My views (pretty self-centered huh?)

[Vagrant]

I've struggled through my views on this complicated issue for many years. Only just recently have I come up with any real understanding on what I believe. Oh yes, I'm sorry about making a new thread about this but I couldn't figure out where to put my own input in any of the others.

First off let me state that I am Pro-Choice, but am also anti-abortion. I know I have a couple of you scratching your heads so allow me to explain.

I think abortion is a horrible choice. I believe that life begins at conception and any conscious decision to abort that life is wrong.

But I also believe that its not the governments place to decide what is best for someone and their own special circumstances.

If I remember correctly the latter point is one of the core beliefs of conservatives.

Dang can't think of anything to close with >_<

[Patriot]

Vagrant,


How good of you to make an appearance after such an extended vagrancy.


^{First off let me state that I am Pro-Choice, but am also anti-abortion.}


Amen. I fall under the same category.


^{I think abortion is a horrible choice. I believe that life begins at conception and any conscious decision to abort that life is wrong. But I also believe that its not the governments place to decide what is best for someone and their own special circumstances.}


I agree for the most part, although I find myself drawn more and more to the belief that "life", per se, does not begin at conception but rather at birth. That is because I predicate life as intrinsic existence. Merriam Webster offers the following:


Life: the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional being from a dead body b : a principle or force that is considered to underlie the distinctive quality of animate beings.


You will note that at conception, the fetus is still a part of the mother's body, and though an organism, is not intrinsic to itself. It is not, therefore, an animate being. It becomes animate at birth. Thus I believe that abortion, though wrong, is not entirely akin to murder.

[Ian]

I think abortion is a horrible choice. I believe that life begins at conception and any conscious decision to abort that life is wrong.

But I also believe that its not the governments place to decide what is best for someone and their own special circumstances.

So by the same token if I have a neighbor who is impeding on my living space, I have the right to kill him because it fits my own special circumstance? Murder is never a viable solution to any problem in a civilized society.

And in response to Patriot's point, I direct your attention to a piece written by Richard Stith, my father's old law professor:


Candor and the Court


By Richard Stith


Responding to conflicting appellate court decisions, the United States Supreme Court is now reviewing the constitutionality of the bans by some states on "partial-birth" abortion. Because of the unusually graphic candor found in those prior decisions, the Supreme Court will confront as never before the violent nature of mid- and late-term abortion.

In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that states may not defend the prohibition of abortion on the basis of a "theory" that life begins sometime before birth. However, the court explicitly avoided addressing the issue of whether states may prohibit killing a fetus during birth.

Some physicians have been going further than Roe and have been killing during induced delivery. They pull the fetus feet first almost out of the mother’s body and then vacuum up its brain. In response to widespread public revulsion, state and federal legislatures have voted by large majorities to ban such "partial-birth" abortions.

For example, a law passed in Nebraska that is the only measure directly under review by the Supreme Court forbids "an abortion procedure in which the person performing the abortion partially delivers vaginally a living unborn child before killing the child and completing the delivery." In the fall of 1999, this and similar legislation in other states was struck down by Judge Richard Arnold (once mentioned as a likely Clinton nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court), writing for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. Shortly thereafter, however, nearly identical laws were upheld by the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, despite a passionate dissent by the court’s chief judge, Richard A. Posner, a leading proponent of what is called the law-and-economics school that analyzes legal questions in economic terms.

Judge Arnold did not claim that what the Nebraska statute protected were lives only in "theory," as Roe had asserted in striking down earlier anti-abortion laws. Indeed, he differs from Roe in pointing out that even in mid-pregnancy abortion takes a life, and often does so during partial delivery. The ban on killing a "living unborn child" during "delivery" must be struck down precisely because, he says, that is exactly what happens in the standard second-trimester abortions that the law now permits.

Judge Arnold gives a graphic description of what really happens in the abortions he defends:

In a D&E procedure, the physician inserts forceps into the uterus, grasps a part of the fetus, commonly an arm or a leg, and draws that part out of the uterus into the vagina. Using the traction created between the mouth of the cervix and the pull of the forceps, the physician dismembers the fetal part which has been brought into the vagina, and removes it from the woman’s body. The rest of the fetus remains in the uterus while dismemberment occurs, and is often still living.... [Even in] a suction-curettage procedure where the fetus does not remain intact, part of the fetus which is still living may be drawn into the vagina before demise occurs.

Ordinary abortions must be considered "partial-birth" procedures, according to Judge Arnold, whenever the fetus dies after the physician "delivers" a part, such as an arm or a leg. But how did the judge know that the dismembered fetus is "often still living"? Because, according to testimony at the trial court that Judge Arnold cited, the aborting physician can in these cases see on his ultrasound monitor that the child’s heart is still beating.

In his dissent from the Seventh Circuit Court, Judge Posner likewise emphasizes the great similarity between partial-birth abortion and other abortions, though he focuses on the identity not of technique but of outcome:

From the standpoint of the fetus, and, I should think, of any rational person, it makes no difference whether, when the skull is crushed, the fetus is entirely within the uterus or its feet are outside the uterus. Yet the position of the feet is the only difference between committing a felony and performing an act that the states concede is constitutionally privileged.... [T]here is no meaningful difference between the forbidden and the privileged practice. No reason of policy or morality that would allow the one would forbid the other.

Judge Posner then goes on to make what he calls "line drawing" between partial birth and complete birth: "Once the baby emerges from the mother’s body, no possible concern for the mother’s life or health justifies killing the baby. But as long as the baby remains within the mother’s body...[there is] a right of abortion."

But by Judge Posner’s own reasoning, this line seems as easily erasable as the one he has just criticized. "From the standpoint of the fetus," it makes no difference whether the killing takes place just outside or just inside the uterus.

In his conclusion, Judge Posner returns to what he calls the "gruesome" quality of all late abortions:

I do not mean to criticize anyone who believes, whether because of religious conviction, nonsectarian moral conviction, or simply a prudential belief that upholding the sacredness of human life whatever the circumstances is necessary to prevent us from sliding into barbarism, that abortion is always wrong and perhaps particularly so in late pregnancy, since all methods of late-term abortion are gruesome.... But what is at stake in these cases is whether the people who feel that way are entitled to coerce a woman who feels differently to behave as they would in her situation.

What will be the political effect of this new candor manifested by both the judges quoted? The U.S. Supreme Court for many years inhibited serious discussion of abortion by using its immense prestige to encourage doubt about what abortion actually does. Ironically, opponents of partial-birth abortion were able to use this doubt to their legislative advantage. Judge Posner in his dissent points out incisively that...

public support for the [partial-birth abortion bans] was [in part] based...on sheer ignorance of the medical realities of late-term abortion. The uninformed thought the [partial-birth] procedure gratuitously cruel, akin to infanticide; they didn’t realize that the only difference between it and the methods of late-term abortion that are conceded all round to be constitutionally privileged is which way the fetus’s feet are pointing.

By remedying this public ignorance with their candor, Judge Arnold and Judge Posner may make partial-birth abortion as acceptable as ordinary abortion. Of course, there may emerge a contrary consistency. A newly informed public could shift the other way, deciding that ordinary mid-pregnancy abortion is as unacceptable as partial-birth abortion. Facing for the first time a candid lower-court description of its handiwork, perhaps even the Supreme Court might begin to change its mind about abortion.

[Patriot]

In response to Vagrant, Ian writes:


^{So by the same token if I have a neighbor who is impeding on my living space, I have the right to kill him because it fits my own special circumstance? Murder is never a viable solution to any problem in a civilized society.}


This smacks of assumption. The analogy is flawed. Killing an intrinsically vital, animate being, does not equate to snuffing the unconscious growth of an organism attached to a mother's life source. Abortion is not therefore murder of a "person", but rather, a nulling of the fetus. Some would like to believe that this poor, helpless fetus is indeed a conscious person, fully endowed with the brain receptors to feel unconscionable pain. But such is not the case, and even if it were, the dependency factor of the organism negates its claim to intrinsic vitality.

I'm personally against abortion, but we cannot allow it to be entirely outlawed. We face an explosive population in an overcrowded world. Most people will never be able to cap their sexual appetites, and unlike Communist regimes, democracies will not place a quota on the number of children allowed to each family. This poses a major dillema when it comes to resources.

The best thing to do is practice "safe sex", if it is to be practied outside the context of marriage (which it shouldn't be, but invariably will). Unwanted pregnancies occur due to carelessness. Many of the mothers are unequipped to raise children, and those few kids who do ultimately make it out of the womb and into the real world, tend to rise through foster homes, terminally scarred by lack of original kin.

Abortion is not new. Far more heinous ways of eliminating children were practiced in the ancient world, particularly by the Spartans, who threw unwanted newborns off a cliff to be devoured by birds of prey. There are far more pressing issues in our modern world which demand attention, and I don't see abortion as the greatest threat to the American way of life.

[Ian]

Patriot said:

This smacks of assumption. The analogy is flawed. Killing an intrinsically vital, animate being, does not equate to snuffing the unconscious growth of an organism attached to a mother's life source.

I direct you to Vagrent's original quote:

I believe that life begins at conception

My reply was in the Vagrent-imposed-context that life begins at birth, therefore the snuffing of life at 1 day is no different then at 100 years. Are your determining certain degrees of worthy life? Please read my post in full and in its proper context.

I'm personally against abortion, but we cannot allow it to be entirely outlawed.

This is a ridiculously flawed* position. If something is morally correct, I'm assuming you are not pushing the continued exercise of immoral practices, than why the limitations on its practice?

If you acknowledge that abortion is an immoral practice, than you are no better than the eugenicists of the early 20th century and the Third Reich.

Immorality for the sake of realism is a completely flawed and disturbing position.

* used by Patriot in prior post, copyright pending

[Patriot]

Ian writes:


^{This is a ridiculously flawed* position. If something is morally correct, I'm assuming you are not pushing the continued exercise of immoral practices, than why the limitations on its practice?}


Ah my dear sir, ever hear of John Stuart Mill? The doctrine of utilitarianism? The wants of an individual fall secondary to the welfare of the whole. Thus my position is not flawed. Utlilitarianism is applicable on two levels here, first, as concerns my personal distate for abortion, and second, the proliferation of life as it follows unwanted pregnancies. Neither are beneficial to the whole. Values are subjective as defined in relation to individuals, or, conversely, groups. What is right for the former may not be right for the latter, and vice versa. Here we have a classic example of that dichotomy.

[Ian]

And thus you are not a true believer in the democratic system.

I, being a Christian, believe everyone is endowed with certain inalienable rights. And as I stated before:

If one is to believe that there is no God and that no one is endowed with certain God-given, hallowed rights, then one must come to the conclusion that the rights afforded to mankind are handed down by a governing body only. Thus, if a governing body has the power to bestow its citizens with rights, there can be absolutely no argument against the power of that government to remove those rights from any or all of its citizens.

Perhaps the latter is the proper course of things. Regardless, your line of thinking, and that of any true atheist, has no place in the democratic system, but perhaps you have been getting at that all along.

[Patriot]

Ian:

I'm thrilled that you've now chosen to adopt my style of quotation, however, you'll find it best to lower the font of the bold print.

Is it possible to have a discussion aside of endless assumption, and recrimination? My mention of utilitarianism has nothing to do with my belief, or disbelief, in the democratic system. To the contrary, it is for the welfare, and survival of this hallowed Republic (which exercises a democratic system) that I take the position I do.

Before me is ever the question, what bodes best for the United States? Not what bodes best for me as an individual, or what's best for the Southern Baptist Convention, or any other individual entity per se.

The unborn are not citizens. Citizenship comes with a birth certificate or a visa. Thus I fail to see how you can invoke Jefferson's mention of rights for all men as applicable to a non-persona. Perhaps he himself should have urged Sally Hemmings to have an abortion, that we might now be rid of that horrid myth.

As for my personal beliefs, I am not an atheist-- but, like Jefferson and most of the other founders, a Deist.

However, your claim that atheists have "no place" in a democratic system shows you don't know much about what democracy is. Get a handle on your terminology, then get back to me. ;D

[MO]

What I find sad it that the hippies and the feminists have created a generation of girly-men who are willing to dodge their responsibilities to their children, either by going along with killing them or walking away from the ones allowed to live.

I resent baby boomers and the damage they have done with their selfish tendencies and pathetic mental gymnastics.

[Ian]

Patriot:

I'm sorry to see that you have yet again not been able to grasp my original argument, I felt (to obviously no avail) that the large bold text would be easier for you to read. Allow me to simplify.

You state:

The unborn are not citizens. Citizenship comes with a birth certificate or a visa.

This suggests a certain radical stream in your consciousness that unless you are a citizen of the United States you are void any humanitarian respect by any of its citizens. I am not arguing for the taxation of fetuses nor am I arguing in favor of fetuses reaping the benefits of Social Security (what's left of it). I am merely arguing in favor of the humane treatment due to the fetus as any other non-citizen is owed.

You also state in perhaps your most blatantly ignorant dispute of my points:

However, your claim that atheists have "no place" in a democratic system shows you don't know much about what democracy is.

If you had retained any of my previous views on democracy, or even read my post in its entirety, you would have been able to put my post in context. I as a Christian believe that every man is endowed by God-given rights and as such should be respected at that level.

My point, however, was that the concept of democracy from an atheist standpoint is one built upon a foundation of intellectual dishonesty. The idea that governments do not hold absolute power concerning citizen’s rights is false if you believe that all rights were endowed by that same governmental body. If one is to believe that a government has the power to endow individuals with certain rights, one cannot argue against that government's absolute power to remove them at will. Any belief to the contrary would be simply ignorant.

[Patriot]

Ian:


My prior comment, namely...


^{The unborn are not citizens. Citizenship comes with a birth certificate or a visa...}


...Had been in response to your belief that US Law protects "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" for all unborn infants; when in fact, the Declaration of Independence states that those rights are endowed by God upon all men, who, by verbiage, are already born. Furthermore, the Declaration delineates the fact that those words were penned in regard to American citizens; ie, "when one people find it necessary to absolve themselves of the political bonds which have kept them with another...", etc. The unborn are neither "men" nor "citizens"; hence on a strictly rhetorical level, your argument collapses by default.


You wrote:


^{I am merely arguing in favor of the humane treatment due to the fetus as any other non-citizen is owed.}


The difference, however, lies in the fact that the fetus is a part of the mother's body, whereas other "non-citizens" are not. Thus they are not on an equal playing field.


I had written:


^{However, your claim that atheists have "no place" in a democratic system shows you don't know much about what democracy is.}


To this you now reply:

If you had retained any of my previous views on democracy, or even read my post in its entirety, you would have been able to put my post in context. I as a Christian believe that every man is endowed by God-given rights and as such should be respected at that level.

That's is a good example of the Circulus in Demonstrando fallacy.


1. God condemns premarital sex and does not reward unrighteousness.

2. God rewards unrighteous behavior with a child, the product of unrighteousness, and grants inherent rights to that being.

3. Therefore God sanctions the follow-through of unrighteous behavior.


Hmmm....


^{My point, however, was that the concept of democracy from an atheist standpoint is one built upon a foundation of intellectual dishonesty.}


Tell that to George Washington who called for renowned athiest Thomas Paine, author of Age of Reason and American Crisis, to publically read his works to the American troops to beef up morale.

[Ian]

Ah Patriot:

How I've missed your spectacularly overstated orations.

1. God condemns premarital sex and does not reward unrighteousness.

2. God rewards unrighteous behavior with a child, the product of unrighteousness, and grants inherent rights to that being.

3. Therefore God sanctions the follow-through of unrighteous behavior.

Children are also the products of rape and incest, both of which I believe we can both condemn.

Tell that to George Washington who called for renowned athiest Thomas Paine, author of Age of Reason and American Crisis, to publically read his works to the American troops to beef up morale.

Paine wasn't an atheist, but a deist. You may want to research the history of your own belief system. Also, Washington had his officers read Paine's The American Crisis during Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78, Paine's Age of Reason wouldn't be published for another 17 years.

I can see you're still skirting around the main issue however. You have failed to explain how a true atheist can wholeheartedly endorse the concept of democracy without a completely unbriged philosophical chasm. A true atheist cannot endorse the idea of personal freedoms and thus must revert to a concept of a societal survival of the fittest.

[Patriot]

Ian:

How I've missed your spectacularly overstated orations.

True to form, your opening line falls in the category of ad hominem: attacking the man, or mode of argument, without attacking the argument directly.

Furthermore it might do you well to remember that the word "oration" applies to oratory; this is an online forum which hones upon the modus operandi of the written text, not the spoken word. Hence, "oration" cannot apply.


I had written:


^{Tell that to George Washington who called for renowned athiest Thomas Paine, author of Age of Reason and American Crisis, to publically read his works to the American troops to beef up morale.}


You now chime in as follows:

Paine wasn't an atheist, but a deist. You may want to research the history of your own belief system. Also, Washington had his officers read Paine's The American Crisis during Valley Forge in the winter of 1777-78, Paine's Age of Reason wouldn't be published for another 17 years.

First of all: Paine was a thorough enemy of the Christian worldview. That's all I meant: he contradicted your theory of politics. He might have called himself a Deist but, in reality, was widely regarded by Christians as an atheist in his own day. Even Theodore Roosevelt later referred to him as "that dirty little atheist". If he was truly a Deist he was so only because it was socially expedient.

I never said that Age of Reason preceded American Crisis. Rather, I simply listed it first because it is the author's best known work. Thomas Jefferson did the same on his Tombstone, highlighting his most noteworthy accomplishments first, even though they weren't in chronological order.

I can see you're still skirting around the main issue however. You have failed to explain how a true atheist can wholeheartedly endorse the concept of democracy without a completely unbriged philosophical chasm. A true atheist cannot endorse the idea of personal freedoms and thus must revert to a concept of a societal survival of the fittest.

That, friend, is a load of proverbial crap. I'd love to shovel through the muck of it all, but currently Dominos pizza is on my mind and so, mindful of the regrets I will carry to the grave on this issue, must needs depart. I shall return, God willing, in a few hours.

Just to be clear, I'm not defending the atheistic worldview. But it is inescapable if we are to become truly familiar with the limits of the democratic system.

[Ian]

.

Furthermore it might do you well to remember that the word "oration" applies to oratory; this is an online forum which hones upon the modus operandi of the written text, not the spoken word. Hence, "oration" cannot apply.

Digital oration or lecture. I apologize; the informal setting of an internet message board has impeached my otherwise spot on vocabulary, although I do find it humorously hypocritical of you to, as you put it "attack the mode of argument" subsequent to you condemning me for the same. Well done, now I suppose we're even.

First of all: Paine was a thorough enemy of the Christian worldview. That's all I meant: he contradicted your theory of politics.

I never purported him to be anything but. However, being an enemy of a Christian worldview is entirely separate from being an enemy of a theistic worldview, and to say his deistic beliefs were purely out of social expediency is to laugh in the face of the trials he endured for putting forth that deistic belief.

Also, to imply that Paine's philosophy was the shared philosophy of the founders is also historically incorrect. Let me supply you with a quote from someone of more historical approximation to Paine than Roosevelt, that being John Adams:

“The Christian religion is, above all the Religions that ever prevailed or existed in ancient or modern Times, the Religion of Wisdom, Virtue, Equity, and humanity, let the Blackguard [scoundrel] Paine say what he will; it is Resignation to God, it is Goodness itself to Man.”

I never said that Age of Reason preceded American Crisis. Rather, I simply listed it first because it is the author's best known work.

Again with the misinterpretations. I simply highlighted the fact that Washington asked Paine to speak to the troops not because he was the author of Age of Reason but rather in order to rally the troops through his American Crisis which in no way questioned the validity of the Christian faith. The atheistic parallels simply cannot be made between Washington and Paine with the example you've given.

That, friend, is a load of proverbial crap. I'd love to shovel through the muck of it all, but currently Dominos pizza is on my mind and so, mindful of the regrets I will carry to the grave on this issue, must needs depart. I shall return, God willing, in a few hours.

Muck of it all? A mere three sentences? Remember, the degree of a point's "crap" only lends to the degree of that point's refutability and seeing that you have never let a Dominos pizza bar you from typing one of your long-winded responses, I have come to the conclusion that you have found that this point requires more of you than just a few flourishes of the English language and a trite dismissal. I look forward to your response, it has been some time since I have been able to engage in a substantive debate and regardless of my somewhat facetious comments on your delivery, I’ve always enjoyed our debates.

Just to be clear, I'm not defending the atheistic worldview.

I understand, I just thought it an interesting theory to pick at.

I may not be online for the rest of the night, I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I've recorded The Contender finale.

[Patriot]

Ian:

Scrap the discussion. I think we can agree to disagree. Let's move on to The Contender.