>>365 "Secondly, tax-funded abortions are not in any way morally sound or in accordance with the values of liberty, whether they occur here, or in some country receiving our foreign aid money." You are of course speaking of the unfathomable evil of making people pay for what they believe is immoral. If pro-lifers don't want tax-funded abortions because some of those abortions may be unethical, then I don't want to pay taxes at all because some of the money will be used on the crusade on drugs or the war on bad.
"People COULD practice abstinence." But they DON'T despite every effort to make them!
"This kind of thing makes me damn proud to be an american." Fuck yes, I consider this to be one of the best facets of the American mindset.
"Fuck utilitiarianism. Sacrificing the rights of one group for the benefit of another group is not justified." Here, we have to make a utilitarian choice, since we can't eat the cake and have it too.
"If it was, why would we as americans not take all of Bill Gates' money?" Not comporting with the situation. In the real world, we *can't* have fetal rights and women's rights at the same time, while in your overused analogy taking Bill's money would require the removal of his birthright. The number of fertile women in America outnumber the number of fetuses who have passed a certain limit (which is still not set adequately). Since not every fertile woman in America is pregnant at any one time, the women always outnumber the fetuses who can conceivably be considered humans with unique lives. Even if they all were pregnant a number of fetuses would not be humans, and since we can't give group A AND group B their complete rights at the same time, we have to go with the majority.
"It is 'human', and it is 'alive', thus it is a 'human-life'. Those apostrophes are more important than you think, bub. Biologically, not every diploid is human life.
"The right of the women you describe is a right that pales in significance to the right to life." Denying abortion from women just because some abortions will take place once the foetus is human life is like making appendix removal illegal. Collective punishment.
"So because the woman will possibly suffer discrimination, we are going to give her the right to destroy human life?" If a society can not allow a woman to become a mother without harming her liberties, it does not have the right to force her to become a mother. And even if adoptions is a good option labor is *intensely* painful and hormonally upsetting.
"I don't see how." You said personhood wasn't the first prerequisite for human life, and then I explained that now the prerequisites were biological. Since humans breathe oxygen and children do not do that until nativity, fetuses are not human life until they are outside.
"Utilitarianism and the 'utilitiarian edge' is no excuse to sacrifice the rights and liberties of the few for the sake of the many." Your Gates analogy was not equitable to the issue. If you have to choose between the rights of Group A and Group B, and Group A always will outnumber Group B, what do you choose?
"I'm not 'crompromising.' Sensible, yes. Compromising, no. If I thought life began at conception, I would settle for nothing less than a full ban. That's not saying I do think that, but I just want to let you know that 'compromise' is not something I'm willing to do if I know I'm right. Moderation or supporting moderate views just on the grounds that they are moderate is stupid. If done, you will invariably fuck yourself up somewhat. Rather, you should support ideas based on their merit, not whether or not they are 'moderate' or involve 'compromise'." I have not promoted a centrist stance, and I guess compromising was a poor choice of words. Nevertheless, the state-wide ban put through in SD has proven to me that I am up against people that make you look like Janet Reno.