Mere “Ethics Dunce”-dom doesn’t suffice for P.Z. Myers, gonzo biologist and professor who writes the intermittently enlightening, frequently infuriating blog, Pharayngula. Writing about the horrific case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, an abortionist/quack/butcher whose method would make him a likely model for an episode of “Criminal Minds,” Myers wrote this, referring to the charges against him based on the fact that his version of “abortion” consisted, in at least seven cases, of inducing a live birth and murdering the baby afterwards, with a scissors:
“[Gosnell] has also been charged with the murders of seven babies, and there I have to disagree. There has to be a difference in degree, or the mothers of those infants would also have to be charged as collaborators (they were all willing volunteers for this medical procedure, and they knew the result would be termination of their pregnancy). They haven’t, and they shouldn’t.”
No, They haven’t, but they should. Even the ethically questionable laws that permit late-term abortions do not allow fully delivered, living babies to be killed by doctors, mothers, or Jack the Ripper. If Gosnell did that, as it appears he did, he was committing homicides, and if the mothers involved consented to them, they ought to be charged as well.
This seems glaringly obvious. Myers’ casual callousness on this point suggests that he has reached the end-stage of the delusional devaluing of human life that long-term, radical pro-abortion advocacy can produce. Whether the human being stabbed to death with a pair of scissors is a newborn, a five-year-old, a teen, a thirty-year-old, or a grandmother, it is murder. We can argue about the “partial-birth abortions,” which are at least partial. We can argue about late-term abortions, and abortions generally. Not killing live babies with scissors.
Think of it: students at the University of Minnesota are being taught biology by this guy.
Ethics Alarms 
So, killing a baby in a womb = ok, but taking it out of the womb and then killing it = ethically evil.
What’s the difference in what the object feels? They are developmentally the same. You can argue that all late term abortions are bad, but arguing that these are bad, but others okay seems pretty inconsistent to me from a biological standpoint.
This procedure has a huge “ick” factor, but I can’t reconcile your disagreement with this with ANY agreement of late term abortions.
Well, the law regards it as murder in every state that I’m aware of. As it should be. It’s no different than waiting to see if a newborn is alive and killing if it has only 9 toes or looks like James Carville. Once the baby is born, it has full rights as a human being. The feeling argument is a rationalization. That’s not the issue at all. We don’t kill unconscious or unfeeling adults. Otherwise, it would be legal to kill Republicans.
I do agree that the difference between this and late term abortions, where the fetus is viable outside the womb, is technical rather than real. And they are murder as well, but legal murder—which makes them marginally better.
The feeling argument not a rationalization. I don’t see any serious differences between a fetus with a minute left in the womb and a fetus a minute out of the womb. You agree with me.
Unfortunately, you’re now hiding ethics behind law. You see both cases as ethically wrong using a legal term, murder, but the one is more atrocious because it is (giving you the benefit of the doubt) actual legal murder.
By all definitions of ethics I know, the legality of an action has no bearing of the ethics of that action and vice versa.
You’re doing exactly what Myers complained would happen. Gosnell is evil (by pretty much any standard), but you are attacking abortion instead of attacking the bad medicine he practiced. Your post boils down to: “I don’t like abortion. Myers supports it. Gosnell’s case lets me attack Myers’ support of abortion.” Unfortunately, you can only attack abortion (without going into the ethics of abortion) by leaving ethics for law.
That’s not accurate at all. Breaking the law is itself unethical.The abortion problem comes down to drawing lines. Before or after conception, before or after movement, before or after viability, before of after birth. If you allow killing after birth, when is the next line? Intent doesn’t change the line, and if the infant is a human, with full rights, the intent of the mother is irrelevant.The law draws the line before birth in most cases, after birth in all cases. Yes, I would draw the line much earlier, but my analysis presumes the current lines. Your line makes neither legal nor ethical sense. Why is a day-old child more “feeling” than a newborn? Two days? Ten? As with Peter Singer’s argument, this one leads to societal rejection of abortion entirely….which is fine with me. Keep it up!
I 100% disagree that breaking the law is necessarily unethical. What if it’s an unjust law? Is it more unethical to sleep with a married person in Virginia than in Maryland? Was it unethical to have oral sex in Virgina a few years ago due to sodomy laws? Is it unethical for me to Jaywalk when there are no cars around? Though they often overlap, laws and ethics are not the same and you cannot use laws to justify your ethics.
You think the line is at birth even though you agree that there is no actual difference before and after, just legal differences. Your line makes no sense. It’s the same as drawing the line at conception. It doesn’t make any sense. The issue is that there is a continuum of development.
My line isn’t much better, but I do believe it is more logical. So long as the abortion process begins pre-birth and so long as there is no added harm, it’s fine.
Note that this is how the law often works. The difference between murder 1 and murder 2 is intent. The difference between justifiable homicide, manslaughter, and murder 3 is not very well defined at all. It’s a continuum of behavior. These laws (like abortion laws) are based on ethics.
As with Peter Singer’s argument, this one leads to societal rejection of abortion entirely….which is fine with me. Keep it up! Slippery Slope. Isn’t that one of your ethical nonos?
It’s no different than waiting to see if a newborn is alive and killing if it has only 9 toes or looks like James Carville.
That is also not a good analogy. This isn’t: have baby, decide to abort. It’s: decide to abort, have baby in order to do so. In both the law and in ethics, the intent matters.
Terrible argument. So as long as you’ve decided before the baby is born, you can kill it any time you like? Convenient; not legal; not right, either.
That was not my argument.
I am going to abort this baby is a protected legal decision. Depending on the reasons, it may be a moral decision. The means of abortion shouldn’t matter unless one causes unnecessary harm. You agreed that the means aren’t really dissimilar, so there wasn’t unnecessary harm.
If I waited 4 years, that would be causing unnecessary harm and would not be covered by my situation.
You need to think this through better. Who cares about the means? The issue is that there is a living, fully birthed baby which the law regards as having different rights and different status than the unborn child. Your decision to abort an unborn child no longer applies when there isn’t one—it’s no longer an abortion of a fetus, it’s the murder of a living human being. That ship has sailed. The birth, so the law says (reflecting a moral/ethical call) means everything: it changes the nature of the life involved. Killing a living child is by definition unnecessary harm, at one minute, one hour, one day, one year—ask the kid. He can’t talk? Then appoint a guardian of his/her rights. The presumption: living things want to keep living. Seems reasonable to me. Mom wants to kill the living thing so she can go to Cornell unencumbered and not have to deal with the kid’s jerk, one-night stand father?
Tough.
The issue is that there is a living, fully birthed baby which the law regards as having different rights and different status than the unborn child.
When does the baby get all it’s rights? When it’s completely outside the mother? When the head is out? When the cord is cut? What about a C-Section. If a toe of the baby is still within the mother’s frame, is it not a human being yet? Is it a human being when they start the incision? The line you are drawing is completely arbitrary. I refuse to draw arbitrary lines. That’s how we have .08 BAC on a random machine being equivalent to driving under the influence, when it doesn’t actually measure impairment in the slightest.
See above on my thoughts on the law applying to ethics. The same response attacks most of this post as well.
Of what’s left, you have generic anti-abortion arguments. Again, you’re doing exactly what Myers claimed people would unfairly do. You are using this madman to attack abortion. Attack this madman for being a horribly unethical doctor. I will support you 100%. Attack him for performing abortions, and you’re trying to link abortions to madmen. It’s inethical.
“Of what’s left, you have generic anti-abortion arguments. Again, you’re doing exactly what Myers claimed people would unfairly do. You are using this madman to attack abortion. Attack this madman for being a horribly unethical doctor. I will support you 100%. Attack him for performing abortions, and you’re trying to link abortions to madmen. It’s inethical.”
this is why abortion is wrong on every level, because you have to draw these arbitrary lines in the sand in order to legitimize it….birth? why birth and not age 5 ? and so on,…
there is no magic that happens at birth, that suddenly makes the fetus a living being, when just moments before birth you can suck its brains out and not feel at all conflicted,..other than some arbitrary “legal” line that makes it convenient for those who would benefit from the destruction of the fetus.
thus, plain and simple, its murder…no matter how many cognitive distortions you use to try and justify it. one can only hope that logic and reason will eventually prevail…conclusively science concedes that life begins at fertilization. the rejection of this fact will inevitably fade as people become informed, and eventually this barbaric procedure will become a thing of the past, like genocide and slavery.
anyone familiar with the Lucifer Effect? read it.
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Before you command me to read books, you have an obligation to see if I’ve not only read the book but in fact written about it here, on this blog. I have.
Ever heard of the Upper Case? Use it.
sorry about the lack of upper case, im on a tablet that punishes you for taking the time to switch to the upper case menu…bare with me.
the Lucifer Effect is what abortion has become, its no coincidence that Hitler advocated for the use of abortion to control populations of “undesirables” or that China and India routinely use abortion for gender selection, killing females many times more frequently than males and is being used here for the same purpose in some cases…nor is it a coincidence that abortion clinics in this country seem to be largely situated in communities where brown skin is most prevalent. or that the pro-choice movement has devolved into the degenerated depraved position that late term abortions and infanticide is the moral equivalent of having a skin tag removed.
or that so many think pregnancies happen accidentally…. only a rape victim has an “unintended pregnancy”, everyone else is driving down the wrong way on a busy highway, then making the ridiculous claim it was an accident when the outcomes reach their inevitable conclusion. so either people are just morons, or they are evil. i gather its the latter.
abortion exemplifies how the Lucifer Effect can be taken to the extreme, where societies can create a whole global industry of murder and death, for the purpose of what? to avoid the consequences of an unfettered sexuality…that is evil incarnate, coming from an atheist you can take that to the bank.
Not only does your comment not reply to the part of my comments that you quoted, it makes the exact error I called out in the quote.
An arsonist police officer is not a reason we shouldn’t have laws.
A sexual predator judge is not a reason to abolish the courts’ check on the government.
An abusive priest is not a reason to abolish the Catholic Church.
abortion is wrong on every level, your assertion that because some “madman” does something that, in your mind, crosses your arbitrary moral threshold does not legitimize doing away with the procedure, is not reasonable…
that’s like saying, “oh well because some people abused their slaves and beat them, we shouldn’t do away with slavery, just because of a few bad apples” they are all rotten apples from the start.
you could use the same analogy with something like child porn,..are you be willing to suggest that perhaps because many children are forced into these sexually exploitative situations but not all of them are, thus why outlaw child porn because some producers do more harm than others?….well, no. they are all doing harm…the degree of harm is irrelevant..because the whole industry from the top down is fundamentally flawed and morally bankrupt.
even your examples don’t pass the smell test, your arsonist police officer for instance is the reason why arson is against the law, we can assume your not saying some kinds of arson are okay and some are not. or that some kinds of child sexual abuse is acceptable but some are not. but this seems to be exactly the kind of moral trap you’ve boxed yourself into. splitting hairs over what kind of murder is more palatable for your personal tastes. its really quite ridiculous.
and further, your attempt at drawing a comparison between abortion and the catholic church is just silly. the two are not even in the same moral universe, while im not a fan of the catholic church, it is not the same as institutionalized infanticide. the two cannot be compared in the way you attempt to compare them. the church even with its flaws has done much good for many millions of people, abortion just kills them.
your assertion that because some “madman” does something that, in your mind, crosses your arbitrary moral threshold does not legitimize doing away with the procedure, is not reasonable…
And why not?
that’s like saying, “oh well because some people abused their slaves and beat them, we shouldn’t do away with slavery, just because of a few bad apples” they are all rotten apples from the start.
Oh…because you’re an idiot. Beat slaves was inherent in slavery, so it was a valid contributer to getting rid of slavery. What Gosnell did in his practice is against what EVERYBODY thinks is okay. he is a true one off, and his behavior is a true one off. No other abortion provider does the crap he did. If he’d done the same things as a surgeon, he still would be a monster
you could use the same analogy with something like child porn,..are you be willing to suggest that perhaps because many children are forced into these sexually exploitative situations but not all of them are, thus why outlaw child porn because some producers do more harm than others?….well, no. they are all doing harm…the degree of harm is irrelevant..because the whole industry from the top down is fundamentally flawed and morally bankrupt.
Again, you’re comparing one-off bad behavior to inherently bad behavior. This example even worse because children can’t consent. (I assume you’re talking about actual child exploitation and not about teen sexting…those laws are just stupid.)
even your examples don’t pass the smell test, your arsonist police officer for instance is the reason why arson is against the law, we can assume your not saying some kinds of arson are okay and some are not. or that some kinds of child sexual abuse is acceptable but some are not. but this seems to be exactly the kind of moral trap you’ve boxed yourself into. splitting hairs over what kind of murder is more palatable for your personal tastes. its really quite ridiculous.
This is just idiotic.
The parallel to arson being against the law is practicing medicine in poor and unsanitary conditions, without proper equipment, and using people who are not able to do the work properly — not abortion. There is no parallel in child abuse. Maybe your issue is that the link to PZ Myers’ actual post on the matter is dead. Here’s the original post: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/01/20/this-is-not-a-case-about-abort/.
is a monster independent of the abortions, and there’s nothing about abortion that makes his general monserosity more likely.
and further, your attempt at drawing a comparison between abortion and the catholic church is just silly. the two are not even in the same moral universe, while im not a fan of the catholic church, it is not the same as institutionalized infanticide. the two cannot be compared in the way you attempt to compare them. the church even with its flaws has done much good for many millions of people, abortion just kills them.
Ugh. The point of my examples is that the goodness/badness of a general institution is not affected by having isolated horrible individuals in the institution. If your logic applied for abortion, then it would apply for the Catholic Church as well. Since you’re refusing to apply it to the Catholic Church, you can’t apply it to abortion. Denying the similarity in the logical construct because you like one institution and dislike another is, well, ridiculous.
ok, you fail to grasp the point,…abortion kills. its indefensible on any level, it is not good for anything other than killing the unborn, for the sake of someones convenience, and profit (minus reasonable exceptions such as rape, incest and life of the mother, in these instances it should be regarded as a necessary evil, not a social good, like giving to charity or feeding the poor and caring for the sick, it’s not even legitimate medicine, any more than the death penalty is medicine)
the catholic church, however, is an institutional organization with a hierarchy and people it serves with the general intent to improve lives. the two cannot be compared in the terms you are using. one is an obviously evil act while the other is a religion with mostly good benefits and some bad.
abortion is an act of killing one hundred percent of the time, some think its less disagreeable to kill the fetus in early pregnancy while others don’t care at what time the fetus is destroyed even if its born, the common thread is that regardless of when it happens, its still killing the fetus…
it astonishes me still that “you people” are so degraded in you mentality and apparently desperate to validate something that is the epitome of evil. i hate to break the bad news but abortion is not progressive its regressive. its racist, it murder, and it makes its proponents look like utter morons…
it does not to reduce unintended pregnancies, just unintended births, it encourages HIV and other STI’s by lulling women into a false sense of security, making it more likely they will have unprotected sex, not less likely…as an industry it does not care if a significant number of women who have abortions are coerced into them or even forced into them..
and it demeans and devalues life in general by make ridiculous assumptions about its value based on very ambiguous lines, that appear to be quite flexible when it suits the abortion practitioners. it does not relieve any of the underlying issues in society that abortion advocates purported were the cause of the back-alley abortion horror stories they so frequently like to remind us of…i suggest it makes many of those issues worse.
the so called benefits the pro-choice people say abortion provides, are the same benefits of any murder, the person doing the killing is getting something out of it. an easier life, less responsibility, selfishness and so on, and it certainly makes killing the fetus easier and safer for killer…hey why don’t we do away with police cause it will make it safer and easier for the next newtown mass murderer to kill, and get away with it. is that really progress? no its not.
even from the standpoint of the underlying sexual behavior it is the antithesis of common sense and personal responsibility. i cant get much clearer than that. its not that i don’t understand your arguments, i just think they are mindless hogwash..and a sad indictment of the state of ethics and morality in society.
sanitizing the language in order to make abortion seem less despicable is predictable, and juvenile, and only appeals to the misinformed who are content to buy the rhetoric instead of the facts. which brings me back to my earlier point regarding the Lucifer Effect.
i forgot to add this to the list of reasons why abortion is wrong,.. its also anti-woman, since females are twice as likely to be aborted than males and its much higher in places like China and India . and now that there is a push to federally fund abortions through Obama care, the so called “reproductive rights” the pro-choice movement thinks they are fighting for today, will be a thing of the past. the government will make those choices for women, much like they do in China. the rising cost of health care will require the government to make reductions in benefits, and limits to the number of children one can have, will soon follow. it’s well known that many liberals see no problem with the Chinese policy on reproduction, they see the Chinese system as ideal, even if the utter disregard for woman’s choice makes them a bit squeamish.
Good conspiracy theory. Are you scared of Agenda 21, too?
i don’t know what agenda 21 is.
ok, you fail to grasp the point,…abortion kills.
You fail to grasp the point. The morality of abortion is not determined by this monster. Just the like the morality of any other institution is not determined by isolated monster members.
It’s a simple concept.
I’m not judging abortion by any specific isolated case, abortion is always morally and ethically depraved…in every instance, minus the very few exceptions i described in my earlier post..is that not clear? science concedes that life begins at the point of fertilization…there is no debate, one has to deny science fact in order to rationalize that abortion is not murder at any time during the pregnancy. the fact that some monster has taken the murder of living humans to a whole new level of depravity, is irrelevant, because I’m not in the business of parsing at which stage of development is less like murder over another one.
If someone attacks abortion in reference to this story, they are saying this is one of the evils of abortion. It’s not. It’s a one off.
Myers original article was a preemptive attack. Jack missed the point completely, then you missed the point completely, even though there were now two explanations of it.
science concedes that life begins at the point of fertilization…there is no debate, one has to deny science fact in order to rationalize that abortion is not murder at any time during the pregnancy.
What the hell are you talking about? Ova and sperm are alive.
“What the hell are you talking about? Ova and sperm are alive.”
sigh, ova and sperm are not living organisms in of themselves, they are considered living “tissue”, part of the main organism, much like skin cells even if such cells are separated from the main organism,…they will never develop beyond their current state, and contain copies of the exact DNA of the main organism. its not until the point of fertilization does that change, at which point the fertilized egg is now a genetically unique organism, this is the logical point at which human life begins. any other point beyond that is merely a stage of development.
Well, when you lie about science, of course you can end up anywhere.
Duplicate DNA does not mean that objects are the same organism or part of the “parent” organism. Genetic uniqueness is absolutely NOT required for an individual to be separate from others. Moreover, sperm (and ova) actually are all genetically unique of each other. Where do you get your information?
Sperm and ova will never develop beyond their current state? True. Same goes for a fertilized egg. You’ll claim a fertilized egg can turn into more, but only if it’s implanted. If you don’t allow the egg and sperm to combine, then you can’t allow the fertilized egg any external input as well.
You’re playing fast and loose with biology. You’re twisting it to support your desired conclusion. Well, more likely is that you read someone who played fast and loose with biology, and you didn’t think critically about it.
its true that duplicate DNA does not “always” mean cells are part of the same organism but in these cases they are, they originate from the main organism for the purpose of reproducing the main organism…they are not individual organisms unto themselves. so while its true that each sperm or egg possess unique genetic differences, no one would mistake one man’s sperm from another man’s sperm, nor one woman’s egg from another woman’s egg nor would anyone conclude they are alive in the same way an embryo is. and predictably the union of the two produces a genetically unique individual that is a life.
a fertilized egg can turn into “more” without implantation, its routinely done for the purposes of stem cell research. so while a uterus is necessary at this point in time to grow a fertilized egg to the point of viability, that’s not an insurmountable hurdle. besides, don’t you pro choice people argue that the fetus is nothing more than fetal tissue, but yet here your arguing that sperm and egg are unique organisms…which is it? regardless even if we use your reasoning an implanted egg would still be classified as a legitimate life.
dan,
its true that duplicate DNA does not “always” mean cells are part of the same organism but in these cases they are,
There is no duplicate DNA here. *sigh* Past that, you actually get science right for a while before this:
and predictably the union of the two produces a genetically unique individual that is a life.
That’s technically true, but that does not mean the life has human rights. It is an individual life for sure, it’s like a chicken egg to a chicken. Same species, but the rules about them are different.
a fertilized egg can turn into “more” without implantation, its routinely done for the purposes of stem cell research. so while a uterus is necessary at this point in time to grow a fertilized egg to the point of viability, that’s not an insurmountable hurdle.
While a sperm is necessary at this point in time to grow an egg to the point of viability, that’s not an insurmountable hurdle, either. Nice attempt at special pleading.
besides, don’t you pro choice people argue that the fetus is nothing more than fetal tissue, but yet here your arguing that sperm and egg are unique organisms…which is it?
I’m arguing that your differentiator was invalid. Nothing more.
regardless even if we use your reasoning an implanted egg would still be classified as a legitimate life.
What now? What reasoning is my reasoning? My guess is that you’re trying to avoid the issue of external factors that I brought up, but implantation does not do that. A blastocyst will not survive if the womb it’s in dies.
“That’s technically true, but that does not mean the life has human rights. It is an individual life for sure, it’s like a chicken egg to a chicken. Same species, but the rules about them are different.”
these rules are different because people make the rules to suit themselves..if your on the shit list then guess what? the rules are are not made to benefit you.
if I’m going kill someone i might use many rationalizations to justify it and i might even create my own reality to make killing less disagreeable to my sensibilities, such as denying who I’m about to kill isn’t really a life when in fact it is (Nazis killing millions of Jews during the 2nd WW comes to mind as a similar example of the dehumanizing that goes on in the minds of killers). i might even try to enlist others to help me do the killing so i wont feel so bad about it, also to reduce the risk to my own life if i were to do it myself (like hiring a hit man). i might even encourage others to kill in the same way so i can gather their support and create a whole social movement based on death, while trying to alleviating my guilt.
“A blastocyst will not survive if the womb it’s in dies.”
true, but that’s irrelevant, it may not survive if the sun explodes either,…so, if it dies early in development for any natural reason (meaning no intentional killing by a second party) then its natural death. all living things die eventually, the question here is how and why.
“I’m arguing that your differentiator was invalid. Nothing more”
no, what you are doing is splitting hairs, and playing word games, because the position you have taken is utterly ridiculous, and indefensible.
but i do apriciate you taking the time to debate, you’ve been a good sport.
these rules are different because people make the rules to suit themselves..if your on the shit list then guess what? the rules are are not made to benefit you.
The rules are different because there are differences. Sheesh. Do you really think an egg is the same as a clucking chicken?
if I’m going kill someone i might use many rationalizations to justify it and i might even create my own reality to make killing less disagreeable to my sensibilities, such as denying who I’m about to kill isn’t really a life when in fact it is (Nazis killing millions of Jews during the 2nd WW comes to mind as a similar example of the dehumanizing that goes on in the minds of killers).
Even ignoring Godwin’s law, you’re off. There’s no difference between a Jew and a gentile. I’m not dealing with the rest of the paragraph as it’s stupid. If evil people would do something similar, that does not mean this is evil. I’m going to call it “argument from common actions”.
“A blastocyst will not survive if the womb it’s in dies.”
true, but that’s irrelevant, it may not survive if the sun explodes either,…so, if it dies early in development for any natural reason (meaning no intentional killing by a second party) then its natural death. all living things die eventually, the question here is how and why.
You missed the point. The blastocyst needs the external womb to survive. It’s direct input from an external, living source. Comparing it to the sun is a joke. Also, you just suggested that if someone dies because a car accidentally ran over them, that’s a “natural death”
“I’m arguing that your differentiator was invalid. Nothing more”
no, what you are doing is splitting hairs, and playing word games, because the position you have taken is utterly ridiculous, and indefensible.
You haven’t pointed out one word game I’ve played, or anything that’s actually trivial that I’ve made a big deal out of. Generalized attacks are evidence that you can’t support your position. It’s the last vestige of a defeated position.
but i do apriciate you taking the time to debate, you’ve been a good sport.
http://xkcd.com/386/
“Do you really think an egg is the same as a clucking chicken?”
life is a continuum, not static state of being that magically happens to you at birth, it spans time and has stages of development which occur through its entire course. so essentially there is no difference between the egg and the chicken, they are in fact the same life form at different stages of development. sheesh. 😉 if i pick up a maple seed, is it a maple tree? well yes it is…i could go to my nearest genetics lab and they could analyze the DNA which would reveal that it is in fact a maple tree, they could even tell me what species, if we were to dissect it under a magnifier we could find the embryo with developing leaves and a tap root…no one is going to mistake it for anything else. but the seed is not a mature tree this is true,..no more than the egg of a chicken is an adult chicken, but like the chicken egg, it is the same living individual organism. it does not magically become alive when the egg cracks open…it was alive from the initial point of “fertilization”.
“you just suggested that if someone dies because a car accidentally ran over them, that’s a “natural death””
no,…that would be an accident. 🙂 this last bit, is what I’m talking about,..playing word games, splitting hairs..or being deliberately obtuse. now that’s what you do when you cant support a position. your splitting hairs over my statement about the sun exploding because you basically cant argue the point on logic…its irrelevant if the woman dies or miscarries due to something beyond her control and the fetus dies with her, the issue here is abortion, which is a deliberate and intentional act. like killing Jews.
“There’s no difference between a Jew and a gentile”
sure there is, the Nazis seemed to think so anyway, and for this part of the discussion that’s all that matters, making my point, it is acceptable to kill the fetus in your mind because YOU have decided the fetus is not valuable or even human. which is why the monster in Pennsylvania felt not at all conflicted about delivering live babies and killing them…because he decided they had no value and were not even human..as far as the central issue here, i fail to see how either of you differ, just like i fail to see any pertinent distinction between abortion and Nazi genocide or the Newtown mass murder.
dan,
Chicken-egg
I didn’t suggest that a fetus is not living. I suggest that since we don’t treat chicken lifeforms equally at all stages of their development, we shouldn’t treat human lifeforms equally at all stages of their development.
You almost got to this answer, and then you took a servere left turn into a tree.
“natural death”
You dodged the question. You created the rule. If you change it now, you’re admitting that the rule was rationalization. You just made it up.
Splitting hairs
Pointing out an issue in a rule is not splitting hairs. In this case, your rule, “any natural reason (meaning no intentional killing by a second party)”, was a big part of your argument. Accidents are now natural reasons. That this fails logic spectacularly is a major problem for your argument. You can’t deflect it by complaining that I pointed it out.
The sun
I didn’t split hairs here. I pointed out your comparison was not an in-kind comparison. The sun is not a life. Being dependent on an inatimate object is different than being dependent on a conscious, living object.
its irrelevant if the woman dies or miscarries due to something beyond her control and the fetus dies with her, the issue here is abortion, which is a deliberate and intentional act. like killing Jews.
And this ignores what the comparison was about. It was “egg relies on sperm as impregnated egg relies on womb as fetus relies on womb.”
You had tried to escape some of my complaints by saying that even if they were true, a different point hekd. My complaints were about the dependence of the egg on sperm and fertilized egg on womb, and you tried to say that even if I was right, the implanted egg was whole and didn’t suffer from the same problem. My comparison pointed out that there was still the same problem. That termination is a deliberate act does not in any way change the dependent calculus. You’re not trying to move the goalposts, are you?
Jew vs Gentile — Fetus vs baby
You claim here that there really are no differences between a fetus and a baby…that they are all in my mind. Your first paragraph in this post though agrees that there are differences in different stages of development. You seem to know this… you just ignore that it applies to humans.
You also created a strawman position for me. “it is acceptable to kill the fetus in your mind because YOU have decided the fetus is not valuable or even human.” I have never stated such. I think Fetuses are human, and I think they are valuable. I just don’t think they are equivalent to a human in a later stage of development (just like in-egg chickens are not equivalent to pecking chickens, despite both being chickens, both being life, and both being valuable).
If you can’t take my positions head on, then you probably need to reexamine your own thoughts.
newtown comparison
This is just out of left field. That killer there didn’t think there was a difference between the people, so it didn’t apply to the idea in play. It’s a completely new argument, and one that’s too stupid to get into (“All killings are equally bad” is always a loser).
(“All killings are equally bad” is always a loser).
do you even have a brain? i never implied all killings are equally bad, only needless murders are bad,..abortions are needless, because the pregnancy is utterly avoidable. killing for self defense, for instance, while unfortunate is not necessarily needless.
comparing the fetus to a chicken egg is ridiculous, on its face…how we treat chicken eggs compared to chickens is irrelevant,…we happen to eat both.
“Your first paragraph in this post though agrees that there are differences in different stages of development. You seem to know this… you just ignore that it applies to humans.”
no i don’t, i accept there are differences in stages of development, i just reject the notion that arbitrarily deciding which stage is has more value of another does not pass the smell test, especially since you are content to leave it up to the woman, who may or may not even be informed or to abortion practitioners…so where do you draw your arbitrary line?…if its not where gosnell drew it.
being dependent on another for ones survival applies to any infant already born, it also applies to many people who are disabled and many elderly…if that’s your line, then you might as well be arguing that killing these people would be ok, because they are a burden on their caretakers.
if your logic is the fetus is not fully developed, a child of 5 is not fully developed. you might as well argue that killing a child of 5 is ok because hes not developed enough to give him full adult rights.
the problem with pro abortion advocacy is you can never draw a line at which the killing stops, we already have a president who doesn’t think what gosnell did was wrong. he argued it was ok to fully deliver a baby and then kill it while he as in the Illinois state legislature…and your acting as if what gosnell did is somehow extreme for for the pro choice movement, when its what they have been fighting for all along.
dan,
do you even have a brain? i never implied all killings are equally bad, only needless murders are bad,..abortions are needless, because the pregnancy is utterly avoidable. killing for self defense, for instance, while unfortunate is not necessarily needless.
Here’s me in context: “This is just out of left field. The Newtown killer didn’t think there was a difference between the people, so it didn’t apply to the idea in play. It’s a completely new argument, and one that’s too stupid to get into (“All killings are equally bad” is always a loser).”
It was because you threw the Newtown killer into the comparison, when you had been working off the idea that abortionists kill because they see fetuses as less than human, just like Nazis saw Jews as less than human. Your main point was wrong, but the Newtown comment was a type change, and deserved being called out.
Your new argument about “needless murders” begs the question pretty clearly. Anybody should be able to see that.
comparing the fetus to a chicken egg is ridiculous, on its face…how we treat chicken eggs compared to chickens is irrelevant,…we happen to eat both.
I explained how it was relevant. Can you attack my argument or make an actual counter argument. Just repeating that you don’t think there’s a comparison isn’t valid, no matter how strong the language you use is.
no i don’t, i accept there are differences in stages of development, i just reject the notion that arbitrarily deciding which stage is has more value of another does not pass the smell test, especially since you are content to leave it up to the woman, who may or may not even be informed or to abortion practitioners…so where do you draw your arbitrary line?…if its not where gosnell drew it.
First, you just said above that you deny the comparison that their are differences in stages of development. *sigh*. You are trying to have it every which way. For your Nazi/Jew analogy, there had to be no actual differences. Now there are differences. You’re moving the goalposts.
Anyway, nobody has suggesting arbitrarily deciding the value of stages. That’s a strawman. The line is set at birth as that actually is the point where there is a separate entitiy not dependent on the parent entity. Other entities can take care of it at that point, but prior to that point, the parent MUST be involved. You’re the one who is claiming that all stages should be treated equally even when their are differences.
The parent entity making the decision seems right to me in this context. Science has spoken on the issue, and the parent entity is allowed to do with that what they will within the boundaries that have been set up. Science has said that a book is an inatimate object, but owners of books are allowed to treat it as more if they so desire.
Referencing the smell test is just an appeal to common belief. It’s invalid.
Gosnell didn’t have a line on stages of development, or on basic medical care, or on ethics. That’s why he’s a monster.
being dependent on another for ones survival applies to any infant already born, it also applies to many people who are disabled and many elderly…if that’s your line, then you might as well be arguing that killing these people would be ok, because they are a burden on their caretakers.
“Uniquely dependent” not “dependent”. Society is willing to care for born and unwanted infants (heck, there are safe sites to drop off such infants with no repercussions). There are no requirements for people to care for disabled, and society picks up the tab there, too. This strawman argument of ignoring the actual physical relationship between mother and fetus is old hat.
if your logic is the fetus is not fully developed, a child of 5 is not fully developed. you might as well argue that killing a child of 5 is ok because hes not developed enough to give him full adult rights.
Never made that argument
the problem with pro abortion advocacy is you can never draw a line at which the killing stops,
You mean other than the bright line that we’ve drawn?
we already have a president who doesn’t think what gosnell did was wrong. he argued it was ok to fully deliver a baby and then kill it while he as in the Illinois state legislature…and your acting as if what gosnell did is somehow extreme for for the pro choice movement, when its what they have been fighting for all along.
Liar. Partial birth abortion is not the same thing as what Gosnell did. Accidental births during abortion were treated as live babies in the bills supported by Obama.
“Accidental births during abortion were treated as live babies in the bills supported by Obama.”
that is baloney, obama has voted against every “born alive” legislation. hes on tape arguing against such legislation for god sakes. those pesky tape recorders..lol
” Can you attack my argument or make an actual counter argument.”
i did, the chicken and egg comparison, is not legitimate because we eat both, you assert we treat the egg differently than the chicken,..im saying we don’t…and we don’t. not in any meaningful way anyway.
” The line is set at birth as that actually is the point where there is a separate entitiy not dependent on the parent entity”
that is an arbitrary line,..there are conjoined twins where one is dependent on the other for its survival. setting the line at birth is retarded…sorry. anyone with a 5th grade education can tell you that a baby at 8 months is equally a living human being as one that has passed the cervix…like i explained earlier there is nothing magical that happens at birth to the fetus that changes its status as a living being, the notion that just moments before birth it is wholly disqualified from being recognized as a living individual is ridiculous and contrary to any legitimate science.
the physical relationship between the mother and child, while not entirely irrelevant, is not a legitimate reason to kill the fetus. you have to prove the burden is unusual. pregnancy in not only not unusual, but it also happens to be avoidable…your not the kind of person who drives wildly out of control down the street going the wrong way and then claims it was an accident when you crash into a bus load of kids, are you?
” Society is willing to care for born and unwanted infants ”
then why kill it?
” if your logic is the fetus is not fully developed, a child of 5 is not fully developed. you might as well argue that killing a child of 5 is ok because hes not developed enough to give him full adult rights.
Never made that argument”
yes you did. remember your assertion that we treat chicken eggs differently than chickens? that was half your argument, we don’t give fetuses human rights because they are not fully human until they are born( ridiculous on its face, that was the gist of your argument) and, that it is dependent on the mother, i hate to beat a dead horse here but these are not legitimate because they can apply to those who are born.
” Partial birth abortion is not the same thing as what Gosnell did.”
partial birth abortion is essentially the same as fully delivering a baby and killing it…if you can partially deliver it, why not fully deliver it. the suggestion that partial birth abortion is ethical is ludicrous and delusional.
“Accidental births during abortion were treated as live babies in the bills supported by Obama.”
that is baloney, obama has voted against every “born alive” legislation. hes on tape arguing against such legislation for god sakes. those pesky tape recorders..lol
Your response does not contradict my statement. The so called “born alive” laws that Obama was against also banned other things that he was against. If a legislator supports 5 parts of a law, but finds 1 unconstitutional, they better be a against it.
” Can you attack my argument or make an actual counter argument.”
i did, the chicken and egg comparison, is not legitimate because we eat both, you assert we treat the egg differently than the chicken,..im saying we don’t…and we don’t. not in any meaningful way anyway.
Yes, we eat both. That’s one similarity, but that doesn’t mean we treat them equally.
We eat both lettuce and deer, but we treat them considerably differently.
The laws about selling live chickens and selling fertilized eggs are different. The laws about transportation of each are different. We understand that eggs are not the same as pecking chickens, and treat them differently as a result.
” The line is set at birth as that actually is the point where there is a separate entitiy not dependent on the parent entity”
that is an arbitrary line,..there are conjoined twins where one is dependent on the other for its survival. setting the line at birth is retarded…sorry. anyone with a 5th grade education can tell you that a baby at 8 months is equally a living human being as one that has passed the cervix…like i explained earlier there is nothing magical that happens at birth to the fetus that changes its status as a living being, the notion that just moments before birth it is wholly disqualified from being recognized as a living individual is ridiculous and contrary to any legitimate science.
Conjoined twins are a defect that does not invalidate my point. First, they are dependent on each other, and as such, are given equal rights with each other. We also will kill one of the twins if it is more dependent on the other twin and they cannot be separated. If anything, conjoined twins back my difference.
The 8 months vs birthed child is irrelvant to my complaint, and your repetition of the strawman in the last paragraph shows that you’re not arguing in good faith.
the physical relationship between the mother and child, while not entirely irrelevant, is not a legitimate reason to kill the fetus. you have to prove the burden is unusual.
Why?
pregnancy in not only not unusual, but it also happens to be avoidable…your not the kind of person who drives wildly out of control down the street going the wrong way and then claims it was an accident when you crash into a bus load of kids, are you?
This is a horrible example. It’s more like driving down the street, getting into a fenderbender, and saying it’s an accident when the seatbelt breaks.
” Society is willing to care for born and unwanted infants ”
then why kill it?
Because society can’t care for it independent of the woman when it’s inside the woman’s body. Ugh.
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” if your logic is the fetus is not fully developed, a child of 5 is not fully developed. you might as well argue that killing a child of 5 is ok because hes not developed enough to give him full adult rights.
Never made that argument”
yes you did. remember your assertion that we treat chicken eggs differently than chickens? that was half your argument, we don’t give fetuses human rights because they are not fully human until they are born( ridiculous on its face, that was the gist of your argument) and, that it is dependent on the mother, i hate to beat a dead horse here but these are not legitimate because they can apply to those who are born.
Fail. My argument there was that we don’t treat all lifeforms the same at different stages of development…in contradiction to your demand that we do. You have to equate a fetus to a 5 year old for your attempted attack on me. Again, that’s something I would deny. A fetus is not a 5 year old is not an adult. We do treat each differently, and it’s proper to treat each differently.
I’m not positive what dead horse you’re beating, but it seems likely it’s your failure to understand a one-directional dependency.
I would note that we don’t give 5 year olds all the human rights we give to adults (like being able to vote, to drink alcohol, to avoid school, to work, etc…) I’d say most of the lines of rights between kids and adults actually are arbitrary. If you argue against abortion because you (incorrectly) think the line is arbitrary, then you must argue against requiring kids to be 18 to vote. You’re not going to do that though. You don’t actually care about arbitrary lines.
” Partial birth abortion is not the same thing as what Gosnell did.”
partial birth abortion is essentially the same as fully delivering a baby and killing it
Really? I see a pretty large intent differences.
the suggestion that partial birth abortion is ethical is ludicrous and delusional.
I didn’t actually make that suggestion here. I said that partial birth abortion is not the same thing as a failed abortion and beating a breathing child’s skull in (on a dirty operating table with dirty instrumentsby people unqualified to give care).
I pointed out that you were making saying two things were the same when they aren’t the same. There are distinct differences. Your argument that the two things were the same is invalid. Any attempt to switch to the argument that the two things are ethically equivalent would be moving the goalposts, and more evidence that you’re not arguing in good faith (like any more was actually necessary).
—
You dropped off a number of points in your comment (as you have throughout this thread). You have ignored multiple comments where I have pointed out fallacies and where I have called you on misrepresenting what was said in this thread. An honest person arguing in good faith wouldn’t do that. They’d admit their bad arguments and mistakes.
It’s clear you have an a priori assumption that fetuses should not be killed, and you are simply attempting to rationalize this belief. Logic doesn’t matter. Accurately representing science doesn’t matter. Accurately describing counterarguments doesn’t matter. Since you’re not willing to be reasonable, there really is no reason to continue with you. You’re an advocate, not someone who cares to come to correct knowledge and policy.
Since this is likely my last comment to you, I’d like to close by circling back to the beginning. Attack abortion based on the actions of Gosnell is still inappropriate.
” It’s clear you have an a priori assumption that fetuses should not be killed, and you are simply attempting to rationalize this belief. Logic doesn’t matter. Accurately representing science doesn’t matter. Accurately describing counterarguments doesn’t matter. Since you’re not willing to be reasonable, there really is no reason to continue with you. You’re an advocate, not someone who cares to come to correct knowledge and policy.”
I’ve been reasonable, your the one who cant use logic, your a denier of science fact, and clearly an advocate…you say one thing then turn around and say you didn’t say it when its adequately disputed . you use distortions and hair splitting and call it logic. your analogies are dubious at best, but hey, I’m certainly glad you’ve finally decided to bow out…it must be tough on the old conscience,…arguing for such an evil act. its been a real treat.
your the one who cant use logic,
Name one location.
your a denier of science fact
name one location. Your previous accusations of such have been a combination of lies about what I believe and lies about what is fact.
In further comments, you agreed that sperm and ova are both alive, so your statement was bs.
you say one thing then turn around and say you didn’t say it when its adequately disputed .
Name one location. There are a couple times that you removed the context of some of my comments so it looked like they were in conflict with other comments. Maybe you just don’t actually understand multilevel arguments
you use distortions and hair splitting and call it logic.
Name one location. Your previous accusations were refuted. Again, this accusation could be explained by your not understanding multilevel arguments
your analogies are dubious at best
name one location. Your previous accusations were refuted.
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You are repeating actually debunked claims, but doing so without referencing back to any of them. If you did it would be clear that you were wrong on each.
and I’d like to add:
” You have ignored multiple comments where I have pointed out fallacies and where I have called you on misrepresenting what was said in this thread. ”
i ignored many of your comments because they lack any intellectual honesty, half way through this discussion i realized there was no convincing someone whose basic premise is, ” its not a life until i say it is” good grief but ill just hope the fog in your brain clears one day and you see the err in your thinking, until then, my advice is STAY AWAY FROM ANY BABIES.
i ignored many of your comments because they lack any intellectual honesty
General accusations are the domain of people who don’t have evidence for their positions. I’ve backed up my assertions of bad faith and lack of logic. You haven’t.
half way through this discussion i realized there was no convincing someone whose basic premise is, ” its not a life until i say it is”
Liar. I have never suggested such. I’ve agreed that a fetus is a life. This is more of that intellectual dishonesty you use.
” I’ve agreed that a fetus is a life.”
no you didn’t, you said your line was birth. ( remember that bright line you spoke about?) suggesting before that its not a legitimate life , sigh. but whatever…I’m done arguing with you,.psycho.
” I’ve agreed that a fetus is a life.”
no you didn’t, you said your line was birth. ( remember that bright line you spoke about?)
The bright line for ABORTION was at birth, not for life.
suggesting before that its not a legitimate life , sigh.
“legitimate life” is a new term. I reject it outright. The bright line didn’t suggest anything. It flat out said a certain right is conferred once the fetus is no longer requires the specific host mother. Unless you’re begging the question in your definition of “legitimate life”, I don’t see how it applies.
I’ve been clear in my comments that a fetus is a human life: “[A fetus] is an individual life for sure, it’s like a chicken egg to a chicken. Same species, but the rules about them are different.”
How much clearer could that have been. A fetus is a human life, but not all rights apply at all stages of development. Instead of engaging on that point, you strawmanned my argument to claim I said that anything less than full development has no right to life.
Your games are clear. Either you don’t understand what I’m actually saying (in which case, I weep for your employers and dependents), or you’re intentionally lying about my comments.