Christianity and abortion: where do you stand?


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rix is offline rix Post #111  September 14,2011, 1:42pm
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notamaninpower wrote :
Oh, I get it now; just because someone is certifiably insane, we should not take their rantings and ravings as insane. Okie dokie, Gotcha.
Yes, I will extend you that courtesy!
 
 
harnomygirl is offline harnomygirl Post #112  September 14,2011, 2:21pm
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rix wrote :
My point exactly! I've read certain biographies concerning Ms. Rand, and even seen a more succinct HBO production, and she was obviously an individual who had certain issues. However, when one starts attacking a person's character versus what they said or wrote, then it becomes an ad hominem fallacy ( directing the attack "against the person" and diverting the issue away from whatever claims they made).
The Publishers Weekly review of the book, Republican Gomorrah says:

Journalist Blumenthal documents the movement of conservative evangelicals from the political wings to center stage, delving into the psyches of those who now lead a Republican Party "fixated on abortion, homosexuality and abstinence education; resentful and angry." Guided by Eric Hoffer's 1951 cult classic The True Believer ("Faith in a holy cause, is to some extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves,") and Eric Fromm's 1941 psychoanalytical study of the Nazi movement (Escape from Freedom), Blumnthal suggests that childhood abuse has shaped the personalities of key leaders, including Focus on the Family guru James Dobson. Blumenthal is at his best examining these characters up close, including presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich and his born-again conversion; John Hagee, a Pentecostal pastor who lauded Hitler for "forcing the Jews to Israel"; Sarah Palin, whose political aspirations first came to her as part of a religious conversion; and evangelical pastor Ted Haggard, a self-proclaimed spiritual warrior caught in a relationship with a male prostitute. For those who enjoyed Jeff Sharlet's Capitol Hill exposé The Family, this makes a spicy follow-up.

Does it attack the people or what they say? Does it reject what they say because of their personal issues? I can't tell. Maybe the review should be re-written a little. I don't think the book sounds like something I'd want to read.
Last edited by harnomygirl; September 14,2011 at 7:42pm. Reason: Leaving the post up. There has to be something I'm missing here.
 
 
AZJoe is offline AZJoe Post #113  September 17,2011, 5:43pm
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Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Ad homonym.
Borges sumus. Resistere inutile est.

Reverse_Dragon wrote :
No... you think that I think that I'm god like. Big difference.
RD, I think you got yourself in a box on this one. To be generous I'll just say that you're speculating now. I could've just rest my case by pointing to the glaring new evidence that you now imagine that you have god-like abilities to read my mind.

----
Reverse_Dragon wrote :
AZJoe: Do you feel you have more rights than other of your fellow humans?

RD: No.
Then by what legitimate principal do you cling to a duplicitous moral standard that denies human life in the womb its natural right to exist simultaneous with advocating the absurd notion that pregnant women have a separate, unique & superior right to kill other innocent and defenseless life? Then after, tell me why you think you seem to think you have the right to impose this duplicitous standard on the rest of society when so many of us apart from the moral outrage see it as completely duplicitous and irrational?

Reverse_Dragon wrote :
AZJoe: Why do you think its OK for just some (just mother's & not their spouses) to play God to decide which child to let live and which to kill?

RD: Because it's her body. The fetus is essentially just a temporary internal organ for most of its development. Of course the father should have a role to play in the decision, but ultimately the decision must be made my the individual who is actually pregnant.
This statement of course is without any scientific or even philosophical basis and is a complete departure from physical reality. Can you cite any credible scientific references that backs your speculation that an infant in the womb is an organ of the pregnant woman? Remember, the human being in the womb has unique DNA that has never before existed at any place in the universe. It is completely and utterly "other" human life that at most has only 1/2 the genetic resemblance to the mother. Except for the rare & unnatural case of artificially transplanted replacement organs to remedy failed organs, a true natural, intrinsic and non-benign body "organ" must provide some support and function to the body and be of the same DNA as the body to be an "organ". It's certainly not a disease or a tumor either or it would be attacked by the immune system. Ergo, the human child in the womb is not an organ. It is a unique human being with its own naturally given right to life by condition of existence.

Reverse_Dragon wrote :
AZJoe: What endows you with the wisdom to know just what an unborn child feels in the womb?

RD: Science. It's a clump of cells the size of a seahorse with an undeveloped CNS and zero self awareness. The subject gets trickier the later the term, but nature already provides a very convenient and logical point of demarcation... birth.
Cite your source. What so called "science" are you talking about? Are you not really trying to use the age-old fallacy of "quality" (e.g. "size" and/or age) as a criteria for establishing a condition of life? Is a human paraplegic who lost his lower extremities serving his country in war only "half" human and not entitled to his right to life? Is the baby that is premature by 2 months no longer "human" due to it breaking the scientific averages and guidelines and arriving early and far below average scale weight and size expectations? How about the child who is "born" through caesarean extraction? Is it just an organ up to the point that a doctor decides its "ripened enough" to be harvested at any convenient time from the womb like one might pluck a pear from a pear tree? Are you proposing some sort new philosophical principal to define life? Perhaps a kind of "Midas Touch" where life is "magically endowed" with pedigree as soon as another adult human physically severs the "organ's" umbilical cord? Or along the same lines, it becomes "human" in the instant that the pregnant woman first "chooses" to "permit" it come to term?

If so, there's huge problems with that latter idea. What if a woman suddenly changed her mind in the last hour about wanting to be a mother and instructed the doctor to cut the cord to the "organ" (and give it to her in a pickle jar as a conversational souvenir)? Does this so called "organ" suddenly go from being an organ to a human being and then back again to an organ at the mother's every changing whim/choice? How many choices and change of minds are permitted to yo-yo between an organ and humanity? When would you say that "choice" is intractable? At any time or at the moment the women first chose to submit to the uncertainty of her own natural biological facilities when she became intimate with her male "partner"?

It seems to me that there is really no such thing as "freedom of choice" in the singular sense. What we are really talking about here is "freedom of choices" (plural) or alternatively, "freedom to change one's mind." But note that none of us can change a paper-ballot vote once cast and submitted. That is by law" an irrevocable decision and choice. So when it comes to living flesh-and-blood why should any citizen have a right to change their mind about accepting the responsibilities & inherent risks in the life choices they make (e.g. sexual intimacy has the burden of responsibility)?

How do you feel about this
10 oz. baby born after only 21 weeks of pregnancy? Was this very tiny child just an "organ" 5 minutes before it struggled to escape early unharmed from the womb all on its own? In this case the mother lied to the doctors and told them she was 2 weeks further along than she really was so that the "doctors" would legally have to do all they could to save it rather than let it die on the delivery table. The baby survived and that of course upset many of the pro-choice advocates. They became incensed that this child would be so bodacious to remain viable during the time period it could have been legally aborted. They didn't want to face another intense round of public outrage over the fact that doctors had already been aborting millions of viable living babies even older than this one.
Last edited by AZJoe; September 17,2011 at 6:48pm. Reason: fix a typo
 
 
AZJoe is offline AZJoe Post #114  September 17,2011, 5:58pm
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Reverse_Dragon wrote :
AZJoe:Why equate sensory perception with a condition of humanity? It is just one of many requirements for inclusion in humanity. Does quality of life and one's environment (in a womb, in a room, in the park) change one's humanity?

RD: Yes. A serial rapist or a person in a persistent vegetative state has less claim to humanity than someone without those characteristics. Allowing them to die may be the kindest mercy we can offer them.
I see. But aren't you being inconsistent here? Weren't you one of the people who was criticizing pro-life advocates for trying to impose personal morality on the rest of society? At least pro-life advocates are not imposing new philosophy. Rather we are trying to appeal to reason to roll back the law to grant equal protection to all life (per the constitution) the way it existed prior to the bogus granting of artificial "rights" in the unbelievably bad decision of Roe Vs. Wade in 1973. No law in the USA that I know of was established on any philosophical or religious principal that a person who commits a particular crime or who by accident becomes seriously impaired loses his legitimate claim on humanity. This is your own idea and it's a very bad one.

In the USA, a dangerous criminal is stripped of certain freedoms but he is never stripped of his claim on humanity. The most serious criminal, even when found guilt of the most heinous of crimes on the most innocent of life (e.g. the pre-1973 abortionist ) is entitled to humane and fair treatment while imprisoned. Albeit the state may legitimately execute very dangerous criminals (humanely, non-cruelly) to protect its citizens from the possibility of an escape and as a principal of justice (which upholds the dignity of the race for the greater collective good). Can you cite me a case of law that backs your particular personal philosophy?

Your personal views here are really quite alarming to me. It certainly seems that you are now definately advancing your own peronal morality to change the entire western philosophical underpinnings. Our entire body of law is formed on the presumption of a universal equality in dignity that society affords to all as a privilege of being members of the human race. As a brief aside let me also mention that this universal presumption of "equality in dignity" is an entirely different notion than the commonly held but blatantly wrong street-myth of a "universal equality" in the talent/ability/intelligence/fitness etc. of all peoples, genders and races. There is no empirical scientific data that demonstrates this. But back on topic...

Here's a good example to demonstrate my case: Even a condemned person (in the USA), irrespective of crime, retains inalienable rights to appeal and to humane treatment during incarceration. This is all but proves that the philosophical principals of USA law (Jude-Christian morality) does not seek to strip any person of their claim on humanity for any reason. So again, are you making rhetorical arguments here or do you in fact imagine that you are endowed with some special self-given impetus to impose your beliefs on the rest of us? ;-) It's OK to change law by "due process" but a wholesale change of philosophy is going to take a revolution - or cause one. At least pro-lifers just want to repeal the insanity of Roe Vs. Wade to return to the prior laws and principals - not inventing anything new. You're apparently advocating a radical departure from the philosophical framework of our western culture altogether. Am I wrong? Are you?
 
 
AZJoe is offline AZJoe Post #115  September 17,2011, 7:19pm
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A few more questions Reverse_Dragon.

Do you know that the child in the womb has it's own blood supply entirely separate from the mother and that it can be of a completely different blood type? Do you know that the mother provides the child in the womb with both oxygen and food (blood sugars and proteins) and that the baby, not the mother, oxidizes that nutritional source to extract energy all on its own and then excretes its own waste products back (including CO2 - a definite sign of life) ? I know of no "organ" in the body that manufactures its own separate blood supply. Do you? Can you admit that you are simply wrong - and accept that the baby in the womb DOES draw its source of energy for metabolic function from the mother? The baby NOT the mother oxidizes that nutritional source as IT needs it. While the mother can flow blood and oxygen to the baby via the umbilical and extract the residual wastes the mother has no way to force the baby to metabolize anything. This is an autonomous condition of the baby itself based on its own growth capacity and needs. The very fact that the child self-regulates, grows, and produces carbon-dioxide is in fact a sign of independent life (albeit vitally dependent on its mother for sustenance).
 
 
mitchell175 is online now mitchell175 Post #116  September 17,2011, 7:35pm
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AZJoe wrote :
A few more questions Reverse_Dragon.
Do you know that the child in the womb has it's own blood supply entirely separate from the mother and that it can be of a completely different blood type? Do you know that the mother provides the child in the womb with both oxygen and food (blood sugars and proteins) and that the baby, not the mother, oxidizes that nutritional source to extract energy all on its own and then excretes its own waste products back (including CO2 - a definite sign of life) ?
You were not addressing this to me, but I will answer as a woman: yes, it is true that the fetus has its own blood supply and all that. However, why does that make its life more important than my own?

I am a strong proponent of personal choice, and that has nothing at all to do with what I would personally do in that same situation. This is where the pro-lifers lose me in their arguments. How is a life that is not even viable outside the mother's womb of more importance than a life that is already living? This argument assigns no value to the mother's life at all, which serves to negate the suggestion that "all life is valuable".
 
 
AZJoe is offline AZJoe Post #117  September 17,2011, 9:14pm
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Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Everyone uses their own perceptions and worldview to decide what is right and what is wrong. If you outlaw abortion, you are forcing others to adopt your moral code. That is fascism.
Fascism? That's the first I have heard this one. Really, this is just absurd. Pro-life is a universal human rights movement. It has no elements of Fascism. There is none of Fascism's requisite idealism that seeks to advance through eugenics or sterilization/elimination a particular ancestry, culture, and bloodline. There is no promotion of violence and war to advance national regeneration. Fascism is anti-anarchist, anti-communist, anti-conservative, anti-democratic, anti-individualist, anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-bourgeois and anti-proletaria. Pro-Life supporters are anything but that and in fact rely on democratic principals and "reason" and are extremely focused on the rights of individuals - in particular the innocent & defenseless life that can not speak in its own defense (the infant). Sorry, this is either naivety on your part or more likely your just wildly again swinging and latching onto the wrong "system" in an ineffective attempt to cover up your own lack of knowledge on the matter; or else attempting to unjustly demonize millions of pro-life advocates. What is particularly ironic is to note that this is in fact the exact same process the real fascists did in Nazi Germany - demonize then exterminate). Sorry. If you really know any topic history then you will find that there's much more element of fascism in the pro-choice/pro-death camp than in the pro-life camp. Just look at Planned Parenthood's (biggest abortion-for-profit provider in the country) strong historical ties to the ultra extremist fringe eugenics movement and its goal to "remove undesirables and the unfit/weak from society" (Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood:
The Eugenics Connection.

Better be careful where you point the finger on this one my friend...

From your words here it also seems that you don't subscribe to any notion of "objective truth" and instead subscribe to some sort of personal "moral relativism" (e.g. individual perceptions based ethics). Of course such a philosophical system can't pragmatically even operate without some form of absolutism - e.g. a rigid legal framework and an ability to police itself. And of course this then must create a logical self-contradiction. If you examine your own "perspective" it would certainly "seem" that it is you who wants to impose your own personal belief that there are no moral absolutes while simultaneously advancing and imposing what is in fact none other than ... guess... another (invalid/illicit) "moral absolute". Can you see that this line of thinking attempts to impose a rigid system or dogma on others while granting yourself the one exception to manufacture the system/dogma? So, just how might this convenient arrangement escape your own personal judgement of "fascism"? BTW: That's not what I would call it at all - its just another simple and ubiquitous case of fallacy and irrationalism that we often see in the Culture of Death?

Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Life is not universally sacred. Nothing is sacred... nothing is profane. Your arguments are the same as those employed for half a century by the right, and they're even less valid today.
See above - you're doing "it" again.

This litany of "nothings" comes across like a secularized pontification of sacred dogmas (but using a negation sort of formulation akin to "anathemas"). You're really just defining here what is not orthodox to your own personal moral code but you don't have a congregation to say "amen". Perhaps you need to rethink this again since you're again contradicting yourself. You just exemplified earlier that the notion of "objective truth" is profane so how is it that you can then come full circle to assert anything at all "absolutely" (under an assumption of infallibility) as you just did here? By the way "who is the right"? Are you speaking of pro-lifers? Did you know that there's a lot of "liberal" pro-lifers who would bristle at the suggestion they were "right wingers"? You really can't pigeonhole pro-lifers into any one political idealism. We are from all walks of life, ethnicity and creeds. Many are regretful women who grieve over killing their babies. There are also a fair number of ex-abortion providers and medical assistants etc. who left the industry when their conscience or sudden change in life circumstance would no longer let them make a living off the death of innocent children. There are many testimonies of ex-abortion providers: Ex-abortion providers: conversion tales

Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Fetuses don't draw anything. They are fed by the mothers blood supply and digestive tract through the umbilicus and placenta.
I beg to differ. If this were a true statement then babies that die in the womb from defects or illnesses etc. would not cease drawing nourishment when they die. But they do. Babies would not need to increase their nutritional demands from the mother as they grow. But they do. If it was not life in the womb there would be no need for oxygen from the blood supply and there would be no carbon-dioxide byproduct - BUT THERE IS because its a LIVING HUMAN.
 
 
AZJoe is offline AZJoe Post #118  September 17,2011, 10:00pm
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Reverse_Dragon wrote :
Actually, the Christian population is not a majority. They are just the largest minority. While there are more Christians than any other single group, when it comes to Christians vs. Non-Christians, the Christians are vastly outnumbered.
This was off topic and another reason why I didn't want to talk more about it. Since you persist though I will simply say that in the context of the original dialog - we were talking about the USA where 76% call themselves Christian. That's not a minority any way you want to slice it. World wide, which is not what we were talking about, I can concede that the ratio's change. But in that context what should be remarkable is to note the historical fact that ever since Abraham's time the shear numbers of humans who claim to believe in the God of Abraham (Jews, Christians and Muslims) has increased steadily and rapidly (geometrically) and has never been higher than in current times (roughly about 3.9 billion [57%] "believers" vs 6.8 billion of other various mixed beliefs and a smaller segment of pure atheists. I don't get too wrapped up in these kinds of numbers though since we are not dealing with an argument here that is based on a principal of majority consensus. The Culture of Death does not want to submit this matter to the will of the people in a popular vote since it knows it would likely lose.
 
 
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