Feminism

Hey, you're the one saying its sometimes ok to put innocents to death.

But your position is that it's always okay. Is that somehow better?

Try working forward from pro choice (we want it to be safe and legal) and backward from pro life (we want as few as possible) and see what kind of position you develop.
 
Hey, you're the one saying its sometimes ok to put innocents to death. If that position isn't so outrageous as to be a troll, I don't know what is.

No, you are wanting me to say that. It's never ok. Just that actually forcing the alternative by law is sometimes worse.

Are you actually failing to understand that, or are you being a jerk?
 
But your position is that it's always okay. Is that somehow better?
You've missed the important point of personhood. Many pro-choice arguements are about abortion being acceptable because the fetus is not a person.

Whereas farm boy is saying it is ok to kill something that he considers a person. Its about intent. And his intent is creepy.
 
No, you are wanting me to say that. It's never ok. Just that actually forcing the alternative by law is sometimes worse.

Are you actually failing to understand that, or are you being a jerk?

Its not being a jerk to try to point out that you're proposing something radical and alien to our culture. You don't get to discount personhood when its convenient to do so. If it is a person when conceived through consensual sex it doesn't stop being one when conceived by rape. Knowingly ending a persons life is often considered evil in our culture.

Also: At what point in fetal development of a child conceived by rape does abortion stop being permissible? And why? When does personhood increase such that it overtakes autonomy again?
 
You've missed the important point of personhood. Many pro-choice arguements are about abortion being acceptable because the fetus is not a person.

Whereas farm boy is saying it is ok to kill something that he considers a person. Its about intent. And his intent is creepy.


No, I've always referred to fetuses as developing human lives. Not sentient persons. Things that will be sentient persons, and therefore possessing of traits that merit them not being destroyed. Please stop filling in strawmen for me.

Also: At what point in fetal development of a child conceived by rape does abortion stop being permissible? And why? When does personhood increase such that it overtakes autonomy again?

Probably after enough delay that the general consensus is it might be sentient.
 
I have not been aware of that thread dealing with such a heavy thing like abortion ...
 
It doesn't matter what you think or what I think, the only point is that it's possible for someone to grade various different things at different levels of "badness" and for them to let that inform their decisions. We all do it all the time about different things. You don't have to agree with someone about how they're balancing things up, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for you to even comprehend the concept of how their thoughts are working.

Well, frankly, I think that's a load of bollocks, at least since I don't even understand where your intellectual starting square is for saying "so-and-so is worse than such-and-such."

Whether or not it's broadly possible to call some things badder than others is also kind of too vague for the subject at hand, which is, bluntly, "when does this murder killing of innocents become acceptable?" I'd like to know WHY the line is drawn, not simply hear that a line is drawn, repeated ad nauseum.

In fact, and I'm going to go a bit radical on you here, the thing is that if the difference is due to the woman's choice in the matter of accepting the risk (as you have asserted), then it does sort of come off as punishing people for their choices rather than appreciating the inherent value of innocent life. You're juggling largely incompatible motives here, which sort of leads me to believe that one is a true motive, and the other is a red herring.

In this case, punishing women for having consensual sex, and graciously allowing them not to bear an unwanted child if they're the victim of rape. And now you know where Senethro is coming from here.
 
Just as a point of information, Senethro, you yourself would prohibit abortion at what stage? after three months? or would you allow it any time prior to birth?

For you, when does the chemical process become a person?
 
No, I've always referred to fetuses as developing human lives. Not sentient persons. Things that will be sentient persons, and therefore possessing of traits that merit them not being destroyed. Please stop filling in strawmen for me.

Probably after enough delay that the general consensus is it might be sentient.

Theres a lot here that I agree with and I'm sorry for making assumptions about what you consider a person previously.

But prior to being considered a sentient person, how can this not-quite-person override the bodily autonomy of a woman, a full person who may not wish to be turned into a genetic chimera. http://www.pnas.org/content/93/2/705.short
 
The key is in identifying what is highly likely to be a full blown human possessing of the traits we consider sentience within a pretty short time frame. The dance of needing to kill it fast precisely because of what it's about to be in short order unless it is actively killed is just wretched. It's less wretched than allowing people(even if punished later) to forcibly impregnate each other and then disallow a timely abortion, but that's what our disagreement has been about? It might even be less wretched than trying to "certify" or whatever if a woman was raped, and therefore if she's "qualified" for an abortion, I have no idea how that would actually work without being riddled with massive problems.

But that does not relieve us from the problems of a situation where two people decided they wanted to breed and when such action resulted in breeding an entity that with be a sentient human in ~3 months the subsequent decision was to kill that human life fast. At the very least, assuming this is an acceptable resolution is callous to life in the extreme. At worst its a horror that damages both the woman herself with a lasting emotional harm and cheapens society's attitude towards human life in general.

Carrying a pregnancy to term is a lot to ask for, but I think considering all the resources available to make an unplanned pregnancy a blessing in the first world, it's amongst the worst failings of our society that we don't push for things like adoption harder. And yes, a dovetailed point with that is that we need to also provide adequate sex education and birth control methods to minimize unwanted pregnancies in the first place.

I'm not certain as to the relevance of your linked article. The lingering fetal progenitor cells do not appear to have the capacity to develop into a distinct sentient human life?
 
But that does not relieve us from the problems of a situation where two people decided they wanted to breed and when such action resulted in breeding an entity that with be a sentient human in ~3 months the subsequent decision was to kill that human life fast.

What if the couple had decided they didn't want to reproduce tho? That the economic situation was poor, job prospects uncertain and their parents haven't warmed up to the idea etc.

I'm not certain as to the relevance of your linked article. The lingering fetal progenitor cells do not appear to have the capacity to develop into a distinct sentient human life?

Huh? Oh its probably the case that your wife still has cells from every fetus shes ever carried in her. And they just sort of muck about doing the things an integrated cell graft does. Its like, the more you look at pregnancy the weirder it gets. In small ways and big ways you become a different person!
 
What if the couple had decided they didn't want to reproduce tho? That the economic situation was poor, job prospects uncertain and their parents haven't warmed up to the idea etc.

I can sympathize with a lot of reasons, even if I find them deeply problematic, for women to consider, or actually aborting their pregnancy. The reason you pose though? Assuming we live in Western countries, that reason is so bad it makes me want to weep with frustration for how often it comes up. There are so many families waiting to adopt infants it isn't funny. They or their agents will cover pregnancy related expenses that are not covered by insurance. Living assistance can be acquired from the same source, as well prenatal care and post adoption counseling. And those things cannot be used to buy a child, so even if having received all these things a mother changes her mind about keeping the child(which happens ~50%+ of the time) there is no obligation to refund any of that assistance.

The liberation of women has been amazing. It's great that women can start successful careers and build meaningful professional lives without the expectation of spending their 20s gravid. It is a somewhat unfortunate outcome of this, however, that there are not insignificant amounts of women who decide to pursue careers, then regret the decision not to have children until after they are biologically incapable of doing so. An abundance of willing and actively seeking prospective adoptive parents is one outcome of this.
 
Can you stop this devils advocating where you keep insisting its possible to hold a position and then retreating from the position when its convenient to do so?

Only if you stop pretending that I'm saying something I'm not. Point out how the position I'm outlining is in anyway logically inconsistent WITHOUT pretending that it includes the premise that aborting a fetus is the ultimate evil. If you stop insisting that that premise must be adhered to, then you have no argument. And since there's no reason why that premise must be adhered to, then you have no argument.
 
In fact, and I'm going to go a bit radical on you here, the thing is that if the difference is due to the woman's choice in the matter of accepting the risk (as you have asserted), then it does sort of come off as punishing people for their choices rather than appreciating the inherent value of innocent life. You're juggling largely incompatible motives here, which sort of leads me to believe that one is a true motive, and the other is a red herring.

In this case, punishing women for having consensual sex, and graciously allowing them not to bear an unwanted child if they're the victim of rape. And now you know where Senethro is coming from here.

Oh I know where Senethro is coming from already. A pigheaded refusal to accept the stated opinion and the insistence that the opinion is what he wants it to be. Because he's very good at rubbishing that opinion, it's just a shame it's not the one being voiced.

You seem to be doing the same sort of thing. Rewording and re-emphasising the stated position and then insisting it doesn't make sense. I don't know why. It's not my position at all and yet I can comprehend it perfectly well. One last time and then I give up, here is how this stance makes sense:

1) Life is important, valuable and should be protected. A developing fetus may not be a fully sentient person, but it's heading that way and should be valued and protected. This isn't an insistence that the fetus is sacred and must be protected at any cost, simply recognising that it is valuable and society should wish to protect it to some reasonable degree. (This is the part that's open for debate, but without personally sharing the view my mind is able to grasp the concept).

2) A person who takes an action that then leads to a forseeable outcome, should then be held accountable and responsible for that action. (This one is pretty much a universal concept and applicable across most actions we ever take).

3) A person who finds themselves in an unwanted or difficult situation through no fault of their own, should be afforded help to get out of it, or leeway in escaping it, or at the very least should expect to be viewed sympathetically by society at large. (Again, are you going to argue with this one?)


The rest follows logically from these premises. A woman who choses to have consensual sex knowing she could get pregnant, and then finds herself pregnant, could decide she in an unwanted or difficult situation that she doesn't want to be in, but as she knowingly took the actions that led to it (as in point 2), then she isn't afforded the same sympathy that she would have if it she were entirely "blameless" (for want of a better word) in finding herself in that situation (as in point 3). In this circumstance, society at large may decide that the consideration of point 1 outweighs her desire to be rid of a "problem" that she, to some degree or other, brought upon herself.

Whereas if she WAS entirely blameless (point 3), society at large may decide that it is unjust to insist she faces the consequences of something she had no consenting part in, and decide that in this case helping her trumps point 1 (remember, this isn't held as something "sacred" in this argument). Ending the life, or the potential life, of the fetus is still a regrettable thing to do in this instance, but it could be argued that insisting she has the baby in such a case is a less moral or defensible act than ending that life.

Ultimately it boils down to what degree a person should be held accountable for, and forced to live with, things they essentially chose vs things that were forced upon them by outside parties. It's surely almost universally true that most people will have more sympathy for the person in the latter case over the former, regardless of who they are or what they did or what the "things" are. This difference can be the tipping point in this argument and ANY argument.

If you still don't get it by now then... abandon all logic ye who enter this tread.
 
In the case when women is raped she should remove the pregnancy .... that's all I have to say.
 
In the case when women is raped she should remove the pregnancy .... that's all I have to say.

Yet a surprisingly large number of women choose to keep the child even in that situation. The numbers bounce everywhere, but if you try and select out virulent sounding voices, the low end of estimates seem to indicate about 1/3 of women with readily available access to abortions bear and keep the children of rape. ~20% choose adoption. Nothing about this issue is simple enough to reduce to a sentence. :undecide:
 
Ugh ok while pleasingly laconic, that doesn't exactly add much.

This is the feminism thread. Lets talk about egalitarian stuff. In the interests of maintaining a fair society it doesn't seem right for two people to share in an action and yet for all the consequences and """"""""""""blame""""""""""""" to fall on the woman.

So how about extra penalties imposed on the man OR more leeway for the woman?
 
Ugh ok while pleasingly laconic, that doesn't exactly add much.

This is the feminism thread. Lets talk about egalitarian stuff. In the interests of maintaining a fair society it doesn't seem right for two people to share in an action and yet for all the consequences and """"""""""""blame""""""""""""" to fall on the woman.

So how about extra penalties imposed on the man OR more leeway for the woman?

Do you really think it's fine for men to screw without caring about the consequences, or are you veering off onto the sexual oppression argument you seem to want to make again?
 
Do you really think it's fine for men to screw without caring about the consequences,
As long as its consensual and openly communicated, sure. People want to screw around sometimes. Serial monogamy, y'know.

or are you veering off onto the sexual oppression argument you seem to want to make again?
No veering about it. The word feminism is the thread topic so if anything, we're getting even more on track.
 
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