Political Discussion

User190425 said:
I’m still going to continue supporting efforts to end the death penalty, and not engage in wars. So I guess we aren’t good.
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I was looking more on the abortion front. The death penalty is a whole other mess. And war has so many $$$ implications that makes me feel like war is really just something to line the pockets of Northrop Grumman. On these two points above you and I have common ground.
 
Dtknuckles said:
Yes, but I also I believe there are exceptions. For me exceptions can be carved out usually around the balance of positive vs negative implications to the functioning of society.
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The only exception I hold is when a life must, not can be, but unavoidably must, be taken to prevent imminent death or gross bodily harm to another person.

Anything else is placing a priority of one person’s value as a human over another and essentially declaring another as subhuman. This is an immoral proposition that has been used since the dawning of mankind to justify the most horrendous acts of violence against whatever people are deemed as less than worthy of full personhood.
 
debianlinux said:
This where we will just have to agree to disagree. How much consideration have you given to exactly why you believe this? That's a very specific combination of words you just used. Do you know where they came from?
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My thinking s about that phrase is that why does the life that begins at conception deserve protection?
 
User190425 said:
The only exception I hold is when a life must, not can be, but unavoidably must, be taken to prevent imminent death or gross bodily harm to another person.

Anything else is placing a priority of one person’s value as a human over another and essentially declaring another as subhuman. This is an immoral proposition that has been used since the dawning of mankind to justify the most horrendous acts of violence against whatever people are deemed as less than worthy of full personhood.
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Why that exception?

What defines a human and why is human life so important that it has to be protected?
 
User190425 said:
The only exception I hold is when a life must, not can be, but unavoidably must, be taken to prevent imminent death or gross bodily harm to another person.

Anything else is placing a priority of one person’s value as a human over another and essentially declaring another as subhuman. This is an immoral proposition that has been used since the dawning of mankind to justify the most horrendous acts of violence against whatever people are deemed as less than worthy of full personhood.
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So do the people who believe that genocide is a good thing deserve personhood? (As you define personhood; life?) Is rehabilitation the answer? What's the solution to the a willingness to want to end another human's life for reasons that you have deemed immoral?
 
User190425 said:
My views on the subject are pretty simple. Life begins at conception. The taking of a human life that does not be reasonably be believed to pose an immediate mortal danger to the life of another human is murder. Whether it be an act of intentional criminal violence, the state taking the life of someone on death row, or an elective abortion not medically necessary to preserve the life of the mother, they all exist on the same moral plane. They are all murders, full stop.
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This is very tidy, theoretically speaking, but when looked at through a practical lens, it leaves a lot of people suffering unnecessary. Places with restrictive laws banning abortion lead to women dying and being irreversibly hurt due to back alley procedures. It also leads to higher rates of child abuse and neglect. I am not saying that every unwanted pregnancy ends in abuse or neglect but there are mothers that I personally know who decided that economically if they brought a child into the world, they would be unable to properly feed, clothe and house that child as well as the other children they had. These are mothers who were on birth control too. The burden that laws like this put on both wed and unwed mothers is much higher if a pregnancy isn’t wanted by the father.

I realize that none of this will change your mind, but I see the damage banning abortion does for society and it makes very little sense to me. If being able to nix a group of cells that hasn’t even formed into a person yet means we have lower rates of maternal deaths and harms, and reduce child abuse and neglect (which also has a lot of downstream implications), I am in favor of an option for abortions up to 15 weeks.
 
debianlinux said:
This where we will just have to agree to disagree. How much consideration have you given to exactly why you believe this? That's a very specific combination of words you just used. Do you know where they came from?
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Dtknuckles said:
Why that exception?

What defines a human and why is human life so important that it has to be protected?
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folsom_lives said:
So do the people who believe that genocide is a good thing deserve personhood? (As you define personhood; life?) Is rehabilitation the answer? What's the solution to the a willingness to want to end another human's life for reasons that you have deemed immoral?
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I believe y’all have all three asked variations of the same question, and a single answer we will suffice.

For me personally, I did not hold the same value for human life before coming to Christ as I do now. Some will use that as a way to write off my views on the subject, and so be it. (Though I never supported abortion even before then, at most I kept it at the uneasy arm’s length of “I’m not a woman, so it’s not my decision.”)

I do no believe that this has to be discussed in religious terms as ideas of the value of human life and the wrongness of murder should be fairly universal regardless of theistic views. I would expect the most ardent Christian, Muslim, and atheist to all be able to agree that murder is wrong. I believe the question at hand is what constitutes murder. Otherwise, there is no common ground to be found at all, and no point in engaging in the conversation.

Many things in life are not easily defined by a binary, some are. This is one of them. Either all human life is of intrinsic value, or none of it is. One position holds that the lives and dignity of individuals should be protected, the other allows those with power to subject those without to the most horrid treatment imaginable. There can be no metering of one life over another that doesn’t render all ideas of human rights as arbitrary and meaningless.

Even the life of the most horrendous person holds value. Regardless of the things they say or ideas they espouse, as long as they do not pose an immediate physical threat to another person’s life or physical well being, there can be no justification for taking their life.

Finally, how to protect the innocent from those who would do them harm is not a simple one size fits all solution. It’s many hard questions with many hard answers that must be wrestled with individually.
 
nolalady said:
This is very tidy, theoretically speaking, but when looked at through a practical lens, it leaves a lot of people suffering unnecessary. Places with restrictive laws banning abortion lead to women dying and being irreversibly hurt due to back alley procedures. It also leads to higher rates of child abuse and neglect. I am not saying that every unwanted pregnancy ends in abuse or neglect but there are mothers that I personally know who decided that economically if they brought a child into the world, they would be unable to properly feed, clothe and house that child as well as the other children they had. These are mothers who were on birth control too. The burden that laws like this put on both wed and unwed mothers is much higher if a pregnancy isn’t wanted by the father.

I realize that none of this will change your mind, but I see the damage banning abortion does for society and it makes very little sense to me. If being able to nix a group of cells that hasn’t even formed into a person yet means we have lower rates of maternal deaths and harms, and reduce child abuse and neglect (which also has a lot of downstream implications), I am in favor of an option for abortions up to 15 weeks.
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I do understand your position though I don’t agree, and agree in that there are knock on effects for society to limiting and banning abortion. For me the answer of murder is never an acceptable solution to the hard questions of how to support families and the raising of children. While not your intention, the argument always reads to me as the idea that death is preferable to poverty or a hard life. I just can’t get onboard with that idea. It’s essentially a eugenics argument and that’s just not ever going to hold water for me. (I am the child of a 15yo girl who was a lifelong victim of incest. [I’m not a product of that abuse.] If you think I’m a hardliner, you should meet my mom.) We went far down that road in this country and it was reprehensible.

To your last sentence, I do think though that if the Casey decision had not lifted the allowable restrictions imposed by Roe, and the public messaging hadn’t shifted from “safe, legal, and rare” to “shout your abortion” it would have been a much harder lift to get this ruling. The majority of the public is of the same view as you hold with a cutoff of 12-15 weeks. Just as my hard line view is an outlier that does not necessarily help get the results I ultimately want (like in Kansas) the hardline views of the late term and casual use proponents that were at the media forefront helped lead to the factors in place for the change that just came down.
 
Oh, I am attempting to be very careful to remain respectful and measured in discussing such a hugely emotionally fraught subject. I really appreciate how y’all have been doing the same. I think we all know there’s little to no common ground to be found, but discussing it without fighting is nice. Though you’ve no reason to not fire with all you’ve got at me, you haven’t. I appreciate that.

Seriously. Thank you.
 
User190425 said:
I do understand your position though I don’t agree, and agree in that there are knock on effects for society to limiting and banning abortion. For me the answer of murder is never an acceptable solution to the hard questions of how to support families and the raising of children. While not your intention, the argument always reads to me as the idea that death is preferable to poverty or a hard life. I just can’t get onboard with that idea. It’s essentially a eugenics argument and that’s just not ever going to hold water for me. (I am the child of a 15yo girl who was a lifelong victim of incest. [I’m not a product of that abuse.] If you think I’m a hardliner, you should meet my mom.) We went far down that road in this country and it was reprehensible.

To your last sentence, I do think though that if the Casey decision had not lifted the allowable restrictions imposed by Roe, and the public messaging hadn’t shifted from “safe, legal, and rare” to “shout your abortion” it would have been a much harder lift to get this ruling. The majority of the public is of the same view as you hold with a cutoff of 12-15 weeks. Just as my hard line view is an outlier that does not necessarily help get the results I ultimately want (like in Kansas) the hardline views of the late term and casual use proponents that were at the media forefront helped lead to the factors in place for the change that just came down.
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I also believe we should have universal health care, an actual national nutrition strategy (76% of all Americans between 18-24 are ineligible for military service and the main reason is that they are unable to meet the physical requirements), and much more support for parents including universal preK. I believe that if we support moms and babies, potential mothers wouldn’t conclude that abortion is their only answer. But we need far more social programs that actually give support instead of lining contractors pockets. If we want to do what is morally right for people, it doesn’t start and stop at conception. But until, we as a society, prioritize caring for people instead of telling them to “sink or swim”, we continue a cycle of brutality, abuse, and neglect.

I wish we lived in a world where every child is celebrated and loved, but that world requires a shift in our priorities and until that happens, completely banning abortion seems like a bad idea to me.
 
Bull Shannon said:
It seems very tidy to have come to this conclusion via religion, then insist it be separated from the conversation. It's almost as though the ratification of forced birth in our country represents an incursion of church on state...
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There are actually significant groups within libertarian circles that make the athiest argument against abortion. Just because my view on the value of life is intrinsically connected to my religious beliefs, doesn’t mean it is the only argument for the value of all lives.
 
Bull Shannon said:
It seems very tidy to have come to this conclusion via religion, then insist it be separated from the conversation. It's almost as though the ratification of forced birth in our country represents an incursion of church on state...
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I think that religious views and Personal beliefs are not seperatable in this question and how one stands on abortion. Where human life starts ( at conception or birth or anywhere in between) is probably is more a religious than a scientific question. That's why it's such a deeply personal question that I discussed honestly defies an easy stand along political lines. It matters if you believe that human life starts at conception and has a soul or there are just a bunch of cells and it Wil influence how you view the ending of a pregnancy
 
User190425 said:
There are actually significant groups within libertarian circles that make the athiest argument against abortion. Just because my view on the value of life is intrinsically connected to my religious beliefs, doesn’t mean it is the only argument for the value of all lives.
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Fair enough. I consider it devaluing of the mother's life to force the choice upon them. Especially when privatized healthcare means having a baby is an immediate financial hit, not to mention it disallows a person from choosing whether they have the resources to properly raise that child. Especially when a good education for that little human is not a guarantee, and the ability to provide healthcare to that human is tied to their parent's finances. To put it bluntly: if not for abortion, I would currently have a six year-old child I would be unable to raise with a level of comfort that would be commensurate to the value of their life. Forcing that decision for me seems utterly disrespectful of my own personal spiritual beliefs, as well as my, and the potential child's, ability to live a healthy, fruitful life. Seems opposed to the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for both the current citizen and the potential one.

It strikes me as an imposition of a moral stance on those who don't hold it, with nothing to stand behind beyond morals; whereas something like the drinking age can be defended with statistics about brain development, or seat belt wearing backed by accident survival statistics. And we all know that since the reversal of Roe v. Wade, there have already been lives lost, a measurable human toll, as a result.
 
Bull Shannon said:
Fair enough. I consider it devaluing of the mother's life to force the choice upon them. Especially when privatized healthcare means having a baby is an immediate financial hit, not to mention it disallows a person from choosing whether they have the resources to properly raise that child. Especially when a good education is not a guarantee, and the ability to provide healthcare to that human is tied to their parent's finances. To put it bluntly: if not for abortion, I would currently have a six year-old child I would be unable to raise with a level of comfort that would be commensurate to the value of their life. Forcing that decision for me seems utterly disrespectful of my own personal spiritual beliefs, as well as my, and the potential child's, ability to live a healthy, fruitful life. Seems opposed to the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for both the current citizen and the potential one.
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Waiting for the "but adoption" argument to this.
 
Jan said:
I think that religious views and Personal beliefs are not seperatable in this question and how one stands on abortion. Where human life starts ( at conception or birth or anywhere in between) is probably is more a religious than a scientific question. That's why it's such a deeply personal question that I discussed honestly defies an easy stand along political lines. It matters if you believe that human life starts at conception and has a soul or there are just a bunch of cells and it Wil influence how you view the ending of a pregnancy
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The question of when a new human life begins is not a question at all. It is at conception. Scientifically there is no other possible answer. That is not in doubt. The debate is to the value of that life and whether it can be balanced against the value of the life of others.
 
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