Men: Why Do You Oppose a Woman's Right to Abortion?

Chrissee wrote:

JTT wrote:

Chrissee was right earlier, even though she provided no proof.

No proof was needed except to examine the statement...

"Life begins at conception"

...to ascertain that it is simply false.

Sez you.

I'd put your belief about when "life" begins against my belief any day of the week. Apparently, you think life always exists, because both the egg and sperm are "living" before they join. That is a very interesting belief, to say the least.

And it still doesn't explain to me why, if life always exists, you think it's okay to kill a living baby.

Ticomaya wrote:

dora17 wrote:

i'd be much more comfortable w/ the idea of considering a fetus as a human being from the instant an egg is fertilized if we would accord the same sort of respect and veneration to other life. I can't accept the right to life movement's sincerity until they give some consideration to the abhorrent treatment of other life, like factory farmed animals. If a embryo desrves consideration from the instant it begins existence, then why doesn't an animal that we know has some degree of intelligence and ability to feel pain, like a pig, deserve a decent existence? when the majority of right to lifers are also concerned with humane treatment of all life, i'll give their morals more credence. (of course, this is all off the topic that was originally the intention of the thread. sorry, atkins )

So ... if I understand your position correctly ... you are in favor of abortion because right-to-lifer humans kill animals for food and sport?

Pleaes correct me if I'm wrong.

As the moderator of this thread, Tico, I respectfully request that you write like an adult and stop engaging in specious argument.

Ticomaya wrote:

Evidence of what? Dora is not able to tell me the exact day a baby is able to survive on its own outside its mother's womb -- I won't even ask her to -- and were she to make an effort to do so, I would ask her to explain to me why the baby would not be able to survive on its own on the immediately preceding day. She, and those of her thinking, have created a fictitious point in time prior to which they believe abortions of these "parasites" are justified. But there is no miraculous process that occurred on that date ... the miracle of life occurred much sooner, and the only logical point is the fertilization of the egg.

What Tico is attempting to set up here is known to philosophers as a "sorites paradox,", also known as "the paradox of the heap." Simply stated, if a heap of wheat would still be a heap after taking away one grain, how many grains of wheat would we need to take away before the heap becomes a non-heap? Here, Tico argues that, if a fetus is a "person" on a certain day in the gestational period, why isn't it a "person" on the previous day, or the day before that, etc.? But going all the way back to the start no more proves that a fertilized ovum is a person than that a single grain of wheat is a heap. Framing the issue of the beginning of life as a sorites paradox merely makes the beginning of life paradoxical; it doesn't solve the problem, it just rephrases it.

Atkins wrote:

Ticomaya wrote:

dora17 wrote:

i'd be much more comfortable w/ the idea of considering a fetus as a human being from the instant an egg is fertilized if we would accord the same sort of respect and veneration to other life. I can't accept the right to life movement's sincerity until they give some consideration to the abhorrent treatment of other life, like factory farmed animals. If a embryo desrves consideration from the instant it begins existence, then why doesn't an animal that we know has some degree of intelligence and ability to feel pain, like a pig, deserve a decent existence? when the majority of right to lifers are also concerned with humane treatment of all life, i'll give their morals more credence. (of course, this is all off the topic that was originally the intention of the thread. sorry, atkins )

So ... if I understand your position correctly ... you are in favor of abortion because right-to-lifer humans kill animals for food and sport?

Pleaes correct me if I'm wrong.

As the moderator of this thread, Tico, I respectfully request that you write like an adult and stop engaging in specious argument.

I respectfully request you stop trying to tell me what to do.

It is possible that life begins at conception, and that is a very different thing from defining a "heap," which by any normal definition would require more than one of a given thing. Thus, you might say "1 grain does not a heap make," and be correct ... and you may then go on to argue as to exactly how many grains constitute a "heap." But life could occur at the very instant of fertilization, and thus my thesis does not result in a Sorites Paradox as to my argument.

While it may not solve the problem for you, Joe, it solves the problem for me, because I have a satisfactory answer for when I believe life begins.

It is possible that life begins at conception, and that is a very different thing from defining a "heap," which by any normal definition would require more than one of a given thing. Thus, you might say "1 grain does not a heap make," and be correct ... and you may then go on to argue as to exactly how many grains constitute a "heap." But life could occur at the very instant of fertilization, and thus my thesis does not result in a Sorites Paradox as to my argument.

Ticomaya wrote:

It is possible that life begins at conception, and that is a very different thing from defining a "heap," which by any normal definition would require more than one of a given thing. Thus, you might say "1 grain does not a heap make," and be correct ... and you may then go on to argue as to exactly how many grains constitute a "heap." But life could occur at the very instant of fertilization, and thus my thesis does not result in a Sorites Paradox as to my argument.

So, to you, a clump of cells is the same thing as a baby, which in turn has the same value as an adult. Ok. So if you and your wife had a first trimester miscarriage, would you buy a casket and a buriel plot and a tombstone with a name on it?

While it may not solve the problem for you, Joe, it solves the problem for me, because I have a satisfactory answer for when I believe life begins.

It is possible that life begins at conception, and that is a very different thing from defining a "heap," which by any normal definition would require more than one of a given thing.

Thus, you might say "1 grain does not a heap make," and be correct ... and you may then go on to argue as to exactly how many grains constitute a "heap." But life could occur at the very instant of fertilization, and thus my thesis does not result in a Sorites Paradox as to my argument.

But you have named my argument against views such as Chrissee's, and that appears to have caused Adkins to conclude you are sensible. You will always have that.....

So, to you, a clump of cells is the same thing as a baby, which in turn has the same value as an adult.

Leviticus 27:6 A child aged 1 month to five years of age was worth 5 shekels if a boy and 3 shekels if a girl. "And if it be from a month old even unto five years old, then thy estimation shall be of the male five shekels of silver, and for the female thy estimation shall be three shekels of silver."

~~~~~~~~~

Numbers 3:15 shows that a census counted only male infants over the age of one month, boys and men. "Number the children of Levi after the house of their fathers, by their families: every male from a month old and upward shalt thou number them."

Ticomaya wrote:

While it may not solve the problem for you, Joe, it solves the problem for me, because I have a satisfactory answer for when I believe life begins.

Now explain why we should accept your belief over our own. I have no problem that you believe what you do; I have a problem that you say that you are right and others are wrong. To use your own words, "stop telling me what to do."

Ticomaya wrote:

It is possible that life begins at conception, and that is a very different thing from defining a "heap," which by any normal definition would require more than one of a given thing. Thus, you might say "1 grain does not a heap make," and be correct ... and you may then go on to argue as to exactly how many grains constitute a "heap." But life could occur at the very instant of fertilization, and thus my thesis does not result in a Sorites Paradox as to my argument.

Are you certain that fertilization occurs in an instant? If life is present at fertilization, then what about after the sperm penetrates the egg, but before fertilization? Is life present then? What about when the sperm is touching the egg, but before it penetrates? Is life present then? What about when the sperm is swimming but before it touches the egg? Is life present then?

You have picked an arbitrary point to define when life begins. What makes your arbitrary point better than Chrissee's arbitrary point?

Ticomaya wrote:

While it may not solve the problem for you, Joe, it solves the problem for me, because I have a satisfactory answer for when I believe life begins.

I have noticed that you have frequently been satisfied with answers that are false, invalid, or absurd. Ah well, chacun a son goute.

Ticomaya wrote:

It is possible that life begins at conception, and that is a very different thing from defining a "heap," which by any normal definition would require more than one of a given thing.

Unless one were to argue as you have done, in which case one could just as easily argue that a single thing comprised a heap.

Ticomaya wrote:

Thus, you might say "1 grain does not a heap make," and be correct ... and you may then go on to argue as to exactly how many grains constitute a "heap." But life could occur at the very instant of fertilization, and thus my thesis does not result in a Sorites Paradox as to my argument.

No, your argument against Dora posed the problem in the form of a sorites paradox. Yet for some odd reason you intimated that Dora's argument was paradoxical whereas yours wasn't.

As for the possibility that life could occur at the moment of conception, that's quite true. But then Dora or anyone else would be equally correct in suggesting that life could occur at some other point in the gestational period. That fact simply demonstrates that the entire debate is subject to a sorites paradox. Your attempt, then, to avoid the paradox by going to the very first step and stating "this is where I stake my position" makes no logical difference; it just means that yours is the smallest "heap."

Ticomaya wrote:

But you have named my argument against views such as Chrissee's, and that appears to have caused Adkins to conclude you are sensible. You will always have that.....

Envy ill-becomes you.

I'm more certain that life begins at fertilization than I am that it begins at some later, undetermined point in time, and that we ought to be able to kill babies for some time after conception, free of any worries that we are actually killing a life.

But I haven't picked an arbitrary point ... I've picked a very specific point ... you simply feel my selection of that point is arbitrary.

But I haven't picked an arbitrary point ... I've picked a very specific point ... you simply feel my selection of that point is arbitrary.

Ticomaya wrote:

I'm more certain that life begins at fertilization than I am that it begins at some later, undetermined point in time, and that we ought to be able to kill babies for some time after conception, free of any worries that we are actually killing a life.

I'm not sure what you are saying, here.

Ticomaya wrote:

But I haven't picked an arbitrary point ... I've picked a very specific point ... you simply feel my selection of that point is arbitrary.

ar·bi·trar·y Audio pronunciation of "arbitrary" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (ärb-trr)
adj.

1. Determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle: stopped at the first motel we passed, an arbitrary choice.
2. Based on or subject to individual judgment or preference: The diet imposes overall calorie limits, but daily menus are arbitrary.
3. Established by a court or judge rather than by a specific law or statute: an arbitrary penalty.
4. Not limited by law; despotic: the arbitrary rule of a dictator.

It is arbitrary AND specific, but arbitrary nonetheless. It is definitely a moral question, and one that should not be answered for other people by your own whimsical notions of when life begins.

... an ad hominem I'll not reciprocate, although it is tempting.

But I'm not making that argument. In the Sorites Paradox link you provided, it is a given that one grain of wheat does not make a heap. The same cannot be said about life in the context of my argument.

I never said Dora's argument was paradoxical; You named the argument I was using against Dora's position, and assert it is a paradox. I assert that Dora is incapable of telling me the day life begin, because I would refer to the immediately preceding day ...

...while I assert life begins when the egg is fertilized, and I can point out that the egg is NOT fertilized on the immediately preceding day, and there fore the condition precedent to life is lacking. Surely you see the distinction.