Earlier today on his bus, @AndrewYang was asked how he can appeal to single issue religious voters on the issue of abortion. He said "I am a pro-choice leader," but explained how a supporter told him "the freedom dividend is the most pro-life policy they have ever seen." pic.twitter.com/8CMlWDl8an
— Adam Brewster (@adam_brew) December 14, 2019
১৪ ডিসেম্বর, ২০১৯
Andrew Yang, who says he's "a pro-choice leader," has an intelligent answer to what he can offer to people who oppose abortion.
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১৯৬টি মন্তব্য:
Is that one thing that won't work or two.
So...you can risk bringing up a child in a less than affluent home OR you can choose to kill him/her before birth so he/she never has a chance. Is anyone so obtuse as to not see the flaw in that reasoning???
Free stuff,.
Welfare for the medical expenses, housing, food and and cash for mothers and their children is nothing new. Letting the father live in the free home is new.
Andrew Yang seems to have some answers to new complicated questions that America faces.
Trump should get the guy involved with his administration in some capacity.
He should shut down his presidential campaign.
Anti-abortion people: a fetus isn't a human. It's human (i.e. not wolf), but not a human.
That's the idea you have to overcome, even if you're unimpressed with it yourself.
You can say a fetus is a human in embryo, but not a human. You can think of it as a human, but also as not a human: try one cell. Which way you think of it depends on what you have in mind. You might be planning a nursery, or you might be planning a career for yourself.
If you want to convince the other side, see what they see. Pacing and all that.
Dividend?
WTF did he just say? Word salad to me.
Democrats have abandoned Bill Clinton's brilliant marketing that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
Anti-abortion people: a fetus isn't a human. It's human (i.e. not wolf), but not a human.
A human life evolves from conception. The term "fetus" is a technical term of art to describe an early stage of human evolution, which is used by medical staff (away from mothers and fathers), by homicidal technicians (e.g. abortionists), and Pro-Choice religionists to mitigate PTSD and cognitive dissonance in normal human beings. Planned child/parenthood or selective-child is a wicked solution, albeit to a hard problem: pursuit of wealth, pleasure, leisure, narcissistic indulgence, social progress, social justice, medical progress, democratic leverage, and [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] climate change.
I'm just saying what you have to do to persuade. No point shouting things the other side disagrees with.
Start with something that the other side agrees with.
The Pro-Choice quasi-religion ("ethics"), not limited to selective-child, fails because it is selective, opportunistic. A universal income ("welfare") or public smoothing function fail as it normalizes unproductive participation and its attendant pathologies (e.g. spoiled-child syndrome).
First, they need to lose their Pro-Choice religion, including an unprecedented violation of human rights, and civil rights, including denial of women and men's franchise, and the life of babies who are denied a voice, arms, etc. Second, they need to address progressive prices, especially in the medical sector, but of asset and service inflation generally.
This is a shite statement.
"Freedom Dividend" is a doublespeak for Universal Basic Income.
Essentially his argument is that people are not having children in the US because they are uncertain about their future due to lack of guaranteed income. If you are truly pro-life, then you should support him because he will give everybody money, they'll feel more comfortable about their future, and they'll have more kids. Because you know, it is the wealthy having lots of children and the poor are hardly having kids at all.
Word salad is a much simpler and accurate response.
A very old (and boring) trick to duck the question of whether the unborn child/fetus is or is not a human being.
"I'm going to pass _______, which will make everyone's life wonderful so abortions won't be necessary anymore".
If you are for "human rights" then you should be against killing a baby....even if it isn't totally formed yet...it is still a human with NO VOICE.
What does the other side agree with, if not the basic premise of human life, agency, and moral principles/axioms? They do and they don't. They believe their religion is a solution. They believe that semantic games (e.g. "fetus") and empathetic appeals will steer perception and acceptance of their wicked solution and lesser choices. They believe that by conflating multiple issues, they will force a consensus by default.
Benefits, like regulations, are just another means of control.
I would support free sterilization. That's real freedom, man.
"an intelligent answer"
You misspelled "a disingenuous rationalization"
When Yang lost me.
What an amazingly stupid answer. First, the "freedom dividend" cannot work economically. Second, low-birth countries, like Japan and Germany, have for years unsuccessfully tried programs to give economic incentives to people to have children. This suggests his premise is wrong.
Essentially his argument is that people are not having children in the US because they are uncertain about their future
It's a partial truth. However, his proposed solution is simplistic, and does not address normalization that has sabotaged what is ostensibly his goal, let alone the diverse and first-order forcings of progressive prices, availability, and accessibility.
There’s a choice: you either protect the defenseless or you don’t.
So Finland used to be identified as a country with an Universal Basic Income. Used to be, until they ended it because it didn't incentivize people to work like supporters claimed it would. Instead, now it is claimed it was never a good test of an Universal Basic Income, because the payments were not enough to live on. I'm curious why people think others would go to work if they were given enough money "to live on" without having to work at all? I'm pretty sure we have lots of economic data that says once people have sufficient income "to live on", they retire and don't work.
Alas, it seems what Andrew Yang is proposing won't work. His "freedom dividend" is $1,000/mo for every adult over age 18. I'm sure somebody will figure out how to build a warehouse with beds and a soup line to house anybody that would like to sign over their $1000/mo for a place to eat and sleep. But I don't see that as incentive for those willing to sign over their $1000/mo. Still, perhaps Andrew is right, and as they crowd all these people in a warehouse with nothing to do but eat soup; they'll start having sex with each other and producing more children.
But where do the children live and eat, since children under 18 don't get a freedom dividend?
If you might get thrown out of the warehouse for having a child, who needs another bed and extra food that you can't afford, wouldn't that incentivize aborting the fetus before it becomes a child and you lose your home and food?
It’s amusing that hardin offers us his hot take like its a brilliant new insight that no one thought of before him and is a position totally novel and insightful to the rest of us.
The "Freedom Dividend" (as if freedom is something you own that pays you dividends), aka "Universal Basic Income", aka "more dole," is not in any way conditioned on a pregnant woman's choice, birth or abort.
So how could it possibly affect that choice? You get it, whichever choice you make.
And anyone who genuinely thinks you can raise a child on $1000/month hasn't raised a child yet.
1. More free stuff, including abortions.
2.????
3. More unaborted children.
Yeah, I can see that, totally pro-life.
The Democrats believe being pro-choice enables them to abort Trump's Presidency.
It's three years old and they're still trying to kill it.
1. More free stuff, including abortions.
2.????
3. More unaborted children.
The data would seem to prove otherwise.
We've thrown lots of money at poverty, even increasing it for the number of children.
Has the abortion rate gone down?
Yang likely knows the answer undercuts his argument.
Yang likely knows the answer undercuts his argument.
I'm basing that on his lapel pin.
wendybar said...
If you are for "human rights" then you should be against killing a baby....even if it isn't totally formed yet...it is still a human with NO VOICE.
How are you going to enforce this?
The FBI will have to have the miscarriage investigation unit. Make sure those miscarries aren’t murders and such.
The trials and jails and sentencing hearings are going to be lit.
Iman said...
There’s a choice: you either protect the defenseless or you don’t.
But in the case of rape and incest we choose not to protect the defenseless!
It is almost as if people are not thinking about the things they are saying.
wendybar said...
If you are for "human rights" then you should be against killing a baby....even if it isn't totally formed yet...it is still a human with NO VOICE.
And the first step is normalization.
Achilles said...
The FBI will have to have the miscarriage investigation unit. Make sure those miscarries aren’t murders and such.
Make sure those accidents aren't murders and such.
It’s amusing that hardin offers us his hot take like its a brilliant new insight that no one thought of before him and is a position totally novel and insightful to the rest of us.
Yes, Pants. And I'm way past trying to 'persuade'. I'd rather shout 'bloody murder'.
a fetus isn't a human. It's human (i.e. not wolf), but not a human.
Does that change when the fetus first breathes air? or, is that same true for newborns ?
how about toddlers? Elderly? Downs Syndrome sufferers? Jews? Gays? Blacks? Radiotelephone operators?
Achilles:
You realize your "how do you enforce it" conundrum only makes sense in an alternate universe where abortion was never illegal before, don't you? I mean, it was illegal before and we did not need to create a "miscarriage investigation unit". Your argument isn't nearly as dazzling as you seem to think.
But in the case of rape and incest we choose not to protect the defenseless!
That is the current state of compromise, albeit in different frames of reference, which is the reason for their effort to normalize the "rape culture" meme, "boys will be boys" epithet, and related trans-social progress.
Qwinn said...
Achilles:
You realize your "how do you enforce it" conundrum only makes sense in an alternate universe where abortion was never illegal before, don't you? I mean, it was illegal before and we did not need to create a "miscarriage investigation unit". Your argument isn't nearly as dazzling as you seem to think.
So you want laws that aren't enforced.
That is a brilliant idea.
Elective abortion is already illegal after the first trimester in some communities, second in others, with some minority efforts to progress its tolerance and even normalization to third and later. The Pro-Choice religion is a many selective, opportunistic, politically congruent thing, not limited to selective-child. However, the choices are abstention, prevention, compassion, and the wicked solution. That said, perhaps we can tolerate elective abortion in edge cases to the first month, before the development of systems and processes that are correlated with consciousness. Otherwise, we should have equal rights, which with respect to elective abortion (i.e. homicide) is limited to self-defense.
I will give him this- it is a thoughtful answer, and one tied back specifically to the major item in his platform. The main problem, though, is that the universal basic income is nonsense on stilts- completely irrational when taking into account fundamental human nature.
And when I describe it as thoughtful, it was clear it wasn't a canned answer- he was definitely thinking about the question before answering. Yang is a smart guy- definitely smarter than pretty much all the other candidates, but he is very naive.
"a fetus isn't a human. It's human (i.e. not wolf), but not a human."
Does that change when the fetus first breathes air? or, is that same true for newborns ?
how about toddlers? Elderly? Downs Syndrome sufferers? Jews? Gays? Blacks? Radiotelephone operators?
If you want my view, it's based on cuteness, for society at large to take an interest; and when there's a relation to others, there's a soul. That's just how we're inclined to use the words. When society at large takes an interest, it's protected and it's a human, or we pretend it is. After enough learning, the pretend human takes on the actual role.
At the other age limit, the status is inherited. Society still takes an interest, and here and there, informally or formally, exceptions are allowed as a matter of circumstances, e.g. DNR orders, brain death, etc.
Althouse is big against suicide, yet a book called Final Exit was pretty popular in the 80s. Ways to off yourself. Opinions vary at the margins how far inheritance goes.
The dogmatic views have to avoid an interest in the way words work, in respect of what we are inclined to say.
And I'm way past trying to 'persuade'. I'd rather shout 'bloody murder'.
Why not persuade.
Achilles:
If it wasn't enforced before Roe, without the aid of "miscarriage investigation units", then why have pro choicers like you been screaming about how awful such laws were for 50 years? I never gathered it was due to their lack of enforcement.
@Mockturtle: "you can risk bringing up a child in a less than affluent home OR you can choose to kill him/her before birth."
Before birth, there is no 'child,' only a fetus.
@Wendybar: "a baby....even if it isn't totally formed yet...it is still a human with NO VOICE." The truth is that hair, fingernails, benign and cancerous tumors are all human with NO VOICE, either.
"But in the case of rape and incest we choose not to protect the defenseless!"
This is a survival of the ancient tribal spirit - a child of a rapist is assumed to carry a sort of collective guilt. The child "belongs" to the father and his kind.
The child is, moreover, the rapists victory in the flesh, a carrier of the rapists lineage into posterity. There really isn't that much more men can ask out of life, than to create children who will survive you. It is the main prize in the game of life.
All conquerors (of the traditional sort) took their victims women and sired a new generation from them, through rape or what probably amounts to it, by modern standards.
Killing the child of a rapist however is un-Christian.
[mockturtle:] So...you can risk bringing up a child in a less than affluent home OR you can choose to kill him/her before birth so he/she never has a chance. Is anyone so obtuse as to not see the flaw in that reasoning???
Could have ended the thread right there.
I'll say one thing for Yang-
At least he speaks to policy, not empty rhetoric and platitudes.
That said, his policies suck.
I'm doing a sociology of abortion, not a theology. A sociology could lead to a stable agreement. A theology of abortion just gives you religious factions.
Theology - souls lined up and inserted into every fertilized egg one by one by God, from which the egg inherits its value and dignity that must be protected.
The alternative side: no they aren't.
Where's the possibility of agreement there.
he was definitely thinking about the question before answering. Yang is a smart guy
It's quite clear that public smoothing functions (e.g. welfare) have a fungible disposition and administrative overhead (e.g. enforcement). His solution should suffice in the short-term and it is a nice platitude with empathetic appeal. He may be green, improperly or insufficiently characterized, or other, about its value and side-effects.
rhhardin said...
And I'm way past trying to 'persuade'. I'd rather shout 'bloody murder'.
Why not persuade.
I know, right? You should try it sometime.
rhhardin: I find the idea that opposition to abortion can only be religious in nature to be incredibly obnoxious. I for one am agnostic and you won't find too many people more opposed to abortion then I am. If there's a position that requires a mystical belief system (such as the magical birth canal of ensoulment) it is the pro choice side.
Andrew Yang, who says he's "a pro-choice leader," has an intelligent answer to what he can offer to people who oppose abortion.
"Intelligent". It's a non-answer offered by somebody who's incapable of grasping that people who disagree with him on an issue simply don't share his premises. Or does grasp that, but is just blowing smoke.
I was in Vancouver last week, and encountered a protest by the cruise boat terminal. I learned that "Gender Essentialism is Colonial Violence".
Five words that I assumed would never occupy the same sentence.
Dignity comes from doing something for somebody else, nowhere else. It can be withheld only by the one whose dignity it would be.
Which means you have to be old enough to recognize the claim that others have on you, so that they can call on you in particular. That call makes you for the first time unique and irreplaceable.
Instead of an interchangeable unit among others.
There is teaching required on how to do that. Teaching the young how to have dignity.
I'm doing a sociology of abortion, not a theology. A sociology could lead to a stable agreement. A theology of abortion just gives you religious factions.
Theology: souls lined up...
The second side: spontaneous human conception ("viability"), political congruence, color and exclusion, Pro-Choice religion.
The alternative side: science, principles or axioms of sociology, reconciliation, consistency.
Now to play devil’s advocate a bit.
We are rapidly approaching a place where we can afford large numbers of idle people. Much of it is a result of automation and efficiency, which is, if anything going to just going to get worse. Thus, Walmart eliminated more jobs and destroyed more businesses than it created. People were able to buy more stuff, more cheaply, with fewer people needed to create, transport, and sell it. Amazon has stepped that up another notch. I figure that I could wear a new shirt every day (currently bought at Costco or Sams Club) from 2-3 days of my income. Yet I found a couple shirts in my closet from the mid 1980s (some LL Bean button down shirts, from when they were one of the few companies still selling them). Perfectly good shirts. Still very wearable. We don’t patch anything - it goes to Goodwill. Always have a box for them in the garage. I was lucky enough to have a job (patent attorney) that isn’t going to be automated that soon. Even a lot of lawyers though face automation. And hopefully doctors too, once sanity breaks their guild system. Even people mostly on welfare are buying 50”, if not 60” TVs these days. Houses throughout much of the country keep getting bigger and bigger, for all the unneeded stuff we accumulate. A century ago, closets were tiny, because even the upper middle class had limited wardrobes. We were looking at new houses recently, and was surprised that one of the options for one of the houses we were looking at was doubling the size of her master closet, making it bigger than many bedrooms.
This trend is not stopping. One of the motivations for the current space race is control over resources and industry in space. Those resources are near infinite, in terms of what we use now, including, esp energy. The cost is going to be getting production down to the bottom of our gravity well, and not much more. Not within my lifetime, but very possibly that of our grandkids, and esp the next generation that we are desperately trying to delay with our teenaged grandkids.
My point is that I think that we are rapidly heading to a society where fewer and fewer of us need to be, or even can be, gainfully employed. And I don’t think that that is a good thing. Much of the unrest today in this country appears to be coming from unemployed millennials. They obviously aren’t starving, but instead, are living much better than our grandparents did, with nothing better to do than travel around in Atifa gangs beating up anyone who appears to get in their way. Or, in the lower classes, running in juvenile gangs, until ending up dead or in prison at a young age. I think than man was made to strive, and that is becoming less and less necessary.
jimbino said...
"@Mockturtle: "you can risk bringing up a child in a less than affluent home OR you can choose to kill him/her before birth."
Before birth, there is no 'child,' only a fetus.
@Wendybar: "a baby....even if it isn't totally formed yet...it is still a human with NO VOICE." The truth is that hair, fingernails, benign and cancerous tumors are all human with NO VOICE, either."
Specious argument.
Only a fetus has the potential of being born as a human being; none of the other 'clusters of cells' do.
Dignity is intrinsic to individual human lives. Value is bestowed or earned. In most societies, human life has both an intrinsic and earned value, with variable returns based on the former and latter.
Yang has been using abortion reduction as a selling point for his Universal Basic Income plan for quite some time.
Did that "thoughtful" pause really trick some of you into believing that this was an on-the-spot intuition by the genius Yang?
Really?
Where our language suggests a body and there is none: there, would should like to say, is a "spirit."
Wittgenstein
Before birth, there is no 'child,' only a fetus.
"Fetus" is a technical term of art to describe a human life early in our evolution. Teenager is a technical term of art to describe a human life in the second decade. Then there are other labels, and other stages of human evolution, including: adolescent, adult, senior, etc. Both "fetus" and "teenager" are children (i.e. state and relationship). The term "fetus" is used by medical staff (away from mothers and fathers), by homicidal technicians (e.g. abortionists), and Pro-Choice religionists to mitigate PTSD and cognitive dissonance in normal human beings.
Blogger Yancey Ward said...
I will give him this- it is a thoughtful answer, and one tied back specifically to the major item in his platform. The main problem, though, is that the universal basic income is nonsense on stilts- completely irrational when taking into account fundamental human nature.
You say it is nonsense.
But what are you going to do with 99.9% of the population when all production is automated and they no longer need to work?
We are within a generation of this happening. Truck and cab drivers will be the first to go. That is a double digit percentage of the total workforce.
Universal basic income is part of the solution. The other part is providing a purpose for humans to exist.
We don’t have long to figure this out.
Wittgenstein said that a couple of days ago, at 45wpm, on my bicycle commute, listening to morse code.
Yang may never learn how not to sound like an arrogant insufferable twit, if this news cycle is any indication.
"Why, I am more pro-life than the pro-lifers!", the arrogant twit says.
Sure, and I bet he knows more about military history than the West Point faculty because he has watched Star Wars more times than all of them put together.
What the hell good is a "freedom dividend" to the dead??
We are rapidly approaching a place where we can afford large numbers of idle people... Now to play devil’s advocate a bit.
There are three issues to consider. One, the choices: abstention, prevention, compassion, and the wicked solution (elective abortion). Two, the sociology and mental fitness of people employed in diverse activities, which varies by sex, age, and character. Three, the religion, ethics (relativistic religion), or basic principles/axioms of society. For example, the prophecy of [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] climate change ("global warming") is the latest cause for some people to call for planned populations, others for redistributive change, others for minority regimes, etc.
Yang may never learn how not to sound like an arrogant insufferable twit, if this news cycle is any indication.
My impression, as well.
No Democrat can be Pro-Life, if they wanna stay in politics. They are the party of death. And Yang, if you can believe it, is one of the saner ones.
Qwinn said...
Achilles:
If it wasn't enforced before Roe, without the aid of "miscarriage investigation units", then why have pro choicers like you been screaming about how awful such laws were for 50 years? I never gathered it was due to their lack of enforcement.
Why do you have to label me a pro-choicer? My wife and I would never make that choice. We think abortion is a terrible thing and would try to convince as many people as possible to not do it.
There are a lot of church and support groups that do amazing work helping people make better choices. These are excellent tools for this problem.
The State is a really poor tool for stopping abortion.
You make my point for me with your stupid argument that you refuse to follow to conclusions. You wont throw women in jail. You wont throw doctors in jail. Then why the fuck are you going to make that law?
When did I ever say I wouldn't throw anyone in jail? I addressed nothing except your absurd "miscarriage investigation unit" strawman.
Universal basic income is part of the solution.
Something to consider.
The other part is providing a purpose for humans to exist.
That's true.
We don’t have long to figure this out.
Maybe. Human development is notoriously evolutionary (i.e. chaotic). It's difficult to forecast, and impossible to predict, the next stage of productivity.
Sorry, ma'am, but the bank says your Race Card is maxed out.
I'll say one thing for Yang-
At least he speaks to policy, not empty rhetoric and platitudes.
No he doesn't. He engages in the same specious demagoguery as the rest of them. For example, dismissing the defense of innocent human life to a "religious" concern.
Look -- for all but a relative few pro-lifers, their religion has little to do with it. To be sure, many of them are religious and many of their religious beliefs recognize the inviolability of human life from its origin, but the religion is informed by pro-life principle, not the other way around. An atheist is not pro-life because the Catholic Church tells him to be, for example. Rather, Catholic teaching is pro-life because of objective truths about human life in its origin as revealed in nature. Biblical teaching only reinforces what nature has already taught -- namely that a unique and individual human life begins upon the union of one sperm and one egg, and to destroy that entity is to destroy human life.
As Justice White explained long ago --
However one answers the metaphysical or theological question whether the fetus is a "human being" or the legal question whether it is a "person" as that term is used in the Constitution, one must at least recognize, first, that the fetus is an entity that bears in its cells all the genetic information that characterizes a member of the species homo sapiens and distinguishes an individual member of that species from all others, and second, that there is no nonarbitrary line separating a fetus from a child or, indeed, an adult human being. Given that the continued existence and development -- that is to say, the life -- of such an entity are so directly at stake in the woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy, that decision must be recognized as sui generis, different in kind from the others that the Court has protected under the rubric of personal or family privacy and autonomy.
-- Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747 (1986)
The State is a really poor tool for stopping abortion.
The State, the Church, the social group, is a really poor tool for stopping murder, rape, etc. Murder (e.g elective abortion), rape, etc. are human rights and will happen, and after the first one they are free. Societies set up obstacles to mitigate their progress anyway. It begins with normalization.
Now, before we get to the question of abortion, first we must deal with Roe (and Casey).
AND every honest pro-abortion rights person will admit -- as many have -- that Roe was an exercise in raw judicial power that manufactured a "right to abortion" out of whole cloth, with no constitutional justification. Very few self-respecting pro-abortion advocates have attempted to defend Roe on the merits.
dismissing the defense of innocent human life to a "religious" concern.
Yeah, that's one of the better straw clown apologies. Everyone, theists, atheists, agnostics, etc. have a religion or "ethics", moral philosophy or behavioral protocol, albeit conceived and taught by different philosophers.
Yang’s use of the unborn for his political objectives is rank. I don’t agree with his speculation that people (esp. married couples) don’t have children out of fears they won’t be able to provide for them. IMO, it’s more out of selfishness, short-sightedness, and immaturity... just a few of the afflictions impairing our society.
An inability to focus beyond themselves.
“It is almost as if people are not thinking about the things they are saying.”
It is more a case of some people focusing on minuscule exceptions and ignoring overwhelming numbers.
Very few self-respecting pro-abortion advocates have attempted to defend Roe on the merits.
The most plausible argument is sociology, including "go along to get along" compromises, for stability and other purposes, which are necessary, but sufficiency depends on the people... persons' morality, ethics, principles/axioms, or behavioral protocol, and reconciliation to mitigate progress forced by internal, external, and mutual inconsistencies. Case in point: diversity (i.e. color judgment) and exclusion, political congruence, redistributive change, planned parenthood, etc.
It doesn't matter what he says, he's just another non-entity, even worse, he's a democrat non-entity.
No Democrat can be Pro-Life
In principle, no. By virtue of their common religion or "ethics" in a universal frame of reference, they are bound by character, not color.
That we should respect and protect human life from its beginning until its natural end, and "shall not kill," is indeed a religious precept. For its part, the Declaration of Independence recognizes as a self-evident truth a right to life. But to answer the question of when human life begins, religion must look to objective nature, observation and right reason.
The Church does not invent its own peculiar biology. And respect for human life is not just a Christian obligation. Human reason is sufficient to impose it on the basis of the analysis of what a human person is and should be. . . . The first right of the human person is his life. He has other goods and some are more precious, but this one is fundamental - the condition of all the others. Hence it must be protected above all others. . . . In reality, respect for human life is called for from the time that the process of generation begins. From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother, it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth. It would never be made human if it were not human already.
To this perpetual evidence - perfectly independent of the discussions on the moment of animation - modern genetic science brings valuable confirmation. It has demonstrated that, from the first instant, there is established the program of what this living being will be: a man, this individual man with his characteristic aspects already well determined. Right from fertilization is begun the adventure of a human life, and each of its capacities requires time- a rather lengthy time- to find its place and to be in a position to act. The least that can be said is that present science, in its most evolved state, does not give any substantial support to those who defend abortion.
-- Declaration on Procured Abortion (1974)
Blogger mockturtle said...
"So...you can risk bringing up a child in a less than affluent home OR you can choose to kill him/her before birth so he/she never has a chance."
Most of "the greatest generation" grew up in less than affluent homes and faced the great depression, the dust bowl and WW2. My parents grew up facing adversity every day as my grandparents struggled to shelter and clothe them and put food on the table. That adversity produced a generation of resourceful, responsible, creative, civil and prosperous adults. We spend too much time thinking adversity is always a bad thing. Adversity seems to be a catalyst for much of what is best in mankind.
We spend too much time thinking adversity is always a bad thing. Adversity seems to be a catalyst for much of what is best in mankind.
Agree, Tommy. It builds character.
He's just lying his ass off to dupe people for votes. Duh. Never trust a democrat when it comes to abortion or guns. We know where they stand and what they want to do.
Nichevo @2:19, you attributed my quote to rhhardin. We both deserve at least a brief mea culpa. ;-)
The intermediate step should be leaving the issue to the states. And please, no ridiculous argument that poor women would be unable to leave their states to secure abortions. Once PP took their operations out of no-abortion states, they could afford to drive them.
A freedom dividend would address the biggest anxiety/cost limiting natality in America: Schooling.
Promote school choice. So you might not have to pay $1M in a upscale suburb to gain access to schools. Or spend $25K/year/kid to get a decent education ON TOP of your stupidly high income and property taxes.
Freedom dividend indeed. Free School Choice.
A "dividend" of a $10, 15, 20k voucher per kid to spend on whatever school (including a local public school if that's your choice) for your kids.
Oh wait, that's how those socialist paradises of Sweden and Netherlands do it.
Who will save-ave your soul when it comes to the babies?
Oh, who will save your souls after those lies that you told, boy?
And who will save-ave your souls if you won't save your own?
I always turn to 1990s popular music star Jewel when it comes to income policy.
Some are walking, some are talking, some are stalking their kill
Got social security but it doesn't pay your bills
There are addictions to feed and there are mouths to pay
So you bargain with the Devil but you're okay for today, say
That you love them, take their money and run
Say it's been swell, sweetheart, but it was just one of those things
Those flings, those strings you've got to cut
So get out on the streets, girls, and bust your butts
n.n. said: "Dignity is intrinsic to individual human lives."
Really? It is to some human lives, but many humans seem to live quite well without it.
All depending of course on how you define "dignity".
Arbiter mocked free
In all honesty, I think that rhhardin (a CW operator, BTW, not a radiotelephone operator) has the better of the argument above in a political sense.
As a legal issue, I think it should be left up to the States, but for those who find abortion abominable, trying to change or influence the social climate is likely to be more productive than trying for legal solutions. Good luck with that, of course, considering the media and educational establishment we have.
It is an imperfect world, but we must try.
He did a very good job of missing the point by a mile. Deflecting to "less murders because more money" is cute, but ......
Now I must turn my attention to Our Hostess: If that is your idea of an "intelligent answer", all I can say is that that looks to me like an egregious example of motivated thinking.
In fear of being seen as impertinent, I will not speculate further in this matter.
The average spent in the poor is over $50k.
It’s just that the money doesn’t get there.
OTOH, if Americans were actually aware of that number, things would change. There’s help and there’s HELP.
If economic security is so great for reducing abortions, shouldn't he be out campaigning for president trump?
And talking up a pdjt run in 2024?
What does yang plan to do as president to keep this economy screaming along?
I know the others will pretty much kill it dead. I've paid almost no attention to yang and his plans.
John Henry
Yang is as gay and as left as you can be. How else do you explain his having men kneel before him and squirting whip cream in their mouths?
So of course he's a big-time pro-aborter. He doesn't understand women and he doesn't understand family. He'll say whatever he needs to toe the party line.
Qwinn said...
When did I ever say I wouldn't throw anyone in jail? I addressed nothing except your absurd "miscarriage investigation unit" strawman.
Well, abortion will be illegal.
But miscarriage wont be illegal and "accidents" happen.
I have no idea what will happen to the rate of miscarriages.
It would take a genius to figure out what happens next.
But yeah straw man argument.
It surprises me that so much ink can be spilled on anti-abortion apologetics without taking cognizance of Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion." [cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion]
Achilles:
I'll repeat my earlier point: Whatever awful consequences you're expecting somehow failed to materialize the previous millenia when abortion was previously illegal.
I'll add obvious response #2: It's possible to make a murder look like an accident, therefore, laws against murder are pointless.
n.n said...
The State is a really poor tool for stopping abortion.
The State, the Church, the social group, is a really poor tool for stopping murder, rape, etc. Murder (e.g elective abortion), rape, etc. are human rights and will happen, and after the first one they are free. Societies set up obstacles to mitigate their progress anyway. It begins with normalization.
Murder is widely accepted as wrong. Rape is widely accepted as wrong.
Early pregnancy abortion is not widely accepted as wrong.
You are arguing apples and oranges.
Your position is based on a religious interpretation that life begins at conception. Why doesn't it begin at meiosis? Similar arguments were made against masturbation and people killing sperm.
The church is a much better tool to push your argument in this instance. Using the monopoly on government force to make people do what you want just puts you on the same path as proponents of sharia law.
Qwinn said...
Achilles:
I'll repeat my earlier point: Whatever awful consequences you're expecting somehow failed to materialize the previous millenia when abortion was previously illegal.
The consequences were felt, just not by people like you. Women correctly felt like they were being forced to make decisions for reasons they did not accept.
People like you made a religious proscription and used the state to persecute those who disagreed.
That is an awful consequence.
I'll add obvious response #2: It's possible to make a murder look like an accident, therefore, laws against murder are pointless.
So you are going to have a miscarriage investigation force. Or not?
If you allow rape victims to get an abortion you are a hypocrite. If you let women label their abortions as miscarriage then you make the law a joke. If you make a law you enforce it or you undermine the entire system of law.
You just want to feel morally superior. Just like the leftist virtue signalers.
"Similar arguments were made against masturbation and people killing sperm."
Ah yes, so sorry I ever thought you'd resort to strawmen arguments. FFS.
"Religious proscription"
I already pointed out, I'm agnostic, but it appears it is literally impossible for you to address anyone except the fictitious John Lithgow character in your fever dreams.
Marge Piercy
https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/culture_vultures/43802-anyone-like-to-discuss-this-poem-all-welcome
has the pro-choice side, if you want to see who you have to convince.
I bet I could do it, towards the compromise. When it's cute (=can be made cute), it's protected. It has the advantage of being true, sociologically speaking.
If it's cute, society has a relationship with it, taken an interest in it, and that's all you need.
Everybody stops to help a puppy or a kitten in danger. That's a transferrence of that social instinct.
A cell ain't cute.
Blogger Bruce Hayden said...
We are rapidly approaching a place where we can afford large numbers of idle people. Much of it is a result of automation and efficiency, which is, if anything going to just going to get worse.
Sigh....
We've been rapidly approaching that point since Boulton and Watt producted power at demand in the form of the steam engine more than 2 centuries ago. Read Marx (Karl, not Chico) he built a whole religion around this. Yang is apparently one of the followers.
We have been automating like crazy for 200 years and we have been putting people out of work from automation. One of my clients makes a product that you all have in your medicine cabinets, purses cars and wherever. They make it in almost 100 variations. 30 years ago when I first started working with them it took 20 direct people to run the line. 2 just sitting watching tablets fall into the bottle have been replaced with a camera. Lots of other automation on the line to the point where it runs twice as fast, runs twice as many hours per 80 hour week, with better quality and only about 5 direct people. (Direct as opposed to quality inspectors, supervisors, mechanics etc)
That is a pretty common story in the US in general and Puerto Rico in particular. When we lost the 936 tax break (good riddance, IMHO) we lost about half our manufacturing plants. We'd already lost 95% of our textile industry which employed huge numbers of unskilled and semi-skilled labor. Our labor was just too high, especially after 1975 or so when the US minimum wage applied.
Then in the 90s Walmart came in and destroyed our retail base, so some folks say. OfficeMax, HoDe, BestBuy and all the other big box chains followed. It was a retail massacre!!!!!
But look what happened to unemployment in PR in the 50 year's I've been here. It used to be in in the 20s. Now, even with the loss of factory jobs, even with the retail massacre unemployment was 7% (7 not 17%) in August 2019. It has since risen to 9% in October
Data here: https://tradingeconomics.com/puerto-rico/unemployment-rate
Click on MAX for the chart going back to 1976.
That's Puerto Rico, The rest of the US is a similar story but even better numbers. We always lag somewhat.
As you mention, houses are bigger. Why? Because people have more real income/purchasing power. They can afford bigger houses which automation (throwing carpenters et al out of work) has made relatively cheaper. The giant closets for people to put their shit (their shit, my stuff) in because they have more of it? Also a sign people are better off.
Even though automation is increasing every year!
One of the reasons for so much automation is that everyone is working and companies can't find workers. Not unskilled workers, not semi-skilled workers and especially not skilled workers. (Workers with useful skills. Try getting an English MA to troubleshoot an industrial machine or run a swiss lathe)
You are repeating the same old lie, though I am sure you believe it. Automation has always, always as in 200+ years, created more jobs than it destroyed. It has replaced those jobs with better jobs, better pay, better purchasing power.
John Henry
I predict by the way that abortion will be made illegal at all terms, but in order to get the birth rate up, not to protect the fetus. It will be taken as women's obligation to society, corresponding to having to register for the draft for men.
gilbar,
"Radiotelephone operators?"
I see what you did there! Alas for you, Hardin seems to be mostly into Morse code.
Jordan Peterson has been going on about what to do with the low IQ part of the population as automation takes over their jobs for quite a while. Starting with a seminar on IQ. Farm to factory to office to what.
I was suggesting good character training, but it's hard to hold onto good character if you can't do anything for anybody.
Qwinn said...
"Religious proscription"
I already pointed out, I'm agnostic, but it appears it is literally impossible for you to address anyone except the fictitious John Lithgow character in your fever dreams.
You assert life begins at conception.
The argument has been made that your assertion is completely arbitrary.
It is undeniably arbitrary. Other people have just as valid arbitrary determinations on when life begins.
You want to persecute people who disagree with you.
Deal with it asshole.
Life begins gradually, as we become aware of our obligations. - after Jabes, below
"Freedom awakens gradually as we become conscious of our ties, like the sleeper of his senses. Then, finally, our actions have a name."
Anyone remember secretaries? Not talking about the high end ones that would be called AAs today. The ones who basically fetched coffee and typed and filed.
Mostly a minimum wage job. Other than learning to type, not a huge amount of skill required.
Wang was going to automate that with word processors. They made the slickest word processors in the world. Of course, if you wanted to do spreadsheets, you needed a separate machine. We had a couple where I worked and they were really, really, really, cool.
Wang built a 300,000 square foot plant in Juncos PR. Biggest building, in single level floorspace, in PR at the time. They were going to conquer the world.
Then Bill Gates & Co producted the first practical PCs. NOBODY saw that coming.
Wang was basically out of business in a couple years, though they did sell some software for a few more years. The building was purchased by Amgen and they built a biopharma complex around it that makes the original Wang building look like a facility for storing garden tools.
My point is, that if someone wants to ask me what will replace all those jobs destroyed by automation, I have no idea. Most of those businesses don't exist, even as an idea, at the moment. If I did know, I'd be rich enough to hire Bill Gates to wash my windows. (or at least keep it working)
What I do know is that something will come along. It always has, it always will. Just as long as the govt lets it.
When the govt starts "protecting" industries and jobs, it will be all downhill. One of the reasons I am not generally in favor of tariffs but that's a whole 'nother thread.
John Henry
Morality has both a covariant and a contravariant side. I don't suppose that clears it up any.
TheDopeFromHope: "How else do you explain his having emasculated pajama boys kneel before him and squirting whip cream in their mouths? "
Fixed it for you.
Anti-abortion people: a fetus isn't a human. It's human (i.e. not wolf), but not a human.
That's the idea you have to overcome, even if you're unimpressed with it yourself.
It's like arguing with a racist about the humanity of a Negro.
You don't have to win the argument. You probably won't win the argument. Racists are by definition fanatical and stupid. Same with people who say things like "human but not human." You don't win arguments with irrational people. You out-vote them.
Pro-lifers breed and have babies. Pro-choice people kill their own children. Pro-choice people desperately censor and hide abortion photographs, and try to keep control of the media. What happens when pro-lifers start taking over media? All of a sudden normal people start seeing what was hidden (i.e. the truth).
rhhardin: "I don't suppose that clears it up any."
But you really didn't intend it to, right?
Maybe you were just trying to be persuasive.
And one last. somewhat OT. point:
Lots of complaints about Amazon killing retail jobs, though few people point out how many good jobs Amazon creates.
Anyone remember Sears Roebuck and Co? Used to have 1,000 or so stores and a huge catalog operation? Now bankrupt again and going out of business.
Why does Amazon even exist?
Sears already had the Amazon model. That 1000 page catalog where you could buy everything from skivvies to motorcycles. Stores they could send it to for pick up or pay the freight and have it sent to your house. One of the word's best tool brands (Craftsman)
Why didn't Sears do what Amazon did before Amazon had a chance to be Amazon? (Lots of reasons but I ask rhetorically)
Should the govt have protected all those "good" jobs at Sears by preventing Amazon from being Amazon?
Would we, the people of the US, and even the Sears employees be better off?
John Henry
Let that be a warning, Bruce Hayden! Do NOT get me started on manufacturing and automation. I never know when to stop. (I kid, I kid)
But I promise I will now.
Gonna work on my book about automation for a few hours. Secrets of Liquid Filling should be available via Ann's portal in February.
John Henry
Lots of complaints about Amazon killing retail jobs, though few people point out how many good jobs Amazon creates.
Sorry, John Henry, but it's not clear that the bulk of the jobs in Amazon are good jobs.
It surprises me that so much ink can be spilled on anti-abortion apologetics without taking cognizance of Judith Jarvis Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion." [cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Defense_of_Abortion]
Her argument is about abortion in cases of rape (i.e. kidnapped violinist = woman who is raped).
It's not analogous to people who have reproductive sex. There's no force, no violence, no kidnapping, no crime. You had sex and created a baby. It's been happening to people since the beginning of humanity. It's hardly a surprise.
People should use birth control. Rape victims should use birth control the next day. You can avoid the whole subject of abortion. Why should a rape victim pay hundreds of dollars for an abortion when she can swallow two birth control pills? Avoid infanticide, take a birth control pill.
clearly sears like Xerox, which did the first prototype personal computers, didn't consider this path of advancement, the problem is when there isn't a level playing field, china was waging full spectrum economic warfare, around the time that the Japanese miti model went away,
How are you going to enforce this?
When you recognize the humanity of unborn children, and make it a crime to kill them, then abortion clinics become illegal. People have to have illegal, secret, underground, highly risky abortions or (and here's a shock) they have to use birth control.
There's no reason to have this billion dollar baby-killing industry. Let's put a stop to it.
Harry Blackmun supported abortion because he was worried about the welfare state. He thought those babies would grow up to become welfare recipients. That was his plan for stopping welfare and getting rid of poor people. Empower doctors to persuade and/or deceive poor people into having abortions.
It was only later, after Blackmun was accused of killing innocent people, that he discovered feminism.
Also he became an opponent of the death penalty because he was tired of people calling him a killer.
From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death
That's all about abortion guilt, in my opinion.
Killing children in the womb by the thousands, predominantly minority children, is the sign of nothing more or less than a failed society. Subsidizing those killings is evil.
He can offer so much, but cute Althouse "trolls" by phrasing the interaction as intelligent.
Derp derp he has nothing to offer those humans who believe DeCartes, and the Satanic demon-worshippers who demand all taxpayers pay for Planned Parentood cunts to buy Lambos and Gosnell and the cunt in IN and many, many more who murder fetus for fun and profit declaim immunity from criticism because of what they just "know."
And they know they know it, and you don't based on your identity, ergo we only need to gain enough power to murder in warm blood everyone who opposes our great ambitious march toward History.
Because men just can't understand what oppression is. They are incapable, unless some anomalous freaks like working people or, God forbid, even prison people are raised up in convo.
Killing the child of a rapist however is un-Christian.
Very early abortions are not homicides, under our death statutes. This is abortion in the first six weeks or so. Still very bad, in my opinion, and should be illegal. But homicide is a very specific charge.
The people who say we can't determine if abortion kills a baby are either ignorant of our death statutes or are dishonest.
Most of the people in the judiciary aren't very sharp lateral thinkers. For instance in one context that say an unborn baby is a non-person, and in another context they say a corporation is a person. Those two statements, taken together, are absurd. But nobody in the judiciary compares the two, or thinks laterally. Same reason they don't apply death statutes to abortion cases. Death statutes came about because of people in comas. You should naturally apply these rules to life-or-death questions in other contexts, but they don't. Stupid.
I don't know who has embarrassed themselves more, doctors or lawyers, in this fight. Both professions have really screwed the pooch. See also journalists and the failure to publish widely publish photographs of abortion, or pro-life viewpoints. Very dishonest.
Before birth, there is no 'child,' only a fetus.
Quasi-scientific word, like "Negro," designed to justify violence against the unprotected class.
I know when people start using the word "fetus," somebody's going to kill that kid.
The sad thing about the abortion argument is this, we all like to think that young women are lovable and innocent, and that there are many chances for every lovely young woman to find a man to spend her life with, and vice versa.
Sometimes it is not so great a life, me and my pals have spent a lot of time discussing what went wrong with Fred and Wilma and Barney and Betty, BECAUSE WE CARE ....
but it is usually a good life, when a young woman loves a young man and vice versa, a decent life, trust me, I remember ....
but there are conditions on our opportunity to live a good life , one condition is this ......you live a certain number of years and you DON"T ENGAGE IN VIOLENCE AGAINST THE INNOCENT.
I know people disagree with me that abortion is evil, always evil, but how can you disagree with this ....
whenever a woman has an abortion, she and the father have experienced a loss for which there will be no closure, ever, in this world.
The mother and the father will NEVER NEVER NEVER see a smile on the little face of the child they condemned to non-existence in this world.
There is no "closure" for that, my friends.
God forgives, but even God has not, to date, run time backward so that those of us who engaged in the abortion of our children will ever, in this world, see those children have one single happy moment in this world.
and trust me, each of us is unique, God loves us all , and no if you showed up with your girlfriend at the abortion clinic, you will NEVER NEVER NEVER in this world be able to recover what you lost, you will never see that unique smile on the face of that unique little creature for whom you did not care enough ..... you will never see what you lost, never hear its first laugh, never know how full of love its little heart would have been for you and for its other parent .....
Maybe I am over-sensitive because I specialize in caring about the losers in this world .... the overweight, the intellectually challenged, the unattractive, the people who suffer from Aspergers or Schizo-affective disorders ..... and because THOUSANDS OF TIMES I have seen the look of friendship in the eyes of people who are not used to friendship from the winners in this world like me .....
but here I am feeling sad for people whose sex acts ended in abortions not BECAUSE I am against people having fun now and again but because
I KNOW THAT THEY ALL WOULD HAVE LOVED THE LITTLE CHILDREN WHO WERE THE LOSERS IN THE BATTLE OF SHOULD I (feminine version) OR SHOULD MY GIRLFRIEND (masculine version) head downtown to Planned Parenthood and let those ghouls kill our child .... I know every single person whose sex act ended in abortion is ashamed of that, in a way that good people find difficult to understand ......
I spend a lot of time thinking about a better world, where people care more about being what God wants them to be ....
Hate me or love me, I know that choices have consequences. Since the day I entered kindergarten I was always kind to the losers in life. I know what they think about the "abortion issue" ....
For God's sake, if you are tempted to participate in the evil of abortion, remember this: there will never be anything you can do to take back that awful choice to have an abortion,or to encourage your female partner to have an abortion.
Trust me, my friends. Yes I know that not many people on this comment thread are anywhere near young enough to reproduce ....
still, trust me, my friends, God loves us all ... more efficiently and powerfully than most people can imagine.
Not a bad answer in its way, but I imagine to a committed pro-life person it sounds like paying people in hopes that they would not to murder.
Congrats to the great Beta, well earned and amazingly fresh soup/nuts, but he ain't nutted yet.
"I'll pay you to kill your baby." Great answer.
No! I will be EVERY POC woman's Baby-Sugar Daddy. Even better!
Now to play devil’s advocate a bit.
We are rapidly approaching a place where we can afford large numbers of idle people.
Bruce, I understand what you are trying to argue, but the fact that more Americans are working today than ever before and businesses still can't find enough skilled labor suggests that we are not approaching that place anymore than we are approaching peak oil.
say what you mean and mean what you say
Good points John Henry. I do think Bruce is just arguing the opposing view. I don't think he believes it himself. At least I hope not. Alas, others rather argue the topic avoided by Yang.
Why didn't Sears do what Amazon did before Amazon had a chance to be Amazon?
Amazon succeeded in part by exploiting tax arbitrage, specifically collecting sales tax through legal contortions of nexus. In part because of population density, and people's desire to avoid crowds. In part because of good performance.
Why didn't Sears do what Amazon did before Amazon had a chance to be Amazon?
Lack of vision.
Bruce, I understand what you are trying to argue, but the fact that more Americans are working today than ever before and businesses still can't find enough skilled labor suggests that we are not approaching that place anymore than we are approaching peak oil.
The real problem that is being ignored is what to do with an increasingly large number of unemployable. There is a growing population of people who are simply unable to be productive due to cognitive ability. There is also a growing population of those unwilling to behave responsibly. The question is: How do we handle them? Exile? Bread and circuses? Eugenics?
businesses still can't find enough skilled labor
That's not true. Businesses are exploiting outsourcing, when and where they can, and insourcing (e.g. immigration reform, temporary residence, illegal immigration) in other cases with at least one coincident reason: labor arbitrage (e.g. compensation, social benefits), and progressively because of democratic gerrymandering that focuses on diversity rather than people.
Pro-choice leader? Does the use of that and other euphemisms mean that abortion apologists are uneasy about the destruction of human life?
I know I'm late to all this today, but let's just say I'm not that shocked that a guy known for celebrating his bailing out of pretty much any film produced since the 1980s - unless it has the resplendent Ms A. Hathaway - finds an argument for abortion.
Bruce Hayden : "My point is that I think that we are rapidly heading to a society where fewer and fewer of us need to be, or even can be, gainfully employed. And I don’t think that that is a good thing".
This is dangerous bullshit. By the standards of 150 years ago, we already live in a society where few people have to work much. Human nature is such that no matter how rich people get, they always think they need to get more. The incentive to get better stuff will always make human involvement in labor and productivity valuable. 150 years ago, 90 percent of people worked on farms. Automation changed all that. Is that a bad thing? Of course, if we stop rewarding people for their contributions, you know like in a socialist paradise, Then all this progress will go to shit.
Whereas ethics (i.e. relativistic behavioral protocol) has both a covariant and a contravariant side, religious or moral philosophy is invariant. Principles matter.
If embryos are human beings, how do you know? Do you have conversations with them or interact with them as you would a human adult, or even a human baby? Doesn't sound like it. I'm not sure many of you weirdos could even distinguish a 30-day old human embryo from a 30-day old whale embryo - and neither could most physicians.
Oh, but it's in the DNA, you racists say. Once again, how many sentient beings do you refuse to interact with as humans on a daily basis on account of them not having provided their DNA sequence to you, beforehand? On a weekly basis? Monthly?
God damn you wackos are weird as the day is long. Anything to avoid incorporating mentation into your definition of humanity, it seems - the one thing for which the species is even really known.
You assert life begins at conception.
Most people believe that human evolution begins with the merger (i.e. source) of a woman's egg and a man's sperm. Some people believe, or find comfort in, sociopolitical constructs that assert life ("evolution") begins with viability, spontaneous conception, or Stork delivery of a baby to a woman's womb. A minority of people believe that life for that same colorful clump of cells begins in the fourth trimester, maybe.
Elective abortion is illegal in some societies past the first trimester, in other societies past the second trimester. Are there any civilized societies with open, inclusive laws for elective abortion, selective-child, or the euphemistic "Choice"? When and by whose choice does a human life acquire and retain a right to life, arms, legs, head, profitable organs?
The freedom dividend--what is that? Does it mean I'd be free to do whatever I would want? But I'm free to do whatever I want now, if I am willing to accept the consequences.
This is about getting free stuff, isn't it?
@Saint Croix: "Her argument is about abortion in cases of rape."
Judith Jarvis Thomson's pro-abortion rights argument is not all about rape. She also argues that a woman who consents to sex is NOT consenting to the sequelae any more than a guy who smokes consents to lung cancer or one who walks the sidewalk after midnight consents to mugging.
No, her argument is that a woman has the right to abort in self-defense any unwanted growth that insists on continuing to touch her without her permission.
Your position is based on a religious interpretation that life begins at conception.
A human life does begin at conception. The origin of a presumptive, or systems and processes correlated with, consciousness, approximately one month later.
Religious (i.e. moral philosophy), yes. Everyone has a religion, albeit with different axioms, principles, and philosophers.
All depending of course on how you define "dignity".
dignity (n.)
c. 1200, "state of being worthy," from Old French dignite "dignity, privilege, honor," from Latin dignitatem (nominative dignitas) "worthiness," from dignus "worth (n.), worthy, proper, fitting," from PIE *dek-no-, suffixed form of root *dek- "to take, accept."
Value, on the other hand, is both bestowed and earned.
If embryos are human beings, how do you know? Do you have conversations with them or interact with them as you would a human adult, or even a human baby?
Lol. You know, a fetus at 7 or 8 months would interact with you exactly like a baby would, if you delivered instead of slicing it up.
In fact, it would be a human baby!
Nothing says freedom like chaining others to pay your living expenses via the imperial federal superstate. Very intelligent trickery. Didn't the Whites learn that it's better to grow their own cotton and to pay their staff in cash, terminating rather than whipping the poor performers? I don't know about the Asians and other reliable Dem voting pocket pickers but they're still a minority.
As Anne C. Cunningham explains [https://reasonandmeaning.com/2016/05/10/ethicists-generally-agree-the-pro-life-arguments-are-worthless/],
"as a professional ethicist myself, I can tell you that among ethicists it is exceedingly rare to find defenders of the view that abortion is murder. In fact, support for this anti-abortion position, to the extent it exists at all, comes almost exclusively from the small percentage of philosophers who are theists."
Theists can believe in any crazy thing, like the unicorns mentioned in 9 verses of the Old Testament.
any unwanted growth that insists on continuing to touch her
Charming how you talk about an unwanted baby like she's a cancer.
What I loathe about a certain kind of person is how the authorities tell them what to believe, and they follow. The unelected dictators say that people are not people. And instead of questioning this or standing up to it or being honest--in spite of what you know about this ideology and where it leads--you follow these dictators off the same moral cliff. You do the same crimes, again, that have been done by similar people in other times and other places.
The similarities between abortion rhetoric and Nazi rhetoric is appalling. The same cancer analogies. The same hatred of the handicapped. The same piles of corpses that nobody wants to see.
And you say these crimes, this horrific violence that is so awful we cannot show it on the airwaves, is acceptable, merely because your unelected authorities have issued orders saying it is right to do this.
If you're wondering why so many Christians are pro-life, it's because our Lord instructs us to love. To love our enemies, to love strangers and, yes, to love our own children. So when false gods tell us to decapitate, to kill, and to lie about it, sorry, no can do.
Stephen Cooper at 7:14PM...
MEH!!!
https://img.huffingtonpost.com/asset/5d02d20f2400008c1790d79a.jpeg?ops=scalefit_630_noupscale
Let me see if I get Yang's logic correctly: If I hate slavery I should be mollified if Yang petitions for betting working conditions for the slaves because at least he's offering me something.
...a fetus at 7 or 8 months would interact with you exactly like a baby would, if you delivered instead of slicing it up.
You know a political faction is proving how useless it is when it has nothing better to do than to threaten restricting basic medical obstetric practice over the < 1% of procedures that are the least likely to be elective and the most likely to be unwelcome but completely unavoidable medical monstrosities that would otherwise require further risking a pregnant woman's life just so she could bear a dead or dying "baby" for longer than would be healthy for her body or anyone sane enough to evaluate the actual situation.
When even a hard-core Catholic country like Ireland decides through a 2 to 1 popular referendum that it can no longer justify fatally forcing women through dangerous full-term pregnancies, you might think the forced term pregnancy anti-choice crowd in America might rethink its priorities. But apparently not. Apparently this crowd of psychotic religion zealots wants America to be more enthralled to Vatican gynecology than fucking Ireland! Unbelievable.
All over the civilized world countries are becoming more pro-woman and less disposed to forcing half their population to carry their pregnancies to term. How lucky they are to not have the knuckle-dragging Banana Republican sausage party forcing the state into their vaginas. What a bunch of sick, twisted psychopaths with nothing better to do. All the embryos! Someone needs to save them! Even Holden Caulfield had the good sense to not go that far in his salvific pretensions. But Republicans have even less to do with their time than he did.
If embryos are human beings, how do you know?
It's utter folly to try to reason or otherwise engage with such ignorant stupidity displayed in questions like that.
mockturtle said...
Nichevo @2:19, you attributed my quote to rhhardin. We both deserve at least a brief mea culpa. ;-)
12/14/19, 4:02 PM
No, I was on point. I was suggesting to RH that he is not persuasive and should try it sometime. Not you. Though I included your remark to provide context for his line. I didn't bother with blockquotes, as blogger doesn't have them.
What does a freeby giveaway of $1,000 per month (for now) to everyone have to do with the infanticide - since the government already pays extra to single-parents and offers tax "refunds" to those parents below a certain level of income based upon dependent children counts?
Since the Yangster was not corrected by the candidate, he effectively lied to his supporter and anyone else incapable of reason. Unless, of course, the new plan is to kill'em and payoff the murderers.
to do than to threaten restricting basic medical obstetric practice over the
Tens of millions and counting. You can tell it's a sickening total because Google manipulates you away from the facts in search results. Just try it. You'll be served up self-serving propaganda. Communists producing commie-like death numbers. Uncle Joe would be proud. Is promiscuity worth all the lies and death? The promiscuous regularly end up unfulfilled, without children, alone, angry, sad. Leftist goals.
Slavers have always been pretty good at justifying to themselves their abominable practices.
Tens of millions and counting. You can tell it's a sickening total because Google manipulates you away from the facts in search results. Just try it. You'll be served up self-serving propaganda. Communists producing commie-like death numbers. Uncle Joe would be proud. Is promiscuity worth all the lies and death? The promiscuous regularly end up unfulfilled, without children, alone, angry, sad. Leftist goals.
Lol. The only thing this unhinged rant is missing is the fire emanating from Commenter Smaug's mouth and the smoke from his nostrils just before being slain.
But at least Smaug loved his treasure and was celibate. ;-)
If you're wondering why so many Christians are pro-life, it's because our Lord instructs us to love...
Lord... your philosopher and religion. The so-called "secular" philosophies have their "mortal gods" and religions. Judge a philosophy by the content of its principles, not the color of its philosopher. It's ironic that some theistic philosophies advise the separation of logical domains, while "secular" philosophies have been predisposed to conflation of logical domains, and both have been subject to corruption, typically with secular incentives of capital, control, empathy, color judgments, narcissistic indulgence, and immediate gratification.
"If embryos are human beings, how do you know?"
It's utter folly to try to reason or otherwise engage with such ignorant stupidity displayed in questions like that.
So you regularly do engage with embryos then, Mark? Conversations and all?
Kind of funny that you'd say that - seeing as how "Mark" tends to be a male name. Or maybe you're one of those trans-lady boys who've been gender reassigned and made capable of uterine birth and everything!
In any event, it must suck living in the heart of a progressive secular nation like America - founded such as it is on Enlightenment values - when you're such a hard-core catechist. Are you sure the Vatican wouldn't be a more hospitable place for you than Virgina? I mean, that way you could wear funny hats and robes and play celibate male gynecological dictator all day long. Surely you'd prefer that to pretending you respect your fellow Americans' divine right to a government forbidding any "law respecting an establishment of religion" - let alone one as interested in being the sort of global imperial theocracy that the Roman Catholic Church has always coveted for itself.
Don't worry, Mark. Unlike what you'd do to these poor women, we true Americans won't subject to you an Inquisition or anything regarding your misogynistic values and tyrannical beliefs. And neither will all the rest of the Anglosphere that's quitting your funny church club each decade by the millions.
I'd say you'd have better luck preaching to the Latin world, but we know how your deity dictator Trump feels about that crowd.
...so many Christians are pro-life...
Christians are "pro-life?" Can I judge that tree by the fruit of how many wars it's launched over the centuries and the millions killed and persecuted in its name?
Can I judge it by the fruit of how happy Evangelical and conservative Catholics are to sell their forced-term pregnancy positions to a party that increases poverty and throws millions of Americans off of any health coverage?
What JamesB.BKK said... @
12/14/19, 11:45 PM...
Nailed it.
Communists producing commie-like death numbers. Uncle Joe would be proud.
Uncle Mao doubly, triply so... then they lost count in a progressive continuum.
Iman at 9:40 - my computer does not have the capability to link to the link you provided.
So I can not respond, although I am guessing "MEH" is an insult to me.
If it is, that is ok. I am not like other commenters, I am not even like the commenters I agree with.
I don't believe in God, the way you think I do.
God is my friend, my younger brother, my creator whom I respect, but also that unbelievably wise person who,
once in a while, gives me the grace of hearing the voices of
every single child who was aborted, and after years of hearing those voices, I can tell you this:
Every time a woman has an abortion, there are only two real victims in our world the next day.
The woman who should have been a mother and the man who should have been a father.
Sure lots of people who went to second-rate colleges where second-rate professors taught them that God can be mocked are gonna think, no matter what you or I say, that it is of no moral consequence to deprive the child who wanted to be the beloved child, born from the love of its parents, or at least born because a mother can not do otherwise than love her child .... that it is of no moral consequence to exterminate every hope that child has in this life,every hope the child had to look in the eyes of a mother or father who loves them, or to hear the voice of a mother or father who loves him, or - if the child is deaf and blind - to feel the touch of a loving parent ------ all those hopes erased, exterminated in the most selfish act that any parent can engage in , acts that are very prevalent today, partly because creeps like every Democratic president, ugly old men each and every one of them, since 1960 have been the sort of man who supports abortion ..... and partly because so few of us have love in our hearts, it is easier to think about pleasure and how wonderful we are than it is to think about the fact that ugly old men, far away, want the abortion rate to be high .....
the side of the abortionists, those hag-ridden men and those selfish women, is not the side you want to be on.
And for the record, Oxford, Harvard, the Sorbonne, Moscow University - just to stay in the European world - have been second rate for a long long time: what is first rate begins with the minimal human urge not to kill your babies, and to do your best to keep your contemporaries from making that disgusting mistake.
But hey, go ahead and vote pro-choice.
I guarantee you that future generations will not respect you.
References to fictional characters from children's stories in lame-ass insults is not a sign of quality. Two so far this thread, and yet no fact countered.
If we were working to identify the type or types comprising Joe's (and though Chinese, Mao's) henchmen, we might have a candidate or two on this here comment section.
forced-term pregnancy positions
That's a straw clown argument. Terminating a human life early in our evolution for reasons other than self-defense is illegal in most civilized nations not later than the first trimester in some and the second trimester in more liberal societies.
a party that increases poverty and throws millions of Americans off of any health coverage?
Another straw clown argument. Democrats have done more to exploit labor, environmental, and monetary arbitrage then share... shift responsibility. Obamacare's (e.g. Medicaid, forced-term price shifting) legacy of quid pro quo (e.g. government and industry), redistributive change (e.g. throwing granny of the cliff), forced funding and performance of reproductive rites (i.e. elective abortion) to terminate (e.g. selective-child) and cannibalize (e.g. planned parenthood) human life, and denying choice, ended with his administration, and failed to address progressive prices and availability other than through short-lived tricks. We'll see if the other party can do better.
As usual, an issue where hardly anyone says anything that the median American agrees with. Two groups of absolutists screaming at each other on the sidelines. The rest of America tries to get on with its life.
Anyone ignoring the ample resources I've provided above, proving that post-20 week abortions are not only the tiny minority of all performed (~1.5%) but typically a result of extreme medical tragedy where continuing the non-risk-free condition known as "pregnancy" presents a pointless, often fatal medical hardship for multiple parties including the fetus, is either willfully ignoring the facts or is just so disengaged from any experience with female anatomy/companionship or sexuality that they are too frustrated to learn those facts.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/18/late-term-abortion-experience-donald-trump
https://endingawantedpregnancy.com/late-term-abortion-controversy/
Even a hard-core Catholic country like Ireland reversed its practical ban on abortion after one was denied at 17-weeks, leading to the death of Savita Halappanavar due to sepsis ("septic abortion," technically), national infamy and international outcry. It's repugnant that there are males in America and even some females who would be so barbaric as to force these outcomes on other women simply because of gestational age and a need to view neuronally-bereft stem cells as somehow more humanlike than the cells shed by their body every day. What's next? Charging newborns arriving without a vanished/resorbed twin with murder? How ridiculous and medically nonsensical.
jimbino is puzzled why no one pays much attention to Judith Jarvis Thomson's essay on abortion. There's a simple answer to his question: Thomson's argument rests on a single premise: Justice is the Will of the Stronger. To many, this ethical principle brings back a whole lot of bad memories.
< 1% of procedures that are the least likely to be elective
When individuals go bad, how many people do they kill? Jack the Ripper killed five.
When governments go bad, the murder rates escalate. Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions.
And when fans of the government talk about this horrific violence, they try to downplay it, using statistics. Imagine using that sort of argument to defend ordinary people!
"Jack the Ripper killed a very tiny percentage of prostitutes today. It's so tiny, it's not even news."
Every human life is sacred. To kill one baby is a horrific act. To wave away the Carhart atrocities on the grounds that it's a small percentage tells everyone who is listening that you don't care about the killing of a human being.
Self-defense is a legitimate and legal cause to commit elective abortion of another human life. Debasing human life for social and medical progress is an infamous strategy. Denying women's agency and moral character is unconscionable. The planned parenthood protocol or selective-child is a wicked solution and an unprecedented violation of human rights. That there are men and women who support this barbaric rite with our current medical understanding of human life is deplorable.
Two groups of absolutists screaming at each other on the sidelines.
Life and death.
Liberals' new proposal on limiting abortions: legal up until the child is old enough to say, "Please don't kill me."
Saint Croix -
remember this
not only is every human life sacred
but for God's sake, there has never been a little baby who did not think, hey it will be nice to meet my mom!
and then there is Planned Parenthood:
your mom wants you dead
gadfly said...
What does a freeby giveaway of $1,000 per month (for now) to everyone have to do with the infanticide - since the government already pays extra to single-parents and offers tax "refunds" to those parents below a certain level of income based upon dependent children counts?
--
Yep.
And this twist:
UNBORN VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE ACT OF 2004
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