ABORTION.......

How was Frank's comment "racist". I saw nothing referring to anyone's race in that comment.

Our rights are not at stake in Iraq, only our access to cheap oil.

How is aborting unwanted cells murder in your mind, but bombing Iraqi children and sending young American men and women into harm's way is NOT murder?

You can believe anything you want, but you have no right to impose your unfounded religious ideas on anyone else, especially when it involves something as personal and life-altering as pregnancy.

To say that a fetus is not a person until it can survive outside of the womb is still an arbitrary concept. Why not when a heartbeat begins (at about 3 weeks) or when brainwaves can be detected (at about 6 weeks). Also, as I have said before...even when a baby is born, it is many years before the child can survive without the aid of other people. If they have nobody to care for them, why not "abort" them too.

djbt wrote:

You seem to be saying that a 'human being' has rights, or at least trump-suit rights, which living beings that are not human beings do not have. To rephrase my questions:

(1) What qualities must a something possess to be called a 'human being'?
(2) Why do these qualities mean that a 'human being' has 'rights'?
(3) At what stage of pregnancy does a fetus develop these qualities?

(1) A functioning human brain with the capacity for self-awareness.
(2) There are no inherent rights. The only "rights" anyone has are those granted to them by society in which they live. Rights may be granted to enable the society to function better or out of empathy for the feelings and aspirations of our fellow human beings.
(3) The fetal brain takes at least 24 weeks to develop to the point where self-awareness might be possible. At 30 weeks it is a functioning human brain by anyone's defination, but its capacity for self-awareness is still questionable.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Intrepid wrote:

To say that a fetus is not a person until it can survive outside of the womb is still an arbitrary concept. Why not when a heartbeat begins (at about 3 weeks) or when brainwaves can be detected (at about 6 weeks). Also, as I have said before...even when a baby is born, it is many years before the child can survive without the aid of other people. If they have nobody to care for them, why not "abort" them too.

The four chambers of the heart do not start to form until 6 weeks, so to say it "beats" at 3 weeks is a stretch. In any case, your heart can continue to beat long after your brain is dead, so heartbeat is not proof of personhood. While neural electrical potentials are present at 6 weeks, brain wave patterns do not resemble those of a neonate until 26 weeks post-fertilization. Stages of development

Infanticide is not the issue here, although it has been (and may still be) practiced in other cultures.

I really don't recall imposing anything on anybody. When did this discussion turn into anyone imposing on anyone else?

Momma Angel wrote:

I really don't recall imposing anything on anybody. When did this discussion turn into anyone imposing on anyone else?

That was a generic "you" directed at those who are working to abolish abortion rights in this country and force women to devote 9 months of their lives to gestating accidentally-conceived, unwanted embryos while enduring the discomforts of pregnancy, pain of childbirth (with its attendant risk of major abdominal surgery and injury to internal organs), lost time from work and curtailment of normal activities, and emotional distress (postpartum depression) whether the baby is kept or given up for adoption.

If it were not for the anti-abortion crowd trying to impose its beliefs on everyone else, we would not be having this discussion.

If "rights" only come from society, then if abortion was illegal would you say that a woman has no "right" to abortion?

In countries that do not allow free speech, do the people have no "right" to speak?

Why did people fight for their Civil Rights when those rights were not recognized by law? Were they wrong to do so? Were they deluded into thinking they had "rights" when in fact they didn't?

Are the only "rights" that you can conceive of "legal rights" granted or taken away by the whim of government?

The Signers of the Declaration of Independence stated

Quote:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Do you disagree?

maporsche wrote:

How was Frank's comment "racist". I saw nothing referring to anyone's race in that comment.

What do you see when somebody calls a person of colour boy? You know full well what he meant. We won't even talk about what he prefaced it with.


p.s.
Did it take you this long to come up with that?

I agree that the Declartion of Independence states that men have rights. But the founding fathers did not extend these rights to women, slaves, or the poor. It took 144 years for us to get the right to vote, and even longer to be allowed to use birth control in our pursuit of happiness.

Intrepid wrote:

maporsche wrote:

How was Frank's comment "racist". I saw nothing referring to anyone's race in that comment.

What do you see when somebody calls a person of colour boy? You know full well what he meant. We won't even talk about what he prefaced it with.


p.s.
Did it take you this long to come up with that?

What's wrong with the word ****? How do we know that he's a person of color?

To put it quite bluntly... They should have thought of that before laying down. Other than cases of rape, or imminent medical distress to the mother, they are pregnant by their own actions. This has been discussed way back in this thread.

You cry for the pregnant woman who made a poor choice. I will cry for the baby that does not have a choice or anybody to make a stand for him/her.

Intrepid wrote:

maporsche wrote:

How was Frank's comment "racist". I saw nothing referring to anyone's race in that comment.

What do you see when somebody calls a person of colour boy? You know full well what he meant. We won't even talk about what he prefaced it with.


p.s.
Did it take you this long to come up with that?

What's wrong with the word ****? How do we know that he's a person of color?

maporsche wrote:

Intrepid wrote:

maporsche wrote:

How was Frank's comment "racist". I saw nothing referring to anyone's race in that comment.

What do you see when somebody calls a person of colour boy? You know full well what he meant. We won't even talk about what he prefaced it with.


p.s.
Did it take you this long to come up with that?

What's wrong with the word ****? How do we know that he's a person of color?

Because they've posted here for longer than 6 or 7 months. Why are you so quick to take the defensive stance in a dispute you have no knowledge about?

maporsche wrote:

Intrepid wrote:

maporsche wrote:

How was Frank's comment "racist". I saw nothing referring to anyone's race in that comment.

What do you see when somebody calls a person of colour boy? You know full well what he meant. We won't even talk about what he prefaced it with.


p.s.
Did it take you this long to come up with that?

What's wrong with the word ****? How do we know that he's a person of color?

How do you spell that again? If you bothered to actually read the threads instead of just throwing random thoughts into them, you would have read that he told us.