Prager University on Abortion.

[Teallaura]

In other words, you have no argument and I'm right.

.When you have a baby then you get to tell her what pregnancy is like.

[lilpixieofterror]

How does a right not exist? It's a philosophical conception. It exists if we talk about it. The dispute should be whether a right ought to be enshrined in law.

If a woman is getting an abortion, she probably didn't intend to create life.

I'm glad my mom wasn't a sad little creature like you are because I'd be dead today if she was. What a sad sad little man you are...

[Jesse]

I've had over a dozen people want me to reply to them since I came into this thread, so it's kind of hard for me to keep up with everything. Whether you believe it or not, I have contributed to this thread and have answered all sorts of questions people have asked and re-asked me. Teal, Qaunta, Lilpixie, Jesse, and company have been hounding me pretty hard. We've covered this Nazi analogy and neurological signs that define personhood. So when someone comes along and taunts me with questions I've already answered, I don't exactly get in hurry to answer them - if I answer them at all. I've been asked this Nazi question so many times I've lost count, and just because you don't like my answer doesn't mean I'm "dodging". I have my limits too, and though I've got a large reserve of patience, eventually I get sick of certain things myself.

I've done the best job I can and if that makes you lose respect for me, then I'm sorry you feel that way.

Dude, I haven't been "hounding you pretty hard". I've asked only 3 questions from you. You might want to pull back on the exaggeration a bit.

[Jesse]

Do you guys not see my position still?

Yeah I see it. And you are straining the meaning of the term "person" and "person-hood" to fit your position. Language nor science agrees with your tortured definition of those two terms.

[QuantaFille]

Do you guys not see my position still?

I see your position but don't agree that brain activity is where to draw the line. It's cell division. Dead cells don't divide. Living ones do. When a person dies in a hospital, it is much more practical to measure brain activity than to check for cell division, but they stop at roughly the same time. When a person is starting life, however, cell division happens much sooner than brain activity. As soon as the zygote begins the process of dividing into those first two cells, it's already alive. That is the one criteria of life that all people meet. Some people have more brain activity than others, as some are in a coma. Most people have all their organs, and some have organs that don't work or are missing some. Brain activity or functioning organs then becomes a tricky way to define humanity. Does a person in a coma have a right to medical care if the doctor thinks they have a chance of recovering? An unborn baby has an almost guaranteed chance of gaining brain activity. Why do they not have the same right, when they both face a future where the brain is functioning normally?

[Joel]

In that case, I would say the fetus causes harm to the woman and the government making abortion illegal would be a violation of her rights.

That's a different thing from what you were talking about. You were saying that the fetus violates the woman's rights, and that justifies the mother killing her offspring. The moral choices facing third parties (such as the government) is a different question.

I don't understand what you consider to be the factor which determines whether an entity can violate another's rights, especially since you've now said that a fetus has rights but cannot violate rights.

I didn't say a fetus cannot violate rights. I said that in the scenario, the fetus did not violate rights because no action by the fetus caused or contributed to the situation. In the case of consensual sex, the mother's and father's actions alone caused the situation, so they are the only responsible agents.

Okay, I agree with that up until the last line. So does a woman accidentally becoming pregnant justify the fetus using her body against her will? I still don't think so. In the case of your example, the liability would not extend that far.

If you are at fault in a car accident that puts someone in the hospital and into a dependent state, then I think you have an obligation to provide support for that person.
If you are at fault in an accident that somehow causes a situation in which someone else is temporarily physically dependent on your body, then I think you owe that support.

(If the someone else is your own minor offspring, that may also intensify the obligation.)
(And note also that the father in the case of consensual sex has an equal obligation to support the mother and child.)

[Jedidiah]

Do you guys not see my position still?

Your position is pretty easy to see. To find any consistent and rational basis for it is the hard part. You have not shown any such thing yet. You just try to justify what you want to see done.

[Darth Ovious]

You think I'm going to answer you when you call me a chicken? Um, yeah, I'll get right on that buddy. Besides, you know my answers already, and you just want me to restate them so can start some sort of game of 'gotcha'.

Well according to your video which goes "you say yes, I say no" then that means when we say that the Nazi's did de-humanize Jews then you say they didn't. So yes, I recognize that you did answer via your video.

[Darth Ovious]

Why won't you answer me? You claim you already did, so it should be no problem to answer yes or no to my questions. ?





1) Did the Nazi's dehumanize the Jews and claim they were subhuman and experiment on them and kill them?

2) Did Americans dehumanize blacks in the days of slavery in order to consider them property and do whatever they wanted to them?

3) Did Saddam Hussein dehumanize the kurds in order to commit genocide on them?

Please answer yes or no.

Changes above are mine

He answered though his video. So his answers are:

1) No

2) No

3) No

[Darth Ovious]

You think I'm going to answer you when you call me a chicken? Um, yeah, I'll get right on that buddy. Besides, you know my answers already, and you just want me to restate them so can start some sort of game of 'gotcha'.

Well the reason why I asked you to post your argument in a formal manner so that it could be more easily understood and thus people could point out what premises they disagreed with if any.

[Darth Ovious]

How does a right not exist? It's a philosophical conception. It exists if we talk about it. The dispute should be whether a right ought to be enshrined in law.

If a woman is getting an abortion, she probably didn't intend to create life.

So if I talk about a right to murder people then that right exists? And it exists because we are talking about it? So if I then talk about Unicorns does that mean that Unicorns exist? Or you know we can talk about God and since we are talking about God does that then mean God exists, and if God exists then abortion is wrong anyway? Now I understand that you are arguing that rights are a "philosophical conception" but as pointed out "philosophical conceptions" don't exist, just because I can conceptualize something then that doesn't mean it exists or perhaps you can point out which dictionary definition suits your meaning.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/exist?s=t

1. to have actual being; be:
The world exists, whether you like it or not.


2. to have life or animation; live.


3. to continue to be or live:
Belief in magic still exists.


4. to have being in a specified place or under certain conditions; be found; occur:
Hunger exists in many parts of the world.


5. to achieve the basic needs of existence, as food and shelter:
He's not living, he's merely existing.

That's an entirely separate scenario. Like I said, you're bad at analogies. A drunk driver going to prison is not having their rights violated. A woman being forced to carry a child is.

It's a bad analogy because you said so. Rightio. Don't expect me to pay attention to your bare assertions and actually prove why it's bad. It's a legitimate point because it refers to the drunk driver being told what to do with his body in order to not harm another human. Asking the drunk driver to drive sober is asking him to "alter his body" as you mentioned previously. So your argument earlier on was to say that the woman's right to her body and not to have it altered trumps the right to life to the human life she is carrying.

P1) A woman's right to her own body and to not have it altered trumps the life of another human.

P2) This implies that's a person's desired body state trumps that of another human's life.

P2) A person who is drunk and who is asked to be sober is asking them to alter their body.

P3) Asking a drunk person to become sober before driving is asking them to alter their body to a possibly undesired body state in order to save another life.

C1) Therefore as described in P1, a drunk person should not be asked to become sober before driving if they don't want to.

There's other options that are mutually beneficial, so no.

But you will allow a woman to have an abortion because the baby is an inconvenience?

[Darth Ovious]

In that case, I would say the fetus causes harm to the woman and the government making abortion illegal would be a violation of her rights

Yep, you read that right everyone. The fetus causes harm to the woman. If we are using this reasoning then pregnancy is pretty much a disease that needs to be cured. Oh well, the human race was nice while it lasted.

[Darth Ovious]

Dude, I haven't been "hounding you pretty hard". I've asked only 3 questions from you. You might want to pull back on the exaggeration a bit.

I think he means the overall effect means he feels hounded. It's 3 questions from you yes, but in totality it's about 50 questions from everyone. Of course it would help if he had a structured argument first in which he could refine after criticism.

[Sea of red]

Well according to your video which goes "you say yes, I say no" then that means when we say that the Nazi's did de-humanize Jews then you say they didn't. So yes, I recognize that you did answer via your video.

It's a joke, dude.

Guess you don't like Judas Priest...

[Darth Ovious]

It's a joke, dude.

Guess you don't like Judas Priest...

My reply wasn't serious obviously. Not really heard Judas Priest much but I prefer to stick to modern rock in the confines of my era.