Dawkins and "The Great Tim Tebow Fallacy" (re: pro-life advertisement)

The valuation of human life is always subjective, even if it is based on objective events. Some people value human life at conception; some even at the zygote level (believing that masturbation is like mini-abortion). Some believe that human life begins with the development of a nervous system, others when the brain actually demonstrates activity that suggests sentience.Whether abortion is or is not "justified" depends entirely on an individual's subjective and personal assessment of the value of each stage of fetal development.The typical fundamentalist pro-life argument is entirely logically consistent with their religious worldviews - they value the human soul, and believe that the soul exists at conception.The problem is that subjective values are, of course, subjective, and thus subject to disagreement. We can objectively show when a fetus has a functioning brain, for example, but we cannot objectively determine at which point the fetus should be valued as a human life, because that is by definition a subjective assessment.Since we cannot objectively show the existence of a "soul," the religious have no right to force their beliefs to be obeyed by others. Determining objectively when a fetus is a "person" is difficult to the point of impossibility. Certainly each sperm is not a person, and neither is every egg. Is a cluster of four cells a person? Eight? Sixteen? Thirty-two? A thousand? A million?It's a gray area. I tend to focus on that fact, and the idea that the value of a fetus as a human life increases as it grows. I don't value a newly-fertilized egg. I hold a 1-month old fetus to be much less of a "person" than a 6-month old fetus. I cannot pick a day, however, when I can say "this is a person." We can all agree that, at the latest, this has to happen by the time the fetus is born.I also focus on the mother's right to self-determination. It's difficult to say at which point the fetus is no longer part of the mother's body, a separate and discrete entity. As a newly-implanted egg, it would be difficult to differentiate from any other part of her anatomy (even genetics isn't a good guide - each egg and even non-reproductive cells will contain mutations that differentiate them genetically from her other cells). I don't think society has the right to force a woman to endure the psychological and physical trials of pregnancy and childbirth.Basically, I think like the justices in Roe v. Wade. I think that the value of the fetus increases as the pregnancy reaches term; I think that the mother's right to self-determination blatantly overrides that value at first, and slowly decreases over the course of the pregnancy.But again, what is or is not acceptable is determined by an individual's ethical system. It's subjective. We will never all agree, because there is no objective answer to "right" and "wrong" any more than we can say that blue is inherently "better" than red. Valuing human life at all is not even an objective matter - it's simply a subjective assessment that the vast majority of us will agree on, for various reasons ranging from empathy to religion.

I most certainly am not pro-abortion. I don't like abortion, and I doubt anyone else does, either.I am, however, supportive of a woman's right to choose what to do with her own body, including whether to serve as a life support system for a fetus.I am very much pro-choice."Pro-life" however is a poor name - most such people support the death penalty, for example. They are simply anti-choice, believing that they have the right to force their opinions onto women and control their bodies.

Bullshit.It has nothing to do with whether abortion is "okay."It has everything to do with whether I or society as a whle has the right to make choices for women. That is the only issue. Whether the State has the right to fore a woman to undergo pregnancy, with all of the emotional and mental trauma that implies, the physical risks which include injury, death, and extreme pain, regardless of whether the woman wants to or not.Should I be able to choose for you whether you get to keep a kidney? Do I have the right to force you to give it up, even to save a life? Should society be able to force you to take medication, even if you would choose not to? That's what we're talking about here - a woman's right to be able to choose what to do with her own goddamned body. Whether abortion counts as murder or anything else is secondary to that question.I do not "support" abortion. In a perfect world, they wouldn't be necessary.I do support a woman's right to be able to decide whether to remain pregnant or not, whether to accept medical treatment or not, whether they should be forced to undergo surgery for the sake of a fetus, etc.Don't try to tell me what I do or do not support.

I think that those are particularly stupid methods for abortion, and are in fact some of the unfortunate results when abortion is made illegal (along with the ever-famous coat hangar, and the steak-knife street-surgeon).I also think that it's rather difficult to maintain ethical consistency regarding the possession of one's own self and simultaneously not supporting the ability of the individual to choose to consume alcohol or other drugs. Or to do "sidewalk belly flops."The behavior of an expectant mother is a very fuzzy subject, as I hinted at earlier. Would it be reasonable to charge a woman with manslaughter if she falls down the stairs and inadvertently terminates her pregnancy? Should she be charged with murder for allowing herself to menstruate, terminating the "potential life" of her unfertilized egg?There is a difference between what I personally think is reprehensible (or even just stupid) and what I think I have an ethical right to enforce on others. I think a pregnant woman who smokes or drinks or shoots up heroin while pregnant is ethically repugnant if she actually intends to carry the pregnancy to term. I also think that I have no ethical right to enforce my judgment on her, as that would require stripping away her right to decide what to do with her own body.Of course, shooting heroin is already illegal whether she's pregnant or not, so that point is rather moot.Nothing on the subject of abortion is black and white - it's all shades of gray. Denying the choice of whether a woman must suffer through the pain, trauma, and risk of pregnancy and childbirth is an ethical negative. Knowingly taking actions that will result in harming an actual human being (like drinking while pregnant while intending to carry the pregnancy to term) is also an ethical negative.Which negative is worse is a subjective assessment.Is it worse to allow abortion legally, or make it illegal and return to the days of back alley abortions?Is it worse to force a woman to undergo a cesarean section, a surgical procedure that carries significant risk, or to allow her to terminate the pregnancy?Does a fetus carry the same value as a baby? When? Do sperm have human value? Does a freshly fertilized egg? Should we mourn an egg that is fertilized but never implants on the uterine wall? Are a few dozen cells a human life? A few hundred? A few thousand? What defines a human life, as opposed to an organ? What gives human life its value? Is it a "soul?" Is it sentience? Is it viability outside the womb?These aren't questions that can be objectively answered because they all depend entirely on subjective value assessments.Perhaps the largest factor in my position on abortion is the acknowledgment that my values are not shared by everyone else, that this is a very gray area, and as such I don't believe that I have a moral right to impose my own subjective values and choices onto others who may not share them.Personally, CS, I think a pregnant woman who intends to give birth and uses drugs and alcohol should be held responsible if the child is born and it can be proven that her actions directly resulted in harm to the child, and that she knew or should have known the results of her actions. Note that this does not apply if no child is actually born.I think a woman who does "sidewalk belly-flops" is just an idiot, because that's going to hurt and isn't a very effective method for aborting a pregnancy. Call Planned Parenthood, seriously.

It is? When? What factor distinguishes a fetus from its mother that would not equally apply to a kidney - or better yet, a tumor? The fetus received blood, nutrients, and oxygen directly from the mother. it is contained within the woman's body. Part of it (the original egg) has been in the woman's body since she was born.Is a freshly implanted egg on the uterine wall a distinct and separate organism? A cluster of a few dozen cells? A few hundred? A few thousand? False.

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Historically, various states listed the act as a felony, but all were reluctant to enforce it. By 1963, six states still considered attempted suicide a crime (North and South Dakota, Washington, New Jersey, Nevada, and Oklahoma, which repealed its law in 1976). By the early 1990s only two US states still listed suicide as a crime, and these have since removed that classification. In some U.S. states, suicide is still considered an unwritten "common law crime," as stated in Blackstone's Commentaries. (So held the Virginia Supreme Court in Wackwitz v. Roy in 1992.) As a common law crime, suicide can bar recovery for the family of the suicidal person in a lawsuit unless the suicidal person can be proven to have been "of unsound mind." That is, the suicide must be proven to have been an involuntary, not voluntary, act of the victim in order for the family to be awarded money damages by the court. This can occur when the family of the deceased sues the caregiver (perhaps a jail or hospital) for negligence in failing to provide appropriate care.[5] Some legal scholars look at the issue as one of personal liberty. According to Nadine Strossen, former President of the ACLU, "The idea of government making determinations about how you end your life, forcing you...could be considered cruel and unusual punishment in certain circumstances, and Justice Stevens in a very interesting opinion in a right-to-die [case] raised the analogy."

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From Wiki.Suicide is not illegal in the US. Only doctor-assisted suicide is, and not even in every state. The woman can opt to get her tubes tied.And surgery isn't only about the woman's body - it's also about medical ethics and the willingness of a doctor to participate. You can choose to have your arm amputated, but doctors are unlikely to perform such an operation, not because they think you lack the right to self-determination, but simply because they don't want to accept the risksinherent with a surgical procedure when there is no benefit to be gained.Your analogy is blatantly false. As usual. I'm going to be blunt:You are a presumptuous dick. Your presumption to tell another person what they do or do not support, particularly when that person has explicitly stated that your statements are incorrect, is tantamount to lying. The English language allows for many, many degrees of accuracy. I have made very specific statement regarding what I do and do not actually support, and you are in effect turning those specific statements into broad generalized half-truths to suit your own argument. This is dishonest debate. And I don't consider them to be "pro-execution," which means that your analogy once again falls on its face. I simply wouldn't classify a supporter of the death penalty as pro-life. Perhaps the complexities of language elude you, but those are different concepts.

Clearly we should examine all used tampons, and mourn when we find that an un-implanted fertilized egg...I mean, a baby has died.

Indeed every menstrual cycle is yet another "potential child," as those anti-lifers put it, another baby dead.All females of menstrual age should be undergo mandatory breeding - through the neglect of these women their unborn babies are expelled like feces in a toilet in a deluge of blood every month! This is child murder on a staggering scale!Tampons are vaginal plugs of death! Menstrual pads hide the blood of the unborn! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

I'd be honored