roachboy

ok so here i am again.

whining about men as somehow victims in scenarios that involve abortion seems to me wholly disengenuous--a reflection of the anti-choice tactic of the month debates and nothing more. given that abortion is only a wedge issue, that it has been for many years has functioned to ground the identity politics of the right, adapting it in an effort to split men away and frame them as being-victimized is no surprise. structurally, then, these arguments are simply the same old same old, really: content-wise they dont say anything.

this:

is only interesting as a map of how it is that the writer gets worked up as he writes. you can see it happening--by the time you get to the last sentence of the first paragraph, you can see the anger replacing argument. and unless you really do find this mapping idea interesting, the second paragraph is just dissociative: you arent talking to anyone except an Imaginary Other. i'm not going to bother to pull it apart---there's noplace to go with it that doesnt seem mean as i think them out---and even if i were inclined at the moment to be mean, the argument itself does not justify the effort.

so it seems that if you back away from the self-defeating paroxym character of il's last post and think about what there is to be thought about in it---affect management issues aside--it looks like it is about is child support payments.

to my mind, these matters are unrelated and so if that is the topic you really want to discuss, il, then make another thread.

this because what you advance isnt an argument either way for or against the procedure of abortion, nor is it an argument about the grounds on which a decision might be made concerning the procedure. it is beside the point.

unless you really think that making a claim which is functionally equivalent to "i oppose no-fault automobile insurance so therefore cars should be outlawed" actually advances your position.

there are myriad problems with local laws concerning child support--but they are not logically framed if you drag them into this debate. that is why i think you should start another thread--for all i know, you might have interesting things to say about that topic--but i do know that this topic and that one are unrelated and persisting in imagining otherwise isnt doing your arguments any good.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Kryptoni

So then late-term abortion's in which a 'fetus' is pushed through the cervix so a practitioner can impale a instrument through the 'soft spot' in the 'fetus' skull to 'scramble' the 'brain matter' so a no longer 'viable' fetus is then removed is OK????

Wow... I'm glad my Mom wasn't so self-centric, otherwise I may not be here...

Also, back to my point... Why is it ok to abort a child before birth but not after? Does disconnecting the umbilical cord define when they are no longer 'biological material' and become a human?

Why do we take the kids away from their parents because they utilize corporal punishment and call the parents 'abusers' but say it is not only fine and dandy but we will PROVIDE you with the resources to seek out your own abortion if the pregnancy is inconvenient?

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Two Ball Cain?

roachboy

kryptoni: so i assume that, given the choice, you would oppose an abortion for yourself or anyone you are in a relationship with. which is fine.

but you cannot possibly imagine that your posts are going to persuade anyone who does not already agree with you of anything.

in fact, i suspect you know that.
you are trolling.
stop it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Frosstbyte

Repeatedly comparing abortion (particularly early term) to killing a baby outside the womb is a pretty obvious fallacy intended to piss people off. It's not adding anything constructive to this conversation.

Infinite_Loser

Funny thing, really. There were also these other two paragraphs which were... Ummm... Ignored (Well, I'll just say avoided). Paragraphs which dealt with-- Yes-- The 'choice' (If you want to call it that) aspect surrounding abortion.

Anyway, what is this "self-defeating paroxysm" of which you speak of? I'm sorry, but advocating 'gender equality' or 'the right to choose' while stating that only one gender should be afforded those rights is hypocritical and nothing more than meaningless flub. You can't claim equality in a situation where less than the half population is able to make a 'choice' regarding their own 'creation'. Also, I do hope you realize I'm not serious about actually absolving males from any and all parental duty, right? Just thought I'd show how absurd the "It's mine so I can do as I want!" argument is (Almost like that "Roe vs. Wade for men" case did). It's always fun to see the pro-abortionists become angered when someone suggests extending the 'rights' they want to grant to females to males. Goes to show that they don't like their own argument.

Edit: I must ask... What kind of rebuttal is "If you don't like it, don't do it!" Clearly you have to realize how fallacious that is.

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Kryptoni

Wow.. so, only agreeing with you and others is adding something constructive?

Let me see then... why is this topic even open if we can't try to debate the topic and perhaps stimulate intelligent analysis.

My 'topics' on this issue are as follows -

1. When does life begin?
2. Why is it a 'right' to destroy biological matter that left to develop will result in a viable life form?
3. Why is Morality irrelevant or personal?
4. If morality is personal, why can't I carry it forward to other areas?

I don't consider my post trolling and find it laughable that my post stimulate personal attack replies instead of on-topic discussion...

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Two Ball Cain?

Willravel

Pretending there is a difference between the organism 2 seconds before birth and 2 seconds after birth is a fallacy then, too.

roachboy

i am still figuring out how to move between member and mod modes. so this first bit is mod-speaking. i'll use caps so you can tell them apart:

==========================================================
Kryptoni: Your previous 3 posts were all couched in inflammatory arguments and language. The last post, which was more defensive, was not couched in the same way.

That you should stop trolling an already volatile thread does not mean that you have to change the content of you positions--but you *do* have to change how you write the posts.

Consider this a warning.
=========================================================

back to member mode: il: i really do not understand you post 365 at all. i dont see the connections you are making. if you want to continue a discussion with me, please rephrase the main paragraph so i can figure out what you are saying.

as for the paroxym remark--i actually bit the relevant sections of your previous post in my response and went through what happened and where.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Kryptoni

Yes Sir!

kryptoni takes his ball and leaves the playground......

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Two Ball Cain?

Frosstbyte

Here's the difference, will. The world at large, let's call it human civilization, has at this point "agreed" that killing people who are already born is wrong. World over it has been codified in laws and in religious texts and is a firmly established principle. (The fact that despite all these laws both religious and secular we kill each other wholesale creates a lot of cognitive dissonance for me, and I don't know why it doesn't for others, as well, but that's a COMPLETELY different conversation.) The whole world is very divided as to whether or not aborting a fetus is wrong, particularly depending on its state of development.

Telling other people that their belief which says that the abortion of a fetus in the first trimester is tantamount to the murder of an 18 year old is an appeal to ridicule which is only going to make people mad because you're effectively calling them a murderer. Now, granted, that's basically what pro-life people are saying anyway, but it's a pretty nasty way to go about making that point.

Kryptoni

What about 'honor killings' of female children by their parents that still happens today?

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org...php?id=1371052

NOTE: I'M NOT TROLLING !

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Two Ball Cain?

tecoyah

See....now that might make a splendid new thread, it really does little to further this discussion, in fact it denotes a certain tie between the two subjects leading to the troll tactics you have been accused of.

Why not make a new thread?

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Holding onto anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. - Buddha

Willravel

I've been ridiculed before, I've got a thick enough skin. I don't see any point in sugar coating my conversations about abortion any more than I do about the death penalty. Why allow all of the weight of the situation to be filtered away? From my perspective, I wouldn't coddle someone's feelings if we were talking about killing anyone, be they born or not, because murder as a perceptual concept is partially emotional response. To deny that is to deny what murder means.

Infinite_Loser

Forget it. Wasn't important. Though, you never did answer my question from the last page. How is "If you don't like it, don't do it!" a valid argument? Surely you can how fallacious such an argument is...

Yes, I read. I still fail to understand what's wrong in pointing out the blatant hypocrisy in one's argument.

The 'whole world', you say? Yeah... That's a bit of an overstatement. In the majority of the world, abortion is 100% illegal. Just thought I'd throw that out there... Just for kicks.

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roachboy

il: i outlined my argument in no. 354.

(this is a big thread, lots of posts, things get lost/overlooked i expect)

if i wrote something here, it'd just be the same thing.
i dont see a way around the problem.
and i would be surprised if a debate about it didnt end up simply repeating it,
but who knows.

ever the optimist...

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

pig

hmm...will: does that make removal of a cancerous tumor 'murder'? i mean, this can really go around and around and around and around...i respect that you believe what you believe, and trust that you will act on it. i do not think that abortion is murder, i do not think most people want to see women who have abortions treated as murderers, and i do not understand on what basis the anti-abortion side forms a basis for *universal* condemnation, ergo roach's post. as i said earlier, the point with the 'before birth' vs. 'after birth', to me, is that it is VERY CLEAR that we're talking about an independent life with a thing that has been ejected from el vagina and is yelling its head off...its not so clear from any scientific point of view prior to conception...because we don't have a way to measure what it means to be an independent human lifeform, as far as i can tell.

il: yes, it is unfair towards men, at present, with regards to the choice of abortion or not abortion. so your answer to 'its not fair' is 'take it away from everyone'? i don't see how that makes sense.

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Infinite_Loser

Because there are much better options than recklessly having abortions. We got along without them sixty years ago and the majority of the world gets along without them, so there's no reason to think that we can't get along without them now.

Of course, I like the idea of holding women accountable for their actions jus tlike we men are. Yeah... That's the best solution out there

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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

Willravel

Does a tumor grow into a person? Is a tumor a member of our species? Does a tumor fit all the stipulations for being alive? The answer to all of those questions is no.

Baraka_Guru

This tumor vs. fetus, fetus vs. teenager thing is a slippery slope. It could lead to accusations of murder in reference to geriatric medicine. It is related to such claims as: Exposing your children to second-hand smoke is child abuse.

It's hard to keep our bearings when we are so opposed to the essential idea here. On one hand, some of you would say they are fine with abortion, as it is a humane enough way to terminate a pregnancy with little suffering. On the other hand, others say life is sacred, and deciding on an abortion is a decision to destroy a life. Whether this is akin to murder is beside the point. Ultimately, what is at issue here is how we each view life: How it comes about, how it develops, how it ends--how we should or should not control it. It is hard to say who is right and who is wrong.

But I think the important thing is to try our best to understand where we are each coming from. There is little point trying to change one another's minds, as they could very well be set in stone, as it were.

I don't think there is any blanket solution to this issue. It is something that is based on individual experience and circumstances.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

pig

holy shit! there's a whole page here my browser didn't pull up the first time. fuck, i'll have to read a bit to get back into it: for now will, i was responding to this:

"a human being is alive if they are in a state where they can metabolize, reproduce, grow, and respond to stimuli"

now, quickly i italicized the first part because that would seem to be begging the question. so, in my words, i would substitute the 'human being' in that phrase with 'human flesh' or the like. the point is, that a tumor can do all those things. with test tube babies, and genetic engineering on the march - how long is it until we can extract ye olde double helix out of any part of the body and make it grow? will that be less of a human? i don't want to sidetrack into cloning and such - but to me a fetus certainly has the potential to support life. but many things have the potential for life: sperm, eggs, and eventually other parts of the body as well, i hypothesize.

ergo, i think of a fetus as a highly specialized organ in the human body...but i do not see that it can be proven to be a separate human being until birth. but then i'm getting to be repeating my previous argument.

il: we got along just fine without them for sixty years...first, no we didn't. different procedures, but i'm pretty sure that cultures have found ways of inducing stillborn children / miscarriages for a long time. women have aborted their children using less surgical techniques. i think what you mean is that our society hasn't overtly condoned them until recently, and even that is widely varied. see this thread for a microcosmic example of that dissent. taken out of the ethical realm you are claiming regardless abortions as 'right' or 'wrong,' your statement would seem to me to basically say 'we done fine so far with x, why can't we keep doing x?' which is essentially denying progress, or change if you prefer.

therefore, we are back at the discussion of ethics. not of any sort of 'back in the good old days' discussion. i think.

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JumpinJesus

It took you less than an hour to completely contradict yourself. I'm not sure you have any idea what you're talking about, but you seem to thrive on using baiting tactics in your arguments. Are you here for grown up discussion or do you have something you feel you need to prove?

__________________
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Willravel

How about this? An organism is alive if it is in a state where they can metabolize, reproduce, grow, and respond to stimuli. The species homo sapiens is an organism. A fetus is a member of the species homo sapiens.

A fetus isn't an organ because it doesn't have a specific function working with the body.

Infinite_Loser

*Ahem*

Before 1970, less than 1% of all pregnancies in the US ended in abortion (Not including miscarriages). In 1970, 4.9% of all pregnancies ended in abortion. In 2003 about 23.9% of all pregnancies ended in an abortion. That's an absolutely HUGE percentage increase and, unless you're going to argue that before 1970 approximately 25% of the female population were self-aborting their unborn children, then I'm going to have to go out on a limb and say that the only progress which has been made is in increasing the number of people resorting to abortions per year.

Obviously, something is really wrong here when there were less abortions sixty years in the absence of contraceptives than there are today when there have to be no less than twenty different contraceptive methods.

Pardon me, but where's the contradiction? And baiting...? Yeah, ok. If you want me to start baiting, I will. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure:

Linky linky

Because, you know, at least one of us has to pull up statistics.

Edit: I'm also pretty sure I posted this earlier, but if not... Within the United States, support for abortion remain conditional. That is, people support them in the cases of rape or where it poses a thread to the mother's life. When they're used for a matter of convenience, support for them plummets. That's nice to know, considering that 98% of all abortions are done due a matter of convenience.

Linky linky

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Plan9

Omigod, I just read this and saw TUMOR vs. TEENAGER.

HAHAHAHHA!

__________________
Whatever you can carry.

"You should not drink... and bake."

snowy

IL, the statistics regarding abortions in the United States prior to 1970 are misleading at best. Roe v. Wade came about in 1973, so any information regarding abortions performed legally versus those performed illegally is often inaccurate prior to that date.

The WHO estimated that 19 million unsafe abortions are performed worldwide every year. 95% of backalley abortions occur in developing countries. Approximately 68,000 women per year die from complications from unsafe abortion procedures.

Additionally, women from Latin America are coming to the United States, and unaware of their right to choose or too poor to get a surgical abortion, they use misoprostol (an ulcer medication) off-label to induce an abortion, which when not used in coordination with mifepristone (RU-486) can be very dangerous, and lead to birth defects or hemorrhage.

Personally, my desire is to educate people about family planning in the first place, so that they don't have to get abortions.

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If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

pig

will, first you make the same begging the question move when you put in the "fetus is a member of the species homosapiens," but i understand that this is due to your particular view point. however, whether a fetus is a 'member' of homosapiens would seem to precisely be the point.

as to the second point, i'm not even close to arguing that a fetus is technically an organ - i was simply making an analogy based on my own beliefs. as much as i loathe wikipedia, i checked it to verify your definition, and you're pretty much spot on. using that definition, i could make a stretch to argue that a fetus is precisely an organ, the specialized purpose of which is to eventually grow into a little people person. i do not think this would be accepted by the scientific community. i'm sure we'll agree on that, if nothing else

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Willravel

Why wouldn't a fetus be a member of the species homo sapiens?
YES! WE AGREE!

Infinite_Loser

To quote myself:

Now, did I deny that there were no abortions prior to Roe vs. Wade? Nope. Never did I say that. I did say, however, that the number of abortions has increased SUBSTANTIALLY since Roe vs. Wade. To argue against that you'd have to present the argument that 25%+ (Which, mind you, has been as high as 30%) of ALL pregnancies prior to 1973 ended in abortions.

Linky linky

Out of 211M pregnancies a year, there are approximately 46M (We'll say 27M safe and 19M unsafe) abortions done of which 68,000 women die (.36% of unsafe abortions result in the death of the female). If I'm understanding you right, you somehow believe that if abortion was illegal right now that suddenly we'd have 46M+ unsafe abortions per year? Ehhh... I highly doubt that. I've no doubt there'd be some unsafe abortions per year, but nowhere near the ridiculous amount of the number of total abortions we have today.

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I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

pig

isn't that 'membership' precisely what this discussion / debate is about? is a fetus a person or not? is it "alive" in the sense of being separately living, not in the sense of being a biological 'living' thing. fucking moss is a living thing, you know? my tongue is a living thing.

i don't see conclusive evidence that a fetus has taken on the 'separateness' that i would consider a prerequisite for 'membership'

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Infinite_Loser

So... I'm wondering... What's the difference between a child five seconds before it's born and five seconds after it's born? How about a month before it's born and a month after it's born? Now how about seven months before it's born and seven months after it's born?

__________________
I believe in equality; Everyone is equally inferior to me.

pig

il: although it's an interesting piece of discussion, i don't see what that has to do with the central point of the thread...wait a minute..what is the central point of this piece of shit?

anyways, i think the more important part of what i was saying back in the day was this i don't think it's terribly germane to this argument, but whether or not we did something else for umpteen bajillion years or not isn't relevant. we used to beat our wimmins down if they gave backtalk too. societies change.

i have no fucking clue il. i can't seem to place a call to one to get a real clear bead on that. that is precisely the question, however - at least as far as i can tell. the important thing is this: i know i don't have a clue. i also know that you don't have a clue. neither of us has a clue. so we're back where we started - this isn't a scientific argument. it's an ethical / philosophical / perhaps spiritual argument, that we prance around in a scientific manner.

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Infinite_Loser

"Things change" isn't a good reason why we as a society should allow something, as that can lead to a very slippery slope

But, you see, if you're in support of abortion then you obviously know as you make a distinction somewhere, so I'd like to know where that is. Yes, I realize that this is a ethical/philosophical argument. Ethically speaking, I'd like to think that most people wouldn't murder another person. Therefore, at what point do pro-abortionists believe a fetus becomes a person? It should be a rather simple question if you believe in abortion.

I'm not faced with this delimma as I believe a fetus is a person >_>

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pig

il: i didn't say that 'things change' was a good reason. i did say that 1. things do change, and that 2. saying that 'something has changed and i don't like it - we did fine without it!' isn't a reason to go back. as i said, it's irrelevant, in and of itself.

i've already said this, i think: i don't know when a fetus becomes a person. you don't know when a fetus becomes a person. i am sure its a person after birth. you are sure its a person after birth. you think it's a person before birth...but that's precisely what we are discussing. how sure you can be of that belief. i don't think very sure at all, depending on what 'being human' means to you.

therefore, i'm not 'pro-abortion.' i'm 'pro-choice.' because reasonable people can have a debate on this that lasts for ten fucking pages on a site like tfp, or for years out in 'the real world,' obviously it's not a settled question. therefore, i feel most comfortable letting people choose how they want to handle it, and let them deal with the repercussions.

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Infinite_Loser

Well, it seemed to me as if you were saying that we should keep abortion legal as it's the '(Relatively) new thing on the block'.

ANYWAY... As I said in my last post, I'm not faced with the dilemma of whether or not a fetus is a person because I don't differentiate a fetus from a person. However, there are people who do so I'm merely asking them at what point does a fetus start being a person. It's not a hard a question by any means.

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pig

it's not hard if it's impossible i suppose. it's just impossible. that's the point. i'm not saying that i know when 'life begins.' i am saying i know a baby is 'alive.' i don't know anything about the 'aliveness' of a fetus, in the sense of independent sentient being-ness. so i can understand any choice up to the point of birth, and therefore i'm pro-choice. not pro-abortion. not pro-abortion in the first trimester. pro choice.

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