Political & socio-economic nerd-rage thread. page 16

[canio6]

Let's say she's 17 and was raised in a very, very conservative area.

It's been my experience that while often annoying and seemingly closed-minded/uncaring on the surface most conservatives and religious folks are far more loving than you give them credit for. I do not think many would toss the baby out into the streets unwanted etc.

[drssgchic]

It's been my experience that while often annoying and seemingly closed-minded/uncaring on the surface most conservatives and religious folks are far more loving than you give them credit for. I do not think many would toss the baby out into the streets unwanted etc.

Loving, yes. Informed? Not where I grew up. And I'm not saying they'd throw the baby out into the streets. The mother . . . that's another story.

[canio6]

Loving, yes. Informed? Not where I grew up. And I'm not saying they'd throw the baby out into the streets. The mother . . . that's another story.

That has not been my experience. While growing up in a very conservative area and teaching in another I never once saw the baby or mother tossed out. It isn't 1950, pregnant girls even stay in the same schools now. That said, I may have just gotten lucky in my observations and YMMV.

[Chaohinon]

Moralizing people about making the right decisions doesn't offer any real solution to the problem. If a guy gets in a motorcycle accident, you don't refuse to fix his leg because he neglected to wear his helmet. The damage has already been done.

In real life, people don't suddenly nut up and become responsible if you drop a baby on their doorstep. That's also perhaps the most volatile and insane way to teach a person a lesson, ever.

[magicmerl]

Regarding abortion, there are two different fronts.

Firstly, the issue of whether it is morally right. I agree with the people who think that abortion is morally wrong. However, I also think that this is trumped by the second point.

Secondly, whether it's illegal or not, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO KEEP HAVING ABORTIONS. Making them legal just makes them much much safer for all concerned.

For this reason I think that abortion should be legal (just like drinking, and speeding).

[j3nn]

It's been my experience that while often annoying and seemingly closed-minded/uncaring on the surface most conservatives and religious folks are far more loving than you give them credit for. I do not think many would toss the baby out into the streets unwanted etc.

Hasn't the Catholic church run most of the orphanages in the US and abroad? The old cliche is leaving a baby basket on the church steps. I think people tend to jump from one extreme to another; "if a woman chooses to bring a pregnancy to term, then she must also love and care for the child after birth." That's not true. The child could be put up for adoption very easily at no additional cost to the mother.

Which brings us to another issue: Why can't mothers (and parents) be compensated for bringing a child into this world? Sperm donors are paid, adoption agencies and attorneys have their fees, and the government has their fees, why is it illegal to receive a fee for your labor? I don't think it's a wise idea to have a baby assembly line that sells human beings, but babies aren't being sold into slavery, either. They are being adopted by people who want to love and care for them.

[drssgchic]

Moralizing people about making the right decisions doesn't offer any real solution to the problem. If a guy gets in a motorcycle accident, you don't refuse to fix his leg because he neglected to wear his helmet. The damage has already been done.

In real life, people don't suddenly nut up and become responsible if you drop a baby on their doorstep. That's also perhaps the most volatile and insane way to teach a person a lesson, ever.

Exactly.

Regarding abortion, there are two different fronts.

Firstly, the issue of whether it is morally right. I agree with the people who think that abortion is morally wrong. However, I also think that this is trumped by the second point.

Secondly, whether it's illegal or not, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO KEEP HAVING ABORTIONS. Making them legal just makes them much much safer for all concerned.

For this reason I think that abortion should be legal (just like drinking, and speeding).

+1 for point 2. We've been doing this for a very long time in various ways. Most of which are harmful to the mother at best.

I see abortion as a last-resort sort of birth control. However, whether that option is legal, monitored, and as safe as possible, or a rusty hanger in her bedroom or a back alley, it will always be there.

[Mud Flinger]

The reason would be because she was lazy (Why would abortions be available but not other birth control methods, why would she know about abortion and not other birth control methods?). The question of wanting her to be a mother, preferably no, but it is likely the child would grow up to be a stronger independent individual.

Obviously it can go either way, but children are smart enough to decide what they don't want to be like when they grow up. Being a good example for your children is preferred because they have more to learn from, this would be a pulling force of motivation. The child is rewarded for building their character and being responsible. On the other hand, a mother who is a bad example teaches the child what not to do, and this is a pushed force of motivation. Their need for security that is not provided by the mother (or parents) forces them to become independent and to rely on themselves. They may not have the "head start" the other child has, but as an adult, they are much more liberated than the other child because they are confident in their ability to overcome adversities and achieve goals, without help from others.

Children learn from their environment and while some may vow never to make their parent's mistakes, most others think that their environment is the norm and become just like those around them. Do you really think that cultures that brag of 30yo Grandmas really teach their kids to have sex at such a young age? No way, but kids see others around them and follow suit. The same with poor manners or money managing skills. It becomes the accepted norm to run out of money before the week/month is over or to eat junk food all the time. Having crappy parents is a no win deal for kids!

[j3nn]

Children learn from their environment and while some may vow never to make their parent's mistakes, most others think that their environment is the norm and become just like those around them. Do you really think that cultures that brag of 30yo Grandmas really teach their kids to have sex at such a young age? No way, but kids see others around them and follow suit. The same with poor manners or money managing skills. It becomes the accepted norm to run out of money before the week/month is over or to eat junk food all the time. Having crappy parents is a no win deal for kids!

I agree that people who have no interest in properly caring for a child shouldn't. So what if you give them to people who want them and would be good parents? The adoption laws, and religious zealots that oppose same-sex couples, single but stable individual households, etc., make it so difficult to adopt children, not to mention expensive and time-consuming. The government and Catholic church have a monopoly on the adoption industry as thousands of worthy people and orphaned children wait for bureaucracy, separated by church AND state. One more government fiasco in this needlessly-complicated game of civilization.

[Uncephalized]

This is where the divide comes. Those that consider a pregnancy to be parasitic have already chosen what makes them happiest, and that is their choice. I believe it should be left up to the individual, and if she feels good about her choice, then that is her choice. I disagree with the stance and hope people would consider other options and be open to new points of view, but ultimately it's not my business... so long as I am not forced to pay for their choice in either direction.

Then we don't disagree about preferred policy at all. You want no laws against abortion, I want no laws against abortion. Problem solved.

You can't have it both ways. You want it to be all about you and disregard the new individual inside, then pay for it.

Um... I will? When did I ever suggest you or anyone should have to pay for someone else's abortion? did you miss the part where I am not a statist?

Before baby formula existed babies were pretty dependent on their mother for nourishment postpartum unless there happened to be a wet nurse available.

Or a goat. But yes, technology tends to increase the number of available choices in our lives. I don't see how this is relevant.

What is an embryo? It is an animal at its earliest stage of growth; an organism. What is an organism? By scientific definition, it is life. If science found an organism on Mars, they'd declare that life was found.

I think you are conflating the idea of "alive" with the idea of "person". I am trying to keep those two concepts separate, as they should be, since life is neither necessary nor sufficient for personhood. As far as I am concerned a computer could be a person if it were self-aware, and a fully developed human could be a non-person if he is braindead. I simply refuse to accept that a clump of cells which will likely one day develop into a human person is already a human person. It is a human animal, a human life, yes, but it is not a human person and therefore has no rights. I understand that you disagree because you believe there is some Factor P, separate from the facility for self-aware consciousness, which imparts personhood. I think the person is the "software" running in the brain. In the absence of said software there is no person, and the existence of software with those characteristics makes a person, regardless of the hardware running it. This is a basic difference in assumptions and outlook that I seriously doubt we'll bridge through debate, which is why I am happy to agree that neither of us should be making rules for the other regarding our reproductive choices (or my wife's reproductive choices in my case).

This article disagrees with most of what you have asserted: A Distinct Human Organism : NPR

See my above arguments. That article is arguing from similar assumptions to yours, that there exists some criterion other than possessing conscious awareness that can qualify an entity as a person. I don't accept the premise any more coming from an NPR article than I do from you.

Huh? Why should the only place a woman can receive treatment (estrogen, morning after pill, etc.) be at a centralized agency?! That makes no sense whatsoever. Why can't we buy morning after pills over the counter? Hell, put them in vending machines. They used to do it for cigarettes and thousands of other risky things.

I was under the impression that you were advocating a law against abortion, which is what I was referring to. You're not, apparently, so that section of my comment is irrelevant and I'll happily retract it.

I feel an important question is the motivation to classify an embryo/fetus/etc as a parasite. This is a relatively new way of phrasing is. Is the purpose of this classification solely to dehumanize the fetus and to convince ones self that their decision is a moral one? Do you feel absolutely certain that abortion is moral?

Am I absolutely certain of anything? Nope. I am pretty confident in my position that an early-stage embryo has no mental functions that should earn it personhood status with rights equal to its mother's, yes.

Looking deep into the future, centuries from now, will abortions still be practiced? If there is nothing morally wrong with it, why research and develop methods to prevent conception when we can just develop abortion methods that are just as easy? Which route are we most likely to take, and why? If we are completely open and honest about how we feel about our morals, who and what will we eventually conclude has rights? Today we seem to be fighting for gay rights and the rights of the unborn. The safest bet for tomorrow would be that we would eventually be fighting for animal rights. In the past, we fought for rights of races and genders, and so far, we have not found any of those battles to be a mistake. Are we making our first mistake now or could this just simply be the way our species is evolving from a violent species to a peaceful species?

It is my hope that we can come up with a reasonable definition of "person" and extend rights to all entities who fit that definition. Obviously we're not all agreed on what is and isn't a person as of yet. I have no idea what people will think far in the future; I can only hope that we will continually become less violent and more happy as a species. Clearly if more people think like me in the future then early-term fetuses will not be considered people and abortions will not be classified as "violence". If we knew where the world was going to be three centuries from now we could just skip all the nonsense and jump straight there.