Why Democrats Can�t Talk Honestly About Abortion

[carpedm9587]

Do you drive a car?

I do.

A car is a thing. A tool.

It is.

But despite all of the evidence that shows us that a proliferation of this particular tool leads to an increase in death BY that tool, the tool is so cherished and such a "right" that this amazing level of carnage is justified.

It makes one wonder...

Now let's look at the difference. First the car is a necessary tool, making our entire society possible. The gun is not. The car has be the subject of extensive regulation to improve its safety and reduce that damage (e.g. seat belts, air bags, firewalls, etc.). Every effort to do the same for guns is continually resisted (e.g., fingerprint triggers, smaller magazines, gun safes, etc.). No one views the car as a "right." It is recognized as a privilege, and one has to demonstrate proficiency before having one, has to have it regularly inspected for safety, and all cars are registered in a state-level database. All such attempts to do the same for guns is resisted - because they are a "right." Finally, a car is designed to "carry things from Point A to Point B" and accidents can cause harm (as is true for many things). A gun is designed to kill - so it is serving its purpose when it is used to do so.

IMO, CP, you are making a GREAT case that guns, like cars, should be regulated to reduce the carnage, and limited in their abundance.

[oxmixmudd]

Do you drive a car?

A car is a thing. A tool. But despite all of the evidence that shows us that a proliferation of this particular tool leads to an increase in death BY that tool, the tool is so cherished and such a "right" that this amazing level of carnage is justified.

It makes one wonder...

unfortunately the argument (both yours and carpe's) fails miserably because a car is a tool for transportation that if misused has the capability to kill. It's primary purpose is to move from point A to point B. And in fact most of the time it has to be grossly misused to kill.

A gun has but one purpose - to kill.


Jim

[carpedm9587]

I understand that it is hard for some to accept - in this day and age - that some abortions are in fact murder. But rarely will someone try to make a case that killing a 1 day old baby is not murder. And so why then would a baby 1 day from birth not yet born but poisoned, burned, or hacked to pieces in his or her mothers womb (or after in fact being forced to be born) not also be murder?

Jim

Again, Jim - you are preaching to the choir. I think abortion at any point after fertilization and implantation is immoral (with one exception). Indeed, my left-leaning friends consider me to be "far right" on this topic because I don't even think aborting an infant that is the result of a rape is moral.

But your insistence on using inflammatory language, even if it is accurate, just means you will not be heard. It's really your choice. Do you want to say whatever you want?-Or do you want your message to be received and change to happen? If the former - then by all means keep calling it murder and keep the war going. If the latter, you might want to spend a bit more time listening, and look for some other way to address the issue than calling people who are pretty decent human beings "murders." I'm pretty sure that standing in front of a woman weighing this decision, or who has just made this decision, and calling her a 'murderer" is not going to achieve change.

[Cow Poke]

When I refer to murder, I am talking about babies yet unborn - third trimester viable outside the womb with modern medicine, not 48 cells about to divide into 96.

Just out of curiosity, at what point do you believe the union of sperm and egg results in (or constitutes) "human life"?

[Starlight]

You can't seem to grasp the difference between murder and killing. They are not the same thing. You revealed your ignorance of this when you screwed up by referencing the police "murdering" the criminal. If it is a justifiable homicide, it is not murder.

I live in a different country with different legal terminology. There is no such term as "justifiable homicide" here and personally I find that term morally repugnant.

When I, personally, say the word "murder" I mean nothing less nor more than "intentional killing". For me, personally, those two terms are precisely equivalent.

Murder is the unjust taking of an innocent life Starlight.

No. Not only do I personally reject that definition as alien to anything I have ever used or would use by the term "murder", even in the immoral context of US law that CP is trying to foist on me, your usage of that term is wrong. So don't start your argument with such obviously false premises please.

To kill is not always to murder.

To my mind and to my usage the only exception is if the killing is unintentional. I, personally, influenced by legal terminology and culture in my country, categorize killing into two categories: Unintentional = manslaughter, intentional = murder.

To kill a person about to murder me is fully justified. It is not murder - it is self defense.

I agree the legal system would let you off and not punish you, I agree that most people including me would suggest you perform the action, but I would still describe it as you murdering the person in self-defense who had been trying to murder you. I would describe it as a terrible and horrible outcome and action which under the circumstances you were forced to do.

To execute a murderer convicted and tried is not murder. It is causing them to pay back the life they took. It may or may not be the best way to deal with the situation, but it is not murder.

Self-evidently the execution of a murderer is an intentional killing. In the way I personally use the word "murder", it is therefore "murder" as obviously as 2+2=4. I also view it as horribly immoral. No actions can possibly justify the death penalty as no human can ever "deserve" death, and it is horrible and immoral for a state or society to perform that action (even leaving aside the non-negligible percentage of executed criminals who are later discovered to have been innocent). As such I view the US an immoral society and culture because of the lack of value it places on life, and find its idea that people can "deserve" to be killed morally offensive and horrible.

As to abortion, I will not try to present an argument as regards the early phases of gestation. That gets too grey, too complicated. But when we are talking about a 'fetus' that is virtually indistinguishable from a child that is born in terms of his physical capacity for life, the argument is simple. All human life is sacred.

It is unclear to me what you mean exactly by 'sacred', whether you are making a religious claim or simply a statement of value. If the latter, I would respond that you're wrong, and that actually it's all intelligent life / beings with cognitive capabilities that is sacred.

For the most part intelligent life and human life overlap in our experiences because humans are the only sentient species on our planet. However, in some cases they don't overlap: Higher mammals can exhibit significant cognitive capabilities and therefore ought to be protected IMO, and fetuses lack developed cognition so aren't subject to being valuable in the way developed humans are. I think to some extent you understand that last point because you yourself acknowledge that in the early phases of gestation the undeveloped fetus despite being biologically a member of the human species is not morally as important due to its lack of development.

[Cow Poke]

I live in a different country with different legal terminology. There is no such term as "justifiable homicide" here and personally I find that term morally repugnant....

I think we're fully aware that you are clueless about so many aspects of our country, but it never keeps you from spewing forth your ignorance, Star.

[RumTumTugger]

Murder is the unjust taking of an innocent life Starlight. To kill is not always to murder. To kill a person about to murder me is fully justified. It is not murder - it is self defense. To kill to keep a madman from destroying your family or your country is also not murder. There is nothing immoral about either. The death penalty is based on justly paying back what you took. To execute a murderer convicted and tried is not murder. It is causing them to pay back the life they took. It may or may not be the best way to deal with the situation, but it is not murder. The truth is there is no way to evaluate if a man has be 'fixed' so he won't kill again. And some people's crimes are so heinous that even if they were truly 'rehabilitated' their own sense of justice would demand that at the very least we not release them. Once a person has shown a capacity to murder - especially pre-meditated which is what it takes to earn the death penalty - they have shown they are fundamentally broken and a danger to all people anywhere. So what to do with them is a non-trivial discussion. But you don't naively assume that if the hang out in prison 20 years, they are good to go.

As to abortion, I will not try to present an argument as regards the early phases of gestation. That gets too grey, too complicated. But when we are talking about a 'fetus' that is virtually indistinguishable from a child that is born in terms of his physical capacity for life, the argument is simple. All human life is sacred. We do not devalue people because of their intelligence or their knowledge or their wealth or their physical capabilities. When you start heading down the road of 'valuing' one person more than another because maybe they are old or maybe they are infirmed or maybe they are just a month old or maybe they are stupid, you are heading down the road to a holocaust. To take a human life unjustly is murder. And we do not apply any metric or valuation based on anything other than the fact it was a human life.

Jim

You'll have to excuse Starlight Oxmixmudd his moral compass is so broken that he thinks that it would be ok to kill a 3 month old baby.

[carpedm9587]

I live in a different country with different legal terminology. There is no such term as "justifiable homicide" here and personally I find that term morally repugnant.

When I, personally, say the word "murder" I mean nothing less nor more than "intentional killing". For me, personally, those two terms are precisely equivalent.

No. Not only do I personally reject that definition as alien to anything I have ever used or would use by the term "murder", even in the immoral context of US law that CP is trying to foist on me, your usage of that term is wrong. So don't start your argument with such obviously false premises please.

To my mind and to my usage the only exception is if the killing is unintentional. I, personally, influenced by legal terminology and culture in my country, categorize killing into two categories: Unintentional = manslaughter, intentional = murder.

I agree the legal system would let you off and not punish you, I agree that most people including me would suggest you perform the action, but I would still describe it as you murdering the person in self-defense who had been trying to murder you. I would describe it as a terrible and horrible outcome and action which under the circumstances you were forced to do.

Self-evidently the execution of a murderer is an intentional killing. In the way I personally use the word "murder", it is therefore "murder" as obviously as 2+2=4. I also view it as horribly immoral. No actions can possibly justify the death penalty as no human can ever "deserve" death, and it is horrible and immoral for a state or society to perform that action. As such I view the US an immoral society and culture because of the lack of value it places on life, and find its idea that people can "deserve" to be killed morally offensive and horrible.

It is unclear to me what you mean exactly by 'sacred', whether you are making a religious claim or simply a statement of value. If the latter, I would respond that you're wrong, and that actually it's all intelligent life / beings with cognitive capabilities that is sacred.

For the most part intelligent life and human life overlap in our experiences because humans are the only sentient species on our planet. However, in some cases they don't overlap: Higher mammals can exhibit significant cognitive capabilities and therefore ought to be protected IMO, and fetuses lack developed cognition so aren't subject to being valuable in the way developed humans are. I think to some extent you understand that last point because you yourself acknowledge that in the early phases of gestation the undeveloped fetus despite being biologically a member of the human species is not morally as important due to its lack of development.

So I'm not going to respond to all of this, but your use of "murder" is not consistent with the definition of the term, AFAICT. Murder is defined as "the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another." Intent it part of the issue. But unlawful is the other part. Now, if you're telling me that the legal system in your country makes all intentional killing "unlawful," then it suggests that even the person who kills in an act of self-defense must be punished as a murderer, because there is apparently no legal space for a justified, intentional killing. If, on the other hand, your legal system makes room for justified, intentional killing (e.g., self-defense) then it is not murder by definition.

Are you, perhaps, conflating legal and moral issues?

[Starlight]

So I'm not going to respond to all of this, but your use of "murder" is not consistent with the definition of the term

There's no single international definition of the term because different legal codes define the crime differently, and people in different cultures use the world colloquially in their everyday lives outside the legal definitions to mean slightly different things.

I suggest avoiding the usage of the term "murder" in this discussion entirely. If someone wants to use it to mean "intentional killing" as I do, then I will instead say the words "intentional killing". If someone thinks it should mean "unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another" as you do, then I suggest you instead use that phrase rather than say the word "murder".

Although I would point out that your phrase, given it includes the word "unlawful" ends up making any abortion discussion a bit moot, because the law being changed or not changed controls whether or not any given abortion is "unlawful" or not, so by your definition, no legal abortion can ever be murder. By your definition, whenever any conservative on this site states that abortion is about the murder of babies/fetuses they are self-evidently wrong because it would only be "murder" if it was "unlawful".

Ox clearly holds a 3rd definition of the term "murder" which he describes as "the unjust taking of an innocent life", so similarly for the context of this discussion (given the 3 of us have three different definitions of a key word we use) I suggest he drop the term "murder" and simply use his phrase "the unjust taking of an innocent life" whenever he wants to talk about that, so as to avoid us talking past each other.

Are you, perhaps, conflating legal and moral issues?

No.

[Starlight]

I think we're fully aware that you are clueless about so many aspects of our country, but it never keeps you from spewing forth your ignorance, Star.

Condemning your immoral ways is not "ignorance" of them.

[Cow Poke]

Condemning your immoral ways is not "ignorance" of them.

OK. Trying to force your (cough) "morals" (cough) and definitions on us is not "ignorance" of them, it's just rank stupidity.

[rogue06]

It is always fascinating to see someone who supports the outright murder of newborns and infants trying to say that everyone else is immoral compared to him. Gotta wonder who exactly he's trying to convince.

[Starlight]

OK. Trying to force your (cough) "morals" (cough) and definitions on us is not "ignorance" of them, it's just rank stupidity.

Your behavior and culture is objectively immoral. The only stupidity involved is yours for behaving like that and accepting behavior like that in your society.

[Starlight]

It is always fascinating to see someone who supports the outright murder of newborns and infants trying to say that everyone else is immoral compared to him. Gotta wonder who exactly he's trying to convince.

All I see in this post is "waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! "

[Terraceth]

And where did Darth Executor say he was OK with the killing of the unborn?

Does this count?