No, they don't have to pick their poison from that false dichotomy. I've clearly stated that I think the thing being discussed here as human life does NOT include embryos shortly after conception but does include a fetus shortly before birth. Yours is the wilful ignorance.

All your pleas to emotion using ****ed up terminology and comparisons to endangered species and all that bullshit is disgusting because it's fake and harmful.

One thing strikes me about discussing things with some here...they have an imaginary out for any argument that counters their position. Asking the root question of whether, or not a fetus has liberty, is not fake, or harmful, especially in the light of the analogy being discussed, which implicitly acknowledges the fetus as a life.

I've never really understood people who can hand wave away legitimate criticisms for imaginary reasons. Sounds a lot like religious folks. A willful ignorance, as opposed to a blissful ignorance animals have.

fetuses don't have liberty. just like any other mass of cells doesnt have human liberty rights.

eta- before the inevitable.. when something happens to the fetus it's the woman's liberty and rights that are being violated, and its her ability to get redress. it is not the fetus' redress.

You say: " It's not congruent to stand for freedom and think it's okay to violate the liberty of a life".

I say it is not violating the liberty of a life to terminate a pregnancy shortly after it begins because an embryo is not a "life" in that sense.

That is not hand-waving anything away with an imaginary argument. It's disagreeing with your fundamental premise that even a 1 week old embryo is a human life. I think that was pretty clear by the third time I said it, so I wonder why you are putting on this performance.

Sorry, the analogy being discussed by those I'm responding, betrays this. You are arguing something distinctly different..

And I've repeatedly stated that if you don't think it's a life, it's not a moral question, and voids the analogy that implicitly acknowledges it as a life.

You all jumped into MrWookie's argument and are now changing it.

I have given you many examples of where the life and liberty of people, grown, living, actual people, are generally considered to be irrelevant or at least wholly secondary to the lives and liberties of other people because no one has an unlimited right to life or liberty at the expense of other people. You keep insisting that the life of the fetus is some checkmate I am ignoring, but I maintain that it is instead not relevant, because the mother's right to her own body supercedes any claims of the fetus. People die all the time, everyone dies eventually, and it is generally uncontroversial that people whose bodies are unable to continue to function independently are left to do so if no one is willing or able to go to extraordinary lengths to keep them alive.

You instead appear to be the one ignoring the rights of a relevant party, those of the mother.

There's your problem, analyst. I have not commented on MrWookie's argument. Perhaps your "imaginary out" post was not intended for me.

No, I am 100% aware there is two relevant parties.

"....because no one has an unlimited right to life or liberty at the expense of other people. "

I agree with this, but I'm secure enough in my perspective to understand someone's liberty is being violated. In the case of restricting abortions, or in the case of destroying a life that has no agency. No matter which way you go, you will ultimately contradict the quoted principal, if you think the fetus has the value of a life/person.

@Max

Who is "they" in this post, to which you copted to include you?

That's literally 3rd grade reading comprehension...

He's replying to your post that said "The prochoice folks have to pick their poison". Take a wild guess at who he is referring to when he says "they don't have to pick their poison". As one of the "prochoice folks" it seems pretty clear why he felt that that included him.

@willd

He is making a different argument, and that is clear with this post

(But it fails for the same reason MrWookie's fails, ironically enough)

Now read it understanding that I think embryos are NOT "human life" and that I don't adhere to the nonsense that the term pro-life only applies to people who are against abortion rights.

You are in a thread about framing the abortion debate.

@max

You responded to this post, and my post where you explicitly referenced a particular group that you attempted to differentiate yourself from a mere few hours prior, and you all sudden assumed I was talking about you when pointing out flaws with their position.

That post immediately followed my post, was not explicitly directed at someone else, and referenced language in my post (bolded). Stop trying so hard.

What argument he's making is irrelevant. You made a general statement about "prochoice folk" - not about a specific argument that some pro-choice people make - and were then apparently confused when Max considered himself part of the group you were talking about.

There’s that science I was looking for!

That is fine. Just understand that your conception of "human life" is very arbitrary, anthropomorphically focused, and won't hold up to the slightest rationale scrutiny.

This sidetrack started here:


Then sometime later Max posted this:


I initially responded to a post where he explicitly acknowledged it's a life at some point between conception and birth....but when held to account for the liberty of that life, he flipped his position, i.e. embryo is not a life, which is in conflict with the initial post and the argument I was rebutting. I was giving Max the benefit of the doubt that he never wrote the first post in this digression, and gave him an out. He passed. Now you both look pretty dumb.

He explicitly put himself in the line of fire on questions about the ethics of violating another life's liberty as the sole discretion of another person, then he changed position, and imagined me making stuff up. So, either he thinks it's a life, or he doesn't. If he thinks it's a life, my criticism stands, if he does not think it's a life, then I would never had responded to him with those criticisms.

I can't go back and quote my earlier post right now, but it sounds to me like the distinction max (and wookie?) want to make is more about personhood (in either a legal or moral sense) than about being alive or not.

I suggested that term earlier in this thread because I think it more adequately captures the fact that the moral issue can't really be resolved scientifically by an appeal to whether a fetus is alive at point X or not.

This becomes apparent, for example, in the fact that crossnerd brought up about embryos generated and discarded by in vitro fertilization techniques. I think they are alive, but it's morally permissible to destroy them as a side effect of in vitro because they can't reasonably be thought of as persons.

I don't think there is a clear threshold for personhood either, but that's probably partly why I think Roe strikes a reasonable compromise between competing moral/legal claims which are both at least somewhat convincing. But cf. earlier posts...

There is nothing close to a flipping of his position in his posts. In the first post he says he considers it becomes a human life at some point in time between conception and birth. The second post simply narrows that window by saying that shortly after conception he doesn't consider it a human life.

I don't know Max's exact views but it would be perfectly logical within what Max has said for him to not consider the embryo/foetus a human life until 26 weeks (to pick an arbitrary time period) and therefore consider before that to be purely an issue of a woman's reproductive rights but after that point believe that the liberty of the foetus is a consideration.

The analogy MrWookie is using is comparing two persons conflicting interest, one of which represents a fetus/life or what ever one wants to call it. That implicitly acknowledges the fetus/life/etc is a person. He needs a different analogy, if he does not subscribe to the fetus/life being a person.

Max views the life starting somewhere between conception and birth, and later clarified, sometime after the development of the embryo, but supports abortion rights.

Which, again, brings up questions about the ability of others to infringe on the liberty of the life, and when one gains liberty.

The problem with die hard prolife folks is, they don't acknowledge the violation of a woman's liberty when abortions restrictions are implemented, and the problem with most of the prochoice folks who think it is a life at some point, don't acknowledge there is a violation of a persons liberty that occurs, even if that person is not full developed.

The only respectful position of a pro choice person in my opinion is one that views it as a clump of cells until birth. I disagree with that, but it's better than this equivocating mess we get when we say it's a person but ignore the liberty of that person in the name of the woman's liberty, which contradicts a principal we all mostly agree on.

Then what is he arguing with me about then? I've made pretty clear that my criticisms apply to people who think it's a life, and those who think the woman's liberty trumps that life's liberty.

I assume because he doesn't really fit into either of the two positions you originally outlined, hence he mentioned the false dichotomy.

It's not necessary, in an analogy, that the two things being compared are alike in all respects. I think the purpose of Wookie's analogy is to establish the idea that we balance competing legal/moral claims even when there is life at stake and we all agree that it's the lives of persons. The purpose isn't to establish the boundaries of the category.

I'd also say though that my comment was more motivated by Max's use of the term "life" than by Wookie's posts.

Edit: and also a response to the idea of there being a scientifically unambiguous resolution to the moral issue.