>>367
"You assume that anyone giving birth will provide a life for the fetus."
The parents/mother are to be held responsible here. If they abandon their child or something, jail them for child abuse, and locate a foster home, adoption center, ophanage, or something similar. Those who abandoned the child can be put to work and their earnings can be sent to care for the child. Problem solved.
"Pregnancy is not always something that happens to healthy people who can provide."
See above. If they weren't ready to have children, they should have taken the steps necessary to prevent production of children needing to be cared for. Hold them accountable.
"Nor does it always happen to girls/women who have developed physically that EITHER one of them could survive. Plenty of third world shit-holes out there where a guy can rape an 11 year old and just walk away."
We are talking about the USA, and american laws, or at least I was. The USA isn't a 'third world shithole' and that kind of behavior is not accepted here, so this is redundant.
"You really think the moral thing to do is give her a speach and prayer and leave it at that?"
See above.
"What about the kids who get to look forward to a brief life of scavenging for rats and flies? Would they necessarily thank you for that, especially since every new mouth to feed puts a strain on the others that is likely greater than the sum of its parts?"
I am not talking about third world nations and their laws. I am talking about the United States of America and its laws. We are far, far from a 'third world nation.'
"That being said, I would agree that late-term abortions in developed nations are likely happening on the whims of people who had "an accident" that they want to cover up, which is abhorrent."
We see eye to eye on this then.
"As for sex, yes people can show restraint. Access to birth control (pill/shots/condoms) should not be denied anyone,"
I agree.
"as unwanted pregnancies should be avoided, since those who don't want or can't afford children likely make terrible parents,"
I agree.
"and adoption is overrated anyways: there is already a massive backlog that would take years to dissipitate even if humans stopped giving birht all together."
I'm not quite sure what you are saying, and I don't think adoption is the sole solution to everything, but there are lots of willing and able parents who will take foster children. As a libertarian-conservative, in order to provide more people able to care for the unaborted children, there would be more homes availible for non-aborted children if homosexuals were allowed to adopt children, and this is a freedom I wholeheartedly support. The child needs loving parents, and I believe that this need can be fullfilled by a homosexual just as well as by a heterosexual.
>>368
"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."
Then support the libertarian party, not the liberals. The liberals won't end the War on Drugs for you, and will then throw your ass in jail for not paying your taxes down to the last penny, and will then proceed to take away everyones gun rights so if they feel like violating everyone's rights, and it comes down to a tyranny somewhere down the road, there's nothing you or anyone else could do about it anyway.
"But they DON'T despite every effort to make them!"
Right. So I blame them. They made the choice not to take the right action, so they should be held accountable for the same set of reasons a murderer should be held accountable for not making the right choices.
"Here, we have to make a utilitarian choice, since we can't eat the cake and have it too."
I disagree. The rights of a few humans to their lives outweigh the 'rights' of a majority of women to an abortion. One freedom is obviously of far greater importance, even if its instances are much less significant in number.
"In the real world, we *can't* have fetal rights and women's rights at the same time,"
To a reasonable degree we can. Women have equal rights. They have the right to decide to have sex or not, to use contraceptives or not, or in general to do things or not. The situation is entirely avoidable, and I don't see how their rights are being infringed in any significant or noteworthy way, especially in comparison to the infringements (albeit few) of the right to live.
"while in your overused analogy taking Bill's money would require the removal of his birthright."
Right. And this relates to the discussion because you are talking about just sacrificing the lives of a few humans for the sake of a majority of women. If we were to impliment your morality on a consistent basis it would lead us to the conclusion that we should loot Bill Gates' property, and take his money for the benefits of a greater number of people. We don't do this because human beings aren't sacrificial animals to be sacrificed in the name of the benefits of the majority. Similarly, human lives are not to be sacrificed for the sake of a far less important freedom of a given group, even if that group is far greater in number.
"The number of fertile women in America outnumber the number of fetuses who have passed a certain limit (which is still not set adequately)."
See comments above.
"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."
Again, see above.
"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."
See above.
"Biologically, not every diploid is human life."
I'm not trying to make that claim. There's more to 'life' if you ask me than a complete set of chromosomes, but that isn't to say that sperm, eggs, skin cells, or any other of these kinds of things are to be considered human lives. As I said - that isn't the *only* thing. There are other things that I take into consideration as well.
"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."
Right, and is not just. But neither is denying all humans the right to live for the sake of one group if one injustice is worse, which would also qualify as collective punishment. The argument is which is worse - and I think that denying the right to life is a worse thing than to deny abortion, even if those effected would be of a smaller group. One right is more important, and that is 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 if society cannot give women the right to have abortions without preventing destruction of legitimate human life, it does not have the right to give her abortions. As said before and above - this is a degree of judgement. The question is which injustice is worse, and I firmly agree that injustice against life is the worse of the two.
"And even if adoptions is a good option labor is *intensely* painful and hormonally upsetting."
Right, but the human fetus is not in its situation due to its own choice - the woman is.
"You said personhood wasn't the first prerequisite for human life, and then I explained that now the prerequisites were biological."
If it is the example I'm thinking of, I only disagreed with it in the context in which it was used, as I define 'personhood' a little differently.
"Since humans breathe oxygen and children do not do that until nativity, fetuses are not human life until they are outside."
And here I thought we had finally come to agreement... more or less. I don't think 'humans' always breathe oxygen, as I think the unborn can be considered 'human' as well, depending on how late in development it is. Simply breathing does not make one human, in my opinion, and supposing one could live without breathing somehow, it wouldn't make his life significantly less 'human' in nature to me.
"Your Gates analogy was not equitable to the issue."
Yes it was.
"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?"
That depends on the significance of the rights to be abused. Clearly, some rights are more important than others, and I have a rather high opinion of the right to life.
"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."
Did you mean this to be derogatory to me? Janet Reno was a bitch in my opinion, but maybe you don't know of her what I do.