Debate Android Raptor about abortion again

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

simply "isn't". i mean, unless you're equating a clump of cells to an already established human life. hence, something that "is" and something that "isn't".

The "clump of cells" is factually a human life as well, so I suppose your only issue is that human life not being adequately "established" to your approval. Please elaborate on the establishment qualification you created.

but let's say it's developed into a fetus with all the bells and whistles and shit, like 8 months, in a scenario where the survival of the individual matters, that fetus still wouldn't play a role in my decision. soz.

At 8 months that baby can be virtually indistinguishable from a full-term one, and yet it wouldn't play a role in your decision? So even if that 8 months developed baby were in the arms of its mother instead of inside her you'd maintain that?

i'd certainly be happy for her, if it makes her happy.

Are you always happy for people who have something that makes them happy? You'd certainly be happy for her if she was happy about some worms she was holding?

 

[Lurker]

The "clump of cells" is factually a human life as well, so I suppose your only issue is that human life not being adequately "established" to your approval. Please elaborate on the establishment qualification you created.


At 8 months that baby can be virtually indistinguishable from a full-term one, and yet it wouldn't play a role in your decision? So even if that 8 months developed baby were in the arms of its mother instead of inside her you'd maintain that?


Are you always happy for people who have something that makes them happy? You'd certainly be happy for her if she was happy about some worms she was holding?

lol semen is human life too. 'established' as in, you know, born, able to breathe on its own without assistance, has sentience.

you're trying to change the parameters of the question. you simply asked if it mattered whether the woman was pregnant or not, not whether the baby was already born or not. once baby is born, and if it's breathing on its own and is sentient and shit, and said baby is now in the mother's arms, that baby effectively becomes a third person if the scenario had, say, a pair of hot twins, one of them now formerly pregnant, and for funsies i'm going to pretend she just shot that baby out like minutes before the fire started, so now the scenario is that there's a fire and you can only save one person - the not-pregnant twin, the twin who literally just had a baby like 5 minutes ago, or the baby itself. in this weirdly specific and highly improbable situation, it would still be about who is most likely to survive based on current circumstances.

lol not every situation is the same. it's like there's this thing called nuance. but hey, if a woman is happy holding a handful of earthworms, who am i to judge?

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

lol semen is human life too.

Sounds like something probably from more recent biology textbooks, same ones where they say males can become pregnant.

'established' as in, you know, born

Why does the location of a person matter?

able to breathe on its own without assistance

RIP everyone on ventilators' status as "is", you're all now demoted to "isn't" status.

has sentience

RIP people isn'ts in comas too.

you simply asked if it mattered whether the woman was pregnant or not, not whether the baby was already born or not.

Not at all, it's the same organism in its same state of development, the only parameter changed is the location of the baby from inside to outside. If that's throwing a wrench into things for you then maybe you got some thinking to do.

once baby is born, and if it's breathing on its own and is sentient and shit, and said baby is now in the mother's arms, that baby effectively becomes a third person

The vaginal canal does not magically confer sentience upon babies, it was just as sentient or not the moment prior to birth. The only difference is it's now breathing on it's own (irrelevant, arbitrary criteria) and is now in a different location (its mothers arms instead of inside her, even more arbitrary and irrelevant).

Pro-choicers treat babies like they don't exist until the very instant they're out, as if it's Schrodinger's baby. That's almost cult-like thinking and entirely irrational.

hey, if a woman is happy holding a handful of earthworms, who am i to judge?

Society could do with a bit more judgementalism, and you don't seem averse to it ever until now that a hypothetical woman is ecstatic about her worms.

Anyway, I wasn't asking if you'd judge her, only if you'd be happy for her and wish her good luck with her worms in a sincere manner, like I'm so very sure you would for a pregnant friend,

 

[Lurker]

Sounds like something probably from more recent biology textbooks, same ones where they say males can become pregnant.

you'd have to know how to read to know what's in a biology textbook

Why does the location of a person matter?

i feel like you're intentionally being obtuse

RIP everyone on ventilators' status as "is", you're all now demoted to "isn't" status.

RIP people isn'ts in comas too.

what is nuance

The vaginal canal does not magically confer sentience upon babies, it was just as sentient or not the moment prior to birth. The only difference is it's now breathing on it's own (irrelevant, arbitrary criteria) and is now in a different location (its mothers arms instead of inside her, even more arbitrary and irrelevant).

Pro-choicers treat babies like they don't exist until the very instant they're out, as if it's Schrodinger's baby. That's almost cult-like thinking and entirely irrational.

idk, man, being able to breathe on your own usually is indicative that you're gonna live and survive and you're not a brainless potato.
it's far more rational to value the life of something that isn't vs something that already is. definitely nothing cultlike or irrational about that. like i know you're some sort of religious fundie or something, more power to you, but i don't think you can criticize anyone of cult-like thinking and irrationality.

 

[gang weeder]

I already explained why that's a nearly irrelevant question. It certainly isn't a couple hundred though for a nonsentient blob of flesh.

It's irrelevant to me. I don't think personhood depends on cell count. But it seems quite relevant to you. It's incoherent to say "well a couple hundred cells obviously isn't a person" if you can't then actually name the number of cells at which the organism magically acquires personhood.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

you'd have to know how to read to know what's in a biology textbook

I'm not sure I want to read whatever you got your disinformation from.

i feel like you're intentionally being obtuse

Well, I'm correct at any rate.

what is nuance

Just brush anything inconvenient to you away with "nuance".

idk, man, being able to breathe on your own usually is indicative that you're gonna live and survive and you're not a brainless potato.

Or...nuance, it's dependent on context. It can mean that, or it can mean someone is either ill, not outside the womb yet, or something else. Sure, there's braindead people who can't breathe on their own, but temporarily not being able to do so yet doesn't make you a brainless potato. Do you have no concept of time?

it's far more rational to value the life of something that isn't vs something that already is. definitely nothing cultlike or irrational about that.

I'd agree if what you define as is and isn't wasn't so narrowly focused on an exact moment in time, conveniently ignoring the concept of development just to maintain your existing belief that it's only a worthless clump of cells. We should just kill all born babies too because they can't think, they're just brainless crying blobs of flesh.

I've never heard a good argument for killing a developing human life that didn't depend on pretending time doesn't march on, with the inevitable conclusion being something you're trying to prevent.

"It isn't breathing on its own!"
"Okay, let's take it out so that it ca--."
"*REVS UP VACUUM*"

like i know you're some sort of religious fundie or something, more power to you, but i don't think you can criticize anyone of cult-like thinking and irrationality.

If you can find me once relying on a religious argument I'd love to see it. I appeal to science and common sense.

 

[Dyn]

If you can find me once relying on a religious argument I'd love to see it. I appeal to science and common sense.

I agree with all the arguments you're making in the last page or so, which is conflicting because I'm pretty firmly on the other side. After our last arguments on this I've spent some time thinking about how it's possible that arguments I found extremely correct and compelling still aren't moving me over to your side, and I think the answer is that there is an pretty unbridgeable divide between those of us who believe in the soul and afterlife, and those of us who don't.

If you believe in a soul and an afterlife, I'd expect you to have a fundamental value for human life. As soon as the gametes combine, a souled human being exists and terminating it is cheating it out of God's gift of life and all the trials and experiences that come with it.

If you don't believe in a soul and an afterlife, I'd expect you to have a perceptual value for human life. In the absence of a soul, dying before developing the capacity for consciousness is perceptually identical to never existing, and being irreversibly comatose is perceptually identical to death.

Even though I agree that none of your arguments religious, I do still think it's religion that keeps us all from finding a common point of agreement. Not doctrinal or dogmatic religion, but the fundamental difference in what we believe about life and death.

 

[Evil Ash]

This thread reads like an Illuminati meeting with "I am a Scientist" playing in the background.

I wonder how many of you here actually experienced pregnancy.

On male impregnation: I have always been curious about this. Finally being free of the other sex and being able to produce an heir (much to the horror of the rest of you) would be a liberating moment for the male gender. Not even the troons, who claim to be 100% women, have been able to solve this conundrum.

 

[Wood]

Even though I agree that none of your arguments religious, I do still think it's religion that keeps us all from finding a common point of agreement. Not doctrinal or dogmatic religion, but the fundamental difference in what we believe about life and death.

No. What prevents you from finding common ground with others is that you are a dumbfuck moral relativist. Like most dumbfuck liberals, you think that you get to decide whether an action is good or evil by whatever standards you choose to apply at any given time. That is an inherently retarded way of thinking.

 

[gang weeder]

If you believe in a soul and an afterlife, I'd expect you to have a fundamental value for human life. As soon as the gametes combine, a souled human being exists and terminating it is cheating it out of God's gift of life and all the trials and experiences that come with it.

Not really a religious issue. Everyone believes human life has fundamental value or else we wouldn't condemn murder. As always, it just goes back to who counts as a person. You've talked yourself into believing that people aren't people until a certain stage of development for whatever reasons.

If you don't believe in a soul and an afterlife, I'd expect you to have a perceptual value for human life. In the absence of a soul, dying before developing the capacity for consciousness is perceptually identical to never existing, and being irreversibly comatose is perceptually identical to death.

If you deny the value of human life, you can't have any coherent moral beliefs in the first place. What's wrong with going up to someone and just headshotting them from behind? They stop existing instantly, experience no pain, there's no afterlife that you're sending them to. What's the harm done? Your first instinct is probably to say "well their friends and family would be horrified," to which we can specify the hypothetical victim here as being some homeless bum that literally no one cares about.

Additionally, the response of other people to murder is culturally conditioned. The Aztecs thought they were appeasing the sun or some shit with their human sacrifices, so you could posit that those murders were bringing lots of happiness to them. If we say that human life has no value, then you have no basis to condemn that practice. Nothing matters. The reality is you do think human life has value, you've just talked yourself into making an exception for abortion, again for whatever reasons.

 

[AgendaPoster]

if there's a fire and you had to choose between saving several clumps of cells, or an actual living human being, which would you save?

I have a better question, would you save a woman who's not pregnant or the one who's pregnant?

So why are people debating abortion.
The real question is what is life and what makes a human

 

[Lurker]

Like most dumbfuck liberals inbred conservatives, you think that you get to decide whether an action is good or evil by whatever standards you choose to apply at any given time. That is an inherently retarded way of thinking.

so you just ignore when it's "your side" doing it, huh

 

[Dyn]

you think that you get to decide whether an action is good or evil by whatever standards you choose to apply at any given time. That is an inherently retarded way of thinking.

How would you differentiate your way of thinking from that? Everyone has different ideas of good and evil, and they all apply different standards.

Everyone believes human life has fundamental value

I don't think that's true at all. If an infant is born completely braindead and permanently vegetative, do you think that life has a fundamental value that is morally indistinguishable from an infant who will grow up to perceive the living human experience? You might, but many people would disagree, and I think the crux of that disagreement is whether we believe in the existence of the soul.

If you deny the value of human life, you can't have any coherent moral beliefs in the first place. What's wrong with going up to someone and just headshotting them from behind?

If we're going to go into extreme hypothetical, I do believe nothing is wrong with instantly ceasing somebody's life in a way that adds no pain, grief, suffering or inconvenience to anybody else left in the world. Everybody dies, and I don't believe that the dead know or care that they're dead. Unless they have a soul that is being cheated out of further human experience that God intended for it, I'm failing to understand what you think the damage is.

Additionally, the response of other people to murder is culturally conditioned. The Aztecs thought they were appeasing the sun or some shit with their human sacrifices, so you could posit that those murders were bringing lots of happiness to them. If we say that human life has no value, then you have no basis to condemn that practice. Nothing matters. The reality is you do think human life has value, you've just talked yourself into making an exception for abortion, again for whatever reasons.

My basis to condemn Aztec sacrifice is obviously that it caused a lot of pain and suffering, and even more obviously, that I don't believe that the sun will stop coming up if we don't cut people's heads off. If I believed that, I'd probably be okay with it because the sun coming up is pretty important to me. If I believed in a soul and in God having a plan for all of them, I probably wouldn't be okay with abortion.

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

the fundamental difference in what we believe about life and death.

I was thinking about what you said and that's might be true for the majority of people on both sides, but I then have to wonder about where someone like a stone cold Atheist who's pro-life factors in there.

so you just ignore when it's "your side" doing it, huh

When you last replied I didn't notice, but you skipped this part specifically and I want to press you on it:

Anyway, I wasn't asking if you'd judge her, only if you'd be happy for her and wish her good luck with her worms in a sincere manner, like I'm so very sure you would for a pregnant friend,

 

[Lurker]

When you last replied I didn't notice, but you skipped this part specifically and I want to press you on it:

sure, if those worms make her happy. same would go for a pregnant friend. not sure what you think you're achieving with this line of autistic questioning other than perhaps a failed attempt at a 'gotcha'

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

sure, if those worms make her happy. same would go for a pregnant friend. not sure what you think you're achieving with this line of autistic questioning other than perhaps a failed attempt at a 'gotcha'

I think there is value to determining if someone is disingenuous or not. It is more of a trick question than only a gotcha; if you answer as you did--clearly dishonestly--then you lose credibility. If you had told the truth, that you wouldn't actually be glad for her grubby worms and might call to get her a psychiatric evaluation then I get to make a decent point and set a precedent regarding distinguishment.

It's sort of a win-win for me. Someone more intelligent like Dyn could probably navigate that simple set up more elegantly than you did, and maybe you sensed that too, hence your initial reluctance.

 

[Dyn]

I was thinking about what you said and that's might be true for the majority of people on both sides, but I then have to wonder about where someone like a stone cold Atheist who's pro-life factors in there.

All the atheists I've seen arguing for pro-life have argued from an ideology of very extreme pacifism, and they generally opposed proactive violence under any circumstances. They tended to struggle very, very hard with weighing moral questions concerning things like killing in self-defense, and defaulted to "we just shouldn't do it" or "we should find another way". I'm inclined to think the concept of death and violence bothers them too much for them to properly explore their own thought processes on it, but that would be doing them a little dirty because I've only heard a handful of them argue. I'd have to watch more atheist pro-lifers argue before I'd be comfortable trying to explain their reasoning.

 

[Lurker]

I think there is value to determining if someone is disingenuous or not. It is more of a trick question than only a gotcha; if you answer as you did--clearly dishonestly--then you lose credibility. If you had told the truth, that you wouldn't actually be glad for her grubby worms and might call to get her a psychiatric evaluation then I get to make a decent point and set a precedent regarding distinguishment.

It's sort of a win-win for me. Someone more intelligent like Dyn could probably navigate that simple set up more elegantly than you did, and maybe you sensed that too, hence your initial reluctance.

i think you're giving yourself too much credit

what does one's acceptance of a woman who loves worms have to do with whether they're being disingenuous or not? what sort of autistic reasoning is this?

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

i think you're giving yourself too much credit

what does one's acceptance of a woman who loves worms have to do with whether they're being disingenuous or not? what sort of autistic reasoning is this?

Yeah, maybe...

I'm not going to dignify your question with an answer, but thanks for really drilling my point home

 

[Lurker]

Yeah, maybe...

I'm not going to dignify your question with an answer, but thanks for really drilling my point home

why not, eris? what is inherently wrong with a woman who loves her worms? why does her happiness offend you?