legal sanction. What happened to the Gods they had before Xianity? What inspired all the cultural artifacts which you say we should now be respecting? If you don't respect the entirety of their culture, who cares what remains of their music and instruments.It is not until you view the entirety of cultures, and not just their superficial elements, as real and whole and important that you actually respect the people within them as mature human beings and do not interfere.Frankly proselytizing and destruction of whole cultures by Xians is more repugnant to me then abortion could ever be. It is the actual killing of entire human peoples and their world concepts. It makes the world a less rich place.Indeed, and I am not joking about this, take a step back. Isn't Xian missionizing simply abortion of cultures because you don't like what they look like? Just like abortion, once they are gone, there is no bringing them back.If you saw Africans as people with cool instruments and music, but lacking Jesus, then you didn't treat them as people. If you went in under the cover of giving aid, in order to subvert their beliefs, then you have played with their lives. There goes your prolife stance.Sorry to end on a mean note, but I really find proselytizing and the mockery of other cultures offensive.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I just read of an interesting case on cnn. Here is a link to the article.It appears there were conjoined twins which were attached at the head. The second head was very well formed, yet had no body. In these cases medicine considers it a "parasitic twin".Separation results in death for the parasite, yet they do it anyway as they do not consider it a valid "independent" life. In this case... This is far more capable than the gestational beings we are discussing, and had been born and apparently could react... yet it was not "independent" and so able to be terminated as a parasite.What do you make of such cases and how does it affect your theories regarding what life is as well as what defines "person"?Would you force the girl to carry the second head for the rest of her life?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

As long as your moral rules were consistent then they are valid moral rules. So as long as you didn't have that rule, plus something contrary like "don't ever do violence", then eye for an eye is valid to hold.I can argue against your position based on its consistency, or appeal to feelings you may have which would suggest your rules are incompatible with your actual assessment of the world, in order to "convert" you, but I cannot say you are wrong to hold any consistent moral rules which are not inconsistent with facts. Yes, I see this and it is valid up to a point. Choosing to have vaginal sex (and I wish you wouldn't keep saying "sex" as there are plenty of safe options) does set up a risk situation and the repercussion is conception, followed by implantation, and then full gestational process.So the person is risking those latter "repercussions". In reality the woman actually faces another possible "repercussion" and that is abortion. In that case the full gestational process is removed. It is a repercussion as most assuredly it is not something that is viewed as positive.Now here is where the law comes in. If your views are embodied by law then the woman is artificially restricted to the original repercussions (which do carry a greater risk), in order to give the gestational life a "chance". Having no laws allows a person to choose whether to follow your moral strictures or face the other repercussion which is allowed by my moral strictures. That is exploitation plain and simple. If you are really there to help people then there is only one priority: help the people.I have helped people in trouble and never ever have I used that "wedge" to then discuss my religious (moral) or political beliefs. If they are interested they will ask, otherwise it is taking advantage of another's disadvantage. What would prevent them from finding out on their own? Especially as communities build and begin to network more and more, there is no reason for missionaries except to oppress people into believing.But back to what I was saying in my post... If your religion was real, why wouldn't people discover it all on their own? Why wouldn't God have a way for them to find out, besides men who as you yourself go on to admit are fallable and liable to exploitation. This is a good example of an inconsistency. If you believe the above, how do you trust the Bible at all? It was written by men and translated numerous times by men. If one can have the faith that that was inerrant, then why not have the faith that those you are helping will know who God is, or come to find out on their own? Really? Which God? The major founding fathers rejected evangelism. Did you know this? They hated it. Even evangelicals trying to rewrite history of the US as being founded in Xianity had to admit this fact. They clearly said this nation was founded BY MEN, in order to secure what nature and nature's Creator (deism) granted.If you want to keep taking this tack I will turn and agree. Fine, we are founded under God, the deist God, time to start passing laws against evangelists!You should consider this when you start claiming we have to take religion into account when creating laws. No I do not watch MTV. You cannot live without taking risks. That is the point I was making. Every action comes with risks. You simply want to deny the ability of people to take a certain kind of risk because the repercussions may be something that your religious position does not accept. Actually you missed mine. You can feel anyway you want. The problem is you cannot pass laws which act to enforce religious standards on others. There are very good reasons for this which the founding fathers understood, having just gone through periods of faith and law combined to ill effect.People who do not believe in God today are trying to confuse what our founding fathers were trying to accomplish. Open a thread on this subject, or better yet do not and simply read what the founding fathers wrote. I agree that athiests have taken separation of religion and state too far. That does not change the fact that evangelists are trying to merge the two in ways that are patently unconstitutional and against the designs our nation's creators had for this country.You have made several statements regarding the nature of our government which are completely false and the product of evangelist revision of history. Why not go right to the source (and I don't mean the quotes mined by evangelicals)? Actually read what the founding fathers had to say in full context.I have never said they were not religious, neither have I said they were not of Xian denomination. That does not alter the fact that they hated evangelism and created a secular nation to block the mixing of religion and politics so that all religions (including DEISM) could flourish, unencumbered by weight of majority law. I hope you were saying that it is NOT about majority rules. If you think it is then you seriously need to move beyond the Declaration of Independence and read the Constitution. I am sick of evangelicals using quote mining from the Declaration and various state laws (pre US gov't) to try and bypass any knowledge of what our gov't is about. The Bill of Rights removes the simple rule of Majority. That is exactly what it is there for. Christians. It is shorthand and has historical ties to Christianity (Crash has already explained). Always amazed at how many Xians get insulted when I use their own historic semantics. Yes, and the question is where is the right venue. When you are taking a religious stand then the law is not the proper venue. You have no idea why this nation was formed and the principles it was built on do you? Do you really believe it was based on the Bible and not philosophers like Locke? Do you really believe they did not specifically try to remove the possibility of what you just described above as it was an abhorrent notion to them? So if a certain denomination of Xians rose to majority and started passing laws based on its tenets, and thereby oppressed your beliefs, you would say that was what this nation is about? Or when Islam becomes the majority religion you'll be fine with living under Islamic law?This is what the United States Constitution was designed to prevent happening, specifically the added Bill of Rights. Majority does not rule in the US. If the people are on an equal level with you, then this statement makes sense. If you specifically go to people that are in need of assistance and do the same thing then you are simply preying on them. I don't see how you do not see this fact.If a drug cartel went to an impoverished community and helped them out financially and then explained how good drugs are for their community and for people in general, wouldn't you consider that exploitation?There is a difference between being there and if someone asks, explaining what your beliefs are (making it available). But when you go in and give them aid with the secondary purpose to change their culture, or introduce your religious faith, then it is subterfuge.And honestly, you just said that you believed they probably worship God, just in another form. Instead of going and telling them what you think they ought to believe, why not let them enlighten you with what they know about faith? Then at least your help would be viewed as reciprocal.It it is the truth, it doesn't have to hide behind a mask of generosity. How on earth can they have a free choice when their aid is linked to a religious message? Come on. This is BS on its face. Can you keep your culture and deny Jesus, or believe in Mohammed or Zeus? As soon as you bring in foreign elements you alter what generations have spent building as their culture. All they need is food and housing to improve. Why did they need your God to improve? Do I think it improves them? Hell no. We have more religious violence now because of missionary work than simple tribal warfare beforehand.As far as your head hunting claim, I'd love to see proof of that. They needed Jesus to end it? Why not Buddhism? Or how about introduction of reasons (or mechanisms) whereby head hunting becomes unnecessary? When you bring it to them with the food and housing they need, then its validity is highly questionable.Have you ever heard of Cargo Cults?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Wait a second, are you saying that God can make mistakes when creating life? He obviously created that child as it was born... right? You are now wholly picking and choosing. It is directly related to abortion, given your stated criteria, not mine. That is why I brought it up.You said LIFE is what is important, must be protected, and even lack of certain qualities was irrelevant. The second head was there and functioning (even smiling).Now you say it should be up to the mother? Heck, that isn't even giving the right to the sister to whom the head was attached (which is more directly related to abortion).Since you are now claiming this case is not related, I want to know why you say that. What is the difference between this case and protecting life in general, as well as this case and a mother who has a parasite attached to her with drastically less functional capacity.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I don't feel that it is, it simply is. The fact that many other things are as well does not excuse the activity. I am sorry that you don't feel that it is exploitation, because it is. This would not be so bad except that you are in a sense lying to yourself. Look at all of the materials you linked to. If that is not pride and "making a show of it" I don't know what is. When you set out to help people it is with a background reason of pride and vanity, self vanity.Let me ask you this, if you were unable to ever discuss your God, nor mention your deeds in relation to that God, how many would be disheartened and give up helping altogether? Before you answer let me remind you that the whole point of Faith Based programs, and recent moves to make sure they can discriminate in their hiring practices is that Xians do not want to work to help people unless they can do so in a spirit of evangelism and unencumbered by disbelievers. And this is unlike Xians? Again, if you are telling people the "good news" then the bad news is you aren't helping anybody for honest reasons, but in a subterfuge to spread your faith.When people are weak (poor, starving, uneducated) and you give them material wealth, food, and education then you have put them in a precarious position. You make anything else you demand of them seem like something they should submit to, as well as creating a stock dilemma regarding their culture and yours. Do you tell them about the wonders they might find in Buddhism, Judaism, Shintoism? You are supplying them with a false perception of the world (and choices within the world) when they are at their most vulnerable.Cargo Cults perfectly demonstrate the nature of cultural contamination based merely on perceived "betterness" given that they are aided materially.Regular Cults which we roundly condemn when they are not Xian, use the methods which you just described for yourself, only they artificially create the poverty situation for their new recruits. In your case you are taking those whose material situation has naturally rendered them weak. In either case, the rest is brainwashing. If the Devil can do as you say, how do you know that you are right and not merely being deceived? Why is it others that must be wrong? But I do accept them, I am even saying they should be accepted by law. You are saying mine should not be accepted by law. In any case, majority does not rule and it is in particular when religious beliefs are used to guide them.If the majority was jewish then it would be okay for the gov't to force all men to be circumcized, wear yamulkas, and not to allow the sale of pig meat or shellfish? After all their belief may come from their religion, but it doesn't matter?Don't you understand that it becomes important when the proscriptions you are talking about are the extension of your religious (or metaphysical) beliefs, and are not based on general rights issues all can partake in? Yes, but the idea that life is sacred in general (such that it cannot be ended during gestation), or that zygotes and fetuses are conceptually like persons, drives your idea that the situation is sex with risk of pregnancy and birth, as opposed to sex with risk of pregnancy followed by birth or abortion.You are artificially cutting off abortion as one of the natural options. I thought you already said yes to this. Oh I realize that a major revisionist history is in the works from the evangelicals. It is the only way they can foster the illusion that this nation was founded on their brand of Xianity or a religion in general, instead of being one of the first secular nations.Of course that won't mean anything to me, unless you are suggesting you guys will be burning the original documents our founding fathers wrote?Remember I didn't tell you to look at history books. I said to go to the source. See that is the difference between you and me. I don't read what others of my generation have crafted so I can understand what this nation is about, I read what the authors of this nation wrote and left for us to read so that we might know what this nation is about.The lack of patriotism of evangelicals is always insightful. I repeat, that this is a religious position, even if it is not a specifically Xian religious position. To believe a mass of cells is equal to a person and so of competing rights with the woman that is feeding the parasitic growth, stems from a wholly religious/spiritual/metaphysical belief.That does not make it wrong, but it does mean that it is not factual and basing laws off of it will oppress those who do not share that position. Yes this is exactly what I am talking about. You help weak and vulnerable people and then exploit them for your own emotional needs, by fostering an illusion that they should pay homage in some respect to your religion.See what good you are getting now? It is because of brand X religion.Unless their religion and culture were specifically destroying them, rather than fate of economic and environmental circumstances, then your merging your aid with your beliefs is subterfuge. It is one of the lowest forms of predation. God the imagery is so disgusting to me. Can't you see what the problem is yourself? Look at the very articles you quoted to me, or how you explain what you are doing for these poor dying girls. What are you getting out of it? Emotional satisfaction of pride and vanity. You are forcing conversion on people reaching their deathbed... and at early ages yet.Do you think children have any conception of what God and Jesus really are? Is there some reason that Buddhism (which is the native cultural religion) would not have sufficed to help them through their suffering?This is ghoulish activity. You get money from the gov't remember, as well as from private individuals that feel sorry for the kids. You don't have to get bananas from them (by the way, nice insult).So you get money from others, and gloat above dying young girls that you are sharing this money with them in order to convince these kids who have little capacity to understand what they really believe, that your religion is great for them. What is the sound of one hand clapping? You realize that none of that showed that changing their religious beliefs were necessary to end headhunting? Nor did the specifically have to become Xian. I love this particular quote... Same as it ever was... predation.Oh by the way... Who paid for 16 million copies? Them are a lot of bananas. Let me make this clear, I have no problem with the physical/economic/social aid which many Xian organizations bring. I don't even mind some of the incidental cultural contamination which would naturally result.It becomes exploitation, that is you are saving them from one kind only to deliver them to another, when your aid is specifically tied to ulterior motives. It is quite clear that you have ulterior motives and it is your emotional gratification which is important. This is proven when you are not helping them live in order to continue their own culture or find their future for themselves.It really is insulting to treat cultures so condescendingly.ADDED SECTION: I don't want to keep having a split post debate, so I am including the malformed child debate within this one.Let me start from scratch. If you believe that God creates everything, then men cannot override his desires can they? Was that child a creation of man because it wasn't what men like? But if it looked as if what men liked then it must be from God?That seems to be a circular argument.The medical assessment is that it was naturally occuring and not caused by pollution, though your "spiritual pollution" could still be a possibility. The fact is that pregnancy does not always go as expected, and things like this can happen. It is part of the refutation of glib commentary such as "fetuses are babies than need to be given a chance".Since your position was the LIFE was sacred and should not be played with, or harmed, and indeed should be protected, then I do not see what your argument is in this case.The second head was not necessarily posing a physical danger to the child at all. It would form an inconvenience but not a harm. At least that was not in anything I read. Given that there are living twins joined at the head shows that it is not inherently dangerous.The reason they gave is that it was not going to be capable of independent life, whereas in those other cases the joined twins had separate sets of organs.Thus this was all about defining personhood based on wholeness of body and possibility of independent existence, rather than parasitism.It would seem then that it would still count as LIFE according to all of the rules you have expressed and therefore demand protection... whether viewed as a deformity or not. If the mother and doctor have a choice over that beings life here, then why not earlier before any such functionality was possible in the gestational being?

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Heheheh... even as I wrote the words to RR I knew you would be interested that I was using your exact argument against him.So I freely admit, it is not just similar, but the same. Yes I do believe they are different cases. Though they share some similarities, the differences are key to my objection (and no it has nothing to do with whether religion is involved). Here is the short version:1) Philanthropic aid organization delivering necessary supplies or services to a community of people, backed by public donations as well as government grants.2) Individuals or corporations offering compensation for work.Can the second category be approached in a way that is exploitative? Yes. But not every case is, and just because an offer may be for sex work versus other types of work (and also that it may earn more money) does not make it more exploitative.I don't feel like starting a new thread just for this topic, but if you are interested in my elaborating on the above then feel free to start one.In any case, good catch!

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

From Merriam Webster's
Exploit In this case it is a bit of both. Xians wish to spread their faith. Certain communities are in need of vital supplies. Some people and their governments want to help get those communities what they want.Certain Xian organizations (such as apparently one you are VP of) exploit the situation (one community wishing to help another physically) by offering to be the mediary with an additional goal of spreading faith. This exploits the community in need's weakness as they are under duress (their weakness) and more likely to accept whatever extra messages you tag on to the aid. In addition it is specifically exploiting the community by using their misfortune to gain money, fame, and converts to your faith.It becomes worse when you take donations or gov't grants from atheists and nonXians, and then spread the word along with the aid as if the aid was an example of your God's work. This is unjust for the givers and receivers.Philanthropy is simple. People need help and you give them specifically what they need. Anything else tacked on is exploitation, using subterfuge. I didn't say your linking to those sites was and act of pride, I'm saying what those articles were saying were clear examples of "making a show" of faith. I saw nothing humble regarding just helping people.Am I trying to discourage you? No. I have a great respect for organizations which help people, and even Xian organizations for the help that they do bring. The group you are a VP for seemed sincere, and I assume you are. That's great. I am not trying to discourage you from that.What I am encouraging you to do (and maybe you can do it if you are VP) is to realize the exploitative nature of offering religion along with the aid. The money you get will hardly be just from Xians, and the people you go to help may already have their own faith. Giving aid and suggesting it shows God's work is tantamount to emotional bribery or extortion. They are vulnerable.In addition, introducing your religion may introduce civil strife into the community (making the situation worse in the long run) as well as injuring nonreligious aid organizations by association. Some communities reject aid altogether in fear that they will end up being preached to and/or have their kids converted.As an example, I don't think you'd accept or appreciate aid in your own community when you are desperate, with a message that Krishna is the way to go. Especially if they introduced this to your children in order to get to you and the future of your community.I am encouraging you to drop that angle from your philanthropic endeavours. If you share the joy with your coworkers (those that are Xian), and the money givers, that is one thing. To do so with the community you are helping is something else entirely. Their misfortune was NOT an invitation for someone to tell them Jesus was great. This is not true at all. Once again I refer you to the cargo cults. And if they do continue then you do get something from it. You get more missionaries as well as money into other Xian organizations (like for Bibles). It said that very thing in one of your refs. This makes no sense. If the truth dwells in me, then you are wrong. If the truth dwells in you, then I am wrong. If the truth dwells in them, then both of us can be wrong. This does nothing to answer the arbitrary nature of accepting one thing as correct (including ones own position) and blankly denying something else as incorrect. You are asking for the law, and so everyone under that law, to treat a mass of cells as equivalent to a full grown person, because of criteria you "feel" is right. That criteria is not fact based, but wholly dependent on a belief of a wholly religious nature. Thus you are demanding that other believe and treat an object as "sacred" according to your personal belief.Let me give you an example why this is the case.Originally people thought the woman did nothing except incubate a little tiny humunculus which came from the male. Within the male (his seed) were literally little tiny people. Thus masturbation itself was the equivalent of "not giving life a chance". You were aborting potential life for your own pleasure.Then science discovered that this was not the case and that ejaculate was not just a slip and slide for little people, and not even equivalent to seed. It took the union between sperm from the male and a wholly separate entity within the woman (the egg) to create (eventually) a baby.With this discovery the pressure was off men, but now gets shifted to the couple, as the zygote and fetus are described with the exact same properties people used to conceive ejaculate as. It is little people simply being incubated and so life which is sacred and needing protection.But science has made progress and we know that is not true either. Your belief that a zygote is sacred life like a baby just needing a chance is the same as that of your ancestors who said the same thing about cum. It is a belief beyond evidence.There is no reason given the knowledge we have today for a person to hold your belief. They can legitimately hold an opposing view of that growing mass of cells. Sans religion, there is no reason to consider it "sacred" or needing protection from the mother. To the degree that you find removing a tumor, or for that matter any medical procedure a natural option, then abortion is a natural option. Whether it is a moral one depends on one's morality. Uhhhh... I was referring to the people who were planning on (and are trying to) change history books and alter public perception of the founding fathers for their own religious purposes. Unless that includes you, I was not referring to you.I was under the assumption you were merely believing their hype and not manufacturing it. If you add "or the accident", then we are in agreement. Abortion is a consequence as much as chosing to carry the child to term. They are both alternatives of what to do with the mass of cells which potentially may become a child. That is not true and you know it. Most problems faced by all cultures are economic or the result of social strife. Neither require the imposition of Xianity or any other faith in order to "solve the problem". It is about learning to manage resources or internal conflicts better. So you are saying all nonreligious philanthropic organizations are worthless? What about those of other faiths? Are you telling me that no one in your organization is making money off of this? No one is earning a salary? If a church is built or a person instructs the community regarding Xianity, how is this not a diversion of funds or manpower away from necessities?By the way, just because you don't understand the metaphor is insulting does not mean it is not. I personally don't like violence as it generally does not lead to anything but more violence so I'd have been trying to see if they would be willing to change their practices based on beliefs within their culture, or for neccessities directly relating to their people. I would not introduce a foreign God.But if you want to know if I think headhunting is wrong, the answer is no. To their culture it had some relevance and it was a moral action. Just as waging wars in the name of God and "democracy" appear to be Xian moral actions. No no no, where did the money go? If the Bible materialized out of thin air, it would have been a testament to God. That money which could have gone to anything else, was paid to someone to make and transport 16 million Bibles shows that someone stood to gain somewhere.It didn't have to be you directly, to be you indirectly. This is very simple. If you were interested in helping them because you respect them then you would be interested in them getting back on their feet and resuming their life and culture, before calamity struck them. That you are not interested in them resuming their culture, except its bare superficialities, and instead adopting your religion, means you are exploiting them for YOUR benefit. They gain may be emotional more than material, but the gain is there for you. How can I say it went wrong, if it is alive? Didn't someone pipe in with a Ray Charles analogy. Maybe that girl and her second head would have gone to become geniuses. Now we will not know.But I want you to consider what you just said. You do not feel the moral or principles can be compared to a "normal" pregnancy. The point has been made repeatedly that there is no such thing as a "normal" pregnancy, and worse than that there is no way of knowing within the first several months if a pregnancy will be a successful "common" pregnancy. Why do morals apply then, within the zone of time where a pregnancy can just as well be normal as not normal? Why should they apply to such an extent that the life of the mother is put at risk when she does not want to continue the pregnancy? For what its worth I am sorry for having gotten things sidetracked on the issue of charities. It really should be in a different thread and injected a bit of anger on my part which was unnecessary for this topic.This message has been edited by holmes, 02-22-2005 14:35 AM

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Actually I tried to get at this point earlier, though I wasn't constructive enough to go look up (or estimate) actual percentage chances. I figured we were left with do nothing in life, or take acceptable (nonnegligent) risks and try to mediate the outcomes.His response, as far as I can tell, is not that we should end doing things with risk but accept the result of the risk.So if we go driving and the bad die roll turns up an accident we have to accept the injuries we receive. If we choose to have sex and the bad die roll turns up a pregnancy we have to accept the pregnancy all the way through birth which we receive.In the case of a car accident we can mediate the outcome by applying medical knowledge. In the case of pregnancy we cannot mediate the outcome with medical knowledge except to preserve the mother and the gestational being both.I can see the logic he is driving at, however it is still wholly religiously founded and so unacceptable for law. Medicine and many people would view the entity as you described in your essay (not a person), and perhaps even as simply a parasitic mass of growing cells (like a tumor), and there would be no objective way to say RR is right and everyone else is wrong. His position has a metaphysical assumption which would then be set over others to follow, including to the detriment of the mother.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

Watch me stick up for RR... His argument is a bit more clever than what you are describing, though admittedly that is what I thought he was saying as well! This is actually a strawman. Hopefully RR is watching so he can now understand what we mean by a strawman, and then go back and figure out what he was doing to you.He wasn't saying sex shouldn't be allowed because of risk X, he was saying that if YOU are afraid of risk X then you shouldn't have sex. People prepared to accept X can go ahead and have sex, just as people prepared to accept the consequences of traffic accidents should go ahead and drive.See the difference?For you and I we see X as "getting pregnant which can be removed or allowed to continue", for RR X is simply "getting pregnant and except in known dangerous circumstances allowing it to continue through birth".This is of course because he views abortion as NOT accepting the outcome which is "life". He analogized this to having your child killed in order to save you from the effects of a car wreck.There are some problems because it becomes a bit circular, but from a purely assumed moral stance of life as protected state and zygote as life, it makes some logical sense.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)

I don't seem to be getting my point across. He is not saying others should refuse to engage in sex because of the risk of pregnancy. You are right that if he was saying that then the car analogy is totally appropriate.What he is saying is that if one is afraid of the risk of pregnancy (and that means the duty of trying to bring it through till birth because abortion is not an option) then you should not have sex. He would likely agree that if one is afraid of the risk of a car accident one should not be driving as well.His is an artificial dilemma in that it does not include abortion as one of the outcomes, as it was a priori excluded by a moral rule against abortion. But that does not make it hypocritical.This is a nuanced difference.

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holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)"...don't believe I'm taken in by stories I have heard, I just read the Daily News and swear by every word.."(Steely Dan)