The Word "Vagina" Is Now Apparently Banned In The Michigan Legislature

[Traitorfish]

I'm sorry, I don't follow: are you saying that over one hundred times a day, somebody in the United States deliberately kills another person by means of a car accident?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Claiming that abortion is murder is no different than claiming that engaging in war or killing in self-defense is. It is materially changing what the vast majority of those who live in modern society consider to be murder.

This is supposed to be considered a bad thing?

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Now I feel like you are fishing around the core issue here. I already noted that there is a legal and a casual understanding what constitutes murder and that pro-lifers obviously mean the casual understanding. Your insistence on the legal definition isn't a good argument against that, as what law says by itself has no value. Just a piece of paper and all.

I'm merely arguing that the casual understanding is a subjective one. And I have said from the beginning that I therefore think it has no place in the debate, except for clarifying the sentiment of a pro-lifer.

Why is it so hard for you to accept that if one uses the opinion of pro-lifers that killing a fetus was just as evil as murdering some other human being, that then women's rights are legitimately not accepted as a counterargument?

And I'm not asking them to accept it as a counterargument. I completely understand why someone who thinks abortion is murder would not accept that as a counterargument.

Now explain to me why I should accept "abortion is murder" as a counterargument. Which is what you are asking me to do. I need to consider that some of the pro-life thinks abortion is murder, while my take on the matter can be completely dismissed? Am I not granted the same courtesy? The only reason I bring up the legal definition is because it's the only objective definition we have. Take that away. Now how does the discussion regarding whether it's murder look like? It's murder. No it isn't.

To make the claim valid there needs to be solid reasoning behind it. And that is consistently lacking from the claim it's murder. And those who claim it know it. They use all tools of obfuscation and ambiguity to hide behind. "It's murder, prove me wrong", "Innocent life is destroyed". "It's human", and my favourite "It has the potential to be a person".

If you deny this simple exercise of logic, you effectively are trying to force on them the argument of women's rights.

Hang on. That argument is considered by both sides to be there. Only one side has a bigger fish to fry, but they don't deny it's an issue.

I say "force", because you don't care if the debate actually calls for women's right.

I don't care? Whatever makes you say this?

 

[Formaldehyde]

I'm sorry, I don't follow: are you saying that over one hundred times a day, somebody in the United States deliberately kills another person by means of a car accident?

You said any killing of sentient beings. Now it has to be deliberate as well? And wouldn't that still exclude the vast majority of abortions if you require sentience as well?

This is supposed to be considered a bad thing?

Not necessarily. I could certainly understand calling the killing fellow humans in wars, self-defense, and capital punishment "murder" long before I would consider abortion to be murder in anything but the very last stages of pregnancy when the mother's own life wasn't in danger.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I tired this once before, even including the disclaimer, but it didn't do much good. But I'll have another go.

First the disclaimer: the next analogy is not indicative of the validity of the "abortion is murder" claim but rather of the place it has in the debate. I am going into bat-country here, but again, this is not a strawman for the pro-life position. Just trying to clarify what I've been arguing by taking an example which most of us would agree on. This is going to be much less reasonable than the pro-life position. (I hope phrasing it in 3 different ways got the message across. I don't expect it to, but I hope)

If I were to believe that masturbation is akin to mass-murder of human beings, we all would agree that's nonsense. But I do so very strongly believe so. I think we can see that the argument: a man has every right to relieve himself whenever he wishes, wouldn't be very persuasive to me.

Now, what place does my mass-murder accusation have in the debate about banning masturbation? Unless I can prove by solid, objective reasoning that masturbation is indeed mass-murder, it shouldn't enter into the debate at all. If this is merely a conviction, why should others be forced to keep that conviction in mind when they are deciding on the moral question: should I have a toss?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

@Ziggy
Look, I think this is getting into circle-jerk territory, because we keep on not understanding each other.
All I actually wanted to convey is that you can not legitimately argue against "Abortion is murder" with "Women have rights", but that it all comes down to weather abortion really is murder. You say that can't actually be argued, I think Traitorfish just did. He first pointed out that murder in instances can be justified and then how in the instance of a fetus it may be viewed to be justified. You don't like the claim abortion was murder and I respect that. I don't like it either. But I think how this POV has to be understood is that abortion was just as evil as killing any given person and that is something you can argue against and Traitorfish eventually did.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

@Ziggy
Look, I think this is getting into circle-jerk territory, because we keep on not understanding each other.

Now I'm not sure if you want me to respond to the rest of your post

And I do have a response. So do I dress it up or would it mean it'd have nowhere to go?

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Well I kind of hoped you would say "Ah I see. So we actually are in agreement and everything is fine!"
But please, respond. It is cheap to demand the last word.

 

[warpus]

In the end the only people who think that abortion is murder are extremists on one side of the debate. Nobody in the legal realm thinks such a thing, nor is it an accepted fact or theory in any sort of mainstream institution.

All it really does is take away from the debate (as any other appeal to emotion would)

 

[warpus]

double post; aborted

 

[GamezRule]

I'm going to Michigan Youth in Government next year, and I'm saying vagina on the floor of the House or maybe Senate.

 

[Traitorfish]

You said any killing of sentient beings. Now it has to be deliberate as well? And wouldn't that still exclude the vast majority of abortions if you require sentience as well?

Well, firstly, I assumed that deliberateness was implicit. Sorry for not making that clear.

Secondly, I said that I would accept the identification of the deliberate killing of any sentient being as "murder", not that I would exclude non-sentient beings. I probably wouldn't, but if somebody wants to push it, I'm probably not going to go down fighting about it. My point was really to respond to your argument that we can define "murder" based on what we don't particularly feel like being held accountable for, which I don't think is a morally robust position to take.

(I mean, in practice, yes, "abortion is murder" is inflammatory nonsense and should be subjected to all due criticism. But in the fairly abstract terms we're using here, I'm ready to concede to the uterine socialists their nebulous definition of "murder", just to see if they can actually do anything with it.)

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Well I kind of hoped you would say "Ah I see. So we actually are in agreement and everything is fine!"

Hope for the best, expect the worse.

But please, respond. It is cheap to demand the last word.

I think I see where the disconnect happens. We have been talking about "the discussion" when in fact there's more of them. Simplified, I think you're having the: "Is abortion bad" one, while I'm having the "Should it be banned" one. In the "Is it bad" one, the sentiment of all, no matter how subjective, can be relevant. In the "should it be banned" it shouldn't, since there needs to be a base which is not subjective.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Actually, I never intended to discuss abortion as such, but just how the stance that abortion was murder relates to women's rights. And no more. But my mistake was to reflexively assume that if abortion in deed was murder, it necessarily was terrible and unacceptable and hence should be forbidden and that hence the stance that abortion was murder rendered women's rights utterly irrelevant. While on the other hand, a stance on women's rights had no bearing on the potential relevance of the question weather abortion was murder.

However, in retrospect the ambiguous meaning of "murder" and its debatable meaning on what constitutes good didn't warrant my assumption about it. Or rather, it is an assumption I should have made clear. What "murder" really means beyond a legal context and hence also for the matter of abortion is very subjective after all, as you rightfully point out. So that was my mistake and it probably contributed to our misunderstanding.

But I like to advise to be careful with the terms "subjective" and "objective". After all, when we make a normative judgment, when we say what should be, we inevitably have to ultimately base this on a subjective assessment of what is desirable and what is not. Just that while you choose something tangible as sentience or whatever, a religious person chooses his believe in a soul. But is your choice really any more "objective"? I think "rational" explains it better.

 

[Till]

How would a fetus even get inside a woman's body? In fact where do fetuses even come from? Who is manufacturing these, and placing them into women's bodies, and how?
These are the serious questions the Michigan state legislature should be tackling.

Regardless of the finer manufacturing and distribution details, women need to be allowed to stand their ground against trespassing fetuses.

 

[trader/warrior]

It's not self-evident. Most of us accept murder in certain circumstances- self-defence, for example- so it's entirely plausible that we could accept abortions as morally acceptable even if it was also considered "murder". It's just a classification, after all, it's not a moral conclusion in itself.

Murder is defined as unlawful killing with malice aforethought, so legal abortion cannot be murder and even if fetuses were considered persons and abortion illegal, it would be more like manslaughter unless the woman was forced wouldn't it?

Maybe I'm just taking it too literally.


Edit: somehow thought the third page was the last one...