----- Original Message ----- From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, May 16, 2005 4:15 PM Subject: Re: The American Political Landscape Today
On May 16, 2005, at 1:29 PM, Dan Minette wrote: > From: "Warren Ockrassa" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >>> The point is, most Americans believe that abortions should be illegal >>> some >>> of the time. Most Democrats support the legality of all abortions, >>> even >>> for development beyond viability. >> >> One quibble here. Even after being born, you can't really argue >> convincingly that a human infant is "viable". Without active, constant >> nurturing it's dead, and that need for nurture goes on for about two >> years, at minimum, after birth. > > OK, then you are arguing for a different dividing line. I was > thinking of > viability as a biologically independent organism (no direct, > continuous, > connection to the bloodstream of another), and you seem to be arguing > for being able to carry one's own weight. If one wishes to argue for the > rights of a mother to kill their one year old, then that would be > consistent with arguing for the right to kill a post-term undelivered > fetus. >I'm not arguing for that at all; I'm just suggesting that the test of >"viability" is somewhat vague. I realize that you were arguing somewhat hypothetically concerning my definition. I was pointing out the result of using two different terms of viable. >Are there better tests? Possibly. Maybe an EEG that confirms what we >could call consciousness can be used. I really don't know *what* kind >of test would suffice. >What I'm pretty sure of is that there's a lot of arbitrary thinking >afoot when discussing pregnancy and birth. There are some who contend >that life begins at conception, and yet they celebrate birthdays as >being *genuine* anniversaries of the beginning of someone's life. That >to me is an example of how an arbitrary idea clashes with observable >behavior, which suggests at least one intellectual inconsistency. What inconsistancy? It celebrates an arrival date, not the beginnning of life. I don't think that anyone really argues that a embreyo is not alive....the arguement is that they are not human...with the rights of humans. Mothers and fathers are usually very excited about quickening, I can tell you that. I know that Teri thought our three children were alive before they were born....she had the bruises to prove it. >To me abortion is a personal decision. I don't expect it to be an easy >one when we're talking about a fairly anatomically developed fetus, and >I am proximally sure that legislatures need to keep their mitts out of >the oven entirely. We can't even agree, in many cases, on what basic >terms mean, such as "life" or "viability" (or "self-sufficiency", to >look at it another way), and of course there's the elephant in the room >-- what "human" actually means, when it starts, etc. But, there is a very very simple definition that is being ignored..location in DNA space defines species. If you use a functional capacity definition, then you either include adults of other species or exclude a significant fraction of humans that are now alive. What's wrong with arguing that humans are those animals that are in the human region of gene space? >and since laws require either consensus or submission to arbitrary decisions made by >others, there would be no benefit to be found in illegalizing *any* kind of >abortion. What about civil rights laws that overturned the so called "right of free association?" There wasn't a consensus on those. >It makes a lot more sense to me to address the causes of unwanted >pregnancy and strike at the root; the causes could be social, personal, >or may other things, and probably are fairly intricate, not the kind of >thing that can be addressed by a single law or any other simplistic >solution. I'd agree with that. I have little patience with folks who are pro-life but won't agree to decrease abortions that way. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
